Dangerous silence shrouds drone
war By Fouad Pervez
The world recently celebrated Malala Day
in honor of the young Pakistani activist Malala
Yousafzai, an innocent victim of political
violence perpetrated by the Taliban. She was
rightfully honored as a hero for her willingness
to speak up for her right to an education and
against religious extremism.
While her
bravery deserved the attention it received, it
lies in stark contrast to the many other innocent
victims of political violence in Pakistan. Indeed,
the Drone War continues with hardly a mention in
the US media. It is not hard to imagine that if
Malala lived in a different village, she could
just as well have been killed by a Predator drone
as by the Taliban - and we'd know nothing about
her courage.
President George W Bush
started the policy in 2004, and
President Barack Obama
has taken it to a new level, with drone strikes
virtually comprising his entire policy towards
Pakistan. Some reports estimate that a drone
strike has occurred every four days during Obama's
presidency. There was little mention of the policy
during the presidential campaign, as both Obama
and Mitt Romney agreed with the approach. However,
given the rising intensity of anti-Americanism in
Pakistan - and Pakistan's considerable
geopolitical importance - it is crucial to
evaluate the Drone War without relying on standard
US talking points on Pakistan.
It is true
that religious extremism is an issue in Pakistan.
Malala was clearly a victim of this problem.
However, the situation on the ground is much more
complicated than the press usually reports. The
vast majority of Pakistanis oppose religious
extremism, and there is substantial support for
democracy. Famous cricket-player-turned-politician
Imran Khan has brought the country's youth behind
his push for political liberalism, not dissimilar
from Obama during his initial presidential
campaign. Despite these findings, Pakistan was the
only foreign country in a recent BBC poll that
preferred Romney over Obama. This is almost
certainly not due to a love of religious
minorities, offshore bank accounts, or rich white
men. It is because of the Drone War.
The
policy is widely unpopular worldwide as well; a
recent poll found that majorities in 17 of 20
countries disapproved of the Drone War (the
exceptions, unsurprisingly, being the United
States, Britain, and India).
The untold
story There are at least three major points
that the press commonly neglects when analyzing
the drone war. The first is legality. Under the UN
Charter, states cannot use force against another
state or non-state actors abroad unless they act
in self-defense or obtain that government's
consent. The Pakistani government has not
sanctioned the drone strikes publicly, while the
United States claims self-defense against Taliban
and al-Qaeda militants. The latter point raises a
question: if valid, are there any borders the
Drone War couldn't cross?
Additionally,
international law requires that in armed conflict,
civilians cannot be targeted, and incidental
civilian harm must be proportional to the expected
military gains. Of course, the strikes have
frequently targeted non-combatants, including aid
workers and mourners at funerals. Deliberately
targeting non-combatants - and especially
emergency workers - is a blatant war crime. Also,
from what little we know, the strikes have killed
mostly low-level militants. Is the large number of
civilian casualties proportional to the gains of
killing foot soldiers? These are serious legal
concerns, yet press reports frequently mention
little besides the number of "militants" killed.
Second, there are clear concerns about
sovereignty, a particular source of consternation
in Pakistan. On the face of it, the United States
is invading Pakistani airspace and carrying out
military operations within its borders. It is true
that the Pakistani government has secretly shared
intelligence with the United States for the
strikes in the past while denouncing them publicly
to save face. A Wikileaks cable revealed both
military and government support for the strikes.
But the press must demand answers about this
arrangement, particularly if the Pakistani
government is using the strikes to target its own
domestic enemies.
Third, and most
important, is the question of effectiveness. If
the press does nothing else, it should analyze
whether the Drone War is having the positive
effect the Obama administration claims it does.
According to the administration, almost no
civilians have been harmed in the strikes, a claim
that flies in the face of all other sources. This
claim derives from the Obama administration's
perverse methodology, in which all "military-age
males" in a strike zone are counted as combatants
unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously
proving them innocent. More troubling still, there
is little evidence that the administration even
investigates the background of the people it
targets and instead has attempted to discredit
journalists and researchers trying to uncover the
actual civilian suffering caused by the Drone War.
Although data on civilian casualties is
contentious, what is clear is that civilians are
being killed in the Drone War at a considerable
rate, and that the administration's estimates of
civilians killed in the "single digits" are
preposterous. The UN recently announced that it
would investigate the Drone War next year in
response to numerous civilian casualty reports.
In the short run, drone strikes will
almost certainly curb militant violence. But the
real question is whether this policy is helpful in
the long run. The Washington Post has reported,
for example, that outrage over civilian deaths has
proven a potent recruiting tool for al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula. This blowback effect
demands much closer attention from other outlets.
Two damning reports were released this
fall and garnered some US media coverage, but
nowhere near the attention they received abroad.
The first, from researchers at the Human Rights
Institute at Columbia University's Law School,
found that current practices make it nearly
impossible to investigate injuries or fatalities
from drone strikes. Additionally, signature
strikes - those targeting unidentified individuals
based on "suspicious behavior" as identified by
American intelligence - don't account for local
context, power dynamics, or cultural practices.
This could lead drone operators to wrongly
interpret routine behavior as strike-worthy,
resulting in civilian casualties.
The
report also notes that the American public,
Pakistani civilians, and sometimes even
policymakers, are left in the dark about the rules
and mechanisms used to protect civilians in the
Drone War, as well as any investigations of
civilian suffering. In reexamining the strikes in
2011 alone, they found between 72 and 155 civilian
deaths from strikes, 2,300% more than previously
calculated by the New America Foundation and 140%
more than the Long War Journal.
The second
report, from scholars at Stanford University and
New York University, raises questions regarding
the definition of a "militant" and the increase in
signature strikes during the Obama administration
- particularly the lack of accountability and
transparency in the decision-making process. It
brings to light the terror that civilians live
with every day in northwest Pakistan. Children
have been pulled from school because their parents
fear missile strikes. Adults avoid weddings,
funerals, business meetings, or any public
gatherings for fear of those being mistaken for
terrorist gatherings.
Civilians who
initially survive strikes have to wait long
periods of time for aid workers to help them,
because those workers are terrified of
"double-tap" strikes in which a second strike is
launched as workers try to drag bodies away from
the rubble. People are suffering from severe
stress and mental illnesses.
Pakistan's
domestic politics increasingly reflect widespread
opposition to the Drone War[es1] . Imran Khan has
risen in popularity partly due to his strong
opposition to the campaign. Khan led a march of
thousands last month in protest of the strikes and
was recently detained and harassed by American
immigration officials, seemingly in an effort to
intimidate him. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina
Rabbani Khar noted that the Drone War is a key
driver of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.
Concomitantly, militant groups also benefit from
Pakistani anger at the Drone War.
Even the
optimistic New America Foundation found that only
2% of those killed in drone strikes were
high-level militants. Is this kind of impact worth
killing civilians and sowing anti-American
sentiment? Considering the lack of informative
debate on the subject, it is not hard to see why
83% of Americans support the Drone War.
There simply isn't adequate analysis of
the issue. We need questions about how many
civilians have actually been killed or injured,
increased coverage on the conditions in which
people in the affected areas live, good data on
the number of militants killed, and investigations
of whether the Drone War is driving more
Pakistanis away from America despite sympathetic
views on economics, democracy, and religious
extremism.
The Drone War has certainly
killed many militants and spared American lives,
but it may be causing more harm than good. Until
the media ends its self-imposed blackout on the
subject, the American people will never get to
weigh the costs and benefits themselves.
Malala This brings us back to
Malala. While her story deserves every bit of
media coverage it has received, devoting that much
time to her and almost none to the thousands of
innocent victims of violence in the Drone War
seems to violate the very nature of her activism.
Malala is, above all else, an advocate for
education, and many Pakistani children are no
longer able to go to school due to fears of
missile strikes. She fights religious extremists
with her voice, not drones. What would her parents
have done if such a brave and remarkable young
girl was taken away from them in a drone strike,
like hundreds of other children? Might they turn
against America, possibly aligning themselves with
militant groups to gain revenge of some sort?
Why haven't we heard anything about
Mohammad Rehman Khan's father, three brothers, and
nephew, or Warshameen Jaan Hajj's wife, or Haji
Abdul Jabar's son, all of whom were killed in
drone attacks? These families - left to pick up
the pieces of their broken lives - harbor great
anger at President Obama. A hole in the ground,
stained in blood, where a family once lived
peacefully - is this to be the calling card of
America's counterterrorism campaign in Pakistan?
If the Drone War is indeed causing more
harm than good, the results could be disastrous
for America and Pakistan alike. It would make all
the goodwill and praise for Malala ring quite
hollow. Though I expect she'll have something to
say about it.
Fouad Pervez is a
contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, where he
writes on international politics, economics, and
security. He is currently pursuing his PhD in
International Relations. Fouad is a writer and
policy analyst, and founded the blog and talk show
There is No Spoon. He can be reached at
fouad0@gmail.com.
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