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Drones series, Part I: Pakistan's decade of drones (2004-2014)

April 8, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Zoha Waseem:

‘Things fall out of the sky’

In June 2004, the first drone strike in Pakistan targeted a man who had rejected peace agreements with the government, sworn allegiance to the Taliban, and vowed to continue his ‘jihad’ against the United States in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military initially claimed responsibility for Nek Mohammad’s death, until more could be revealed about the drone programme. It was speculated that Pakistan granted CIA access into its airspace in order to take Mohammad out. This was to be the first of several hundred such attacks that neither the American nor Pakistani administrations were willing to officially acknowledge. Musharraf would later go on record to justify these attacks: ‘In Pakistan, things fall out of the sky all the time.’

Indeed, they would. Following the strike on Nek Mohammad, there would be 44 attacks under the Bush administration. The drone campaign initially made use of the notorious Shamsi Airfield near Quetta, leased to the CIA in 2001. In 2011, NATO forces opened fire on two Pakistani border check-posts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), killing 24 Pakistani soldiers, unleashing a country-wide outrage, and resulting in Islamabad ordering the US to evacuate (Salala attack).

The total numbers of strikes in Pakistan have ranged from 330 to over 380, escalating dramatically under the Obama administration. Those targeted are suspected of belonging primarily to al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and various Pakistani and foreign jihadi organisations, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The campaign in Pakistan has been largely restricted to FATA, a region where the concentration of militants has been overwhelming. Located northwest of Pakistan, FATA borders Afghanistan on the eastern side of the Durand Line. The tribal areas fall outside the writ of Pakistani law and governance – a weakness that the US and terrorists alike draw to their own advantages for respective onslaughts and campaigns.

Casualty Controversies

The calculation of civilian casualties has always been an area of contention. To an extent, this is understandable given the challenges of reporting from within the tribal areas. Additionally, the environment in FATA, their complex terrains and geographies makes it difficult to differentiate civilians from militants who blend in by living amongst locals.

Regardless, American and Pakistani authorities have not been forthcoming in acknowledging drone attacks or their casualties and the recognition of civilian deaths has been misleading. In March 2013, Pakistani officials claimed that between 400 and 600 civilians had been killed; in October, the Pakistani Ministry of Defence claimed the figure stood at 67 since 2008. A month later, Islamabad retracted the statement, claiming it was ‘wrong and fabricated’.

The table below summarises the data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America Foundation and the Government of Pakistan on drone strikes in the country.

* Of which 332 strikes were carried out under President Obama’s administration.
///////** According to a Special Rapporteur, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The CIA maintains these strikes are ‘surgically precise’. It has yet to officially acknowledge any civilian casualty.

‘The only game in town’

The question of Islamabad’s consent has been the centre of debates on drones in Pakistan. In one article, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann wrote, ‘Behind the scenes, many Pakistani officials – including [former] president Asif Ali Zardari and [then] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani – have supported the drone strikes, despite their occasional public protests.’ Local perceptions from within Pakistan suggest a majority of people believe they are carried out by Islamabad’s consent. Amnesty International’s Pakistan Researcher, Mustafa Qadri told Strife that Pakistan may have given tacit approval but there is no paper trail.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to President Obama last year, along with his plea to stop drone strikes, was little but a political move to show his countrymen that the Sharif government does not condone breaches of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Islamabad relies immensely on aid from the US. Telling the Americans what to do would mean disrupting an incoming flow of dollars; acknowledging approval for drones would result in a severe backlash from Pakistani militants and civil society alike; keeping the debate running under the shadow of dubious press releases, timely condemnations, and a lack of transparency, allows Islamabad to control resistance from within the Pakistani populace, appease local militants, and avoid upsetting allies in D.C.

Within the US, the debate has steadily been questioning American foreign policy in the war on terror. Mazzetti pointed out in his book, The Way of the Knife, that this ‘knife fighting’ is not as surgical as agencies claim. It ‘creates enemies just as it has obliterated them’ and has ‘lowered the bar for waging war’. Despite protests from the likes of David Kilcullen and Cameron Munter, Leon Panetta has notoriously described the drone programme as “the only game in town”.

An aspect that is often under-considered is how drones have contributed to militant propaganda. The TTP has repeatedly used the destruction caused by drones to further their ‘jihad’. Till 2009, estimates suggested the TTP and allied groups carried out suicide attacks in retaliation for drone strikes. Either way, civilians have been at the receiving end which has made it easier to instil anti-American sentiments within the aggrieved populace. As a result, the campaign has resulted in heated debates within Pakistan, leaving its citizens divided.

Local Debates, Perspectives and Impacts

The case against drone attacks within Pakistan has been most aggressively taken up by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s chairman, Imran Khan. The social and psychological impacts of drones are the main arguments put forth by Khan, who believes drones (and American presence in the region in general) have created terrorism in the country. Amnesty’s Qadri disagrees. ‘Drones are not the drivers of radicalization; local, social factors are’.

Qadri’s own investigations into the campaign (published in Amnesty’s report, Will I Be Next?) took him across Pakistan, making him critically aware of local perceptions. ‘The closer you get to FATA, the more sympathy you will find for drone strikes. People don’t like the Taliban. They are annoyed with terrorists. When you’re in such a violent region, people think, at least there are terrorists being killed [by drones]. It is not morally justified, but they are saying it out of frustration. [Drones] appear to be the least worst option out of some very bad options.’

A more extreme case for drone attacks was made by a columnist, Irfan Hussain. 2009 was known as ‘the year of the drone’ in Pakistan. Shortly after, Hussain asked, ‘If we condemn the Americans so vociferously over the drone campaign, should we not be more critical of the thugs who are killing far more Pakistani civilians?’ Hussain’s opinions are amongst the minority; the majority still protests against drones.

The anti-drone advocacy in Pakistan goes beyond the element of fear. Little is written about the rural-to-urban displacement of people since the start of the campaign. The displacement of people from northern areas to cities further strains the limited resources allocated for urban areas like Karachi. Conflicted cities, aggravated by an influx of IDPs, increase instability and deepen anti-American sentiments amongst the urban and liberal populace.

Moreover, the campaign has made Pakistanis doubtful about local and international humanitarian efforts. “It is difficult for aid agencies [including polio workers], local and foreign, to operate in these areas. Locals tend to think [these workers] are being used for spying”, points out Mustafa Qadri, resonating a view that has been prevalent since the Abbottabad raid of May 2001.

Another concerning matter is the lack of rehabilitation and reconstruction accompanying the campaign. Since there are no official agencies appointed for these efforts, groups such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba, are able to sweep in to assist the locals, further propagating anti-Pakistani and anti-American rhetoric. Coupled with this is the fact that often two strikes occur consecutively at a given location; when locals reach the location following the first strike to provide assistance, a second hits. This makes local rescue operations much more difficult.

Internal impacts, popular dissent against drones and relations between the US and Pakistan may be contributing to a gradual decrease in strikes. In an unprecedented move, these factors led the Peshawar High Court to direct the government to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations. The historic verdict declared drones as ‘illegal, inhumane, and a violation of the UN charter on human rights’.

Last December, after pressure from Pakistan, the UN adopted a resolution on drone strikes, calling on the US to comply with international law. In March this year, the UNHCR held a third round of discussions on the draft resolution. Washington boycotted, refusing to supply UN any details about its programme

It is unclear whether the campaign will remain paused for the duration of negotiations between the Pakistan government and the TTP. It can be assumed that Pakistan may witness a decrease in the number of strikes as NATO withdrawal is undertaken from Afghanistan and as western interests shift from South Asia. Till then, it suffices to say that Pakistan’s decade of drones has caused yet another rift in the country’s socio-political fabric.

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Zoha Waseem is a PhD researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research focuses on urban violence, organised crime and conflicts in cities. You can follow her on Twitter @ZohaWaseem.

The good, the bad, the drones: A Strife 5-part series

April 7, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Joana Cook,
Managing Editor, Strife

BAE-Taranis-UAV-(Model-on-d — BAE Taranis UAV, Model on display at Farnborough Airshow 2008 (Photo by Mike Young)

By 2025 it is estimated to be an industry worth $82 billion USD and responsible for the creation of more than 100,00 new jobs in the US alone. It will target commercial and civil markets, and be used in applications ranging from precision agriculture and public safety, to niche areas, such as battling poachers in wildlife reserves. It is, however, their use in security operations which will be the focus of this Strife series.

The controversial use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), more widely known as drones, has been recently highlighted by a UN Special Rapporteur examining their use in counterterrorism, news stories of victims of drone attacks testifying before US Congress, as well as recent documentaries such as Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars. There are even iPhone apps, such as Metadata, which have tracked and mapped drone attacks since the first known incident on November 3, 2002 in Yemen. Since then, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that upwards of 4,172 people have been killed in strikes across Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, 1,032 of which were civilians. Afghanistan has seen at least 59 civilian deaths under ISAF, while the number in Iraq and Libya remain less clear. Organizations such as UK-based Reprieve call for international accountability for what they refer to as ‘the new face of state-lawlessness in the name of counterterrorism.’

The use of drones, however, has been supported by some as an option which has left the forces using them safe, reduced the amount of potential civilian casualties, and eliminated key targets in areas often referred to otherwise as ‘terrorist safe havens’. The use of drones has also been viewed by analysts like Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, as the latest piece of the US counter-terrorism package which has traversed from ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns, detentions and renditions, to the ‘clear, hold, build’ policies seen in Afghanistan, and most recently focusing on drones as the most effective and publicly accepted counterterrorism policy.

Over the coming weeks, Strife will be featuring a five-part series on drones, expanding on the ways by which drones are commonly framed. We will reexamine the roles drones play in shaping how we think about, and engage in, security from a number of diverse approaches. Zoha Waseem will survey how the current drone program in Pakistan is affecting everything from militant propaganda by the TTP, to rural-to-urban population displacement. David Hofmann will discuss why, as traditional battlefields give way to insurgent campaigns, drones are necessary and effective. Dr. Jack McDonald will be analyzing the legal implications of drones in a field not yet internationally defined. “May you die in a drone strike” is becoming a favourite curse in Yemen, and Dr. Victoria Fontan will discuss both the social implications of drones in Yemen, and how this may not be weakening AQAP as intended. Daniel Møller Ølgaard will be taking a unique look at drones through the lens of biopolitics, and at how the use of drones may be transforming the very nature of war and governance.

Drones will not be exiting the security scene anytime soon. Instead, we hope this series will provoke more thought and debate in a field that will play a significant part in all our lives in the coming years. We leave you to be the judge in “The good, the bad, the drones.”

‘It’s the brotherhood, stupid.’ Values and the Arab Spring

March 27, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Jill S. Russell:

I attended last week a very interesting panel discussion on the Arab Spring [1], its meanings and the response it deserves. A theme that was shared across the panel was that the West [2] owed the movement its support because the latter was promoting the values held to be sacred by the former.

Before going any further, I have to confess here that I am an unrepentant Kennanist and have a hard time letting go of his standard that interest and not values (or the morals which sustain them) must drive foreign policy. His summary of the essential problem for such a policy framework assays the fullness of the issue, and I think it a wise explication of the flaws and worth quoting here at length:

But at the heart of [a foreign policy based on morality] would lie the effort to distinguish at all times between the true substance and the mere appearance of moral behaviour. In an age when a number of influences…all tend to exalt the image over the essential reality to which that image is taken to relate, in such an age there is a real danger that we may lose altogether our ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal, and, in doing so, lose both the credibility of true moral behaviour and the great force such behaviour is, admittedly, capable of exerting. To do this would be foolish, unnecessary and self-defeating. There may have been times when the United States could afford such frivolity. This present age, unfortunately, is not one of them. [3]

Functionally I cannot argue with his formula that values abroad do not necessarily serve the responsibilities of the government in either domestic or foreign policy. Nor can I ignore the ghastly spectre of how such a basis for foreign policy could be horribly perverted. But I am willing for the sake of argument to live briefly in a world where Kennan might be wrong. [4]

Even in that world, I am troubled that the values of the Arab Spring on the ground, and in the swelling centres of grass-roots power, do not match my own. As it is a question of my support, not of the movement’s legitimacy, my values matter.

As the beacon of this piece, let us first consider the Muslim Brotherhood and its rise and – has it fallen or is this just ‘rise interrupted’? – in Egypt. How can you expect me to believe this group shares my values? From the outset the name excludes me. Insofar as they accept women, that role has been marginalised by the imposition of restraints based in the recourse to a traditional culture which define a woman’s role in public life. Even as women are even now on the front lines of the political struggle against the military junta [5], one worries (expects) that this sacrifice will be forgotten in the case of victory. Seriously, Egypt has been past such strictures upon women for decades. So whose culture is this? And if the Muslim Brotherhood is in fact the legitimate heir to Egyptian political culture it becomes extremely difficult to argue that my values are represented.

Moving abroad from Egypt, I worry even more that the conflict in Syria has been terminally overtaken by fundamentalists [6], and that should they oust Assad the future for women in Syria will be unpleasant. The status quo ante was brutal, but as far as women are concerned what could come next might be even worse, with political, legal, and social repression a distinct possibility. This would be the same perversion as in Egypt, where the service of women in the struggle will not translate to real power in the aftermath. I am reminded of the similar bait and switch played upon the African slaves who served honorably in the American War for Independence -8 years a soldier and a slave came well before 12 years a slave.

Finally, what of the initial Tunisian protest that has been enshrined as the spark of this movement? What of the revelations that the fateful act, the offending slap that is said to have driven Mohamed Buazzizi to self immolation in protest, never occurred that day in Tunisia? What if it was not a rejection of tyranny but a man angry at a woman in a position of authority, the police officer Fedia Hamdi? [7] If the latter were true, then what would this change in its origins mean for the terms of this revolution? What if the heart of the rebellion is really aimed at secular norms and not corruption? It is certainly the case that the rise of the Taliban was in part the result of their reversal of corrupt practices in governance. But that was only a small part of what they sought to ‘reform’. Nevertheless, and quite importantly, even as this information on the event has been in the public domain for nearly three years, the apocryphal slap remains in the legend. An indictment of the former system’s corruption does not require this detail, so why does it figure so prominently in the retelling still?

And so, as I sat in the audience, one of only a handful of women, and part of an even smaller group that eschewed a head scarf, I felt distinctly odd. I am not unused to the predominance of men in my professional life. Nor am I unfamiliar with men who think I should not be there. I do not begrudge them their dislike of me. But in the West, the accepted value is that legal sanction based on gender is not an option. The Arab world, across its broad political and religious spectrum, does not fully hold to this belief. And it is important, if the question is whether to support the Arab Spring on the matter of values, to recognize that these are also our values, and they are what make ‘democracy’ something more than tyranny by vote.

Looking only at this one issue it becomes clear that selling the Arab Spring on a perversion of Western values merely for the sake of gaining the latter’s support will not, in the end, serve the cause. Attracting the West on the basis of interest – mutual interest – is the approach that will best serve both sides. That it has been defined as crass, and demonized as selfish, is unfortunate and serves no ultimate purpose.

Jill S. Russell is a regular contributor to Strife, Kings of War and Small Wars. She is currently a doctoral candidate at King’s College London, researching military history.

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Notes

[1] I had a long discussion with colleagues as to the validity or usefulness of the collection of these many events under a single banner. I absolutely take their point that events on the ground in each theatre must be addressed singly, specifically and uniquely. And while I am likely in agreement that no single name could describe the individual events well, it is certainly the case that there now exists, in the world’s consciousness, an idea, an event, known as ‘the Arab Spring’. It could aptly be considered as the foreign policy/diplomatic international face of the movement. It packages the ideals, broad message and news to the world.
[2] And here we have more problems with mass or meta categories. The matter of what constituted “the West” arose, and for the purposes of that evening’s discussion the understanding was that it was meant to denote the states of the EU, North America, and the Anglophone Pacific.
[3] George Kenann, ‘Morality and Policy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Winter, 1985), pp. 205-218.
[4] At the worst extremes of the moral spectrum I am happy to ignore Kennan completely. I am not a monster.
[5] Enas Hamed, ‘Egypt’s ‘Muslim Sisterhood’ moves from social work to politics‘, AL Monitor, 20 November 2013; Bulletin of the Oppression of Women, “Muslim Brotherhood” Category . Also worth a view, Mona Eltahawy’s appearance on Al Jazeera’s program, ‘Head to Head: Do Arab Men Hate Women?‘
[6] Let us be clear, I am no fan of Christian fundamentalism. This is not about Islam or Muslims, it is about extremism.
[7] Elizabeth Day, ‘The Slap That Sparked a Revolution’, The Observer, 15 May 2011.

Defence undermined?

February 21, 2013 by Strife Staff

By Hal Wilson

One of the greatest threats to global stability is US defence policy – but not for the reasons we usually hear. Typical allusions to sinister neo-cons or ‘American imperialism’ are both misleading and prejudiced. But current policy – specifically the cuts of January’s Defence Strategic Guidance – reflects a dangerous ignorance of history.

That this came about is no great surprise. Consider trends in US politics and discourse. The final US presidential debate saw a highly symbolic illustration of this. Mitt Romney’s remark on numerical decline in the US fleet was instantly met by Barack Obama’s scornful quip about “horses and bayonets.” Alternatively, observe the opening scene of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. The protagonist decries the idea of America as the world’s greatest nation, snapping that one of the few areas it leads in is defence spending – surpassing the next twenty-six countries combined. (The clear implication being ‘how pointless!’) Similar observations abound, sharing a similar theme: US military spending is bloated and useless; opponents of cuts are old-fashioned or dangerous.

A deeper investigation quickly highlights the problems. Obama’s quip emboldened liberal allies – but it also highlighted simplistic, worrying thinking about defence in the modern era. Equally, Sorkin’s piece in The Newsroom strikes me as childishly trite – reeling off numbers sounds convincing until you put them in context. Namely, US defence spending reigns supreme largely because so many have relied so long on America for cheap defence: the results are self-evident.

Note that Operation Ocean Shield, NATO’s anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia, rests primarily on American naval power. Even so, too few ships are committed to adequately patrol the area. Likewise, while France and Britain provided major impetus toward a NATO mission against Colonel Gadaffi, the US again bore the brunt of the effort. Conversely, many European states made risible contributions to that mission – or in Germany’s case, none at all. Britain’s recent Strategic Defence and Security Review neatly underlines this: the Royal Navy is now too small to properly patrol the Somalian coast. Accordingly, when UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond urged a stronger German approach to defence, it was hard to take him seriously, but his stance was valid. Europe has largely grown complacent behind an American shield that now threatens to disappear.

This takes us back to the contentious statement beginning this article. The risk to global stability comes from the fact that the cuts threaten to hamstring the most meaningful force behind its maintenance: American power. Already, US planners find it a “struggle to preserve the necessary forces in CENTCOM to address all the possible conflicts and crises.” In 2011, a bipartisan commission found the US Navy “would need 346 ships to meet its global commitments. But, as a result of budget cuts, the fleet is going to decline from 282 ships today to fewer than 250…”. Indeed, declining numbers “means longer cruises with less time… [for] maintenance and for sailors to recuperate” – a deceptively simple yet crucial point.

Suddenly, Obama’s scornful comment to Romney seems rather ill-considered.

History warns us against such a policy as that in January’s Strategic Guidance. When European war loomed due to a Middle East crisis in 1832, overwhelming British naval power underscored Palmerston’s effort to prevent it. Likewise, it was the Royal Navy’s strength that helped it overcome terrible attrition in suppressing the slave trade. It was a strategic reserve in both cases that allowed Britain to deliver on key policies – a crucial reserve that bolstered diplomacy in the former; that absorbed losses in the latter. And it is just such a military reserve that would be compromised by January’s outlines: a dangerous prospect in the face of a challenging international outlook.

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