In the new issue of Time magazine (4/1/13), Michael Crowley has a pretty interesting piece on the debate over Obama’s drone program.
Crowley argues that “in political terms, it’s getting hard to tell the difference” between Obama and Dick Cheney. In the last few months, “his drone war has turned from asset to headache,” thanks to dogged criticism from human rights groups, international lawyers and a few politicians, including Republican Sen. Rand Paul.
Crowley writes that the program “is increasingly straining against its legal authority” and that “a big practical problem with the drone war is that the rest of the world hates it.” He runs through various ideas that could introduce accountability or new legal mechanisms to constrain or refine the program–or “it might seem easier to simply wind down the drone war entirely.”
“Washington is rethinking some of its basic assumptions about the drone war,” Crowley writes–and this a rapid shift:
For years, only a handful of critics questioned whether the drone campaign begun by George W. Bush and Cheney and accelerated by Obama was operating outside the law. Now members of Congress and legal scholars are asking whether it makes sense for U.S. counterterrorism policy to be guided by language hastily drafted as the wreckage of the World Trade Center still burned.
That’s true enough. Another way to measure the shift in official opinion is to consider how Time‘s coverage of drones has changed. A little more than a year ago, it hardly seemed to think there was any debate at all.
Indeed, an article in the January 9, 2012, issue could hardly have been more ecstatic about the future of U.S. drone warfare. The “hot military trend” was all about “weapons that are smaller, remote-controlled and bristling with intelligence.”
As reporter Mark Thompson put it, “more drones that can tightly target terrorists, deliver larger payloads and are some of the best spies the U.S. has ever produced.” As he put it:
These clandestine warriors have killed some 2,000 people identified as terrorists lurking in shadows around the globe since 9/11. Expect the tally to go higher this year.
The article also had other insights, such as:
BIGGER BANG
The Predator-C Avenger can be armed with 2,000-lb. bombs, four times the size of those carried by the Predator-B Reaper
None of this is intended to diminish Time‘s new take on drones–it is obviously a vast improvement. The point is that this is a reminder that often the “official” debate on something has to change before the media covers the issue with the appropriate skepticism. The press is far too often lagging behind the activists, and even the political leaders, who are posing the kinds of questions that reporters should be the first ones asking.
Doug Latimer
I wouldn’t be too optimistic about any substantial changes in the US’ use of drones.
(And the only change that would matter would be an end to it)
Drones constitute a major aspect of military strategy, and obscene amounts of our tax dollars – one would be too many – have been poured into it.
Paul’s grandstanding would likely never have occurred if Mitt Romney were in the White House, the issue was focused on attacks against Americans here, and in large measure the kerfuffle was about executive “respect” for Congress.
I think we all understand just how much clout “human rights groups” and “international lawyers” have in Washington.
So perhaps some cosmetic changes to smooth the waters will be forthcoming, but that will be the extent of matters.
And the corpress will hail them
Then retire to the sidelines to cheer on the now sanitized strategy of death from above
And continue to ignore the human consequences of the hell raining down half a world away.
Ron
Sadly, I think you’re right about the corpress new policy on image control., Doug.
What bothers me is the inevitability of retribution in kind.
As drones get smaller, cheaper and deadlier, the odds of one paying the president a visit will grow.
Here’s my early line on future assassination:
POTUS # 45 10-1
POTUS # 46 even
POTUS # 47 1-10
Lawrence Turk
Why did you use a manned aircraft pic for a drone article? Inappropriate or misleading pics are a regular feature of FAIR commentary.
SoCal drone pilot goes to child’s school recital, gets taken out with large IED. Are those around him “collateral damage” because he was a “coward hiding among civilians”?
steve shuttleworth
Twenty years from now, the skies above every U.S. city will find drones having replaced the helicopters now used for traffic and crime control; we, and the world, are doomed by this new technology.
As it’s now being pushed by a president whom the putative “progressive” party refuses to criticize at the same time the “loyal opposition” responds to everything that same president says or does in simple, senseless contradiction, the nightmare future will be here sooner rather than later notwithstanding the common belief that we are citizens of a popularly elected democratic government.
If the current government can privatize the postal service, as it currently is doing, without so much as a whimper from the Congress or the people, the mind reels in imagining what the neo-liberal and neo-conservative power tag team will be able to achieve without fear or blow back from a sleepwalking, self-consumed public that dumbly celebrates its narcissism on Face-Book.
So it goes.
Padremellyrn
So what has changed about the program that causes them to want to re-think their position? Could it be that now they realize, as was the case all along that they could “Targets”. It suddenly make folks jump and take notice when they realize the business end of a weapon is now pointed at them. Until then, they all lavish praise on it always forgetting that in the end, it can a easily used against them as well.
We do not learn from our mistakes when we study history, we repeat them ad nauseum and with greater zeal.
Jim Naureckas
Lawrence Turk: Thanks for pointing that out. Photo replaced.
David Ewing
This issue of whether the US government should be able to use drones to kill terrorists is more than an ethical, moral or legal question. I think it fundamentally changes how people view killing – when it seems like it’s a video game it dehumanizes people and makes it easier to kill them regardless of the legality of it in the first place.