There seems to be a growing collective freakout over the Obama administration’s targeted killing and drone program that exists only on the left. That doesn’t mean that no one on the right gives a rat’s ass, but they aren’t making a stink. My advice to the administration is simple. The president needs to talk about why we are killing anyone who isn’t in the general proximity of our troops in Afghanistan. Yes, people understand that there are fighters in Pakistan that slip into Afghanistan and attack our personnel there. They also understand that we are in the process of leaving Afghanistan. But why are we using drones in Yemen and Africa?
I know that there are answers to that question. That’s not my point. I haven’t heard any justification for drone attacks in Yemen and Africa from the White House in a very long time (and, no, I do not count John Brennan’s testimony at his confirmation hearing, which was compulsory and that few people watched).
This is a very big, complex issue that has legal, moral, tactical, and strategic implications. One reason I haven’t been overly interested in the debate over the internal legal justification for targeted killing is that the bigger issue is the War on Terror itself. I understand that compelling the release of the memos is a way of starting a much-needed debate, and I have no objection to those who are pushing hard on that. But regardless of what those memos say, we either need to be doing these targeted killings or we don’t. If we do need to be doing them, then the legal justification can work itself out. But the administration needs to convince me and a lot of other people that this strategy is sound and necessary before we can even get to arguments about what the Authority to Use Military Force Against Terrorists really authorized, or what the proper level of transparency and oversight should be for drone strikes.
We know that terrorists in Yemen tried to bring down a passenger jetliner and that they mailed ink cartridge-bombs to the United States. We know that there are al-Qaeda groups operating in Somalia and other parts of Africa, although their connection to the 9/11 plotters is tenuous at this point. People know that there are bad guys in the world who are plotting to do us harm. But that doesn’t mean that we need to give the president the right to treat the entire planet as a battlefield where he can decide who lives and dies and who’s sovereignty will be violated without any check from Congress or the judicial branch.
So, it’s really two things. Why do we need to be doing this? And, how do we do it in a way that limits the opportunities for abuse and that can sustain the people’s confidence?
I’d like to hear answers to those two questions. I’d like that a lot more than for some senators to see some memos.
The left is way out of the mainstream on this issue. Last poll I saw showed upwards of 70% of people support the use of drones.
Now that doesn’t necessarily make it right but the discussion so far has not done many favors to the perceptions of the left (I know using the phrase “the left” isn’t entirely useful but it’s the only thing I could think of and Boo used it in the original posting).
I’ve said it before here that I don’t see the use of drones as anything significantly different than anything we’ve done before, so I really don’t know how to help those that feel differently.
On major issues, the left is always “out of the mainstream.” Why? Because the mainstream is stupid, gullible, and/or unprincipled.
Nice to know that on this issue, I’m with the 30%. Better than in 1991 when 90% were with GHWB’s second war (the one in Panama is as forgotten as Reagan’s one in Grenada).
yeah, what Marie2 said. Polls mean nothing in cases like this.
The Left’s problem in discussing this issue is they tend to conflate the issue of drones, as a military technology, with the issue of targeted killings around the world where the Obama Administration may or may not have legal authority. Some people do recognize the distinction but do a very bad job of stating verey clearly that they see the difference.
Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why drones are so much worse than bombs dropped miles in the air or cruise missiles. Most of the time when I raise this question, I’m ignored outright. And I know I’m not the one who has this thought whenever I see someone talking about their opposition to drones.
I recognize that there can be some moral queasiness over killing people by remote control from half a world away, but as you and Booman point out, the real issue has never been about drones themselves. It’s all very well to be proud of being in a minority if you believe the minority view is correct, but at some point you still have to grow your viewpoint into a majority. And right now, the way the Left is framing the discussion isn’t going to do that.
right and even often with older systems we were using we were targeting one person, it’s just that those systems weren’t very accurate
Let’s focus on targeted killings then, which is what this discussion is about.
The idea of imminent threat is one of establishing a pre-crime (a non-state bad actor is what used to be considered a criminal). So what exactly materially comprises an imminent threat such that an irreversible act is justified. Because “Oops, sorry. False positive.” doesn’t quite console the families of innocent people who are assassinated by their or another government.
The drone issue is one that Andrew Longman and I discussed at length on a previous blog. My sense is that they do not contribute to peace and stability as long as we are conflict-driven politics.
It’s not about framing but oxygen in the public sphere. Even a dumbass like GWB knew that much:
Ordinary Americans hear/read 99 times more propaganda and the always wrong DC CW than anything that’s factual and disturbing that manages to slip through. How long did it take for the propagandists to lash back after the images from Abu Ghraib and “Collateral Damage” leaked out?
I think you’re right that the drones just make it all more vivid. But nobody’s saying the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, for instance, was somehow more intelligent, honorable, or justified. Or Hiroshima, for that matter. Point is, repeating the moral bankruptcy of those events is the problem. The fact that they happened does nothing to justify the drones and other more personalized killing, at least without adequate explanation and debate, which is shockingly absent.
Well, I’m defending Hiroshima.
Charles P Pierce answered your question before you asked it.
He has a way of taking a valid point and making me want to stab myself in the medulla oblongata.
It’s just our way of running our empire.
And it is VERY, VERY stupid and dangerous, as well as utterly in violation of international law and morality.
Does it enhance our national security? Not if you include the concept of “blowback”, the enraging of entire populations, and the hideous cost of abandoning even the most modest pretensions of upholding the rule of law.
Of course, there is an inverse statistical correlation between the positive human rights record of a country and the level of American support they receive.
That correlation strongly suggests that all the blather about human rights is just that — window dressing. It’s all about seizing control over the oil producing region of the world. Period.
Oil? In Somalia? In Pakistan?
Oh for god’s sake. Read Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy:
“Blowback,” “Sorrows of Empire,” and “Nemesis.”
.
During the Bush years I pointed at the power of Chinese investments in South-America, Africa and Australia. The lost years of the Bush administration where US policy was mismanaged will cost us dearly. Just search for world demand and supply for minerals and mining – Global Mining Industry and its Project Pipelines.
Also very interesting the top ten Chinese investment destinations:
The China-Africa Project and mining review.
“Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor?!?”
Hilarious response, Marie.
It’s more than a valid point, it’s an essential point. What’s your problem with it? (Gotta say, sometimes your content free one-sentence responses put my medulla oblongata in peril).
There’s always Matt Taibbi At Least We’re Not Measles: Rationalizing Drone Attacks Hits New Low
Then there’s always the very wordy but very precise Glenn Greenwald and the uncompromising Chris Floyd.
the argument many liberals are making — that the drone program is acceptable both morally and as a matter of practical politics because of the faith you have in the guy who happens to be presiding over it at the moment
This is shoddy straw-manning. Pierce is taking his very favorite accusation about the people who disagree with him, and pretending that it’s actually the argument they are making.
Saying that we, as in ordinary citizens, know these things is a little strong because the information has the same source as the folks wanting to continue targeted killings. “Trust us” has been proven through history not to be a sound principle of government. Trust is too easily betrayed by expediency.
If you are unprepared to grant even that much, then the Obama administration has no reason to bother talking to you at all. You won’t listen.
I’m not totally sure that Obama has any different way to validate the information that he is presented than we do. He has to trust the intelligence community information and do whatever he does to make sure that they aren’t trying to have him cover for their pre-defined decisions.
There is a huge institutional problem with cherry-picking facts that allow folks in national security agencies to expand their programs. And failures get turned into spending booms as a result.
For example, there are credible stories the Brennan as US chief of station in Saudi Arabia is personally close to Saudi intelligence and to former President Saleh of Yemen and not above doing personal favors using the assets of the CIA (framed as being within the US national interest, of course). And there there is the whole case of Curveball and the continuing drumbeat for war with Iran.
According to Lindsay Graham, there have been 4700 people killed with targeted killings. Just how large and expansive is the so-called kill list?
They’re not talking to anyone. Are you now saying we have to deserve explanation from our president by being “nice” enough?
He’s saying you don’t get to stick your fingers in your ears when you hear something you find inconvenient.
That’s the problem: that it’s significantly similar to practices we (“left”) wouldn’t accept from the Bush White House. And if President Obama can be trusted not to abuse, what about the precedent he’s setting for President Rubio or whoever? Speaking for myself I really really want the discussion to come out in Obama’s favor, but the discussion has to take place.
How is it any different than sending cruise missiles across borders like Clinton did and that was during “peace time”
The difference is volume, precision, and cost. The few cruise missiles Clinton launched were costly. Not that that was ever an impediment to whatever the Pentagon wants, but it was used as a complaint from the Pentagon that was hostile to Clinton and GWB in his 2000 campaign.
However, the “Clinton did it too” argument doesn’t carry any weight with thinking lefties because there’s nothing admirable in the policies of the Clinton administration.
To the volume point: We are actively at war in Af-Pak so that probably accounts for that reason.
To the Clinton point: He referred President Bush, so I wanted to use a different example. I could have picked any President since WW2 if I wanted.
Have we informed Pakistan that we’re “actively at war” with them?
Or, as Boo notes, Somalia or Yemen?
As far as I remember in Yemen we were either asked to come or at least given permission from the Yemen government.
Or at the behest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I assume that means something, but I’m not really sure what you mean.
The drone bases that struck al-Awlawki were in Saudi Arabia.
John Brennan has personal relationships with Saudi intelligence and with former President Saleh of Yemen from his days as station chief in Saudi Arabia. And has been known from the Wikileaks cables to respond to personal entreaties from the Yemenis and the Saudis.
It goes to the issue of who decides who is an enemy of the US.
If they don’t know they’re not that bright as we’ve had operations in Pakistan since the war started as far as I can remember.
<blockquote…operations in Pakistan since the war started…</blockquote>
Which war would that be?
The people in Pakistan know what’s going on, they see/hear about/or experience the US bombs that rain down in their country — it’s Americans that are clueless and not too bright. Our government is not only dishonest but too chickenshit to declare war against those we bomb.
Then you should focus your anger at the Congress that passed the AUMF that this entire program is based on
Did that in real time while all around me were people buying GWB’s pathetic “case for war.” Followed up on that in 2007 with AUMF 77 to 23 … Obama cleverly ducked out of the Kyl-Lieberman vote — but the alternative was Clinton who voted for the AUMF and K-L.
What good would it be to direct my attention at a Congress and President that no longer exist when the current occupants are supporting the same dreadful policy that in Afghanistan alone has cost us something no the order of a trillion dollars.
And in Pakistan bought the US a 92% Disapproval rating. Did the 3rd Reich achieve that level of loathing in France?
Notice the sleight of hand: Jim points out that we’re at war in Pakistan, and Marie pretend he said we’re at war with Pakistan.
Of course, Marie already knows the answer to this: we’re at war with al Qaeda. Why is it that certain people insist on going through the same preliminaries over and over again instead of getting to the actual argument?
And sure enough, she proceeds to ask “Who are we at war with,” despite already knowing that answer and having her next pre-recorded line cued up.
This is reached the point of being some sort of weird ritual, like Noh play, or towards the end of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” What is supposed to be accomplished by yet another sidetrack into “Is an AUMF a war declaration?” The people who make this complaint don’t even bother to try to defend it anymore. It’s like there’s this ritual dance.
“What?!? When did to go to war with Pakistan?!? Where’s the war declaration?”
Really? It’s 2013, and we have to do this on every drone thread, as if there is somebody on the internet who doesn’t already know the answers? Why?
Defenses by joe and others of these secret actions of the Administration lean entirely on the use, 12 YEARS OUT, of the AUMF as a catch-all justification for thousands of secret killings. My view is that the AUMF defense defines the use of deadly force far too elastically and accepts the prospect of endless war against an undefined group of international citizens.
joe and other can respond to this by saying, “The targets are defined by the AUMF”:
“…That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Now, if Senator Graham is to be trusted, do we really feel that it is likely that over 4,700 international drone missile killings of men, women and children have all been executed in the service of preventing “…future acts of international terrorism against the United States…”? Now, I don’t trust Senator Graham any further than I can throw him (preferably with great force), but in the total absence of information from the Administration, we’re left in a poor position to respond, aren’t we?
If we’re not allowed to know that each and every killing was executed in the name of preventing future acts of terrorism, WE DON’T KNOW if the program is being executed legally. This secrecy allows for the significant possibility of using the AUMF as cover to help other countries assassinate people engaging in simple political dissent. This would be just one example of an improper/illegal application of the law, and joe doesn’t know if some of those thousands secretly killed were done under this type of application. He can claim he knows, but he doesn’t; none of us do.
Finally, I’m disappointed by the unwillingness of joe and others to engage on the wisdom of the drone policy. joe’s attempt to funnel the entire discussion into a legal framework allows him to suppose that it’s being done legally. My question of him and others is, should we know more about the program (Booman is making the case here that we must), and should we revisit the AUMF? The nature of our work to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States is changed after more than a decade of successfully doing so. It’s time to change the law in order to force adjustments in the policy.
I don’t like it (not one bit), but it probably boils down to this: we drone because we can and we want everyone the world over to have that in the back of their head. It is be part of our future deterrent regime that replaces or, more likely, augments our nuclear arsenal depending.
IOW, a way to keep a new Cold War going for the benefit of American hegemony and the money flows that support it. “Leftists” were hoping for a little more “change” from Obama.
It’s just a cheaper way (less money, death, and supporting nasty regimes required) of keeping the red, white and blue boot on the world’s neck. Gotta appreciate the efficiency, but not the whole boot-neck thing.
Stability is supposed to be the reward of such behavior. I’m unsure that it’s going to work long term (hard to keep a technological advantage if you keep crashing your vehicles on your enemy’s front lawns), but global stability has certainly been tested lately and was generally maintained during/despite/because of the on-going Drone Wars. Tons of regime change, but very little cross-border nastiness. Don’t know what credit can be given to the drone program for this, but it has been part of the context.
According AP, the US has deployed 100 troops to help the French in Niger. The mission of the troops will be “intelligence sharing”. And, as already known, AP cites fact that US has just inked an agreement with Niger to base drones there.
The fact that everyone knows. Niger has uranium mines. Those mines are operated by a French company.
Googling a country’s exports and declaring that to be the reason for our action there is just argument by innuendo.
Why is it so hard to believe that countering al Qaeda is actually something that is important to this administration and the national security community, in and of itself?
Was Richard Clarke “running around with his hair on fire” about al Qaeda because of oil? Uranium?
Yemen. Afghanistan. The tribal areas of Pakistan. Somalia. And now, rural Mali. You look at this list of countries where this war is being fought, and your mind goes directly to “control of strategic mineral resources?”
I don’t care if some legal scholar can find some language that seems to make it legal. It is wrong.
And even if it were legal, it is absolutely counter-productive.
For every one you kill, you make two hundred more.
well, is it wrong? Or, is it necessary? That’s the debate, not the legality.
The legality is part of the debate about whether or not it’s wrong. Those two things aren’t the same, but they do overlap. And given that we’re talking about government power and the role of oversight in a system that is at least theoretically centered on citizens, that area of overlap is extremely important.
I think “necessary” is the wrong word. Sometimes even acts falling short of necessary, and the droning almost certainly does, can still be called justified if they result in less wrong than the alternatives. If the administration/military thinks drones meet that test, they’ve got a lot of explaining to do to make that dubious case. Obama’s refusal to try is a major blot on his record, IMO.
Drone strikes have killed more innocent civilians than “enemy combatants.” How many wedding parties have we slaughtered now? I’ve lost count. That alone makes it morally indefensible in my eyes.
And necessary? No one has made a case, any case in my opinion, of the necessity of killing innocent Afghan civilians for the highly suspicious activity of walking along a road. Or for the killing of American citizens without due process for the heinous crime of saying bad things about our government on the internet. They have emptied the term imminent threat of any meaning.
They can’t, or won’t, justify such actions even to the Congressional committee members tasked with overseeing their actions. We can’t talk about that, it’s classified. And we can’t tell you why we can’t talk about it, because that would be talking about it. #orwell…
Drone strikes have killed more innocent civilians than “enemy combatants.” ?
This is utterly false. Not even the critics of the strikes – the informed ones, anyway – make this claim.
There’s a strongly anti-drone group called the “Bureau of Investigative Journalism” that Juan Cole often cites. They provide actual, not-made-up numbers about the number of strikes in different countries and the casualties. Using their methods, civilians make up somewhere around a fifth or a quarter of casualties.
We need to have this conversation in a reality-based manner.
For every one you kill, you make two hundred more.
Is that why we’re up to our elbows in Iraqi and Afghan terrorists?
If we’re going to plunge ahead right to the second question (what’s our methodology), it seems the first question is answered, however inadequately.
I’m stuck on the first question, though, and have been for years: Why do we need to be doing this? And by “this,” I’ll presume we’re talking about targeted killing, although there’s still a lot of discussion to be had on the proper use of drones, in my opinion.
I’m extremely unpersuaded by the reasons and excuses proffered by the practitioners of targeted killing, by whatever means. Murderers always have a terrific justification (in their own minds) for their victims’ demise.
And at root, that’s what we the people are being asked to sign on for: The military is killing targeted individuals in your name with your tax dollars, but for reasons of “security” or something else, you aren’t allowed to know any of the particulars. In certain extraordinary cases a post hoc rationalization will be offered, but for the most part, the who, what, where, when, why and how are off limits.
Silly old me: I keep getting hung up on quaint passages in old documents and meaningless phrases like “due process” and “a speedy and public trial” which I take to require a little more than centering some cross-hairs and pushing a button.
Yeah, trials and such-like are laborious procedures. Not very sexy or glamorous. Hard to make a whiz-bang Oscar-nominated movie about the boring presentation of evidence and testimony, especially subject to niggling concerns from the accused over authenticity and veracity. But since I’d prefer that treatment for myself, I’m loth to deny it for anyone else, even someone that everyone agrees is really, really bad and too far away or too hard to get at.
Our Constitution is supposed to be durable enough to work even under difficult circumstances; it isn’t just to be saved for special occasions or good company.
“the bigger issue is the War on Terror itself.” Yes. Any justification of the drone-enabled death penalty depends on a re-examination of the whole WOT itself. Obama has not only bought the Bush framework hook, line, and sinker, he’s overseen its essentially limitless metastasis. Maybe there’s some rational way to defend these attacks in a context of the New Way of War, but if so, the CIC has not even made a credible attempt to do so. Right now it looks like the military-corporate complex’s solution to the lack of a satisfactory replacement for the Cold War.
It’s no surprise that the only opposition comes from the left. The right has had no problem feeding the Masters of War since they were rooting for Hitler. If the Paulites take up the issue, though, it, combined with the drugwar, might just give them the traction to surprise us all in the next election.
The even bigger issue is the notion of imminent threat that has driven US national security policy since the Republicans won in 1946. Under that logic, the president unilaterally can commit to war and now unilaterally decide the life or death of an individual person and any other people who might be nearby. Show me a case of an actual imminent threat that could not be handled through due process and ordinary use of the Congress to declare war.
It’s time to roll back the national security institutions that we created in 1947 and after and the secrecy regime that surrounds them. The institutional interests of those institutions and the way they are pursued have become as much a threat to security of the American people as any foreign nation of insurgent force. It’s a true “Who guards the guardians?” moment.
Real talk:
If that underwear bomb goes off and that plane crashes, there’s no health insurance reform. And nothing else passes in 2010 either. And Obama may well lose Florida and Virginia and Ohio two years later, and Mitt Romney might well have been president instead.
It’s calling mowing the grass. It’s the Israeli strategy. It’s what you do when you lack a viable sociopolitical strategy. We can’t nation build for shit, nor can we convince radical anti-modernists that we mean them no harm. But we can surveil and blow up terrorists something fierce, so we do that.
That war’s already over. No casualties in the last month. The US troops have hidden away from the world on their superbases in Kabul and Kandahar, and are leaving the Afghan countryside to the actual Afghans. This will actually do more damage to the Taliban than fighting them did (which is why tripling down was stupid and wasteful and destructive).
The amount of drone strikes already peaked two years ago, and the program will be wound down to almost nothing worldwide, based on ongoing collaboration with (predominantly) Saudi counterterror efforts.
There is no controversy about our motivations. There’s no controversy about legality. There’s no controversy about our capabilities representing some new realm of warfare. There’s no controversy about permanent war or an ongoing expansionist agenda. If there’s any real controversy, it’s about our alliances and entanglements, but those are very old and unlikely to change.
We know that an underwear bomber got arrested in Detroit. And not as a result of any of that billions of dollars of Homeland Security money. A flight attendant smelled smoke.
We can’t convince radical anti-modernists that we mean them no harm precisely because we are allied with governments that very much want to harm them.
I agree that leaving damages the Taliban more than staying.
Alliances and entanglements, just so the subject of Washington’s Farewell Address. But they are likely to change and change as quickly as the world changes. And those alliances and entanglements are exactly 65 years old. Or less.
The Right is very upset about Obama as Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Mind you, they didn’t care about Bush being Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
More of your standard apologetics for outrages you would not accept except from a Democratic administration.
That doesn’t mean that no one on the right gives a rat’s ass, but they aren’t making a stink.
Oh please. In fact, it does mean that no one on the right gives a rat’s ass.
In fact, for the rank-and-file of the GOP, they’d be perfectly happy if the US simply carpet-nuked the whole middle east (except for Israel of course) , let the radiation die down a bit, then send in US-tax-subsidized Halliburton mercenaries to recover the buried carbon.
We know that terrorists in Yemen tried to bring down a passenger jetliner and that they mailed ink cartridge-bombs to the United States. We know that there are al-Qaeda groups operating in Somalia and other parts of Africa, although their connection to the 9/11 plotters is tenuous at this point. People know that there are bad guys in the world who are plotting to do us harm.
Oh, so close yet so far.
NO STATEMENT AT ALL regarding why these groups are trying to do those things. Any idea? Any at all? “Because they hate our freedoms?” as the great George W Bush once said? Just because they are bad and evil and we are good and God is With Us?
How about: Because the US occupies their countries, supports their dictators, treats their citizenry like shit, and steals their natural resources.
When we invaded and occupied Afghanistan we supported the Pentagon-PR-branded “Northern Alliance” of warlords – everyone as bad or worse as the Taliban – and randomly killed and tortured tens of thousands. Ditto in Iraq, only in higher numbers. We occupy 175 countries world wide and except for the honeymoon period every fucking place we occupy the locals hate the US troops.
The drone program serves one purpose and one only – but it is a very very important purpose. It serves to assure that there will always be more enemies to fight and justify continued excessive war spending.
And justifying the drone program, no matter how well-intentioned, is a justification for endless war.
I agree we need to dial back the GWOT.
It was far overblown from the start.
But we need to do it without unconstitutionally attempting to diminish by legislation the powers of the presidency defined in the constitution, itself.
I refer to his powers as commander in chief when congress grants wartime powers and his powers when no specific congressional authority exists but only his own authority as chief executive, commander in chief, and primary authority for international relations.
The former include his power to order targeted killings of Americans aiding or participating in war against us and the latter include military or para-military actions short of war that include, obviously, ordering killings.
Just exactly whether and how that might include killing Americans is and should remain in the gray areas.
There should be more transparency and openness about this war. Hopefully, the chatter about Brennan is true, and it will migrate from the CIA to the military. Once you make something a covert CIA operation, you lose most of the Congressional oversight, and you can’t talk about it public. Our military actions and foreign policy have always been the subject of public debate and consideration, and if the war against al Qaeda is going to be conducted at this level of action, it needs to be a democratically-legitimate policy.
I also think that a lot of the people calling for greater transparency and discussion of the war against al Qaeda would be disappointed by the results.
The secrecy with which the policy is being managed and carried out is the only genuinely controversial issue for most people, and a public hearing and debate on the matter would serve mainly to reassure people.