Drone Warfare

by Medea Benjamin

  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Cymru (the Welsh name for Wales), or better known as CND Cymru, was inspired to speak out against drones when they discovered in 2004 that the Aberporth training area in Wales—an area that is also a missile base—was slated to become a “UAV Centre of Excellence,” with promises to deliver one thousand jobs in an area ravaged by unemployment. Despite protests, the government went ahead with its plan. The jobs never materialized—only about thirty jobs were created—but Aberporth became one of two places in Europe where drones are flight tested. The other location is in northern Sweden.

  The group continues to raise a ruckus—holding vigils, trespassing on military property, putting pressure on their elected officials. On September 21, 2011, which is International Peace Day, they launched a Commemorative Garden to recognize all victims of the deployment of drones. “Quite apart from the problem that these machines and their imaging equipment were being tested over our homes, many people objected to the terrible fact that our community, and our country, was planning something appalling against people in other countries,” said CND Cymru’s national secretary Jill Gough. “We certainly don’t want Wales to be part of that.”

  One issue that is more prevalent in European anti-drone campaigns than American ones is the connection between Israel and the drone industry. Concerned about the occupation of Palestine and the use of drones in Gaza, UK activists were appalled to discover that their corporations were producing key components for Israeli drones, exporting them to Israel, and then buying them back in the form of completed vehicles. They are calling on their government to stop using the Israeli Hermes 450 drone made by Elbit, and to cut ties with Israeli drone manufacturers.

  The Catholic peace group Pax Christi UK holds a regular vigil outside a factory called UAV Engines, also owned by Elbit.286 Hastings Against War, a UK coalition of individuals formed in 2003 to oppose the war on Iraq, also protests against the lease and purchase of Israeli drones.287 They are particularly vigilant around the UK Watchkeeper drone project, in which several hundred million dollars went to an Israeli company, thus indirectly supporting the occupation of Palestine.

  Another approach to curbing drone warfare comes from a group formed in 2009 called the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC). It represents a group of robotic specialists, philosophers and human rights activists from a number of countries—including the US, UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia.

  Among the members are Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield; Peter Asaro, a professor of philosophy at the New School University in New York; Robert Sparrow of the Centre for Bioethics in Melbourne, Australia; and Mark Gubrud, a physicist at the University of North Carolina.

  The organization started with the aim of stimulating debate about the ways that military robots have already altered the nature of warfare and subverted many of the existing rules of engagement. They were concerned that robotic technologies might tempt policymakers to think war can be less bloody, and that hostile states or terrorist organizations would be able to hack robotic systems and redirect them.

  Bringing together experts from all over the world, the group held its first workshop in Berlin in the summer of 2010, organized by Jürgen Altmann, a physicist teaching at Dortmund, Germany. The meeting consisted of academics and policy experts, human rights lawyers, Red Cross representatives, peace activists, military advisers, and others opposed to the arms trade. They explored the threats to peace and international security posed by robotic weapons, including threats to civilians and the undermining of international law. In addition to worries that robots may be used as weapons in space or be armed with nuclear weapons, the experts expressed serious concerns about the inability of automated robotic systems to discriminate between combatants and civilians, and that these new technologies could make it difficult to determine the moral and legal responsibility for any atrocities committed in war.

  They came up with the following goals: the prohibition of the development, deployment and use of armed autonomous unmanned systems, with the exception of automated anti-missile systems; limitations on the range of and weapons carried by “man-in-the-loop” unmanned systems; a ban on arming unmanned systems with nuclear weapons; the prohibition of the development, deployment and use of robot space weapons; and restrictions on the use of armed drones for targeted killings in sovereign territories not at war.288

  For guidance, ICRAC is looking back at other successful campaigns to ban certain kinds of weapons, particularly the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty outlawing the use of landmines.

  After failed attempts by government institutions to regulate the use of landmines, non-governmental organizations launched their own campaign to ban the weapons altogether. In 1992, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was formed, bringing together hundreds of member organizations in countries all over the world. These included organizations in both mine-producing and mine-affected countries, and groups focusing on human rights, humanitarian assistance, children, peace, disability, veterans concerns, arms control, religious affairs, the environment, and women’s issues. The members engaged in education campaigns, shared political strategies, and pushed their governments to come up with a solution.

  In October 1996, fifty governments and twenty-four observers met in Ottawa to strategize, and over the course of several subsequent meetings, they drafted a treaty. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, representing the grassroots global community, won a seat at the table—participating in all the diplomatic meetings and negotiations, helping draft the treaty, and writing the preamble to the treaty that eventually passed.289

  The Mine Ban Treaty, officially titled the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, was adopted in September 1997. Thanks to the constant pressure from the grassroots, it was implemented in less than two years, faster than any treaty of its kind in history. By 2011, eighty percent of the world’s nations had banned the use of landmines.290

  The landmine campaign credits its success to several factors.291

  It had a clear message and goal. Signature states agreed to six major commitments, among them the destruction of their mine stockpiles within four years and their mine areas cleared within ten years.

  It had a campaign structure that was non-bureaucratic and strategy that was flexible.

  It put together an “unusually cohesive and strategic partnership” of non-governmental organizations, international organizations, United Nations agencies, and governments.

  There was a favorable international context.

  Also critical to the campaign’s success was that the negotiations took place outside the UN system, and the treaty conference relied on voting, rather than consensus, which made it easier to move forward. Governments were also required to “opt in,” meaning that governments attending the treaty negotiation conference had to agree on the text beforehand. Strong leadership at the negotiation conference led to a persuasive treaty that was safeguarded from the possibility of governments watering it down or slowing down the negotiations.292 Another success of the campaign was that it so stigmatized landmines that even most states that refused to sign the treaty were shamed into not using them.

  Key to the fight against landmines was Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her campaign work. With the recent proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles, Williams has been writing and speaking out against drone warfare. She would love to see a ban on all lethal drones, but she fears it would be infinitely more difficult than banning landmines because their use is already so widespread, because it’s easier for the military to make the argument that their benefits outweigh their drawbacks, and most of all, because drones have become such a big business.

  “I have a visceral repugnance to the use of drones; I would love for all lethal drones to disappear,” Williams said in an interview. “But with l
andmines, we didn’t have a lot of industry blowback because in terms of weapons sales, landmines were chump change. Drones are different. They’re a cash cow for the beltway bandits. There’s going to be a massive arms race for these kind of weapons and I’m afraid the companies just won’t tolerate a ban.”

  Even regulations on their use would be fiercely opposed by both the weapons industry and by government authorities, especially in the US. “There would be absolutely no support in the US government for any international restrictions on the use of drones,” insisted Jeff Hawkins from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights at a meeting on drones from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights at a meeting on drones. “Of that you can be certain.”293

  Williams thinks the best chance the international community has to curb the use of drones is to stop autonomous robotic weapons—weapons that operate independently according to pre-programmed missions—because they are not yet fully developed and because they bring up the most difficult ethical and legal questions.

  “If we think it’s bad now, imagine a fully autonomous vehicle going out and wiping out several villages,” said Williams. “Who’s accountable? The company who made them? The military who used them? The software developer? Perhaps they all should be taken to court but that probably isn’t going to happen. So we need to stop them before they’re used. And this is something I think an international coalition could accomplish.”

  Peter Asaro of ICRAC agrees. He is concerned about targeted killings, but feels that these are already illegal under international law, so what is needed is enforcement, not a new treaty. In terms of a treaty banning autonomous robotic weapons, Asaro understands that there are many complex questions about implementation and enforcement, but he believes that just having an international consensus that autonomous systems are immoral and illegal would be a major step. “An international ban would dissuade the major military technology developers by vastly shrinking the potential economic market for those systems, which would greatly slow their current pace of development,” said Asaro.294

  Many groups agree that fully autonomous attack and kill robotic weapons can and must be banned before they appear in the global weapons market and fuel an entirely new and terrifying weapons race. Such a campaign is something that has the potential to unite the activists, human rights organizations, academics, humanitarians, and the religious community.

  For most activists, however, banning autonomous drones would be good but not nearly enough. “It would be a big mistake to just focus on autonomous drones,” said organizer Nick Mottern. “Our goal should be to ban all weaponized drones. This new kind of warfare where the US and others feel they can attack any place, anytime, must be opposed, just as the overwhelming invasion of privacy with surveillance drones intimidating entire populations—from Waziristan to Gaza—must be stopped.”295

  Conclusion

  Over a steak dinner and a couple glasses of wine, former CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo—“a bearded, elegant 63-year-old who wears cuff links and pale yellow ties”—discussed the CIA’s drone attacks with Newsweek’s Tara Mckelvey.296 Referring to a suspected Pakistani militant being “blown to bits” as he got out of his car, Rizzo said he had reviewed the attack on video and concluded that it was “very businesslike.” Rizzo said he liked to observe the killings via live footage at CIA headquarters in Virginia because he was concerned that they be done “in the cleanest possible way.”

  “Clean” is defined as minimal collateral damage, but it also has another meaning: Drone attacks are “clean” because they are not meant to detain, or maim, or disarm, or capture. They are meant to kill, to extinguish a life—and potential public relations problems—on the spot.

  “Since the US political and legal situation has made aggressive interrogation a questionable activity anyway, there is less reason to seek to capture rather than kill,” wrote American University’s law professor Kenneth Anderson. “And if one intends to kill, the incentive is to do so from a standoff position because it removes potentially messy questions of surrender.”297

  Think about it: Why bother with a cumbersome and extended extradition process when a Hellfire missile can handle the job, without the risk of a messy trial and perhaps even an embarrassing acquittal? While a few human rights groups might complain following an extrajudicial assassination-by-drone, unlike a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, the dead man isn’t a lingering pock on America’s image abroad. Armed with that knowledge, politicians have an incentive to resort to lethal force first, usually sentencing people to death on evidence so flimsy it would never stand up in a court of law—or even a military tribunal.

  The way US policymakers see it, drones are the ideal way to deal with violent extremists. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called drone attacks the “only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the Al Qaeda leadership.”298 Perhaps this is understandable when coming from the head of the military, but what has happened to the other branches of government? What happened to the old-fashioned idea of negotiations? Diplomacy? Peace talks? Reconciliation? Did they all suddenly disappear post 9/11?

  I hear all the time that peace activists are naive, that it is impossible to talk to extremists—people who have no regard for the lives of innocents, people capable of strapping on suicide vests and blowing up a bunch of innocent bystanders.

  But in my experiences in conflict zones the world over, there are always people to talk to. From members of Hamas in Gaza to Baathists under Saddam’s Iraq to the Taliban in Afghanistan to government officials in Iran, it is a major blunder to label all our perceived enemies as extremists incapable of rational conversation. People join militant groups for many reasons—religious, family, social pressure, revenge for some wrong they experienced, political ideology, poverty. With such diversity of motives, there are always some people who can be enticed to talk about peace. Our goal should be to seek them out, to strengthen the moderates. Unfortunately, our actions have often only served to embolden the extremists.

  Consider Somalia.

  After nearly two decades of fighting among rival warlords, a period of unrest that itself followed decades of brutal rule by a US-backed dictator, the people of Somalia began to experience some measure of peace when in 2006 a coalition of groups called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took power in Mogadishu. For the first time in years, Somalia’s capital was safe enough to go out at night without a heavily armed security detail.

  But there was a problem: that word “Islamic.” Despite the ICU representing a moderate strain of Islam, the Bush Administration was convinced that the ICU was a dangerous terrorist organization that, if left in power, would give groups like Al Qaeda sanctuary. Since US troops were bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration outsourced the job, backing Ethiopia with money for a proxy invasion and backing up the Ethiopian troops with aerial attacks, including drones.

  They pushed the ICU out of power—and pushed Somalia back into chaos. The moderate ICU splintered into a number of now-radicalized groups like Al Shabab, the emergence of which was then used to justify ever more US intervention in Somalia in the form of stepped-up air strikes.

  Al Shabab has been most active in precisely those parts of Somalia where the US and its cohorts—first Ethiopia and then Kenya—have been most active. “Somalia is an example of the US military policy gone completely amok,” said Emira Woods, director of Foreign Policy in Focus. “It helped destabilize Somalia and strengthen Al Shabab, which barely existed before the US heavy-handed response to the ICU.”

  In Iraq and Afghanistan, years of war with high-tech drones did not lead to victories. Regarding drones strikes in Pakistan, counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen and former Army officer Andrew McDonald Exum wrote in a 2009 opinion piece: “Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as the drone strikes have incre
ased.299 They concluded that it would be in the best interest of the American and Pakistani people to declare a moratorium on drone strikes in Pakistan.

  New York Times reporter David Rohde, emerging from seven months as a Taliban hostage in Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote that his kidnappers’ hatred for the United States was fueled in part by civilians being killed by drones.300 “To my captors,” he wrote, “they were proof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous power that flouted international law.”

  Pashtun tribal culture considers face-to-face combat honorable. Firing a missile at faceless people from a bunker thousands of miles away? Not so much.

  Suspending drone strikes won’t stop Islamic radicals altogether, but continuing the unmanned killing only exacerbates the problem. That’s because while violent extremists may be unpopular, for a frightened population they seem less of a threat than an omnipresent, hovering enemy that at any moment could choose to eliminate one’s loved ones with a Hellfire missile. Extremists—Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab, whoever—capitalize on that fear, casting themselves as the defenders of the people. Ultimately, it is those same local people who must defeat the extremists. Drone strikes make that task harder, not easier, by driving those victimized by anonymous terror-from-the-sky into the arms of terrorists.

  Even if one concedes the morality of killing out-and-out terrorists without trials, that’s not what is really at issue. Sure, drones do kill bad people who perhaps on some level deserve their fate, but they also kill a lot of innocents—usually at the same time. So the question is not just whether it’s morally right to execute killers, but whether it’s right to do so even if that means killing innocent men, women and children—and whether, in the end, doing so really makes us all any safer.