It’s Hard to Believe, But America is Using Drones to Perpetuate the War on Terror

In the concluding paragraph of an excellent piece in Counterpunch titled, “Reaper Madness: Obama’s Whack-A-Mole Killing Machine,” Doug Noble writes,

“What I’ve tried to show here is something more:  that these military miscreants have also known all along that their drone technology and targeting strategy are militarily bankrupt. They could not but be aware from military history and doctrine that these approaches have absolutely no possibility of defeating terrorist groups or keeping America safe. They must know that in fact the opposite is true, that their nefarious enterprise only further endangers us all. And yet they will continue ever more brazenly their Reaper madness, the scholars here all agree, until we find some way to stop them.”

This begs the question: Why, if the military knows drone strikes are counterproductive, de we keep using drones? I believe there’s only one plausible answer. America must have an enemy. In order to sustain our bloated, massively expensive military/industrial/media complex, we must have an evil “other” to do battle with, to justify the obscene amounts of taxpayer dollars being sucked into the black hole of “national security.”

The end of the Cold War and the communist empire ushered in a vacuum that was quickly filled with a new enemy, international terrorism. The 1990s saw the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, organizations the U.S. helped create and arm, but it wasn’t until the new Pearl Harbor of 9/11 that the war on terror shifted into high gear.

From the American perspective, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were just what the military ordered, but after well over a decade of fighting, it became obvious to even the most hawkish cheerleaders (except Dick Cheney) that the wars were a debacle that did far more harm than good. But we couldn’t just pick up our marbles and go home without somehow continuing the war on terrorists and unfriendly regimes in the region, so we sent in the drones.

Although many experts outside of Washington D.C. agree that the use of drones is ineffective and even counterproductive, Obama is enlarging the program, which for me, means that by the government’s reasoning, that’s exactly the point. Killing civilians means keeping the populace stirred up and angry at America which means more terrorists that we need to fight and the cycle continues ad nauseam. As horrible as it sounds, what other explanation can there be? 

The war on terror is a self-perpetuating farce designed to focus Americans away from the issues we face at home and keep the military/industrial/media complex fat and well-funded.

Drones: Terrorism U.S. Style

Long overdue Congressional hearings are underway examining the Administration’s use of drones in the Middle East. An article in The Verge highlights testimony from a Yemini journalist whose village was bombed only six days earlier in order to take out a single man suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. The strike succeeded in killing the suspected terrorist as well as six other people. Imagine that. You drop a bomb into a populated area and there is collateral damage.

An interesting point brought out in the article is that the Obama Administration claims that it uses drones only in cases where it is “unfeasible” to capture a suspect, but the Yemini witness says there was no reason why the alleged terrorist could not have been arrested by local authorities. I imagine this isn’t the first such case.

What is clear from the hearing so far is that part of the intended purpose of drone bombings is to strike fear in the hearts of would be terrorists. “You want to be a terrorist? Okay, but you’re putting your entire village in danger,” goes the thinking. The reality, however, is that it is magnifying the hatred of America among Muslims and it is being used as a recruiting tool by groups like al Qaeda. We seem to be under the delusion that terrorism actually works except when it is used against us.

All you have to do is look at what we are experiencing right here in the U.S. in the days since the Boston Marathon bombings. Dial up FOX News or Limbaugh or Hannity and you’ll get an earful of anti-Muslim hysteria. What we fail to understand is that their conservative counterparts in Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan are doing the exact same thing to stir up anti-American sentiments.

Drone bombings are wrong on many levels, but perhaps the worst consequence of their use is that they are helping plant the seeds of hatred among young Muslims who are growing up watching innocent people being torn apart by American bombs. 

An innocent life is an innocent life

I grieve for the victims of the tragic Boston bombings yesterday, but at the same time, it is incredibly hypocritical of Obama to talk about finding and bringing to justice the perpetrators as we continue to drop bombs from drones that kill innocent men, women and children. Where is the justice for them?

Our illegal and immoral drone program

Evidence continues to grow that America’s semi-secret drone program is far more complex and far more deadly than anyone in the Obama Administration has let on. The program has been justified over the years as one that only targets senior al-Qeada members, but evidence is mounting that a) targets are far more diverse, and include a variety of low-level Afghan and Pakistani militants, and b) the number of civilians killed is far higher than the Administration or CIA has admitted in public statements.

We are executing “suspected” terrorists who have not been tried and convicted of any crime, and murdering innocent civilians. This is outrageous and criminal.  We are doing it because there is no one on the planet big enough to tell us to stop.

Why is Obama condoning a program that murders innocent civilians? How is it that an individual as intelligent as Obama could be convinced this is a good idea? What if a drug lord from Mexico was hiding in Arizona? Would we tolerate the Mexican government sending over a drone to bomb his hiding place in a Phoenix suburb?

Our drone program is illegal and immoral and the Administration has been lying to us about it. It may have started under Bush, but Obama continues to defend and expand it. He should be shutting it down.