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Interesting Op-ed on drone strikes

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  • Interesting Op-ed on drone strikes

    Our default is killing terrorists by drone attack. Do you care?



    By David Ignatius
    Thursday, December 2, 2010

    Every war brings its own deformations, but consider this disturbing fact about America's war against al-Qaeda: It has become easier, politically and legally, for the United States to kill suspected terrorists than to capture and interrogate them.

    Predator and Reaper drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, have become the weapons of choice against al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They have also been used in Yemen, and the demand for these efficient tools of war, which target enemies from 10,000 feet, is likely to grow.

    The pace of drone attacks on the tribal areas has increased sharply during the Obama presidency, with more assaults in September and October of this year than in all of 2008. At the same time, efforts to capture al-Qaeda suspects have virtually stopped. Indeed, if CIA operatives were to snatch a terrorist tomorrow, the agency wouldn't be sure where it could detain him for interrogation.

    Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA, frames the puzzle this way: "Have we made detention and interrogation so legally difficult and politically risky that our default option is to kill our adversaries rather than capture and interrogate them?"

    It's curious why the American public seems so comfortable with a tactic that arguably is a form of long-range assassination, after the furor about the CIA's use of nonlethal methods known as "enhanced interrogation." When Israel adopted an approach of "targeted killing" against Hamas and other terrorist adversaries, it provoked an extensive debate there and abroad.

    "For reasons that defy logic, people are more comfortable with drone attacks" than with killings at close range, says Robert Grenier, a former top CIA counterterrorism officer who now is a consultant with ERG Partners. "It's something that seems so clean and antiseptic, but the moral issues are the same."

    Firing a missile from 10,000 feet is certainly a lower risk for the attackers than an assault on the ground. "The U.S. is reluctant to mount such capture-or-kill operations in the tribal areas for the same reason that the Pakistanis are: They fear that an elite team might be surrounded by hundreds of tribesmen," says Grenier.

    Though the Pakistani government publicly denounces the drone attacks, it privately condones them. That's in part because the drones provide a military punch that the Pakistani military is unwilling or unable to match with conventional forces. But legal challenges are beginning, as in a $500 million lawsuit planned by a Pakistani man who told reporters this week that two of his relatives had been killed in a drone strike.

    The reluctance to chase al-Qaeda on the ground, and perhaps capture its operatives alive, also comes with an intelligence cost. The United States and its allies lose the information that could come from interrogation, along with the cellphones, computers and other communications gear that could be seized in a successful raid. One reason that counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda were so effective in Iraq was that they utilized this cycle of raid, capture, interrogate, analyze, raid again.

    The CIA began getting out of the detention business when the infamous "black sites" overseas were closed in 2006. At that time, 14 CIA detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay, but since then, only two more have been caught and transferred there; agency officials have been advised that Guantanamo is closed for new business. The only alternatives are Bagram air base in Afghanistan, for al-Qaeda operatives caught in the war zone, or detention and trial in the United States.

    Don't misunderstand me: It's not that the Obama administration's limits on detention and interrogation are wrong. They have applied clear guidelines to what had been, before 2006, a murky area. The problem is that these rules, and the wariness of getting into more trouble, have had the perverse effect of encouraging the CIA to adopt a more lethal and less supple policy than before.

    U.S. and Pakistani officials support drone attacks because they don't see a good alternative to combat al-Qaeda's operations in the tribal areas. I don't disagree with that view. But this policy needs a clearer foundation in law and public understanding than it has today. Otherwise, when the pendulum swings, the CIA officers who ran these supposedly clandestine missions may be left holding the bag.

    So ask yourself: If you don't like the CIA tactics that led to the capture and interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives, do you think it's better to vaporize the militants from 10,000 feet? And if this bothers you, what's the alternative?

    David Ignatius - Our default is killing terrorists by drone attack. Do you care?
    Last edited by MIKEMUN; 03 Dec 10,, 01:34.
    "They want to test our feelings.They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and their newspapers."

    Protester

  • #2
    Did we try to capture German troops or Japanese troops in WW2?

    What is the alternative to this "long range assassination?" We used to bomb entire cities. I'm all for carpet bombing, but some people think it's immoral.
    "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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    • #3
      From the title I thought it was going to be about liberals protesting something or another.

      Not kidding.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by gunnut View Post
        Did we try to capture German troops or Japanese troops in WW2?
        Constantly. You patrol ahead of your lines to get prisoners. Even if they don't have any useful information about upcoming attacks or moves or whatever, you at least know what units are in front of you.

        Prisoners are intel. Human intel. And why was 9/11 able to happen in the first place? Because we had lousy humint on the entire region.

        Say you have a list of 100 names of bad guys. One day you're going to Hellfire your way down to the bottom of that list. Is that the last bad guy? Of course not - it's just the last guy on your list. How do you get another list if you're not grilling bad guys under a hot light bulb every once in a while instead of splattering them all over the landscape?

        Obama's decision to switch to drone-bombing is seen by some as hawkish, but it's actually the move of a coward who's unwilling to test his own brand of counter-terror with prisoners.

        -dale
        Last edited by dalem; 03 Dec 10,, 02:58.

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        • #5
          dale,

          Obama's decision to switch to drone-bombing is seen by some as hawkish, but it's actually the move of a coward who's unwilling to test his own brand of counter-terror with prisoners.

          -dale
          how is it that we've accelerated not just the quantity but the quality of our strikes dramatically over the last 12 months? where do you think we're getting the intel for that? and can you make a comparison of number of terrorists we've captured over the last year to any period before?

          moreover, considering that even someone likes blues can acknowledge that the size of the kill-boxes, the relaxed ROEs, and the investment that the military has put into drone/ISR technology is unprecedented...in other words...giving the pentagon everything the pentagon wants here...i think you're -really- stretching it to claim that this is a sign of cowardice.
          Last edited by astralis; 03 Dec 10,, 03:51.
          There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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          • #6
            I seem to recall we had this debate a few months back. if Bush was doing this it would be proof that he was truly a warrior king. Obama does it & its cowardice (or some such).
            sigpic

            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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            • #7
              Originally posted by astralis View Post
              dale,

              how is it that we've accelerated not just the quantity but the quality of our strikes dramatically over the last 12 months? where do you think we're getting the intel for that? and can you make a comparison of number of terrorists we've captured over the last year to any period before?
              I've not heard anything about prisoner takes going up - I've heard of drone strikes going up and the op-ed posted is of the opinion that prisoner take is dropped to a low and Hellfiring raised to a high. If that conclusion is false then much of my opinion is based on falsehood in this particular case.

              moreover, considering that even someone likes blues can acknowledge that the size of the kill-boxes, the relaxed ROEs, and the investment that the military has put into drone/ISR technology is unprecedented...in other words...giving the pentagon everything the pentagon wants here...i think you're -really- stretching it to claim that this is a sign of cowardice.
              I can see how you could be of that opinion. I disagree.

              -dale

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              • #8
                I'd prefer the thread moved elsewhere but, that aside-

                "i think you're -really- stretching it to claim that this is a sign of cowardice."

                PREDATOR is a measured response that's calibrated to attack our enemies with minimum offense possible to our ostensible "friends". It also serves to suggest that we'll strike those enemies anywhere we can reach and, further, do what others refuse to do for themselves in the process. Finally, we'll assert the right to protect our forces wherever possible. It's possible in FATAville via PREDATOR.

                We won't conduct sustained ground operations in FATAville for reasons exceeding scope and capability nor will we inject SOF forces for reasons of vulnerability and non-cooperation. These strikes are the maximum we can inflict for present and the minimum we can accept from ourselves given the self-imposed political limitations underwhich we currently operate.
                "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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                • #9
                  S-2,

                  good call, will do.
                  There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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                  • #10
                    dale,

                    I've not heard anything about prisoner takes going up - I've heard of drone strikes going up and the op-ed posted is of the opinion that prisoner take is dropped to a low and Hellfiring raised to a high. If that conclusion is false then much of my opinion is based on falsehood in this particular case.
                    honestly, i am not sure where mr ignatius is getting evidence for his claims: the IC does not publish updated prisoner takes and divide them into categories of taliban (afghan/pakistani), AQ, and other. i have doubts they would discuss this with a WaPo reporter, too.

                    what we can say is that afghan prisoner take IS increasing, simply based off the need for the US to build a new detainee facility back in 2009; it just makes sense, given the far higher opstempo and the fact that we're pushing into areas the taliban held for years. but that's not the most important thing, as i'll speak to later.

                    re: AQ takes, note that AQ has run into pakistan, with numbers inside afghanistan numbering in the double digits, "less than 50" according to the CIA. this brings up several different issues: we obviously have much less operational flexibility inside pakistan: there, we didn't decide to "switch" to drones vice capture; in some cases it's the only option we have. furthermore, it's also quite clear that despite this reduced flexibility, drone strikes in FATA-ville AND afghanistan are at an all-time high...which means that the people we ARE capturing or at least getting sources from are giving us better intel than ever. this, in turn, speaks to a far better intelligence picture of afghanistan and FATA than we had but two years ago.

                    so it's clear the number of captures (which differs in afghanistan and pakistan, and which none of us precisely know, anyway) and our intel picture doesn't directly correlate. it's a secondary factor, at best. it's the quality of the information that counts, not quantity...and the quality's gone up sharply.
                    Last edited by astralis; 03 Dec 10,, 15:01.
                    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                    Comment

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