Last week, the United States carried out one drone strike in Yemen and two in Pakistain, killing an estimated total of between 15 and 22 people, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an organization that tracks drone strikes closely. All of the dead were reported to be murderous Moslems; human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
advocates note, however, that such claims are often discovered to be inaccurate or misleading following further investigation.
The attacks received relatively scant media attention compared to the worsening violence in Iraq. But despite President B.O.'s rhetoric that "this war, like all wars, must end," there seems to be no end in sight in the often-amorphous war on terrorism. Some observers have christened this ongoing conflict the "Forever War." In a recent hearing, a top Pentagon lawyer reiterated that the list of organizations the US considers itself at war with is classified.
The two strikes in Pakistain were the first of 2014, breaking a nearly six-month pause in the CIA's drone campaign there. As Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations noted in a recent blog post, June 17th, 2014 marks 10 years of US drone strikes in Pakistain. "Never before in US history has such a lengthy and lethal military campaign been so inadequately described or justified by the government, which retains the fiction that these strikes are 'covert' and unworthy of public examination," wrote Zenko.
Here are three troubling takeaways from the recent strikes:
1. The US may be targeting enemies of foreign governments, not imminent threats to the US.
The two strikes in Pakistain came after the breakdown of peace talks between the Pak government and the Pak Taliban (TTP), which ended after a brutal attack carried out by Uzbekistan snuffies in coordination with the TTP on the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
airport, resulting in 36 deaths. Pakistain is now waging a major offensive in the tribal region of North
Wazoo, aimed at dislodging murderous Moslem groups there.Reports conflict on who the targets of each strike were, but at least one and possibly both strikes were aimed at members of the Haqqani network, frequent targets of the drone program and the group that until recently held US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl captive. Some have speculated that following Bergdahl's release, the CIA -- which operates the drone program in Pakistain -- may have had more leeway to strike the group.
But one of the two strikes may have targeted Uzbek fighters, which could raise questions about whether the CIA is targeting threats to the US -- or enemies of the Pak government. "Generally speaking, the drones have targeted people who are perceived to be at war with the US," says Mustafa Qadri, lead author of an
Rooters quoted two officials in Pakistain's government as saying the US had "express approval" for the strikes, a drastic turnaround from recent years. The nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed the opposite, however, calling the strikes "a violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty and territorial integrity."
The drone program in Pakistain began in 2004 with what some have called a "bargain chip killing," in which the US allegedly targeted a Pak murderous Moslem who had been deemed an enemy of the state, but posed no threat to the US. In return, as reported by The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
' Mark Mazzetti, Pakistain allowed the CIA to use its airspace to attack members of al Qaeda.
A similar dynamic seems to be at play in Yemen. What appears to be a US drone strike killed five alleged members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on Friday. Though the group is generally considered the most dangerous active branch of al Qaeda, some observers are skeptical that every target is a legitimate threat to the US. "The US increasingly appears to be acting as a proxy Air Force for Yemen in its civil war with AQAP," says Letta Tayler, terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
. "It's hard to believe that the hundreds of Yemenis killed in US drone strikes all posed an imminent threat to Americans and we know that in at least some cases these strikes have unlawfully killed civilians."
2. This may be what the near-term future of US military force looks like.
As the US watches sectarian conflict expand in Iraq and Syria, pressure for the B.O. regime to intervene somehow is likely to grow. ISIS, the group behind the recent turmoil in Iraq, is arguably a greater threat to the US than local enemies in Yemen or Pakistain; Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
has said the administration is open to considering drone strikes in Iraq, and the US has secretly been flying a small number of surveillance drones over the country for the last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Beyond Iraq, Obama has argued that rather than take unilateral military action, the US needs to partner with local governments to address local threats. In a recent speech at West Point, President B.O. said that he was "calling on Congress to support a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund of up to $5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines" in countries like Mali, Libya and Somalia. This program, combined with the recent drone strikes, suggests that it's unlikely the US will shift from has been termed a "perpetual war-time footing" any time soon.
3. We still have a long way to go on transparency.
The US drone programs that currently exist are shrouded in secrecy, as would almost certainly be the case with any future programs. Human rights attorney and professor Sarah Knuckey recently referred to a "depressing pattern" of how drone strikes are discussed in the media -- from initial media reports, to investigations and calls for transparency, to official denials and anonymous defenses from the US government.
"Did the US resume drone strikes because the Pak talks had failed, or because of the Bergdahl release, or the second round of the Afghan elections, or a mix of the above?" says Rachel Reid, director of the Regional Policy Initiative on Afghanistan and Pakistain at Open Society. "Secrecy and obfuscation by the American and Pak governments means we can only speculate. Greater transparency and accountability is long overdue. The American people deserve to know who their government is killing, and how much longer this will go on."
That's a sentiment Letta Tayler, the Human Rights Watch researcher, echoes. "It is long past time for Obama to reveal who the US is killing in Yemen and why," she says, "and to make amends when strikes go awry."