The Folly of Drone Attacks and US Strategy
The reports claimed the Jirga was not the intended target
and the predator was chasing a car before finally executing five people
without any trial or due process near the Jirga. While this predator
was hovering in the area, sophisticated cameras allegedly picked up
images of a bigger gathering. Without appearing to have any intelligence
or knowledge of its target, it fired four more missiles at the
congregation.
In the same month, a joint investigation by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ)
and the Sunday Times newspaper cited Pakistan's military commander in
Waziristan at the time, Brigadier Abdullah Dogar: "We in the Pakistan
military knew about the meeting, we'd got the request 10 days earlier.
It was held in broad daylight, people were sitting out in Nomada bus
depot when the missile strikes came. Maybe there were one or two Taliban
at that Jirga -- they have their people attending -- but does that
justify a drone strike which kills 42 mostly innocent people?"
There should never be doubts. A big gathering in Waziristan does not mean they must be Taliban.
To put it in perspective: My clients say drone attacks are now happening almost twice a week on Pakistani soil.
Karim Khan, a tribal man
by origin and a journalist by profession, is suing the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) for US $500 million for "his loss of blood."
He had only two options when his innocent 18-year-old son and brother, a
primary school teacher, were killed in one such drone attack on
December 31, 2009: to join the Taliban's war against the US and take his
revenge in a customary tribal way, or call on due process, the rule of
law and judicial system of his state to gain justice for the wrong done
to him.
The first option would
have continued the cycle of terror, which we witness in Pakistan in the
shape of suicide attacks after almost every drone attack. Khan chose the
latter and following him, dozens more families have come forth to seek
justice through proper legal means. It is time now for the US to respond
to these grievances through legal means.
A similar fate awaited
Fahim Qureshi, a teenager and another client from North Waziristan. US
President Barack Obama, the embodiment of "change" and "hope," approved
an escalation of the drone strikes in Pakistan by giving the CIA and US
military control of the program. Fahim's family house was destroyed by
one such attack.
The attack on January 23, 2009 resulted in the deaths of seven people present in the house,
including three of Fahim's uncles, a cousin, and three family friends.
Fahim was seriously injured and lost one eye. According to the New York Times,
President Obama was later informed of this attack and civilian
killings. The change he brought in was a record escalation of drone
strikes in 2009, culminating in 344 attacks at the expense of 3,325
lives to date, according to TBIJ. The escalation would also change
Fahim's life forever.
The U.S. might never be
able to win the "heart and mind" of this teenager from Pakistan's tribal
area, who paid a high prize for faulty intelligence, a common mistake
that CIA makes without any accountability.
Under the authority of
the U.S. President, drone attacks on Pakistani territory have been
carried out by the CIA and US military since 2004. This is an
unprecedented move: a foreign government carrying out military strikes
on an independent and sovereign state without declaring war. Earlier
this year, Christof Heyns, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial killings, warned that Washington was challenging a system
of international law that had existed since the end of World War II and
that it could even be guilty of war crimes. The government of Pakistan
has consistently maintained that drone attacks are a violation of its
territorial integrity and sovereignty.
What astounds me is the
belief expressed by some scholars and politicians that drones are the
only viable option for combating terrorism or militancy in the tribal
areas of Pakistan. Experience and statistics tell a different story.
The TBIJ said available data
showed from June 2004 to September 2012, drone strikes have killed
2,570 to 3,337 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 to 884 were civilians --
including 176 children.
The first drone attack
was carried out in 2004 and had a specific target. This was true for all
nine drone attacks that took place until 2007. However, identifying
targets became shady as the number of strikes increased. After President
Obama's oath of office, the drone attacks saw a sudden surge,
accelerating from an average of one strike every 40 days to one every
four days by mid-2011, according to the New America Foundation. The TBIJ said available data
showed from June 2004 to September 2012, drone strikes have killed
2,570 to 3,337 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 to 884 were civilians --
including 176 children.
As a result of these
attacks, the US has only been able to achieve 41 high value targets,
according to estimates by the New American Foundation. We have seen that
with every assassination of militant leaders, they have been replaced
with a more ferocious and extremist leader.
Meanwhile, journalist Scott Shane told PBS in a response to an article he'd written in the New York Times,
"there's also been some dispute over the way civilian casualties are
counted. The CIA often counts able-bodied males, military-age males who
are killed in strikes as militants, unless they have concrete evidence
to sort of prove them innocent, and some folks at the State Department
and elsewhere have questioned that kind of a process." As a result, most
adult males living in Waziristan seem to be viewed as militants and
targets until the CIA rates them to be innocent, he added.
Pakistan has also
experienced a spike in suicide attacks when there has been a surge in
drone attacks. In 2010, the year that saw the highest number of drone
strikes, according to TBIJ, Pakistan government figures suggest the
country witnessed its highest number of suicide attacks -- more than
2,100 civilians were killed without distinction between women, children,
law enforcement or military.
According to the
Pakistan government, the total financial loss from terrorism in Pakistan
between 2001-2010 was $68 billion, whereas the epicenter of all this
chaos in our midst, the US, has given only $11 billion in military aid
to Pakistan for its war on terror since 2001, according to the Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
A large portion of this
damage is attributed to suicide attacks. America's own losses in
Afghanistan -- financial, human, and tactical -- are difficult to
quantify. According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO),
more than $6 billion has been spent since 2002 on establishing a viable
Afghan National Police force, which the late Richard Holbrooke called
"an inadequate force riddled with corruption," during a meeting in
Brussels in 2009. The GAO says more than $10 billion of American
taxpayers' money has been spent on building up the Afghan National Army,
which was described in a report in the Wall Street Journal on July 28, 2010 as largely corrupt, poorly led, and subject to claims of drug use.
The joint NATO and
Afghan Operation Moshtrak in Afghanistan's Helmand province in February
2010 failed miserably in achieving its aimed objectives of evicting the
Taliban and establishing a government in the district, despite the
enormous budget and military backing of the Americans. Earlier this
year, US Senator John Kerry concluded that the operation did not become
the turning point in the Afghan campaign as anticipated by NATO
commanders. In fact 2011-2012 witnessed a surge in Taliban attacks on
NATO and particularly American targets, showing there is no end to this
war.
This cycle of terror
will continue until both sides start seeing sense and start adhering to
the principles of due process, fair play, and rule of law.
Through legal action,
Karim Khan -- the first of 80 clients who came to us seeking justice for
these attacks -- has shown a new path to his people to end the
violence, which is largely attributed to mistakes committed by the state
in the 1980s, along with the very same partner who is asking us to
commit yet another folly. The American public should ask their
government who is being killed in their name. Questioning the drone
program in light of real facts is not anti-American -- violating the
rule of law, due process and the "right to life" is.
© 2012 CNN
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