SYNDICATED COLUMN: Drop the Drones
Remote Attacks Inflame Afghan Anti-Americanism
The killing of Afghan civilians, usually caused by inadvertent American and NATO airstrikes, has become the most sensitive issue between the Afghans and their Western guests." So reports The New York Times Magazine in the latest installment of its ongoing "There's a new general in charge and he's cool and maybe he can win the war" series. This decade's war: Afghanistan. week's star: General Stanley McChrystal. Alas, poor Petraeus, we hardly knew ye.
As a World War II buff, I mourn the fact that the Magazine wasn't around in 1943. Imagine the over-the-top insensitivity: "The killing of Jews, usually caused by inadvertent German and Axis deportations, has become the most sensitive issue between the French and their Teutonic guests."
"Inadvertant" airstikes?
"Guests"?
Many of the botched airstrikes have been carried out by Predator drone planes remote-controlled by CIA and USAF personnel watching computer screens thousands of miles away. One click of a mouse and a Hellfire missile bearing a 20-pound blast fragmentation warhead zooms towards its target. Despite numerous killings of civilians, drones are popular with the military because they keep soldiers out of harm's way.
Like a lot ideas, it only seems like a good one before you think about it. America's obsession with protecting its own people is at the heart of Afghans' contempt for the U.S. occupation. And Afghan resentment is the biggest reason the war effort has been doomed from the start.
To Afghans on the ground, drones symbolize American callousness and project a smug sense of superiority. Because they protect us at the Afghans' expense. New York Times reporter David Rhode, the journalist kidnapped by neo-Taliban militants and held in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nine months, describes their "terrifying presence":
"Remotely piloted, propeller-driven airplanes, they could easily be heard as they circled overhead for hours. To the naked eye, they were small dots in the sky. But their missiles had a range of several miles. We knew we could be immolated without warning."
To the dead, death is death—how you die doesn't matter in the end. To the living, it's all that matters.
Would you rather lose the love of your life to a drunk driver? Or because she rushed into a burning building to save a child? Afghanistan is a martial society. As an Afghan, how would you rather lose your son—in the heat of battle or to some alien contraption buzzing around in response to the movement of a joystick in Virginia?
Unlike his predecessors McChrystal knows that every "inadvertent airstrike" prompts a certain number of Afghans to join or support Afghan resistance forces. "Gentlemen," he tells a morning briefing of NATO generals, "we need to understand the implications of what we are doing. Airpower contains the seeds of our own destruction. A guy with a long-barrel rifle runs into a compound, and we drop a 500-pound bomb on it? If we lose airpower irresponsibly, we can lose this fight." Later that day, the Times reporter who recorded that statement wrote, McChrystal said he planned on "banning bombs and missiles in populated areas unless his men were in danger of being overrun."
An improvement, no doubt. But in Afghanistan and everywhere else, all use of airpower is irresponsible. Whether piloting a B-52 at 35,000 feet or wiggling a joystick 8,000 miles away, fighting a war at a distance means chucking ordnance willy-nilly into people and situations you can't see or know anything about.
And those people will hate you for it.
In the short term, remote drone warfare offers the tantalizing prospect of killing your enemies without risking your own forces. "In Pakistan, a CIA-led program using Predator drones to hunt down and kill leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban has proven remarkably successful, even if controversial within Pakistan itself," reports the Times. "To date, American officials say, they have killed 11 of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders, without having to launch large-scale military operations across the border."
In the long term, however, the geopolitical risks eclipse any short-term gains. Note the "even if." Drone plane attacks brought Pakistani anti-Americanism to a boil and led to the collapse of the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally. Meanwhile, like most cell-based guerrilla organizations, Al Qaeda's structure ensures that no man is indispensable. It simply appointed new members to the positions vacated by the Hellfire victims.
If the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is destined to fail, it would be nice to see it end with more dignity. In an ideal world, President Obama would sign legislation outlawing the manufacture, deployment or use of Predator and similar drone bomber technology, and urge other nations to do the same. In a somewhat decent world, he would withdraw rather than send more troops to Afghanistan. And in the crappy world we call home, the least we can do is kill Afghans with flesh-and-blood soldiers rather than drone planes.
(Ted Rall is the author of "To Afghanistan and Back," the first book about the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Among its chapters is one titled "How We Lost the Afghan War.")
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
The killing of Afghan civilians, usually caused by inadvertent American and NATO airstrikes, has become the most sensitive issue between the Afghans and their Western guests." So reports The New York Times Magazine in the latest installment of its ongoing "There's a new general in charge and he's cool and maybe he can win the war" series. This decade's war: Afghanistan. week's star: General Stanley McChrystal. Alas, poor Petraeus, we hardly knew ye.
As a World War II buff, I mourn the fact that the Magazine wasn't around in 1943. Imagine the over-the-top insensitivity: "The killing of Jews, usually caused by inadvertent German and Axis deportations, has become the most sensitive issue between the French and their Teutonic guests."
"Inadvertant" airstikes?
"Guests"?
Many of the botched airstrikes have been carried out by Predator drone planes remote-controlled by CIA and USAF personnel watching computer screens thousands of miles away. One click of a mouse and a Hellfire missile bearing a 20-pound blast fragmentation warhead zooms towards its target. Despite numerous killings of civilians, drones are popular with the military because they keep soldiers out of harm's way.
Like a lot ideas, it only seems like a good one before you think about it. America's obsession with protecting its own people is at the heart of Afghans' contempt for the U.S. occupation. And Afghan resentment is the biggest reason the war effort has been doomed from the start.
To Afghans on the ground, drones symbolize American callousness and project a smug sense of superiority. Because they protect us at the Afghans' expense. New York Times reporter David Rhode, the journalist kidnapped by neo-Taliban militants and held in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nine months, describes their "terrifying presence":
"Remotely piloted, propeller-driven airplanes, they could easily be heard as they circled overhead for hours. To the naked eye, they were small dots in the sky. But their missiles had a range of several miles. We knew we could be immolated without warning."
To the dead, death is death—how you die doesn't matter in the end. To the living, it's all that matters.
Would you rather lose the love of your life to a drunk driver? Or because she rushed into a burning building to save a child? Afghanistan is a martial society. As an Afghan, how would you rather lose your son—in the heat of battle or to some alien contraption buzzing around in response to the movement of a joystick in Virginia?
Unlike his predecessors McChrystal knows that every "inadvertent airstrike" prompts a certain number of Afghans to join or support Afghan resistance forces. "Gentlemen," he tells a morning briefing of NATO generals, "we need to understand the implications of what we are doing. Airpower contains the seeds of our own destruction. A guy with a long-barrel rifle runs into a compound, and we drop a 500-pound bomb on it? If we lose airpower irresponsibly, we can lose this fight." Later that day, the Times reporter who recorded that statement wrote, McChrystal said he planned on "banning bombs and missiles in populated areas unless his men were in danger of being overrun."
An improvement, no doubt. But in Afghanistan and everywhere else, all use of airpower is irresponsible. Whether piloting a B-52 at 35,000 feet or wiggling a joystick 8,000 miles away, fighting a war at a distance means chucking ordnance willy-nilly into people and situations you can't see or know anything about.
And those people will hate you for it.
In the short term, remote drone warfare offers the tantalizing prospect of killing your enemies without risking your own forces. "In Pakistan, a CIA-led program using Predator drones to hunt down and kill leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban has proven remarkably successful, even if controversial within Pakistan itself," reports the Times. "To date, American officials say, they have killed 11 of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders, without having to launch large-scale military operations across the border."
In the long term, however, the geopolitical risks eclipse any short-term gains. Note the "even if." Drone plane attacks brought Pakistani anti-Americanism to a boil and led to the collapse of the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally. Meanwhile, like most cell-based guerrilla organizations, Al Qaeda's structure ensures that no man is indispensable. It simply appointed new members to the positions vacated by the Hellfire victims.
If the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is destined to fail, it would be nice to see it end with more dignity. In an ideal world, President Obama would sign legislation outlawing the manufacture, deployment or use of Predator and similar drone bomber technology, and urge other nations to do the same. In a somewhat decent world, he would withdraw rather than send more troops to Afghanistan. And in the crappy world we call home, the least we can do is kill Afghans with flesh-and-blood soldiers rather than drone planes.
(Ted Rall is the author of "To Afghanistan and Back," the first book about the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Among its chapters is one titled "How We Lost the Afghan War.")
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
Labels: afghanistan, Drones
posted by Ted Rall at
10:55 AM
8 Comments:
I believe the "random" killing of civilians is intentional. There is no enemy or enemy structure. This is a pure terror move. Disrupt, and destroy any cohesiveness. Break them apart and find a new leader. Terror terror terror. As a warfare or political warfare tactic it is effective. As a human trait utterly repulsive. Can someone prove this wrong.
Good luck.
This is a "war" we should never have but most are for the same reasons.
That is why I don't argue how but why. It seems like some people think some things are legitimate
Helloooo like duh.
Whatever
Teutonic Guests. Excellent.
Dead on Ted, counter-insurgency is all about opinion. Being perceived simultaneously as cowardly yet terrifying is about as bad as perceptions for an occupying power can get. When you throw in the corrupt afghan govt we are propping up you get the triple threat. Can we at least strive to be terrifying and powerful without the added stain of cowardice?
Barry is voting present again. He still doesn't have a strategy. Maybe he'll make another speech again, that's all he seems capable of.
Never mind.
Drone plane attacks brought Pakistani anti-Americanism to a boil and led to the collapse of the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf
Beg to differ mate. That was Reason. 23, or Reason. 37.
The main ones were, ennui over a continuing dictatorship, the judiciary and lawyer's movements against him; setting the entire F.A.T.A on fire by using discredited cronies, his corrupt and disgusting cronies, the murder from above of one Nawab Akbar Bugti of the Bugti tribe, setting the gas fields region of Balochistan on political fire, the imposition of the emergency brought things to a head and finally; allowing Benazir Bhutto to be murdered on his watch.
After BB went and her husband and party took over; it was a matter of when, not if, Musharraf would be forced out. Apparently eight months was the time frame.
And yeah got to agree with your cell based argument against Al-Q, but since Predators teams have joined up with the Pak gov to take out enemies of Pk, you'll hear opposition from Pk is muted. Case in point: Baitullah Mehsud.
Plus the strikes are in an area where the Pak Gov has no control so our failure is simply being taken advantage off. No problem; we are in the process of re-establishing "control".
Killing Taliban leaders is pointless. They will be replaced, usually by someone smarter. RN officers had a toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season!" They hoped for heavy casualties in their own navy, as it would spur promotion and get rid of the dead wood in the senior ranks.
Excellent, Ted. This 'war' was not a war to begin with. It was a spanking. It was revenge. It was George W. Bush striking out in vain. It was doomed from the start.
And then George W. Bush's incompetence showed even more, every day after Torah Borah.
Ungrateful Afghans...you just can't satisfy some people, even if you use their country as stomping grounds in the war on 'terror'.
--Daddy-O
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