Drone Strikes, Effective Weapon in the War on Terrorism?

William DeJarnette
United States Diplomatic History
November 21, 2014

September 7, 2009, in Machi Khel in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, Pakistan. At 20,000 feet death silently, stealthily, knifed its way through the afternoon sky. Two drones, operated by American Air Force drone pilots 7,000 miles away in Nevada, USA, had been hovering over the area throughout the day. Modern warfare and the fight against terrorism were about to greet Sadaullah Wazir and his family as they reentered their home after evening prayers in the garden. Moments later an explosive concussion from missiles launched by the drones rocked the neighborhood and body parts flew in every direction. Senior al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in his car as it entered the village. However, injured in the attack at the same time were fifteen-year-old Sadaullah and several others. Three of Wazir’s family members were killed. Wazir awoke in a hospital the next day, minus both legs and an eye. Objective met, target Kashmiri eliminated. Collateral damage is just another acceptable part of the plan.
The Living Under Drones project interviewed Khalid Raheem, an elder in his community in Pakistan. Raheem is bewildered by the current state of affairs in his country. He states that they knew nothing about where the US was or what type of people lived there. They did know that the US supported the Taliban in their fight against the Soviets, until the Soviets left Afghanistan in defeat. Now they are victims of the Americans. “Now we are always awaiting a drone attack and we know it’s certain… and we’re just waiting to hear whose house it will strike, our relatives’, our neighbors’, or us. We do not know. We’re just always in fear.”

Drone Strikes Defined
Drones are unmanned flights and include a number of different aircraft with two of the more famous examples being the Predator and Reaper. Drones, originally used for surveillance, have increasingly been employed as attack weapons since around 2004. The pilots are usually US Air Force pilots specially trained to operate drones and may operate the controls from remote centers thousands of miles away from the drone. Overt drone strikes are conducted in an announced theater of war, such as Afghanistan. Any drone strike outside of Afghanistan is called a covert strike. The three countries where the US has been conducting covert strikes are Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
Drone strikes are further divided into “personality strikes” and “signature strikes.” Personality strikes are directed against known terrorists, frequently persons that are on “kill lists.” Signature strikes “are carried out against unknown individuals that match a pre-identified ‘signature of behavior’”. Signature strikes outnumber personality strikes and are controversial because they can result in the deaths of a large number of unknown individuals, including civilians.
Signature strikes were first approved by then President George Bush and his head of the CIA General Michael Hayden. They developed a plan to allow “drone operators to fire at armed military-aged males engaged in or associated with suspicious activity even if their identities were unknown.” As noted by journalist Daniel Klaidman within the CIA signature strikes are sometimes called “crowd kills.” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that fewer than 4% of the victims have been identified as al-Qaeda operatives, contrary to John Kerry’s assertion that strikes are directed only against confirmed high-level terrorist targets.
The types of strikes are further divided into pre-planned and dynamic strikes. Pre-planned strikes are carefully detailed plans to take out one or more specific persons and are generally far more effective in limiting the kills to specific targets, reducing civilian kills. Dynamic strikes can be initiated based on timely information received from informants or cell phones calls and by definition are quickly initiated and have a far greater likelihood of killing unknown individuals. Dynamic strikes may be used in either personality strikes or signature strikes.
There is considerable disagreement over exactly how many people have been killed in drone strikes, and of those killed, how many are militants and how many are civilians. The four reporting organizations cited in the Columbia report use different sources to compile their statistics, and each of those sources have different criteria for determining the status of kill victims. For instance, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that in Pakistan from 2,562 to 3,325 people have been killed in drone strikes as of September 2012, with 474 to 881 being civilians. Numbers from Yemen and Somalia are smaller, yet significant, with similar percentages of civilian deaths.
Many people have called into question the criteria the government uses for determining if a kill is a militant or civilian. In May 2012, The New York Times revealed that Obama approved a method that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants...unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. The paper quoted CIA officials as being “troubled” by the methodology and claimed that they counted corpses without knowing whom they were.
What agencies are responsible for carrying out attacks?
The CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conduct all US drone strikes. Initially JSOC was only involved with overt strikes in Afghanistan, but have gradually been given leeway to conduct strikes in Yemen and Somalia. The CIA operates under their own charter, reporting to the “Gang of Eight”, leading members of the House and Senate. As a military unit, JSOC is under the direction of the Commander in Chief, the President. “Basic details about JSOC are unknown and the organization operates with a greater degree of secrecy than even the CIA.” Since military officials are secretive about JSOC exact details are not known, but it is thought that there are more than 4,000 soldiers and civilians working for them and they operate as a self-sustaining secret army with its own intelligence division and drones. The CIA and JSOC work closely together, so seamlessly in fact that even people working within the organizations often cannot tell each other apart and accountability becomes an issue.
Both entities have their own kill lists. It is unknown how the CIA develops their list. JSOC’s is developed by a group of 100 security officials who meet weekly to review PowerPoint presentations of known terrorists, presenting the list to the President who reviews it with staff and makes the final determination as to who remains on the list. Those on the kill list are deemed suitable targets for covert drone strikes. It is estimated that 90% of the kills in Pakistan were of low-level operatives not on the kill lists.
Oversight
The US is concerned with avoiding civilian deaths and has recently released the US Army Manual on Civilian Casualty Mitigation, that addresses “long- and short-term preparation and planning; assessments, reporting and investigations; responding to ‘allegations and actual incidents of civilian casualties’; and ensuring that ‘civilian casualty analysis translates into operational lessons learned for…doctrine and training.’” However, due to the secrecy surrounding drone strikes it is impossible to gauge to what extent these policies are obeyed. Obama, counter terrorism adviser John Brennan, and other government officials continue to insist that virtually no civilians are killed in drone strikes, putting the number at fewer than 2.5% of all kills. These low numbers are contradicted by virtually every reporting agency. While the administration claims to be taking every precaution to minimize collateral damage on the “front end”, the planning stage, there appears to be little done at the “back end”, post-attack, to assess the effectiveness of the policies that are supposedly providing oversight of the drone strike process.
Adherence to the International Humanitarian Law, the so-called “laws of war”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross defines international humanitarian law as “a set of rules that seek to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects people who are not or are no longer participating in hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare.” Perhaps inevitably, the CIA’s poor record of accomplishment has raised the specter with many followers of overt drone attacks that the CIA is ignoring US and international law, as well as Congressional oversight and accountability to the courts. No evidence exists that the CIA has adopted an ethos that would compel its agents to act within international law norms. “According to Jack Goldsmith, former lawyer in the Bush administration: ‘These operators spend their days and nights on deceptive and deceitful tasks that violate foreign and some international laws as well as everyday ethics. They are constantly reminded that whatever other rules and laws they must violate in their work, they must not violate US law.’”
The Department of Defense has established an ethos to use as a guide. In response to the incident at My Lai, Vietnam, the DOD developed a program to define and implement the laws of armed conflict (alternatively known as International Humanitarian Law, or simply the laws of war), hopefully creating an atmosphere of acceptance as opposed to reluctant tolerance. In 1974, the DOD instituted training of every member of the military in the laws of war, assigning oversight for training and law compliance to unit commanders. By directive, all DOD divisions must comply with the laws of war during all armed conflicts. This has resulted in a “warrior ethos” that demands “having the honor to comply with the Laws of War, the courage to report all violations, and the commitment to discipline the violators.” However, due to its highly secretive mission, it is unknown if JSOC is abiding by the laws of war.
Consequences to civilians
The devastation to the population goes far beyond the obvious impact to the individuals that are killed or injured in drone strikes. The entire populace lives in a constant state of fear as drones circle overhead almost constantly with the eminent threat of a strike at any moment always present. Many people become fearful to leave their houses and are compelled to quit attending school or work. The immediate families of persons killed or injured are financially impacted through loss of income with little or no savings or means to provide a living to the family. Seldom mentioned is that local militia and Taliban groups kidnap, torture, and kill many men suspected of being US informants, many of whom are not guilty of collaboration with the US. Vengeance strikes proliferate as militant groups that suffer losses lash out in retaliation through suicide bombings locally and internationally. Drone strikes are used as recruitment tools to involve ever increasing numbers of young males in the fight against the US. While drone strikes are killing al-Qaeda leaders, evidence is mounting that they are also turning the populace against the US, making even more enemies to be dealt with.
Why is there not more protest in the United States against the use of drone strikes?
There is broad public support for drone strikes in the US. The former director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair noted “[It is] the politically advantageous thing to do—low cost, no US casualties, gives the appearance of toughness.” The public seems to have bought into the suggestion that drone strikes are effective, precise, and collateral damage is minimal. Many people also believe the “kill lists” are compiled sensibly and that strikes are used sparingly, only when necessary. Finally, most people agree they beat “boots on the ground.”
National and International reaction
The US Joint Chiefs of Staff recently issued the following definition of terrorism. “Terrorism is the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence, often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs, to instill fear and coerce governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are usually political.” Many people question the legality of signature strikes, and the attacks against mourners and medical responders. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, stated that some US drone attacks may constitute “war crimes.” Greenwald writes “Given their intended effects—both physical and psychological—on entire populations, there is a very compelling case to make that continual, sustained drone warfare in places such as Pakistan and Yemen meet the U.S.’s formal definition of “terrorism” found in its latest strategy document.”
In Pakistan, the site of the overwhelming majority of covet drone strikes, the perception of the United States is abysmal. According to a survey by Pew Research reported in May 2013, only 11% of Pakistanis give the US a favorable rating, and 64% see the US as more of an enemy than a partner. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has reiterated his country's demand for an end to US drone strikes inside Pakistan. He states, “The use of drones is not only a continual violation of our territorial integrity but also detrimental to our resolve and efforts at eliminating terrorism from our country.” The Peshawar High Court ruled the attacks as illegal and has directed the government to file a resolution against the attacks with the UN.
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki by a hellfire missile fired from a CIA drone in Yemen in 2011 created an uproar in the US because Awlaki was an American citizen, assassinated without due process by his own government. The US government issued a memo that acknowledged that killing a US citizen had possibly deprived him of his due process, however, it was justified because of his continued and imminent threat to the security of the US. Senator Ron Wyden (D.Ore.) a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee called into question whether the executive branch had the power to kill a US citizen anywhere in the world.
Conclusions
The Stanford University report points to four areas that need to be addressed. In summary they are:
1. First, while civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.
2. Second, US drone strike policies cause considerable and under-accounted-for harm to the daily lives of ordinary citizens, beyond death and physical injury.
3. Third, publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best.
4. Fourth, current US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and may set dangerous precedents.
The report concludes by calling for the US to reevaluate current drone strike policy “taking into account all available evidence, the concerns of various stakeholders, and the short and long-term costs and benefits.

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