Newly Released Drone Death Toll Lowballs Reality

Last Friday, the Obama Administration released its estimate of civilians killed in US airstrikes outside of war zones. The figures covered President Obama's first 7 years in office, and they appear to have significantly underestimated the actual civilian death toll. The Obama Administration put the range of civilian casualties between 64 and 116 over this span. Meanwhile, independent organizations place the number far higher. For example, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that between 380 and 801 civilians have been killed by US airstrikes outside of war zones over the same period.

Since the United States long-ago dispensed with the tedious business of actually declaring war, it may not be obvious what countries count as war zones these days--or countries with "active hostilities" to use the government's term. For the purposes of this data, the government has defined the relevant non-war countries to be Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. It was not immediately obvious whether Libya would have been considered a country of "active hostilities" during the NATO intervention in 2011. Based on how low the overall numbers are, however, it seems safe to assume casualties from that conflict are not included.

As a general rule, steps toward greater transparency in government tend to be a good thing. Unfortunately, these estimates are so low that it's fair to question the objectivity and thoroughness of the government's investigation. The US Government likely has access to more extensive resources and tools to gather information on these events than journalists scouring the news. This may explain some of the gap in estimates. However, it cannot explain all of it. Indeed, as a casual observer of this subject, I can think of a few isolated atrocities perpetrated by US strikes that, by themselves, eclipse the lower estimates provided by the government:

• Cruise missile strike on al Majala in Yemen, killing an estimated 41 people (on the low-end), in late 2009.
• Drone strike on a wedding convoy in Yemen, killing between 15 to 27 civilians, in 2013
• Drone strike on Pakistani tribal meeting, killing at least 40 civilians, in 2011 

I can get to nearly 100 casualties using just 3 attacks. Thus, for the government figures to be reliable, they would need to have killed no more than 20 civilians in the remaining 470 airstrikes they acknowledged. Who thinks they achieved that?

Of course, the real story here is not about numbers. Numbers matter because they help us understand the scale and scope of the injustice that US policies have perpetrated against people in other countries. Ethically, however, there isn't a number above zero that can be justified. The US should not be engaged in a continuous global assassination campaign. Full stop.

I realize this may seem like a radical position given that "even" the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Obama has used assassination missile strikes as his tactic of choice in the War on Terror. However, this position becomes the obvious one when we attempt to place ourselves in the shoes of the countries being attacked. A quick thought experiment may be helpful to prove this point.

Imagine a suspected terrorist is identified in Topeka, Kansas and the guy's house happens to be located next to an elementary school. Let's further assume that the government actually has very compelling evidence to support the idea that this individual truly is a dangerous terrorist. And explosions being what they are, it's not possible to hit the house without also damaging the nearby playground and school buildings. In this circumstance, would it be okay for the government to launch a drone strike on his house to neutralize the threat? What if the government did it on a weekend, so they could be nearly certain that no children would be around to be killed at the adjacent school? Then would it be okay?*

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that most Americans would reflexively oppose missile strikes on Topeka. But why do we feel that way? Most likely, it's because the concept of collateral damage, even when it's accidental, becomes instantly toxic when it is changed from an abstract phrase to a real world policy that is close to home. This is particularly true when we're discussing places that do not have active hostilities (at least not with the US).

But if we can't justify a missile strike on Topeka (or any other Western city), how can we justify such a strike in Yemen? Practical distinctions can be made here, but ethical distinctions cannot. Unless your concept of justice involves preferential treatment to certain nationalities, races, religions, etc. we must conclude the hypothetical drone strike on a Kansas school is essentially equivalent to the very real assassination strikes carried out in Yemen and elsewhere.

Returning to our main story, the Obama Administration's new civilian casualty disclosures are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it appears to be a step toward transparency. On the other, the data appears to clearly underestimate the casualties, and it fails to provide a sufficient level of detail that would allow different reports to be reconciled. It is important to keep an eye on the bigger issue--namely whether America can or should be entitled to assassinate people in other countries. We may never determine exactly how many civilians have been killed in America's global assassination strike program, but we can know how many such deaths would be acceptable. None at all.

*And yes, I realize that no likely US government would seriously consider such a tactic. It could be argued that this hypothetical is invalid since the US justifies its assassination decisions partly on the idea that it cannot conceivably capture the individual, due to the lack of a strong / friendly enough government to assist us. In a US context, this clearly would not be true.

I would argue that the capture alternative technically exists in the foreign context as well, even if the host government will not do so. The US has set a precedent (just or not) that this option is on the table, after it engaged in a cross-border night raid to capture Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, without the Pakistani government's permission. Additionally, the US also has the resources to do it since special forces are deployed throughout the Middle East. The resulting cost might be higher than a local SWAT raid, but it is an option.

A First-hand Account of the US Kill List

There's a new and horrifying first-hand account of the US drone war that recently made it into a mainstream news publication. Over at The Independent in the UK, they present the story of Malik Jalal, a Pakistani man that is trying to get off the US's "Kill List".

At this point, the skeptical reader might reasonably wonder how exactly one learns that they are on the Kill List. After all, it's not like you can just call up a Congressman to ask. (And given the US's history of accidentally targeting people based on similar names or misinterpretations, it's not entirely clear how reliable such a service would be at any rate.) No, instead, Jalal has learned of his status by experiencing multiple brushes with death at the hands of drones. These included the following:

• When an SUV identical to his own was behind him on the road and struck by a drone missile
• When he lent his car to his nephew to go get an oil change, and the mechanic's shop was bombed by drones
• When he was on his way to a friend's house and saw the house get bombed before he arrived
• When he told friends he would meet them for lunch, and the place of the meeting was also bombed before his arrival
• When he was running late to tribal jirga (roughly akin to a townhall or city council meeting), and the jirga was bombed, killing at least 40 people.

Of course, there are a few ways we could interpret this story. On the one hand, some will certainly try to downplay it and claim he has made it up. But this doesn't really seem like the kind of thing people would use to get 15 minutes of fame. As a general rule, if you live in a targeted region of the world and speak Arabic, making loud statements about the depredations of US foreign policy is probably a bad move if you have an interest in self-preservation. That's a horrible reality, but we should acknowledge that it probably is a reality. After all, it's not like any of the people targeted for assassination are ever proven guilty, so there's nothing at all standing in the way of targeting simple critics and calling them militants later. It goes without saying that most of the media will not challenge that determination.

Given the circumstances above, it's unlikely Jalal has fabricated this story. Thus, we are left with two equally abhorrent alternatives for understanding his story. Either he really is on the Kill List (for no reason, as we'll see), or drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan are so commonplace that he and others have brushes with death on a regular basis. To err on the hopeful side (I guess?), let's assume he's really being targeted.

Then what explains his targeting? Well, he's part of a local group called the North Waziristan Peace Committee that has been trying to restore order to Waziristan tribal region that has been among the hardest hit by the "War on Terror". As part of their mediation efforts, they often engage in negotiations with the Taliban and other militant groups, who are players in the region. Additionally, he was quoted in 2011 expressing criticism and anger at US foreign policy. Those are the best guesses that Jalal and his lawyers have to offer about why he managed to wind up on the Kill List.

And while it's obviously possible he was engaged in other actions that powerful nations might find objectionable, all that proves is the necessity of having due process. In his case, no government agency volunteered any information to attempt to justify his apparent targeting for assassination.

Taking a step back from the Orwellian absurdity described above, there's also the human component. In a recent interview on The Scott Horton Show, Jalal explains that he eventually took to sleeping outside his family home in the hopes that his family wouldn't become collateral damage. Here's his telling of it via a translator [emphasis mine]:

I went outside and slept under the tree and the 7-years-old son of mine, Bilal, he came up to me and he also wanted to spend the night there. And when I said to him, 'Don't worry. You can go home and sleep there; they [the US] wouldn't kill a child.' And he answered back saying, 'How do you know, Father, that they won't kill a child? I, myself, have seen with my own eyes children being killed by drones. So don't tell me they don't target children.'

That's a 7-year-old who already has a rational fear of his own mortality, thanks to US policies.

And if the emotional angle doesn't do it for you, there's always the fact that all of this is unbelievably counterproductive. After enduring the constant presence of armed drones flying overhead for the entirety of President Obama's tenure and part of President Bush's reign before that, there can be no doubt how the vast majority of the affected populations must feel about the United States government. If anyone still asks "why do they hate us?", certainly, the drone assassination program must register in the top 10.

Fortunately, at least to this point, relatively few Muslims and Arabs have become outraged and desperate enough to sacrifice their own life in pursuit of revenge. But every day that goes by with an armed drone circling overhead, and every strike with its inevitable collateral damage, pushes more and more people towards the extremes. Millions of people in Muslim countries live knowing that, if the sky is clear and they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, their lives could end at any moment from a hellfire missile. If the word terrorism is to have any coherent meaning at all, the US drone program would be the epitome of it.

In closing, Jalal's story is a reminder of the horrors US foreign policy under Democrats and Republicans alike. The assassination program destroys innocent lives, inspires more radical anti-American sentiments in its wake, and operates without the pretense of due process. And even if no major politician in this election cycle is going to oppose this policy,* you should.

*Yes, that includes Bernie. His opposition to the death penalty only applies to domestic criminals that receive a trial; foreigners that do not receive a trial are totally fair game, as long as they're from a sufficiently obscure country.

US Kills 150 People in Somalia; Media Offers Collective Shrug

The ongoing US assassination program just completed one of its most deadly strikes on record in the country of Somalia, killing an estimated 150 people. Rest assured though, the US government said that all the victims were "militants". The US government also stated that the airstrikes were in self-defense, so you know, no big deal.

Of course, the US isn't actually at war in Somalia. No evidence has been provided as to the identity of any of the dead. And no details have been provided as to precisely who these 150 people were allegedly threatening that necessitated their execution. The Pentagon press release merely indicated that the attack was on an al Shabaab training camp.

Yet in spite of the clear lack of information, the killing of 150 people in a neutral country does not entail a scandal or even warrant comments from the President of the United States. It's just a normal event. The Pentagon's version of events was reported uncritically throughout most of the US media. Not enough details were offered to really corroborate the story, and no major US outlet bothered to try. Somalia is pretty far away, after all.

If this sounds problematic, it should. A few important questions come to mind:

• What is al Shabaab and why is the US trying to kill its members?
• How can we assume all 150 people were not civilians given that the US government has a policy of labeling all fighting-age males as militants, until proven otherwise?
• How can we exclusively trust the US government's version of events, given that it has a vested interest in how the story gets reported? 
• Why are there US troops in Somalia to be threatened in the first place?
• Is it remotely legal for a country to assassinate people in a foreign country with which it is not at war?

On the question of al Shabaab, the background is both important and informative. When the War on Terror kicked off in 2001, Somalia remained largely ungoverned. In this void, the US backed local warlords in Somalia to engage in counterterrorism activities, even though none of the 9/11hijackers were from Somalia. Being warlords, however, they grabbed what power they could and committed various forms of brutality. After a few years of escalating civil war, a group of Somali religious leaders put together a coalition of groups that was finally able to marginalize the warlords and establish some semblance of authority and stability in Somalia. This coalition was called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and al Shabaab, which means "the youth," was a minor subgroup within this coalition.

Unfortunately, the US government was unwilling to tolerate Islamic self-government in Somalia. So the US supported neighboring Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, in an attempt to weaken or overthrow the new Somali government. After two more years of chaos and violence, Somalia eventually drove the Ethiopians out in 2008, led by the fighters of Al Shabaab. With Ethiopia out, the leaders of the ICU agreed to make a deal with the US and use a secular form of government that the US preferred. But the Al Shabaab movement denounced the deal as betrayal, and effectively declared another round of civil war. At this point, after being emboldened and radicalized by years of fighting, Al Shabaab also declared allegiance to Al Qaeda and thus made its way onto the US hit list, where it remains today. In effect, Al Shabaab is the perfect example of how the US War on Terror can be counterproductive.

Though it seems impossible, the story of Somalia actually gets worse from then on, eventually culminating in a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people. If you're interested to know more, check out this excellent summary by Scott Horton in The Future of Freedom.

And to answer the rest of the questions posed above, check out this great write-up from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, which explores them in-depth:

Nobody Knows the Identity of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It