[Peace-discuss] Five Specific Questions Journalists Should Ask About the Drone Strike Policy

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/five-specific-questions-j_b_2020214.html

Before Monday night's presidential debate, many of
usurged<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/drones-debate-question>
Bob
Schieffer to ask a question about drone strikes.

And, in fact -- credit where credit is due -- Bob Schieffer did ask a
question about drones<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/22/the-full-transcript-of-the-third-presidential-debate/>
.

It can't be said that we learned a great deal directly from the
interaction. For reasons that aren't really clear, Schieffer asked his
question only of Mitt Romney.Here was the
exchange<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/22/the-full-transcript-of-the-third-presidential-debate/>
:

SCHIEFFER: Let -- let me ask you, Governor because we know President
Obama's position on this, what is -- what is your position on the use of
drones?

ROMNEY: Well I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take
out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And
it's widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I
support that and entirely, and feel the president was right to up the usage
of that technology, and believe that we should continue to use it, to
continue to go after the people that represent a threat to this nation and
to our friends.

Schieffer's choice to exclude President Obama was odd. About any current
administration policy one could say that we know Obama's policy; after all,
he's in charge. The point is to give him the opportunity to defend his
policy and to say what he intends to do going forward. Arguably we know
Obama's policy on health care reform, because he's in charge of a policy
that is being implemented. Would a debate moderator say: "let me ask you,
Governor because we know President Obama's position on this, what is --
what is your position on health care reform?"

And so, using language Malcolm X might have appreciated -- "we should use
any and all means necessary" -- Romney endorsed the president's policy.
[For those scoring at home, it's a basic principle of the law of armed
conflict that combatants do not get to use "any and all means necessary."]
So, at this level of abstraction, the candidates agree.

Nonetheless, the exchange was useful, because it put the issue on the table
for discussion. Schieffer didn't take the ball far, but he got it on the
field, and that's more than anyone else of his stature had previously done.
As Mark Weisbrot noted at the *Guardian*, "It was a victory just to have
drones mentioned<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/who-won-third-us-presidential-deabte>
."

Others picked up the discussion. On *MSNBC*, Joe Scarborough
said<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1325>
:

What we are doing with drones is remarkable. The fact that ... over George
W. Bush's eight years when a lot of people brought up a bunch of legitimate
questions about international law -- my God, those lines have been
completely eradicated in a drone policy that says that, if you're between
17 and 30, and you're within a half-mile of a suspect, we can blow you up.
And that's exactly what's happening.

Joe Klein responded <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1325>:

But the bottom line in the end is: Whose four year-old gets killed? What
we're doing ... is limiting the possibility that four year-olds here are
going to get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror.

Writing in the *Guardian*, Glenn Greenwald
noted<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe>
that
"Klein's justification -- we have to kill their children in order to
protect our children -- is the exact mentality of every person deemed in
U.S. discourse to be a 'terrorist'" and that "Slaughtering Muslim children
does not protect American children from terrorism."

But it should also be noted that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan currently
are not really about protecting civilians in the United States from
terrorist attacks in any event. U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan today are
primarily an extension of the war in Afghanistan, targeting suspected
militants believed to be planning to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Since the majority of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan and want U.S.
troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, this is a highly relevant
political fact: U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are being carried out in
support of a war in Afghanistan that most Americans oppose. Pretending that
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are about protecting civilians in the United
States when they are primarily about extending the unpopular Afghanistan
war across the border with Pakistan is therefore a pretty significant
deceit.

When U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, as most Americans want,
then there will be no reason to use drone strikes to target militants in
Pakistan who are trying to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan, because there
will be no militants in Pakistan trying to attack U.S. troops in
Afghanistan, because there will be no U.S. troops in Afghanistan for them
to attack. The situation is analogous to that which we faced in Iraq during
the Bush administration: We were told we had to keep our troops in Iraq to
fight the people who were attacking our troops in Iraq, but the people
attacking our troops were attacking our troops because they were there. Now
that our troops have left Iraq, no-one is attacking our troops in Iraq
anymore. The best solution to the problem of people trying to attack our
troops in other people's countries is to get our troops out of other
people's countries where people are likely to attack them.

Moreover, it is crucial to recognize that the *mere existence* of drone
strikes is *not* the focus of international criticism. It is *specific
features* of the drone strike policy which are overwhelmingly the focus of
international criticism. There is relatively little international
criticism, for example, about the U.S. use of drone strikes in Afghanistan
compared to other use of air power, given that whether one supports or
opposes it, the war in Afghanistan is generally considered internationally
to be lawful overall [which is different from saying that specific actions
within the war are lawful]. But there is a great deal of international
criticism about the U.S. use of drone strikes in Pakistan, where
considerable international opinion does not accept that the U.S. is
conducting a lawful war.

And this is why, although it was a great first step that Bob Schieffer even
said the word "drone" and made Mitt Romney say it too, to let politicians
merely answer the question at this level of abstraction -- "I support drone
strikes, too" -- is to let them off the hook. It's crucial to drive down
into the *details* of the policy as it exists today and get politicians on
the record saying not just whether they support drone strikes as an
abstraction but whether they support the details of the policy as it is
being implemented today. And this is even more important now, given recent
press reports that the current policy is being made permanent.

And this is why it would be tremendously useful if the high-profile TV talk
shows would take this on, and devote enough time to it to drive down into
details. CBS's Bob Schieffer (*Face the Nation*), NBC's David Gregory and
Betsy Fischer (*Meet the Press*), *CNN*'s Christiane Amanpour, and MSNBC's
Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow should all be
pressed<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/drones-debate-question-follow-up>
to
drive down into the detail of the current drone strike policy. It would be
tremendously useful, for example, if these shows would invite the authors
of the recent Stanford/NYU report on drone
strikes<http://livingunderdrones.org/> on
as guests and invite an administration surrogate to respond in detail.

Here are five specific questions that it would be really helpful if these
shows would explore:

1. The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan recently
acknowledged<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/americans-press-us-ambass_b_1941919.html>
that
1) the U.S. government has an official count of the number of civilians the
U.S. thinks have been killed in Pakistan as a result of U.S. drone strikes
since July 2008 and that 2) this number is classified. What is this number,
and why is it classified?

2. Journalists and independent researchers have
reported<http://livingunderdrones.org/> that
the U.S. has targeted rescuers with "secondary" or "follow-up" drone
strikes. International law experts have
said<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/a-question-of-legality/>
that
if this is true, this is clearly a war crime under international law. The
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan has
denied<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/americans-press-us-ambass_b_1941919.html>
that
the U.S. is targeting rescuers and has denied that the U.S. is conducting
secondary strikes. What is the truth here? Is the U.S. targeting rescuers,
or not? Is the U.S. conducting "secondary" strikes, or not? If the U.S. is
targeting rescuers, is this a war crime?

3. Pakistani officials say they oppose U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The
Pakistani parliament unanimously demanded that they stop. But U.S.
officials claim that the Pakistani military has secretly approved the
strikes. What is the truth here? If there is secret approval by the
Pakistani military, but not by the democratically elected Pakistani
government, should we be satisfied by that? Is such a situation politically
sustainable in Pakistan? If there is not secret approval, is the U.S.
violating international law with its drone strike policy? If the Pakistani
military accepts some U.S. drone strikes but not others, does that count as
approval of the drone strikes which the Pakistani military opposes, for the
purposes of international law? If not, doesn't that imply that the U.S. is
violating international law, even if the Pakistani military approves some
drone strikes?

4. U.S. officials have claimed that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are
narrowly targeted on top-level terrorist suspects. But the U.S. is reported
to be conducting "signature strikes" on unknown targets based on signals
intelligence indicating "suspicious activity." How is this consistent with
the claim that the strikes are narrowly targeted on top-level terrorist
suspects?

5. White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has claimed that
civilian deaths in U.S. drone strikes have been "exceedingly rare." The
international humanitarian law principle of proportionality in armed
conflict requires that civilian harm not be excessive in relation to
anticipated military advantage. It has been reported
that<http://livingunderdrones.org/> a
mere 2 percent of the deaths in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004
have been high level targets, while at least 15-30 percent of the deaths
have been civilians. Are these numbers basically correct? If so, is it
honest to say that civilian deaths have been "exceedingly rare"? If these
numbers are basically correct, is the U.S. violating the international law
principle of proportionality?

*If you'd like the big TV talk shows to take these questions on, you can
tell them so here<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/drones-debate-question-follow-up>
.*

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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