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

[davidbfpo]

JMM has added several posts on the separate thread that watches HVT policy under Obama:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=13239&page=7

Hat tip to Abu M for the comments by 'Drunken Predator Drone', where this sentence struck me:

Sovereignty is the inherent right to control your territory, and that right isn’t solely dictated by your capacity to do so

Link:http://gunpowderandlead.org/author/drunkenpredator/

'Drunken Predator Drone' writes in the context of Pakistan. What would happen if another 'ally' of the USA was repeatedly hit by drone strikes? Say Italy, where the US pursued a suspect AQ member and illegally rendered him.

I have long thought the use of an apparent drone only approach / tactic primarily, if not only gains time through the impact of violent, leadership decapitation. Often there appears to be no other US tactic in use.

Clint Watts again asks what are the alternatives to drones in a wider CT strategy:http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=813

Clint was writing after an extensive WaPo article, mainly on the targeting process last week:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...10/23/4789b2ae

[davidbfpo]

A column by Professor Paul Rogers:

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:

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.

[carl]

Here is a story about the latest victim of a drone strike in Yemen.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/2...ld_News_Update

It is interesting because according to the story it would have been quite easy to pick the guy up. He was living in his home town which was not very far from the capital of Yemen. He had been arrested before and in 2011 had served as a go between between the gov and some rebels of some kind. And he was killed the day after the election.

So we kill a guy we could have probably picked up the day after the election. We are not covering ourselves with glory here. The way my cynical eye sees it either 1. We got played by somebody in the Yemeni gov to knock off an enemy for them. 2. Some of our guys are really lazy and decided it would be too much trouble to drive someplace and grab the guy. Or 3. The powers that be inside the beltway needed a drone kill to make a statement right after the election and this guy was easy to get.

The more I read about all this drone/Tantalus device killing the more I think this will ultimately be very bad for us.

(Tantalus device is a reference to...?)

[Fuchs]

or
4. Capturing is too much hassle because there's no evidence or even only crime to justify detention.

[carl]

or
4. Capturing is too much hassle because there's no evidence or even only crime to justify detention.

Indeed. Which means we are killing people just on general principles. This is not going to end well.

[davidbfpo]

Carl,

Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert and Clint Watts have been "ding, dong" on Twitter on this latest drone strike in Yemen. I posted Gregory's recent comments on US intell in Yemen, see Post 74:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=12784&page=4

[davidbfpo]

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.