"The
U.S. drone program has no legal basis. Since most of its activities are
concealed, classified as secret and operated by the CIA, how is it even
possible to identify the victims involved in such hostilities? What possibility
does a Pakistani farmer have to appeal against an attack? Who could he bring
to justice? As long as such
questions remain outstanding, the drone attacks must be stopped."
Is a drone "just a plane," as international legal
expert Wolff
Heintschel von Heinegg
stated recently in this newspaper? What difference does it make whether a
soldier is himself at the cockpit controls, or from thousands of miles away, he
operates a joystick to reach his target - to obliterate - human beings? Yes, that makes all the difference,
because the use of unmanned aerial vehicles raises fundamental ethical,
international legal, and human rights issues.
There is no question: remote-controlled bombers make killing
easier. The further away an attacker is from his target, the less inhibited he
is. When controlling a drone over Somalia from a U.S. airbase in Nevada, the
inhibition threshold for pulling the trigger is extremely low. With the click
of a mouse, human lives are exterminated.
Unfortunately,
recent studies confirm that the more remote-controlled drone warfare occurs,
the more human beings will fall victim to it. Ever since U.S. President Barack
Obama chose unmanned missiles as his main weapon in the battle against terror,
there have been more that 300 attacks that killed about 3,000 people - most of
them obviously civilians. Studies from Stanford and New York University have
calculated that for attacks in Pakistan between 2008 and 2011, up to 75 percent
of all victims belonged to the civilian population. Cautious estimates are
based on a ratio of 30 percent. In other words, in three years, these bombers
have killed at least 1,000 people.
It is probably easier to limit attacks like these than it is
conventional bomb raids, but the only ones being protected are U.S. soldiers.
Which brings up another questionable objective of these flying robots: drones
inflict little political cost on the aggressor. A war that doesn't claim many
victims of one's "own" can be more easily sold to the population. Are
drone mission thus also designed to make military intervention more acceptable
to a war-weary society? Is it Washington's strategy to operate without
complaint, as long as no coffins arrive at domestic airports from international
theaters of war?
The U.S. drone program is particularly dubious with regard
to human rights and international law. After all, the U.S. military uses its
missiles within regions America has not declared war: Pakistan, Somalia
and Yemen. Under these circumstances, state-murder is only acceptable when it
is demonstrably necessary to save lives. In that event, the U.S. government
would have to substantiate every single victim. As long as this is not the
case, drone attacks remain "extrajudicial killings" - and thus
serious violations of human rights.
Against this charge, U.S. State Department legal adviser
Harold Koh argues that his country is in an
"armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces." He
claims the attacks took place in the context of a global war, both in
officially-declared war zones and in non-warring countries, or in other words,
everywhere. And that is what makes Koh's argument so
absurd, because according to his rationale, the legal distinction between armed
conflict and peaceful conditions is invalid. On top of that, protests of the
attacks by the Pakistan government have become more frequent.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Even if you accept Koh's premises,
significant legal issues remain. The law of war tolerates targeted killings
only when combatants are "directly involved in hostilities." Such
killings must be proportionate and strategically necessary, and the protection
of civilians must be the top priority. When violations of this law occur,
investigations must be conducted, offenders prosecuted and victims compensated.
We have already discussed the large number of dead civilians. But beyond the
lack of machinery for imposing these guidelines, the U.S. drone program has no
legal basis. Since most of its activities are concealed,
classified as secret and operated by the CIA, how is it even possible to
identify the victims involved in such hostilities? What possibility does a
Pakistani farmer have to appeal against an attack? Who could he bring to justice? As long as
such questions remain outstanding, the drone attacks must be stopped - and the
German government should simply abandon plans to equip the Bindeswar
with unmanned bombers.
