US Drone Attacks Counter Productive

Pakistan Views: US Drone Attacks Counter-Productive by Zaheerul Hassan

According to another report compiled by London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) states that 2,496 and 3,202 persons had been killed in US predators in Pakistan since 2004. Among them were 482 to 832 civilians, 175 of them children. Significantly, President Obama, on January 30, 2012, had claimed that US drone attacks in Pakistan had “not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.”

 Only Allah SWT knows the correct statistics  but we do know not to trust non muslims and munafics and we do know that last Ramadan there were almost daily drone strikes against muslims in the tribal regions. La huwla walla quwaita illah billah .

At least there is a common perception amongst Pakistani muslims that America is an enemy to them and the muslims as a whole and it will be the ordinary God fearing people of Pakistan who will take hold of the situation and return to what pleases Allah Al Muta Aali  and flee from what angers Him .

The winds  are a changing the sweet breeze is producing fruit that is ripening right now and the mercy of Allah is always near AlhumduLillahi Rabil Alaimeen

Conspiracy of silence

The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said.

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told a conference in Geneva that President Obama's attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, carried out by the CIA, would encourage other states to flout long-establishedhuman rights standards.

In his strongest critique so far of drone strikes, Heyns suggested some may even constitute "war crimes". His comments come amid rising international unease over the surge in killings by remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Addressing the conference, which was organised by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a second UN rapporteur, Ben Emmerson QC, who monitors counter-terrorism, announced he would be prioritising inquiries into drone strikes.

The London-based barrister said the issue was moving rapidly up the international agenda after China and Russia this week jointly issued a statement at the UN Human Rights Council, backed by other countries, condemning drone attacks.

If the US or any other states responsible for attacks outside recognised war zones did not establish independent investigations into each killing, Emmerson emphasised, then "the UN itself should consider establishing an investigatory body".

Also present was Pakistan's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Zamir Akram, who called for international legal action to halt the "totally counterproductive attacks" by the US in his country.

Heyns, a South African law professor, told the meeting: "Are we to accept major changes to the international legal system which has been in existence since world war two and survived nuclear threats?"

Some states, he added, "find targeted killings immensely attractive. Others may do so in future … Current targeting practices weaken the rule of law. Killings may be lawful in an armed conflict [such as Afghanistan] but many targeted killings take place far from areas where it's recognised as being an armed conflict."

If it is true, he said, that "there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime".

Heyns ridiculed the US suggestion that targeted UAV strikes on al-Qaida or allied groups were a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks. "It's difficult to see how any killings carried out in 2012 can be justified as in response to [events] in 2001," he said. "Some states seem to want to invent new laws to justify new practices.

"The targeting is often operated by intelligence agencies which fall outside the scope of accountability. The term 'targeted killing' is wrong because it suggests little violence has occurred. The collateral damage may be less than aerial bombardment, but because they eliminate the risk to soldiers they can be used more often."

Heyns told the Guardian later that his future inquiries are likely to include the question of whether other countries, such as the UK, share intelligence with the US that could be used for selecting individuals as targets. A legal case has already been lodged in London over the UK's alleged role in the deaths of British citizens and others as a consequence of US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Emmerson said that protection of the right to life required countries to establish independent inquiries into each drone killing. "That needs to be applied in the context of targeted killings," he said. "It's possible for a state to establish an independent ombudsman to inquire into every attack and there needs to be a report to justify [the killing]."

Alternatively, he said, it was "for the UN itself to consider establishing an investigatory body. Drones attacks by the US raise fundamental questions which are a direct consequence of my mandate… If they don't [investigate] themselves, we will do it for them."

It is time, he added, to end the "conspiracy of silence" over drone attacks and "shine the light of independent investigation" into the process. The attacks, he noted, were not only on those who had been killed but on the system of "international law itself".

The Pakistani ambassador declared that more than a thousand civilians had been killed in his country by US drone strikes. "We find the use of drones to be totally counterproductive in terms of succeeding in the war against terror. It leads to greater levels of terror rather than reducing them," he said.

Claims made by the US about the accuracy of drone strikes were "totally incorrect", he added. Victims who had tried to bring compensation claims through the Pakistani courts had been blocked by US refusals to respond to legal actions.

The US has defended drone attacks as self-defence against al-Qaida and has refused to allow judicial scrutiny of the UAV programme. On Wednesday, the Obama administration issued a fresh rebuff through the US courts to an ACLU request for information about targeting policies. Such details, it insisted, must remain "classified".

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, said: "Something that is being debated in UN hallways and committee rooms cannot apparently be talked about in US courtrooms, according to the government. Whether the CIA is involved in targeted lethal operation is now classified. It's an absurd fiction."

The ACLU estimates that as many as 4,000 people have been killed in US drone strikes since 2002 in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Of those, a significant proportion were civilians. The numbers killed have escalated significantly since Obama became president.

The USA is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or many other international legal forums where legal action might be started. It is, however, part of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) where cases can be initiated by one state against another.

Ian Seiderman, director of the International Commission of Jurists, told the conference that "immense damage was being done to the fabric of international law".

One of the latest UAV developments that concerns human rights groups is the way in which attacks, they allege, have moved towards targeting groups based on perceived patterns of behaviour that look suspicious from aerial surveillance, rather than relying on intelligence about specific al-Qaida activists.

In response to a report by Heyns to the UN Human Rights Council this week, the US put out a statement in Geneva saying there was "unequivocal US commitment to conducting such operations with extraordinary care and in accordance with all applicable law, including the law of war".

It added that there was "continuing commitment to greater transparency and a sincere effort to address some of the important questions that have been raised".

Obama's "kill list"

The Obama administration has sought to block the release of documents related to its use of robot drones to strike suspected terrorists overseas, claiming that it can still not admit that the secretive programme of targeted killing exists.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New York Times have both submitted freedom of information requests to the department of justice, the CIA and the Pentagon seeking information about the programme. They have now gone to court to try and force the government to answer those requests and release details of its activities.

However, in a motion filed just before midnight ET on Wednesday, the government asked for the cases to be dismissed, saying that to release information would hurt national security, even while still insisting it cannot admit any such programme of targeted killing exists.

"Whether or not the CIA has the authority to be, or is in fact, directly involved in targeted lethal operations remains classified," the government said in a court filing.

The move prompted the ACLU to label the continued refusal to acknowledge the use of drones to kill alleged terrorist leaders as "absurd" given that both President Barack Obama and his counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan have both made public references to it.

There have also been extensive leaks to the press, notably the New York Times, which recently ran a highly detailed story about a "kill list" that the Obama administration maintains.

"The notion that the CIA's targeted killing programme is still a secret is beyond absurd. Senior officials have discussed it, both on the record and off. They have taken credit for its putative successes, professed it to be legal, and dismissed concerns about civilian casualties," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director.

US drone strikes have been credited by the administration with having badly damaged al-Qaida in places like Pakistan and Yemen, but are widely criticised by rights groups over the secrecy that makes it impossible to determine casualty figures, whether they are military or civilians, or on what legal basis the attacks occur.

Particular points of contention have been the New York Times' revelation that the administration considers any male of military age in a strike zone when a drone hits to be a militant and thus a legitimate target.

The deaths via drone attacks of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son – who was also an American citizen – have likewise earned condemnation from many human rights and civil liberties organisations.

The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which runs a drone-monitoring project, estimates that the US has used drones against targets in Pakistan up to 332 times in the past eight years, with a huge jump in activity under Obama. The Bureau believes up to 800 civilians may have been killed in the attacks. It has also monitored scores of drone attacks in Yemen and Somalia.

Jaffer called on the administration to be more open and demanded some form of public legal oversight. "We continue to have profound concerns that with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the president should be be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts. That the administration believes a power so sweeping should be exercised in secret is astounding," he said.

Despite its refusal to acknowledge a targeted killing programme exists there have been numerous public statements about the programme.

In April Brennan gave a speech where he said the programme "sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft" was carried out "in full accordance of the law" and used to strike specific al-Qaida terrorists.

Obama himself referenced the programme when asked about it in January. The president said the programme used only "precise, precision strikes against al-Qaida and their affiliates."