The US said it is mapping out a new national security strategy that will be announced in early 2014. The white paper on the next stage of Washington’s war on al-Qaeda will be released at the time of mounting international criticism of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.
Drone airstrikes
are one of the main reasons for the spread of anarchy and military
conflicts that have been mushrooming around the world. This is according
to a report by UN special rapporteurs Ben Emmerson and Christof Heyns
who accused the US of carrying out unmanned aerial attacks on foreign
soil under the guise of an anti-terror war without borders.
The
UN rights ombudsmen argued however that other countries could follow
America’s example and justify their overseas operations by the US
precedent, thus triggering a domino effect, while British MP Ed Davey
said US drone strikes in Pakistan, among others, used loopholes in
international laws that don't mention UAVs. Mr. Davey also said
Washington "transgressed the sovereignty" of Pakistan by launching
airstrikes on its turf.
Meanwhile, a report by the
International Crisis Group concluded in May 2013 that drone strikes were
"ineffective" at combating terrorism because they left key problems
unresolved. A Hellfire missile attack may stop insurgents from crossing
into a NATO-controlled zone in Afghanistan; however their ability to
regroup, rearm and recruit will remain intact, it claimed. Vladimir Shcherbakov, an expert with the Independent Military Review, disagreed:
"The
US has been using its UAVs to target terrorist leaders. It is the
absolute rule of war: kill the commander first, it will decapitate an
armed group and make it unable to fight. Of course, this position won’t
stay vacant, but the cell will be crippled for a while, especially if
the killed commander managed all the funds."
Since 2004,
unmanned aircraft in Pakistan killed over 20 al-Qaeda leaders, more
than 2,200 militants and 400 to 900 civilians. The majority of rebel
strongholds sprawl along the Afghanistan border, which lies in
Pakistan’s semi-autonomous Pashto tribal area. The area’s status means
that controls on the Pakistani troops there are very tight, which makes
drones the only means of wiping out al-Qaeda leaders.
But
this attitude has already led to a barrage of criticism from the local
population and human rights groups worldwide. Vladimir Shcherbakov says
that President Obama’s decision to pass the reigns of the CIA-run drone
program into the hands of the military has been designed to calm down
watchdogs.
"There have been continuous debates on
whether it is lawful to eliminate foreign citizens in their own homes
using remotely-controlled drones. It’s one thing when the military do
this, and quite another when assassinations are the work of an
intelligence agency. They are probably shifting the responsibility to
increase transparency, although I think this effort is very likely to
fail, because the Pentagon has been equally tacit about its operations.
Besides, the very idea that the CIA can hand over drone controls to the
military at the eleventh hour is a utopia."
All attempts
to marry the intelligence and the military have so far been to no
avail, partially because the two agencies use different technologies and
communications. But the main stumbling block is that the CIA is not
quite ready to relinquish its role in the so-called "drone war," the
Washington Post says. So we are probably in for more air attacks, until
the laws are amended.
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