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Drones and “what makes us different”
by Joseph Nevins / January 25th, 2016
Seven years ago this month and three days after Barack Obama assumed the presidency on January 20, 2009, the first drone strike of his administration took place–in a small village in the region of Pakistan known as North Waziristan. It targeted the family compound of Faheem Qureshi, fracturing the young teen’s skull and destroying one of his eyes, while killing, among others, two of his uncles and a 21-year-old cousin. The White House’s intended target, it was later revealed, was not, nor had he ever been, present at the site. About ten months later, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its decision to award Obama the annual Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
In his speech at the Oslo City Hall upon accepting the prize on December 10, 2009, Obama insisted that “the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war,” suggesting that U.S. war-waging is somehow superior, more ethical, than those of the country’s adversaries. “That is what makes us different from those whom we fight,” he proclaimed. “That is a source of our strength.”
No doubt there are many things that distinguish the United States—not least the enormity of its military budget, and its global network of military bases. But as the documentary Drone (which premiered in the United States and Canada in late November and which includes footage from Obama’s speech) makes painfully clear, it is the U.S. government’s ability to kill at a distance—with impunity and with widespread support, or at least resignation, of the citizenry—that also “makes us different.”
In his speech at the Oslo City Hall upon accepting the prize on December 10, 2009, Obama insisted that “the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war,” suggesting that U.S. war-waging is somehow superior, more ethical, than those of the country’s adversaries. “That is what makes us different from those whom we fight,” he proclaimed. “That is a source of our strength.”
No doubt there are many things that distinguish the United States—not least the enormity of its military budget, and its global network of military bases. But as the documentary Drone (which premiered in the United States and Canada in late November and which includes footage from Obama’s speech) makes painfully clear, it is the U.S. government’s ability to kill at a distance—with impunity and with widespread support, or at least resignation, of the citizenry—that also “makes us different.”
U.S. airstrikes carried out in northeastern Afghanistan between January 2012 and February 2013 (as part of Operation Haymaker), for example, killed more than 200 people, only 35 of whom were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia, where the U.S. has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse.
Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the London-based human rights organization Reprieve, offers a similar analysis while speaking to a crowd of Pakistanis during the film Drone: “Until America sees your children as they see my children, we will never get justice in the world.”
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/01/drones-and-what-makes-us-different/
6 replies
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women were ISIS (but I get your point. Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude).
Watch: Drone Pilot Whistleblowers Describe Devastating Impacts of Targeted Kill Program
Published on
Friday, November 20, 2015
byCommon Dreams
Democracy Now! interviews four whistleblowers risking prosecution to speak out against ongoing drone program
byNadia Prupis, staff writer
Four former drone operators who are speaking out against the U.S. military's ongoing targeted killing program—and risking federal prosecution for doing so—appeared on Democracy Now! Friday morning, alongside renowned human rights attorney Jesselyn Radack, for their first extended interview on air.
"We have seen the abuse firsthand, and we are horrified," former Air Force Staff Sgt. Brandon Bryant said at a press conference Thursday.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, the Air Force pilots-turned-whistleblowers issued an open letter to President Barack Obama warning that the drone program "is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world."
"We witnessed gross waste, mismanagement, abuses of power, and our country’s leaders lying publicly about the effectiveness of the drone program," the operators wrote in their letter. "We cannot sit silently by and witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at home."
Watch their interviews below:
"We have seen the abuse firsthand, and we are horrified," former Air Force Staff Sgt. Brandon Bryant said at a press conference Thursday.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, the Air Force pilots-turned-whistleblowers issued an open letter to President Barack Obama warning that the drone program "is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world."
"We witnessed gross waste, mismanagement, abuses of power, and our country’s leaders lying publicly about the effectiveness of the drone program," the operators wrote in their letter. "We cannot sit silently by and witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at home."
Watch their interviews below:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/20/exclusive_air_force_whistleblowers_risk_prosecution
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/20/numbing_horrible_former_drone_operator_brandon
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/20/exclusive_2_air_force_vets_speak
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/20/from_console_to_trigger_how_pentagon
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/20/watch-drone-pilot-whistleblowers-describe-devastating-impacts-targeted-kill-program
Former Drone Operators Say They Were “Horrified” By Cruelty of Assassination Program
By Murtaza Hussain
Source: The Intercept
November 21, 2015
U.S. drone operators are inflicting heavy civilian casualties and have developed an institutional culture callous to the death of children and other innocents, four former operators said at a press briefing today in New York.
The killings, part of the Obama administration’s targeted assassination program, are aiding terrorist recruitment and thus undermining the program’s goal of eliminating such fighters, the veterans added. Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force. Haas also described widespread drug and alcohol abuse, further stating that some operators had flown missions while impaired.
In addition to Haas, the operators are former Air Force Staff Sgt. Brandon Bryant along with former senior airmen Cian Westmoreland and Stephen Lewis. The men have conducted kill missions in many of the major theaters of the post-9/11 war on terror, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We have seen the abuse firsthand,” said Bryant, “and we are horrified.”
The killings, part of the Obama administration’s targeted assassination program, are aiding terrorist recruitment and thus undermining the program’s goal of eliminating such fighters, the veterans added. Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force. Haas also described widespread drug and alcohol abuse, further stating that some operators had flown missions while impaired.
In addition to Haas, the operators are former Air Force Staff Sgt. Brandon Bryant along with former senior airmen Cian Westmoreland and Stephen Lewis. The men have conducted kill missions in many of the major theaters of the post-9/11 war on terror, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We have seen the abuse firsthand,” said Bryant, “and we are horrified.”
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/former-drone-operators-say-they-were-horrified-by-cruelty-of-assassination-program/
'You Have a Choice': Veterans Call On Drone Operators to Refuse Orders
Posted 19 June 2015 10:18 GMT
Joint statement signed by 45 US military veterans urges drone operators to follow their consciences and say 'no' to surveillance and assassination missions
bySarah Lazare, staff writer
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Drone operators at Balad Camp Anaconda, Iraq, August 2007. (Photo: Air Force/public domain)
Dozens of U.S. military veterans released an open letter this week urging drone operators to "refuse to fly missions" or support them in any way—and letting them know that if they say "no" to surveillance and assassination orders, there is a whole community rooting for them.
"At least 6,000 peoples' lives have been unjustly taken by United States drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, the Philippines, Libya and Syria," states the letter, which was organized by the education and advocacy organization KnowDrones.com.
"Those involved in United States drone operations who refuse to participate in drone missions will be acting within accordance of Principle IV of the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal, The United Nations 1950," states the letter. "So, yes, you do have a choice—and liability under the law. Choose the moral one. Choose the legal one."
Former drone operators, including Heather Linebaugh, have testified to the horrors inflicted by the remotely operated lethal weapons. This reality is confirmed by civilians and reporters, including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks the high number of civilian drone killings in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/19/you-have-choice-veterans-call-drone-operators-refuse-orders
Reaper Madness: Counterproductive Drone Wars
By Doug Noble
Source: Worldbeyondwar.org
November 10, 2015
Our entire Middle East policy seems to be based on firing drones,” Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Intercept. “They’re enamored by the ability of special operations and the CIA to find a guy in the middle of the desert in some shitty little village and drop a bomb on his head and kill him.”
Now government documents leaked to the Intercept show conclusively that the US drone program kills thousands of innocents on bad intelligence and careless targeting while being falsely portrayed as a program of impeccable planning and precision execution. The recently leaked “Drone Papers” reveal the extent of willful ineptitude in US drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, which rely on systematically faulty intelligence and astonishing inaccuracies in identifying targets. These revelations only further confirm what many of us already knew about the appalling failure, relentless deception and criminal lethality of the US drone program.
But it’s even worse. Careless execution and public distortion are one thing. If the US were in fact relying on a proven military technology and strategy to defeat terrorists and “keep America safe,” despite setbacks and innocent lives lost, there are those who could justify the cost.
But what is perhaps most insidious of all is the fact that many studies long available to military planners have shown decisively that the use of weaponized drones in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts is both ineffective and counterproductive. Even more, the historical record and recent research shows quite clearly that the “decapitation” strategy driving such drone use – the assassination of high value targets – has itself been both unsuccessful and counterproductive in defeating insurgent or terrorist organizations.
So the drone warriors have known all along it wouldn’t work: that killer drones and kill lists would slaughter thousands of civilians but never defeat terrorists. They’ve known this conclusively from decades of military experience and volumes of research studies. Yet they continue to do it anyway, ever more expansively, ever more mindlessly. Why? Because they can (and because they have no Plan B).
But it’s even worse. Careless execution and public distortion are one thing. If the US were in fact relying on a proven military technology and strategy to defeat terrorists and “keep America safe,” despite setbacks and innocent lives lost, there are those who could justify the cost.
But what is perhaps most insidious of all is the fact that many studies long available to military planners have shown decisively that the use of weaponized drones in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts is both ineffective and counterproductive. Even more, the historical record and recent research shows quite clearly that the “decapitation” strategy driving such drone use – the assassination of high value targets – has itself been both unsuccessful and counterproductive in defeating insurgent or terrorist organizations.
So the drone warriors have known all along it wouldn’t work: that killer drones and kill lists would slaughter thousands of civilians but never defeat terrorists. They’ve known this conclusively from decades of military experience and volumes of research studies. Yet they continue to do it anyway, ever more expansively, ever more mindlessly. Why? Because they can (and because they have no Plan B).
What I’ve tried to show here is something more: that these military miscreants have also known all along that their drone technology and targeting strategy are militarily bankrupt. They could not but be aware from military history and doctrine that these approaches have absolutely no possibility of defeating terrorist groups or keeping America safe. They must know that in fact the opposite is true, that their nefarious enterprise only further endangers us all. And yet they will continue ever more brazenly their Reaper madness, the scholars here all agree, until we find some way to stop them.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/reaper-madness-counterproductive-drone-wars/
Do drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill?
Journalist Glenn Greenwald debates Professor Christine Fair on the effectiveness of the US drone programme.
23 Oct 2015 19:51 GMT
VIDEO
Do drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill?
Journalist Glenn Greenwald debates Professor Christine Fair on the effectiveness of the US drone programme.
23 Oct 2015 19:51 GMT | United States, Afghanistan, War & Conflict, Drones
Nearly 90 percent of people killed by US drone strikes in Afghanistan during a five-month period were civilians. That is according to an investigation of leaked documents, published by The Intercept, called, The Drone Papers.
US President Barack Obama said in May 2013, "Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured." But, the cache of secret documents suggest strikes are often carried out based on thin evidence and the majority of those killed are not the intended targets.
The government defends the programme, saying it is needed to "act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people", but some, including Robert Grenier, the former head of CIA counterterrorism center, argue the US is "creating more enemies than [it is] removing from the battlefield".
So, do drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill? In this week's Arena, Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, debates Georgetown University Associate Professor Christine Fair.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2015/10/drone-strikes-create-terrorists-kill-151023152321140.html
