Moral Drones and the New York Times

Dispatches From the Edge

Conn Hallinan

July 8, 2012

"...it may be a surprise to find some moral philosophers,
political scientists, and weapons specialists believe
unmanned aircraft offer marked moral advantages over
almost any other tool of warfare."--Scott Shane,
national security reporter for the New York Times, "The
Moral Defense For Drones," 7/15/12

First, one should never be surprised to find that the
NY Times can ferret out experts to say virtually
anything. Didn't they dig up those who told us all that
Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons? Second, whenever
the newspaper uses the words "some," that's generally a
tipoff the dice are loaded, in this case with a former
Air Force officer (who teaches philosophy at the Naval
Postgraduate School), a former CIA deputy chief of
counterintelligence, and political scientist Avery
Plaw, author of  "Targeting Terrorists: A License To
Kill?"

Shane has a problem, which he solves by a nimble bit of
legerdemain: he starts off by raising the issue of law,
sovereignty, radicalizing impact, and proliferation
dangers (in three brief sentences), then quickly shifts
to the contention that "most critics" have "focused on
evidence that they [drones] are unintentionally killing
innocent civilians."

He doesn't present any evidence that most criticism has
focused on the collateral damage issue, but this allows
him to move to the article's centerpiece: "the drones
kill fewer civilians than other modes of warfare."

Actually, critics have focused on a wide number of
issues concerning drones. Is using drones in a country
with which we are not at war, and one that opposes
their use, a violation of international law? Is
targeting an individual a form of extrajudicial capital
punishment? Is killing American citizens a violation of
the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a trial by a jury
of one's peers? Is the use of armed drones by the White
House bypassing the constitutional role of Congress to
declare war? Does the role of the CIA in directing
killer drones violate the prescriptions of the Geneva
Convention against civilians engaging in armed
conflicts?

But for argument's sake, let's focus on the point about
civilian casualties. According to Shane, the professor
of philosophy has found that "drones do a better job at
both identifying the terrorist and avoiding collateral
damage than anything else we have." Shane adds that the
drone operators "can even divert a missile after firing
if, say, a child wanders into range."

Nice touch about the kid, but according to London-base
Bureau of Investigtive Journalists, as of February of
this year, drones have killed some 60 children, among
between 282 to 535 civilians. Other estimates of
civilian deaths are much higher.

But, points out the Times, the kill ratio suffered by
civilians when Pakistan took back the Swat Valley from
its local Taliban, and when Israel goes after Hamas,
are much higher. And then, quoting the CIA guy: "Look
at the firebombing of Dresden, and compare it with what
we are doing today." In short, civilians should be
thankful they are not subjected to the brutality of the
Pakistani and Israeli armies, or firebombed into
oblivion?

Shane manages to avoid mentioning Part IV of the
additions to the Geneva Conventions (1977) on the
protection of civilian populations "Against the Effects
of Hostilities." Article 49 and 50 are particularly
relevant. Essentially they boil down to the stipulation
that only "military objectives" can be targeted.

The Time's security expert also fails to mention the
policy of "signature strikes," which means anyone
carrying weapons, or hanging out in a house used by
"militants," is fair game. "Signature strikes" are an
explicit violation of Article 50: "The presence within
the civilian population of individuals who do not come
within the definition of civilians does not deprive the
population of its civilian character."

Of course, none of us know what criteria are used to
identify someone as a "militant" or a "terrorist,"
because the Obama administration refuses to release the
legal findings that define those categories. In Yemen,
many of the targeted "terrorists" are not Al Qaeda
members, but southern separatists who have been
fighting to re-establish the Republic of South Yemen.
In any case, people are being killed and we have no
idea how they ended up sentenced to death.

For instance, it is apparently a capital offense to try
to rescue people following a drone strike, or to go to
the funeral for those killed. According to the Bureau
of Investigative Journalism, some 50 rescuers have been
killed, and more than 20 mourners. Many of these small
villages have strong kinship ties, and helping out or
mourning the dead is a powerful cultural tradition.
Acting as a kinsman to someone the White House defines
as an "enemy" may end up being fatal.

In some ways the civilian deaths are a straw man, not
because they are not important, but because "critics"
have focused on a wide number of issues brought up by
the drones. Among them is the apparent dismantling of
Congress's constitutional role in declaring war. When
some members of Congress raised this issue with respect
to the Libyan War, and whether it fell under the rubric
of the Wars Power Act, the Obama administration argued
that it did not, because the Libya operation did not
"involve the use of U.S. ground troops, U.S.
casualties, or a serious threat thereof."

But as Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute points
out, the Libyan operation certainly involved "something
we used to think of as war: blowing up stuff, lots of
it." The U.S. air war was the key to overthrowing
Qaddafi. U.S. planes and drones carried out attacks and
directed strikes by allied aircraft. The Americans also
resupplied allied aircraft with bombs and missiles, and
provided in-air refueling.

Given the enormous expansion of drones, the definition
of war as limited to acts likely to lead to
"casualties" opens up a Pandora's box. The U.S.
currently has more than 7,000 drones, many of them,
like the Predator and the Reaper, are armed. The U.S.
Defense Department plans to spend about $31 billion on
"remotely piloted aircraft" by 2015, and the U.S. Air
Force is training more remote operators than pilots for
its fighters and bombers.

Fleets of armed drones could be released to fight wars
all over the world, with casualties limited to
mechanical failures or the occasional drone that
wandered too close to an anti-aircraft system. Under
the White House's definition, what those drones did,
and whom they did it to, is none of Congress's
business.

What in the Constitution gives the power of life and
death over U.S. citizens to the President of the United
States? The militant American-Yemini cleric
Anwar-al-Awkaki was no admirer of the U.S., but there
is no public finding that he ever did anything illegal.
Never the less, a drone-fired Hellfire missile killed
him last October. And a few weeks later, another drone
killed his Denver-born 16-year old son,
Abdulraham-al-Awkaki, who was out looking for his
father. Ibrahim-al-Banna was the target of that strike,
but as one U.S. official told Time, the son was in the
"wrong place at the wrong time." That particular
statement is an explicit violation of Article 50 of the
Conventions.

"The question is, is killing always justified?" asks
University of Texas at El Paso political scientist
Armin Krisnan. "There is not public accountability for
that."

The Yemen strike has sparked outrage in that country,
as have other drone strikes. "This is why AQAP [Al
Qadea in the Arabian Peninsula] is much stronger in
Yemen today that it was a few years ago," says Ibrahim
Mothana, co-founder of Yemen's Watan Party.

There are lots of critics raising lots of difficult to
answer questions, and they focus on much more than
civilian casualties (although that is a worthy topic of
consideration). The "moral" case for drones is not
limited to the parameters set by the NY Times. In any
case, the issue is not the morality of drones; they
have none. Nor do they have politics or philosophy.
They are simply soulless killing machines. The morality
at play is with those who define the targets and push
the buttons that incinerate people we do not know half
a world away.

Conn Hallinan can be read at
dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and
middleempireseries.wordpress.com

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