Shock'n'awe from the sky
Picture the following scene. A sunny October afternoon in 2012. The 68 year old Mamana Bibi is picking up vegetables at her family yard in a small village in the north-western corner of Pakistan. Suddenly a missile comes flying from the sky and tears the old woman into a smouldering heap of boiling blood and scattered body parts, just in front of the horrified eyes of her grandchildren.
A few months later, in July, some workers in a remote village are gathered in a tent for dinner after a long and tiresome day. The first missile comes in, killing all 8 of them, including a young boy. The next strike hits the people who have later come to help them, bringing the death tally to 18. Witnesses describe a shocking scene of panic, horror, blood and flying limbs and heads all around the place. While American drones keep circling in the sky above.
In another incident, at least 50 civilians get killed in follow-up strikes while trying to help victims of a previous drone attack. And another 20 are killed in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.
The list could go on. These are just a few notable examples of drone attacks that feature in a series of reports recently published by organizations such as Human Rights Watch (now investigating 9 incidents across Pakistan) and Amnesty International (investigating 6 incidents in Yemen). And they're part of the mounting evidence that the US drone program is killing a lot more civilians than the administration is willing to acknowledge. There are already claims of mass war crimes floating around, but as of now these have remained without an adequate response.
The investigation of the two organizations comes at a time when the controversial issue with the drones is getting wider and is being raised on other fronts as well. For instance, during his visit to Washington, Pakistani prime-minister Nawaz Sharif told Obama that the drone attacks should be brought to an end. Meanwhile, the UN which also made a recent investigation, has condemned the US for the lack of transparency in their drone program, and has urged the Obama administration to reveal data about the true scope of the civilian death toll.
All of this increases the criticism that the drone strikes are violating the sovereignty of the countries where they are being carried out, that they are an embodiment of the American arrogance, and they take innocent lives indiscriminately and without any oversight and responsibility. Apart from raising a number of legal, political and moral questions, they ultimately harm the US interests, because they fuel anti-American hatred in the affected areas, and add more recruits to the ranks of various terrorists organizations.
As the Rand Corporation expert Linda Robinson writes at the WP, the drones are just one of the three major tools of the US anti-terrorism strategy (the other two being spec-ops of the type of those recently conducted in Libya and Somalia, and also the development of partner security forces). But even if the drone attacks were not the most important element, they're surely the most controversial one. Some have already called Obama the "drone president".
Back in May he shaped out the principles of using drone strikes: they should be legitimate; their target should be posing a direct threat for the US; there should be no other viable way of capturing the target without exposing civilians to risk. But even if most of the cases that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are reporting had happened before this doctrine was announced, the bulk of the human rights organizations insist that things haven't changed much since then.
There certainly isn't much change in terms of transparency and disclosure, that's for sure. Despite Obama's promises, the US continues to refuse to reveal the legal motives for using drones or the actual intel necessitating any of the attacks. The administration still hasn't explained what exactly went wrong in those incidents, either. In fact one of the main obstacles to the investigations is the hysterical levels of secrecy in which the US is conducting its drone program. And that, among other things, is preventing the members of the affected families from seeking justice or compensations, and those responsible from being held accountable.
What's more, the data suggests that the US have carried out illegal murder in many of the documened cases, based on witness testimonies and official statements. The justification some in the US are very eager to use is, "this is war, shit happens in a war". But the thing is, neither of these conflicts has been officially called a war, and for a reason. The thing is, if the US was to openly admit being a side in the armed conflicts in Yemen and Pakistan (between the local governments and Al Qaeda or some other militant groups), then the US activities would be subject to legal action based on the international humanitarian laws, and the laws of war (it's not like these don't exist, it's just that they're being ignored). Naturally, the US keeps denying the obvious and is refusing to admit that they're participating in something that's a war in anything but name - in both Pakistan and Yemen. Instead, they insist these are just "special operations aimed at protecting the US interests". But even if that were the case, then the same principles would apply and attacks only on armed enemy militants and other military targets posing imminent threat would be warranted, not civilians. And I emphasize, lethal force would be warranted only as a last resort in cases of "direct and imminent threat to life".
The facts that the two human rights organizations have revealed, are raising serious suspicion that the US drone program is in a frequent and direct violation of international law, by killing scores of innocent people without proper justification and oversight, and in the conditions of complete opaqueness. There are too many problematic cases that can't just be downplayed as separate incidents or occasional glitches in the system - the entire drone program should be viewed from a human rights standpoint. And it needs an overhaul. The lack of transparency should be stopped, and the US should clearly specify the legal basis for the program. The main question should be: how does Washington decide who's a legitimate target and who isn't? Based on what criteria? And why the US so stubbornly refuses to reveal basic facts about the legal justification of the program? The claim that the drone strikes are in their vast majority accurate now sounds extremely problematic. It doesn't make much sense, given the mounting evidence of civilian casualties. After all, how could a 68 year old woman be confused for an armed enemy militant if the drone program were so flawless? And conversely, if it's not flawless, then why the reluctance to review it? The very fact that these questions are starting to sound rhetorical at this point is disturbing.
And even if the effectiveness of the drone strikes were not to be questioned, then the diplomatic and political damage still remains. Like the fact that anger from the staggering number of innocent casualties is fueling extremism and anti-American hatred even more. Turns out that in the place of one killed terrorist (and probably 5 murdered "collateral" civilians), another 10 new terrorists would pop up.
Of course the drone attacks are already causing huge anger against the US in these countries. But more important is the suffering and destruction they cause to ordinary people in places like North Waziristan who now live in permanent horror from the invisible death circling in the skies above, without knowing where and when the next missile would come from. And remember, it's a region that's already been plagued by raids both from the Pakistani military and the militant groups. They've reached a point where the local people now fear and hate the US more than they fear and hate the Taliban. And the same is valid for Yemen as well. It's the ordinary Yemeni people who are paying the price for this undeclared "war on terror". Pressured between the drones and Al Qaeda, and gradually sliding further into desperation. And we all know what drastic outcomes desperation could lead to.
All of this is not just extremely controversial from a legal standpoint. By the words of the former US ambassador at NATO, Kurt Volker, it's confirming the impression that the US now has a "permanent kill list", where, as it turns out, elderly ladies picking vegetables in their garden could end up without even knowing it.