Using drones: principles, tactics and results (amended title)

[ODB]

First, thank you to JMM for educating me on the laws and legal aspect of the debate as I am not well versed in the legalities. My stance on killing a foreign terrorist in a foreign country is multifaceted:

1. What is the intelligence value gained by conducting a kill/capture operation versus intelligence lost by conducting a drone strike versus a clandestine/covert operation versus continuing to gather intelligence if left alone (this has to be debated extensively based upon potential of future lives lost)?

2. What is the risk versus gain in conducting an operation versus a drone strike? Is the gain worth losing lives over?

3. What are the political sensitivities to conducting an operation versus a drone strike versus other clandestine/covert means?

4. What are the 2nd and 3rd order effects associated with the aforementioned operations?

Post education regarding the drone strikes I have learned my viewpoint is more towards the policies and decisions associated with the drone strikes of US citizens not the legalities surrounding the drone strikes. I take issue when the decision is made to kill a US citizen in a foreign country with a drone strike. In turn, another decision is made to conduct an operation to capture a non US citizen (Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'I) in a foreign country (Libya) in order to bring the individual to the US for trial.

Taking into account the political workings among countries as to what kind of operations are "authorized", this latest operation in Libya has Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan calling al Libi's capture a "kidnapping" and demanding that U.S. authorities "provide an explanation" for the raid.

I do not intend nor want this thread to be hijacked with what will follow, just want to express why I have the issue I do with the policies and/or decisions regarding drone strikes against US citizens. The willingness to risk American lives to capture a foreign terrorist to bring him to America in order to afford him the same legal rights in a court of law in America as an American citizen is not afforded to an alleged terrorist who is US citizen in a foreign county. (I understand the trial process remains in a messy debate, hence not wanting to hijack the thread.)

[jmm99]

folks like you, ODB, have furthered my education in ways you may or may not imagine. That's my backhanded way of saying, thank you.

On to the task at hand; it may or may not surprise you, but what you say here:

My stance on killing a foreign terrorist in a foreign country is multifaceted:

1. What is the intelligence value gained by conducting a kill/capture operation versus intelligence lost by conducting a drone strike versus a clandestine/covert operation versus continuing to gather intelligence if left alone (this has to be debated extensively based upon potential of future lives lost)?

2. What is the risk versus gain in conducting an operation versus a drone strike? Is the gain worth losing lives over?

3. What are the political sensitivities to conducting an operation versus a drone strike versus other clandestine/covert means?

4. What are the 2nd and 3rd order effects associated with the aforementioned operations?

are also my concerns with, what I'd term, the "wisdom" of the operations (direct actions) or drone strikes.

In formulating my legal position (as opposed to my "wisdom" position) on these and any other military operations (to include T10-T50 joint operations), I have intentionally built in as much leeway as possible into the rules of engagement. My purpose there is a simple one: to keep legal harassment off of our people who are sent (by me and by every other US citizen) to bad places, and then into worse situations. So, my legal framework always has, as its primary purpose, the protection of our people who are sent into harm's way.

I realize that granting a broad hunting license can be used badly in the wrong hands. From my analysis of the past, the wrong hands have usually been with civilian leadership or with military types that don't have to execute the missions. The solution is to get rid of those "dereliction of duty" types, and not restrict the rules of engagement.

I do understand your two points based on the absurdity and hypocrisy of capturing a non-US citizen for purposes of trying him here (with all the rights given US citizens), especially given the vagueries of those trials -

Failed Somali pirate prosecution fuels terror trial fears

The failed prosecution of an alleged Somali pirate — and the fact that that failure could leave him living freely, and permanently, inside U.S. borders — is highlighting anew the risks of trying terror suspects in American courts.

Just a few weeks ago, Ali Mohamed Ali was facing the possibility of a mandatory life sentence in a 2008 shipjacking off the coast of Yemen — an incident much like the one dramatized in the film “Captain Phillips.” Now, the Somali native is in immigration detention in Virginia and seeking permanent asylum in the United States.

Ali, who was accused of piracy for acting as a translator and negotiator for a crew of pirates, was partially acquitted by a jury in November after a trial in Washington. Prosecutors initially vowed a retrial but decided last month to drop the rest of the case against him.
...
In 2009, Obama ordered Ahmed Ghailani — a suspected plotter in the deadly attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 — flown from Guantánamo Bay to New York to stand trial in federal court. In November 2010, a jury there convicted him on a single charge of conspiracy to destroy U.S. property and buildings, while acquitting him of the 284 other charges he faced. He ultimately received a life sentence. ...

and, on the other hand, deciding on a targeted killing of a US citizen in the same country (some speculate that Libya is also the geographic target in the present case).

But, the reason for the USG right hand doing one thing, and the USG left hand another, is that the two hands are not connected to the same brain.

Here's the way I'd look at the two "Yemen" cases - positing that a US citizen and a non-US citizen are involved in an "AQ" group as combatants. We have a host of Gitmo habeas cases, some up to SCOTUS, that define "enemy combatants". Is that enough to order "shoot" ? It is, if one looks solely at my legal position (the broad hunting license); but, I never said that the scope of inquiry should end there. We have to travel from what is legally permissible to what is practically wise as the targeted killing process winds to a decision - shoot or don't shoot.

There we get into your "wisdom" factors:

1. What is the intelligence value gained by conducting a kill/capture operation versus intelligence lost by conducting a drone strike versus a clandestine/covert operation versus continuing to gather intelligence if left alone (this has to be debated extensively based upon potential of future lives lost)?

2. What is the risk versus gain in conducting an operation versus a drone strike? Is the gain worth losing lives over?

3. What are the political sensitivities to conducting an operation versus a drone strike versus other clandestine/covert means?

4. What are the 2nd and 3rd order effects associated with the aforementioned operations?

Those factors would have to be assessed for each case. Reasonable people could disagree on the final decision, without either of them being a war criminal; although one of them might be a stupid SOB for the result reached.

I wouldn't distinguish as such between the US citizen and the non-US citizen in this process (although I'd probably be harsher with the US citizen as a turncoat vs the non-US citizen who is not).

IF all of the facts are same with these two fellows (i.e., all your questions are answered the same for both), why should the US citizen get a reprieve from being targeted for killing, while the non-US citizen does not ? I'm not asking for legal reasoning, just common sense. Two answers seem coherent to me: (1) Both should be subject to the targeted killing process (though either or both may be reprieved by individual factors during that process); or (2) Neither should be subject to the targeted killing process.

What am I missing about a reprieve for the American, but not for the Yemani, who are in exactly the same boat ?

Regards

Mike

[Tukhachevskii]

PhD thesis from the University of Arizona by Ian Shaw, "The Spatial Politics of Drone Warfare".

[jmm99]

the U.S. may be targeting overseas (HT to Lawfare's Ben Wittes for the NYT link); NYT, U.S. Militant, Hidden, Spurs Drone Debate (by MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT, FEB. 28, 2014):

WASHINGTON — He is known as Abdullah al-Shami, an Arabic name meaning Abdullah the Syrian. But his nom de guerre masks a reality: He was born in the United States, and the United States is now deciding whether to kill him.

Mr. Shami, a militant who American officials say is living in the barren mountains of northwestern Pakistan, is at the center of a debate inside the government over whether President Obama should once again take the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of an American citizen overseas.

It is a debate that encapsulates some of the thorniest questions raised by the targeted killing program that Mr. Obama has embraced as president: under what circumstances the government may kill American citizens without a trial, whether the battered leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan still poses an imminent threat to Americans, and whether the C.I.A. or the Pentagon ought to be the dominant agency running America’s secret wars.

Interviews with American officials and outside terrorism experts sketch only the most impressionistic portraits of Mr. Shami.

Born in the United States, possibly in Texas, he moved with his family to the Middle East when he was a toddler. ... (more in the article)

This "toddler-citizen" brings me back to my basic, non-legalistic question: why should this "American citizen" (by technicality) get a pass, whereas his Pakistani brother in arms (both growing up in same village and culture, and following the same AQ path) gets a hit ?

IMO: Either both are targetable, or neither are targetable.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

The British House of Commons Select Committee on Defence published on the 25th March 2014, a report on drones, sorry they refer to 'Remote Control: Remotely Piloted Air Systems - current and future UK use'. I have not read it.

Link:http://www.publications.parliament.u.../772/77202.htm

Professor Paul Rogers has a very short commentary, to say the least he is not impressed:

A key role of a parliamentary committee is to hold an executive and its ministries up to independent scrutiny on behalf of parliament. In relation to armed-drones (or to use the correct language, “remotely piloted air systems”) in Afghanistan, the defence committee has a long way to go.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/drone-evasion?

The only comment by a reader is succinct too:

So Paul, what SHOULD the UK have done? Should we have replaced drone coverage with thousands of soldiers?

[JMA]

David here is the key finding:

Conclusions

21. We consider that it is of vital importance that a clear distinction be drawn between the actions of UK Armed Forces operating remotely piloted air systems in Afghanistan and those of other States elsewhere. On the basis of the evidence we have received we are satisfied that UK remotely piloted air system operations comply fully with international law.

The British House of Commons Select Committee on Defence published on the 25th March 2014, a report on drones, sorry they refer to 'Remote Control: Remotely Piloted Air Systems - current and future UK use'. I have not read it.

Link:http://www.publications.parliament.u.../772/77202.htm

Professor Paul Rogers has a very short commentary, to say the least he is not impressed:

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/drone-evasion?

The only comment by a reader is succinct too:

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to WoTR. A rare commentary on a regional user of drones, with Chines, German and Israeli help:http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/the...urkeys-drones/