In the spring of 2009, New York Times reporter David Rohde was being held captive by Taliban gunmen in a house in Waziristan, a mountainous region on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan. Aerial drones soared overhead, filling him and his kidnappers with a sense of dread, until one day, he later wrote, “Our nightmare had come to pass.” A drone fired missiles near their house, killing several militants on a road and terrifying people in the area. The house withstood the attack but, Rohde wrote, “the plastic sheeting covering the window hung in tatters.” He learned about the efficiency of the drones on that day and also saw the wrath they incurred: “My captors expressed more hatred for President Obama than for President Bush.”
Rohde is one of the only Americans to see the drones up close: not, it turned out, as a reporter, but as a prisoner. His first-hand perspective on the strike is rare, and the novelty of his reporting underscores the difficulties of covering this new kind of war, a remote-controlled campaign officially denied by the US government that is unfolding in a region where Pakistani officials have forbidden reporters to travel independently.
Journalists are struggling under these challenging circumstances. Even those reporting safely from afar have not succeeded in digging down to basic questions about drone attacks: How are targets chosen? Under what legal authority? How successful are drones in killing enemies and sparing civilians? Are the drones helping win the war against would-be terrorists?
War reporting is one of journalism’s highest callings, and for good reason: citizens need to know if battles are successful, and what the costs are in blood and money. But it is difficult to grasp the new war that Americans are fighting in Pakistan. As described by former US officials who participated, it is conducted not by military generals but by cia officers who are guiding drones from offices in Langley, Virginia, that kill people in a country with which the US is not at war.
“I think this is an issue that we—both as a profession of journalists and the public—have accepted without sufficient debate,” said Washington Post op-ed columnist David Ignatius, who often writes about the CIA and national security issues. “There is something about assassination from ten thousand feet that is more acceptable than it would be from one foot, by the bayonet.”
Indeed, the existence of this large-scale, secretive program that is designed to “neutralize” people has become one of the biggest and least understood stories of the Obama administration. Because it is hard for journalists to bear witness, it is difficult for citizens to get a clear picture of what is being done in their name.
Drone Strikes Ramp Up
President Barack Obama has authorized 193 drone strikes in Pakistan since he took office in 2009, more than four times the number of attacks that President George W. Bush authorized during his two terms, according to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public-policy institute.
Unmanned aircraft became part of the US arsenal in the 1990s, as reconnaissance drones recorded images of terrain in the Balkans. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush signed a directive that authorized arming the drones, called Predators, with Hellfire missiles to try to take out terrorism suspects, according to military officials. He later widened the directive to allow strikes against anyone working inside terrorist camps, not just individual suspects.
Today, according to military officials, the United States is running two drone programs: the military is in charge of drones in Afghanistan, where the country is officially at war; the cia, meanwhile, runs the drone program in Pakistan, an ally in the war in Afghanistan. The drone operations in Afghanistan are relatively straightforward and US officials routinely release information about the attacks. In Pakistan, where the CIA is running the show, the situation is different.
We're about to lose a war to these people, yet we continue to act as if they are stone-age dwellers. Tara finds it hard to believe that "Pakistani stringers" can reliably report on actions in their own community, immediately assuming that kill figures must be exaggerated. She writes as if Western journalists have a monopoly on truth. "Because it is hard for journalists to bear witness, it is difficult for citizens to get a clear picture of what is being done in their name," she writes. Yet the kill numbers reported for each incident are in the 20s. How much exaggeration could be going on? Sounds about right to me. Tara negates the fact that American journalism is bought and paid for. Her own publication was given a large grant -- some would say bought off -- so that it would cease its investigations into certain corrupt financial activities. It seems to me as if Tara is much like the CIA's drone operators, sitting in an ivory tower half a world away making decisions about people she's never encountered. Of all our American faults, hubris lies right at the top.
#1 Posted by Bill Andivey, CJR on Thu 12 May 2011 at 08:40 AM
Collateral damage --- the sudden horrific killing of innocent civilians, in countries where population density in cities and towns is much higher than in the United States ---- is obviously creating countless long, new memories, somewhere beyond the view of our American news cycle. It isn't seen. it isn't discussed. At least not in America. But others do remember -- painfully and vividly.
#2 Posted by Jon Adams, CJR on Sun 22 May 2011 at 11:21 AM
This video shows Obama telling his side regarding drones and killing americans, due process, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zVMWRuQd54&feature=plcp
#3 Posted by honestgrifter, CJR on Sun 9 Sep 2012 at 11:57 AM
The USA wishes to stop terrorism by committing terrorist acts against civilians in other countries, with which it is not at war. Not a good plan. The way to avoid terrorism is to be good to people in other countries, not to bomb them.
#4 Posted by Sam, CJR on Tue 23 Oct 2012 at 11:41 PM
SOUNDS LIKE HE CAN KILL YOU ,JUST WITH HIS POWER.
#5 Posted by SMOKEPOLE, CJR on Tue 20 Nov 2012 at 04:23 AM