Precision-guided PR for drones
falls short By Carey L Biron
WASHINGTON - In a major address here on
Monday, John Brennan, the United States official
in charge of counter-terrorism, formally admitted
that the US engages in attacks using armed
unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as
"drones".
But, Brennan argued, the drones
program is "legal", "ethical" and "wise".
The speech, at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, marks the first
official public discussion of the US's highly
secretive drones program. Overseen by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the program has been
stepped up significantly under President Barack
Obama.
Brennan's presentation comes amid a
barrage of events marking the one-year anniversary
of the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden in Pakistan,
with Obama making much of the event as the 2012
presidential campaign heats up. According to
Brennan, "President Obama has instructed us to be
more open with the American people about using
remotely piloted aircraft."
However, that
newfound openness has not included an explanation
of how potential drone targets are vetted.
Brennan defended the program in part
because, he said, it targets only those
individuals who are known to pose a "significant
threat" to the US and constitute a "legitimate,
lawful target".
But he refused to
elaborate on how that process of scrutiny takes
place. "How we identify an individual naturally
involves intelligence sources and methods, which I
will not discuss," Brennan said in prepared
remarks.
That type of secrecy, say
observers, leaves in the dark one of the most
central issues at stake in the US drone program.
"Unfortunately, John Brennan's speech
today did little to assure us that the US is only
targeting those individuals that are directly
participating in hostilities against the United
States, perform a continuous combat function with
al-Qaeda or its affiliates that are targeting us,
or pose an imminent threat of harm to the United
States," Daphne Eviatar, a lawyer and researcher
with Human Rights First, told Inter Press Service
(IPS).
"Those are the legal requirements
for any targeted killing in this context. Brennan,
like others in the administration before him, said
that the United States is following international
law without explaining how it decides whether the
individuals or groups of people targeted meet the
legal requirements."
On Sunday, Brennan
had already made waves by admitting publicly that
civilian deaths are an inevitable part of
counter-terrorism operations. That issue strikes
at the heart of much of the criticism that has
built up against the US use of armed unmanned
aerial vehicles over the past half-decade.
"For a long time, the narrative was that
drones were only killing militants," Shazad Akbar,
a Pakistani lawyer, told an international
conference on drone warfare that took place in
Washington over the weekend.
In
Waziristan, in western Pakistan, he reported,
"more than 3,000 people have been killed in 300
drone strikes." Given the lack of independent
monitoring, it is unclear what percentage of those
people were civilians.
Akbar's mere
presence at the conference was a surprise, and
underscored the longstanding secrecy that has
surrounded the US's use of drone technology. Since
2010, Akbar and the organization he founded, the
Foundation for Fundamental Rights, have been
representing the families of non-militants
allegedly killed by US drone strikes.
For
that work, Akbar said, he had been unable to get a
US visa for the past 14 months. Ahead of this
weekend's conference, the US State Department is
said to have relented only at the last minute.
"President Obama would like us to believe
that there are no civilian victims to drone
attacks," Akbar said. "In that, I think he is
lying to his own nation."
Brennan's talk
lauded the "astonishing precision" of US drone
technology, but Akbar's experience on the ground
is different.
"There is no truth behind
the suggestion that drone strikes are very
precise," he said, proceeding to show documentary
proof of several cases of children who were killed
while in buildings neighboring targeted
structures.
"Drone strikes are targeting
daily life," he noted. "Attacks take place around
dinnertime, breakfast, at night - there doesn't
seem to be any thought given to how to minimize
civilian casualties."
These are just some
of the human-rights aspects surrounding this new
form of warfare, but there are critical political
issues unfolding as well.
Relations
between the US and Pakistan have been at a
dangerously low ebb since two dozen Pakistani
soldiers were killed by a gunship helicopter and
fighter jet attack last November. The freeze has
included the Islamabad government's cutting of
critical North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
resupply routes through Pakistani territory.
High-level bilateral discussions restarted
only late last week, when a US delegation
including Special Envoy Marc Grossman arrived in
Islamabad. Already, however, relations have soured
again.
Grossman's visit came on the heels
of the unanimous approval by the Pakistani
parliament of a set of recommendations, months in
the making, on how to redefine the US-Pakistan
relationship.
These included a demand for
a full apology from the US for the November 2011
deaths, as well as an immediate halt to drone
strikes within Pakistani territory.
But
following initial meetings with Grossman last
week, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar
complained that the US was not "listening, the
language is clear: a clear cessation of drone
strikes."
By Saturday, the talks had
broken down, reportedly over the US's refusal to
offer a full apology for the November 2011 deaths.
By Sunday, a far stronger message was
sent. After a break in attacks of nearly a month,
a US drone killed three to four suspected
militants at an abandoned girls' school in
Miramshah, in the North Waziristan tribal area on
the border with Afghanistan.
On Monday,
without making any direct reference to these
recent events, Brennan affirmed that the US
"respects national sovereignty and international
law".
Analysts speaking with IPS called
the new attack an "embarrassment", given the
timing. Others suggest that the strikes have put
an end to the possibility of reopening the NATO
supply lines anytime soon.
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