U.S. AIRSTRIKES - President Obama's Order

"Obama order looks to curb civilian deaths in U.S. airstrikes and drone attacks" PBS NewsHour 7/1/2016

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SUMMARY:  For the first time, the Obama administration has released the number of enemy combatants and civilians killed in drone attacks and airstrikes in some countries.  The President also issued an executive order aimed at reducing civilian casualties.  John Yang talks with Naureen Shah of Amnesty International USA and Sarah Holewinski, former executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict.

JOHN YANG (NewsHour):  Today's release is the first time the White House has said how many terrorists and innocent civilians it believes have been killed by airstrikes, including by drones.  Between 2009 and 2015, the administration says it launched 473 airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa.

It estimates that as many as 2,581 combatants, and as many as 116 noncombatants were killed.  Now, these numbers do not include airstrikes in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, what the administration calls areas of active hostilities.

A new executive order has also been issued, with the aim of decreasing the number of civilian deaths.

We get two views on all this Sarah Holewinski.  She was recently with the U.S. mission to the United Nations.  And before that, she was the executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce the number of civilian casualties.  And Naureen Shah is the director of the Security and Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA.

Sarah, Naureen, thank you both for joining us.

Naureen, let me start with you.

The first time these numbers have been released, what do you make of these numbers?

NAUREEN SHAH, Amnesty International USA:  Well, this is a remarkable shift.

We have been asking for exactly these numbers for years.  But the numbers are extremely low, and they come along with a claim of extraordinary precision.  For the people whose cases Amnesty International has documented, it's anything but precise.

We're talking about kids struck by shrapnel, a woman killed in front of her grandchildren, families losing breadwinners.  These are names.  They're individuals.  hey're not numbers.  And we need to hear more acknowledgment from the Obama administration of that.

JOHN YANG:  I should say, the Obama administration acknowledges that these numbers are estimates.  They say that the NGOs, non-government organizations, like yours actually have more access to research these numbers.

But, Sarah, the policy has been and will continue to be that no airstrikes if there's a near certainty that a noncombatant would be killed.  But we have, on average, out of these airstrikes, one in every four of these airstrikes has claimed a noncombatant life.  What does that say about this system and the precision that Naureen was talking about of the system?

SARAH HOLEWINSKI, Former Executive Director, Center for Civilians in Conflict:  Yes, precision is a really tricky thing.

Precision means that you are hitting the thing that you think you're going to hit.  I am going to hit this folder.  I am going to hit this glass of water.  It doesn't mean that the folder or the glass of water is actually the thing that we think it is.

So if you are striking from the air with a drone, for example, you may be hitting a person that you thought was something, but is actually something else.  And sometimes those are civilians.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 4/24/2015

"Shields and Brooks on accidental drone deaths, Clinton money questions" PBS NewsHour 4/24/2015

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the accidental drone deaths of two hostages in Pakistan, questions about the Clinton Foundation and potential conflicts of interest, plus which Republican 2016 contenders are gaining traction.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  So, the story we started out with tonight, David, that broke yesterday about two hostages killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, all sorts of second-guessing, third-guessing about this.  Does the Obama administration need to rethink or get rid of this drone strike policy?

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times:  I don’t think they should rethink it because of this.

When you have a drone policy, when you go to war, friendly-fire and accidents and tragedies are just endemic in the nature of the fog of war.  In World War II, there was something called the Allerona train bombing, where American bombers accidentally killed 400 American POWs and British and South African POWs that were in Nazi control.

It was an accident.  These sorts of things happen in these sorts of circumstances.  And so the fact that two people were tragic — two innocents were tragically killed is what we should have expected, I think, and what we did expect.  War is never perfect.

So, you know, I don’t think it should be cause for us to reevaluate.  I think the fundamental issue that is worth reevaluating all the time is the equation between how we’re setting back al-Qaida or are we inciting others to join ISIS?  And that’s a legitimate issue.  I don’t know the answer to it.  But it seems like that’s the big issue here.

The fact that a tragedy — a completely foreseeable tragedy happened that’s endemic in the nature of this sort of business happened doesn’t seem to me a cause to rethink.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Time to reevaluate, rethink?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  I don’t think we have ever evaluated a thought about drones, quite frankly, Judy.

This is a perfect weapon for a 12-year war without any coherent explanation and without any conclusion to it.  It’s a war, as James — General James Mattis, the former CENTCOM commander, pointed out recently in a speech, the only war since the American Revolution we have fought without a draft and we have fought it with tax cuts.

So, this is a great weapon because it removes the war.  The war has been fought only by 1 percent of Americans, suffered only by 1 percent of Americans.  And this takes all the carnage and all the killing.  Is it effective, is it surgical, is it precise?  By all those definitions, it’s a rather remarkable device.

But it spares us from ever seeing dead people, from ever seeing the wailing of the orphan, of the widow.  And I think there’s — in a responsible democracy, there has to be debate and there has to be accountability, and there hasn’t been.

The president has accepted responsibility, as he should.  But he says there’s going to be an investigation.  We don’t know what it’s about.  And I think there are serious questions about whether, in fact, in the — with hundreds of civilian deaths acknowledged over the use of drones, that whether in fact it has been an incredible recruitment device for ISIS and for al-Qaida.

DAVID BROOKS:  Yes.

Well, I would say, what are their alternatives?   It seems to me there are four alternatives.  One, we don’t do anything, and we allow al-Qaida to have safe haven in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  That seems to me hardly a great option.  The second is, we have bombing campaigns with conventional bombs.  That seems to me much messier.

The third is, we send in special forces.  And this isn’t Hollywood.  You are not going to send in six people.  You’re going to send in hundreds of people.  And they’re scared, and they’re doing massive assaults.  It seems to me you’re going to have more casualties.  Or drones.  It seems to me, of these horrible options, drones is the least bad option.

MARK SHIELDS:  I just — I really do think that this comes back to we have not had a debate about what we are doing there and what we ought to be doing.

If there is a commitment, a true commitment on the part of the nation, it isn’t something that’s just done like a video game.  It is something that does, should involve the American people, not only in the debate, but in some sense of commitment as to what we’re about.

There has been no debate on this war.  It’s just been turning it over to the President.  And I think liberals have to acknowledge that, under a liberal Democratic President, that the number of drone attacks has increased dramatically.  And we have become reliant upon it and we have resorted to it.  It’s become the default means of United States military engagement in a very, very difficult area.

WAR ON TERROR - Drone Attacks on American Citizen in Overseas?

"Obama administration faces conundrum in weighing drone attack against U.S. terror suspect" PBS Newshour 2/11/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  In an unusually public exposure of an internal government debate, Obama administration officials confirmed they are deciding whether to target an American citizen living in Pakistan who is believed to be plotting terrorist attacks.

The disclosure comes as the administration considers the extent of the president’s powers amid new revelations about the technology behind unmanned drones, so often used to go after terrorists abroad.

For more, we turn to Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times, who wrote today’s story about the American citizen abroad.  He’s also the author of “The Way of the Knife: The CIA, A Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.”

IMHO a terrorist is a terrorist, and if you live outside of the U.S., you are fair game citizen or not.

MILITARY - The Drone Strike Issue

Being retired U.S. military, and as I've said before, it is really dumb to think that ANY military strike (especially involving explosives) can NOT have civilian/collateral damage.  The best you can do is to minimize such damage.  Also, there WILL be mistakes by drone operators.  Still the question being asked is legitimate.

"Is U.S. being transparent enough about civilian deaths from drone strikes?" PBS Newshour 10/22/2013

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GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Now we return to what two human rights groups are reporting about U.S. strikes abroad.

Even the names attached to the unmanned planes known as drones are fearsome, Predators, Reapers.  Operated remotely in skies high above their targets, drones have become a critical tool in the U.S. war on al-Qaida.  This is especially true in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, which lies along its border with Afghanistan.

There, in the village of Ghundi Kala, Amnesty International says 68-year-old Mamana Bibi was killed a year ago as she harvested vegetables.  Her family said she was targeted by two Hellfire missiles fired by an invisible drone.

According to Amnesty, it's one of many such incidents.