Killing Machine (38 page)

But even so the commission did not give carte blanche for drone warfare. Instead it addressed the rights and obligations of states under attack from terrorists, as in the terrible events of 9/11, in a way that imposed limits.

In particular, the precautionary principles outlined in our report do seem to be relevant to military operations, both multilateral
and unilateral, against the scourge of terrorism. We have no difficulty in principle with focused military action being taken against international terrorists and those who harbour them. But military power should always be exercised in a principled way, and the principles of right intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects outlined in our report are, on the face of it, all applicable to such action.
¹⁸

As Brooks said, her argument did not necessarily legitimize drone strikes, but she feared that there were troubling parallels between the rationales for UAVs and for humanitarian intervention. It was certainly true that administration officials had defended drone warfare as the most “humanitarian” way of protecting the American population against terrorist attacks, because it saved the lives of soldiers and avoided large-scale assaults on foreign countries. And that made for a connecting line liberals could grab hold of and explain why Bush had been wrong and Obama right—even if the latter used drones as a weapon of choice. But hers were cautionary words about the need to look deep inside the American rationale for continuing to expand the campaign. There were other troubling issues about stressing “humanitarian” arguments, which tended to provide rationalizations the public could accept all too easily.

In her testimony Rosa Brooks reemphasized the question of whether drones “worked’ in getting rid of enemies or—invoking Donald Rumsfeld of all people—defeated the purpose of eliminating the underlying causes of the threat.

As the Obama administration increases its reliance on drone strikes as the counterterrorism tool of choice, it is hard not to wonder whether we have begun to trade tactical gains for strategic losses. What impact will U.S. drone strikes ultimately have on the stability of Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia? To what degree—especially as we reach further and further down the terrorist food chain, killing small fish who may be motivated less by ideology than economic desperation—are we actually creating new grievances within the local population—or even within diaspora populations
here in the United States? As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked during the Iraq war, are we creating terrorists faster than we kill them?

She also commented,

This flexible interpretation of the AUMF creates few constraints, and has lowered the threshold for using force. Repealing the AUMF would not deprive the president of the ability to use force if necessary to prevent or respond to a serious armed attack: the president would retain his existing discretionary power, as chief executive and commander in chief, to protect the nation in emergencies. Repealing the 2001 AUMF would, however, likely reduce the frequency with which the president resorts to targeted killings.
¹⁹

Brooks was no “extremist” and did not rule out drones if a rule of law could be found to govern their use, and she had sagely noted that much of the support for drones stemmed, at least in an indirect way, from assaults on previously sacrosanct definitions of national sovereignty by human rights advocates. But she worried that, the way things were developing, the United States was actually handing a playbook for murder over to less scrupulous states instead of providing moral leadership in this “new normal” world.

Exactly one month later, on May 23, 2013, President Obama delivered his long-promised speech on national security. America was at a crossroads, he said. “We must either define the nature and scope of the struggle, or else it will define us.” The speech then went on to describe how the al Qaeda threat had diminished in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with those enemies spending most of their time worrying about survival than plotting new attacks on the United States or nearby places. He promised an end to direct involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But then the speech hit a pivot point as he described how al Qaeda affiliates had grown up in Yemen, Somalia, and the Arabian Peninsula and were still not eliminated entirely in Iraq. He said, “Beyond Afghanistan, we
must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.” In many cases, this will involve partnerships with other countries, he explained. “In Yemen,” he continued, “we are supporting security forces that have reclaimed territory from AQAP.”

Obama went on much in the same vein as his 2007 speech at the Wilson Center that launched his presidential campaign.

Despite our strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed. Al-Qaida and its affiliates try to gain a foothold in some of the most distant and unforgiving places on Earth. They take refuge in remote tribal regions. They hide in caves and walled compounds. They train in empty deserts and rugged mountains. In some of these places, such as parts of Somalia and Yemen, the state has only the most tenuous reach into the territory. In other cases, the state lacks the capacity or will to take action.

While some hearers nodded solemnly at this point, others closed their eyes and saw these remarks rising from the pages of Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness
, the famous novel about the imperial “mission” in Africa.

The president then added an interesting justification for the drone strikes against signature targets, stating that it was impossible to expect to repeat the success of going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden. The cost of that venture, he now said, had caused such a backlash that only now, in 2013, were relations with Pakistan being rebuilt into a solid partnership. It was a very skillful use of one of his greatest “successes,” one that counted heavily in the 2012 election, to turn the tables on drone critics by calling the operation ao ne-off

Commentators of all stripes soon took turns interpreting the speech. Nearly all agreed that it had resulted from Obama’s deep sense of unease about the way drone warfare had developed, but was equally born of frustration about the obstacles to change,
whether closing “Gitmo” or taking the CIA out of the operational phases of carrying out attacks on suspected terrorists, both of which he had hoped to do. Some pointed out that he was unlikely to get Congress to respond to other means of fighting the war on terror, such as using foreign aid to attack the causes of unrest in Muslim countries or supporting moves to alleviate the Arab-Israeli impasse that would challenge the United States’ all-out backing of Israel. For some, therefore, it was just a speech about presidential angst and not really different from previous speeches, despite its warning about the peril to democracy. One commentary featured a significant difference from the text (at least as delivered). Peter Baker said the president and his team tightened standards for striking targets from “a significant threat to U.S. interests” to a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” That wording would have marked a significant change, largely eliminating a significant ambiguity in the new policy. But the president’s actual wording restored much of the ambiguity: “We act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat.”
²⁰

Less than a week after the speech, a drone strike in Pakistan killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the purported deputy commander of the Taliban in Pakistan, in the tribal area of North Waziristan. Reuters reported the death with the double-edged comment that, while his death was a blow for the militants, “it could also be viewed as a setback for incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s efforts to end violence.” Sharif had called the drone strikes a “challenge” to Pakistan’s sovereignty. And the foreign ministry denounced drone strikes in general as “counter-productive” acts that “entail loss of innocent civilian lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law.”
²¹

Six others were killed in the attack, which occurred less than a week after Obama’s big speech announcing new constraints. White House press secretary Jay Carney did not mention these anonymous others, only Mehsud, who, he said, “has participated in cross-border
attacks in Afghanistan against U.S. and NATO personnel and horrific attacks against Pakistani civilians and soldiers.” The new standard of “continuing imminent” had been met. It was not so hard, after all.
²²

Of all the early responses to Obama’s speech and to the signature strike in North Waziristan, Akbar Ahmed’s was perhaps the most informed about the continuing damage to American interests. Ahmed is a former official of the Pakistani government and now the chair of Islamic studies at American University. In his
New York Times
op-ed, he argued that the drone war, when carried on in places like Waziristan, only deepened the problems of governance in remote areas. The only way to rebuild any semblance of the rule of law was to work with elders of the tribes, who served to maintain stability through structures of authority that were the best way to eliminate Taliban intruders in Pakistan, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Somalia’s Al Shabab. He wrote, “America has deployed drones into these power vacuums, causing ferocious backlashes against central governments while destroying any positive image of the United States that may have once existed.”
²³

With Ahmed’s commentary in mind, now read again President Obama’s justification of drone strikes over all other methods.

Al-Qaida and its affiliates try to gain a foothold in some of the most distant and unforgiving places on Earth. They take refuge in remote tribal regions. They hide in caves and walled compounds. They train in empty deserts and rugged mountains. In some of these places, such as parts of Somalia and Yemen, the state has only the most tenuous reach into the territory. In other cases, the state lacks the capacity or will to take action.

Ahmed had some advice for the president. “American policy makers would do well to heed a Pashto proverb: ‘The Pashtun who took revenge after a hundred years said, I took it quickly.’ ”

Perhaps the most eloquent words in Obama’s May 23 address—the longest speech except the State of the Union he’s given thus far—was his reference to James Madison on the dangers of perpetual
war to a democracy: “We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” It was an important warning to himself and all future occupants of the White House—that the war as it had developed since 9/11 carried a poison that was as dangerous to the public as the ricin-laced letters sent to the president and intercepted by the FBI. The lesson was, as Obama said, “Neither I nor any president can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings nor stamp out every danger to our open society.”
²⁴

NOTES

Introduction

1
.
  
Katie Glueck, “Robert Gibbs: I Was Told Not to ‘Acknowledge’ Drones,”
Politico
, February 25, 2013,
www.politico.com/story/2013/02/gibbs-i-was-told-dont-admit-drones-88025.html
.

2
.
  
“Rumor: Obama Waives Sanctions on Countries Using Child Soldiers,” MSN News, February 5, 2013.

3
.
  
Peter Beinart, “Follow the Leader,”
Daily Beast
, February 25, 2013,
www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/25/peter.beinart
.

4
.
  
Richard Cohen, “Barron’s Law,”
Washington Post
, October 11, 2011.

5
.
  
Richard Clarke, “Give Drones a Medal,” New York
Daily News
, December 2, 2012. (Italics added.)

6
.
  
John Glaser, “Did Lindsey Graham Accidentally Divulge Secret Drone Casualty Estimates?” February 20, 2013,
Antiwar.blog
,
antiwar.com/blog/2013/02/20/did-lindsey-graham-accidentally-divulge-secret-drone-casualty-estimates
.

1. The Dream Candidate

1
.
  
Barack Obama, “Against Going to War with Iraq,” October 2, 2002,
en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
.

2
.
  
Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,”
New Yorker
, May 10, 2004.

3
.
  
Rich Lowry, “Oh Bama! ‘The Belief in Things Not Seen,’”
National Review Online
, July 28, 2004,
old.nationalreview.com/lowry200407281612.asp
.

4
.
  
Evidently the idea that a new Great Emancipator led the United States in the twenty-first century was thought too good to pass up. But it backfired. In the first place, it did not go unnoticed that he spoke from the safety of a huge ship hovering off the shore of California. And his arrival in a fighter jet became a point of mockery. Originally the White House had claimed that the carrier was too far off the California coast for a helicopter landing and a jet would be needed to reach it. On the day of the speech, however, the
Lincoln
was only thirty miles from shore. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer later admitted that Bush “could have helicoptered, but the plan was already in place.” “2003 Mission Accomplished Speech,”
Wikipedia
, accessed May 15, 2013,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Mission_Accomplished_speech
.