AmericanWrite

“Fear the Reaper”: Why Drone Strikes Against Al-Qaeda are Legal.

2011-11-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

America’s message to anyone who wants to take up armsagainst the United States: “Fear the Reaper”

He didn’t hear it coming. He didn’t see it circling overhead. But Anwar Al-Awlaki sure got themessage when a Hellfire air to surface missile slammed into his convoy in Yemenlast week killing him and another American member of Al-Qaeda.

The Predator Drone and MQ-9 Reaper Drone are at theforefront of military and intelligence technology. They allow the United States Air Force and C.I.A. to reachout and touch somebody…with extreme prejudice…anywhere in the world withoutputting American servicemen at risk of being killed or captured. But how does our drone war against Al-Qaedaand its affiliates sit in relation to domestic and international law?

The answer…the drone war is entirely legal and justifiedunder U.S. law and international law. Both the C.I.A. and the Department of Defense have the legal authority,though stemming from varied locations, to launch these strikes.

Department of Defense

It is easy to forget or to downplay the importance of theUnited Nations these days and many are not too fond of the organization. The reality however, is that the U.N.Charter actually is a useful tool for the United States to use in our waragainst Al-Qaeda and its allies.

Article 51 of the U.N. Charter provides for national self-defenseunder international law. In short,as a signatory of the U.N. Charter, the United States may defend itself usingmilitarily necessary means that are proportionate to the threat posed by theproposed target of the use of force.

There is no more discriminating and narrowly tailored toolin the hands of the DOD for defending America from our enemies abroad than theU.S. Special Forces and the MQ-9 Reaper Drone. These are two very different weapons systems but both meetthe requirements to legally strike at enemies while not violating the laws ofarmed conflict.

As a general rule, a nation is allowed to defend itself aslong as it makes efforts to prevent or limit collateral damage, uses aproportionate amount of force to the perceived threat, and does not violate thecommon article three provision of the Geneva Conventions, that all personsfound on the battle field are treated humanely. This means you cannot use weapons calculated to make atarget suffer. The point isneutralizing the target rendering the threat moot. An example of this would be that it is ok to use a bulletbut it is not ok to use a bullet intentionally tipped with bacteria or designedto tumble on impact causing a substantially more grievous wound.

While as the Supreme Court of the United States has noted,the Geneva Conventions do apply to all persons found on the battlefield (lawfulcombatants, unlawful combatants, and civilians), they do not preclude the useof deadly force on known threats. As long as the force used is not calculated to inflict unnecessarysuffering and is meant to neutralize any threat from the target, a drone strikecomplies with the international law of war.

The drone gives commanders the capability to use smartweapons to take out terrorists in an apartment building across the street froma school and a hospital while not damaging the school or hospital. This is precisely what internationallaw calls for and we are well within out rights to carry out these strikes. The argument can even be made that the ueof drones allows the United States to more carefully adhere to the law of armedconflict.

Central IntelligenceAgency

It is a common misconception of many who decry the C.I.A.’suse of military technology that the C.I.A. must follow the law of war. By definition, the C.I.A. is a civilianagency and therefore must only comply with general international human rightslaw and domestic law. The GenevaConventions only apply in time of hostilities at a level similar to the Libyan rebellionand do not apply to civilian policing or non-military incidents. Therefore, assuming that the C.I.A.drone strike does not violate U.S. or international law, it is entirelyjustified.

But what domestic and international laws do apply? Human rights law generally precludesthe use of deadly force unless in self-defense. But there can be little debate that a strike against personsactively planning terrorist attacks on the United States classifies asself-defense. It does and there isnot much to any argument to the contrary.

As to domestic law the same generally applies. Self-Defense is the key legal conceptthat allows for the use of deadly force against known terrorists. Many detractors of the drone war pointto Executive Order 12333. Theorder deals specifically with the intelligence community but also prohibits anyemployee of the United States government from participating in or planningassassinations.

There is no clear definition of assassination in the lawhowever it has generally been understood to mean a politically motivatedkilling of a political leader. Essentially Executive Order 12333 merely prohibits the killing of aforeign national for exclusively political reasons and does not preclude theuse of deadly force to eliminate a threat to our national security.

Conclusions

No matter how you cut it, whether it is the C.I.A. of theU.S. Air Force flying the mission, a drone strike on a known Al-Qaeda operativeactively planning strikes against the United States is legal and justified.

With Friends Like These: The Precarious Pakistani Problem

2011-10-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Where I grew up life was pretty straightforward. By that I mean you knew who was your friend and you knew who wasn’t. I think the same can be said for most of Middle America. The international community is not quite so simple, and every day our national security rests largely on the status of our relations with our “friends” abroad.

The only problem is that sometimes those friends look more like enemies and our nation is forced to rethink our relationships with nations we thought we could count on. Case in point: Pakistan.

On paper Pakistan is supposed to be an ally of the United States. It is a nuclear armed predominantly Muslim state with the world’s seventh largest military. Pakistan borders Afghanistan, Iran, China, and India meaning it is strategically important to the United States. President after President has worked to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan. The Central Asian state has been the beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid and has been able to stay the advance of their perpetual counter balance, India.

According to a 2007 New York Times article, the U.S. government was sending more than a billion dollars a year to support the Pakistani military in 2001 and massive expenditures continue into the second decade of the 21st century. CNN reported that in the past eight years the United States has bankrolled the Pakistanis to the tune of $20 billion. This as the U.S. domestic economy has suffered continued setbacks.

One would expect the Pakistanis to be grateful for the generous and unyielding financial support the United States continues to provide them. Unfortunately for us, our “good pals” in Islamabad look more like enemies.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the fact that Osama Bin Laden was finally taken out by U.S. Special Forces in Pakistan. But the important footnote to “Operation Geronimo” is that Bin Laden was not only brought down in Pakistan, but that he was brought down in Abbottabad, Pakistan, home to Pakistan’s military academy. To put this in prospective, that is the equivalent to him being found hiding out in a mansion located in West Point, New York. Either the Pakistani military is inept beyond belief or somebody in the immense bureaucracy that is the Pakistani armed forces knew just what was going on in Abbottabad and looked the other way, hiding the world’s most wanted man from the United States.

In 2007, a U.S. Major was killed after Pakistani troops inexplicably opened fire on U.S. and Afghan negotiators who were attempting to clear up a border dispute in which Pakistani troops seized an Afghan outpost along the unmarked border between the two nations.

Next in the long chain of questionable actions on the part of our “good pals” in Islamabad comes the ISI’s backing of the Taliban. The ISI is Pakistan’s equivalent to the Central Intelligence Agency or KGB. The ISI is actively supporting the Haqqani network, a group of Taliban/Al Qaeda aligned terrorists operating along the Pak-Afghan border. As Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs put it last week in his final testimony before Congress before his retirement, “the Haqqanis are a veritable arm of the [ISI].”

Mullen laid out the stark facts that have been proven by credible evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence services and the military. The ISI was behind the September 2011 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and truck bombing of a NATO position in Kabul killing five and injuring 77 troops. Further, Mullen pointed out that the ISI was also behind the June attack on the International Hotel in Kabul.

These revelations seem to have shattered U.S. Pakistani relations. The Pakistani government has sharply denied any involvement with the Haqqanis. In comments to the press the Pakistani Interior minister claimed that Pakistan is not supporting the Haqanis but would also not support a U.S. cross border strike into Pakistan, something the Pakistanis have to fear given the unraveling of U.S.-Pakistani relations.

The Pakistani press has been reporting that the commanders of Pakistan’s military have had an emergency meeting regarding this issue and there seems to be a real concern that U.S. forces will cross the border to strike at the terrorist enclave that is Waziristan, a tribal region in North West Pakistan.

Perhaps lost on many in this international incident is the fact that we have effectively been paying the Pakistanis to keep their own house in order. They have failed to do so, and as a result there is a serious threat that the Afghan War will spill over into Pakistan resulting in a standoff between us and our “good friends” the Pakistanis. How this situation resolves itself rests entirely on Pakistan. With they stand for global peace and security or for radical Islamism? We will have to wait and see but the trend certainly supports the latter.

Yemen received an important lesson in the value of cooperating with the United States in the War on Terror with the drone strike killing Anwar Al-Awlaki. The message was simple; the United States can and will get our man with or without your support, but things go much more smoothly and you will have our support in the future when you are on our side.