Drone attacks are wrong. I'm sure to be called an appeaser of terrorists for saying that, particularly in light of the latest events in Mumbai. But I think it's important for Pakistanis, who are on the receiving end of the humiliation and much worse that drone attacks inflict, to hear an American say it. Hopefully some Americans will read this, too. First and foremost, whatever the official pablum or even the truth about "suspected militants" or "alleged al Qaeda leaders," innocent civilians are being killed.
Sometimes it's important to start from first principles, and I think one of those is that it's wrong to terrorise women and children with unmanned aircraft piloted remotely from the other side of the planet. In the dark calculations of a flawed political world, even something that's clearly wrong can be justified, if not truly justifiable, if it has good results. The philosophical school that makes such arguments is called utilitarianism, and its adherents -- such as, I suppose, the Obama administration -- could say drone attacks are necessary because they somehow protect Americans. That argument is marketable to the US public, precisely because it's vague and plays on people's fears and ignorance. And, from a Machiavellian point of view, it has the merit of being unfalsifiable: If terrorist attacks don't happen in America, the US administration can say that's because of drone attacks in Pakistan.
But meanwhile, actual, non-hypothetical life in Waziristan and beyond is being severely disrupted. When we hear about drone attacks at all in the American media -- which we often don't -- it's usually either asserted or simply assumed that they're necessary and having the right results. The experts assured us that we were winning in Vietnam, too. I wish we would stop taking their word for it. One US military officer in Vietnam said something that became infamous as a symbol for that entire doomed war effort: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Is that what America is doing all over again in Waziristan?
I don't know, because I haven't been there. But when I traveled in Pakistan in 2009 for my book Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip, I made a point of seeking out people who had lived there or in Dera Ismail Khan, a city that has become all too frequent a dateline.
My Pakistani-American friend Dr. Shahnaz Khan urged me to try to go there, but acknowledged that it might not be safe for goras to visit. "It's a small, sleepy town," she told me. "People were minding their own business, [didn't] want to get in any trouble, to the point of being lazy, frankly. Since all this happened, a lot of people have migrated into Dera Ismail Khan. ... [The] cantonment is right next to the river, and people used to go out and walk by the river. And now they have bunkers, and it's very difficult for people from the city to go there. My mother lives there and now, we have friends, and it's really hard for them even to visit her." All the displaced people fleeing the drone attacks were disrupting life in Dera, Shahnaz told me. "They don't have any permanent places to live, and they have a different language, different culture," she said.
An urbane young businessman I met in Islamabad, Faiysal Ali Khan, echoed Shahnaz. Refugees from the drone attacks, he told me, "have had a huge, huge impact on our culture, our society, our people. All these things got disturbed. They brought in the guns, the narcotics, all the illicit trade. Not that I'm saying that they're bad or anything. They're refugees; what are they supposed to do?" I asked him about the loyalties of the general public in Waziristan. "On one side, the drone strikes are happening," he said. "On the other side, Pakistan Army is also bombing you. Americans also bombing you. International community in Nato, ISAF; they're also bombing you. Everyone is bombing. They're bombing, bombing, killing innocent people, everything. Why should we have any feeling towards any of these?"
In Karachi, I met a 15-year-old Waziri refugee. "Most of these drone attacks kill innocent people," he told me through a translator. "They ask our government to tell the people that all of the people who are killed are foreigners. But that is not the case. Most of them are innocent people. Every person has now become a victim of the US, from these drone attacks. What the US is doing by these drone attacks is creating more problems for themselves, rather than solving problems. Every person now that did not want to carry weapons, now wants to carry a weapon, because his children have died in these US attacks. They're just making it worse for themselves."
That was more than two years ago. Have things gotten better since then?
I don't believe there's any big conspiracy in the US to disregard voices such as these; it's just that no one here wants to hear what they're saying. A few of us are trying to get others to listen. I'm doing what I can, through my writing and public speaking, not only for the sake of suffering Waziris and other Pakistanis, but for the good of my own country. America is damaging not only its soul, but also its already badly compromised national economy. And -- notwithstanding any circumstances or excuses -- attacking people from afar, at no immediate risk to oneself, is cowardly.
ETHAN CASEY is the author of Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time (2004) and Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip (2010). He is currently writing Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti. Web: www.ethancasey.com or www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans
Follow Ethan Casey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ethan.casey
http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk/topics/mercy-and-compassion/winning-hearts-and-minds-the-right-way
My conclusion: "Wars are built on propaganda and shielding of truth so that neither side gets to see the humane aspect of the other – it makes the taking of innocent lives lighter on the conscience. Pursuing long term goals of peace takes patience, and understanding. Brute force can only result in temporary gains while fuelling the fires we need to quench. There has to be another way to defeat the evil of violence. After all, a decade of hate hasn’t done us much favour."
"Thus, the true non-militant fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 20 percent. In 2010, it was more like five percent."
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones
Per my title, my point is that drone attacks are wrong, regardless. Other things (such as terrorist attacks) are wrong too, of course, though in this particular article I didn't have the word count available to say so; the wrongness of terrorism doesn't undo the wrongness of drone attacks. In any case we could argue numbers and percentages ad nauseum, but it's also not only who and how many are killed, but the perpetual, menacing, humiliating presence of the drones.
If drones controlled remotely from Pakistan were landing on and around (say) Memphis, Tennessee, with the stated purpose of keeping in check all the Tim McVeigh types in America, would that be justifiable if "only" 5% of the casualties were innocent civilians? And what if one of those were your own wife or child?
In any case, I see persuasive arguments on both sides off this very difficult issue, and I appreciate your contribution.