Jane Mayer made the liberal case against drones in The New Yorker (October 26, 2009). We provide a blow by blow response here (Joint Force Quarterly) and discuss the issue on Talk of the Nation, here. Everyone is entitled to human rights, but we cannot wait for terrorists to strike before we go after them. And, although little known, the US military has a carefully crafted procedure for determining which drone strikes are allowed and which would cause too much collateral damage.
The onus for avoiding collateral damage altogether is on the terrorists. They have to stop exploiting their status as civilians, stop using civilians as human shields, and homes--as headquarters, as locations to store ammunition and for snipers to ply their deadly trade. (For more, see Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy [Yale 2007] and our website.)
Dr. Etzioni's e-mail requested comments concerning this issue.
Comments
Yes, Jon, the anti-war left wants US soldiers in bodybags, just as the pro-war right wants us to simply slaughter everyone in Afghanistan with no regard for civilian casualties.
Here's a crazy idea I just had: let's not go painting disparate groups with broad, largely inaccurate statements intended to pointlessly fan the flames.
I would respectfully disagree as to the meaning of the 4th Geneva Convention, which speaks speficially about protected personnel who are IN THE HANDS of one side. As such, it doesn't apply as we do not control the personnel in question.
If a combatant hides among the innocent or uses them for cover of an attack, the combatant who used them as human shields is solely responsible for their safety. Anyone property and personal injuries are then collateral damage and of course proportionality applies.
You can argue that the attacks are counter-productive, although it was remarkable how the public opinion of the attacks changed once the government of Pakistan did something about the Taliban in Pakistan, but to say they go against the Geneva Convention is just wrong.
Now if we conducted reprisals against villagers in Afghanistan for harboring the Taliban or AQ in the past, that would be against the Geneva Convention.
An interesting analysis of the use of drones and targeted killings.
The introduction of drone strike technology to the battlefield has increased the precision of those strikes and the intelligence gathering capabilities over target immensely. The oft repeated 600 hours of observation for 6 minutes of F16 attack in the case of Zarqawi is a clear example of the increased precision afforded by constant eyes on target.
Despite this increased precision, the introduction of a remote technology, and such a dominant form of IMINT and SIGINT can be "seductive" as Mayer quotes Singer. The drone technology must not stand alone as a strategy, but rather function as one tool in a broader counterinsurgent toolkit.
I want to second motorfirebox. Etzioni might have a convincing utilitarian case, though there's a lot of evidence that drone strikes, while tactically successful, actually undermine our strategic goals in the region. Additionally, I find the argument about civilian casualties uncompelling: we are required, as a signatory to the 4th Geneva Convention, to take reasonable measures to defend civilians in conflict. Lobbing missiles from an orbiting UAV, no matter how good the intel, does not match that requirement going by the most widely accepted <a href="http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones">estimates</a> of non-combattant deaths in the NWFP. Thus, the burden not to injure civilians is on us as much as it is on the Taliban. "Well, but they do it too" isn't a reason for us to flaunt our own values and legal obligations.
While interesting, and containing many good points, the overall direction of Dr. Etzioni's article seems to me to be somewhat moot. Whatever arguments one can make regarding the morality of concealing military attacks and assets behind civilian shields, the simple fact is that many of the enemies we face are going to continue doing it no matter what. Neither apologies nor stern reprimands are going to change that--nor are either likely to change global public perception of our actions when we kill civilians as collateral damage during operations against such enemies.
And public perception is a key issue. Public perception is, increasingly in this era, a weapon of war at least as important as bullets and bombs. Telling terrorists to stop using civilian populations as shields makes about as much sense as them telling us to stop using drone strikes.