For years, the United States has danced around the fact that it has repeatedly enter the sovereign territory of other countries with drone attacks and in some cases small unit attacks without the permission of countries like Pakistan. Such acts violate international law and would be viewed by the United States as an act of war if committed on U.S. territory. This week,Defense Secretary Leon Panetta finally responded directly to those objections and said that the attacks would continue unabated. Panetta essentially stated that we can invade other nations because we can and that countries will have to come to accept that — using the same concept as “floggings will continue on ship until morale improves.”
Panetta insisted this is really not them (other countries) but us. Speaking in India, he proclaimed “This is about our sovereignty as well.” As for Pakistan, which has repeatedly objected to attacks on its territory, Panetta said “It’s a complicated relationship, often times frustrating, often times difficult. They have provided some cooperation. There are other times when frankly that cooperation is not there.” Strangely, we would not view the relationship as complicated if Mexico sent drones into Texas to take out suspects or landed Mexican special forces in Arizona to kill enemies. We would treat it as a matter of war.
Panetta has finally made “American exceptionalism” official policy. We do these things simply because we can; because we are the United States. From torture to military tribunals to hit lists, the United States is above the legal standards that we impose on others. The greatest danger is that our hypocrisy abroad is turning into hypocrisy at home where we continue to claim to be the “land of the free” while stripping citizens of basic rights and expanding unchecked presidential and police powers.
Obama has expanded drone attacks to an unprecedented level while expanding his claimed authority to kill citizens without a charge or trial. Now the most common image of the United States abroad is not our Constitution but our drones. For many people around the world, Panetta’s speech will be viewed as adding unrestained arrogance to unrestrained power.
Source: ABC
mespo,
Buy some spectacles.
By the way, anonymously, it was later reported that the strike that killed the 16-year-old son of Al-Awlaki had as its intended target, AQAP’s media chief, Egyptian Ibrahim al Bana.
anonymously:
You’re certainly free to hate your country and its government but don’t think that is the view of most Americans or even most readers to this blog.
anonymously:
Well, that writer for the Nation needs to read the latest Pew Poll released in May of this year even after those drone strikes you hate:
Poll: Little Muslim support for bin Laden’s group
WASHINGTON — Muslim majorities in an arc of five countries from Egypt to Pakistan have little good to say about al-Qaida one year after American commandos killed the Muslim terror group’s leader, a poll shows.
Here’s the rest of the article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57424715/poll-little-muslim-support-for-bin-ladens-group/
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/
“(1) It is unknown whether the U.S. targeted the teenager or whether he was merely “collateral damage.” The reason that’s unknown is because the Obama administration refuses to tell us. Said the Post: “The officials would not discuss the attack in any detail, including who the target was.” So here we have yet again one of the most consequential acts a government can take — killing one of its own citizens, in this case a teenage boy — and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions. Indeed, it refuses even to admit it did this, since it refuses even to admit that it has a drone program at all and that it is engaged in military action in Yemen. It’s just all shrouded in total secrecy.”
“Yesterday, Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen wrote about the Awlaki killings: “Many Yemenis can understand (if disagree) killing the father, few can understand killing the son,”…”
=======================
“The death of innocents in war is always regrettable, but to accept the propaganda that somehow we intended his death by targeting a child is an outrageous slur against your Country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday — both in an out of uniform.” mespo727272
I’d say that you’re the one who is buying the propaganda.
“An outrageous slur against your country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday?”
You don’t say. Well, I guess you’d better send in the drones.
bfm:
True enough but how do you buy time for your long term strategy if you can’t protect your population in the near term? That is the dilemma for policy makers.
The American President knows it, too, but cannot admit this publicly or suffer that most intolerable of affronts to his manhood: namely, having the equally discredited opposition call him unmanly names like “wimp.” Can’t have that.
++++++++++++
I would take the “wimp” designation. My name is Johnson, but it isn’t Lyndon Baines. And I’m not from Texas.
Michael Murry:
“The refusal of most Americans to serve in the military has exhausted and nearly wrecked the regular Army and Marine Corps and Reserves.”
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Really/ Somebody should tell them that then. Not only did the Army meet its recruitment goals for Fiscal Year 2012, in its analysis of FY2010 accessions to the U.S. Army, National Priorities Project (NPP) finds great gains in terms of recruit quality, particularly with respect to the educational attainment of recruits.
The Army reported a goal for FY2010 of 74,500 active Army recruits and maintained that goal throughout the year. In October 2010, they said that the goal was met with 74,577 recruits
The Marines met all recruiting goals in Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. The years we have data for so far.
All six reserve components met or exceeded their numerical accession goals for fiscal year-to-date 2011 through October.
Army National Guard –4,973 accessions, with a goal of 4,504; 110 percent
Army Reserve –2,774 accessions, with a goal of 2,557; 108 percent
Navy Reserve –665 accessions, with a goal of 665; 100 percent
Marine Corps Reserve –1,154 accessions, with a goal of 889; 130 percent
Air National Guard –729 accessions, with a goal of 541; 135 percent
Air Force Reserve – 769 accessions, with a goal of 760; 101 percent
Mespo727272 ” Can’t we agree that drone strikes against our enemies makes an attack against us less likely? At least in the short run?”
I would agree that military action, drone or other, might forestall an attack in the short run.
I think we would have far fewer problems if drones were only used short term to stop immanent or near term attacks.
But our drone strategy is not a short run tactic. There is nothing to suggest that the drone policy is short term strategy or designed to inhibit a near term attack. This is a decapitation strategy that aims to destroy their top level leadership and most talented personnel. The specific intention of the strategy is to allow decapitation attacks to continue for as long as necessary – for the foreseeable future.
It is hard to imagine how a decapitation strategy can work against an idea and a distributed, non-hierarchical enemy. One problem with the drone strategy is that it plays a large role in convincing the radicals home population that we are no more legitimate then the radicals and perhaps much more dangerous to them.
The policy also convinces western populations, our natural allies, that we are no more just than the radicals. That reduces cooperation that we need and conceivably could increase support for radicals. When I say support for radicals I am speaking broadly. I can’t imagine that radicals would get direct support. But it is not hard to dream up situations where western government might support governments where radicals are given broad freedom of action.
Just consider some numbers. At the risk of being called a bigot I will assume that the most dangerous and energized radicals are drawn from Muslim populations. Suppose there are 2 billion Muslims in the world. Half are women. Just for talking purposes suppose 50% are of the men are between 15 and 65. Suppose that of those military age males radicals can recruit one tenth of 1 percent.
2,000,000,000 * .5/men * .5/mil age * .0001/effect recruit at one tenth of one percent = 50,000 dedicated troopers ready to die for the cause. These 50,000 undoubtedly have a support population that must number in the hundreds of thousands.
I make no claim that these numbers are accurate – that is not the point. The point is to get some idea of the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with and begin to understand what factors might influence the situation. For example this ‘back of the envelop model’ can give us some understanding of what we are up against. It suggest that younger population or higher fertility rate may mean a much larger population to recruit from in a few years or a few decades. Recruitment rates are key. Effective recruiting means more soldiers ready to die. Any technique that can reduce recruiting is important.
This is asymmetrical warfare. So these 50,000 troops can tie down, say, 10 times as many conventional forces. But the 10 to one ratio is based on a military model of armed insurrection – that is small armed parties ambushing conventional military units.
But this asymmetrical war is primarily one of small logistical units planning bombing missions. I would argue when the battle is primarily one of logistic units planning bombing attacks then the number of police, intelligence, and military personnel tied down is much greater. I would argue that our experience with home land security is that the mere threat of a handful of attackers, less than 100, can tie up hundreds of thousands of conventional defenders. The only reasonable conclusion is the 50,000 soldiers ready to die can tie up the resources of 10’s of millions of defenders.
I agree we may have to use military force in the short run. But that can only be a stopgap measure to allow us to build strength. Our real strength lies in our ability to convince large populations that we have a better alternative. Our real strength lies in gaining allies by being good neighbors and convincing others to support our cause. A policy that does not convince large populations that we have the right answers has to fail in the long run.
anonymously:
I thought he died in the attack. I stand corrected if that is not the case. My point remains that we have no greater duty to his son’s safety that he does.
Michael Murry:
“A little airport security in the United States can certainly thwart the occasional plane hijacking. Refusing to train airline hijacker-pilots at American flight simulator schools can help, too, as can planeloads of American passengers refusing to allow four unarmed men to take over their aircraft. Common sense behavior like that can reduce — but never entirely eliminate — the risk of another airline hijacking. But what connection any of this has with America bombing impoverished villagers in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan neither you, nor anyone else, has adequately demonstrated. Because you can’t.”
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Well, you either accept the view of the intelligence community both here and abroad that drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan have crippled al-Quaeda or you don’t. Your assertion that the American presence in the breeding, training, and recruiting ground of terrorism has no connection to our decade-long security from attacks on our homeland is contrary to US policy, the assessment of our intelligence agencies, and that of our allies. It also defies common sense.
if you won’t accept the words of your own countrymen and our allies maybe you’re more impressed (for whatever reason) by the words of our enemy:
But while the Al Qaida leader plotted the downfall of the US, he was forced to acknowledge that American drone attacks were taking a toll on his followers in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Waziristan region, and contemplated withdrawing his forces.
Bin Laden said the air attacks made it necessary to keep reserves back from the “front line”.
“The reserves will not, for the most part, be effective in such conflicts. Basically, we could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives!” The Guardian quoted him, as writing in the documents.
http://www.sify.com/news/us-drone-strikes-crippled-bin-laden-s-plans-cache-of-new-al-qaida-documents-reveal-news-international-mferajijhhi.html
You need more than vitriol against your country to persuade me. How about a fact or two to go with those wild assertions. And how about some a little more current that Khe Sahn and sans the bitterness for a war four decades ago.
By the way, our a** looks in pretty good shape compared to our adversaries by my assessment.
Elaine:
You raise good points in relation to the identifiable costs and “benefits” of America’s militaristic foreign policy — whether one wishes to date this from 9/11/2001 or far earlier, as many of us do. Not wishing in any way to minimize the horrendous costs to innocent foreign populations, as you say, far more Americans have died “avenging” the events of 9/11/2001 than died on that particular day. The decision not to fund the so-called “war on terror” has had ruinous effects on the country’s finances The refusal of most Americans to serve in the military has exhausted and nearly wrecked the regular Army and Marine Corps and Reserves. The unconscionable assault on the civil rights of Americans at home has got to rank as a totally unacceptable cost of “preventing another attack,” which no one can prove that they’ve done if no attacks have happened, any more than Saddam Hussein could prove that he didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction by not having any. Against the continuation of this ludicrous policy, one can cite unaffordable, identifiable costs to America and foreign countries alike. In defense of this policy, one can offer only the putative “benefits” of speculative sophistry and other forms of arguing from ignorance. We know what this has cost us. We know that we have gained nothing from it. Thus the public verdict: Not Worth It.
Continuing a bankrupt policy after its bankruptcy has become visible to the entire world leads only to public cynicism and then to revolt. Hence the current sprint for the exits in Afghanistan while loudly threatening the future with hollow imprecations of “implacable resolve” for decades to come. “Leaving by Staying.” The new euphemistic slogan for “Vietnamization.” The Taliban know that they have come close to winning back their country’s independence.The Afghan “government” knows it. The American President knows it, too, but cannot admit this publicly or suffer that most intolerable of affronts to his manhood: namely, having the equally discredited opposition call him unmanly names like “wimp.” Can’t have that. So more Afghans and Pakistanis have to die for awhile longer. How many and how much longer our government cannot tell us because it doesn’t know itself. Good enough reason to sweep every member of it from office.
He wasn’t targeted. His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise.
You say that his “…son got caught in the crossfire” and “his father put him there as a shield.” Anwar al-Awlaki died two weeks before his son. What in the hell are you talking about?
mespo,
Speak with specificity. You’re too much of a lawyer.
Ask the British and Russians what happened in Afghanistan. Just leave. There isn’t any oil in Afghanistan. And there isn’t any in Pakistan either.
anonymously:
“I did. His 16-year-old son who was born in Denver and a 17-year-old nephew. (Would you like “to argue the morality of that strike?”
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He wasn’t targeted. His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise. These radical folks have no compunction about sacrificing their children. And you, it seems, have no compunction about falling for their propaganda ploys.
The death of innocents in war is always regrettable, but to accept the propaganda that somehow we intended his death by targeting a child is an outrageous slur against your Country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday — both in an out of uniform.
An excerpt from the article in “The Nation”, which bears repeating:
“The drone strikes are inciting even more anti-American hatred in troubled places like Yemen as well as Pakistan (see Jeremy Scahill, “Target: Yemen,” March 5/12). It is hard to argue that they are making us safer when, for every suspect killed, one or more newly embittered militants emerge to take his place. This is not a prescription for American security but for an endless war that will sap our moral core and put in jeopardy our most cherished freedoms at home.”
The United States spends more money on the military than all other nations on the planet combined. What do you think happens if that gets turned loose? I wouldn’t be kissing Princes or Princesses on the cheek. Do you know what neutron bombs are for? I don’t think Europe would disagree.
http://www.thenation.com/article/168271/obamas-kill-list
Obama’s Kill List: Silence Is Not an Option
The Editors
June 6, 2012 | This article appeared in the June 25, 2012 edition of The Nation.
The “war on terror” has its own corrupting logic, leading otherwise morally responsible leaders to do unspeakable things. Such is the case with the Obama administration’s descent into the world of kill lists and drone assassinations.
The image of President Obama poring over baseball-card profiles of terror suspects in Jo Becker and Scott Shane’s now famous New York Times “kill list” exposé probably pleased the administration officials whose cooperation made the story possible, wrapping the president in glinting “warrior in chief” election year packaging. For those concerned about the constitutional protection of civil liberties and the rule of law, however, that image, and the extraordinary practices it represents, was profoundly disturbing. The drone policy the president has developed not only infringes on the sovereignty of other nations, but the assassinations violate laws put in place in the 1970s after scandals enveloped an earlier era of CIA criminality. The new details about Obama’s assassination program also remind us how the 2001 Congressional Authorization of the Use of Military Force established a disastrous policy of “borderless and open-ended war that threatens to indefinitely extend US military engagement around the world,” in the words of the only member of the House to vote against it, Barbara Lee.
The kill list makes a mockery of due process by circumventing judicial review, and turning the executive into judge, jury and executioner. Even worse, the “signature” strikes described in the Times article, in which nameless individuals are assassinated based merely on patterns of behavior, dispense with any semblance of habeas corpus altogether. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, signature strikes account for most of the attacks in Pakistan today, and they were recently approved for use in Yemen.
One of the darkest aspects of this story involves the administration’s method of counting civilian casualties: The CIA simply assumes that any military-age male in the vicinity of a terror suspect must be a militant too. Thus, counterterrorism chief John Brennan was able to state with a straight face in August 2011 that not one civilian had perished from US strikes outside Afghanistan and Iraq in more than a year—a declaration that was greeted with incredulity and outrage in Pakistan, where witnesses have attested to hundreds of civilian deaths.
The drone strikes are inciting even more anti-American hatred in troubled places like Yemen as well as Pakistan (see Jeremy Scahill, “Target: Yemen,” March 5/12). It is hard to argue that they are making us safer when, for every suspect killed, one or more newly embittered militants emerge to take his place. This is not a prescription for American security but for an endless war that will sap our moral core and put in jeopardy our most cherished freedoms at home.
The new revelations also highlight the dangers of official secrecy, as we now glimpse some of what the administration was hiding through its invocation of the state secrets privilege in court proceedings. But as urgent as the demand for transparency remains, we know more than enough to conclude that President Obama’s continuation and expansion of George W. Bush’s “war on terror” has further eroded legal barriers built over decades to limit executive power. For those who believed Obama would restore the rule of law after Bush’s imperial overreach, learning the details of these operations has been troubling. Liberals raised a ruckus about Bush’s abuses. Silence now is not an option.
mespo727272,
“Tell me who has been targeted besides Anwar al-Awlaki…”
I did. His 16-year-old son who was born in Denver and a 17-year-old nephew. (Would you like “to argue the morality of that strike?”)