Classified Report Shows America's Drones Aren't Just Killing Al Qaeda Members

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/classified-report-shows-americas-drones-arent-just-killing-al-qaeda-members/274835/



The Obama administration's drone attacks have not just targeted Al Qaeda leaders, but a wide variety of groups and individuals in Pakistan, according to classified intelligence documents obtained by McClatchy's Jonathan Landay.

"At least 265 of up to 482 people who the U.S. intelligence reports estimated the CIA killed during a 12-month period ending in September 2011 were not senior al Qaida leaders but instead were 'assessed' as Afghan, Pakistani and unknown extremists," Landay writes in the story, published today.

This is despite the administration's rhetoric about how the CIA is using its drones solely to go after high-ranking Al Qaeda officials. Landay notes that when John Brennan gave the longest defense of the program on record, he "referred to al Qaida 73 times, the Afghan Taliban three times and mentioned no other group by name."

While my colleague Conor Friedersdorf has repeatedly questioned the moral and legal logic of the drone war, Micah Zenko of the Council of Foreign Relations ponders another dark possibility in the McClatchy article. The United States is leading the creation and adoption of drone technology and forming the norms for their deployment in ad hoc, hypocritical way. So what's going to happen when other countries get their own large drone fleets?

[stevenleser]

1. "what's going to happen when other countries get their own large drone fleets?" Nothing.

The reason drones work in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the lawless areas of Yemen and in Afghanistan is because those countries do not have control over the regions in question and thus there is little to no air defense system there.

A drone is a juicy target for antiaircraft fire, and/or surface to air missiles. They are slow and there is no pilot in them to see the flak or the missile coming and thus take evasive action. Any kind of air defense is going to shoot down a drone.

Drones are no use against a country that has an air force and air defense system. You cannot use drones against a large percentage of the countries out there.

[morningfog]

2. Ok. And about the non-AQ we are murdering?

[DreamGypsy]

29. I think you're being naive, or at least unimaginative...

Sure, the Chinese flying a biggish drone into the United States at high altitude for a hellfire-equivalent strike in New York City will not go unnoticed.

But drones are not rocket science, they are aeronautic science. Middle school students can buy kits and build drones. We're opening up the airspace over the U.S. to a wide variety of drone applications. Does the FAA have the situation fully under control...I don't think so.

Consider some event in the not so distant future...let's just say, uh...Superbowl XYZZY as an example. The media has dozens of UAVs in the air for news coverage. From a nearby location, someone(s) who have built/purchased/modified a similar drone send their UAV to join the mix. At a convenient point the rogue vehicle is directed across the stands, gently misting the crowd with a chemical of choice...oh, say ricin, as an example. How do the Air Force, antiaircraft weapons, or S2A missiles deal with that?? How many football fans die??

Would that be an act of terror? Yes. Is that a worse act of terror than killing 14 children in a school where an AQ target was sighted? I'll let you be the judge. The U.S. has proposed the ground rules (sic)...I guess that's air rules...in this domain. I worry a lot about that sow/reap relationship.

I am sure there are many devious and determined minds who can envision unanticipated uses and adaptations of drones far more horrific than my quickly constructed example. They don't need to be encouraged.

Sow. Reap.

Hmmm.

[morningfog]

3. No shit. We've known it for years. So has

the Obama administration. Murderers of innocents.

[TheDebbieDee]

4. No one ever mentions that it is a tactic of AQ members to keep themselves

surrounded by innocent civilians.

Hiding/living/operating amongst civilians is standard procedure in modern guerilla warfare.

[idwiyo]

5. That justifies killing of civilians? Explain how.

[SwissTony]

6. I don't think that what (s)he's saying.

(S)he is just pointing a fact of life (or in this case, death).

[frylock]

7. it's what people say so they can sleep at night

[idwiyo]

13. ^^^^ this^^^^ Doesn't make me sleep any better though. Makes me sick.

Never mind people who use "collateral damage" euphemism instead of "innocent civilians".
I guess it makes them feel better.

"Oh, there was some collateral damage but we got rid of a bad guy!" sounds much nicer than "Oh, we killed few innocent kids, a woman and a couple of men, but we got rid of a bad guy!"

[TheDebbieDee]

19. I sleep just fine, thank you.

But I'm not forgetting the fact that it's the guerillas hiding among the innocent civilians that make them all a target.

Until I hear someone start to scream for the arrest of guerilla war criminals along with President O and the drone pilot/operators, your protests of disgust with these practices can not be taken too seriously.

[frylock]

20. and everytime we drone bomb innocent people, we get more guerillas in the mist..

something the apologists just can't seem to wrap their minds around.

[TheDebbieDee]

21. What does that have to do with YOU giving the guerillas a pass for the crime

of using civilians as shields? So we should instead send thousand of soldiers into the area, risking their lives and limbs by fighting an honest face-to-face fight when these fuckwad guerillas want to "hide behind womens skirts"?

You're changing the subject............

I'm a veteran, and if President Obama can save American soldiers lives by taking out targets that dare him to take them out by hiding among innocent civilians, then so be it. I'm not heartless - I just want more of our troops to come home wearing both boots and having their bells unrung.

[frylock]

22. fuck this..

yes, we started this shit and you want to take the easy way out. If I support the guerillas then you support the wholesale murder of innocent children. have a nice life.

[TheDebbieDee]

24. Get over yourself! This is modern warfare.

It's easy for you to sit in your nice warm living room on your comfy sofa and throw stones at the people who make these drone strike decisions.

If your son or daughter were in the drone theater, you might not mind so much how how AQ leaders, the people plotting for the death of your son or daughter, are taken out.

[frylock]

26. you can't seem to understand that we create more and more of the guerilla..

with every dead civilian. but i'm guessing you wouldn't have a problem turning that region into glass. just a hunch.

you remember how people who weren't personally affected by 9/11 enlisted? now imagine watching your child, or father, or brother, or sister killed in a drone strike. you don't think that's the ultimate recruiting tool?

[TheDebbieDee]

27. You continue to move off subject. I maintain that the guerillas that seek refuge

and safety among these innocent civilians are war criminals for doing so. Yet everyone seems to overlook this. Our military is dealing with organizations that play fast and loose with the rules of war.

These organizations count on our President being painted as History's Greatest Monster and our military being disuaded by the public protests that result whenever innocent civilians are killed in these drone strikes.

These groups WANT civilians to be killed in drone attacks and I wouldn't put it past them to place dead people from places outside the strike zone just to amp up the body count.

This is also a propaganda war - stop being a tool, sweetie.

[stevenleser]

8. Depends what you mean by justification. The UN groups that look into war crimes

refer to various Geneva conventions and decisions that state that the value of the target determines the allowable collateral damage and that it has to be grossly in disproportion to be considered a war crime.

This recently came up as in 2003 a lot of people wrote to the UN regarding the "shock and awe" strikes on Iraq suggesting that the nature of the attacks (not the reason for the war) constituted a war crime because lots of civilians were being killed. The UN said otherwise for reasons I listed above.

If needed, I can try to find a link.

[idwiyo]

9. Innocent civilians. Women, men, children. People who have nothing to do with value of target.

At least have enough decency to call them what they are. INNOCENT CIVILIANS.

I don't give a flying fuck about anyone who says that its OK to kill innocent people to get a target. It's never OK. It could be your child, wife, mother, father. It could be mine. Actually that's how I look any those people we kill so casually. MY relatives.

Sorry, but I believe it's better to let 10 guilty to go free than kill one innocent person. YMMV. Obviously it helps you justify the atrocities we already committed.

[stevenleser]

11. No need to personalize, I am simply relaying how international law looks at the situation nt

[idwiyo]

14. Screw the law that justifies killing of civilians. War criminals need it to cover their arses.

It's always a crime to kill innocent people. Doesn't matter what "law" says.

Sorry, not pissed off with you personally, unless you subscribe to "end justifies the means" principle.
Pissed off with hypocrites who use euphemisms like "collateral damage" to make themselves sleep better at night and to justify murder.

[TheDebbieDee]

18. The war criminals of the first order are the cowards that seek refuge

amid a crowd of innocent civilians. Many people on this board seem to want to give these guerilla war criminals a pass...............

Sorry, but I don't have time to respond to each individual post that's in protest of my original post. I didn't mean to post and run but I had to go to work.

[frylock]

23. condemning the murder of civilians is not giving "guerilla war criminals a pass"

one would have to be very narrow minded or outright fucking stupid to take that stance. that is a straight-up rightwing talking point.

[TheDebbieDee]

25. I'm just stating facts! Everyone is up in arms about the collateral damage of drone strikes.........

But no one paints the guerillas with the war criminal brush that they deserve for KNOWINGLY putting those innocent civilians in danger.

[Rex]

10. If you've been paying attention, you know this information

and that we have indiscriminately killed scores of innocent people and chalked it up as collateral damage. Yes, the war machine rolls on 24/7 without any oversight.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. No doubt this administration will bring to justice the murderers of civilians.

Or, they just might keep covering up the murders, protecting the murderers, and ordering more murders of civilians and call it "collateral damage".

[Rex]

15. They already decided we needed to 'move on' and not

reflect on the past Administration. One of the WORST moves ever imo, but par for the course I guess.

[woo me with science]

16. Medals!

US To Award Medals For Killing Civilians
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022380102

[idwiyo]

17. Thank you for the link. Missed it before.

[bhikkhu]

28. I'd be more concerned if we weren't still at war there

or if the targets of the attacks were given as civilians, or uninvolved in the war.