Sometimes the only way to win a war is to fight fire with fire—or as the Obama administration has found out, to fight the war on terror with more terror. Since 2009, the United States has carried out approximately 300 covert attacks in Pakistan, a country that we are not, technically speaking, at war with. The current administration has drastically increased the use of drone strikes to target suspected operatives of terrorist organizations, specifically Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In a tale of conspiracy and leaked memos worthy of an Orwellian novel, the U.S. government is trying to keep a tight lid on its use of drones, and by extension, the unintended side effects of targeted killing.
The United States government, including the president, directors of the CIA and the military, rarely, if ever, acknowledges that there might be a problem with the current strategy of drone deployment. While Obama briefly touched on the issue of transparency in his February State of the Union Address, he did not address concrete plans or reforms regarding his administration’s aggressive drone program. There is a lack of transparency surrounding a policy that has far-reaching moral, political and ethical questions and consequences.
The New America Foundation estimates that these drone strikes have successfully targeted 49 Al-Qaeda operatives. But there have been countless others caught in the crossfire; according to the U.K. Bureau of Investigation, up to 884 civilians have died in these so-called surgically precise attacks. Furthermore, two American citizens, believed to be part of Al-Qaeda but never formally charged by the government, were also targeted and killed in Yemen. This amounts to throwing due process out the window, as it is little more than an execution without a trial. In a 13 hour filibuster reminiscent of 1939’s classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Senator Rand Paul drew attention to this fact in an attempt to delay the approval of John Brennan as the new head of the CIA. As the former White House counterterrorism adviser, Brennan has close ties to the Obama administration’s drone program.
To no one’s surprise, a global poll from the Pew Research Center from June 2012 shows that 74 percent of Pakistanis, living under the constant fear of becoming collateral damage during American drone strikes, view America as an enemy. The same study finds that fewer than one in five Pakistanis would support drone strikes against extremist leaders, even if these attacks were coordinated with the Pakistani government. It seems that by single-mindedly protecting our national security interests at the cost of civilian lives, the government may be unintentionally fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment overseas.
Our history, like that of any country in the world, is a murky mix of right and wrong, and we have always had a patriotic tendency to gloss over those actions which hide behind only a thin veil of moral correctness. But it is only when we acknowledge our problem that we can begin to identify solutions.
