Drones and Counterterrorism
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-06/drones-and-counterterrorism
America's use of unmanned aircraft to combat terrorism is controversial. Supporters point out predator drones cost less to build than traditional fighter planes. With no pilots flying them, fewer Americans lose their lives. And the ability to target individual terrorists reduces civilian casualties. Opponents argue that too many innocent people are killed. And their use in Pakistan and elsewhere has made the U.S. new enemies while doing little to stop terrorism. These arguments might be moot. The drone industry is expanding as more countries acquire or seek to develop them. Drones in U.S. counterterrorism and future warfare.
Guests
Shane Harris
senior writer, Washingtonian magazine; author of "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State."
Christine Fair
assistant professor, Georgetown University's security studies program; fellow at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.
Daniel Green
Soref fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
C. Dixon Osburn
director of law and security at Human Rights First.
Comments
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Drones can operate from ten thousand feet and are invisible to the naked eye. Should one of these cowardly devices take out my family by choice or accident you will have an enemy for life. This stupid war on terror only creates more terrorists. It's ironic that our president who campaigned on open negotiations and communication has chosen to put the U.S. stamp of approval on acts of war in more than six countries and counting. Mr. Obama is truly an enigma, but definitely destructive in every sense of the word.
Defending against terrorism is more counter terrorism. The solution is simple, the practice of simple worldly human justice.
Unrestrained public media is controlled by educated "self" interest of corporations and their wealthy management. Too many of us are cheering dummy programed puppets.
I hope Adam and Eve get it right the next time.
Drones are yet another step to dehumanizing war. The people who took out bin Laden put their lives on the line, but how much bravery does it take for some white-collar warrior to sit in a comfortable air-conditioned office (it doesn't even need to be a bunker) and take aim at a target several thousand miles away? This just makes war-making too easy and casual a decision.
The idea of drones like these existed first in science fiction and the ethical dilemma was obvious even then. When you reduce the cost of waging war, do you reduce the deterrant to going to war?
"No American lives at risk? Sure why not?"
To what extent are other countries and terrorist cells exploring this technology. If they are, shouldn't we be worried about drones flying in U.S. airways at some point in the future?
-Andy Duback from Williston, VT
To what extent are other countries and terrorist cells exploring this technology. If they are, shouldn't we be worried about drones flying in U.S. airways at some point in the future?
-Andy Duback from Williston, VT
Swords?
Bow & arrows?
Cannons?
Atomic Bombs?
Napalm?
Suicide bombers?
Cluster bombs?
Shock and Awe?
Drones?
When are we going to put as much money and effort into peacemaking?
The caller offered pause regarding the mechanization of killing, but I think your guest somewhat missed the point. I think part of the caller's comment related to "pilots" not being in actual combat, and that by being removed from an actual fighter altered their experience. It's always a difficult position to "push a button", regardless of how much analysis or remote connectivity exists, to kill people without actually putting yourself in harm's way.
I am glad all the video games children are playing will actually provide them real life job skills.
I am somewhat serious. Operating drones is, essentially, the same as playing video games. The console system is just really really expensive and the deaths are real.
Reminds me of the book Ender's Game.
The question came up on the rules or laws controlling the use of lethal force via drones. For the military, they operate under written rules of engagement which are derived from the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) which are in turn derived from the Geneva Conventions. Most military members are required annual training in LOAC.
I wrote a paper for war college in 2002 based on the question: "How is it legal for civilians (CIA) to attack people, without a declaration of war?"
I think that we have still not answered the question of law in this matter.
thanks
Regarding the comment about the distinction between "14 year old kids playing Nintendo, or Donkey Kong" and Unmanned Drones, the guest has obviously not kept up with the gaming industry. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 actually has UAV Predator missiles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-jbmtCwUoM). Video Games about war are very realistic, and have been for the past few years. No one is comparing drones to a console from the 1980s.
Shame on Diane Rehm for such a one-sided conversation on drone use. The complacent "guests" described drones as mere "tools" ( -- yes -- for those in power only). So in a world where the US can get away with lawless mafioso-style killings and threaten to kill just about anyone, anywhere, anytime then ordinary people should surely be concerned.
The "guests" stressed that "hundreds" of people are involved in these "surgical strikes" which are planned for months in advance. The frequency of "mistakes" and bombed wedding parties in Afghanistan suggests that this is simply not true -- unless US "intelligence" is of the zero-sum kind. I fear the wicked wanton killing revealed by WikiLeaks is closer to the reality. Again -- shame on Diane Rehm for not inviting a real critic of the current use and development of this technology.
It is laughable that the administration justifies flying drones over Pakistan by calling it 'self defense'. That way any act of aggression or intimidation is justifiable, no matter who acts first.
But war has become our thing now and the military is the only industry we have left. The Department of Defense used to be called 'Department of War' until 1947. I suggest we change it back to that.
robpates has it right: This was a completely one-sided discussion by four Beltway insiders who all endorse the use of targeted assassination via drones. Such attacks inevitably lead to civilian casualties, which are a major topic in the Geneva Conventions; yet there was no mention of the Conventions in the entire hour-long program. The US is the biggest arms dealer in the world, yet there was no mention of that fact when the guests noted the proliferation of drone technology to some 50 countries around the world. Could it not be that the American military-industrial complex has some hand in this?
Furthermore, what right (legal, moral, or ethical) do we have to launch drone attacks on countries with which we are not at war and which pose no threat to us? Again, this question was not addressed in this one-sided program.
Science and technology developments elude even science fiction writers. Your program on drone development conjured disturbing possibilities. Historically, technological developments are, sooner or later, adopted by all sides; new defensive technologies develop from attempts to counter the new offensive technology; and new technologies tend to disseminate with increasing speed. Your guest mentioned that drug syndicates may already be using drones to monitor their shipments, and that drone technology is not that all "high tech." Variably sized remote control model airplanes and GPS are within reach of neighborhood teens; private industry makes spaceships and solar planes. Remote-control drones are difficult to detect and intercept; likely more difficult to trace than guns; and unlike humans, could reliably self-destruct. It's not difficult to envision a near future where organized crime uses technology, not much beyond remote-control airplanes, to warn of police arrival, or to disrupt local police radios and radio-controlled devices. Beyond that, can the use of difficult to detect and intercept remote-control drones, by organized crime and terrorists, to eliminate rivals, politicians, and public figures, be too far behind? - a disturbing prospective new world. We had better start working on those defensive technologies soon!
Christine is not all that knowledgeable about Civilian casualties or merely denies they exist by jumping onto the ISI-boogey-man band wagon. See http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/6/headlines#3 for facts and verification by sources other than ISI.
The gear to make short range drones is incredibly cheap and easy to acquire.
Controlling them at a global distance gets tricky. this also limits the threat of non state actors somewhat. Not everyone has a secure (?) satellite network.
I welcome the new tools.
Build one yourself. just look at diydrones.com
The show was one sided. It only tells me the sheeple approve.
This show, and the very one sided discussion in it, has been simmering in my mind all day. Will we ever get to a point in our society when we start to question as an empowered and educated populace, the ever growing seemingly unquestionable assumption that we will always be at war with someone and that it will therefore be necessary to spend (waste) vast amounts of money, technological innovation, and other resources on creating new ways to kill people or watch over them to see if they're doing anything we don't like so we can justify killing them? Am I alone in being absolutely sick and tired of stupid, close minded, paranoid, fools being in charge of the direction that all mankind is being forced to take in order to keep their money making war machine going? These people are a menace to our evolution, sick minded and belong starving on the streets at best. It's time to take away their toys.
shrams23 -- I'm with you all the way -- the discussion was "simmering in my mind all day", too.
And -- No -- You are not alone -- but it's very easy to feel alone in the madhouse that the US is becoming. And it's becoming a madhouse precisely because alternative viewpoints (to bring a spot of ordinary, human common sense) in discussions like this are suppressed.
The discussion does not bear thinking about -- it's absolutely horrifying. Bottom line -- Ordinary people have no business supporting NPR or EITHER of the major parties.
I was dismally agitated by the concisioned (see Chomsky) and convoluted (listen show) discussion of drone warfare yesterday, but hesitated in speaking until I reconsidered the ramifications. I had lazily subsumed US aggression towards civilians as integral with Hannah Arendt’s concept of “banal evil” so that at first I wrote about: “Many vizers and geezers and hardened camp women gathered in a well-appointed darkened room to watch a tattooed boy operate a video game by which families on the opposite side of this planet were exterminated.” But then I realized these acts as a collective effort by a purposeful cabal and not only a success quest by ambitious amoral individuals. Nazi Germany employed able legal theorists to justify the periodic suspension of the Weimar Constitution under Ausnahmezustand (state of exception/emergency), which was renewed every four years (Patriot Act). The Fuhrer’s auctoritas was thus derived to maintain historical and ideological continuity rather than as a defense of otherwise outlaw actions. Carl Schmitt (like John Yu?) was the foremost legal mind behind these theories. Our Empire being so much more complex and yet threatened by democracy we employ multiple legal cadres in the combat theater at home and abroad.
So now we have converted our juridicial system into a “death machine” authorized to perform acts of pure violence as required. (No matter how many lawyers sit in witness none represent or consider any interests of those targeted, so that the adversarial dynamic consists only of “our” focalized murderings versus “our” hypothetical alternatives, and knowingly excludes accounting for the loss of what was formerly “them.”) Advances in robotics and remote sensing are but increments on an escalating trajectory that ends with overall extinction. Extermination mechanisms, propelled by doctrines of force, turn upon themselves once “other” targets of opportunity are exhausted. The unrelenting collusion and competition of unmitigated corporate capitalism have appropriated bloody combat and mass death as a terminal profit center. With crimes now naked, audacity in accomplishment suffices as a vigorous explanation. “We were compelled to exercise our abilities. That’s how we do.” So I am repelled by both the formulations of Carl Schmitt (Goering’s legal expert) and of Michael Foucault (subjugation theorist), but I can learn by examining their hopelessness. Both postulated that the doctrines of legitimate sovereignty (formerly authoritarian and hierarchic, recently national, and often derived from the vitality of the People) are being negated by gradually refined techniques of systematic and ruthless narrow-minded scientific control in forming and forcing the “human factor” (in accumulation of centralized power). Drone warfare and its absurd cowardly terroristic nature highlight how desperate humanity has become in seeking better bases of legitimization and collective morality now that success (as defined) bodes no mercy and Oligarchial action has pulverized its last footings.
"Drones can operate from ten thousand feet and are invisible to the naked eye. Should one of these cowardly devices take out my family by choice or accident you will have an enemy for life. This stupid war on terror only creates more terrorists. "
Oh the joy of moral inversion. The drones strike against people who condone the murder of civilians, you think 9/11 wasn't cowardly? If they really were consistent they would charge at US troops rather than relying on IEDs, the fact that we kill them with rockets is fine. Terrorists and rotten ideology create terrorism. How many drone strikes occured leading up to 9/11? Sorry, your logic does not work.
Even worse when you are the one making excuses for the most conservative and hateful people around. It is moral inversion when so called progressives spend their time making excuses for and defending islamic terrorists. So much for your high minded ideals about the equality of women and freedom of speech and conscience. Hate america first comes first, and everything after that becomes warped.
The fact is the discussion is totally misguided. How are drones any different, they aren't. The fear mongers seem to have missed out on the realities of war for decades now. Just how is a drone with 4 bombs on it worse than a b-52 raining 80+ bombs for carpet bombing missions or B-17's dropping 8000lb of bombs on cities? The objection that drones are like video games is absurd and shows the ignorance of some of those who knee jerk attack drones. Drones can carry very few weapons, each is precious and not wasted carpet bombing areas. The simple fact is that there is more consideration than ever when using this weapon, but the hate america first crowd only know the narrative of everything new is bad, and america is bad.
I think in more than one instance, wetnap, these drones have killed citizens. And, let's be honest here, since 2001 there have been way more civilian casualties overseas at the hand of US than civilian deaths on US's soil. Thousands more. No one is making excuses for anyone, but I will take an unpopular position often interpreted as, as you called it, the "hate america" stance, since you bring up 9/11. As the guests on the show were yammering about, it's been 10 years since that event. Maybe we should start to take a look at US's activities and open ourselves to the idea that maybe we were "attacked" for more than just "our freedom". Maybe it upsets people when US kills their families, destroys their homes, sells weapons to whoever US's government supports at the moment to play ball until they no longer need them, stakes claim to their resources, and builds military bases on their land. Those kinds of things have a tendency to upset people and most are looking for the source and how to stop it. Wouldn't you?
I hate to break it to you, wetnap, but to the rest of the world, and a growing populace within, it's really starting to look like the only real terrorists are US's "leaders" and what US brings on itself by constantly interfering with other countries cultures and people. What you refer to as hate, is really just an awakening horror of the truth and consequences of what's done in US's name. And the start of something new, the end of the Military Industrial Complex and it's neverending lies.
And you're missing the point anyway, NONE of this is "fine". And we (US) don't have to participate and will never succeed in killing everyone US's government doesn't like. The war on terror creates terrorism, wetnap because it is terrorism. WAR is terrorism. And it's time for us to move away from it and this false notion of us vs. them, it's expensive and stupid.
Ah yes -- Here we go again -- good old 9/11 -- it's lurking at the bottom of all US foreign policy -- whether explicitly stated or not. Somehow, for those that advocate waging war on anyone or anything that challenges US power or "interests" (what, exactly - whose, exactly) -- it's just all too convenient to wheel out 9/11 as a justification for any murderous (drone) attack by the US government.
I wouldn't be so irritated by this if I were convinced that the official "conspiracy theory" (perps: 19 highjackers, OBL) was remotely feasible, or that there has been a reasonable effort (rather than a cover-up) to find out what really did happen on September 11th 2001. In my opinion, like the JFK assassination, in a few decades time the accepted "conspiracy theories" will look very different and will not include the current ridiculous official conspiracy narrative.
So -- hate America first? No. Some measure of truth and fair play? -- hopefully. Don't believe everything you think.