Something has to be done about this:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came face-to-face Friday with simmering Pakistani anger over U.S. aerial drone attacks in their country and drew back slightly from her blunt remarks suggesting Pakistani officials know where terrorists are hiding.
In a series of public appearances on the final day of a three-day visit, Clinton was pressed repeatedly by Pakistani civilians and journalists about the secret U.S. program that uses drones to launch missiles to kill terrorists.
***During an interview with Clinton broadcast live in Pakistan with several prominent female TV anchors, before a predominantly female audience of several hundred, one member of the audience said the Predator attacks amount to ”executions without trial” for those killed.
Another asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.
”Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?” she asked. That woman then asked if Clinton considers drone attacks and bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier this week to both be acts of terrorism.
”No, I do not,” Clinton replied.
Well, Secretary Clinton might not think small unmanned drones firing missiles into villages is terrorism, but it is pretty damned clear a lot of people in Pakistan would disagree with that assessment.
And I’m pretty damned sure if predator drones were flying over American cities firing missiles into populated areas and killing a bunch of innocents, Secretary Clinton and everyone else in the country would pretty quickly label it terrorism. Hell, if someone mails an unnamed white powder to someone, we freak out for a couple months. Let alone blowing up dozens of people every week.
Zifnab
It’s not terrorism if Americans don’t get hurt.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Sing it, Brother Cole.
The inability of many Americans to imagine themselves in the shoes of these people is truly depressing.
General Winfield Stuck
I can remember back when Clinton was sending Cruise Missiles into downtown Belgrade to target government buildings that ended up killing innocent civilians, that it was very wrong. The same goes for Israel bombing shelters or buildings full of civilians to kill a few terrorists hiding among them.
While this sort of thing may not technically be war crimes, due to the onus of war criminal being on those combatants doing the hiding behind civilians, it is still morally very wrong and should not happen.
I wish it would stop.
turnipblood
She’s just doing her best Margaret Thatcher, what can you expect? She thinks because she’s a woman, she’s supposed to be insensitive to brown people in mid-east countries being indiscriminately killed, otherwise she would be called “soft” on terrrism.
Seriously, we have drones killing people? I honestly had no idea.
geg6
Well, though I am very disturbed by these drone attacks and the collateral damage they cause, my question is what is your strategy for clearing out these places, then, John?
I’m not being snarky, just sincerely curious. I have no military background and I honestly don’t know what else they can do to get at some of these places in those regions with such horrible and forbidding terrain.
wilfred
I’ve been going about this for years. But you’re leaving an important part out. Wogs are not entitled to high-minded, whites only privileges like patriotism or some foreign power killing their women and children.
The wog is a senseless beast who hates us for our freedoms. He never hates us for anything we do because if we accepted that then we’d have to look at ourselves and consider the worth, morality and criminality of our actions.
Exceptionalism means never having to say you’re sorry.
SGEW
Additionally:
For what that’s worth.
(Via Jane Mayer at the New Yorker. Her previous article about drones here.
Ugh
This is what I have never understood about al Qaeda. They seem to think that what they need to do to hurt the U.S. is spectacular, 9/11-style attacks, when all they really need to do is send someone in to shoot up a random shopping mall once a week and all of America would come to a halt.
And the drone attacks need to stop, they’re creating more terrorists than they kill (assuming they ever do the latter).
PeakVT
Clinton is wrong, but then again she couldn’t have said anything else without throwing current strategy in the region (such as it is) into complete chaos. At no point can a SoS freelance.
Zifnab
@turnipblood:
They’re cheaper and deadlier than sending in actual soldiers. If a drone gets shot down, you just buy a new one – no US casualties. And civilian murder isn’t seen in nearly the negative light that another Haditha would be. It’s not twelve blood thirsty marines bursting into a house, lining women and children against a wall, and mowing them down with machine gun fire. It’s just an errant hellfire missile.
The Grand Panjandrum
The 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was considered a terrorist act. If instead of a civilian airliner they had used a truck bomb, would that have made it a legitimate attack against a military installation?
Jack
Thank you, John. You may or may not agree with Chris Floyd or Art Silber, but they have kept the spotlight on the moral implications of these actions, that any American president can order assassinations from above, kill non-combatants, and get away with it with the Village (not too surprising), the powers-that-be (to be expected), and the American people.
Roger Moore
No. It’s not terrorism. It’s a war crime.
The Moar You Know
It’s not terrorism. It’s collective punishment. After all, the damned darkies all know what their neighbors are doing, and if they don’t rat out the ones plotting to do evil onto
Der VaterlandThe Glorious And Infallible United States Of America, then they deserve to die like the dogs they are at the hands of a machine.Jack
@Ugh:
What AQ (the actual umbrella group, not the various freelancers whom are so identified by lazy “journalists” and venal bureaucrats) did was very, very successful: they dragged a continental empire, with a pre-existing tendency towards hegemonic overreach (given how it is ruled), directly into a conflict for which it was and is ill prepared, at much cost in lives and treasure.
valdivia
The Meyer interview in Fresh Air was great. There are *two* drone programs one by the army another one by the CIA. Her take is that the army one has been wildly successful but that the CIA one is not overseen and that the pakistanis are now giving the CIA targets that are not necessarily our enemies. She also tackles the problem of civilian casualties and what geg6 touches on: that short of this there is no way of clearing this areas. I highly recommend listening to the interview because she does give all the complexity of it, both good and bad. Something rare in a journalist.
wilfred
@General Winfield Stuck:
Uh-huh.
First casualty in war, etc. The lie transported to Af which is the size of Texas.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90006003
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@geg6:
I’m not John, but I think you miss the point.
The issue isn’t “OHNOESDRONES”. It’s the use of them without the express permission of
Major League Baseballthe Pakistani People. It’s jumping from “I’ll go in to kill bin Laden”, which is somewhat defensible, to the current ploy of having some airman many miles away kill people, time and again, without any insight to the process.Because no Americans die, we can do it over and again without the American people getting pissed off. But the collateral cost of doing this is rising, and is a major source of ongoing Taliban problems; every strike convinces the folks in the region that we, not the Terrorists, are The Enemy, and they sign on and collaborate accordingly.
And yes, I know the Pakistani government is…problematic. That’s why I referenced the people; our continuing failure in this region, as well as during Vietnam, was to think Firepower Trumps Opinions. That was true, to some extent, in the past, but a major lesson for the military in the 21th Century is the failure of that mode, for many complex reasons.
So you find ways to win local support for strikes, and/or to put more boots on the ground in the region. This sort of thing is literally what the Special forces are supposed to be doing, but with forces stretched to the breaking point, all too often they end up as fancy grunts. Moreover, we simply lack, as in Iraq, enough trained personnel to do the hard work of Intel in these regions.
And no, these are “solutions”. But over-use of drone strikes aren’t solving the actual problem. If they were, truly, “surgical” strikes, it’d be one thing. But they aren’t, and they are stripping tons of the local goodwill away that is the true “secret” to finding Bin Laden and putting a cap on these terrorist networks.
wilfred
And all going free; except for one, I think. Fog of war, etc/
Jack
@valdivia:
Several questions come to mind.
Why should we “clear the area?”
Isn’t that “clear the area” a bit of a bloody euphemism? Especially since it stands totem for “pacify a historically and pathologically unconquerable people and region?”
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: We could have closed the thread with the very first comment. Got it in one. (OK, maybe if it happens in England, it might be terrorism. Maybe).
Comrade Dread
Mr. Cole, if you weren’t a DFH, you would understand that American Exceptionalism means that when America does it, it’s not evil, if it is evil when other people do it.
Also, killing civilians is ‘collateral damage’, I mean, they’re only numbers, right? Not real people like us.
Jack
@Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill:
As better men have noted time and time again, Ho Chi Minh was never as well equipped, funded or supplied as the French or Americans.
Minionero
Funny how the image of unmanned drones patrolling the skies and raining death from above seems so much worse then just traditional airstrikes. Really, though, it’s the same thing. (Not that either of those are worth the civilian deaths.)
Ugh
Jack – yes of course 9/11 was very successful for AQ, I’m just saying they didn’t necessarily need to do that to inflict out-of-proportion harm to the US.
General Winfield Stuck
@wilfred:
Yes, I am sure your right that Hamas never hides amongst civilians. Though the point I was making broadly is that it doesn’t matter, Israel and the US should not target any target where civilians will certainly be killed, whether or not they believe militants are also present. Unless your alleging the US is just indiscriminately killing civilians on a whim.
Reason60
This is a perfect example of the mission creep that happens when you go into a war without a clear objective.
We began, as Woodrow notes, with a defensible objective- to capture the guy who killed a bunch of our people.
Since then, the war has widened to include the Taliban, who were not our enemy when we began, to become anyone who resists our efforts, to now be the Pakistanis, and as Matthew Hoh notes, will widen again to include the Somalis, Yemenis, and possibly the Iranians.
And for what? What possible threat do any of these people pose to America?
this notion that we need to secure Afghanistan to prevent the terrorists from plotting an attack is ripping nonsense. Most of the attacks were plotted in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and even New Jersey.
Yet no one at any level of authority seems to take into account the “blowback”- the number of enemies we are creating in killing scores of innocent villagers who didn’t care about us last week, but whose surviving kin are now our blood enemy.
This whole adventure is madness; we are creating our own enemies, then using their existence as a justification for more war, more battlefronts, more bombing raids.
wilfred
@PeakVT:
You don’t get it. You see, wogs love the Socratic Method, although they don’t call it that – it’s more dialectical with them. So I can imagine the field day they are having with this comment. Less to point out hypocrisy (pointless effort) than the ideological pattern thinking that Americans like to stand behind.
She’s a nobody speaking for Obama, as well they know. She’s probably incensed that that question was not edited out. Incidentally, Arab journalists always ask questions like this at Foggy Bottom press conferences but they are always edited out.
Jack
@Ugh:
Against Al Gore, perhaps not (this is not an endorsement of the Owl). But, they seem to have known their adversaries well enough: the GOP of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld was never, ever going to let a symbolic strike like that go.
The whole world knew the US was fishing for a reason to “finish” Iraq and get pipelines west of the Kush. AQ baited that trap and George the Lesser couldn’t keep out of it.
It was a grandiose attentat, which was why it worked so well against grandiose bloviators…
MattMinus
How long before we begin employing these drones domestically in the war on drugs?
Minionero
@General Winfield Stuck:
That’s probably true. Of course, the alternative is going door-to-door looking to identify individual militants and kill them while avoiding killing civilians. Something tells me that, even with that type of approach, there would still be a good deal of collateral damage.
Basically, if you’re trying to kill bad guys, there’s a pretty good chance (no matter what method of warfare you choose) that some non-bad guys are gonna get killed too.
wilfred
@General Winfield Stuck:
But we do, every day, and have done so for years in these and other countries. But it never stops. The good thing about threads like this is they can force people to ask themselves why exactly that is.
Oh, and read the Goldstone Report. The Harper’s comment is by Desmond Travers, who worked on it.
Jack
@Minionero:
Why should “we” be identifying militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Is there a reason we need to pacify these countries? Do we intend the sort of permanent Bagram residence that requires a domesticated populace?
wilfred
Thus 9/11 is also ‘probably true’. Certainly true in the case of the Pentagon attack which, after all, is a military institution. The World Trade Center housed the NY offices of the CIA, FBI, etc. Probably true, too?
Kevin Phillips Bong
At last, a subject I can cover with authority, as I’m one of the guys that flies the “drones”. So let me clarify some things: the MQ-1 and MQ-9 aren’t pilotless drones, they are in NO way autonomous. Everything the aircraft does it does in response to my control, just the same as a “piloted” aircraft, I’m just not sitting in it. All weapons employment in the Air Force UAV program is in support and under the control of trained personnel on the ground in theater. People on the ground getting shot at are requesting air support. Also understand that the ratio of target study and surveillance to actual shooting is extremely high. The CIA program operates under different rules of engagement, and targets are validated by other means, most of which are classified. This in no way excuses civilian casualties, and the effect of them on a successful counterinsurgency. The success of the UAV program at disrupting Taliban/Al Qaeda operations is documented, whether this justifies civilian casualties is an essential conversation to be had between US and Pakistani policy makers.
Jack
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
Is that discussion exclusive only to “US and Pakistani policy makers”?
Jack
@Reason60:
I am personally wary of Hoh, since he quite openly celebrates murdering Iraqis. And his criticism is not of grand US policy (a hegemonism he supports), but of policy management
General Winfield Stuck
@Minionero:
This is true. But like my complaint with how Clinton fought the Kosovo war becomes a moral question. Or, if you are going to make war on someone, is it right to use methods that while limiting the casualties of your soldiers, you also guarantee an increase in civilian casualties. It’s a tough question for any leader to decide, but as much as I would want our guys to be as safe as possible, I cannot swallow the consequences of causing more civilian deaths in order to do that. And that is what the drone attacks do.
In all laws of war that I know of, protecting civilians is paramount, except in total war situations like WW2, with the fighting to be done by combatants. The law makes exceptions when fighters from one side situate themselves among civilians. I cannot agree with this.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Minionero:
Exactly. And the drones are still being controlled by human beings, they’re just not sitting in the cockpit (whether that’s an overall positive or negative development is up for debate).
The problem is the policy (airstrikes against civilian targets), not the platform. We ceded Afghanistan and a good chunk of Pakistan to al Queda and the Taliban back in 2003; might as well admit that and go home.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I know, why don’t we take everybody who fails to act to stop this and throw them in jail for life. I mean, taking everybody who knows about this wanton disregard for due process, human life, and the suffering of others and fails to act to stop it, then throwing them in jail for life, is the least we can do, isn’t it?
DecidedFenceSitter
@MattMinus:
Matt, what is this future tense for using drones in the drug war?
Persia
@MattMinus: I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re already using them south of the border.
Maureen
@valdivia: Also, the New Yorker article in a recent issue (2 weeks ago maybe) indicates that many of the targets are being selected by the Pakistanis, in order to get them on board with the program.
RememberNovember
Unleash the great drone army! Wouldn’t it be so Dr. Who-ish to crack one open and find a cloned brain of Michelle Bachman in those things?
valdivia
@Maureen:
yeah the interview is about the article and she makes the same point and expands on it.
The clearing of the area has to do with the taliban and al queda controlling these parts, if one is fighting a war against them that would be the gold, clear and hold. That is my only point. I was not advocating for this one way or the other.
shabadoo
If you haven’t read the recent New Yorker article on the subject (SGEW linked it above as well) – do that.
JenJen
What are you talking about?! Bush/Cheney kept this country safe for hundreds of years.
Svensker
@Minionero:
Perhaps before we go around killing people, either door to door or from aerial drones, we should first ascertain if these people are any actual threat to us. And, if so, why are they a threat to us? Is there a situation in their lives that is causing them to behave in a manner we don’t approve? Is that situation solvable? If these people really are a direct threat, is there anything we can do besides killing them that will address the danger?
Maybe I’m too much of a Quaker, but most warfare and killing seems to me to just beget more anger and more violence and more warfare. People seem to find it extremely easy to reach for a gun, and very difficult to put on other people’s shoes and think before they act.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Drone bombers were invented for the same reason that “enhanced interrogation” was invented, namely, so that morally repugnant acts could be committed under the guise of moral acceptability. As such, one could argue that “enhanced interrogation” and drone bombers are more heinous than torture and traditional airstrikes.
John Cole
I don’t have a solution other than withdrawal, which is what I am currently under the belief is the best option.
But even then, what I think does not matter. I am under no obligation to come up with a replacement strategy, while I have every obligation in the world to speak up about immoral practices being conducted in my name. Our collective obligation should be to stop the killing, not to come up with a replacement plan.
Kevin Phillips Bong
I agree with Cole, there’s no politically or economically viable way to convert Afghanistan to a functioning nation, the infrastructure is in place to deal with any training camps that spring up, let’s declare victory and go home. We have no vested interest in a continued Afghan presence.
inkadu
@Reason60: this notion that we need to secure Afghanistan to prevent the terrorists from plotting an attack is ripping nonsense. Most of the attacks were plotted in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and even New Jersey.
To be fair, we’ve been at war with New Jersey since Bon Jovi’s first album.
gnomedad
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Imagining yourself in the shoes of others, especially furriners, has never been an American strong point, but for the past several years, it has been regarded as an act of treason.
Unless, of course, the shoes are imagined to be aboard an runaway balloon.
Morbo
http://xkcd.com/652/
That is all.
Maude
I have a problem with the SoS speaking as she did in Pakistan.
She scolded the Pakistani government for not finding Al Q.
Did Bush find Bin Ladin?
Pakistan has been having a time fighting extremists.
The drones are terrorism. That is, if you are on the receiving end.
Clinton does ad lib.
Can you imagine President Obama saying those things?
This stuff is all about Clinton and her self image. She plays tough girl when it suits.
The US ambassador has been left holding the bag from Clinton’s visit. She has tried to soften what was said and not doing well at it. It’s too late.
I really, really want Obama to fire Clinton and get someone competent in there.
MBunge
John Cole – “I am under no obligation to come up with a replacement strategy, while I have every obligation in the world to speak up about immoral practices being conducted in my name.”
Uh, no. If you’re objecting to something being done in your name, you are morally and ethically required to have some sort of alternative. That’s the difference between being a whiny little pussy and a citizen of a democracy.
Mike
Cris
Ron Paul agrees.
slag
It’s hard for me to see how killing innocent people isn’t both morally wrong and counterproductive to the cause of getting Osama and dismantling AQ. But I don’t know what would be productive. I generally don’t believe in hopeless situations, but this one is severely challenging that inclination.
yeayeah
Just enter the US officials and all enemy officials into a fighting ring and let them go knuckles to knuckles for a week to see who wins…this will rid of all the angers and hatred we have upon one another
Malron
Definitely not helping win the hearts and minds.
Pakistan is very problematic in more ways than one. Its hard to get the trust of a country that would rather believe India is bombing itself to make Pakistan look bad.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@MBunge:
Man, where did you hook up with that logic?
If nothing else, Cole gave his alternative — GTFO of AfPak. And even if he’d not, there’s no way in the world he should have to tell grown adults — leaders, no less – that what they are doing is illegal and immoral.
Aside from my visceral hate of the term “pussy” as a derogative, the point remains that every citizen has the right to say “no”, and to demand an alternative solution be found by people with more knowledge on the opinions available. John, like me and (if you’re a US Citizen) you, pays taxes in part to hire people who should think these things through. It’s no more his job to tell them what to do than it is for me to tell my power company to give me the best service possible; it’s Part of their Jobs.
Svensker
@MBunge:
How does that work? I objected — strenuously — to our war on Iraq. My country went ahead and fucked up Iraq real good. I believe that we should get the hell out of Iraq now, although I know there will be consequences both for us and for the Iraqi people. Are you saying we CANNOT get out of Iraq until I figure out a way to do it smoothly? Or are you saying that I am not allowed to advocate for pulling out of Iraq until I come up with a way to do it without a hitch?
I object to torture. Does that mean I may not object unless…. unless what?
Svensker
Why the heck am I in moderation?
geg6
@John Cole:
Well, I guess I was hoping you had some wisdom to impart based on military knowledge.
And I guess I need to study up on this more. My understanding is that we are at war with the Taliban and AQ. And that both organizations are entrenched in the forbidding mountainous areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan (but AQ now mainly in Pakistan and the Taliban in some border territories Pakistan has basically ceded to them in addition to a resurgence in Afghanistan). It is also my understanding that the military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan are of unreliable loyalty and cannot be counted on to help root these people out. In addition, that the US does not have the troops required to root them out the traditional way even if we drafted every able-bodied man and woman under the age of 40. And that this is an area that has defeated bigger and smarter empires than ours over the course of thousands of years. And that one of their goals is to de-stabilize Pakistan, a nuclear power, enough to bring in their own radical government and thus terrorize the world on a larger scale than anyone wants. So I can see good reasons for the necessity for doing something there if this is all pretty much correct. And from what I’ve read, the military drone program is actually pretty good, with not nearly as many civilian casualties as the CIA one.
Is the argument that there are better ways to achieve the goal of keeping AQ and the Taliban from taking over Pakistan, risking nuclear war with India or is the argument that we have no vested interests in Pakistan or, by extension, India and Afghanistan?
Again, just asking, not editorializing. I am curious and want to understand.
aimai
I agree with Maude at 55. There was no excuse for Clinton deciding to use the scolding voice with Pakistan. We know that inside Pakistan the view looks (as it should) very different from outside Pakistan. That’s the problem we’re having. Pakistan’s civilian population doesn’t believe that Al Quaeda and the Taliban are the problem, they think India and the US are the problem. Scolding them won’t change that perspective. Sympathizing with them, spending more money on civilian projects, helping refugees, and offering discreet military aid are the right way to go. You want to complain to the military about how its been doing its job, fine. But you do that privately. The public event that was clinton going on public TV and speaking as the representative of the Us should have been crafted to win over popular civilian attention and affection. She never should have taken the Pakistani military to task and she should have been prepared (with the agreement of our own military) to offer to discontinue the use of the drones at once.
We know that this kill ratio and the seemingly random and brutal attacks by this unaccountable form of bombing are a huge source of righteous rage by civilian populations in these countries. For every drone strike we are building new enemies. Its time to discontinue them for our own sake as well as the sake of the innocent lives that we are trampling and damaging. Clinton should have been prepared for the hostility over this issue. The pakistani civilians may not have great information about US plans and intentions but Clinton should have had better information about the pakistani civilian perspective.
aimai
BombIranForChrist
I think you’re right John, and it’s also true that Pakistani’s know exactly where the terrorists are. Frankly, I am glad Clinton smacked them down a bit. Pakistanis have blood on their hands too, and no amount of self-righteous posturing will cleanse it.
wilfred
This from the NYT article:
Star power. More like a would be Empress with no clothes. Wogs saw right through it.
Wapiti
@MattMinus:
mmm. I’d guess some fraction of the CIA Predator strikes are being used in the War on Drugs. Well, used against drug lords that compete with the CIA-payroll drug lords, of course.
PeakVT
@geg6: Following from your question are a few more: What’s the likelihood of a Taliban takeover of Pakistan absent overt American intervention in the region? If intervention were to lower the risk, by how much and at what price? Can we actually afford the price in light of the ginormous holes in America’s public and private finances? What are the opportunity costs of spending money in Afghanistan. And so on. There’s a matrix of questions to be answered, and none of them are really binary.
Chuck Butcher
@John Cole:
Unless I’m mistaken, you were a tanker weren’t you? That HE shell is discriminating? Reaching out without getting yourself killed is one of the points of tanks, these are the same thing, they are the same thing as bombers, snipers, rifles, etc in that regard. You do this shit with swords and it gets a lot more personal and a lot less “indiscriminate.” It is still a bloody mess and applying the term moral to it seems to me a reach, I might get along with less immoral, but it seems the rules cover completely indiscriminate weaponry.
I am afraid the time where something resembling success in Afghanistan could happen passed under GWB. I do not know this, but it sure looks that way to me.
I do not know the actual operative vetting process used in all attacks – drones, tanks, air strikes, artillery, sniper, etc. Whatever actually happens there will be mistakes, there will be (ugly word) collateral damage, there will be some successes. Breaking and smashing things and people is inevitably a fucked-up business, wishing it weren’t is silly and helps justify its further use rather than diplomacy. It rightfully should be regarded with horror and as something to be avoided as a horror. Unfortunately, warfare does have its uses and necessities.
tavella
A number of people have linked to the New Yorker article, and I join the recommendation. My biggest takeaway was that the target lists were being prepared using the same methods, and the same lack of quality control or accountability, that were used to throw people into Guantanamo. And we know how inaccurate *that* was, and how many innocent people were subjected, *are* being subjected to, years of torment and even death because of that, people who were taxi drivers or foreigners or the target of someone’s feud.
Paul in KY
Chuck Butcher, these drone strikes (the ones in Pakistan anyway) are not on any kind of recognized battlefield where the weapons you mentioned would normally be used. They get info on some suspected Taliban or Al Qaida (dudes with weapons driving around somewhere in the tribal areas) and they will see them go into someone’s hut & here comes the missile. It wipes out the guys with the weapons (who might or might not be Al Qaida/Taliban) & also the poor schmuck & his family who were unlucky enough to get a visit from these guys.
You can’t assume that every person or shanty they visit has anything to do with Al Qaida/Taliban.
I’m sure some of our drone strikes are completely legitimate. It’s just that these f**ked up ones are like an ‘aw shit’, which wipes out 600 ‘attaboys’.
Jack
@Chuck Butcher:
It’s not the primary vein of thought in Van Creveld’s ToW, but it’s an undercurrent which informs near every page: war is horror.
We may be a fratricidal species, as species go, but we still have to learn warfare. It is taught. Studied. Applied.
With that in mind, I have sons who will never be sent to that meatgrinder for any State, company or cause. Not one. Not ever.
I’ve taught them to examine their choices, to speak their errors and desires aloud. To speak the truth, out loud.
And the truth is sometimes a question: Who does war benefit? Cui bono?
Smedley Butler had something to say about that:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
Drones or no – we should perhaps examine who benefits from this war. Who gets the dollar, at the beginning, middle and end of it?
Minionero
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.) 40: LOL
Really? Seems to me that drones were developed to eliminate the risk of having pilots shot down. Smart munitions, on the other hand, were developed to increase accuracy and reduce the potential for civilian deaths. It doesn’t matter whether they are dropped from a manned or unmanned aircraft, morally speaking.
Shawn in ShowMe
So, let’s say Obama calls off the drone strikes and goes all in on a diplomatic solution. You’ve got a corrupt Pakistani government and practically no CIA intelligence. What would a diplomatic solution look like ?
Jack
@Shawn in ShowMe:
First, you (general, plural) have to identify the problem you propose to solve. What problem is it we’re discussing, which must be solved?
Minionero
@MBunge:
To be fair, John has proposed an alternative: withdrawal. Insofar as our goal is to prevent the Taliban from gaining control of the area (and granting Al Qaeda a safe haven there), this might very well be the least worst option.
Chuck Butcher
@Jack:
I make no claims to being a pacifist, I do try to be intelligent and reluctant to endorse force as a solution. Sometimes it is the solution. During ‘Nam because I am not a pacifist I was faced with the potential of jail due to my judgement – that’s the cost of reason. Blanket denial of the state’s meat grinder may feel good but it does not meet reason’s requirements. That establishment is a scarey thing and it should be but its entire lack would be even scarier and more dangerous in an imperfect world of armed people.
I am armed for that reason, and maintain a complete distaste for having to use one on a human and a willingness to do so if forced to.
Shawn in ShowMe
For the sake of argument, let’s say the problem is how do you disrupt Al Quaeda’s operations?
itsbenj
everyone should read Jane Mayer’s piece from the New Yorker about predator drones. and if you can, listen to Terri Gross interview her on Fresh Air as well, from a few days back.
it’s absolutely sickening stuff.
she sites one example of who exactly are piloting the drones. and you know what? it’s barely literate 19 year old kids who grew up playing a lot of video games. that’s who ‘excels’ at doing this killing from afar.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
In part, and I am shocked that you don’t recognize the obvious moral repugnance of such a development.
“Smart” munitions were developed because they make very good theater. American officials obviously don’t care about potential victims, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands killed as a direct consequence of Empire expansion over the last decade, “smart” munitions or no.
Little Macayla's Friend
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
Thanks for a firsthand view. My question is to verify figures I’ve read before with regard to counter-arguments about ‘pinpoint accuracy’. Assuming it’s public knowledge (e.g. Jane’s?), is there a minimum blast radius for the typical drone used? A source that can be cited?
Chuck Butcher
@Paul in KY:
A battlefield is where you are fighting, not some imaginary line on a map. I don’t like anything about the current war in Af/Pak but if you’re going to kill people you do it at the least risk to yourself. My point was that there are no tools for doing that which are more discriminating. You maintain your opposition to drones on the basis of intelligence and expect me to take that seriously? In your objection the area to be addressed is itelligence not drones.
I’ve watched this debate for over a year and I find that the most basic objection to drones is that it is “easy,” rather than an analysis of available tools. I don’t like collateral damage and much of it is counter-productive, it is also the inevitable consequence of military action. The idea that it is not a necessary consequence of the utilization of military force is to minimize the horror of its use. We got that crap in “Shock and Awe” and I objected at the time and continue to do so. But I’ll be damned if I’ll stand still while people demand outcomes and ignore the costs involved and try to feel good about it.
The argument about terrorism is part and parcel, war is terrorism – fucking period. AQ used the tools available to it and we’re using the tools available – and it is terrorism. War is intended to make it very dangerous to oppose our ends in engaging in it – terrorism. WTF? There is a difference in the methodology of deliberately targeting civilians and trying to get military ones but that is of no consequence to those caught in it. The fact that warfare is a nasty brutal affair doesn’t mean there’s no reason not to try to limit some of that but it doesn’t change that.
Nuclear Pakistan has scared me from the time they and India went that way, but that is what we have to deal with. They’re not going to get rid of the nukes and in search of a crippled Afghanistan they’ve bought their trouble with AQ and the Taliban and sucked us into it. I’d sure like to do something different – ok, what?
Jack
@Shawn in ShowMe:
First, by not making their worldview valid. “AQ” spokesman says, “America is Crusader nation.”
We should probably not play into that by building modern Crusader Strongholds (Bagram, Green Zone, etc) from which to strike at people who had regional issues into we turned them, with our bombs and occupations, into internationalists.
dave
Does anyone think there would be less collateral damage if we went in with a ground invasion? Yeah, it sucks, but what’s the alternative? The head honcho they got a couple of weeks ago that opens the Mayer article was responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths. Either we stay there and fight, with obvious consequences, or we pull out and leave it alone.
What isn’t fair is sitting back and proclaiming that there is no threat there in Af-Pak. There is, and it threatens not just Afghanistan but a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Chuck Butcher
@Jack:
Yes. But. AQ is not in the least interested in us being an honest broker in the ME. We could cut into their support and we could improve our standing there but we’re not going get away from the reality of killing or imprisoning/trying AQ. The Taliban is probably a mixed bag. That involves the use of force and we’re right back in that mess regarding tools.
Chuck Butcher
Wilfred stamps his feet and cries racism, I don’t give a good goddam if it is white Christians or green Martians, the object in military force is that the other guy does the dying. Our version of diplomacy has sucked eggs, but the military in all nations/groups does exactly the same thing, try to make the loss someone elses. Fuck you Wilfred, AQ achieved a casualty ratio somewhere around 500:1 on 9/11 and that was their aim just as the drones are a similar aim.
Cassidy
Oh well. Price for harboring Taliban and AQI.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@itsbenj: Both my bachelor’s and my master’s degree are from high end universities. All Air Force UAV pilots are officers, no 19 year old video gamers. The CIA pilots are similarly credentialed. The Army is flying their UAVs with enlisted troops, but their aircraft do not do Pakistan operations. Check your facts.
@Little Macayla’s Friend: Look up unclassified info on GBU-12 laser guided bombs and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, those are the two weapons being used. The GBU-12 will hit within 20′ of the laser spot, the Hellfire will generally hit within 10′. Hellfire was not designed as an antipersonnel weapon, I’ve seen intended targets get up and walk away from near-miss Hellfire strikes. The published instances of 100 civilians being killed in UAV strikes were either cases of multiple weapons being employed on erroneous targets, or greatly inflated casualty reports.
Tim I
John, I hate to disagree, but we are fighting a war. Usually in a war, one tries to kill the enemy – especially their leadership. Now the attacks in Pakistan are a little dicey, but they are occurring with at least the tacit support of the Pakistani Government and military. We are trying to kill the guys who planted the bombs in the markets in Peshawar and Lahore, so that they don’t kill more Pakistani civilians.
The drones aren’t randomly bombing the population is order to terrorize it. They are seeking to pinpoint the enemy, but that is an inexact science which we are getting better at. For crissakes, we bombed every city in Germant and Japan to the ground in WW II. That was much more closely related to terrorism than dropping precision munitions on suspected terrorists.
Would the Pakistani’s prefer that we just pull out stop providing them with billions in aid and see what happens?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Tim I:
So, the bottom line for you is that aerial warfare is terrorism, but that it’s okay now because we are being more careful to “pinpoint the enemy.”
The fact is that aerial bombardment of civilian populations is a form of terrorism and always has been. The fact that we have allowed war interests to frame the language doesn’t change the facts. What difference does it make to the bombed persons whether the bomb fell out of an airplane, or was strapped onto a person? The morality is tied to the delivery system?
PaulB
@Tim I:
Considering that both have protested, publicly and privately, I’m not sure that this statement is true.
Why is that our responsibility?
We were in a declared war with both Germany and Japan. Are we at war with Pakistan?
Actually, I suspect the answer is yes, they would, just as we would under the reverse circumstances.
Shawn in ShowMe
Absolutely, but if you want to disrupt Al Quaeda’s operations, what is the alternative?
PaulB
@dave:
Leave.
TheHatOnMyCat
@dave:
The alternative is to avoid the war.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I would say that if the population views drones as terror weapons then they are terror weapons. Just as you viewed the 9/11 airplanes as terror weapons rather than instruments of Allah’s will, or whatever euphemisms the hijackers used.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Sorry, that just strikes me as an idiotic question.
Your question presupposes that the only available response to 911 is to perform in-kind acts of terrorism against some adversary. The “disrupt Al Qaeda” clause is just a deception, a conceit. There is no evidence that we have the means to disrupt Al Qaeda in some organized, efficient manner with predictable results. The idea that there is such a means is a creature of tv shows like “24.” It’s a bullshit idea. Going into Afghanistan was not going to cure the Al Qaeda problem any more than going into Iraq was going to do so. It was an ill considered response and never had a strong chance of “solving” that problem in the first place. It was the response of a nation with a big hammer that thought terrorism was just another nail.
Shawn in ShowMe
@PaulB
OK, we leave. What are the repercussions of allowing Al Quaeda free reign in a nuclear Pakistan?
TheHatOnMyCat
Maybe if Obama had a time machine.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Well, we don’t have a time machine, unless we consider the zombie rants of Dick Cheney to qualify as a sort of time machine.
Shawn in ShowMe
Actually my question presupposes that our government’s only response would be to perform in-kind acts of terrorism against some adversary.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@Bruce: I’ll leave the ideological conversations for a more effective medium, but I will say the difference between the US and a terrorist organization is the terrorist intentionally targets civilian populations to create fear and thus political pressure. Historically this doesn’t work very well but that hasn’t stopped things. At no time does the US intentionally target non-combatants, in fact we go to great lengths to avoid it. One of the benefits of UAVs, in addition to being designed to wallpaper over moral/ethical issues, is their ability to stay unobserved in the target area for long periods of time to track their intended target until destroying he/she/it poses the minimum risk to uninvolved civilians. Every non-combatant harmed is a tragedy, but really the whole war is if you think about it.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Correction noted and point taken.
Chuck Butcher
What we call terrorism today is warfare by “non-state” entities with limited means against primarily civilian targets. Their limited means drive the tools they use and the targets chosen. We are a state and we have extensive means, we choose targets a bit more carefully. The end result of either is that people and things get harmed with the end of making it dangerous to oppose either. If an exercise in instilling fear in the opposition is terrorism, both sides engage in it.
We have a bit higher expectations of the targeting by states and their political capital as states lends credibility to their actions. Regardless, the outcome is destruction and fear and that is the desired outcome. When the argument devolves into a cat fight over the tools we’re using it becomes stupid. Arguments about intelligence and diplomacy make a lot of sense.
I don’t have a solution for what is happening in Af/Pak other than get out or do it smart. As best I can tell, GWB had about a 2 year window to do something useful in Afghanistan and blew that. Now what, is a real problem.
Yes THOMC, initially AQ was concentrated and available and yes, killing them was a good idea. Now, I don’t know.
Tim I
The general consensus seems to be that we should withdraw from Af/Pak. I don’t disagree, but i do think there is an enormous risk that AQ and their Taliban allies will prevail against the weak and corrupt regimes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan is clearly the scarier possibility.
What do we do if AQ succeeds in getting control over Pakistan’s nukes? That would lead to a much bloodier struggle, I suspect. But I tend to agree that this may happen whether we stay or not and I think we might be increasing the support for the Taliban by our very presence there.
I don’t think drones are a particular moral problem. I don’t think that our withdrawl is going to lessen AQ’s desire to kill as many Americans as they can and that long term, we are going to be engaged in a very long, asymmetrical war with Al Queda and similar groups. Disrupting their chain of command and denying them safe havens, is going to be a major part of our strategy as we have few other options.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Getting to your first question in this post, can we draw even a crooked, dotted line between our occupation of Afghanistan and the situation in Pakistan? I am not saying, a line that “can be drawn” if we give ourselves enough paper and enough pencils, I am asking if a line that is practical, understandable to the American man and woman on the street, and to the international community, and to the various powers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, can be drawn?
It’s a rhetorical question, I don’t think we know the answer for sure, nor do I think we have a cover answer that works if the real answer is not available. Which means to me, we should get out of Afghanistan.
Thoughts?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Chuck Butcher:
I understand the rationale for your latter statement, CB. I was going along with it in 2002 and even defended it on these pages as late as 2005. Now, I think I was wrong, and that the strategy was a mistake.
I don’t think that a “war on terror” can be waged by conventional warfare means. I think that’s a delusion, and it’s the principal reason for the abject failure of the Bush II policies in the previous administration.
Bob Carstensen
IOKIYAA
Maude
What has worked recently is law enforcement in preventing terrorist attacks. It would have worked after 9/11. But no, Barbaric Bush had to shed blood and play hero.
Clinton sounded like Bush and Cheney.
She was informed on the damage and human suffering caused by the US in Pakistan. The trip was slated to heal some of the fracture between the 2 countries. Well, that didn’t happen.
Killing innocent people is wrong no matter what excuses are given.
We are not the British Raj. Those days are long over.
Obama can lose his credibility if he allows Clinton to create hostility toward the US.
BTW-the president conducts foreign policy, not Mr. Cole.
It helps to air these issues and discuss them.
Shawn in ShowMe
Don’t get idealist on my now, Hat. The government doesn’t military decisions based on the average person’s ability to grasp the rationale behind it. They make the decision based on their own internal political calculus and propagandize the public later.
So that leaves the leadership in the international community and the powers in Af/Pak. Can you draw a line that would be satisfactory to all parties involved? I don’t think so. The Pakistani government doesn’t view Al Quaeda the same way we do.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I think we are in agreement.
Dr B
The trouble here is that
soonnow the Demswill beare the ones committing atrocities, and the dem leadership will expect their base to accept it.The base will not do that.
redstar
People, Peshawar is not a village, it’s about the size of Metro Cleveland, with good parts of town, bad parts of town, many historical sites and a damn good golf course and decent University.
We’re not talking about some little village those drones killed a hundred or so civilians in. It was downtown fucking Cleveland where those drones killed many women and children, among the dead, on a city bus.
Good luck getting Pakistan on board in the so-called GWOT that I thought Obama was supposed to end.
Nice job Hillary, and nice job Obama administration. Weren’t you people supposed to change all this?
General Winfield Stuck
@redstar:
Actually no, Obama campaigned consistently on fighting the GWOT and to continue the fighting in Afgan/Pak in particular. Your wanking needs better aim dude.
Ash Can
I’m glad that the people in Pakistan were getting in Clinton’s face over this issue. Hopefully it’ll effect changes; hopefully Obama isn’t too cowed by the RW assholes among the military leadership — or, heaven forbid, too convinced that this is the correct course of action — to do something about it.
sully 18
Americans have been slowly traumatized by the media into lowering the baseline tolerance for violence since the1950s.the fact that the whole country was not up in arms over Bush`s mandate for torture as well as the crappy performance of our media during the lead up to the Iraq invasion,are proof of my hypothesis.
America is not the great country it once was.Along with the lowering of the baseline tolerance for violence we have also lowered our sense of honor and humanity.Greed is the culprit in this case.
Jack
@Chuck Butcher:
AQ may not care. They also aren’t a player in the shitty game of states.
Tim I
@ redstar
When was there ever a drone attack in Peshawar? Or for that matter a drone attack that killed hundreds of people. Hellfires are relatively small munitions originally intended to destroy a single piece of enemy armor – a tank or Armored Personnel arrier.
Jen R
wilfred, any chance you could stop using ethnic slurs? That would be helpful.
wilfred
@Jen R:
They’re not meant as slurs; religiously at least I’m one of the very people I’m calling wogs. Think of it as a trope to call attention to how these people are really seen. Nothing has changed since colonial times.
The fact remains that the only people being killed these days are Muslims.
Chuck Butcher
@wilfred:
You are a racist/theocratic asshole. Lots of non-Muslims are getting killed also, mostly by “Muslims” and a whole lot of Muslims are getting killed by “Muslims.” Maybe you missed the part in Iraq where the last few yrs most of the killing was M v M?
We certainly do have a propensity for screwing with brown people, but let’s just not decide to ignore those brown people’s tendency to atrocities on other brown people just to satisfy your racism.
Chuck Butcher
@TheHatOnMyCat:
I don’t believe I indicated such a course. As I said, in 02 they were concentrated and available, which makes something more nearly conventional workable. I certainly don’t believe the conventional take and hold strategy is workable in a place like Af/Pak for us – especially in the face of irregulars.
@Jack:
What the hell is your point? That they don’t need killing? Or that a military isn’t required? Or that they are somehow superior to a state?
Oh yes they are a player in the shitty game of states, they kill their way in. Did you miss that part? The part where they wanted something from a state to be enforced by their version of military action?
wilfred
@Chuck Butcher:
I usually don’t much attention to terminally depressed, negative, drunk fools who pass themselves off as leftists, but in this case I’ll make an exception.
All you see is an ‘event’ – 9/11, drones, recessions. Because of this you look away, preferring segments and sections to formulate what you think is an opinion. If you looked at larger wholes, like just what the fuck we are doing making war throughout the Muslim world, undertaking rendtions, torture and maintaining secret prisons to hold Muslims, and only Muslims, you’d have to ask your pathetic self questions that would lead to political and social realities you just can’t deal with. Hence your reaction to Cole’s recognition of moral responisbility. You’ve got nothing to add except nonsense about moral expediency.
I called your false leftist shit before, I’ll do it again. A leftist stands against moral terror and imperialism. You’re a Deeomcrat Chuck, all you care about is your government paying for a new liver and new set of uppers.
Save your tough guy bullshit for someone who gives a shit. I’m in that part of the world to prove that all Americans are not piss-stain scumbags like yourself.
Notgoingtotellyou
I am a Pakistani. I live in Peshawar. One of your drones murdered my older brother who happened to be up North as part of an NGO team trying to bring relief to the million YOU have displaced. Another one of my uncles is in Bagram because to you, a beard means “terrorist”. And thanks to your Nobel-prize winning president, he can never challenge his detention. I am on the receiving end of your genocide on my people.
I am posting what another Pakistani wrote to a friend of mine when he showed him this post. I don’t care what any of you have to say after that, but I will not allow you to get away in your bubbles without experiencing first hand what some of victims actually think.
This is my only post.
He writes:
***
A blog is one thing, but government politics are another. It is clear that Hilary and Obama are perfectly fine with carrying on Bush and Condi’s legacy. And besides, you’ll notice there are plenty of ardent defenders of the genocide who, like Anne Coulter, are content to say, “That’s war” while sitting in their WASP-town suburbia homes.
What infuriates me more than anything else is people who have the gall to refer to this as “war”. Do they call the Holocaust a war? No. Because that was wasn’t war, it was one of the most cold-blooded genocides in history. Ironically, one of my Jewish friends is arguing on my behalf with his stepfather whose parents were Holocaust survivors, unto which I say: Laanat (an Urdu word that I really can’t translate… “Disgrace” wouldn’t really be accurate, it’s much more intense) on you twice for being personally connected to such an event and still condoning a repeat of history.
This is our Holocaust. They can deny it all their like and make up their bullshit excuses, but I’d love to see them say the same if we decided to hunt American terrorists like George Bush and Condoleezza Rice (who, rather than suffering for what they have done get cushy retirement plans).
I had an encounter with someone I am unfortunate enough to know- he attended college with me and during the middle of spewing his puerile garbage, mentioned that there was an actual lobby of American soldiers parents, which petitions for and encourages drone use so that their soldier children do not get send into combat.
This is one of the many I referred to your friend on the blog (and I hope he reads this) as a Herrenvolk adherent (or to be more blunt, a Nazi). That is what he is to us. It’s fine to condemn thousands of faceless civilian gooks, wogs, ragheads, chinks and niggers to death since *clearly* they aren’t human because they aren’t white American soldiers.
Am I being harsh and offending people? Tough. For supporters (obviously not you) reading this- you seem intent to skinning us alive, so you’ll get it cold and raw, as you’ve given it to us.
I actually watched the interview on TV (the person who confronted her with that particular question is a friend) and had to shut the TV due to my anger when she gave her response.
I guess all I have to say in the end to those of you (and obviously I am not saying this to you) who support this practice is: May you never be the ones on the receiving end of a Nazi’s trigger- most of us will still be trying to rebuild our homes from the ashes you reduced them to. Yes, you. Not your soldiers- they are merely your tools.
Thanks anyways. You may want to consider reading “Descent into Chaos”. The author is a very close family friend. I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but it at least gives some insight into what’s been happening.
By the way, check out the link I posted about Layla Anwar- not one of her articles but an article about her. If you don’t want to post what she writes, then at least show the article to others.
***
racetoinfinity
And Obama just affirmed that he believes in American exceptionalism (!) Change you can’t believe in, because it didn’t happen.