A graffiti depicting a US drone at a street in Sana’a, Yemen© Photo: EPA
The US said it is mapping out a new national security strategy that will be announced in early 2014. The white paper on the next stage of Washington’s war on al-Qaeda will be released at the time of mounting international criticism of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.
Drone airstrikes are one of the main reasons for the spread of anarchy and military conflicts that have been mushrooming around the world. This is according to a report by UN special rapporteurs Ben Emmerson and Christof Heyns who accused the US of carrying out unmanned aerial attacks on foreign soil under the guise of an anti-terror war without borders.
The UN rights ombudsmen argued however that other countries could follow America’s example and justify their overseas operations by the US precedent, thus triggering a domino effect, while British MP Ed Davey said US drone strikes in Pakistan, among others, used loopholes in international laws that don't mention UAVs. Mr. Davey also said Washington "transgressed the sovereignty" of Pakistan by launching airstrikes on its turf.
Meanwhile, a report by the International Crisis Group concluded in May 2013 that drone strikes were "ineffective" at combating terrorism because they left key problems unresolved. A Hellfire missile attack may stop insurgents from crossing into a NATO-controlled zone in Afghanistan; however their ability to regroup, rearm and recruit will remain intact, it claimed. Vladimir Shcherbakov, an expert with the Independent Military Review, disagreed:
"The US has been using its UAVs to target terrorist leaders. It is the absolute rule of war: kill the commander first, it will decapitate an armed group and make it unable to fight. Of course, this position won’t stay vacant, but the cell will be crippled for a while, especially if the killed commander managed all the funds."
Since 2004, unmanned aircraft in Pakistan killed over 20 al-Qaeda leaders, more than 2,200 militants and 400 to 900 civilians. The majority of rebel strongholds sprawl along the Afghanistan border, which lies in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous Pashto tribal area. The area’s status means that controls on the Pakistani troops there are very tight, which makes drones the only means of wiping out al-Qaeda leaders.
But this attitude has already led to a barrage of criticism from the local population and human rights groups worldwide. Vladimir Shcherbakov says that President Obama’s decision to pass the reigns of the CIA-run drone program into the hands of the military has been designed to calm down watchdogs.
"There have been continuous debates on whether it is lawful to eliminate foreign citizens in their own homes using remotely-controlled drones. It’s one thing when the military do this, and quite another when assassinations are the work of an intelligence agency. They are probably shifting the responsibility to increase transparency, although I think this effort is very likely to fail, because the Pentagon has been equally tacit about its operations. Besides, the very idea that the CIA can hand over drone controls to the military at the eleventh hour is a utopia."
All attempts to marry the intelligence and the military have so far been to no avail, partially because the two agencies use different technologies and communications. But the main stumbling block is that the CIA is not quite ready to relinquish its role in the so-called "drone war," the Washington Post says. So we are probably in for more air attacks, until the laws are amended.
Credit to Voice of Russia
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