Is Obama's drone doctrine counter-productive?

[iajj]

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There are global terror infrastructures in Pakistan (camps, training facilities, fund organisations, recruitment means, arms etc.) which are responsible for most of terror attacks - 9/11, 26/11, 12/2001, the attack on the underground in London and other failed attempts to blow up urban centre in New York and so forth.

How exactly the West draw this terrorism on itself? Please explain how innocent civilians are responsible for the terrorism which murdered them.

that some training camps were set up in pakistan was an accident and a matter of geographic and logistic convenience for terrorists who used to be based in afghanistan.

that jewish existence and anglo-american power are rootless occurs to their very nature. terrorists are drawn to them not by accident but because they, too, are rootless and oppose jews and anglo-americans as a matter of necessity and as one wild beast against another

[Developereo]

The reason this particular opinion piece is noteworthy is because the author and people mentioned therein tend to be 'right wing' and would never be considered soft on Pakistan.

The new way of warfare is killing the West's reputation

Peter Oborne
June 2, 2012
OPINION

THE theory and practice of warfare has evolved with amazing speed since al-Qaeda's attack on mainland America in September 2001. In less than 11 years it is already possible to discern three separate phases.

First, we had the era of ground invasion followed by military occupation. This concept, which feels terribly 20th century today, appeared at first to work well, with the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan followed by the easy destruction of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

But by 2005 it was obvious that the strategy was failing. The resurgence of the Taliban, and the success of the Iraqi insurgencies, led to an urgent reassessment. In desperation, the United States turned to the more sophisticated methodology once favoured by the British and, before them, the Romans - the elaboration of a system of alliances, otherwise known as ''divide and rule''.

This was the second phase, the so-called ''surge'' of 2007, which made the reputation of General David Petraeus and rescued the second Bush presidency from disaster. Of greater significance than the temporary increase in troop numbers on the ground was the decision by the Western Iraqi tribes, encouraged by the payment of enormous bribes, to detach themselves, at least temporarily, from al-Qaeda.

The same tactics did not work, however, when duplicated two years later in Afghanistan - and so US policy has unobtrusively moved into a third phase: a new and as yet only partially understood doctrine of secret, unaccountable and illegal warfare.

The guiding force has once again been General Petraeus. Appointed director of the CIA last northern summer, he swiftly converted the intelligence agency into a paramilitary organisation. Conventional military forces are scarcely relevant: it is Petraeus who now masterminds what George Bush used to call the ''war on terror'' from the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

President Obama has reportedly allowed his CIA chief to direct Special Forces operations. More important still, the CIA also masterminds and directs the drone strikes that have suddenly become the central element of US military strategy. Even 10 years ago, drones - remotely operated killing machines - were unthinkable because they seemed to spring direct from the imagination of a deranged sci-fi movie director. But today they dominate. Already, more US armed forces personnel are being trained as drone operators (computer geeks who sit in front of a computer screen somewhere in the midwest of America doling out real-life death and destruction) than air force pilots.

It is easy to understand why. First of all, they can be deadly accurate. Tribal Afghans have been amazed not just that the car a Taliban leader was travelling in was precisely targeted - but that the missile went in through the door on the side he was sitting. The US claims that drones have proved very effective at targeting and killing Taliban or al-Qaeda leaders, but with the very minimum of civilian casualties.

Second, US soldiers and airmen are not placed in harm's way. This is very important in a democracy. In America, the killing of a dozen military personnel is a political event. The death of a dozen Afghan or Pakistani villages in a remote part of what used to be called the north-west frontier does not register, unless a US military spokesmen labels them ''militants'', in which case it becomes a victory.

There is no surprise, then - as The New York Times revealed in an important article on Tuesday - that Obama ''has placed himself at the helm of a top-secret 'nominations' process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical''.

The least enviable task of an old-fashioned British home secretary was to sign the death warrant for convicted murderers. According to The New York Times, Obama has taken these exquisite agonies one stage further: ''When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises, but his family is with him, it is the President who has reserved for himself the final moral calculation.''

So, in the US, drone strikes are a good thing. In Pakistan, from where I write this, it is impossible to over-estimate the anger and distress they cause.

Almost all Pakistanis feel that they are personally under attack, and that America tramples on their precarious national sovereignty. There are good reasons for this. When, last year in Lahore, an out-of-control CIA operative shot dead two reportedly unarmed Pakistanis, and his follow-up car ran over and killed a third, the American was spirited out of the country.

Meanwhile, America refuses to apologise for killing 24 Pakistani servicemen in a botched operation. This is election year and Obama, having apologised already over Koran burning, may be nervous about a second apology, and has therefore confined himself to an expression of ''regret''.

I am told by several credible sources that this refusal to behave decently - allied to dismay at the use of drones as the weapon of default in tribal areas - is the reason for the unusual decision of the US ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, to step down after less than two years in his post.

We need a serious public debate on drones. They are still in their infancy, but have already changed the nature of warfare. The new technology points the way, within just a few decades, to a battlefield where soldiers never die or even risk their lives, and only alleged enemies of the state, their family members, and civilians die in combat - a world straight out of the mouse's tale in Alice in Wonderland: '' 'I'll be judge, I'll be jury', said cunning old Fury. 'I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.' '' Justice as dealt out by drones cannot be reconciled with the rule of law, which the US and its allies say we wish to defend.

Supporters of drones - and they make up practically the entire respectable political establishment in Britain and the US - argue that they are indispensable in the fight against al-Qaeda. But plenty of very experienced voices have expressed profound qualms. Former Australian army officer David Kilcullen, one of the architects of the 2007 Iraqi surge, has warned that drone attacks create more extremists than they eliminate. Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's former special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is equally adamant that drone attacks are horribly counterproductive because of the hatred they have started to generate: according to a recent poll, more than two-thirds of Pakistanis regard the US as an enemy.

Britain used to be popular and respected in this part of the world for our wisdom and decency. Now, thanks to its refusal to challenge American military doctrine, Britain is hated, too.

Peter Oborne is chief political commentator of The Telegraph, London.

[AbhimanyuShrivastav]

I find the idea of drone attacks generating hatred extremely funny, if not preposterous.. As if there is still some scope in these areas for additional hatred towards America...

[Joe Shearer]

This is frightening, but nobody seems frightened:

The new technology points the way, within just a few decades, to a battlefield where soldiers never die or even risk their lives, and only alleged enemies of the state, their family members, and civilians die in combat - a world straight out of the mouse's tale in Alice in Wonderland: '' 'I'll be judge, I'll be jury', said cunning old Fury. 'I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.' '' Justice as dealt out by drones cannot be reconciled with the rule of law, which the US and its allies say we wish to defend.

[AbhimanyuShrivastav]

This is frightening, but nobody seems frightened:

The brave new world..

[vsdoc]

Its simple. Just because there is no human doing the killing directly, does not make the attacks any less of any invasion of your sovereignty - in fact an act of war.

Were the US to shoot missiles across your border on to your land, killing your people, would it have been any different?

So how are drone attacks condoned?

The only explanation we can see as outsiders is that there is a tacit understanding between those running and defending your country, and their counterparts on the American side.

If so, your anger is largely misdirected.

What use questioning the morals and ethics of the Americans, when those of your own are far lower?

You want to wake the American public up?

When are YOU going to wake up?

Start there first!

[Joe Shearer]

Its simple. Just because there is no human doing the killing directly, does not make the attacks any less of any invasion of your sovereignty - in fact an act of war.

Were the US to shoot missiles across your border on to your land, killing your people, would it have been any different?

So how are drone attacks condoned?

The only explanation we can see as outsiders is that there is a tacit understanding between those running and defending your country, and their counterparts on the American side.

If so, your anger is largely misdirected.

What use questioning the morals and ethics of the Americans, when those of your own are far lower?

You want to wake the American public up?

When are YOU going to wake up?

Start there first!

I was not of this frame of mind, but after listening to VSDoc say this over and over and over again, I have started to wonder- just what is going on here?

[nuclearpak]

I was not of this frame of mind, but after listening to VSDoc say this over and over and over again, I have started to wonder- just what is going on here?

I don't disagree with VSDoc here, but what he says is that we completely let our douche bags in the parliament go scotch free, while our emphasis is on US totally.

Which is wrong, at least as far as I am concerned. Can't vouch for others, but I hold the current lot in government equally responsible for this Drone issue as the US.

Problem is, that now more and more people are getting in the mindset and thinking (their thinking is true to some extent), that we are in simple and plain terms, a bit helpless and puny against the US. We can't shoot down a US drone, pain and simple. PERIOD. If we do, then there is a 85% chance of things getting worse than they already are. After the elections, if we do something right to the economy and get some momentum going on the internal front, then maybe we can stand up to the US on this issue, and maybe bring a drone down. But in this current government, I dont see anything happening.

[swathi]

Hell, you should be a spin doctor for MMS & Co.



You make all the valid points but then like a possessed individual, you merely run in circles.
Say even if 9/11 plot was hatched in the caves of Tora Bora, it may give the rights to Americans to take out the mother ship but does it also justifies them to try and implement their version of democracy in a place which in your own words is alien to them...since they are foreigners, they are bound to be oblivious to the ground realities and indeed it will take none less than an enemy of Pakistan for ignoring the fact that it's the very monster the Americans created is now biting their A$$.
And to introduce you to some realities, Pakistan has it's own argument, for before the Americans gate crashed into Afghanistan, the likes of suicide attacks were virtually unheard of in our part of the world and guess what, it's not the American public baring the brunt of this menace.......so save the banter for your embedded hosts.

Hillary clinton has accepted the fact that United States has nurtured Afghan mujahideen, Most of the americans are also ready to agree with it, but none of the pakistan members in the forum are ready to agree that Snakes ( Harkat ul Jihad islami, Jaish e mohammed ) which they created bite their neighbours turned against them. I think pakistanis have forgotten their government role in helping taliban to capture power in Afghanistan. United States has dumped Afghanistan as soon as Soviet Union has withdrawn from Afghansitan. The snake ( Taliban ) which pakistan Again nurtured between 1991-2000 has now turned against them. As of now ( Taliban - Haqqani Network, Lashkar E Taiba) has not turned against them. But i am not sure about it in the future.

[vsdoc]

I was not of this frame of mind, but after listening to VSDoc say this over and over and over again, I have started to wonder- just what is going on here?

Problem is, that now more and more people are getting in the mindset and thinking (their thinking is true to some extent), that we are in simple and plain terms, a bit helpless and puny against the US. We can't shoot down a US drone, pain and simple. PERIOD. If we do, then there is a 85% chance of things getting worse than they already are. After the elections, if we do something right to the economy and get some momentum going on the internal front, then maybe we can stand up to the US on this issue, and maybe bring a drone down. But in this current government, I dont see anything happening.

8 pages and nobody from the Pakistani side has as yet verbalized what most here probably already know.

That is, why exactly do the Pakistanis look on as Americans kill Pakstanis.

The way I see it, Pakistan's doctrine of strategic depth is alive and well.

Only now its moved east of the Durand Line.

[illusion8]

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Such is the dependence that President Obama negated all what he said as Candidate Obama in 2008, and doubled the number of drone strikes in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) of Pakistan within one year of assuming office in 2009-10. The results are stunning: the stepped-up tempo of drone strikes since they began in 2004 has virtually decapitated Al-Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan allies in Fata and has spread panic in terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.

So, common sense dictates Pakistan should be happy, too, because many of these terrorist thugs massacre civilians and target the military there, right? Far from it. Last month, going a step ahead from chronic denunciations from its leaders, the Pakistan parliament passed a resolution calling for an immediate end to all drone attacks as part of list of demands for full normalisation of the country's ties with the US and reopening of Nato supply routes to Afghanistan. The US treated the resolution in the same way as it dealt with criticism from leaders like Prime Minister Gilani - with utter contempt.

As the CIA - which operates the drones - hunts down Islamic militants, the Obama administration should consider why, exactly, Pakistan is so reluctant to allow drone strikes. The usual answer is that CIA encroachments into its territory violate sovereignty, kill innocent civilians and fuel anti-American, anti-government sentiment in Pakistan. That's true as far as it gets.

In fact, hypocrisy permeates every aspect of Pakistan's attitude on this matter. US officials say the strikes come under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to criticise them in public. Pakistan denies this. What's even more ludicrous is that at times, drones were even launched from US bases on Pakistani soil. Pakistan's duality in its approach towards the policy of drone attacks simply creates propaganda fodder for terrorists. Moreover, tighter restrictions on "signature strikes" since 2010 have considerably reduced collateral damage. According to Long War Journal, for instance, just 2.2% of the 801 terrorists killed in 2010 were civilians.

Drones are at vanguard of US mission goal to dismantle Al-Qaida in AfPak - Economic Times