The Beginning of the End of the War on Terror: Less Drones

Even though U.S. drones have dropped bombs in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia on around 400 occasions since Barack Obama moved into the White House in January 2009, the president never explained to his compatriots why these air attacks are necessary, on what basis they are happening and who is being killed. If he ever mentioned drones — that is, remotely piloted aircraft controlled from bases thousands of miles away from the places being bombed — he did so incidentally and casually, harassed by journalists. The plan to “eliminate” America’s enemies, a plan overseen by the CIA from the onset, remained strictly confidential and only what leaked to the media was known to the public.

Yesterday, during his speech at the National Defense University in Fort McNair, Obama finally broke the taboo: He explained his arguments for drone attacks. He addressed the allegation most often raised in America — that American citizens have also been targets of drones. Allegations have been made that the government has killed arbitrarily without trial, violating human rights. One such killed was Anwar Awlaki, a Muslim radical born in New Mexico, who left for Yemen to become one of the main agitators for al-Qaida. He was killed by a bomb in September 2011; two weeks later another bomb killed his 16-year-old son.

Obama’s administration did not officially admit to both attacks until Wednesday evening, when Attorney General Eric Holder listed all four Americans killed by drones in a letter to congressmen. He stated, however, that only Anwar Awlaki was “eliminated” consciously and deliberately, while the other three, including Anwar Awlaki’s son, died in attacks aimed at other people.

“America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat,” Obama said yesterday.

This could be interpreted as an indication that a different controversial CIA practice may be abandoned — from leaks to the media we know that often people targeted were anonymous, ones who had merely acted “suspicious” — especially in unreachable regions of Pakistan. Human rights defenders warned that an evaluation “from above,” based on camera images and done by the drone’s operator, is uncertain and in many cases innocent people have died.

Though he did not mention it yesterday, Obama is planning on passing the drones on to the army. The CIA is meant to once again start spying instead of eliminating enemies, as it did before. “But this war, like all wars, must end,” the president said.

“Force alone cannot make us safe,” he explained. “This means patiently supporting transitions to democracy in places like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya. […] Foreign assistance cannot be viewed as charity. It is fundamental to our national security.”

Obama appealed to the Congress to eliminate the legal barriers that make shutting down Guantanamo impossible. He spoke of “closing a facility that should have never have been opened” (the George W. Bush administration sent “enemy combatants” to the American base in Cuba to prevent them having prisoners’ rights in the U.S.). Although hundreds of prisoners have been freed, 166 still remain in Guantanamo; most have not had any charges filed against them. One hundred three of them are currently on a hunger strike. Obama wants to send half of the prisoners to their own countries and place the rest on U.S. territory.

The speech was interrupted by a woman who demanded to shut down Guantanamo straight away. Obama let her shout and then even observed that he understood her anger because people should be passionate about this matter. “Imagine a future — 10 years from now or 20 years from now — when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not part of our country,” he said. “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike.”