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January 2011 drone strikes protest (photo: Moral Low Ground)
(update below)
A study from the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), released last week, further documents the United States’ use of drones in Pakistan. The report, according to BIJ editor Iain Overton, “lays bare the reality of the drone war” and shows the extent to which CIA drone strikes kill children. And, the report suggests the deaths of children in attacks are on the rise.
Not surprisingly, US officials have been working to discredit the findings any way they can. On Friday, Chris Woods, lead reporter on the BIJ project, addressed the attempts by the CIA and anonymous “US officials,” who assert the BIJ’s work rests on “unsubstantiated allegations” from a “Pakistani spy” and the “data itself” is suspect.
The “spy” whom US officials claim has an “agenda” that is “crystal clear” is Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer, who once worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). On July 18, he filed charges against former legal counsel to the CIA, John Rizzo, for authorizing drone strikes that allegedly killed “mostly innocent civilians.” Akbar also has written about Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor whose identity was uncovered after he killed two Pakistani men he believed to be armed and was jailed by Pakistani authorities and charged with two murders and illegal possession of firearms. Akbar contended Davis should never have enjoyed any amount of diplomatic immunity.
Akbar’s work as a lawyer is nothing but a thorn in the side of the US military and intelligence establishment. It comes as no surprise that the US would want to castigate Akbar and smear him by labeling him a spy.
The London-based legal charity Reprieve defends Akbar:
The CIA is so desperate to cling to its ‘no civilian deaths by drone’ narrative that it is smearing the one Pakistani lawyer who is making a real effort to find out the truth. Unnamed CIA agents say Shahzad Akbar is ISI. That is as false as the CIA’s tattered claim not to have killed a single civilian in Pakistan in the past year.
Indeed, in the face of this report, the CIA is holding fast to the claim that no civilian deaths have taken place in strikes. They are viciously working to defend the fraudulence of President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, who maintains, “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.”
A CIA spokesperson states:
We see the battlefield in real time; the Bureau of Investigative Journalism doesn’t. This group’s allegations about individual strikes are, in every case, divorced from the facts on the ground.
What does that even mean? Is the CIA seeking to discredit BIJ on the basis that BIJ goes back and looks at media reports, witness testimonies, NGO field reports, secret US government cables, leaked intelligence documents and accounts from journalists, politicians and former intelligence officers while the CIA simply on-the-fly comes up with a casualty number and that is what the agency considers to be “accurate” in the aftermath of strikes no matter what?
As Overton stated in reaction to the attempt to discredit the BIJ project, “It comes as no surprise that the US intelligence services would attack our findings in this way. But to claim our methodology is problematic before we had even published reveals how they really operate. A revelation that is reinforced by the fact that they cannot bring themselves to refer to non-combatants as what they really are: civilians and, all too often, children.”
More Than 80% of CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan Have Happened under Obama
The BIJ project finds 291 CIA attacks have taken place, eight percent more than reported previously. Under President Obama, 236 strikes have taken place, one every four days, which means more than eighty percent of CIA drone strikes have taken place under Obama. Somewhere around ten strikes have led to the deaths of at least 45 civilians have been killed in the past year (which means on average four civilians have died in each strike in the past year—that’s some accuracy).
The project finds over 160 children have been killed. According to the project, one in three attacks under President George W. Bush killed children. At least 385 civilians have died in strikes. And, in possibly the first attempt to properly document the number of injuries in drone strikes, the BIJ project finds 1,114 people have been wounded.
The project describes each strike carried out under Bush and Obama thus far. For example:
Ob181 – January 1 2011
♦ 4-6 total killed
♦ 0-6 civilians reported killed
After waiting two hours with drones still overhead, rescuers (either militants or villagers) attempted to retrieve the dead and injured from Ob180 but were attacked. Up to six people were killed.
The findings led Sam Zarifi of Amnesty International to declare, “The Obama administration must explain the legal basis for drone strikes in Pakistan to avoid the perception that it acts with impunity. The Pakistan government must also ensure accountability for indiscriminate killing, in violation of international law, that occurs inside Pakistan.” In fact, that is what Akbar, whom the CIA calls a spy, is trying to do: challenge the legality of drone strikes. And, clearly establishing what is legal and not legal about drone strikes is exactly what the US does not want to do, preferring to keep courts from deliberating on the issue in the same way the Bush administration worked to keep courts from deliberating on the issue of torture.
The “Pakistan Papers” & the US Drone Program
It’s worth recalling what WikiLeaks revealed in its recent release of the “Pakistan Papers”—US State Embassy cables from Pakistan, which were published by the Dawn Media Group.
A cable on a congressional delegation led by US Senator Patrick Leahy showed President Asif Ali Zardari in May of 2009 requested the US use drone technology so his forces could take out the militants. He welcomes “the acquisition of modern technology” believing drones would make it more difficult for media or anyone else to criticize the actions the Pakistani military might take to protect Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Another cable highlighted the reaction in Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of what was believed to be the first drone attack in the settled areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, outside of the tribal areas. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sharply condemns the strike within “Pakistan proper,” which US diplomat Anne Patterson describes as a “watershed event.” A “vehemently secular” leader, Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) Deputy Parliamentary Leader Haider Rizvi, claims he will not be able to handle the growing popular and political pressure from these attacks and declares the Pakistan people “had not made their peace with drone attacks in the tribal areas and a shift into mainland Pakistan was even more inflammatory.”
Perhaps, most significant was the revelation that Pakistan General Ashfaq Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, asked then-US CENTCOM commander and Admiral William J. Fallon in January 2008 to assist in providing “continuous Predator coverage of the conflict area.” He expresses interest in procuring Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) and asks the US to “grant or loan them to Pakistan.”
A Dawn editorial reacts to BIJ’s study and addresses the secrecy, which shrouds the drone program in Pakistan and further complicates the situation:
…Is Pakistan still assisting in the strikes? The army sends out signals that it wants the strikes `to end`, but is silent about complicity, past or present. Is the Shamsi airbase still in America`s control and are drones flying from there? Again, silence. Apparently torn between the efficacy of the strikes — as vouched for earlier this year by a senior Pakistan general posted in North Waziristan — and not wanting to politically `own` the strikes, the army, and other Pakistani officials, appear willing to continue with a dualist policy on the drones. Could lives be saved if there were more openness by both the US and Pakistani states about the strikes? Arguably they could, for then target selection and the outcome of the strikes would be open to greater public scrutiny — allowing the drones to continue to take out bad guys without attracting so much bad publicity.
As of May, a Washington Pew Centre survey found only 11 percent of Pakistanis viewed the US and President Obama favorably. This low approval rating is surely a result of the way the US continues to conduct military and intelligence operations that result in civilian deaths from drone strikes and possibly even night raids. Additionally, two out of three Pakistani journalists, according to a study conducted in February, consider drone strikes to be “acts of terrorism.” (Though, the same 395 Pakistani journalists surveyed didn’t consider the 2008 Mumbai attacks or the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl to be terrorism.)
There have been a number of protests by Pakistanis in response to the shedding of blood of civilians in drone strikes. In April, one protest attempted to block a US supply route
A Zero Tolerance Policy Toward Reporting on Drone Strikes
For the CIA, the BIJ project is something that must be undermined immediately because it has the capacity to undo any “progress” the CIA has made in its efforts to shape perceptions of the use of US drones in Pakistan. Already, the media rarely reports on strikes. Access to the site of strikes, according to Dawn, is rare. “Corroborating claims of civilian deaths” is difficult. And, the US government, according to CNN, operates under a policy of “no comment” on “suspected” drone strikes, meaning they rarely verify that the US was behind drone attacks even though the US is currently the only country using drone technology in conflicts.
Few in Washington challenge the use of drones. Drone strikes have become part of the bipartisan national consensus on national security.
If anyone who has experience in Washington does dare to speak out, they will be challenged immediately. critiques will most certainly overlook the human impact of the drone strikes, cast doubt on whether Pakistanis are justified in being angry with Americans and merely include Pakistani leaders in the decision-making process. For example, that is essentially what former director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, suggests in an op-ed published by the New York Times today.
Blair is correct to note, “The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May showed Pakistan that the United States would respect its sovereignty only so far.” But, a “cooperative campaign” that employs drones is not likely to solve the problem. The issue is the 21st Century warfare itself.
The use of drones is part of ensuring US soldiers don’t have to see the brutal realities of war up close and feel any pain or empathy for a people whose lives are routinely violated by a US presence in Pakistan. Each day the US government refuses to end its illegitimate, inhumane and possibly illegal operations, it radicalizes more and more people increasing the possibility of blowback some time in the future.
Update
Here is Chris Woods on Democracy Now! this morning:
24 Comments
This is the old US policy of, Kill Them All, and let God-Allah sort them out.
WHEN FIXES BECOME WAYS….
i dont mean to sound philosophical here, but i will. because decisions are more than a matter of thoughtful choice – but ineviteable PRE-DECISIONS which conform to the default relationships of survival and power. its all about objective vs means (the philosophy part) – and the confusion or conflict is just that… if you DO something long enough, it becomes a WAY.
its like when republicans lie about Obama. they figure if they say it often enough, it will become real. REALITY. reality is what surrounds you all the time. thats not quite philosophical – its phenomenological. this is the dilemna that the civilization of the world is trapped in today.
the WORST ASPECT of the means method is… “is there a subconscious knowledge that the means is the objective or a satisfactory replacement thereof which feeds another goal or objective?”. soounds complicated but when you box this out – its simple. and as you should all know… SIMPLICITY IS VERY PREDICTABLE.
what PEOPLE FAIL TO ACCOUNT FOR is what those not yet born are being driven into. and therein is the “non-philosophy” part. the world handed over to the young.
we lost 35 men one day. 35 the next. then 35 more each day for a week. a month. a year. then years. vietnam was hell. this situation here is getting way too close to that emergence. Obama didnt have to live much of it but i hope he reflects on it. there are several really good hollywood films on vietnam i recommend that all persons see to get a feel of what happened and what can happen. but my fear is, vietnam is not as ugly as it gets.
It is an interesting irony that we insist on civilian trials for “terrorists” that we capture, but are willing to execute others from the sky without any ruling when it is more convenient to do so.
Who is “we”?
Thank you, Kevin.
It is interesting … that the use of drones is exactly morally equivalent to the use of V-2 rockets.
Claims of “precision” do not lessen the truth of the terrorism and the lack of compunction in the destruction of human life which both weapons ultimately represent.
DW
Small wonder then, that Obama wanted to “look forward, not back”. Filthy fucking murderer is what he is, just like ol’ W. If this world had any justice in it, both of them would be rotting in prison for this shit.
The next time Obama or one of his shills tells you how powerless he is, remember that Obama could stop these strikes any time he wants to.
Good interview of Woods. Also on democracynow.org this morning.
Ridiculous Dennis Miller calls Obama s Killing Machine with a hint of admiration in his voice. Wonder how Obama likes that admiration and label… Makes many of us sick and ashamed…
I think I’ll add it to the bottom of the post.
There were more drone strike in about 10 months of Obama’s term than in the 8 years of Bush. And Biden keeps saying how wonderful they are. Drone strikes, targeted killings, hit squads – it is disgusting. And, it is all being done in our name. We voted for change and got the same only faster and harder. We need to protest in the streets against this, because letters to Washington do absolutely nothing.
Yep—October 2011
Are there any techies here who might speculate on how long it will be before an effective counter-weapon to drones is developed and deployed? I should think the pay-off to developing one would be huge, given that the US is clearly unwilling to put feet on the ground to control territory. Would an effective weapon require so much radar on the ground that it could be easily taken out, or does miniaturization hold out the possibility of smaller and more mobile units?
Obama is a liar, a traitor, a torturer and a murderer. But Republicans are worse.
Don’t forget the commercial aspect:
The missile favored by
Lockheed Martinthe military for such drone attacks is the AGM-114N Hellfire II, an anti-tank missile retrofitted with a thermobaric warhead and noted for its capability of killing all living things within its blast radius or within a structure… regardless of any intervening structure(s).The basic Hellfire II costs $68000 US per round and the version with the thermobaric upgrade is known to cost even more but details seem to be fuzzed.
Like, could the Chinese produce a technology that would induce malfunctions and make drones crash? The Afghan War Logs released by WikiLeaks show the technology is far from perfect. Given the media blackout on drone strikes, it is no surprise the public doesn’t hear about drone malfunctions.
Aside from the insurgents proven ability to hack insecure drone com links?
Drones do make a good choice for an imperial power because the standard defense against drones is an opposing air force or other anti-aircraft capability.
There is no morality at play in using one weapon, but not another if there is sufficient ability in the use of that weapon to target only the bad guys. It was the use of commercial airliners against the World Trade Towers which showed a lack of intent to target only people who had attacked and killed members of al Qaeda or the Taliban. It was clearly an act against all of America and our world-wide commercial activity (which the towers represented). It was also an act of terrorism in that it struck fear into all American.
The drones with modern technology can target as well as most rockets with visual sighting. We were attacked by the Taliban-backed al Qaeda and so we have the moral right and the right as a nation to defend ourselves by killing them.
The morality of our approach is shown even more clearly in that we don’t simply seek to kill every human being in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We know they did not attack us as nations. We also seek, through efforts to reform and improve the government and services of Afghanistan to change the country for the better, so they will lose their interest in attacking us or in harboring al Qaeda in the future. This is surely more humane than simply killing people.
No, we’re not at all like Hitler’s aggressive military. We didn’t start this war (to my knowledge). Perhaps the Saudis will reconsider funding the teaching of militant jihad throughout the Islamic world. A call for violence can and is likely to result in a violent response.
When should we quit? That depends in part on the risk of more attacks on America or on domestic politics.
So we are innocent victims?
MarkH, you have not the slightest notion of moral rectitude.
And we are precisely like and MORE bloodthirsty than “Hitler’s army” (as you style it), than the “good” Germans or the “good” Americans could have ever dared imagine or will honestly admit or courageously accept.
Our history is replete with genocide, from the native peoples whom we encountered and destroyed to the many wars we started without provocatiion or reason; that history includes the Phillipines, at the beginning of what historians call the “American Century” noted in shame by Mark Twain, and continues to the Vietnam war which was, like the war in Iraq, begun with a lie.
That you conveniently “forget” this history, which is fact, and palaver on about our “humanity” in not killing everyone is proof of your sorry and pathetic grasp, both of this nation’s destructive history and its current and relentless inhumanity.
You are entitled to your own jack-booted and hyper-gingoistic opinion but NOT to your own facts.
That you do not perceive the trajectory of “domestic politics”, which is equally inhumane and bombasticly destructive says far more about your own shallowness and hubris than you obviously may realize or care.
… MarkH said…
True! And everyone knows just how discriminating a rocket with a high-explosive warhead in an urban setting is!
Indeed, there’s nothing quite so discriminating as a thermobaric warhead… that is, if you take care to fire it only at neighborhoods where brown people live.
But at least we’re now paying Raytheon to produce the smaller Griffin missile for drone use… it was specifically designed to somewhat reduce the civilian casualties that Hellfire missiles never cause…
As usual, devestating, thorough post, Kevin. Please keep up the good work with this and BART coverage.
Your comment, of course, assumes that when the US kills “militants” the US is in fact killing militants.
Both this and Greenwald’s article yesterday discuss important aspects of the Obama administration “droning on and on” about precision and perfection, but both articles miss the core, again found in Dennis Blair’s NYT op-ed.
Both Pakistan and the US are trying very hard to maintain uncertainty and contradictions about who is in the driver’s seat of the remote controlled missile launchers used to execute this strikes. Marcy Wheeler – while buying into the bogus PW Singer thinking that drones represent something fundamentally new in warfare, legally, ethically, strategically and tactically – made an important observation about sovereignty vs. remote controlled warfare (call it terror bombing). She just had it backwards. Drones represent a problem of “credit assignment”, of attribution and responsibility. In that, drones are no different from landmines or strategic bombing – or IEDs. Pakistan and the US, by not openly admitting their cooperation and collusion, might be doing long-term damage to the very concept of the nation state – William Lind’s main concern in his many discussions of 4GW – but in the short term this is just standard issue government obfuscation of one simple fact:
The US drone assassination program requires Pakistani cooperation.
Whether or not the absence of Pakistani tacit or explicit permission legally amounts to an act of war against a sovereign nation does matter – esp. as the same question has to be asked with respect to terror bombings “from above” carried out in states that are failed, i.e. have no government, or have governments that have incentives to choose to not acknowledge a state of war due to US attacks over attempting to protect their own citizens or, at the least, their claim to sovereignty.
But what is more important, and what is missing here and at Greenwald’s, is that the US assassination program in any state with some capacity to interdict – i.e. effectively respond, e.g. by jamming, anti-aircraft weaponry or by terminating contracts permitting use of local airfields – is ultimately based on a quid-pro-quo familiar from the GWOT campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq: “I’ll kill yours if you let me kill mine”.
Who chooses the targets?
Because, at the end of the day, Pakistani acquiescence is purchased by placing – part-time – US government agencies and contractors, and tax-funded military gear at the disposal of foreign governments to work off hit lists that are compiled by those governments, just as secretly, and tyrannically, as the “official” assassination lists the US government has acknowledged.
There are not just the competing JSOC and CIA hit lists. There is a Pakistani list, and maybe others.
To “prosecute” its drone assassination campaign, the US government has entered secret “handshake” deals with third parties to trade in extrajudicial killings with minimum accountability. The US has become a “gun for hire”. Between Wikileaks and Blair, it becomes clear that the US is not violating Pakistani sovereignty, but that it is engaged in a sordid quid pro quo that is as despicable as slavery or torture. Hostis humani generis.
Do they even know who they kill? This is not just a matter of precision or perfection, or how crappy the killcam video feed actually is. If Pakistan can outsource its dirty work to the US in this kind of “death trade”, then even the government itself has no real clue of whom they are targeting on behalf of our “partners”.
PW Singer and his ilk try to conjure a miasma of responsibility diffusion around drone warfare, all too convenient for the people in charge of the hardware. Drones are not robots. Landmines and cluster munitions are robots, and we have not taken to deep philosophical debates about responsibility in that context. Mustard gas is a weapon on “auto pilot”. In contrast, drones are remote controlled, guided missile carriers launching guided missiles. There is – always – a man in the loop, until the ballistic – “terminal” – stage is entered. “We see the battlefield in real time” is utter bullshit, but it is also an admission of responsibility. The CIA drones are in the hands of hired killers, government employees occasionally on loan to another nation as part of a foreign policy that is too corrupt to accomplish its ultimate objectives, and whether their cameras actually capture any discernible “truth” becomes irrelevant given the deceptions on which all of it is based. Here is the self-licking ice cream cone of military compulsion in scale model representation – a simple loop from the White House to its JSOC praetorian guard, to a remote airfield and a drone, to a missile and a camera, back to the White House. Who knows, maybe one day all the CIA will be allowed to do is handle Pakistani kill requests? Maybe we will charge them for the missiles then.