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14 March 2010 By Rick Rozoff
2010 is the last year of the first decade of the
new century and millennium and is the tenth
consecutive year of the United States’ war in
Afghanistan and in the 15-nation area of
responsibility subsumed under Operation Enduring
Freedom. In early March American military deaths in
the Greater Afghan War theater – Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo
Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan,
the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan,
Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen – surpassed the 1,000
mark.
This year is also the tenth year of the first
ground and the first Asian war fought by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, which wages wars from
and not to protect the nations of the northern
Atlantic Ocean.
2010 is the tenth and deadliest year in
Washington’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones)
for targeted assassinations and untargeted “collateral
damage.”
Originally designed for battlefield surveillance
and reconnaissance, albeit often to call in lethal
military strikes, drones have been employed by the
U.S. since 2001 to identify and kill human targets.
The first “hunter-killer” unmanned combat air
vehicle, the Predator, was used by the Pentagon in
Bosnia in 1995 and later in the 78-day air war against
Yugoslavia in 1999.
In 2001 Predators were equipped with Hellfire
missiles and were deployed from Pakistan and
Uzbekistan to launch attacks inside Afghanistan. The
following year they were flown from the U.S. military
base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti for the same
purpose in Yemen.
The Predator and its successor, the Reaper, capable
of carrying fifteen times more weaponry and flying at
three times the speed, have been used for deadly
attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and with
particularly murderous effect in Pakistan since the
autumn of 2008. They are equipped with cameras
connected by satellite links to bases in the United
States.
In October Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, deputy
commander of U.S. Africa Command, announced that
Reapers, “capable of carrying a dozen guided bombs and
missiles,” [1] were deployed to Seychelles off the
eastern coast of the African continent to patrol the
Indian Ocean.
Radio Australia ran a story on March 8 that stated
“US President Barack Obama may have taken his time to
decide on his Afghanistan policy, but he’s also now
become more of an enthusiast for drone missile strikes
than his predecessor.” [2] In both Afghanistan and
Pakistan as well as in Yemen.
Discussing a report by the New America Foundation,
the station documented that deadly U.S. drone missile
strikes on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border have been increased by 50 per cent since the
Obama administration took over the White House a year
ago January 20.
Citing the above-mentioned think tank, the Radio
Australia report said there have been 64 drone strikes
in South Asia in the past fourteen months compared to
45 under the George W. Bush administration between the
invasion of Afghanistan in October of 2001 and January
of 2009.
Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, was
interviewed and said “there is an average five to
seven strikes a month although in January there were
11.”
He was further quoted describing the qualitative as
well as the quantitative escalation of American drone
warfare in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “The main drone
is the ‘Predator’ which carries the ‘Hellfire’
anti-tank missile.
“The ‘Reaper,’ the older brother of the Predator,
they made that so it could carry larger Hellfire
missiles as well as it can carry, again, the 500 pound
GPS (global position system)-guided bombs. So they’re
very, you know, this is sort of a revolution in air
warfare.” [3]
The Reaper carries a thousand pounds of munitions
and is also equipped for the Sidewinder heat-seeking
air-to-air missile. Plans for adding Stinger
air-to-air missiles are underway.
In terms of the human cost of Obama’s 2008 Afghan
war campaign pledge – “If we have actionable
intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in
Pakistan’s border region, we must act if Pakistan will
not or cannot” – at the beginning of this year
Pakistan’s influential Dawn News published an account
of what that policy has meant to Pakistanis. In an
article titled “Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in
2009,” the source, quoting Pakistani government
statistics, wrote:
“Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US
drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past
12 months, only five were able to hit their actual
targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban
leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent
civilians.”
For each alleged al-Qaeda or Taliban member killed
by missiles fired from U.S. drones “140 innocent
Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those
killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians,
claim authorities….On average, 58 civilians were
killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every
week and almost two people every day.” [4]
The dead may have been armed or unarmed, males or
females, adults or children. What they have in common
is that they were targeted based on “actionable
intelligence” provided by someone on the ground, not
necessarily a disinterested party.
Last October, as the killing had begun in earnest,
UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions
Philip Alston warned:
“My concern is that these drones, these Predators,
are being operated in a framework which may well
violate international humanitarian law and
international human rights law.
“The onus is really on the government of the United
States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes
sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial
executions, are not in fact being carried out through
the use of these weapons.” [5]
Undaunted, the U.S. substantially intensified the
attacks.
This January China’s Xinhua News Agency interviewed
Pakistani political analyst Farrukh Saleem, who said
that American drone missile attacks in Pakistan’s
Federally Administered Tribal Areas had increased from
17 in 2008 to 43 in 2009 with more than 70 expected to
be delivered this year.
Saleem was quoted warning that “Such attacks always
trigger violence, suicide attacks and casualties in
Pakistan. So more drone attacks mean more violence in
Pakistan.” [6]
On the same day Senator John McCain was in the
Pakistani capital of Islamabad and praised the drone
attacks as “an effective part of the U.S. strategy.”
[7]
It was reported last December 17 that a U.S. drone
strike had killed at least 20 people in Pakistan’s
North Waziristan Agency and on the 27th that 13 more
were killed in the same region.
Since the New Year began the lethal attacks have
only intensified. The following is not an attempt at a
comprehensive account, but is gathered from assorted
press reports.
On January 1 it was reported that five people were
killed and several more injured by two American drone
attacks east of the North Waziristan capital. As to
the identities of the slain, Reuters quoted a local
security official as saying, “The bodies were burned
beyond recognition. We are trying to determine their
identity.” [8] The previous night two more were killed
and several injured in another strike.
Reports continued to detail missile strikes and
deaths in the nation’s tribal areas.
January 3: Five more people were killed in North
Waziristan in a drone attack.
January 6: At least thirteen were killed and eight
wounded by two back-to-back missile strikes.
“According to Pakistan’s Geo News, a suspected drone
fired two missiles at a house in the Datta Khel region
in the first attack, killing seven people.
“Another strike occurred as local people began
retrieving bodies from the rubble of the house,
killing five people. The identities of those killed in
the attacks were unknown.” [9]
January 8: Five were killed in a village in North
Waziristan.
January 9: An American drone fired two missiles
into a village, Ismail Khan, in North Waziristan which
killed four people.
January 13: Thirteen people were killed in the
village of Tappi in the same agency. “A senior
security official confirmed the death toll, and said
four missiles were fired from unmanned planes in the
remote area.” [10]
January 15: Fifteen were killed in the village of
Zannini in North Waziristan. Six were killed in the
village of Bichi.
January 17: At least twenty were killed in the
Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.
January 19: Six people were killed in the village
of Booya in North Waziristan according to Pakistani
intelligence officials.
January 24: Pakistani insurgents claimed to have
shot down a U.S. drone in North Waziristan, one of
eight drones seen flying over the area.
January 29: Between six and fifteen people were
killed in the North Waziristan town of Muhammad Khel
in a reported attack on the Haqquani Network by three
American missiles.
February 2: The U.S. fired as many as eight
missiles into four villages in North Waziristan,
killing twenty nine people.
February 14: Five people were killed in a drone
attack in the same agency. At least three others were
wounded.
February 15: A drone strike allegedly killed a
Chinese Uighur separatist leader in the same district.
February 17: A U.S. missile strike killed three and
injured two victims in North Waziristan.
February 18: Four people were killed in a missile
strike on a vehicle in the same agency.
February 24: At least thirteen alleged militants
were killed in a U.S. drone attack in the Dargah Mandi
area of North Waziristan.
March 8: An American drone fired five missiles into
a house near Miranshah, the capital of North
Waziristan, killing at least five people and wounding
four.
Approximately 160 people have been killed in drone
missile strikes in Pakistan in slightly over two
months this year. If that pace continues, 2010 will be
far deadlier than the year before: 960 to 700. If, as
seems more likely, the amount of the attacks
increases, the death toll will be even higher than the
nearly 140 per cent increase the above extrapolation
threatens.
Drone missile attacks are increasingly becoming the
weapon of choice of the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency (as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq), the
Joint Special Operations Command (Yemen) and the Air
Force, which as of last year had 195 Predators and 28
Reapers.
All indications are that they will soon have more.
This year the Obama administration has sought from
Congress $33 billion more for the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq “on top of a record request for $708 billion
for the Defense Department next year.” [11]
With the new Quadrennial Defense Review, “The
pilotless drones used for surveillance and attack
missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a priority,
with a goal of speeding up the purchase of new Reaper
drones and expansion of Predator and Reaper drone
flights through 2013.” [12]
A February 1 article called “China, Iran Prompt
U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan in Strategy Review,” revealed
that in line with the new Quadrennial Defense Review a
“joint Air Force-Navy plan would combine the strengths
of each service to conduct long-range strikes that
could utilize a new generation of bombers, a new
cruise missile and drones launched from aircraft
carriers.” [13]
As the U.S. is massively expanding its military
buildup on the Pacific island of Guam, “The Army is
building a missile defense system on the island and
the Air Force is adding more drones.” [14]
In mid-January prominent U.S. senator Carl Levin
called for “using drones to launch airstrikes” in
Yemen, adding the demand for “everything from physical
actions that could be accomplished in terms of use of
drones or air attacks” to “clandestine actions.” [15]
Regarding the strengthening of military ties
between the U.S. and Yemen, a Russian news source
disclosed that “Under a new classified cooperation
agreement, the U.S. would be able to fly cruise
missiles, fighter jets or unmanned armed drones
against targets in the country, but would remain
publicly silent on its role in the airstrikes.” [16]
In late January the Wall Street Journal reported:
“The U.S. military’s involvement in Yemen has
already begun to grow….[T]he U.S. has increased the
number of surveillance drones flying over Yemen, as
well as the number of unmanned aircraft outfitted with
missiles capable of striking targets on the ground,
according to a senior U.S. official with direct
knowledge of the deployments.
“Most drones operating outside of Iraq and
Afghanistan are controlled by the Central Intelligence
Agency, but the official said the drones operating
over Yemen belong to the military’s secretive Joint
Special Operations Command.” [17]
The commander of Joint Special Operations Command
until 2008 was now General Stanley McChrystal, chief
commander of what will soon be 150,000 U.S. and NATO
troops in Afghanistan.
Drone missile assassinations and the indiscriminate
slaughter of civilians that often accompany them are
an integral component of his counterinsurgency
strategy in South Asia. The qualitative escalation of
drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan began when
McChrystal replaced David McKiernan as top U.S. and
NATO-led International Security Assistance Force
commander in Afghanistan last June.
In other parts of the world, the Pentagon is to
contribute military drones for the Northern Coasts
maneuvers in Finland this September, the “largest
naval military exercise that has ever been seen in
Finnish territorial waters.” [18]
A resolution issued by the Finnish Peacefighters in
Lapland last month mentioned “a program on Finnish TV
about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles being tested in Lapland
at the Kemijarvi Airfield. This actual training area
stretches to the Russian border and follows the border
for tens of kilometers.
“The strategy for Star Wars, which the US is
developing, means that the pilotless plane is directed
from a command center in Nevada, and follows the
terrain and movements on a data screen thousands of
kilometers away and maneuvers the drones. These drones
have been used in Afghanistan and they have killed a
lot of civilians.” [19]
While Stanley McChrystal was commander of the Joint
Special Operations Command the U.S. conducted eleven
deadly predator attacks in Iraq in April of 2008. At
the time “Defense Secretary Robert Gates prodded the
Air Force to do more to rush drones to the war zone.”
An American newspaper reported at the time that
“Commanders are expected to rely more on unmanned
systems as 30,000 U.S. troops sent last year are
withdrawn. The military has dozens of Predators in
Iraq and Afghanistan. In all it operates 5,000 drones,
25 times more than it had in 2001.” [20]
Last December the government of Venezuela called on
the world community to condemn incursions into its
airspace by U.S. military drones operating from Aruba
and from Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. The type
of drones that flew for several days over Venezuelan
territory wasn’t specified, but under both bilateral
and NATO military obligations the Netherlands would
not refuse the U.S. the right to station Predator and
Reaper drones on bases in their Caribbean island
colonies.
The United States has not only increased its
arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles by twenty five
times over the past decade, it has massively increased
the range and lethality of its hunter-killer drones. A
recent report disclosed that beginning in 2008 the Air
Force Research Laboratory started to “build the
ultimate assassination robot,” described as “a tiny,
armed drone for U.S. special forces to employ in
terminating ‘high-value targets.’” [21]
Formerly special forces teams were deployed or
cruise missiles were fired to assassinate intended
victims. In the case of the second and frequently the
first the risk was that they couldn’t be used twice.
Predator and Reaper drones return after missions
and their supply of Hellfire missiles is replenished
for further deadly attacks.
They have become Washington’s preferred 21st
century weapons for perpetrating international
assassinations.
1) Associated Press, October 25, 2009
2) Radio Australia, March 8, 2010
3) Ibid
4) Dawn News, January 2, 2010
5) BBC News, October 28, 2009
6) Xinhua News Agency, January 8, 2010
7) Ibid
8) Reuters, January 1, 2010
9) ADN Kronos International, January 6, 2010
10) Agence France-Presse, January 14, 2010
11) Associated Press, January 12, 2010
12) Ibid
13) Bloomberg News, February 1, 2010
14) Voice of America News, January 19, 2010
15) Press TV, January 13, 2010
16) Russian Information Agency Novosti, December 30,
2009
17) Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2010
18) Helsingin Sanomat, January 28, 2010
19) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/44296
20) USA Today, April 29, 2008
21) Wired, January 5, 2010
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