US drone killing machine now on autopilot

For years it has been pointed out that Obama's lasting legacy would be his ill-advised decision back in 2009 to normalize assassination, which his administration successfully rebranded as “targeted killing”. This was supposed to be the latest and greatest form of “smart war”: the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), or lethal drones, to go after and eliminate evil terrorists without risking US soldiers’ lives.

It all sounds so slick and, well, Obama cool. The problem is that any sober consideration of Obama’s foreign policy over the course of his eight years as president reveals that the reality is altogether different. Judging by the murder and mayhem being perpetrated all across the Middle East, “smart war” was not so smart after all.

It’s not easy to tease out how much of the mess in the Middle East is specifically due to Obama’s accelerated use of lethal drones in “signature strikes” to kill thousands of military-age men in seven different lands. For he also implemented other, equally dubious initiatives. Planks of Obama’s bloody “smart power” approach included deposing Libya’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and massively arming a group of “appropriately vetted moderate rebels”, better to read terrorists, in Syria.

Adding fuel to the fire, Obama oversaw the largest exportation of homicidal weapons to the Middle East ever undertaken by a single US president. Saudi Arabia wasted no time in using its US and also UK military provisions to lay Yemen to waste. Conjoined with Obama’s use of drones in that land, the result has been a horrific civil war in which many civilians have been killed and many civilian structures destroyed.

As if all of this were not bad enough, Obama also managed to drop more than 26K bombs in 2016, after having dropped more than 23K in 2015. Given all of this very warlike behavior in undeclared wars, no one can truly say precisely how much drones are to blame for the ongoing carnage throughout the Middle East. Beyond the dispute is that together these measures culminated in a huge expansion and spread of ISIS and other radical, terrorist groups.

At the same time, given the tonnage of bombs dropped by Obama in seven different countries, the use of drones does seem to have led directly to a willingness of the president to use also manned combat aerial vehicles, notably in countries with which the United States was not at war when Obama assumed his office. While his predecessor, George W. Bush, can be properly credited with the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama managed to contribute heartily to the destruction of Libya, Yemen, and Syria, while attacking the people of Somalia as well.
Enter Donald J. Trump, who became the new US president on January 21, 2017. On that same day, two drone strikes in Yemen claimed the live of a slew of people, three of whom were said to be “suspected Al Qaeda leaders”. The US government has not confirmed that it launched the strikes. It is the policy of the CIA, put in charge by Obama of the drone program “outside areas of active hostilities” in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, et al., not to share the details of its covert operations. This would seem to imply that the drone strikes on January 21, 2017, were not the doings of the Pentagon, now under the direction of General James Mattis, who was sworn in on the same day as the new president.

Trump’s choice for CIA director is Mike Pompeo, was not been sworn in, as his confirmation process was underway. However, the drone strikes were carried out under the auspices of the CIA even without a director in place. Obama therefore succeeded not only in normalizing assassination as “targeted killing” when the implements of homicide used are missiles, and they are launched by the CIA, but he also left the killing machine on autopilot.

Note that the former CIA director, John Brennan, who first served as Obama’s drone killing czar, before being promoted to director, has spent his time in recent days bashing the new president, not serving as Trump’s interim adviser.

The incineration of military-age men using missiles launched from drones has become so frequent and commonplace that US citizens, including legislators, did not blink an eye at the fact that the killing machine set in motion by President Obama is now effectively on autopilot. It’s worth remembering that, once upon a time, acts of war were to be approved by the US congress. Now even agencies such as the CIA, even a directorless CIA, are permitted to use weapons of war to kill anyone whom they deem to be worthy of death. All of this came about because Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack “no boots on the ground” Obama wanted to be able to prosecute wars without appearing to prosecute wars. Fait accompli.

However, its people like Donald Trump who claim they're good, or any way better than his predecessors, that we have to be wary of. A pair of US drone strikes in Yemen’s Bayda Province have claimed the lives of at least 10 people over just recently, marking the first drone strikes to be conducted under President Trump, who was inaugurated on Friday.

Washington claims the drone strikes killed Al-Qaeda operatives. Washington also claims the Trump administration has not yet laid out a clear policy on the war or the drone strikes. On the same day, a school just outside Sana’a was also hit by a Saudi-led, US-backed coalition airstrike. Four American-made missiles hit the Guards School building north of the capital.

A reminder that the US is still increasingly embroiled in Yemen, targeting the revolutionaries on the pretext of fighting Al-Qaeda. The War Party provides the bombs and the refueling planes in mid-air. American forces also provide the necessary-to-kill intelligence. Indeed, this bombing campaign could not happen without the United States' green light and backing. It is wild to say the new US administration is not at war in Yemen today. The recent drone strikes left no doubt about it.
At this time though, our concerns might seem inflated, or maybe outlandish. But in light of the recent developments, they appear ever more discerning; that under Trump and in the absence of a negotiated settlement, Yemen is poised to spiral further into chaos, in which more civilians will be martyred and more civilian infrastructure, which has no military value, will be hit and destroyed.
For this, the new president of the United States and his team are to decide about the fact they have already joined in the ongoing war against the poorest country in the Middle East. They have joined in the Saudi-led blockade along with support ships, cargo ships, special forces and predatory drones. This is while the predatory imperial offensive is illegal, indeed criminal under International Law.

By the way, if President Trump decides to join the failed war on Yemen with full force, he will let Obama off the hook for one of the worst foreign policy blunders of his presidency.

What you heard was from an article by Laurie Calhoun, a philosopher and cultural critic, and author of the book "We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age". It is also accompanied by some thought-provoking materials. Thank you for being with us.

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