‘We want to make you strong, so that you can make a strong Pakistan as a strong Pakistan is in our interest.’ The words of US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, were made in the context of the repair of schools in Fata and Malakand under USAID assistance. The effort is important: Pakistan Taliban and other militant attacks should never have been directed at the educational system in the first place, least of all in the underdeveloped areas of Khyber Paktunkhwa.
Yet American policy in Pakistan has been curiously dysfunctional and especially since 2004 has followed contradictory aims. For since that year, the US has launched almost 250 drone attacks aimed at targets within Pakistan, almost all of which have been launched from Pakistan itself. Pakistani sources contend that more than 2,500 people have been killed, mostly civilians. This is denied by the US government, by sources within the CIA and even by reputable scholars in the US, who contend that the drones are – uniquely in the history of warfare – completely accurate in their targeting and kill only the ‘bad guys’. Drones remove the ‘high value’ targets who it would be difficult otherwise to neutralize. Or so it is claimed. But is it true? There are campaigners in NGOs in the West such as Clive Stafford Smith of the group Reprieve who argue the Pakistani case that these weapons are much less accurate than is argued by the apologists of the US government.
The fury with which Pakistanis regard the ‘collateral damage’ caused by the drone attacks, especially the killing of children, would be difficult to comprehend if the cases of civilian casualties were not true. Not only are they true, they have been photographed and the photographs have been exhibited publicly. The fact is, that contrary to international law, the US keeps no records of civilian casualties of its drone attacks. It is in denial because this failure to keep records of casualties is a clear violation of international law. A recent report for the Oxford Research Group argues that while ‘the situation in Pakistan is somewhat ... difficult given the governmental protests against drone attacks‘, if the drone attacks are not consensual ‘then it is the United States that must shoulder the international responsibility. However, in the likely event that Pakistan is equally and severally responsible for all of the obligations set out above. Furthermore, Pakistan may have to compensate those families for [its] complicity in these violations.‘
John A. Rizzo, who served as the CIA‘s top lawyer during the Bush administration, said he found it odd that while Bush-era interrogation methods like waterboarding came under sharp scrutiny, ‘all the while, of course, there were lethal operations going on, and ... there was never, as far as I could discern, ... any debate, discussion, questioning ... [that] the United States [was] targeting and killing terrorists.‘ The hub of activity for the targeted killings is the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, where lawyers — there are roughly 10 of them, says Rizzo — write a cable asserting that an individual poses a grave threat to the United States. The cables that were ‘ready for prime time‘, as Rizzo puts it, conclude with the following words: ‘Therefore we request approval for targeting for lethal operation.‘ There was a space provided for the signature of the general counsel, along with the word ‘concurred‘. Rizzo says he saw about one cable each month, and at any given time there were roughly 30 individuals who were targeted. It is Rizzo who is the subject of attempted legal action being pursued in the West on behalf of the relatives of victims of two specific drone attacks in September and December 2009 which are being used as a test case.
Even two American writers who extol the advantages of using drones concede that ‘military operations inside Pakistan do pose international legal problems ... because the United States is technically not at war with Pakistan and because US drone operations in Pakistan are being conducted by the CIA rather than the armed forces. The former violates the UN Charter; the latter arguably violates the rules on lawful combat in the Geneva Conventions. These dynamics create legal problems for US military operations in Pakistan whether they are carried out by drones or by SEAL teams on the ground, as in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden.‘ On the detailed arguments, the briefing report for the Oxford Research clarifies the issues at stake.
All of which makes the aftermath of the visit of the head of Pakistan's chief intelligence service, the ISI, to the United States on 13 July with his request that drone attacks should either be halted or significantly scaled down because of its negative impact on Pakistani public opinion extremely important. A mystery surrounds conflicting views as to whether the request went further, for CIA operatives and all US personnel to abandon the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, the base of operations for the drone strikes. ‘As frustrating as this relationship can sometimes be, Pakistan has been absolutely critical to many of our most significant successes against al Qaida‘, John Brennan, President Barack Obama‘s top counterterrorism adviser, stated on 27 July. ‘I am confident that Pakistan will remain one of our most important counterterrorism partners.‘ The same day, Pakistani Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar was quoted as saying that Pakistan had ended CIA drone flights from Shamsi airfield in Balochistan. Dawn, the principal English language daily in Pakistan, commented on 2 August: ‘if the mystery surrounding Shamsi air base is deep, the one surrounding the exact nature and state of the overall relationship between the US and Pakistan is even deeper. A report in this newspaper yesterday suggested that Pakistan has succumbed to US pressure after American officials warned that curtailing the US presence in Pakistan would lead to a slowdown in the disbursement of aid and technical assistance to the military.‘
Most commentators are likely to suspect that Pakistan has reverted to its traditional posture - for which it has been denounced in the past by US senators and others - of showing public disapproval for US policy towards the country, in order to hold public opinion in line, while secretly acquiescing in US tactics. Former US intelligence chief Dennis Blair has stated that the United States should stop its drone campaign in Pakistan. The CIA’s drone operation aimed at Al Qaeda was backfiring by damaging the US-Pakistan relationship. Even more important is the number of recruits it brings to the ranks of the militant organizations. Jeffrey Addicott, who served as the senior legal adviser to the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, asks: ‘Are we creating more enemies than we‘re killing or capturing by our activities? Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. These families have 10 sons each. You kill one son and you create 9 more enemies. You‘re not winning over the population.‘ Hyperbole perhaps, but the danger is real enough: President Obama‘s key weapon in the war of terror is becoming increasingly an ‘own goal‘ for the United States.
