Overall – how would you describe the events of 9/11?
The coordinated attack using passenger aircraft as lethal weapons of destruction was an unprecedented crime against humanity which traumatized the United States and also the western world and the population of most Muslim-majority countries. It was deliberately precipitated by Usama bin Ladin and his co-conspirators in an attempt to precipitate a clash between the West and the Islamic world (‘clash of civilizations’) that would be favourable to al-Qaeda’s ambitions. The Western intervention in Afghanistan adopted the wrong strategy at the outset but was an understandable reaction: no President of the United States could have left the attack unanswered. What is regrettable is that President George W. Bush and his principal advisers - notably Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld – were excessively preoccupied with using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for what came to be termed ‘regime change’ against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In reality, Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda and the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts were unrelated. This meant that in the long term the war in Iraq diverted vital resources in manpower and money away from Afghanistan and ensured that the war in Afghanistan would become a long and apparently unwinnable struggle.
How has it changed Afghanistan?
Had the Taliban government been prepared to surrender the al-Qaeda leadership in 2001 (and the Kandahar shura was divided on the issue and came close to doing so) an enormous amount of destruction and loss of life would have been prevented. There would still have been a problem for the West in knowing how to deal with the Taliban regime, which had close to pariah state status and was only recognized by three states (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE). But it would at least have been able to separate out the distinctive issues of the pursuit of al-Qaeda – which had perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11 – and the Taliban, who had given them sanctuary but not attacked targets in the West. Targetting both al-Qaeda and the Taliban simultaneously meant that the West made the crucial error of siding with the minority Northern Alliance and thereafter alienating the Pashtun majority. These early errors were compounded by having insufficient western troops on the ground and backing a corrupt and ineffective government headed by Hamid Karzai, who was called by bin Ladin ‘the mayor of Kabul’, thereby implying that he was a western stooge.
Pakistan?
Here the effect has been huge. Before 9/11 Pakistan had almost no problem with domestic terrorism. It was a fairly safe country for the westerner to move around in and there seemed reasonable hope that it could develop rapidly both economically and politically. The effect of the war in Afghanistan has been to create a significant insurgency within Pakistan itself, which is largely Pashtun-based and has some links to the Pashtun-based Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Immediately after 9/11, the US forced the Musharraf regime to reverse its foreign policy with regard to Afghanistan; but this has been unsustainable in the longer term. Once the US declared its wish to reduce its military commitment in Afghanistan drastically by 2014, Pakistan has increasingly had to plan for a future when it is once more on its own in dealing with its regional neighbours. And – hugely significant, but largely unreported in the West – President Obama’s escalation of Bush’s policy of drone attacks has done enormous harm to the US-Pakistan relationship. This has policy has become an ‘own goal’ for the US in the war on terror. On this, see the detailed arguments elsewhere in my blog.
Iraq?
Iraq’s infrastructure was seriously damaged by the allied invasion in 2003. This was an indirect consequence of 9/11, because George W. Bush was mistakenly convinced that Saddam Hussein ‘had to have been’ involved in those events. Another consequence has been the heightened sectarianism in Iraq and the involvement of Iran in its internal affairs. It remains to be seen whether a unified and stable Iraq can emerge from the mess of the war: once the tensions between Shia and Sunni have come out into the open, they are very difficult to remedy within a unified state.
The Middle East?
There have been significant al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda linked threats to Saudi Arabia (which were overcome), Yemen and Somalia (which have not been resolved). The political upheaval in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria is completely unrelated to al-Qaeda, however, which demonstrates how little impact – perhaps surprisingly – the events of 9/11 have had on the Middle East, which is proceeding at its own pace of development on internal issues.
Is the world safer since 9/11?
To the extent that there is a greater awareness of the threat from transnational terrorist groups, and cooperation between intelligence services, yes. But in the larger sense no, because by the very nature of terrorism – its random attacks on people unconnected with the conflict that motivates the attacker – soft targets are chosen and the timing is random and unpredictable. It is very difficult for governments, particularly in democratic countries with respect for civil liberties, to defend large urban populations at all times against every eventuality. It is therefore probable that terrorism will continue to be a significant problem, with the greatest danger posed by individuals and small groups who have little or no track record in previous acts of terrorism and are therefore not perceived as a threat by the security services: the recent atrocity committed in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik is a case in point.
Did the Bush administration overreact?
Yes, and predictably so. The issue was not so much that the United States would react militarily – this was inevitable since 9/11 was seen as a worse attack than Pearl Harbor in 1941 – but the ideological aspects of the response and the dysfunctional and chaotic organization of the war effort were hugely negative factors. On all this, my book False Prophets: the ‘clash of civilizations’ and the global war on terror (2008) highlights the issues. Most important of all, because the US was determined to intervene in Iraq, it took its eye off developments in Afghanistan, which was seriously under resourced in numbers of troops: this allowed the Taliban to regroup and bid for power once more.
Did US actions result in an anti-US coalition?/ increased anti-US sentiment?
There is strong opinion poll evidence that it did create anti-US sentiment in both the Middle East and Pakistan. This has not led to the formation of an anti-US coalition both because the US is too powerful and because of the differing interests of states in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, for example, is more preoccupied with the threat from Iran than any threat from the US. Al-Qaeda sought to exploit the Israel—Palestinian conflict for its own purposes but this has been largely unsuccessful.
In British terms, what were the effects of 9/11 – and of the subsequent 7/7 attacks on the Tube and the bus in London?
People at first could not quite imagine that any British-born Muslims would come out and side so openly with bin Ladin and the international jihadists as did the 7/7 terrorists. This has led to a great deal of soul searching and some degree of muddled response. The Muslim communities in the UK have been under pressure to police their own young people and Britain’s long and – on the whole respectable – treatment of religious and ethnic minorities has been criticized at home and abroad. Yet a modern multicultural and multi-faith society with liberal values has to operate more or less in the open way that Britain has done. We need to take care not to throw out the good in a drive towards making our society safer from home-grown terrorism. It’s a difficult balance to strike and the development of appropriate policies is not helped by the fact that it has become a party political issue.
Have the wounds of 9/11 healed?
Certainly not in the US, Afghanistan or Pakistan. Perhaps more so in Britain, but there will be significant political fallout when the commission of enquiry on Britain’s intervention in Iraq, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, finally reports. This is likely to demonstrate how slavishly Tony Blair followed the line of George W. Bush, and question whether the intervention in Iraq was either legal under international law or justified by the threat which Saddam Hussein was said to pose to international security and the security of Britain. This is all only an indirect consequence of 9/11, but we need to remember that in the aftermath of these events George W. Bush was determined to ‘prove’ that in some way Saddam’s hand was behind the attacks on the US and that his regime posed a greater threat even than bin Ladin and al-Qaeda. Whatever one may think of Obama’s policy, his concentration on bin Ladin and al-Qaeda is a corrective to the Bush strategy.
Where were you on 9/11?
I was in a hotel room in Pakistan and watched the events live on TV. I watched with horror – as so many around the world did – knowing that the world would never be quite the same again, but praying in confidence that the insane objectives of al-Qaeda would not be supported by the Muslim world. The unequivocal condemnation of terrorism by Muslim-majority states was a notable feature of the weeks and months after 9/11: in that sense, Bush and Blair had a huge amount of international support which they managed to dissipate through their mistaken policies.
And your reaction then as you watched the towers fall?
A military response from the US was inevitable, but in an address made at a Christian church in Rawalpindi I made the distinction between the sort of response which I felt was likely – what I considered would be an overreaction and would make everything worse – and a somewhat slower, better conceived and internationally coordinated response which would reap better long-term dividends for the cause of international peace. I still believe that George W. Bush and his advisers – especially Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld – largely played into the hands of Usama bin Ladin and reacted in the way he hoped they would. Fortunately for the world, bin Ladin was unable to bring about the anti-US or anti-West coalition he had hoped the events of 9/11, and the US response to those events, would achieve.
25 August 2011
22 August 2011
Ownership-building measures for Kashmir
‘The idea of progressing from CBMs (confidence-building measures) to OBMs (ownership-building measures) is to revert the problem-solving ambit back into the hands of the primary stakeholders, viz. the 20 million or so people living across the breadth of the divided State.’ Thus wrote Tanveer Ahmed on 19 April this year in The Rising Kashmir.
The literature on OBMs, ownership-building measures, is as yet in its infancy. In order to consider further the question of ownership, the author had to consult some of the literature on measuring performance in capacity building interventions. Ownership, Gene Ogiogio writes, ‘can be described as the extent to which a country, an organization or a group of stakeholders has unrestricted influence or control over a resource, an activity, process or an output. Unless a capacity-building process is owned by its stakeholders, it is not likely to be sustainable. Ownership and sustainability are therefore two sides of the same coin.’ Ownership in capacity building interventions centres around three main issues: 1) Ownership of the financial resources with which capacity is built. 2) Ownership of the capacity (human skills and institutions) that generate policies and programs for development. 3) Ownership of the policies and programs that result from the skills and institutions used (capacity). In measuring the level of local ownership in capacity building, it is desirable to take all components of the ownership factor into consideration. ‘In summary’, Ogogio writes, ‘ownership in capacity building measures ownership of the financial resources through which interventions are made, ownership of the skills and institutions resulting from the interventions, and ownership of the policies and programs that result from the capacity building interventions. If skills, institutions, policies and programs are not owned locally after interventions in capacity building, then such intervention is still far from successful.’
The first and fundamental innovation in moving from a CBM-based to an OBM-based future for Kashmir is to develop a mechanism whereby the genesis, planning and implementation of future measures for peace rests with the people of the divided Kashmir. Not only do they need to understand and own the confidence-building measures for their future sustainability; they need to plan and own that which is likely to be of greatest benefit to themselves. Others can, and do, imagine these things for them. This contribution imagines these things on behalf of those who at present have no voice. But the important thing for the future is to imagine in what way the people themselves might have a voice and a say in which ownership-building measures will bring about the greatest benefit to themselves in the shortest possible timeframe.
At the outset, such a future seems to have little likelihood of being achievable because of the close attention of the two proximate states with the greatest interest in the security and sovereignty aspects of Kashmir’s future. Here, however, it is possible to argue that India and Pakistan have every reason to concentrate on the issues of security and sovereignty and favour a detailed solution to the Kashmir problem that delegates as much of the non-security related responsibilities as possible to the local level – at the very least, this serves to divert the focus away from the intractable international politics of peace-making with the high stakes on failure or success.
The former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir has suggested among his twelve CBMs the setting up of a Joint Pakistan-India-Kashmir Development Fund. This is indeed desirable, but requires a prior measure in order to secure the effectiveness of this development fund or any aid received from abroad. Development funding should be conditional on the nature of the NGOs or other local stakeholders planning the CBMs or carrying out the identified tasks within Kashmir. The highest priority, it is suggested here, is to identify the local NGOs or stakeholders who alone can propose ownership-building measures which will bring about the greatest benefit to all Kashmiris in the shortest possible timeframe. Caution is needed and attention needs to be paid to the Bosnian example. There, as Roberto Belloni argues, ‘instead of providing incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation, foreign monies and market-oriented reforms gave further opportunities to ethnic elites to enrich themselves...’ Even the strategy of direct funding of NGOs had little success. Bosnian NGOs ended up depending too much on foreign funding and therefore tended to reflect the priorities of their funders rather than articulating and addressing the views of local communities. Sectarian organizations, Belloni writes, ‘perpetuate the divisions within society and can contribute to political polarization and continuing confrontation between groups. Although these divisions complicate the tasks of international agencies, they do not make it impossible, but it requires a judicious assessment of the local reality and careful support to those groups which strive to promote civic politics instead of ethnic politics, and social and political spaces of dialogue instead of ethnic or national segregation.’
The US Ambassador to India placed the ‘strengthen[ing of] civil society by making it easier for NGOs to operate’ last in his list of 20 CBMs in 2009. With the amendment to ‘the strengthening of civil society by making it easier for NGOs to operate across the LoC’ it is suggested that this should be the first and most important CBM – because it is the only one which will lead predictably to an OBM-based future for Kashmir, whereby the genesis, planning and implementation of future measures for peace rests with the people of the divided Kashmir. The priority is to strengthen civil society in the two parts of divided Kashmir by empowering NGOs which are genuinely pluralistic bodies in all senses of the term – in their political origins, and in their ethnic, religious and linguistic composition. They may not exist at present, or only in embryonic form. The task of international stakeholders is to bring them about.
At a conference in April this year, the OSCE affirmed:
Non-military confidence-building measures (CBMs), employed alone or alongside other rehabilitation and reconciliation instruments, can be effective tools to reduce tensions, guard against a relapse to further conflict/crisis and build trust between the sides to the conflict/crisis, including as part of stabilization and peace-building efforts. However, their success and sustainability depend on the genuine will of the sides to employ them. Local ownership is essential. Nevertheless, the international community has an important supporting role: to convince the sides of the utility of CBMs, to assist in the development and implementation of balanced and effective CBMs; and, to act as a third party if/when/where appropriate.
It is proposed that non-military CBMs/OBMs should be evaluated for their feasibility and the processes whereby they might be implemented. A good model for such work is the briefing on trade across the LoC published by Conciliation Resources in partnership with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (New Delhi) and the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Reform and Transparency (Islamabad): the briefing, entitled Intra Kashmir Trade, was published in January 2011.
The literature on OBMs, ownership-building measures, is as yet in its infancy. In order to consider further the question of ownership, the author had to consult some of the literature on measuring performance in capacity building interventions. Ownership, Gene Ogiogio writes, ‘can be described as the extent to which a country, an organization or a group of stakeholders has unrestricted influence or control over a resource, an activity, process or an output. Unless a capacity-building process is owned by its stakeholders, it is not likely to be sustainable. Ownership and sustainability are therefore two sides of the same coin.’ Ownership in capacity building interventions centres around three main issues: 1) Ownership of the financial resources with which capacity is built. 2) Ownership of the capacity (human skills and institutions) that generate policies and programs for development. 3) Ownership of the policies and programs that result from the skills and institutions used (capacity). In measuring the level of local ownership in capacity building, it is desirable to take all components of the ownership factor into consideration. ‘In summary’, Ogogio writes, ‘ownership in capacity building measures ownership of the financial resources through which interventions are made, ownership of the skills and institutions resulting from the interventions, and ownership of the policies and programs that result from the capacity building interventions. If skills, institutions, policies and programs are not owned locally after interventions in capacity building, then such intervention is still far from successful.’
The first and fundamental innovation in moving from a CBM-based to an OBM-based future for Kashmir is to develop a mechanism whereby the genesis, planning and implementation of future measures for peace rests with the people of the divided Kashmir. Not only do they need to understand and own the confidence-building measures for their future sustainability; they need to plan and own that which is likely to be of greatest benefit to themselves. Others can, and do, imagine these things for them. This contribution imagines these things on behalf of those who at present have no voice. But the important thing for the future is to imagine in what way the people themselves might have a voice and a say in which ownership-building measures will bring about the greatest benefit to themselves in the shortest possible timeframe.
At the outset, such a future seems to have little likelihood of being achievable because of the close attention of the two proximate states with the greatest interest in the security and sovereignty aspects of Kashmir’s future. Here, however, it is possible to argue that India and Pakistan have every reason to concentrate on the issues of security and sovereignty and favour a detailed solution to the Kashmir problem that delegates as much of the non-security related responsibilities as possible to the local level – at the very least, this serves to divert the focus away from the intractable international politics of peace-making with the high stakes on failure or success.
The former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir has suggested among his twelve CBMs the setting up of a Joint Pakistan-India-Kashmir Development Fund. This is indeed desirable, but requires a prior measure in order to secure the effectiveness of this development fund or any aid received from abroad. Development funding should be conditional on the nature of the NGOs or other local stakeholders planning the CBMs or carrying out the identified tasks within Kashmir. The highest priority, it is suggested here, is to identify the local NGOs or stakeholders who alone can propose ownership-building measures which will bring about the greatest benefit to all Kashmiris in the shortest possible timeframe. Caution is needed and attention needs to be paid to the Bosnian example. There, as Roberto Belloni argues, ‘instead of providing incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation, foreign monies and market-oriented reforms gave further opportunities to ethnic elites to enrich themselves...’ Even the strategy of direct funding of NGOs had little success. Bosnian NGOs ended up depending too much on foreign funding and therefore tended to reflect the priorities of their funders rather than articulating and addressing the views of local communities. Sectarian organizations, Belloni writes, ‘perpetuate the divisions within society and can contribute to political polarization and continuing confrontation between groups. Although these divisions complicate the tasks of international agencies, they do not make it impossible, but it requires a judicious assessment of the local reality and careful support to those groups which strive to promote civic politics instead of ethnic politics, and social and political spaces of dialogue instead of ethnic or national segregation.’
The US Ambassador to India placed the ‘strengthen[ing of] civil society by making it easier for NGOs to operate’ last in his list of 20 CBMs in 2009. With the amendment to ‘the strengthening of civil society by making it easier for NGOs to operate across the LoC’ it is suggested that this should be the first and most important CBM – because it is the only one which will lead predictably to an OBM-based future for Kashmir, whereby the genesis, planning and implementation of future measures for peace rests with the people of the divided Kashmir. The priority is to strengthen civil society in the two parts of divided Kashmir by empowering NGOs which are genuinely pluralistic bodies in all senses of the term – in their political origins, and in their ethnic, religious and linguistic composition. They may not exist at present, or only in embryonic form. The task of international stakeholders is to bring them about.
At a conference in April this year, the OSCE affirmed:
Non-military confidence-building measures (CBMs), employed alone or alongside other rehabilitation and reconciliation instruments, can be effective tools to reduce tensions, guard against a relapse to further conflict/crisis and build trust between the sides to the conflict/crisis, including as part of stabilization and peace-building efforts. However, their success and sustainability depend on the genuine will of the sides to employ them. Local ownership is essential. Nevertheless, the international community has an important supporting role: to convince the sides of the utility of CBMs, to assist in the development and implementation of balanced and effective CBMs; and, to act as a third party if/when/where appropriate.
It is proposed that non-military CBMs/OBMs should be evaluated for their feasibility and the processes whereby they might be implemented. A good model for such work is the briefing on trade across the LoC published by Conciliation Resources in partnership with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (New Delhi) and the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Reform and Transparency (Islamabad): the briefing, entitled Intra Kashmir Trade, was published in January 2011.
03 August 2011
DRONE WARS IN PAKISTAN: WHEN THE KEY ELEMENT IN THE WAR ON TERROR BECOMES AN ‘OWN GOAL’
‘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.
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.
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