Nothing could go wrong here:
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.
The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.
And just a week or so ago, I heard Secretary of State Hilary Clinton emphatically state that the United States has no role in providing weaponry to other side and is focusing only on humanitarian aid, all while browbeating the Russians for their military contracts with Syria.
Basically, if there is an armed struggle anywhere in the world, we just can not help ourselves and have to get involved in some way, shape, or form. We’re drawn to gunrunning and blowback the way Tyrone Biggums is drawn to crack rock.
the Conster
Remember when we armed the mujahadeen against the Russians in Afghanistan? That worked out pretty well/
fasteddie9318
Presidents Graham and McCain will be so happy about this for the 2.3 seconds it takes them to remember that, even though he’s arming the Syrian opposition, the sheriff is still near.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
How do you say Fast & Furious in Arabic?
Yutsano
@the Conster: Ahh good times good times. Especially if the arms go right towards attacking Israel.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I suppose we could bomb the people supplying the arms using drones.
fuzz
The line of thinking goes that by hurting Assad you’re really hurting Iran. It’s turned into a proxy war between us and the gulf countries and the Iranians/Russians. Of course for Syrians it’s a little more complicated than that and apparently we’re having Yugoslavia style neighbor killing neighbor incidents. Plus I’ve read in a few different places the victims of that massacre a few weeks ago (the one that killed 35 kids and women) may have actually been Shiites and Alawites killed by the FSA who were then posed for the cameras as Sunnis (I know I sound like some conspiracy loon saying that but the European and Russian press have been reporting it).
ruemara
Read that this morn. Here’s the deal. I oppose this, like I oppose all weapons shipping stuff. Every DFH I talk to about foreign policy would think this is great news. I don’t get it. They want foreign intervention and arming the rebels because FREEEDOM! I don’t want it because we don’t know who we’re arming, why they are rebelling and what will happen after. They’re older than me, why do I recall the mujahadeen and video of a beaming Bin Laden being taught by our military, getting our weapons, and they don’t. But Obama is running a police state that will criminalize OWS because they said so. Meanwhile, stuff like this comes out and I also wonder how this little covert op became public knowledge when we’re trying to stay out of it. Oy & Vey.
celticdragonchick
@the Conster:
It generally did go pretty well for us. We fucked up when we walked away from the power vacumn.
joeyess
Sound familiar?
we never learn……..
lacp
Muslim Brotherhood – militant fundamentalist Sunnis. What could possibly go wrong?
celticdragonchick
@ruemara:
Bin Laden did not get training from the US, and it is far from clear that he ever received any weapons supplied from us via the ISI. He had his own money and was known even then that his group did not play well with others. You have a far better case arguing that we made Ho Chi Minh then arguing that we somehow made Bin Laden.
MattF
If it really was intelligence-gathering, I wouldn’t be bothered by it. Knowing what’s going on is better than not knowing. Problem is, how can anyone believe what they’re saying? Officials can insist that they’re telling the super-duper-with-bacon-on-top truth, but we’ve heard all that before, many times.
srv
I don’t think the likes of Samantha Power and Hitlery’s right-to-protect loons will be happy until there’s a Celiphate.
fuzz
@celticdragonchick:
Yea but I can’t say something witty and cynical about that sooo….Bin Laden was trained by us!
Hypatia's Momma
I was wondering how the NYT went from hearsay (“CIA said to be…”) to presenting the article as if it were a proven fact and then I saw this:
So that’s all right, then.
Yutsano
@lacp: Soon to be followed by HOOCODANODE??
Brachiator
Yep. Ain’t our business. We need to stay out.
We also need to STFU in demanding that Russia stop selling weapons to Assad.
Because, as always, it’s only a bad thing if the US is killing people. If Assad wants to kill his people, hey, it’s just a civil war, even if it is aided with foreign weapons sales.
@the Conster:
Yeah, we should have just let the Soviets work out their own mess (they got sucked into greater involvement when their supposed puppets went rogue). Alexander the Great and all that, right?
SatanicPanic
This calls for an investigation by Darrell Issa
srv
Bin Laden was not trained by us, but a lot of our money/guns went to Hekmatyar, and they were BFF.
fasteddie9318
@ruemara:
We don’t know who we’re arming, true, and there could be some really unpleasant fallout after they oust Assad, in particular with respect to the treatment of Syria’s Alawi population. But that said, I’m pretty sure we do know why they’re rebelling. It’s not as though Bashar and the rest of the Syrian Baath establishment haven’t earned it.
fasteddie9318
@SatanicPanic:
I’ll start a collection to buy him a plane ticket to Damascus so he can investigate first-hand, if the government is too strapped to pay for it. Probably only be able to raise enough for a one-way ticket, though.
celticdragonchick
@joeyess:
Arming rebels often works…depending on what your objectives actually are. South Africa armed RENAMO in Mozambique and quickly turned the country into a hellhole. This was advantageous for the South Africans since it meant that Mozambique was far too busy dealing with RENAMO to even consider helping out the ANC or FAPLA, etc.
It was dirty, murderous and utterly amoral…and it was undeniably effective and worked towards South African policy goals.
You have to be unbelievably naive to think that we do not do similar things, no matter what administration is in charge. Obama is ruthless when push comes to shove, and he is not overly concerned about legal niceties in covert ops. Arming rebels in Afghanistan was effective, relatively cheap and succeeded in demoralizing the Soviet military and strengthening the hand of pro peace reformers in the Kremlin who wanted to wash their hands of the mess.
Again, we screwed up when we walked away from the mess we helped make with our weapons.
Felinious Wench
I’m sure there’s pressure from the Israeli government at home and abroad to Do Something about Syria. This is how we Do Something without Military Intervention.
That’s my take.
OmerosPeanut
If we’re directing the flow of other countries’ weapons, then technically Hillary’s statement is correct. Legalistic, but correct.
Gustopher
Can we put some kind of transmitter on the weapons, so when this inevitably goes wrong we can use that to target the Smart Bombs?
lacp
@fasteddie9318: Wouldn’t be too good for the Christians and Shia, either. But if it makes Qatar and Saudi Arabia happy, it’s all good.
Lev
@celticdragonchick: We did make Castro, though.
I have to say that I’m actually quite surprised by Obama’s foreign policy. Not like I expected Ron Paul-style nonintervention or anything, but Obama seems to have identical ambitions to George W. “1. Topple Dictators 2. ??? 3. FREEDOM!” Bush. Granted, Obama has executed the same basic strategy with far more cleverness, and less loss of life in American terms. But it’s the same dumb fucking strategy. Toppling Saddam was, in retrospect, a humanitarian disaster that killed far more people than Hussein ever did, but toppling Gaddafi is having similar effects, and doing so to Assad would too. At this point, I think it’s clear that the thing Obama thought was dumb about the Iraq War was that Bush actually asked for approval from Congress and had to take responsibility for the outcome.
terraformer
Somewhat on topic, but I’ve been running through MI-5 on Netflix; it is very interesting in terms of how it not only explores doubt and misgivings on the part of the spies regarding what they do and how it affects normal people, but also how America and what it does on an international level can be viewed through the lens of a non-American.
Which of course is why such a show would never be green-lighted on this side of the pond. The seeds of doubt must never be planted, yet alone allowed to germinate.
D. Mason
It’s because on the fundamental issue of empire Republicans and Democrats agree to the point where we can’t even discuss not meddling.
fuzz
@Lev:
Obama has to deal with a strain of liberal interventionism from the left that Bush didn’t. So with Obama you have not only the right wing neo-cons talking about spreading democracy through war and toppling dictators but also left wing interventionists saying you have to go in (or at least launch an air campaign) to protect civilians.
fasteddie9318
@lacp: Interesting story: the Twelver community in Syria declared that Alawis are Twelver Shia back when Hafiz al-Assad took power, because the Sunni population didn’t and probably still doesn’t recognize them as Muslims at all. Being adopted by the Twelvers helped legitimize Assad.
If there’s a fundamentalist government put in place after Assad, then certainly Christians and Shia might be in a bit of trouble, but I’d worry about the Alawi community really being targeted as payback for the sins of the Assads.
butler
So… are we sending them weapons or not?
According to this passage, we are “helping to decide” who gets weapons from a 3rd party. Does that mean we’re supplying the weapons, supplying other incentives to the third party, or merely making our preferences known to people who were going to supply the weapons anyway?
PeakVT
Turkey has a several hundred mile border with Syria, so if the Turkish government wants to make try to fix something it sees as a problem (and perhaps it a bigger problem), so be it. As long as the CIA is operating at the behest of the Turks, I don’t really have a problem with what the operatives are doing.
Heliopause
Please remember, none of the interested parties — not Russia, nor the CIA allying itself with noted bastion of freedom Saudi Arabia, nor any other outside party — are in this for freedom or democracy. They are in it because they want some control of the outcome. The next time a public official says they desire freedom and democracy for Syria, even if an American official, that person is lying to you. Don’t forget that.
Redshift
@ruemara: I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I’ve been hearing for months from Syrian-American friends “why aren’t we helping?” They saw what happened in Libya, and they wonder why their friends continue to suffer. I know (and I’m sure they do, too) that there are many things that are vastly different between the two, but I’m not unsympathetic.
I believe military action (directly or by proxy) should always be approached with the greatest caution, but that doesn’t mean it’s always right to avoid it. We’re not just responsible if we get involved, we’re also responsible for what we could do but choose not to. I don’t think it’s an easy call to say which has the greater potential for disaster here.
So I don’t agree with your rah-rah friends, but I do understand the impulse to want to do something, when the things we’re doing don’t seem to be having a lot of effect. The impulse sometimes leads to bad choices, but that doesn’t make it a bad impulse.
Yutsano
@PeakVT: Big elephant in the room there too: this sounds like it’s happening in the Kurdish region, and anything that keeps the Kurds quiet is okay by both Turkey and Syria.
fasteddie9318
@PeakVT: Interesting how when NATO members Germany and France risked having their light crude supply affected by trouble in Libya, it was all hands to battle stations, we’re going in, but when NATO member Turkey has a border being threatened by trouble in Syria, there’s not a whole lot of NATO discussion about the whole thing. I just can’t think of the difference between France and Germany on the one hand, and Turkey on the other, such that NATO would respond to energetically to the formers’ problem but not so much to the latter’s.
J.W. Hamner
@butler:
Yeah, not to be all O-boty here, but from what this says… I’m not clear what the problem is? Is the argument that we should be stopping 3rd parties from supplying weapons instead of just (trying to) make sure they don’t get into the hands of terrorists?
EDIT: Or I guess just ignoring it all together.
Lev
@fuzz: Maybe. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised after he appointed Clinton to State. But I’m not sure I buy this. Obama only has the job because of his opposition to the Iraq War and his significantly less hawkish stance in general during the primaries, compared with Clinton. He opposed the Lieberman-Graham Amendment that Clinton supported on Iran. Antipathy toward conflict was strong enough for a newcomer to defeat the most powerful and popular Democrat there was. Liberal hawks have power because people believe they have power. Obama could ignore them and not lose a single vote. After all, he did before.
Nah, he does it because he wants to, because he buys into the same assumptions about freedom that Bush did. I understand things look different from the White House, when those goals seem so achievable, but I can’t think of a single thing he’s done that has helped. The stances he took in the primaries are a distant memory. Remember when he was so insistent on negotiating with Iran? Only in the past couple of months have they even started to try.
joeyess
@celticdragonchick: did I say anything different?
lacp
@Redshift: If your friends saw what was happening in Libya, they must not have been looking very recently. Things appear to be disintegrating there.
Brachiator
@Lev:
We made Castro more by propping up a POS like Fulgencio Batista. But I suppose that if Balloon Juice had been around during the 1950s, there would be wringing of hands that we should just let authoritarians and the mob fuck the Cuban people.
By the way, outrageously good article in the New Yorker about an American who fought with Castro (The Yankee Commandante). Provides some good background on how foul the previous regime was. I hear that Hollywood is calling.
@terraformer:
I thought the show was more about what the UK does on an international and domestic level. And some of the stories about nasty deals done to contain IRA or other supposed terrorists have some background in actual events.
I don’t know. Seems like many US tv shows and even The Avengers movie has stuff about shadowy US agencies willing to condone or implement all kinds of vile stuff.
Redshift
@lacp:
Juan Cole, who has actually been there and has seen what is happening (unlike either of us), disagrees.
ETA: And since they do have a lot more direct information about what’s going on in Syria, it’s pretty damned presumptuous to say they should be happy with no intervention if they just knew what Libya was really like.
Amir Khalid
If anyone’s going to be sending arms to Syrian rebels, it might as well be Arab League nations. It’s their neck of the woods, after all, and I have no problem with letting them lead in deciding what international involvement is needed and how to carry it out. With the caveat that the UN Security Council should be somewhere in the loop.
Sure, things could go wrong. But Bashir Assad won’t let up on the violence against his people, and he won’t give up power without a fight. No one wants their troops wading into somebody else’s civil war. Short of that, short of foreign airstrikes against Assad’s troops (you weren’t comfortable with the airstrikes against Gaddafi’s troops in Libya, John Cole) this seems the least-bad course of action.
The CIA needs to be in the Middle East making contacts and gathering intel anyway, nicht wahr? And since they’s up, as people say, they might as well make themselves useful to American allies in the region. I get that US involvements like this make you justifiably nervous. But this doesn’t look to me like imperialism or naivete, let alone like the greed and gross stupidity of the George Walker Bush administration’s adventures in Iraq.
Citizen_X
Actually, that Russian ship bringing Syria attack helicopters? It just got turned around. (Go to 4 min. into the video.)
Weak President, other countries are laughing at us, just like Bush, we should never interfere in any way anywhere, etc, etc.
Citizen_X
@Redshift: People, go read that link about Libya. Are you really going to take Henry freaking Kissinger’s word over Juan Cole’s?
weaselone
If these weapons would have been provided to the Syrian rebels regardless of US involvement, I can understand why the US would step in and attempt to direct the flow. By getting involved the US can at least hope to minimize the number of these weapons that find their way to Iraq and Afghanistan and end up killing US soldiers.
If on the otherhand this is just a case of the US giving cash and arms to Turkey and having them pass weapons along to the groups we tell them to just so we can feign a lack of involvent,it’s utter stupidity. It’s a double dose if certain members of the US legislature are colluding with portions of the CIA to circumvent stated policy.
Davis X. Machina
The last place you can still find a full-throated defense of the Westphalian nation-state is on liberal blogs.
Linda Featheringill
Shit. Damn.
You’re right, John. What could possibly go wrong?
Chris
@fuzz:
The big dividing line in the Middle East right now is between Sunni and Shi’a (the “Shi’a axis” consisting of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, plus their allies in the Iraqi government). We’ve more or less decided to throw in our support behind the Sunni side (I doubt we’ll do anything else as long as our relations with the Saudis are what they are). And yes, that de facto puts us on the same side as al-Qaeda.
fuzz
@Lev:
I think with Iran he was in a tough spot because they were putting down the green movement only months after he came to power. It made negotiating with them a pretty unpopular position at least inside the beltway. I also think that as far as negotiating with Iran goes, it works both ways for him. If they negotiate in good faith he can work something out, but if they don’t he can always say that he tried and then resort to sanctions and eventually bombing. I also don’t believe he was conflict averse or dovish during the primaries, he ran on expanding the drone war in Pakistan and doubling the amount of troops in Afghanistan. Couple that with the Clinton veterans all over his cabinet that don’t want another Rwanda/Bosnia on their watch, and you have what we’ve got now.
nastybrutishntall
@ruemara:
The LWNM needs a lot of hot air to make its sirens whine at high pitch. Critical pundits are critical. Everybody needs to get paid.
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
You have to be unbelievably naive to think that we weren’t involved in that exact incident, also too. During the Cold War, each superpower had a few regional allies that served as proxies in the Cold War and, among other things, could be used to support people we didn’t want to be seen supporting openly (e.g. using Argentina and Guatemala to support the contras as well as death squads in the rest of the region). The South Africa/RENAMO thing was just the African version of that, I’d be surprised if we hadn’t at the very least wink wink nudged nudged it.
Afghanistan-1980s was another version of that, in which our main proxies in the region were Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and most of the aid we sent flowed to their ideological allies, the biggest one of which was Hekmatyar. Same general ideology as Bin Laden, but I don’t think Bin Laden or the rest of the foreign jihadists actually played all that big a role. It’s what they did afterwards that made them a big deal.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
THIS.
And get real, Cole. You are surprised by this? You didn’t think, a year ago when the Syrian protests began, that CIA covert operators weren’t sent in within days, if not hours, of the start of the protests? Seriously?
If you didn’t, you are the most naive 40-something to ever walk the face of the earth.
The Dangerman
@Heliopause:
I’d tweak that mildly; the CIA, MI5, Mossad, and whatever the Russians are calling their intelligence these days (plus a whole bunch of others) are there because they don’t want the intermediate stages before that “outcome” is reached to get out of control.
Davis X. Machina
@geg6: All the more reason we should mount a vigorous defense of the Assad regime. If the CIA is against him, we’re for him. End of.
Cromagnon
Uh oh… Cole and the Greenwaldites (with whom he seems to feel an incessant need to continually suck up to) are once again upset that the evil war criminal Obama has to, you know, actually live in the real world. That’s the one that is far more gray than black and white, usually chaotic at best, always messy, where most choices are between the bad option or the other bad option. But in their little fantasy world, if we would just listen to the Almighty Glen Greenwald, a true omniscient God if there ever was one, then everything would be peaches and cream, and we’d all live happily ever after… Alas
Never fear tho… Once RMoney is elected president we will have peace on earth and prosperity for all
geg6
@Davis X. Machina:
Ah, I always forget to ask myself “what would my progressive betters do?” I’m always too busy with voter registration drives, lobbying Congress on student aid, and canvassing that I forget to be a good progressive and do nothing but sit around screaming about how Obama is no better than Bush and probably magnitudes worse.
Davis X. Machina
@geg6: Well, I learned a certain set of perspectives from which to view the world beyond these shores thirty-five years ago and I’ll be damned if I’m going to change them — I intend to use them till I die. Changing them on a case-by-case basis is hard work, and time-consuming. This way is faster.
I have too much else on my plate.
PeakVT
@fasteddie9318: Have you considered the possibility that the Turkish government might feel that calling in NATO forces, and specifically the Americans, might make the whole situation worse? Besides, the Turkish military isn’t exactly shambolic. I think it could deal with any spillover from Syria, which is much smaller and poorer.
FlipYrWhig
I know we fought out this exact same argument over Libya, but I think it would be nice to acknowledge that “humanitarian intervention” is quite consistent with mainline liberal principles, and is only the same thing as empire-building in the judgment of the left of the left of the left. I remember Alexander Cockburn being opposed to action against Slobodan Milosevic.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig: Not real liberals…
Mnemosyne
@Lev:
I think that, like many people on the left, you mistook Obama’s distaste for unilateral action by the US for pacifism.
As far as I can tell, our actions in concert with NATO in Libya and these current actions are in line with what Obama said: we would act with the cooperation and agreement of our allies rather than cowboying off around the world to do whatever we felt like doing.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
Fair enough, although it’s not especially radical to point out that the candidates for interventions over the years have tended to be official enemies of the powers doing the intervention, whereas official friends who may be doing things that are just as bad don’t get the same attention.
Donut
@FlipYrWhig:
Yup, and I feel the same way about this issue as I did Libya, meaning it ain’t the guy who’s in charge now that concerns me, it’s who comes after him and what happens when shit doesn’t go as planned.
So far, we are okay with Libya, but it’s not this year I worry about…
I think the current president is pretty capable, but we better well think about whether it’s a good idea to hand off a little project like this to a President Romney, or a future President Rubio, for example.
Anyone else nervous about that? Before one feels too complacent, one should consider 4, 8, 10, 20 years into the future.
Donut
@PeakVT:
“So long as” is well and good, but the problem comes with putting a clean end to an undertaking like this, once you’ve gone in. It’s not like flipping a switch and saying, “we are done here, so thanks for the memories and stuff. See ya.”.
The so-called mational security apparatus just don’t play like that. Sorry, they just don’t. Once you get into a thing like this, it is usually painful to get out, years down the road.
blogasita
Seriously, man, I know you hate the CIA. Admittedly, they’ve done some really stupid shit over the years. But how in the heel can you say they shouldn’t be involved in one of the hottest hot spots on earth. That’s kind of why they exist,
gene108
John, we do a pretty good job of staying out of conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa.
Americanadian
I’m not 100% sure the CIA bothered to let Hilary know what they were up to before she went after the Russians. It wouldn’t do to let the diplomats know what our *real* foreign policy is, after all…
agorabum
@Amir Khalid: I’ll have to agree with Amir: So the CIA has officers on the ground trying to figure out what’s going on in the Syrian revolution.
Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t we want the CIA collecting intelligence (HUMINT) and making contacts, so at least we have the foggiest idea of who is who?
You can’t do everything with a spy satellite…
Also, i think it is the Turks in this story who are giving the arms, it seems like we’re tying to help Turkey understand which group is the best one to get arms. We’re working with the Turks, not against them…
We have airbases next door in Turkey, and still have a large contingent of State Dept personnel in Iraq. Syria remains strategically important, especially for its ties to Hezbollah and influence on Lebanon.
So…isn’t that where we’d want the CIA to have a bit of presence?
Davis X. Machina
No. They’re the CIA. That’s what Bono is for.
Tehanu
Isn’t the U.S. the world’s biggest seller of weaponry? I know, it’s kind of old-fashioned to suggest that arms dealers (Daddy Warbucks!) might have some responsibility for wars. Maybe I should start wearing a cloche hat and get my hair bobbed.
Mnemosyne
@agorabum:
I’ll say one thing kinda-sorta positive about the CIA — they really are pretty good at setting up networks of people to talk to and from whom they are able to get useful information so they can then analyze that information.
What they really, really suck at — and yet love to do — is to take that information/analysis and then try to use it to meddle in that country’s politics. Just because you know what’s going on inside the country doesn’t mean you can accurately predict what will happen down the road if you, say, restore the Shah.
If all we’re doing is gathering information and passing that information along to our allies like Turkey, that’s a valuable thing for us to do. It when we decide, “Hey, we know X, so therefore we can take covert action R and it will totally work out in our favor!” that we trip over our own dicks.
fasteddie9318
@PeakVT: The French should have been able to secure their oil supply (and incidentally aid the Libyan rebellion, a fine goal but purely a side benefit as far as the Europeans were concerned) on their own, but the whole alliance had to be called in to do it for them. And while I have no problem with the idea that the Turks don’t want NATO involved, I find it peculiar that it hasn’t even really been talked about.
agorabum
@Mnemosyne:
No argument there. Although these days, those requests always seem to go back to a politician in Washington. I’m figuring (based on Libya) that this Admin will chose no crazy covert action / coups / etc. Those other guys? Beats me.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: True, and the retort about how we can’t intervene everywhere/can’t be global policeman has some merit, but so does the premise that when people are being massacred in a foreign country, it’s kind of nice to do what’s in America’s means to halt it. Finding that balance between getting involved everywhere and getting involved nowhere is pretty fucking difficult, and knee-jerk nonintervention is not much more admirable than hair-trigger intervention.
lis G.
Are the CIA agents involved the same ones who were involved with non payment of prostitutes in South America recently? Or perhaps those in charge of drone operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. No one can accurately say how many civilian deaths the drones have caused. Attempts to ascertain the numbers have shown they vary widely. There is a credibility gap here somewhere.