The silence on the drones


Our opinion: What happened to Barack Obama’s promise of greater diligence and accountability on drone strikes?

President Barack Obama gave an encouraging speech last year in which he vowed tighter restrictions on the United States’ practice of drone warfare to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible, and to give the program greater transparency. If only the administration’s actions matched the president’s words.

Instead, what is supposed to be a more discriminate approach to killing enemies in the war on terror continues to claim apparently innocent lives. We’re forced to say “apparently,” because the administration has yet to give its side of the story on the latest drone strike to come under fire.

Our issue isn’t with drones as an alternative to the far more devastating and costly waging of boots-on-the-ground war. The idea of selectively killing key terrorist leaders and operatives scattered over multiple countries makes sense.

But with the ability to wage this technological war comes an even greater expectation that America will do it honorably and with as much care as possible to avoid civilian deaths.

But the theory and practice appear to be two different things.

A report by Human Rights Watch, “A Wedding That Became a Funeral: US Drone Attack on Marriage Procession in Yemen,” paints a far messier picture of this strategy. According to the report, the Dec. 12 attack on a wedding convoy killed 12 people and wounded at least 15 others, including the bride. Witnesses and relatives say the casualties were civilians, contradicting unofficial U.S. and Yemeni claims that the dead were members of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Two people, including the target of the strike, are said to be on Yemen’s “most-wanted terrorist” list; both escaped.

Even if terrorists had used the wedding as cover in violation of the laws of war, it would violate those same laws for the U.S. to attack knowing that it risked harming innocent human shields.

Human Rights Watch reasonably asks the U.S. to investigate and publish its findings. So far, however, the U.S. hasn’t even officially acknowledged the strike.

Mr. Obama’s silence is shameful. This was the president who accepted a Nobel Peace Prize that was given not for his actions but on the hope that he would follow through on his early lofty words and lead America out of a long period of war and into an era of greater cooperation and diplomacy.

This was the president who last year announced a new drone policy requiring “near-certainty” that no civilians would be harmed. Yet although drone strikes have declined since that speech in May, civilians, including children, continue to be killed or wounded.

And where, we have to wonder, is Congress, a body so consumed by the nonissues it investigates that it can’t seem to be bothered with a genuinely serious one. If the administration won’t follow through on its promise of greater accountability, the representatives of the American people should be asking: What exactly is being done, and who is being killed, in our name?

11 Responses

  1. Albany Resident says:

    TU Editorial Board…you have got to be kidding me, when will you see that obama is a pathological liar, a fraud, and the worse president this country has ever had. Quite frankly the obvious negligence of the TU to do it’s due diligence is perplexing and shameful! We’ll get an answer from him when he has rehearsed his lie enough so that even he believes it.

  2. whoareyou says:

    “apparently” – therein lies the problem with this issue. Our government (both the administration and the military) and other countries’ governments (e.g., Yemen, in the incident cited in the article) can state that those killed were terrorists/terrorist supporters but some people in the environs of a drone strike will claim the people killed were “innocent” and, those of a certain mindset, will latch onto those statements, believing them to be irrefutable ‘fact’, and then ballyhoo such ‘fact’. The people in the vicinity of a drone strike may actually believe that a terrorist killed in such an attack was an innocent civilian because they may be unaware of the terrorist’s activities.

    However, exactly how “innocent” those who are in close proximity of known terrorists are can most certainly be debated. What about aiding and abetting? What about harboring and providing sustenance? Perhaps those around terrorists feel they are providing a significant enough of a human shield of ostensibly “innocent” people such that they and the terrorists they support won’t be attacked? It is likely that many people in the immediate vicinity of a terrorist know the terrorist to indeed be a terrorist and they are likely supporting the terrorist.

    Will there be collateral damage as a result of drone strikes? Yes – but, then again, there were thousands of cases of “collateral damage” in the WTC attack – truly innocent people. I’m willing to tolerate some imprecision with regard to drone strikes to avoid any such recurrence in the future. And if the people of the countries in which drone strikes are being conducted want those drone strikes to end, maybe they ought to step up and eliminate the terrorists from their countries themselves?!?

  3. JustASec says:

    The more conservatives rant about Obama, the less others listen. Since all they do is rant, and have done so from Day One, they’re practically voiceless now. Sadly, they don’t get it, and rant and rant and rant and rant.
    Trouble is, your ideology stinks. Look at Arizona for an small example.

  4. Obamanation says:

    Whoareyou, stop drinking the Koolaid.

  5. Janet says:

    None of the innocents had anything to do with the attacks on the WTC then again none of the targets probably did either. A decade of war and what do we have to show for it? Either we are a country that honors the concept of rule of law or we do not. Either we are a country that honers the concept of due process or we do not.

  6. Tom Foolery says:

    It amazes me that the TU board is actually criticizing the president. I have to agree with you on this one and welcome you to the reality that is this presidency and administration. Close lipped about anything that may harm or damage them. Deny, avoid, delay until after a significant event (like and election). It was ludacris to award a Nobel Piece Prize to someone who had not earned it, what a joke! Agree? I am sure the TU praised it at the time and now you feel jilted. Get in line behind those of us who want to know about all the other scandals – yes, all the GOP talking points – Bengazi, IRS, Solindra, ACA, – etc… Funny, I don’t remember seeing alarm over those from this paper. As a war veteran, I can tell you, innocents can unforuantely become casualties of war. It is called collateral damage. It is very unfortunate but sadly reality.

  7. maggie says:

    I remember when my husband came back from Somalia. he was complaining that the fighters there would literally hold a baby with one hand and an AK with the other so they could shoot at American troops with impunity. So if a soldier shot back in that case, whose fault would it be that the baby got killed? Or stories of 5 year old with assault rifles firing from the doors of their houses…

    So to put it another way; it is pretty damn prejudicial to assume that the people of Yemen have the same values and beliefs that we do and that they would see it as a paramount value to do their terrorist acitvities away from what we in America call innocents to protect them from collateral damage.

  8. PlainGuy says:

    Did you expect anything less from the administration who brought you
    Fast and furious(now it is coming back up again with additional incidents)

    The most bestest smartest and open administration record, how could ask for anything more? No, literally they can’t take anymore from us

  9. ReepDaggle says:

    Tom Foolery,
    Yes, because the TU reliably states opinion based on the facts of the issues, not on the party of the person being discussed, as much as so many on the right are loath to accept that.

    I think it’s time for bassjig to toss out his bogus 99% comment yet again.

  10. elmer says:

    Wow–relatives and witnesses say none of the dead were combatants. How surprising!

    From the report:

    “The procession also may have included members of AQAP, although it is not clear who they were or what was their fate. However the conflicting accounts, as well as actions of relatives and provincial authorities, suggest that some, if not all those killed and wounded were civilians.”

    Hardly a definitive statement.