Living Under Drones: new report
A new report by Stanford & NYU, so its own website and much to read.
This not an impartial report from the BBC:
Quote:
London-based human rights group Reprieve, which commissioned the report, said it was taking legal action in an attempt to force the UK government to clarify its policy of sharing intelligence in support of the CIA's drone-strikes.
A very short account:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19704981
This probably gives an introduction:
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In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false.
Four points and a recommendation:
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First, while civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.
Second, US drone strike policies cause considerable and under-accounted-for harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians, beyond death and physical injury.
Third, publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best.
Fourth, current US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and may set dangerous precedents.
In light of these concerns, this report recommends that the US conduct a fundamental re-evaluation of current targeted killing practices, taking into account all available evidence, the concerns of various stakeholders, and the short and long-term costs and benefits.
Link:http://livingunderdrones.org/
A commentary by Glenn Greenwald:https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-drone-deaths?
Going private near you - the future drone?
A short article, with many short videos, 'Everyone Who Wants a Drone Will Have One Soon':http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...e-soon/262882/
The focus is on the 'home front':
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The upshot of all this is that it's not going to take much to procure a drone and do anything you want with it. And if you try to outlaw them, then, well, only the outlaws (and government) will have drones.....Drones will make traditional fences as obsolete as gunpowder and cannons made city walls.
Drone proliferation: a commentary
A column by Professor Paul Rogers:
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The United States and Israel see armed drones as a valuable tool of "remote control". But Iran, China and Russia - and non-state actors - are working to achieve their own capacity. The emerging era is one of drone proliferation.
Near the end:
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If the United States can persist with targeted assassinations in northwest Pakistan, acting with seeming impunity as it rewrites the laws of war, and if Israel can do the same in Gaza - why should other countries not follow suit?
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-ro...s-new-blowback
Interesting points made over the Iranian drone that flew from the Lebanon, down to Gaza and then across the Negev Desert before being shot down.
The top terror takedowns of 2012: 80% due to drones
The thread title includes results, so here are some.
Notwithstanding the Twitter and elsewhere traffic on the recent spike in drone strikes in the Yemen; now with a third failure to get their target - there is this CNN roundup:http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/1...12/?hpt=hp_bn2
It shows ten deaths, with seven attributed to drones, although I'd add one in the Phillipines which few thought the Phill. AF did IIRC.
A good summary by Byman-Wittes
If the answer to their question #10 ("Is US capture plausible?") is negative, then we proceed to either a personality strike or a signature strike as hypothesized here, One Strike You're Out ??
Regards
Mike
Mini helicopter drone for UK troops in Afghanistan
A BBC report, with a photo:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21313323
Quote:
The Norwegian-designed Black Hornet Nano features a tiny camera and relays video and still images to a handheld control terminal. It measures about 10cm by 2.5cm (4in by 1in) and weighs 16g (0.6oz). ....Powered by battery, the Black Hornet is reported to have a range of about half a mile (800m), a top speed of 22mph (35kph) and can fly for up to 30 minutes.
Americans: If You Don’t Want To Get Killed By A Drone, Avoid These 4 Things!
SWC members: I made a post at my blog today reference the debate over the use of drones, which has reached its zenith this week. I've cross-posted some of the points here from the entire post and would enjoy the intelligence discussion of all those wise folks here at Small Wars. Here's the introduction and the policy recommendations are at this link: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=965
"The much anticipated Department of Justice memo authorizing the use of drones to target Americans....scratch that. A white paper from the Department of Justice outlined what might be the U.S. government's position with regards to the killing of Americans via the use of unmanned drones.
Twitter erupted with claims that this memo provided the President unprecedented powers to kill any American, anywhere, for any reason. Well, I read the memo, and I'm fairly certain that is not what it said. (I think @blakehounshell was the first to point this out.) However, in reading this memo, which may or may not exactly detail U.S. policy, I did identify four important points for Americans if they want to avoid getting a warhead to the forehead.
Americans, if you are trying to avoid being transformed into a red mist;
--Don't join al Qaeda outside the United States- Who knew that if you are an American and you decide to join al Qaeda that you might get smacked in the face with a Hellfire missile. Unbelievable, the nerve of the American government to hold a grudge for so long. Can you believe the Executive Branch would be willing to kill members of the terrorist organization, including American members, that committed the largest terrorist attack in history on American soil? Absolutely absurd! However, simply being a member of al Qaeda won't necessarily get a drone sortie on your hut.
--Don't become a Senior Leader of al Qaeda overseas - Even more shocking, if you are an American citizen and you join al Qaeda, and then later, you become one of the senior leaders of that organization, you might just wake up to a mouthful of hell's fire! Unbelievable! To think that you could join a terrorist group and openly advocate for the killing of your fellow citizens, and then be so good at promoting terrorism against your homeland that you would be honored by al Qaeda with a promotion....to think you could then be killed for that promotion. I can't imagine. Who are these barbarians?
--Don't actively plan to kill or actually attempt to kill Americans - It turns out that if you are an American and you join al Qaeda overseas and then you plan to kill or actually try to kill Americans, you could get shot in the face with a missile. Ridiculous. What right do U.S. citizens have to try and prevent terrorists from attacking them? Surely if you join al Qaeda, recruit a guy off the Internet, and then help wrap his junk with explosives before setting him off to take down an airplane over Detroit on Christmas day, you should be allowed to hide out overseas and enjoy another opportunity to try a better, more sophisticated attack against the U.S., right?
-- Don't make it difficult to be arrested - This is where the white paper gets completely ludicrous. It seems that if the U.S. government cannot figure out a way to arrest you since you've joined al Qaeda, been promoted, tried to attack the U.S. and have been hiding in a failed state with no functioning law enforcement, they will then maybe send a drone after you. How insulting! How is this possibly fair to American terrorists that join al Qaeda?
Unlike the folks I witnessed on Twitter suggesting this document provides the President unbounded power to kill Americans, I see the inverse - a legal opinion particularly crafted to pursue one Anwar al-Awlaki. As has been seen in other public domains, Awlaki, an American, served as the head of external operations for AQAP in Yemen (a senior leader position), was being considered for promotion to head of AQAP (a more senior position) and was actively participating in plots to attack the U.S. (See Underwear Bomber). This uniquely qualifies him for targeting according to this white paper. The question should now be: what other Americans could be legally targeted by the U.S.? Adam Gadahn maybe? The list seems to be fairly short and not expansive in the way suggested by drone conspiracy theorists.
Drone critics - what do you want? - see policy recommendations here: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=965
The issue of both signature and personality strikes
Hi Mike--
Long time no see.:) I think you defined both pretty well and have a reasonable matrix for signature strikes. to me however, the issue is not one of legality but rather one of effectiveness, Both kinds of drone strikes suffer in two areas:
Dead insurgents or terrorists who have been blown to bits cannot provide much if any intelligence. You certainly can't ask them any question so there is absoulutely no HUMINT to be gained.
Second. there is every likelihood that these strikes - both kinds - will kill some civilian non-combatants and both combatants and non-combatants heve friends and relatives who are sure to be pissed off. so, the question then is how many more bad guys do you create with each drone strike? Do you kill more than you create? or the reverse? In other words, what are the costs v. the benefits of the program - on both issues?
I have no moral qualms about killing bad guys with drones and even with some of what we euphemistically call collateral damage. But I do think that this tool can be and has been very over used to our detriment.
Cheers
JohnT
PS The prior analysis of how not to get killed by a drone if you are an American is spot on - with the qualification in #1 that if you join AQ in the US you should not leave the country and should surrender to the FBI when they com knocking on your door. (No hellfires here but certainly a hail of bullets is most likely. )
Which is it? - "Drones Kill al Qaeda" or "Drones Make al Qaeda" - Cast Your Vote!
The past week has brought a flurry of debate sprinkled with intermittent anger over how the U.S. utilizes unmanned, armed drones to target al Qaeda members around the world. After I wrote the post, “Americans: If you don’t want to get killed by a drone, avoid these 4 things!”, I received a flurry of hate mail (of which a fraction actually dealt with drone policy) and some positive discussion. The debate on whether the U.S. should use drones to kill al Qaeda members hinges on two separate points of contention.
--Legal/Moral: Can the U.S. legally use drones to engage al Qaeda members (American or non-American)?
--Efficacy: Do drones eliminate more al Qaeda members than they create?
Today, I’ll focus on the latter question and save the legal/moral/ethical debate for later.
So are drones effective? Osama Bin Laden noted in his internal documents the devastating impact of drones on al Qaeda in Pakistan. However, Gregory Johnsen, Jeremy Scahill and other Yemen journalists/analysts see drones not as the great killer of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) but instead the primary radicalizing force for new recruits to AQAP. So which is it? Do drones eliminate al Qaeda or do they create al Qaeda? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Please cast your votes on the efficacy of drones and the results should show up after you cast your ballot. Note, this question is only about the efficacy of drones – save your moral/legal arguments for later. And no hedging! Is it worth continuing drone operations or not? Don’t qualify with “Sometimes” or “Depends on the conditions”. Assume that regardless of the context, the drone program will be conducted in roughly the same way with the same results.
Here is the link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5JGSVMC
And here is the link to the post at Selected Wisdom: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=977