From Ceasefire Magazine online Sept. 19, 2010
Piece by Musab Younis
An excerpt ...
The drone issue is an interesting one. A typical report from the BBC this week, for example, mentions that “twelve people were killed” in a drone strike, probably “militants”, in what is “the 12th drone strike this month in the region”, before adding: “The American military does not routinely confirm drone operations.”
The report is striking by virtue of omission. Nothing is mentioned of the civilian casualties of drone strikes – which were reported by Pakistani authorities to have reached 700 in January of this year (the figure now is surely higher), since the drone war began. Nothing is mentioned of the Gallup poll conducted for Al Jazeera which suggests that less than one in ten Pakistanis support the drone strikes. The same poll asked Pakistanis who they considered to be the greatest threat to their country – the Taliban, India, or the US. A majority of 59 percent said the US. 11 percent said the Taliban.
None of this is mentioned by the BBC. Why should we care what Pakistanis think about the military attacks taking place in their country? And the suggestion that most of them consider the US a greater threat than the Taliban is a difficult one, because it would undercut the central narrative of the news coverage of drone strikes: that though they at times entail unfortunate consequences, they are conducted for the security of the West and Pakistan. The idea that the US could be making the region less secure is, in this context, inconceivable.
Statistics have also vanished: such as the fact that this year, the US has allocated fifteen times more money to Predator drones than to the Pakistan floods relief effort ($2.2bn versus $150m). And there is no question of the reader being subjected to any uncomfortable suggestions, such as that made by the New Yorker last year that assassination, euphemistically termed “targeted killing”, is now “official US policy”, despite the violation of international law, and even the US constitution, that it entails.
Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts
Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Benazir Bhutto's niece on Asif Ali Zardari's presidency in Pakistan
Assassinated former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto is survived by Asif Ali Zardari, who has taken her place as president, and also a niece, Fatima Bhutto, who is now publishing books and speaking on book tours.
In this London Evening Standard commentary, Fatima levels her criticisms clearly against a president she finds to be a threat to democracy and a collaborator with terrorist groups.
This is dated April 8 and has been appearing on sites this week that follow politics in Pakistan.
The London School of Economics published a report two months ago on Pakistan’s dealings with extremists, based on scores of interviews. It said Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari met 50 high-ranking imprisoned Taliban leaders in April 2010 to assure them of his government’s support.
Zardari denied the meeting through unelected spokespeople who struggle to present the president as a premier ally of democracy and Western interests. David Cameron’s recent lambasting of the current Pakistani government seems to fall short.
In 2010 alone, the Zardari government has allowed 70 American Predator drone flights to cross its airspace and kill its citizens (more than 200 dead, no top terrorists confirmed among the nameless victims), all the while asking the Obama White House for drone technology that he may use himself.
He has banned 500 websites — including YouTube, Facebook and Google — under the pretence of protesting against anti-Islamic material on the web, and has presided over a breakdown of law and order in Karachi so severe that 300 politicians and political activists have been murdered in the past eight months, according to human rights groups. In the past 48 hours, 45 people have been killed in Karachi following the assassination of a member of parliament and more than 100 people have been wounded.
The fact that Facebook has countless anti-Zardari groups was not proffered as a reason for its shutdown. Nor was the coincidence that Pakistan’s legal community, including the deputy attorney general, called for Mark Zuckerberg, the social networking site’s founder, to be arrested. No one bought the president’s Islam excuse — censorship by another name smells as foul, unfortunately for him.
President Zardari is considered one of Pakistan’s most venal figures. His nicknames run from Mr Ten Per Cent to the updated Mr Hundred and Ten Per Cent. Zardari has come under massive criticism for choosing to traipse across Europe via his usual five-star hotels while floods in northern Pakistan have killed upwards of 1,400 people, displaced 100,000 households and affected three million Pakistanis.
Zardari’s alleged corruption — in the $2-3 billion range, according to The New York Times — has not stopped Cameron or Obama’s governments from funding, supporting and propping up the government of a man whose legacy has been marked by political unpopularity, instability, large-scale graft and violence. The Pakistan People’s Party that Zardari took over after the murder of his wife Benazir Bhutto (my aunt) is referred to as the Permanent Plunder Party.
Zardari does not have the will or the understanding to cope with Pakistan’s escalating volatility. Just last year he said that his government was hard at work fighting “extremists from Aung San Suu Kyi to the Taliban”, mistaking the Burmese democracy campaigner for a terror outfit. How does Britain expect Zardari to fight terror when he’s not even sure of what the word means?
The longer Zardari and his coterie are funded in the billions and welcomed by democratic governments, the longer Pakistan will remain hostage to obtuse political posturing, corruption and violent instability. Pakistan and the world cannot afford much more of the Zardaris in power.
(Fatima Bhutto is a writer and author of Songs of Blood and Sword, published in the UK by Jonathan Cape. She is the niece of the late Benazir Bhutto)
In this London Evening Standard commentary, Fatima levels her criticisms clearly against a president she finds to be a threat to democracy and a collaborator with terrorist groups.
This is dated April 8 and has been appearing on sites this week that follow politics in Pakistan.
The London School of Economics published a report two months ago on Pakistan’s dealings with extremists, based on scores of interviews. It said Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari met 50 high-ranking imprisoned Taliban leaders in April 2010 to assure them of his government’s support.
Zardari denied the meeting through unelected spokespeople who struggle to present the president as a premier ally of democracy and Western interests. David Cameron’s recent lambasting of the current Pakistani government seems to fall short.
In 2010 alone, the Zardari government has allowed 70 American Predator drone flights to cross its airspace and kill its citizens (more than 200 dead, no top terrorists confirmed among the nameless victims), all the while asking the Obama White House for drone technology that he may use himself.
He has banned 500 websites — including YouTube, Facebook and Google — under the pretence of protesting against anti-Islamic material on the web, and has presided over a breakdown of law and order in Karachi so severe that 300 politicians and political activists have been murdered in the past eight months, according to human rights groups. In the past 48 hours, 45 people have been killed in Karachi following the assassination of a member of parliament and more than 100 people have been wounded.
The fact that Facebook has countless anti-Zardari groups was not proffered as a reason for its shutdown. Nor was the coincidence that Pakistan’s legal community, including the deputy attorney general, called for Mark Zuckerberg, the social networking site’s founder, to be arrested. No one bought the president’s Islam excuse — censorship by another name smells as foul, unfortunately for him.
President Zardari is considered one of Pakistan’s most venal figures. His nicknames run from Mr Ten Per Cent to the updated Mr Hundred and Ten Per Cent. Zardari has come under massive criticism for choosing to traipse across Europe via his usual five-star hotels while floods in northern Pakistan have killed upwards of 1,400 people, displaced 100,000 households and affected three million Pakistanis.
Zardari’s alleged corruption — in the $2-3 billion range, according to The New York Times — has not stopped Cameron or Obama’s governments from funding, supporting and propping up the government of a man whose legacy has been marked by political unpopularity, instability, large-scale graft and violence. The Pakistan People’s Party that Zardari took over after the murder of his wife Benazir Bhutto (my aunt) is referred to as the Permanent Plunder Party.
Zardari does not have the will or the understanding to cope with Pakistan’s escalating volatility. Just last year he said that his government was hard at work fighting “extremists from Aung San Suu Kyi to the Taliban”, mistaking the Burmese democracy campaigner for a terror outfit. How does Britain expect Zardari to fight terror when he’s not even sure of what the word means?
The longer Zardari and his coterie are funded in the billions and welcomed by democratic governments, the longer Pakistan will remain hostage to obtuse political posturing, corruption and violent instability. Pakistan and the world cannot afford much more of the Zardaris in power.
(Fatima Bhutto is a writer and author of Songs of Blood and Sword, published in the UK by Jonathan Cape. She is the niece of the late Benazir Bhutto)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Reconciliation efforts with Afghan militants face major obstacle
LA Times Story by Julian E. Barnes, Laura King and Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez reported from Islamabad and King reported from Kabul. Times staff writer Julian E. Barnes in Washington contributed to this report.
Excerpt--
Experts say both Pakistan and Afghanistan realize that breaking the Haqqani network's ties with Al Qaeda is a prerequisite to any deal. They question whether it would ever happen.
Amir Rana, one of Pakistan's leading analysts on militant groups, said it's not possible for many militant groups, including the Haqqani network, to completely separate from Al Qaeda.
"What the Haqqani network and the other Taliban groups can offer is a guarantee that they will influence Al Qaeda to not attack U.S. or NATO forces, and a guarantee that their soil would not be used in a terrorist attack against the West," he said. "This is the maximum concession that the Taliban can offer."
Numbering in the thousands of fighters, the Haqqani network has a strong relationship with Pakistan's military and intelligence community that stretches 30 years, back to the time when Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani organized mujahedin fighters against Soviet troops in the 1980s. Haqqani has now delegated authority over his network of fighters to his son, Sirajuddin.
The group moves freely between Afghanistan's eastern provinces and its headquarters in North Waziristan, where it has been left untouched by Pakistan's military. Experts believe the Haqqani network continues to provide Al Qaeda leaders and commanders sanctuary there.
U.S. leaders have frequently urged Pakistan to launch an offensive against Haqqani hideouts, recently backing those entreaties with evidence that the network was behind major attacks in Kabul and at Bagram air base, the U.S. facility north of the capital. The government in Islamabad, meanwhile, has brushed aside those demands, arguing that its forces are overstretched by extensive military operations against Taliban strongholds in surrounding tribal areas.
Analysts and former Pakistani military commanders, however, say the real reason that Islamabad has avoided military action against the Haqqani network is that it sees the group and other Afghan Taliban elements as a useful hedge against India's rapidly growing interests in Afghanistan.
Haqqani leaders have yet to signal whether they are interested in starting talks with Karzai's government.
Excerpt--
Experts say both Pakistan and Afghanistan realize that breaking the Haqqani network's ties with Al Qaeda is a prerequisite to any deal. They question whether it would ever happen.
Amir Rana, one of Pakistan's leading analysts on militant groups, said it's not possible for many militant groups, including the Haqqani network, to completely separate from Al Qaeda.
"What the Haqqani network and the other Taliban groups can offer is a guarantee that they will influence Al Qaeda to not attack U.S. or NATO forces, and a guarantee that their soil would not be used in a terrorist attack against the West," he said. "This is the maximum concession that the Taliban can offer."
Numbering in the thousands of fighters, the Haqqani network has a strong relationship with Pakistan's military and intelligence community that stretches 30 years, back to the time when Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani organized mujahedin fighters against Soviet troops in the 1980s. Haqqani has now delegated authority over his network of fighters to his son, Sirajuddin.
The group moves freely between Afghanistan's eastern provinces and its headquarters in North Waziristan, where it has been left untouched by Pakistan's military. Experts believe the Haqqani network continues to provide Al Qaeda leaders and commanders sanctuary there.
U.S. leaders have frequently urged Pakistan to launch an offensive against Haqqani hideouts, recently backing those entreaties with evidence that the network was behind major attacks in Kabul and at Bagram air base, the U.S. facility north of the capital. The government in Islamabad, meanwhile, has brushed aside those demands, arguing that its forces are overstretched by extensive military operations against Taliban strongholds in surrounding tribal areas.
Analysts and former Pakistani military commanders, however, say the real reason that Islamabad has avoided military action against the Haqqani network is that it sees the group and other Afghan Taliban elements as a useful hedge against India's rapidly growing interests in Afghanistan.
Haqqani leaders have yet to signal whether they are interested in starting talks with Karzai's government.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
It's not news; it's just astounding: How U.S. Funds Taliban
"US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents."
—Aram Roston, The Nation magazine
This information is from November 9, 2009. I just don't understand why it's outside public consciousness that the United States has been paying its enemy to fight our own people in uniform for years while the popular support of the U.S. war in Afghanistan hangs by a tiny thread of the last half-successful hunt for a terrorist or "high-value target." If citizens of the U.S. were told by CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the rest that the Taliban in Afghanistan was being paid by the U.S. to not attack supply convoys, how would there be support for the war? It's like betting against the champ in a boxing match when you've already heard the champ is going to throw the fight. Which, when all of your social programs have been shut down, unemployment is in double-digits, consumer lending has stalled and twenty percent of homes are worth less than the amount owed to the bank, Afghanistan (not even getting into Iraq and saber-rattling plans to invade Iran) seems like a summer vacation that should have been canceled because this year, kids, we just can't afford it.
If you follow the link, you'll see the entire (old) story at thenation.com
—Aram Roston, The Nation magazine
This information is from November 9, 2009. I just don't understand why it's outside public consciousness that the United States has been paying its enemy to fight our own people in uniform for years while the popular support of the U.S. war in Afghanistan hangs by a tiny thread of the last half-successful hunt for a terrorist or "high-value target." If citizens of the U.S. were told by CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the rest that the Taliban in Afghanistan was being paid by the U.S. to not attack supply convoys, how would there be support for the war? It's like betting against the champ in a boxing match when you've already heard the champ is going to throw the fight. Which, when all of your social programs have been shut down, unemployment is in double-digits, consumer lending has stalled and twenty percent of homes are worth less than the amount owed to the bank, Afghanistan (not even getting into Iraq and saber-rattling plans to invade Iran) seems like a summer vacation that should have been canceled because this year, kids, we just can't afford it.
If you follow the link, you'll see the entire (old) story at thenation.com
Thursday, June 3, 2010
U.N. official urges U.S. to stop CIA drone attacks on al-Qaeda and Taliban
This is the battle of our time, between international law and the laws of strongest nations as determined by the powerful (who wield the strength, economic and political) in those nations. International law's only advantage is unity--bringing the strength of all the other represented nations to bear in opposition to some convenient view of justice held by the most powerful people in the most powerful nations and the economic interests their voices represent. The voices of the great masses governed by both the national and international governing bodies sound outside this nexus of power and are able to push into these powerful entities for recognition and cooperation. The question, then, becomes, "How many of us side with international law (typically framed as human rights), how many with national law (typically property rights framed as individual rights) and to what end?"
The legal community within the national government will make skillfully administered attempts to thwart these arguments of human rights against their unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with anti-personnel bombs and do their best to be dismissive of concerns as people meddling in business that isn't theirs, the business of special operations, classified missions, dangerous individuals and hunting irreparably bad people to their deaths. But the unmanned drone program--not just a robotic eye in the sky with no human operator, but an aircraft armed with 300-pound Hellfire missiles and vision limited to optics, a radio signal and available light--is subject to far more debate than it's been made to undergo since its implementation.
Washington Post story; excerpt appears below
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 3, 2010
A senior U.N. official said Wednesday that the United States should halt the CIA's drone campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan, charging that the secrecy surrounding the strikes violates the legal principle of international accountability.
But a report by Philip Alston, the United Nations' special rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, stopped short of declaring the CIA program illegal.
He presented a 29-page report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that focused on "targeted killings" by countries such as Russia and Israel as well as the United States.
"It is an essential requirement of international law that States using targeted killings demonstrate that they are complying with the various rules governing their use in situations of armed conflict," Alston said in a news release. "The greatest challenge to this principle today comes from the program operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. . . . The international community does not know when and where the CIA is authorized to kill, the criteria for individuals who may be killed, how it ensures killings are legal, and what follow-up there is when civilians are illegally killed."
Alston said some commentators have argued that CIA personnel involved in drone killings are committing war crimes because, unlike the military, they are "unlawful combatants." But, he said, "this argument is not supported" by international humanitarian law.
The legal community within the national government will make skillfully administered attempts to thwart these arguments of human rights against their unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with anti-personnel bombs and do their best to be dismissive of concerns as people meddling in business that isn't theirs, the business of special operations, classified missions, dangerous individuals and hunting irreparably bad people to their deaths. But the unmanned drone program--not just a robotic eye in the sky with no human operator, but an aircraft armed with 300-pound Hellfire missiles and vision limited to optics, a radio signal and available light--is subject to far more debate than it's been made to undergo since its implementation.
Washington Post story; excerpt appears below
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 3, 2010
A senior U.N. official said Wednesday that the United States should halt the CIA's drone campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan, charging that the secrecy surrounding the strikes violates the legal principle of international accountability.
But a report by Philip Alston, the United Nations' special rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, stopped short of declaring the CIA program illegal.
He presented a 29-page report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that focused on "targeted killings" by countries such as Russia and Israel as well as the United States.
"It is an essential requirement of international law that States using targeted killings demonstrate that they are complying with the various rules governing their use in situations of armed conflict," Alston said in a news release. "The greatest challenge to this principle today comes from the program operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. . . . The international community does not know when and where the CIA is authorized to kill, the criteria for individuals who may be killed, how it ensures killings are legal, and what follow-up there is when civilians are illegally killed."
Alston said some commentators have argued that CIA personnel involved in drone killings are committing war crimes because, unlike the military, they are "unlawful combatants." But, he said, "this argument is not supported" by international humanitarian law.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
UK plans to leave Afghanistan
"We have obligations to deal with poverty and human rights but that is no different in Afghanistan from dozens of other countries."
—British Defense Secretary Liam Fox
From Australian Broadcast (ABC) May 23
"Britain considers policy shift on Afghanistan"
British defence secretary Liam Fox has indicated that the country's new government is reconsidering its approach to the war in Afghanistan.
He is currently on a visit to Kabul, but before he left London, Mr Fox revealed the potential change of policy.
In remarks in a newspaper interview, Mr Fox said Britain should focus less on state-building in Afghanistan and more on speeding up the withdrawal of its troops.
Mr Fox described Afghanistan as a broken 13th century country.
"National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman," he told The Times.
"We have obligations to deal with poverty and human rights but that is no different in Afghanistan from dozens of other countries.
"We shouldn't deploy British troops unless there are overwhelming humanitarian emergency considerations or a national security imperative."
The comments will dismay those who see the massive expansion of the Afghan education system, funded by donors such as the UK, and the opening of school doors to girls as major successes of the post-Taliban era.
The former head of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, warned against any drastic changes in policy.
"The priority, as Liam Fox says, is to deal with the security situation in Afghanistan and to ensure that the streets of the UK and the rest of the world are safe, safer than they are at present," he said.
"But in order to do that we must rebuild and repair the society in Afghanistan and that does include things like education policy, the economy, governance."
Britain's new foreign secretary, William Hague, also sought to assure Kabul of his government's commitment.
Ahead of a visit by three senior ministers, Mr Hague said that the conflict in Afghanistan is his most urgent priority, and Britain cannot set any kind of date for a withdrawal.
"There isn't going to be an arbitrary or artificial timetable. I don't think it's going to work like that," he said.
"As I say, we have to give the situation, the strategy that has been set out the time and the support to succeed.
"That does need, and require, Britain's continued military involvement. There is no doubt about that."
- ABC/BBC
Also,
Press TV Story taken from Aletho News ...
In a U-turn in Britain’s policy regarding the Afghan war, senior government officials say they want UK soldiers to return home as soon as possible.
In an interview with The Times newspaper before arriving in Kabul on Saturday, Defense Secretary Liam Fox described the Afghan war as Britain’s most urgent priority. He said no more troops will be deployed in Afghanistan, adding that he wants to speed up the withdrawal of UK soldiers and training of Afghan forces.
Fox emphasized that the new government in London will put national security issues on top of its priority list.
“National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman. We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened,” Fox said.
Britain is the second-largest contributor of troops to Afghanistan. It has deployed some 10,000 soldiers in the war-torn country. The number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 stands at 286.
—British Defense Secretary Liam Fox
From Australian Broadcast (ABC) May 23
"Britain considers policy shift on Afghanistan"
British defence secretary Liam Fox has indicated that the country's new government is reconsidering its approach to the war in Afghanistan.
He is currently on a visit to Kabul, but before he left London, Mr Fox revealed the potential change of policy.
In remarks in a newspaper interview, Mr Fox said Britain should focus less on state-building in Afghanistan and more on speeding up the withdrawal of its troops.
Mr Fox described Afghanistan as a broken 13th century country.
"National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman," he told The Times.
"We have obligations to deal with poverty and human rights but that is no different in Afghanistan from dozens of other countries.
"We shouldn't deploy British troops unless there are overwhelming humanitarian emergency considerations or a national security imperative."
The comments will dismay those who see the massive expansion of the Afghan education system, funded by donors such as the UK, and the opening of school doors to girls as major successes of the post-Taliban era.
The former head of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, warned against any drastic changes in policy.
"The priority, as Liam Fox says, is to deal with the security situation in Afghanistan and to ensure that the streets of the UK and the rest of the world are safe, safer than they are at present," he said.
"But in order to do that we must rebuild and repair the society in Afghanistan and that does include things like education policy, the economy, governance."
Britain's new foreign secretary, William Hague, also sought to assure Kabul of his government's commitment.
Ahead of a visit by three senior ministers, Mr Hague said that the conflict in Afghanistan is his most urgent priority, and Britain cannot set any kind of date for a withdrawal.
"There isn't going to be an arbitrary or artificial timetable. I don't think it's going to work like that," he said.
"As I say, we have to give the situation, the strategy that has been set out the time and the support to succeed.
"That does need, and require, Britain's continued military involvement. There is no doubt about that."
- ABC/BBC
Also,
Press TV Story taken from Aletho News ...
In a U-turn in Britain’s policy regarding the Afghan war, senior government officials say they want UK soldiers to return home as soon as possible.
In an interview with The Times newspaper before arriving in Kabul on Saturday, Defense Secretary Liam Fox described the Afghan war as Britain’s most urgent priority. He said no more troops will be deployed in Afghanistan, adding that he wants to speed up the withdrawal of UK soldiers and training of Afghan forces.
Fox emphasized that the new government in London will put national security issues on top of its priority list.
“National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman. We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened,” Fox said.
Britain is the second-largest contributor of troops to Afghanistan. It has deployed some 10,000 soldiers in the war-torn country. The number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 stands at 286.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Backyard Predator Drones
"Each Predator and Reaper costs American taxpayers $4 million to $12 million and each Hellfire missile some $70,000, and the drones are causing anti-American sentiment to spread, especially in the Muslim world."
by Chen Weihua
China Daily 05/18/2010
chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn
I never realized I was so close to the war zone in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border until I went to Syracuse in upstate New York a week ago.
The Hancock Field there has been turned into a base for drones that fly over Pakistan and Afghanistan for bombing missions. This means that someone sitting in the control room is playing a computer game that is killing real people thousands of miles away.
The strikes may have achieved the goals of assassinating some Taliban leaders and militants; yet, high collateral damage has been reported by both Pakistani and US sources. Pakistani authorities reported that in 2009 alone, some 700 civilians died during the drone attacks.
The high casualties - of innocent people - should be a grave concern for "anti-war" President Barack Obama, who authorized more drone strikes in his first year as president than his predecessor George W. Bush did in his last four years in office.
Civilian deaths are clearly a problem. A CNN report last week quoted Tadd Scholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, as saying US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan could someday win medals for restraint that prevents civilian casualties in combat.
This proposal under consideration simply means that too many innocents are being killed, and that the army has not exercised enough restraint.
Unfortunately, many Americans are unaware of the nature of the drone attacks launched from an air force base near their home, despite numerous protests across the country against the drones.
Just a few days before my trip to Syracuse, peace activists from upstate New York gathered outside the Hancock Air Force base to oppose the unmanned aircraft attacks.
On May 18-19, protesters from across California and some from Nevada will hold a rally in San Diego outside the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which builds the Predator and Reaper drones.
Cindy Sheehan, who held a prolonged anti-war protest in 2005 outside George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, led a rally near the CIA headquarters in Virginia early this year, calling the CIA-operated drone bombing "immoral" and "terrorism with a big budget."
Demonstrations were also witnessed last year outside the Creech Air Force Base, only 35 miles from Las Vegas, resulting in the arrests of a number of peace activists.
In contrast to the anti-war activists, mainstream US media and scholars have been relatively quiet on the issue. Most have been talking endlessly about Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad's ties to the Taliban and whether his legal rights and citizenship should be deprived.
They have largely ignored the rising anger among Pakistanis about the drone Hellfire missile attacks. Shahzad also reportedly claimed that his intention was to retaliate for the drones, which he saw in Waziristan, in northwest Pakistan.
A Gallup poll last August showed that only 9 percent of Pakistanis support the drone attacks, while 67 percent oppose them. The majority saw the US as a bigger threat than the Taliban.
A recent Newsweek report quotes local villagers as saying that every family there has one male member in the Taliban force.
In the war on terror, many Americans seem to be worried that criticizing the US government and military would make them look unpatriotic or un-American.
Each Predator and Reaper costs American taxpayers $4 million to $12 million and each Hellfire missile some $70,000, and the drones are causing anti-American sentiment to spread, especially in the Muslim world.
If that money is used to build schools there to reflect the US' soft power, it will win more hearts and minds and make Americans safer.
Stopping the drones launched from American citizens' backyards is no less urgent than finding the true connection of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad.
by Chen Weihua
China Daily 05/18/2010
chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn
I never realized I was so close to the war zone in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border until I went to Syracuse in upstate New York a week ago.
The Hancock Field there has been turned into a base for drones that fly over Pakistan and Afghanistan for bombing missions. This means that someone sitting in the control room is playing a computer game that is killing real people thousands of miles away.
The strikes may have achieved the goals of assassinating some Taliban leaders and militants; yet, high collateral damage has been reported by both Pakistani and US sources. Pakistani authorities reported that in 2009 alone, some 700 civilians died during the drone attacks.
The high casualties - of innocent people - should be a grave concern for "anti-war" President Barack Obama, who authorized more drone strikes in his first year as president than his predecessor George W. Bush did in his last four years in office.
Civilian deaths are clearly a problem. A CNN report last week quoted Tadd Scholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, as saying US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan could someday win medals for restraint that prevents civilian casualties in combat.
This proposal under consideration simply means that too many innocents are being killed, and that the army has not exercised enough restraint.
Unfortunately, many Americans are unaware of the nature of the drone attacks launched from an air force base near their home, despite numerous protests across the country against the drones.
Just a few days before my trip to Syracuse, peace activists from upstate New York gathered outside the Hancock Air Force base to oppose the unmanned aircraft attacks.
On May 18-19, protesters from across California and some from Nevada will hold a rally in San Diego outside the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which builds the Predator and Reaper drones.
Cindy Sheehan, who held a prolonged anti-war protest in 2005 outside George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, led a rally near the CIA headquarters in Virginia early this year, calling the CIA-operated drone bombing "immoral" and "terrorism with a big budget."
Demonstrations were also witnessed last year outside the Creech Air Force Base, only 35 miles from Las Vegas, resulting in the arrests of a number of peace activists.
In contrast to the anti-war activists, mainstream US media and scholars have been relatively quiet on the issue. Most have been talking endlessly about Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad's ties to the Taliban and whether his legal rights and citizenship should be deprived.
They have largely ignored the rising anger among Pakistanis about the drone Hellfire missile attacks. Shahzad also reportedly claimed that his intention was to retaliate for the drones, which he saw in Waziristan, in northwest Pakistan.
A Gallup poll last August showed that only 9 percent of Pakistanis support the drone attacks, while 67 percent oppose them. The majority saw the US as a bigger threat than the Taliban.
A recent Newsweek report quotes local villagers as saying that every family there has one male member in the Taliban force.
In the war on terror, many Americans seem to be worried that criticizing the US government and military would make them look unpatriotic or un-American.
Each Predator and Reaper costs American taxpayers $4 million to $12 million and each Hellfire missile some $70,000, and the drones are causing anti-American sentiment to spread, especially in the Muslim world.
If that money is used to build schools there to reflect the US' soft power, it will win more hearts and minds and make Americans safer.
Stopping the drones launched from American citizens' backyards is no less urgent than finding the true connection of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Drones and the Ethics of War
This essay, posted Friday, attempts to briefly address the emerging arguments in what appears to be a debate shaping together over the ethics of using armed unmanned aerial vehicles.
President Obama is quoted as saying in a speech, "We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed." This sentiment has manifested itself in the contrary strident legal posturing of State Department legal adviser Harold Koh with no signs of halting, reducing or altering the methods of drone attacks, which have increased following the Times Square bombing attempt.
What's missing here is any human rights argument that human beings--combatants, non-combatants in proximity to or whose lives are entwined with those of combatants--have some kind of right to expect not to be hunted by robots with electric eyes being piloted by indoctrinated nationalists who believe what they are doing--no matter what it is--to be benevolent.
Further complicating this aspect of the issue is the tendency of comments to news outlets following various articles on drone attacks to maintain drones have the ability to "kill the bastards" while service men and women risk no physical danger. This line evades the key issue that children, villagers, farmers, unarmed inhabitants in an agrarian culture are not "the bastards," and the warfare of extermination is, on paper, a part of our past and not our future.
Until these discrepancies are addressed no productive debate on the ethics of UAVs and their use to murder civilians in relentless pursuit of "high-value targets" is going to take place. Rhetorically, we are left with the pre-World War II mentality of "might makes right," and nothing more sophisticated or justified.
From the website Pakistan Defense (defence.pk)
May 14th, 2010
Drones and the Ethics of War
by David E. Anderson
According to news reports, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in the failed Times Square bombing, has told investigators he carried out the attempted bombing to avenge US drone attacks in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan.
Shahzad’s assertion adds more fuel to the simmering controversy over the ethics and effects of increasing reliance by both the CIA and the US military on unmanned drones to launch missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, asked (“US pressure helps militants overseas focus efforts,” May 7) : “Have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan—notable the Predator drone strikes—actually made Americans less safe? Have they had the perverse consequence of driving lesser insurgencies to think of targeting Times Square and American airliners, not just Kabul and Islamabad? In short, are they inspiring more attacks on American than they prevent? It is a hard question.”
The Times Square drone connection also follows on last year’s deadly attack on the CIA, when a suicide bomber, a Jordanian doctor linked to al-Qaeda, detonated his explosives at an American base in Khost in eastern Afghanistan, killing himself and seven CIA officers and contractors who were operating at the heart of the covert program overseeing US drone strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal regions.
CIA director Leon Panetta has called lethal drone technology “the only game in town” for going after al-Qaeda, and Obama administration officials have strenuously defended both the legality of the strikes in Pakistan as well as their effectiveness in killing suspected militants. They also deny the drones are responsible for an unacceptable level of civilian deaths.
“In this ongoing armed conflict, the United States has the authority under international law, and the responsibility to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning an attack,’’ Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, told an audience of international legal scholars on March 25, according to the Wall Street Journal (“US defends legality of killing with drones”).
Since President Obama took office, the CIA has used drones to kill some 400 to 500 suspected militants, according to intelligence officials, the Journal reported. The officials say only some 20 civilians have been killed—a figure critics sharply challenge. In 2009, Pakistani officials said the strikes had killed some 700 civilians and only 14 terrorist leaders, or 50 civilians for every militant. A New America Foundation analysis of reported US drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to 2010 says the strikes killed between 830 and 1210 individuals, of whom 550 to 850 were militants, or about two-thirds of the total on average.
More recently, an April 26 story in the Washington Post reported that the CIA has refined its techniques and made technological improvements that are reducing civilian deaths, and this week, in his joint news conference with President Karzai of Afghanistan, President Obama said, “I am ultimately accountable…for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed…and so we do not take that lightly. We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties not because it’s a problem for President Karzai; we have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed.”
Earlier this month, in a May 6 interview on National Public Radio, David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was held captive for months by the Taliban in northern Pakistan, spoke about the US drone strikes and said, “I saw firsthand in north and south Waziristan that the drone strikes do have a major impact. They generally are accurate. The strikes that went on killed foreign militants or Afghan or Pakistani Taliban that went on around us. There were some civilians killed but generally the Taliban would greatly exaggerate the number of civilians killed. They inhibited their operations. Taliban leaders were very nervous about being tracked by drones. So they are effective in the short-term I would say…I don’t think the answer is, you know, endless drone strikes. The answer is definitely not sending American troops into Pakistan, into the tribal areas. That would just create a tremendous nationalist backlash. It has to be the Pakistanis doing it.”
Ethicists and religious leaders are beginning to challenge the morality of the drone program, arguing it violates international law as well as key precepts of just war theory. The Christian Century, for example, editorialized in mid-May (“Remote-control warfare,” May 18) that while the drone attacks have no doubt killed terrorists and leaders of al-Qaeda, “they raise troubling questions to those committed to the just war principle that civilians should never be targeted.”
Taking aim at one of the aspects of drone warfare that make it so popular with the military and with politicians—that it is a risk-free option for the US military because it avoids American casualties—the Century editors said: “According to the just war principles, it is better to risk the lives of one’s own combatants than the lives of enemy noncombatants.”
The “risk-free” idea is also being challenged. In a recent piece in the Jesuit magazine America (“A troubling disconnection,” March 15), Maryann Cusimano Love, an international relations professor at Catholic University, wrote that military (as opposed to CIA) drone operators suffer post-traumatic stress disorder at higher rates than soldiers in combat zones. “Operators see in detail the destruction and grisly human toll from their work,” she observed, and she quoted an air force commander who said, “There’s no detachment. Those employing the system are very involved at a personal level in combat. You hear the AK-47 going off, the intensity of the voice on the radio calling for help. You’re looking at him, 18 inches away from him, trying everything in your capability to get that person out of trouble.”
The Christian Century editors also noted that drone attacks on civilians have given militants a recruitment tool, citing an opinion piece by counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen and former army officer Andrew McDonald Exum published last year in the New York Times (May 17, 2009). “Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as the drone strikes have increased,” they wrote.
An even more emphatic critic of the use of drones is Mary Ellen O’Connell, an international law professor at the University of Notre Dame. “Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has been persuasive about its legal right to launch attacks in Pakistan,” she wrote in “Flying Blind,” an article also published in America magazine. “Even with the legal right to use military force, drone attacks must also conform to the traditional principles governing the rules of warfare, including those of distinction, necessity, proportion and humanity.’’
O’Connell argues that under the United Nations Charter, resort to military force on the territory of another state, in this case Pakistan, is permitted only when the attacking state is acting in self-defense, acting with U.N. Security Council authorization, or is invited to aid another state in the lawful use of force. “Pakistan did not attack the United States and is not responsible for those who did,” O’Connell wrote. “The United States has no basis, therefore, for attacking in self-defense on Pakistani territory.’’
In addition, she contends that while al-Qaeda is a violent terrorist group, “it should be treated as a criminal organization to which law enforcement rules apply. To do otherwise is violate fundamental human rights principles. Outside of war, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning.”
The only basis for the United States to lawfully use force in Pakistan would be if it had the consent of the country’s political leaders. It is not clear whether the US has such a valid invitation, according to O’Connell.
“Pakistan’s president has told US leaders not to attack certain groups that have cooperated with Islamabad,” O’Connell wrote. “The United States has done so anyway, insisting that Pakistan use more military force and threatening to carry out attacks itself if the government refuses. None of this can be squared with international law.”
As recently as May 12, the head of an influential religious party which is a junior partner in Pakistan’s ruling coalition denounced the most recent drone attacks as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. “The recurring attacks on targets in tribal areas are blatant aggression against Pakistan and the military should shoot down intruding drones,” Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party told reporters, as reported in the Gulf News.
The case of western Pakistan presents particular challenges, according to O’Connell: “There suspected militant leaders wear civilian clothes, and even the sophisticated cameras of a drone cannot reveal with certainty that a suspect is a militant. In such a situation international humanitarian law gives a presumption to civilian status.”
In an interview, O’Connell suggests that there is confusion about international law versus domestic national security law and that the scarcity of developed ethical analysis and discussion of drone warfare might have to do with the fact that the drone itself is “just a delivery vehicle.” The real ethical issue, she said, is “the greater propensity to kill” made possible by the “video game-like” quality of drone combat.
Gary Simpson, a theology professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota and the author of “War, Peace, and God: Rethinking the Just War Tradition” (Augsburg Fortress Press, 2007), acknowledges that although he hasn’t yet thought about ethics and drone warfare, “the ongoing evolution of weaponry always poses new questions. It changes the questions about proportionality”—referring to the just war principle that the benefits of war must be proportionate to the expected harm— “and the protection of one’s own forces over against the vulnerability of civilian populations.”
The House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs held hearings in March and April on the rise of the drones, the legality of unmanned targeting systems, and the future of war, and US Naval Academy ethics professor Edward Barrett testified that while unmanned weapons systems “are consistent with a society’s duty to avoid unnecessary risks to its combatants,” and they can “enhance restraint” on the part of the soldiers engaged in virtual warfare, they also “could encourage unjust wars” and “could facilitate the circumvention of legitimate authority and pursuit of unjust causes.”
It will be interesting to see whether Congress and the White House continue to involve ethicists and religious thinkers in future deliberations on these issues. Last December, just before President Obama gave his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on themes of just war, the White House gathered religious leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for what was described as a briefing and discussion of the morality of war, according to the Washington Post. White House staff members took notes for the president.
For now, the Obama administration insists the use of drones in Pakistan is imperative in the fight against terrorism, and Amitai Etzioni, an international relations professor at George Washington University, writing recently in the Joint Force Quarterly (“Unmanned Aircraft Systems: The Moral and Legal Case”), has enumerated many of the reasons and offered multiple lines of supporting argument: “The United States and its allies can make a strong case that the main source of the problem is those who abuse their civilian status to attack truly innocent civilians and to prevent our military and other security forces from discharging their duties,” he says, and “we must make it much clearer that those who abuse their civilian status are a main reason for the use of UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] and targeted killing against them.”
But others, such as Kilcullen and Exum, argue drone combat exacerbates the problem of terrorism and contributes to the instability of Pakistan. “Having Osama bin Laden in one’s sights is one thing,” write Kilcullen and Exum. “Devoting precious resources to his capture or death, rather than focusing on protecting the Afghan and Pakistani populations, is another. The goal should be to isolate extremists from the communities in which they live.”
Missile strikes launched from the comfort of Langley, Virginia, a half a world away from Waziristan, are unlikely to do that and thus, to critics, remain morally problematic.
David E. Anderson, senior editor for Religion News Service, has also written for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on Afghanistan (“The Right War Gone Wrong”) and nuclear disarmament (“Trimming the Nuclear Arsenals”).
President Obama is quoted as saying in a speech, "We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed." This sentiment has manifested itself in the contrary strident legal posturing of State Department legal adviser Harold Koh with no signs of halting, reducing or altering the methods of drone attacks, which have increased following the Times Square bombing attempt.
What's missing here is any human rights argument that human beings--combatants, non-combatants in proximity to or whose lives are entwined with those of combatants--have some kind of right to expect not to be hunted by robots with electric eyes being piloted by indoctrinated nationalists who believe what they are doing--no matter what it is--to be benevolent.
Further complicating this aspect of the issue is the tendency of comments to news outlets following various articles on drone attacks to maintain drones have the ability to "kill the bastards" while service men and women risk no physical danger. This line evades the key issue that children, villagers, farmers, unarmed inhabitants in an agrarian culture are not "the bastards," and the warfare of extermination is, on paper, a part of our past and not our future.
Until these discrepancies are addressed no productive debate on the ethics of UAVs and their use to murder civilians in relentless pursuit of "high-value targets" is going to take place. Rhetorically, we are left with the pre-World War II mentality of "might makes right," and nothing more sophisticated or justified.
From the website Pakistan Defense (defence.pk)
May 14th, 2010
Drones and the Ethics of War
by David E. Anderson
According to news reports, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in the failed Times Square bombing, has told investigators he carried out the attempted bombing to avenge US drone attacks in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan.
Shahzad’s assertion adds more fuel to the simmering controversy over the ethics and effects of increasing reliance by both the CIA and the US military on unmanned drones to launch missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, asked (“US pressure helps militants overseas focus efforts,” May 7) : “Have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan—notable the Predator drone strikes—actually made Americans less safe? Have they had the perverse consequence of driving lesser insurgencies to think of targeting Times Square and American airliners, not just Kabul and Islamabad? In short, are they inspiring more attacks on American than they prevent? It is a hard question.”
The Times Square drone connection also follows on last year’s deadly attack on the CIA, when a suicide bomber, a Jordanian doctor linked to al-Qaeda, detonated his explosives at an American base in Khost in eastern Afghanistan, killing himself and seven CIA officers and contractors who were operating at the heart of the covert program overseeing US drone strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal regions.
CIA director Leon Panetta has called lethal drone technology “the only game in town” for going after al-Qaeda, and Obama administration officials have strenuously defended both the legality of the strikes in Pakistan as well as their effectiveness in killing suspected militants. They also deny the drones are responsible for an unacceptable level of civilian deaths.
“In this ongoing armed conflict, the United States has the authority under international law, and the responsibility to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning an attack,’’ Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, told an audience of international legal scholars on March 25, according to the Wall Street Journal (“US defends legality of killing with drones”).
Since President Obama took office, the CIA has used drones to kill some 400 to 500 suspected militants, according to intelligence officials, the Journal reported. The officials say only some 20 civilians have been killed—a figure critics sharply challenge. In 2009, Pakistani officials said the strikes had killed some 700 civilians and only 14 terrorist leaders, or 50 civilians for every militant. A New America Foundation analysis of reported US drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to 2010 says the strikes killed between 830 and 1210 individuals, of whom 550 to 850 were militants, or about two-thirds of the total on average.
More recently, an April 26 story in the Washington Post reported that the CIA has refined its techniques and made technological improvements that are reducing civilian deaths, and this week, in his joint news conference with President Karzai of Afghanistan, President Obama said, “I am ultimately accountable…for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed…and so we do not take that lightly. We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties not because it’s a problem for President Karzai; we have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed.”
Earlier this month, in a May 6 interview on National Public Radio, David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was held captive for months by the Taliban in northern Pakistan, spoke about the US drone strikes and said, “I saw firsthand in north and south Waziristan that the drone strikes do have a major impact. They generally are accurate. The strikes that went on killed foreign militants or Afghan or Pakistani Taliban that went on around us. There were some civilians killed but generally the Taliban would greatly exaggerate the number of civilians killed. They inhibited their operations. Taliban leaders were very nervous about being tracked by drones. So they are effective in the short-term I would say…I don’t think the answer is, you know, endless drone strikes. The answer is definitely not sending American troops into Pakistan, into the tribal areas. That would just create a tremendous nationalist backlash. It has to be the Pakistanis doing it.”
Ethicists and religious leaders are beginning to challenge the morality of the drone program, arguing it violates international law as well as key precepts of just war theory. The Christian Century, for example, editorialized in mid-May (“Remote-control warfare,” May 18) that while the drone attacks have no doubt killed terrorists and leaders of al-Qaeda, “they raise troubling questions to those committed to the just war principle that civilians should never be targeted.”
Taking aim at one of the aspects of drone warfare that make it so popular with the military and with politicians—that it is a risk-free option for the US military because it avoids American casualties—the Century editors said: “According to the just war principles, it is better to risk the lives of one’s own combatants than the lives of enemy noncombatants.”
The “risk-free” idea is also being challenged. In a recent piece in the Jesuit magazine America (“A troubling disconnection,” March 15), Maryann Cusimano Love, an international relations professor at Catholic University, wrote that military (as opposed to CIA) drone operators suffer post-traumatic stress disorder at higher rates than soldiers in combat zones. “Operators see in detail the destruction and grisly human toll from their work,” she observed, and she quoted an air force commander who said, “There’s no detachment. Those employing the system are very involved at a personal level in combat. You hear the AK-47 going off, the intensity of the voice on the radio calling for help. You’re looking at him, 18 inches away from him, trying everything in your capability to get that person out of trouble.”
The Christian Century editors also noted that drone attacks on civilians have given militants a recruitment tool, citing an opinion piece by counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen and former army officer Andrew McDonald Exum published last year in the New York Times (May 17, 2009). “Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as the drone strikes have increased,” they wrote.
An even more emphatic critic of the use of drones is Mary Ellen O’Connell, an international law professor at the University of Notre Dame. “Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has been persuasive about its legal right to launch attacks in Pakistan,” she wrote in “Flying Blind,” an article also published in America magazine. “Even with the legal right to use military force, drone attacks must also conform to the traditional principles governing the rules of warfare, including those of distinction, necessity, proportion and humanity.’’
O’Connell argues that under the United Nations Charter, resort to military force on the territory of another state, in this case Pakistan, is permitted only when the attacking state is acting in self-defense, acting with U.N. Security Council authorization, or is invited to aid another state in the lawful use of force. “Pakistan did not attack the United States and is not responsible for those who did,” O’Connell wrote. “The United States has no basis, therefore, for attacking in self-defense on Pakistani territory.’’
In addition, she contends that while al-Qaeda is a violent terrorist group, “it should be treated as a criminal organization to which law enforcement rules apply. To do otherwise is violate fundamental human rights principles. Outside of war, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning.”
The only basis for the United States to lawfully use force in Pakistan would be if it had the consent of the country’s political leaders. It is not clear whether the US has such a valid invitation, according to O’Connell.
“Pakistan’s president has told US leaders not to attack certain groups that have cooperated with Islamabad,” O’Connell wrote. “The United States has done so anyway, insisting that Pakistan use more military force and threatening to carry out attacks itself if the government refuses. None of this can be squared with international law.”
As recently as May 12, the head of an influential religious party which is a junior partner in Pakistan’s ruling coalition denounced the most recent drone attacks as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. “The recurring attacks on targets in tribal areas are blatant aggression against Pakistan and the military should shoot down intruding drones,” Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party told reporters, as reported in the Gulf News.
The case of western Pakistan presents particular challenges, according to O’Connell: “There suspected militant leaders wear civilian clothes, and even the sophisticated cameras of a drone cannot reveal with certainty that a suspect is a militant. In such a situation international humanitarian law gives a presumption to civilian status.”
In an interview, O’Connell suggests that there is confusion about international law versus domestic national security law and that the scarcity of developed ethical analysis and discussion of drone warfare might have to do with the fact that the drone itself is “just a delivery vehicle.” The real ethical issue, she said, is “the greater propensity to kill” made possible by the “video game-like” quality of drone combat.
Gary Simpson, a theology professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota and the author of “War, Peace, and God: Rethinking the Just War Tradition” (Augsburg Fortress Press, 2007), acknowledges that although he hasn’t yet thought about ethics and drone warfare, “the ongoing evolution of weaponry always poses new questions. It changes the questions about proportionality”—referring to the just war principle that the benefits of war must be proportionate to the expected harm— “and the protection of one’s own forces over against the vulnerability of civilian populations.”
The House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs held hearings in March and April on the rise of the drones, the legality of unmanned targeting systems, and the future of war, and US Naval Academy ethics professor Edward Barrett testified that while unmanned weapons systems “are consistent with a society’s duty to avoid unnecessary risks to its combatants,” and they can “enhance restraint” on the part of the soldiers engaged in virtual warfare, they also “could encourage unjust wars” and “could facilitate the circumvention of legitimate authority and pursuit of unjust causes.”
It will be interesting to see whether Congress and the White House continue to involve ethicists and religious thinkers in future deliberations on these issues. Last December, just before President Obama gave his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on themes of just war, the White House gathered religious leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for what was described as a briefing and discussion of the morality of war, according to the Washington Post. White House staff members took notes for the president.
For now, the Obama administration insists the use of drones in Pakistan is imperative in the fight against terrorism, and Amitai Etzioni, an international relations professor at George Washington University, writing recently in the Joint Force Quarterly (“Unmanned Aircraft Systems: The Moral and Legal Case”), has enumerated many of the reasons and offered multiple lines of supporting argument: “The United States and its allies can make a strong case that the main source of the problem is those who abuse their civilian status to attack truly innocent civilians and to prevent our military and other security forces from discharging their duties,” he says, and “we must make it much clearer that those who abuse their civilian status are a main reason for the use of UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] and targeted killing against them.”
But others, such as Kilcullen and Exum, argue drone combat exacerbates the problem of terrorism and contributes to the instability of Pakistan. “Having Osama bin Laden in one’s sights is one thing,” write Kilcullen and Exum. “Devoting precious resources to his capture or death, rather than focusing on protecting the Afghan and Pakistani populations, is another. The goal should be to isolate extremists from the communities in which they live.”
Missile strikes launched from the comfort of Langley, Virginia, a half a world away from Waziristan, are unlikely to do that and thus, to critics, remain morally problematic.
David E. Anderson, senior editor for Religion News Service, has also written for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on Afghanistan (“The Right War Gone Wrong”) and nuclear disarmament (“Trimming the Nuclear Arsenals”).
Sunday, May 16, 2010
US Predators carry out first strike in Khyber
From The Long War Journal, by Bill Roggio May 15, 2010 12:14 PM
Excerpted material of particular note:
"Both the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Islam are known to operate bases and training camps in the Tirah Valley, as well as in Bara and Jamrud in Khyber. These safe havens enable these terror groups to launch attacks inside Pakistan as well across the border in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. In November 2008, the US military attacked Taliban forces in the Tirah Valley after they retreated across the border from Nangarhar in Afghanistan. US strike aircraft and artillery killed seven Taliban fighters during the hot pursuit."
"The Khyber Pass is NATO's main conduit for supplies into Afghanistan; an estimated 70 percent of NATO's supplies move through this strategic crossing point. The Taliban forced the Khyber Pass to be shut down seven times between September 2007 and April 2008 due to attacks."
Excerpted material of particular note:
"Both the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Islam are known to operate bases and training camps in the Tirah Valley, as well as in Bara and Jamrud in Khyber. These safe havens enable these terror groups to launch attacks inside Pakistan as well across the border in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. In November 2008, the US military attacked Taliban forces in the Tirah Valley after they retreated across the border from Nangarhar in Afghanistan. US strike aircraft and artillery killed seven Taliban fighters during the hot pursuit."
"The Khyber Pass is NATO's main conduit for supplies into Afghanistan; an estimated 70 percent of NATO's supplies move through this strategic crossing point. The Taliban forced the Khyber Pass to be shut down seven times between September 2007 and April 2008 due to attacks."
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Karzai visit: beneath the veneer of glad-handing
"Afghanistan's Karzai arrives in Washington for visit intended to ease tensions"
A Washington Post story delves into some of the rifts in the high ranks of the military over strategies and policies in Afghanistan, specifically where it regards how to handle Hamid Karzai. An excerpt of the more compelling aspects of the story (the last half, dealing with military brass in the place of dinner with Joe Biden) appears below ...
(By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2010)
Tensions in the administration's relationship with Karzai began a year ago, when U.S. officials sought to find a viable candidate to challenge him in presidential elections held in August. Karzai eventually won another five-year term amid widespread allegations of fraud. Although the administration pledged a renewed partnership, sharp exchanges over the last several months have tested both sides.
Although recognizing the need to maintain good relations with Karzai, the administration hopes to dilute his authority and enhance regional stability in Afghanistan by strengthening government at the district and local levels. Strong local governance is viewed as crucial to the success of an upcoming offensive in the southern city of Kandahar -- a Taliban stronghold -- that U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said Monday would be "decisive" in the overall Afghanistan war effort.
Karzai's visit also comes amid reports of dissension between McChrystal, the overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired three-star general who once had McChrystal's job. As Obama was formulating his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy late last summer, Eikenberry sent a pair of diplomatic cables to Washington questioning Karzai's competence and whether any strategy could succeed as long as he was president.
Asked at a White House media briefing Monday whether his concerns had been allayed, Eikenberry said that "Karzai is the elected president of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a close friend and ally, and of course I highly respect President Karzai in that capacity."
McChrystal, who also spoke at the briefing, tried to head off questions about reports of personal and policy disagreements between him and Eikenberry, opening his remarks by saying: "It's good to be here today with my colleague and friend Karl Eikenberry."
Eikenberry returned the favor, beginning his statement by complimenting the remarks of "my friend and partner in Afghanistan over many years, General Stan McChrystal."
The two have disagreed, among other things, on whether to address Afghanistan's energy and agricultural problems with quick-fix solutions proposed by the military or more sustainable projects, favored by Eikenberry, that take longer to show results. In a report released Monday, the Center for American Progress, generally supportive of the administration, charged that "officials are paying too little attention to the sustainability of the programs and the Afghan state we are achieving."
The center, staffed by many former Obama campaign advisers, said that the Karzai government "operates on a highly centralized patronage model in which power and resources are channeled through Hamid Karzai's personal and political allies" in a system that "invites corruption, rent-seeking, and a hemorrhaging of domestic legitimacy."
A Washington Post story delves into some of the rifts in the high ranks of the military over strategies and policies in Afghanistan, specifically where it regards how to handle Hamid Karzai. An excerpt of the more compelling aspects of the story (the last half, dealing with military brass in the place of dinner with Joe Biden) appears below ...
(By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2010)
Tensions in the administration's relationship with Karzai began a year ago, when U.S. officials sought to find a viable candidate to challenge him in presidential elections held in August. Karzai eventually won another five-year term amid widespread allegations of fraud. Although the administration pledged a renewed partnership, sharp exchanges over the last several months have tested both sides.
Although recognizing the need to maintain good relations with Karzai, the administration hopes to dilute his authority and enhance regional stability in Afghanistan by strengthening government at the district and local levels. Strong local governance is viewed as crucial to the success of an upcoming offensive in the southern city of Kandahar -- a Taliban stronghold -- that U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said Monday would be "decisive" in the overall Afghanistan war effort.
Karzai's visit also comes amid reports of dissension between McChrystal, the overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired three-star general who once had McChrystal's job. As Obama was formulating his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy late last summer, Eikenberry sent a pair of diplomatic cables to Washington questioning Karzai's competence and whether any strategy could succeed as long as he was president.
Asked at a White House media briefing Monday whether his concerns had been allayed, Eikenberry said that "Karzai is the elected president of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a close friend and ally, and of course I highly respect President Karzai in that capacity."
McChrystal, who also spoke at the briefing, tried to head off questions about reports of personal and policy disagreements between him and Eikenberry, opening his remarks by saying: "It's good to be here today with my colleague and friend Karl Eikenberry."
Eikenberry returned the favor, beginning his statement by complimenting the remarks of "my friend and partner in Afghanistan over many years, General Stan McChrystal."
The two have disagreed, among other things, on whether to address Afghanistan's energy and agricultural problems with quick-fix solutions proposed by the military or more sustainable projects, favored by Eikenberry, that take longer to show results. In a report released Monday, the Center for American Progress, generally supportive of the administration, charged that "officials are paying too little attention to the sustainability of the programs and the Afghan state we are achieving."
The center, staffed by many former Obama campaign advisers, said that the Karzai government "operates on a highly centralized patronage model in which power and resources are channeled through Hamid Karzai's personal and political allies" in a system that "invites corruption, rent-seeking, and a hemorrhaging of domestic legitimacy."
UK Telegraph: Karzai to ask Obama for billions more to fight Taliban
A recent visitor to ExEd, C Tuttle, posting to Firedoglake.com, tips us off to this UK Telegraph story from May 7 ...
By Ben Farmer in Kabul
Published: 11:56PM BST 07 May 2010
The Afghan president and ten ministers will tell members of the US Congress they need billions of dollars to end the eight-year-old Taliban insurgency.
Ministers will ask American politicians to fund an ambitious scheme to use jobs, training, aid and amnesties to coax militants from the battlefield.
They will say they need money for their armed forces, farming, education, health and job schemes to win over rural Afghans who still view the Kabul regime as weak, corrupt and ineffective.
Relations between Kabul and Washington plummeted after Mr Karzai railed against foreign interference and blamed his backers for the country's fraud and corruption.
The diplomatic row had at one point appeared to jeopardise Mr Karzai's invitation to the White House. Sources close to Mr Karzai said a successful visit was now considered "extraordinarily important".
The delegation will arrive in Washington on Monday to lobby Congress as it considers a Pentagon request for £22 billion of extra funds for the war in Afghanistan.
Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, the architect of the plan to persuade Taliban foot soldiers to defect, said securing more money was a key objective of the visit.
He said: "We need their support to build our civil institutions. We need their technical support and we need their financial support. They have promised us money in the past, now we need to see if they will give it."
A Western military officer involved in building the Afghan police and army said the ministries of defence and interior had drawn up "a very long shopping list".
American commanders fighting alongside British forces in Helmand this week admitted the continuing lack of competent Afghan police and administrators had slowed efforts to widen Kabul's grip after the drive to rid the province of Taliban fighters in Operation Moshtarak.
David Sedney, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, told the senate foreign relations committee: "The number of those civilians ... who are trained, capable, willing to go into (Taliban-controlled areas) does not match at all demand."
Mr Stanekzai said the delegation would seek American pressure on Islambad to squeeze Taliban safe havens inside Pakistan.
He said: "We need them to put more pressure on Pakistan to stop this double game. We must stop the organisational support behind the insurgency."
By Ben Farmer in Kabul
Published: 11:56PM BST 07 May 2010
The Afghan president and ten ministers will tell members of the US Congress they need billions of dollars to end the eight-year-old Taliban insurgency.
Ministers will ask American politicians to fund an ambitious scheme to use jobs, training, aid and amnesties to coax militants from the battlefield.
They will say they need money for their armed forces, farming, education, health and job schemes to win over rural Afghans who still view the Kabul regime as weak, corrupt and ineffective.
Relations between Kabul and Washington plummeted after Mr Karzai railed against foreign interference and blamed his backers for the country's fraud and corruption.
The diplomatic row had at one point appeared to jeopardise Mr Karzai's invitation to the White House. Sources close to Mr Karzai said a successful visit was now considered "extraordinarily important".
The delegation will arrive in Washington on Monday to lobby Congress as it considers a Pentagon request for £22 billion of extra funds for the war in Afghanistan.
Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, the architect of the plan to persuade Taliban foot soldiers to defect, said securing more money was a key objective of the visit.
He said: "We need their support to build our civil institutions. We need their technical support and we need their financial support. They have promised us money in the past, now we need to see if they will give it."
A Western military officer involved in building the Afghan police and army said the ministries of defence and interior had drawn up "a very long shopping list".
American commanders fighting alongside British forces in Helmand this week admitted the continuing lack of competent Afghan police and administrators had slowed efforts to widen Kabul's grip after the drive to rid the province of Taliban fighters in Operation Moshtarak.
David Sedney, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, told the senate foreign relations committee: "The number of those civilians ... who are trained, capable, willing to go into (Taliban-controlled areas) does not match at all demand."
Mr Stanekzai said the delegation would seek American pressure on Islambad to squeeze Taliban safe havens inside Pakistan.
He said: "We need them to put more pressure on Pakistan to stop this double game. We must stop the organisational support behind the insurgency."
Monday, May 10, 2010
Pentagon report on Afghanistan 4/26
From Stars and Stripes
By Jeff Schogol
Stars and Stripes online edition, Wednesday, April 28, 2010
• Read the report (FULL TEXT AVAILABLE; see above link) (PDF, 4MB)
[excerpt]
ARLINGTON, Va. — Despite the addition of more than 50,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the past year, there still aren’t enough forces to conduct operations in the majority of key areas, according to a congressionally mandated report released Wednesday on progress in Afghanistan.
Coalition forces have decided to focus their efforts on 121 key districts in Afghanistan, but right now, NATO has enough forces to operate in only 48 of those districts, the report said.
There are currently 86,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, up from about 30,000 when President Barack Obama took office. By August, there will be 98,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
With the rest of the U.S. and foreign partner troops that will arrive in Afghanistan this year, coalition and Afghan security forces will be able to focus on all 121 districts "over coming months," a senior Defense official said Wednesday, declining to be more specific.
Also, from Inter Press Service (IPS)
Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
[excerpt]
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2010 (IPS) - Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work.
Scepticism about McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai begins a four-day round of consultations with President Barack Obama and other senior U.S. officials here this week, the new report has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official" quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.
The senior military officer criticised McChrystal's announcement in February that he had "a government in a box, ready to roll in" for the Marja campaign, for having created "an expectation of rapidity and efficiency that doesn't exist now", according to Ignatius.
The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius.
The outlook at the Pentagon and the White House on the nascent Kandahar offensive is also pessimistic, judging from the comment to Ignatius by an unnamed "senior administration official". The official told Ignatius the operation is "still a work in progress", observing that McChrystal's command was still trying to decide how much of the local government the military could "salvage" and how much "you have to rebuild".
By Jeff Schogol
Stars and Stripes online edition, Wednesday, April 28, 2010
• Read the report (FULL TEXT AVAILABLE; see above link) (PDF, 4MB)
[excerpt]
ARLINGTON, Va. — Despite the addition of more than 50,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the past year, there still aren’t enough forces to conduct operations in the majority of key areas, according to a congressionally mandated report released Wednesday on progress in Afghanistan.
Coalition forces have decided to focus their efforts on 121 key districts in Afghanistan, but right now, NATO has enough forces to operate in only 48 of those districts, the report said.
There are currently 86,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, up from about 30,000 when President Barack Obama took office. By August, there will be 98,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
With the rest of the U.S. and foreign partner troops that will arrive in Afghanistan this year, coalition and Afghan security forces will be able to focus on all 121 districts "over coming months," a senior Defense official said Wednesday, declining to be more specific.
Also, from Inter Press Service (IPS)
Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
[excerpt]
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2010 (IPS) - Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work.
Scepticism about McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai begins a four-day round of consultations with President Barack Obama and other senior U.S. officials here this week, the new report has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official" quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.
The senior military officer criticised McChrystal's announcement in February that he had "a government in a box, ready to roll in" for the Marja campaign, for having created "an expectation of rapidity and efficiency that doesn't exist now", according to Ignatius.
The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius.
The outlook at the Pentagon and the White House on the nascent Kandahar offensive is also pessimistic, judging from the comment to Ignatius by an unnamed "senior administration official". The official told Ignatius the operation is "still a work in progress", observing that McChrystal's command was still trying to decide how much of the local government the military could "salvage" and how much "you have to rebuild".
Friday, May 7, 2010
LA Times: CIA receives permission to expand targeting for UAV drone program
CIA drones have broader list of targets
The agency since 2008 has been secretly allowed to kill unnamed suspects in Pakistan.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
May 5, 2010 | 8:37 p.m.
The secrecy aspect of the predator drone program is on some levels rapidly eroding. This story, like Robert Fisk's Belfast Independent story of last week, pulls up some detailed and informative numbers on drone attacks, their hellfire missiles and the results of those efforts. Also particularly compelling is how concern for the blowback factor is shifting, also contained in David Cloud's story.
Excerpt— Missile attacks have risen steeply since Obama took office. There were an estimated 53 drone strikes in 2009, up from just over 30 in Bush's last year, according to a website run by the New America Foundation that tracks press reports of attacks in Pakistan. Through early this month, there had been 34 more strikes this year, an average of one every 3 1/2 days, according to the site's figures
The 2010 attacks have killed from 143 to 247 people, according to estimates collected by the site, but only seven militants have been publicly identified. Among them are Al Qaeda explosives expert Ghazwan Yemeni, Taliban commander Mohammad Qari Zafar, Egyptian Canadian Al Qaeda leader Sheikh Mansoor, and Jordanian Taliban commander Mahmud Mahdi Zeidan.
The agency since 2008 has been secretly allowed to kill unnamed suspects in Pakistan.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
May 5, 2010 | 8:37 p.m.
The secrecy aspect of the predator drone program is on some levels rapidly eroding. This story, like Robert Fisk's Belfast Independent story of last week, pulls up some detailed and informative numbers on drone attacks, their hellfire missiles and the results of those efforts. Also particularly compelling is how concern for the blowback factor is shifting, also contained in David Cloud's story.
Excerpt— Missile attacks have risen steeply since Obama took office. There were an estimated 53 drone strikes in 2009, up from just over 30 in Bush's last year, according to a website run by the New America Foundation that tracks press reports of attacks in Pakistan. Through early this month, there had been 34 more strikes this year, an average of one every 3 1/2 days, according to the site's figures
The 2010 attacks have killed from 143 to 247 people, according to estimates collected by the site, but only seven militants have been publicly identified. Among them are Al Qaeda explosives expert Ghazwan Yemeni, Taliban commander Mohammad Qari Zafar, Egyptian Canadian Al Qaeda leader Sheikh Mansoor, and Jordanian Taliban commander Mahmud Mahdi Zeidan.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
What negotiations with the Taliban might have been like
I read this article three months back, trying to think of a way to contextualize it with the other articles appearing on this site. Since Saturday's turn of events in Times Square, it's become evident I waited too long to post it, or rather that the world changes fast and if you have an strong notion about something, you should act on it.
The article is called "A Deal With the Taliban?" Ahmed Rashid wrote it for the Feb. 25 edition of The New York Review of Books. It's probably 5,000 or more words long, but it offers in impeccable detail the advantages of a strategy to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table along with an explanation of what the Taliban in all its manifestations is like (e.g. how it is different from Al Qaeda). The following excerpt is a list of steps Mr. Rashid says the Obama administration and NATO have missed out on that, followed to the letter, might yield an opportunity for Afghanistan to manage its affairs effectively after the departure of U.S. forces.
"Here are some suggestions of steps that should be taken in advance of talking to the Taliban. Almost all these points have theoretically been accepted by the US and NATO but none have been acted upon:
1. Convince Afghanistan’s neighbors and other countries in the region to sign on to a reconciliation strategy with the Taliban, to be led by the Afghan government. Creating a regional strategy and consensus on Afghanistan was one of the primary aims of the Obama administration; but little has been achieved. From Iran to India, regional tensions are worse now than a year ago.
2. Allow Afghanistan to submit to the UN Security Council a request that the names of Taliban leaders be removed from a list of terrorists drawn up in 2001—so long as those leaders renounce violence and ties to al-Qaeda. Russia has so far refused to entertain such a request; but Obama has not tried hard enough to extract this concession from Russian leaders.
3. Pass a UN Security Council resolution giving the Afghan government a formal mandate to negotiate with the Taliban, and allow the US, NATO, and the UN to encourage that process. This would mean persuading reluctant countries like Russia and India to support such a resolution. (On January 27, a UN Security Council committee announced, with Russian agreement, that it has lifted sanctions against five former Taliban officials who are said to support the Karzai government.)
4. Have NATO and Afghan forces take responsibility for the security of Taliban and their families who return to Afghanistan, enlisting the help of international agencies such as the UN High Commission for Refugees or the International Committee of the Red Cross to work with the Afghan government to assist these returning Taliban members, arranging for compensation, housing, job training, and other needs they may have in facing resettlement.
5. Provide adequate funds, training, and staff for a reconciliation body, led by the Afghan government, that will work with Western forces and humanitarian agencies to provide a comprehensive and clearly spelled-out program for the security of the returning Taliban and for facilities to receive them.
6. Encourage the Pakistani military to assist NATO and Afghan forces in providing security to returning Taliban and their families and allow necessary cross-border support from international humanitarian agencies. Encourage Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to help the Taliban set up a legal political party, as other Afghan militants—such as former members of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami party—have done. This would be a tremendous blow to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban and it would give concrete form to Obama’s repeated pledge that he is ready to reach out to foes in the Muslim world.
7. The Taliban leadership should be provided with a neutral venue such as Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, where it can hold talks with the Afghan government and NATO. The US should release the remaining Afghan prisoners held at Guantánamo and allow them to go to either Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.
Unless such publicly announced policies are carried out, the Taliban may well conclude that it is better and safer to sit out the next eighteen months, wait for the Americans to start leaving, and then, when they judge Afghanistan to be vulnerable, go for the kill in Kabul—although that would only lead to a renewed civil war."
The article is called "A Deal With the Taliban?" Ahmed Rashid wrote it for the Feb. 25 edition of The New York Review of Books. It's probably 5,000 or more words long, but it offers in impeccable detail the advantages of a strategy to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table along with an explanation of what the Taliban in all its manifestations is like (e.g. how it is different from Al Qaeda). The following excerpt is a list of steps Mr. Rashid says the Obama administration and NATO have missed out on that, followed to the letter, might yield an opportunity for Afghanistan to manage its affairs effectively after the departure of U.S. forces.
"Here are some suggestions of steps that should be taken in advance of talking to the Taliban. Almost all these points have theoretically been accepted by the US and NATO but none have been acted upon:
1. Convince Afghanistan’s neighbors and other countries in the region to sign on to a reconciliation strategy with the Taliban, to be led by the Afghan government. Creating a regional strategy and consensus on Afghanistan was one of the primary aims of the Obama administration; but little has been achieved. From Iran to India, regional tensions are worse now than a year ago.
2. Allow Afghanistan to submit to the UN Security Council a request that the names of Taliban leaders be removed from a list of terrorists drawn up in 2001—so long as those leaders renounce violence and ties to al-Qaeda. Russia has so far refused to entertain such a request; but Obama has not tried hard enough to extract this concession from Russian leaders.
3. Pass a UN Security Council resolution giving the Afghan government a formal mandate to negotiate with the Taliban, and allow the US, NATO, and the UN to encourage that process. This would mean persuading reluctant countries like Russia and India to support such a resolution. (On January 27, a UN Security Council committee announced, with Russian agreement, that it has lifted sanctions against five former Taliban officials who are said to support the Karzai government.)
4. Have NATO and Afghan forces take responsibility for the security of Taliban and their families who return to Afghanistan, enlisting the help of international agencies such as the UN High Commission for Refugees or the International Committee of the Red Cross to work with the Afghan government to assist these returning Taliban members, arranging for compensation, housing, job training, and other needs they may have in facing resettlement.
5. Provide adequate funds, training, and staff for a reconciliation body, led by the Afghan government, that will work with Western forces and humanitarian agencies to provide a comprehensive and clearly spelled-out program for the security of the returning Taliban and for facilities to receive them.
6. Encourage the Pakistani military to assist NATO and Afghan forces in providing security to returning Taliban and their families and allow necessary cross-border support from international humanitarian agencies. Encourage Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to help the Taliban set up a legal political party, as other Afghan militants—such as former members of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami party—have done. This would be a tremendous blow to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban and it would give concrete form to Obama’s repeated pledge that he is ready to reach out to foes in the Muslim world.
7. The Taliban leadership should be provided with a neutral venue such as Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, where it can hold talks with the Afghan government and NATO. The US should release the remaining Afghan prisoners held at Guantánamo and allow them to go to either Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.
Unless such publicly announced policies are carried out, the Taliban may well conclude that it is better and safer to sit out the next eighteen months, wait for the Americans to start leaving, and then, when they judge Afghanistan to be vulnerable, go for the kill in Kabul—although that would only lead to a renewed civil war."
Saturday, May 1, 2010
LA Times story on Predator and Reaper campaigns
Drones have transformed combat against Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, the rugged belt of villages and badlands hugging the border with Afghanistan. Since 2004, analysts say, Predator and Reaper drones operated by the CIA have killed at least 15 senior Al Qaeda commanders, as well as several top Pakistani Taliban leaders and hundreds of fighters.
The small unmanned planes can hover for hours while gathering infrared camera footage. Onboard lasers pinpoint targets for supersonic Hellfire missiles or 500-pound bombs. The attacks cost no American lives.
But civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda also die in these strikes. Calculations of how many vary widely, from fewer than 30 since 2008 to more than 700 just last year. The Pakistani government restricts access to the tribal areas and has only nominal control there. Militants seal off attack sites, and victims are buried quickly, according to Islamic tradition.
Still, the deaths inflame anti-American suspicions, particularly among middle- and upper-class Pakistanis outside the tribal areas, many of whom are convinced that Washington wants to colonize their country or wrest control of its nuclear arsenal.
Inside the poor, isolated and politically powerless tribal areas, the reaction is more nuanced. Some say bluntly that they would avenge the killing of their relatives, if they could only reach those remotely piloting the drones buzzing thousands of feet over their heads. Others say they understand the need for the program, and even support it if it helps drive out the militants. They loathe the constraints the Taliban places on everyday life.
But many don't understand why a technology that pinpoints its targets with lasers and infrared cameras can also kill innocents. And they would prefer that Pakistanis, rather than Americans, were flying the drones.
The CIA's covert Predator and Reaper drone missions over Pakistan are separate from the U.S. military's unmanned flights in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. military officials say.
Pakistanis are in some ways partners in the effort. U.S. conventional forces are banned from the tribal areas, but Pakistan tacitly acquiesces to Washington's reliance on drones to strike militant camps and hide-outs. The U.S. also relies heavily on the Pakistani military and intelligence services for on-the-ground information. If the intelligence is faulty, or if civilians are near militant targets, civilian casualties are almost inevitable.
The small unmanned planes can hover for hours while gathering infrared camera footage. Onboard lasers pinpoint targets for supersonic Hellfire missiles or 500-pound bombs. The attacks cost no American lives.
But civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda also die in these strikes. Calculations of how many vary widely, from fewer than 30 since 2008 to more than 700 just last year. The Pakistani government restricts access to the tribal areas and has only nominal control there. Militants seal off attack sites, and victims are buried quickly, according to Islamic tradition.
Still, the deaths inflame anti-American suspicions, particularly among middle- and upper-class Pakistanis outside the tribal areas, many of whom are convinced that Washington wants to colonize their country or wrest control of its nuclear arsenal.
Inside the poor, isolated and politically powerless tribal areas, the reaction is more nuanced. Some say bluntly that they would avenge the killing of their relatives, if they could only reach those remotely piloting the drones buzzing thousands of feet over their heads. Others say they understand the need for the program, and even support it if it helps drive out the militants. They loathe the constraints the Taliban places on everyday life.
But many don't understand why a technology that pinpoints its targets with lasers and infrared cameras can also kill innocents. And they would prefer that Pakistanis, rather than Americans, were flying the drones.
The CIA's covert Predator and Reaper drone missions over Pakistan are separate from the U.S. military's unmanned flights in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. military officials say.
Pakistanis are in some ways partners in the effort. U.S. conventional forces are banned from the tribal areas, but Pakistan tacitly acquiesces to Washington's reliance on drones to strike militant camps and hide-outs. The U.S. also relies heavily on the Pakistani military and intelligence services for on-the-ground information. If the intelligence is faulty, or if civilians are near militant targets, civilian casualties are almost inevitable.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Pakistan, Drones and the Unpopularity of the U.S. War in Afghanistan
Amid the climate of escalation and apparent shuffling of tactics in the Pentagon today, most folks aren't noticing that the U.S. War in Afghanistan is largely run by the CIA, that its frequently being fought in a destabilized Pakistan where the conventions of international conflict (Congressional declaration of war, official status as an ally downgraded to enemy, some kind of responsibility informally but publicly pinned on leader of offending nation, U.S. Military announcements of strategy for achievement of objectives in target region and an outline of those objectives ... ) are being flouted by both invader and invaded, and civilian contractors, namely a U.S. Corporation whose employees and officers under investigation by the FBI for murder and corruption formerly known as Blackwater, appear to be running the operation.
The question I would be asking if I was, say, a proud American parent of a U.S. soldier, "Are our soldiers there just to provide cover for the CIA operation of drone strikes into Pakistan?" Is the CIA running intelligence missions under the rifle sights of U.S. sentries in crowded markets in southern Afghanistan so that Blackwater can fly remote controlled missle drones in violation of international law and the conventions of combat to murder four to six civilians--mostly women and children--for each military target, probably Al Qaeda, probably not Osama Bin Laden?
Furthermore, with embedded media present under strict agreements with the Pentagon, can U.S. and other major media outlets even begin to address let alone answer this question?
The question I would be asking if I was, say, a proud American parent of a U.S. soldier, "Are our soldiers there just to provide cover for the CIA operation of drone strikes into Pakistan?" Is the CIA running intelligence missions under the rifle sights of U.S. sentries in crowded markets in southern Afghanistan so that Blackwater can fly remote controlled missle drones in violation of international law and the conventions of combat to murder four to six civilians--mostly women and children--for each military target, probably Al Qaeda, probably not Osama Bin Laden?
Furthermore, with embedded media present under strict agreements with the Pentagon, can U.S. and other major media outlets even begin to address let alone answer this question?
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