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| The Silence of the Drones |
| 2013-02-11 |
| In times of war, the law is not silent. War is not a moral wilderness: At the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the use of the crossbow was banned among European knights. Throughout history, there have been codes that even the hell of war could not override. I own up to being conflicted about the use of drone strikes. Those 19 young Arabs who struck the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, shredded the old notions and rules of war, erased the line between combatants and noncombatants, brought soot and ruin onto American soil. Our country had to be made ready for this new kind of war. We waged big military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the terrorists waged a twilight war of their own, bereft of scruples and limits. There would be no treaty of surrender we could enforce, no capital city to be subdued. Chased from Afghanistan, they turned up in Yemen and Somalia. They were soldiers of the catacombs, and they thrived in ungoverned spaces. Targeted killing was the response of a great military power to the frustrations of this “asymmetrical” war. We didn’t know that larger world of Islam from which this war arose. We were sandbagged by regimes and rulers that feigned friendship with us as they winked at the terror that came our way. What was one to make of the New Mexico-born radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki inciting his devotees to a holy war -- all in good Americanese? He wore no uniform, slipped into the badlands of his ancestral Yemen and mastered the new means of communication. Awlaki’s Fate In the strict legalism of things he was an American citizen, but he bore this country a deadly animus. No tears need be shed for him. The strike that killed him, in Yemen in September 2011, was a deed of just retribution. Presidential spokesman Jay Carney’s defense of the drone strikes as legal, ethical and wise can stand in the case of Awlaki. The executive had been granted broad powers under the Authorization for Use of Military Force in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and two presidents were given the leeway to prosecute this war on terrorism. In truth, the public didn’t want to look too closely into the doings of our government. We left it to our intelligence agencies and our military to keep us safe. But there came a time -- after the doings of the night shift at Abu Ghraib became public -- when the writ granted our officials was withdrawn. Liberals declared an all-out ideological war against the administration of George W. Bush. The horror, the horror: The renditions and the enhanced interrogation techniques and, yes, the 50 or so drone strikes used during the Bush years became, to the liberals, a matter of national shame. A rising politician in the Democratic Party, a former teacher of constitutional law at the University of Chicago at that, rode this sense of outrage to the pinnacle of political power. He posed as a moralist. Barack Obama was certain that rendition and waterboarding and the prison at Guantanamo Bay were recruiting tools of the jihadis. We had sullied America’s reputation in lands beyond, and he would heal the damage. Our practices had run afoul of time-tested traditions and institutions, and in his stewardship, he promised, our values would again be a compass for our deeds abroad. In hindsight, the great reckoning for Obama came at the end of the first year of his presidency. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian, a disciple of Awlaki, came close to bringing down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. It was farewell to Kumbaya foreign policy: The world was a menacing place. Against the background of the stirring Obama oratory, and the euphoric claim that the president’s personal biography was a bridge to the world of Islam, the young Nigerian could have snuffed out the promise of the Obama presidency. From that close call, the president emerged a determined leader in the war on terrorism. Stealth War He had his trusted aide, John Brennan, in a windowless office in the White House, and Brennan knew the world of intelligence and terrorism. He knew the Arabian Peninsula, as he had served as an intelligence officer in Saudi Arabia -- a country where secrets and things unacknowledged are the coin of the realm. Together the president and the spook oversaw a stealth war, and the president became his own targeting officer. (Obama going over kill lists recalls President Lyndon Johnson’s poring over the map of Khe Sanh in search of bombing targets in Vietnam; the marked difference is the anguish of LBJ, and by the telling, the serene confidence of Obama that this is a war of necessity and a just campaign.) The drone strikes were the choice of a president who had given up on winning “hearts and minds” in the North-West Frontier of Pakistan. Secure in the knowledge that he can’t be outflanked from the right by the Republicans, Obama served up a policy that was economical -- and remote. Congress didn’t intrude, and save for the purists at the American Civil Liberties Union, there was no powerful intellectual lobby calling for accountability. The passion had drained out of the progressives who had hounded Bush, Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby. Brennan had to step aside once when he was put up to head the Central Intelligence Agency, as a man tainted with the Bush legacy. His confirmation is certain this time around. There remains the discrepancy between an extensive campaign of drones and a passive foreign policy that maintains -- the president’s very words -- that an era of war is ending. Forgive those Syrians left at the mercy of their dictator’s cruel war: It is hard to explain to them why those drones don’t somehow find their way to Bashar al-Assad’s bunker. We do anti- terrorism. Wars of rescue are not an American specialty nowadays. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #6 #3 How good is the intelligence that enables the targeting of a particular individual. How good is the ability to identify a person from a drone? I don't know--just asking? Persistent Surveillance imagery [Single Source Intelligence derived from a UAV] must generally be combined with other intelligence disciplines to make positive identifications of the kind you are inquiring. Example: If Muktar rides a red Honda motorcycle and is known to visit his uncle's house [at a known location] on a certain day of the week, at a certain time, a so-called "pattern of life" can be developed. If Human Intelligence Sources [HUMINT] reports that Muktar's uncle is expecting him to visit today, and he actually does, then your Pattern of Life on Muktar has enjoyed a 'one time' validation. If over time you record multiple visits by Muktar to his uncle, validated by multiple HUMINT reports, and a similar number of sightings from a drone..... your pattern of life becomes both accurate and predictable. If, in addition of HUMINT reporting and UAV or Drone Imagery, other Special Intelligence reporting can be linked to Muktar's visits, then you have Positive Identification via Multiple Sources. Your reporting can now be classified as Actionable Intelligence. Generally speaking, Positive Identification requires multiple intelligence or All Source reporting. An exception might be Muktar leaving his uncle's house and riding to a cave where he meets two other armed personnel engaged in a nefarious activity such as the construction or emplacement of roadside bombs. In Afghanistan and Iraq, this type of activity could easily make Muktar and his colleagues targetable. Note: The term "Actionable Intelligence" should not automatically be equated to targeting alone. Among other activities, Actionable Intelligence can lead to contact, monitoring, solicitation for recruitment, and detention. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-02-11 16:23 |
| #5 JohnQC, if we started routinely drone-zapping drivers fleeing police I suspect people would stop fleeing police - or certainly stop doing it twice. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-02-11 15:41 |
| #4 a case of Mistaken Identity, will make either the victim, or their Heirs wealthy. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-02-11 15:38 |
| #3 How good is the intelligence that enables the targeting of a particular individual. How good is the ability to identify a person from a drone? I don't know--just asking? I don't have a particular problem of using drones overseas to target enemies who are stateless, don't wear uniforms, and are uninhibited in their attacks on us abroad. Champ has been hypocritical on this program but came around to embrace it enthusiastically. Should he have checks and balances on him? What would anyone think if such a program were used domestically? I can see some perp who has robbed a convenience store and murdered the clerk or owner heading down an L.A. freeway. There are the numerous police cars chasing the perp. The helicopters are overhead. An armed drone is overhead. I can hear the radio dialogue now. Car on the ground to targeter: "You got a clear shot at the perp?" Targeter: "Yeah, I got him lined up." Helicopter to targeter: "Confirm, you got a clear shot at the perp?" Targeter: "Check, I got him sighted up." The go-ahead is given for the targeter to take him {the perp] out. To Targeter: "Take him out when ready." The drone releases its missile, and the perp is incinerated on the freeway. Is this an appropriate scenario? The Targeter and the police are given the go-ahead to act as judge, jury, and executioneer to resolve the problem. Is this different than a police sniper acting to stop a situation? What if collateral damage occurs or a case of mistaken identity occurs? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2013-02-11 14:51 |
| #2 I suppose what bothers me is not so much the drone program itself -- although there's a debate to be had there -- as putting the drone program in the hands of a man who already thinks he's God Almighty and has a personal enemies list. |
| Posted by: Matt 2013-02-11 09:54 |
| #1 Together the president and the spook oversaw a stealth war, and the president became his own targeting officer. (Obama going over kill lists recalls President Lyndon Johnson's poring over the map of Khe Sanh in search of bombing targets in Vietnam; Similar outcomes can be predicted as well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-02-11 09:25 |