Mir Adnan Aziz
In The Strategies of War, Robert Greene writes: Rommel once made a distinction between a gamble and a risk. Both cases involve an action with only a chance of success, a chance that is heightened by acting with boldness. The difference is that with a risk if you lose, you can recover. With a gamble, on the other hand, defeat can lead to a slew of problems that are likely to spiral out of control. You realise that the stakes are too high; you cannot afford to lose. So you try harder to rescue the situation, often sinking deeper into the hole that you cannot get out of. Taking risks is essential; gambling is foolhardy.
The United States occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, initially deemed not even a risk has become a gamble that is spiralling out of control. Drones are the latest card seen as an ace, that the deck is well stacked against them figures nowhere on their video monitors. The Brookings Institution, one of the most powerful and influential think tanks in the United States, published an analysis by Daniel Byman on the US drone policy in Pakistan. It stated that more than six hundred civilians (till June 2009) have been killed by US attacks. It also went on to say that for every militant killed more than ten civilians also died. This assessment is highly significant ninety per cent of those killed in US drone attacks in Pakistan have been innocent civilians. The percentage may significantly increase given the higher number of civilian casualties quoted by local sources.
Using Pakistani tribal areas as a testing ground, the US industrial-military complex has elevated robotic warfare to the highest levels of cynicism. Operated through video screens from Creech and Hancock air force bases in the US, drones indiscriminately slaughter the civilian population. Obamas presidency brought a significant (more than a hundred per cent) rise in these attacks, the first four months this year alone seeing thirty four of them. Joe Biden announced at the onset that he favoured fewer troops on ground as opposed to a significant increase in the use of assassination drones.
Last October, UNs special rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston warned: My concern is that these drones, these predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions and extrajudicial executions are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons. The US responded by greatly intensifying the attacks.
On January 13, 2006, one of the earliest drone attacks saw ten missiles fired on Damadola. The purported target was Ayman al Zawahiri at a dinner on Eid al-Azha. US officials declared that up to four Al Qaeda members were killed. ABC News gloated over the killings and described the gathering as a terror summit. When their euphoria subsided, it was learnt that twenty two people, including five children and five women, had been killed. Fourteen of the dead were from the same family gathered for an Eid dinner. US officials later admitted that no Al Qaeda leader was amongst the dead and those who perished were local villagers.
On September 8, 2008 drones fired five missiles on the madressah of Jalaluddin Haqqani. At least twenty three people, including eight children and Haqqanis wife, sister, perished. Haqqani himself was not present in the madressah at that time. On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, hundreds of Pakistanis attended a funeral in the Makeen district of South Waziristan for a suspected Taliban leader. Two US drones fired at least three missiles directly into the funeral gathering. The death toll was put at eighty including ten children between the ages of five to ten. Subsequent reports were unanimous that no militant leader was harmed in the attack.
The drone attacks violate international laws and conventions and as a strategy, are extremely counter-productive. They lack both in terms of technical efficiency and the human intelligence they depend upon. Western media sources such as Time magazine, the Guardian and even people within the CIA admit this fact. The Wall Street Journal has reported: Militants in Iraq have used $26 off the shelf software to intercept live video feeds from US Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor US military operations. Hired local people, out for a quick dollar, drop microchips randomly and at compounds and abodes housing their tribal rivals. The drones then lock onto these chips to fire their missiles. The thermal cameras on which drone operators rely to verify their targets are notoriously imperfect. Even under ideal conditions, images can be blurry. In a chilling revelation, Time wrote that in one of several stills from drone video seen by Time, it is hard to tell if a group of men are kneeling in prayer or they are militants in battle formation.
To tell the United States that the drone strikes violate the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention and the principles of the Nuremburg Tribunal and a plethora of international laws would be a futile exercise. We have seen the US flout these laws and conventions with utter disdain. That these strikes add fuel to fire and are detrimental to its own security would be a narrative easier for it to understand and hopefully digest.
Article Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=243358
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