Drones:  Are  they  really  necessary?                         

Let me state right from the beginning of this article. I have no reservations about killing terrorists. I advocated that in 1980 when I addressed a U.N. conference in Caracas and later in a U.N. conference in Milan in 1985. My concern is about innocent victims being killed in drone strikes.                

What is a military drone and how is it controlled?

A drone is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. Its flight is controlled either autonomously by computers in the vehicle or under the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. Although the drone’s target can be in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, the operators are for the most part, operating them from bases in the United States. This doesn’t mean they take off from the U.S. They are placed at bases in the Middle East and sent to their destinations from the U.S. bases

The purpose of using Drones

MQ-1 Predator UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles are increasingly used by the U.S. as platforms for hitting ground targets. Armed Predators were first used in late 2001 from bases in Pakistan and Uzbekistan. They are mostly aimed at assassinating high profile individuals (terrorist leaders, etc.) who are inside Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.                                

The U.S. has claimed that the Predator strikes killed at least nine senior al-Qaeda leaders and dozens of lower-ranking operatives, depleting its operational tier in what U.S. officials described as the most serious disruption of al-Qaeda since 2001.

What follows is a breakdown of the estimated fatalities and injuries caused by the drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.  

Pakistan 2004–2013 Total strikes: 376 Total killed: 2,523-3,618 Civilians killed: 416-948 Children killed: 168-200 Injured: 1,120-1,540

Yemen 2002–2013    Total strikes: 54-64 Total killed: 268-397  Civilians killed: 21-58 Children killed: 5 Injured: 65-147 Extra drone strikes: 82-101 Total killed: 289-467 Civilians killed: 23-48 Children killed: 6-9 Injured: 83-109 Other covert operations: 12-77 Total killed: 148-377 Civilians killed: 60-

Somalia 2007–2013 Total strikes: 4-10 Total killed: 9-30 Civilians  killed: 0-15 Children killed: 0 Injured: 2-24 Other covert operations: 8-15 Total killed: 48-150 Civilians killed: 7-42 Children killed: 1-3 Injured: 13-21

The minimum number of innocent adults killed by drones in these three countries is 322 and the number of children killed by those drones is 205.

According to the New America Foundation which maintains a database of the drone strikes, the CIA and the military have carried out an estimated 416 drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, resulting in 3,364 estimated deaths, which includes both militants and civilians.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of the drone raids, openly cited a number that exceeds some independent estimates of the death toll. He said that as many as 4,700 people have been killed by those drones. How many of those killed were terrorists and militants? How many were innocent women and children?

Is this the price that they have to pay in order to kill a few hundred terrorists and militants?

In December 17, 2009, five U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles armed with cluster bombs struck the hamlet of Al-Majalah in Yemen. The strike killed 14 suspected AQAP insurgents and at least 41 innocent victims which included 9 women and 21 children outright. Later, four victims died oif their injuries.

I know what many of you are thinking. During the Second World War, it was decided by the United States and Great Britain that they would do carpet bombing on German cities. The most extreme examples were caused by the bombing of Hamburg in Operation Gomorrah (45,000 dead), and the bombings of Kassel (10,000 dead), Darmstadt (12,500 dead), Pforzheim (21,200 dead), Swinemuende (23,000 dead), and Dresden (25,000 dead.  The American planes firebombed Tokyo and killed more than 100,000 in the deadliest conventional bombing in history, while some 450,000 other civilians died in 66 other Japanese cities. Those deaths do not include the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. These carpet bombings took place 68 years ago. We have a different outlook nowadays when it comes to the indiscriminate killing of civilians in times of war.

It is ironic when you think about it. When the United States decided to kill Bin Laden, the number one terrorist in their sights, they sent in a hit team to do the job rather than use a drone.  Was it because they knew that there were women and their children in the compound he was in or was it because they wanted to be sure that it really was him they killed? I think that latter answer is closer to the truth.

The White House says that it strongly disagrees with any assertions that that the United States has violated international law by using drone strikes in Pakistan or anywhere else. 

Armed conflict is as old as humankind itself. There have always been customary practices in war, but only in the last 150 years have nations made international rules to limit the effects of armed conflict for humanitarian reasons. The Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions are the main examples. Usually called international humanitarian law, it is also known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict. 

These Convention’s purposes are to protect persons who did not or are no longer taking part in hostilities and that includes the sick and wounded, prisoners and civilians. The Conventions also define the rights and obligations of the parties to a conflict in the conduct of hostilities.

I am not suggesting at all that Americans per se don’t care whether or not innocent civilians are killed in drone strikes aimed at terrorists and militants because in fact, they really do care. But what concerns me however is that those who command the drone forces are indifferent when they aim their drones at whomever they believe are their legitimate targets.  They can see only their targets at a distance so they don’t know for sure who else is in the car or the hut or house that the drone is going to strike.

As I said earlier in this article, as many as 205 children (and perhaps more) have died in these strikes. I am eighty years old and when I look back into my own life as a child, I realize just how much of my life after I was a child that I would never have experienced if I was killed at that early age. For this reason I appreciate just how much life is important to all of us and it distresses me to know that innocent men, women and children are being inadvertently killed by drone strikes aimed at targets who deserved to be killed.  Those drones are aimed by people who would rather risk killing innocent people than risk the opportunity to kill their targets. It is my honest opinion that such drone operators are acting in a manner that is contrary to the edicts of the two Conventions I referred to earlier.   

Let me give you an example and you can compare it with what I have just written about in the previous paragraph.

Twenty-eight years ago, Philadelphia police dropped a fire bomb onto the roof of a house occupied by members of the radical black liberation collective MOVE. The fire jumped from roof to roof, engulfing an entire neighborhood in flames, and destroying 61 homes. That controversial city bombing and fire on May 13, 1985, killed 11, including five children.

Those adults and children didn’t have to die.  They were purely innocent. They died needlessly because the police were indifferent to what the consequences might be if they set fire to one of the houses to get at a group of people in that particular house when firing 10,000 bullets didn’t do the trick. The police officer who lobbed that firebomb on the roof of that house acted in as criminal manner. If you or I did something like that, we would be imprisoned for a great many years if not for the rest of our lives.

Neither that officer nor the ones who direct drones that inadvertently kill innocent persons are punished for what they do to others because they act in this manner supposedly for the good of society in general. Should we accept this kind of conduct for the good of society as being justified? I hardly think so.

On November 29, 2012, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams fled a traffic stop and led police on a chase that ended with 13 officers firing 137 rounds at the car Russell was driving. The chase involved 63 police cars, according to the investigation. Why were they firing their guns at the fleeing car? They thought one of the two in the car was shooting back at them. It turned out that what they thought were gunshots was actually the fleeing car backfiring. Were the officers punished for killing the two teenagers? Of course. But it wasn’t because they erroneously killed the teenagers but rather it was because while chasing after them in their cruisers, the police officers were speeding.

Does anyone see any justice in that also?

The White House spokesperson, (Carney) when justifying the drone attacks said in part; “U.S. counterterrorism operations are precise, they are lawful and they are effective.”  Wrong on all three assertions. A precise operation that is directed at a terrorist or militant and kills innocent people is about as precise as carpet bombing a city so that the bombers can kill some enemy soldiers. It certainly isn’t lawful and its effectiveness is questionable. Further, spin doctors for the government argue that these weapons are so finely calibrated and precisely targeted that only militants are killed and collateral damaged to innocent civilians is rare. Who do these people think they are—Rumplestilksin who can weave straw into gold?

What follows is an incident which was typical according to Carney as being precise, lawful and effective. On July 6, 2012, a group of men had gathered for a meal in the tent after work in North Waziristanin Pakistan. Then a missile hit the tent. When a number of people rushed to the tent to offer assistance, a second missile struck the tent and as a result, 18 innocent labourers who had no links whatsoever to terrorism or militant groups were needlessly killed. 

Didn’t anyone check to see if these men were terrorists or militants? Of course not.  Just because they are bearded and wear kifis or a square or rectangular head scarf along with a rope band (usually black) to fasten it in place along with the ghutra (head scarf) on their heads doesn’t mean that they are terrorists and militants.

President Obama took and important step in May 2012 when he announced that he would reduce the number of drone strikes and allow only those that virtually posed no threat to innocent victims.

There is no doubt in my mind that dozens of highly skilled Al-Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and other operatives have been killed as a direct result of American drone attacks. But when we compare those numbers with those of the many innocent victims who also died in those attacks, one is forced to question the morality of those who advocate indiscriminate drone attacks.

The U.N. figures that were released as part of its annual report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan stated that overall, the full-year toll of civilian deaths in 2012 declined to 2,754, a 12 percent decrease from 3,131 in the same period a year earlier. On September 2, 2012, two drones bombed a vehicle that was carrying 12 passengers which included three children and a pregnant woman.

Either the president was speaking with a forked tongue or alternatively, the CIA and the military simply ignored his promise.

The American forces approve of the use of drones because the enemy in Afghanistan are in lawless areas and the American military doesn’t want to put their soldiers in harm’s way. Would the Allies have won the battles in World War II if their military didn’t want to put their soldiers in harm’s way? Not likely.

I would be less than honest however if I didn’t mention that a team of elite U.S. Navy SEAL commandoes went after the Kenyan insurgent, Mohamed  Abdukar, which might very well be a sign that the Americans are moving away from indiscriminate bombings by drones. 

Despite my previous statement, a U.S. drone killed Hakimulla Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan on November 2, 2013 along with four other suspected militants. He and his followers were responsible foir the deaths of a great many people.  



 Many years ago, my wife and I visited Tombstone, Arizona and during that visit, we visited the famous Boot Hill Cemetery in which a number of infamous outlaws were buried. One of the gravestones had an inscription which was most interesting to read. It said;

Here lies George Johnson. Hanged by mistake in 1882. He was right. We was wrong. But we strung him up and now he’s gone.

I believe that it would be most appropriate if the Americans created a monument to the innocent people they killed in drone attacks. It could read;

Here lie the innocent victims of drone attacks. Killed by mistake in 2012. They were innocent. We were guilty. But we killed them anyway.