Harvard Study Suggests Drone Strikes Can Disrupt Terror Groups 429
An anonymous reader writes "Can drone strikes rid the world of terror groups? Many have argued that drones/UAVs seem to be a logical weapon of war: ground troops are not needed and strikes can be specifically targeted against terror-cell leaders (so-called 'decapitation strikes). Others have argued that such attacks only fuel more anger towards the United States and the West while also trampling on nations like Pakistan's sovereign rights and territory. Two recent studies published by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government suggest 'On the basis of comprehensive analyses of data on multiple terrorist and insurgent organizations, these studies conclude that killing or capturing terrorist leaders can reduce the effectiveness of terrorist groups or even cause terrorist organizations to disintegrate.' It seems then drones and UAVs will be a weapon of war for a long time to come."
Why these academics are so blind (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds [wikipedia.org]
"Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt published in 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought."
See also:
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ [tripod.com]
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm [chomsky.info]
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm [johntaylorgatto.com]
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html [historyisaweapon.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest [wikipedia.org]
Those links explain in part how can such "smart" people totally ignore the potential for "blowback" from the violent actions they endorse (actions which include the slaughter of endless innocents, the violation of national sovereignty and probably international law, the setting of an example of ironic misuse of advanced technology that could otherwise bring material abundance to the entire world, and so on)... These links help show why these academics are willfully blind to the idea that they are endorsing polices that may be creating 100 new terrorist for every one they think they might have killed.
Never forget what one of our greatest Marine Major Generals said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket [wikipedia.org]
"War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit from warfare."
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan were *supposed* to be expensive quagmires so somebody's buddies coudl get lucrative "defense" contracts. These conflicts were *supposed* to drive up oil prices so somebody's buddies would see the value of their domestic oil holdings increase. And so on...
See also:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/killer-drone-attacks-ille_b_1623065.html [huffingtonpost.com]
"Christof Heyns, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, expressed grave concern about the targeted killings, saying they may constitute war crimes. He called on the Obama administration to explain how its drone strikes comport with international law, specify the bases for decisions to kill rather than capture particular individuals, and whether the State in which the killing takes place has given consent. Heyns further asked for specification of the procedural safeguards in place, if any, to ensure in advance of drone killings that they comply with international law. He also wanted to know what measures the U.S. government takes after any such killing to ensure that its legal and factual analysis was accurate and, if not, the remedial measures it would take, including justice and reparations for victims and their families. Although Heyns' predecessor made similar requests, Heyns said the United States has not provided a satisfactory response.
Heyns also called on the U.S. government to make public the number of civilians collaterally killed as a result of drone attacks, and the measures in place to prevent such casualties. Once again, Heyns said the United States has not satisfactor
Re:Drones strikes are great... (Score:4, Interesting)
Even killing the right person can do nothing to break up an organisation.
Look at Hamas. So many of their leaders have been assassinated over the years that almost none of the top structure are original Hamas leaders. They are still strong, & still an effective guerrilla army.
The only way to make an terrorists lay down their arms is either with dialogue or to commit war crimes on a grand scale. Even then peace is not guaranteed.
Re:Drones strikes are great... (Score:3, Interesting)
What the article is trying to analyse is whether or not targeted assassinations can actually be effective at tearing apart terror networks.
Oh dear, let me help with this. Studies cost money. When someone pays for a study, they usually have a desired outcome in mind. If the outcome is achieved by the study, then we publish and take great leeway with the results. In this case someone wanted a study run that shows that drones are good. They got that.
Effectiveness? Haven't we killed the #2 al queda guy about 47 times now? How has that been working out for us in terror organization reduction? Oh thats right, they go to some random country that supports terrorism and they follow some other nutball for a while.
Truth is, this pretty frosting is just the start of what you're concerned about...using drones domestically. Its already happening and there'll be a lot more of it. But we all have to have a good opinion of them first, which is what studies and their derivative press releases and press pickups are intended to do.
The Algeria lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
In the end the entire operation backfired to the extent that military personal involved in the executions and torture decided that the French President had betrayed them, and they were good at assassinations, so why not try to kill him off too? The attempt failed and the attempted assassins were arrested, but how's that for an example of "what could possibly go wrong" when you have state sanctioned death squads in a modern democratic state?
Re:Drones strikes are great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Your response is farcical. Take for example the reality of the largest terrorist organisations around at the moment crime gangs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs [wikipedia.org] or even one particular group MS-13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_Salvatrucha [wikipedia.org]. How come drone strikes are not used against that particular group, numbering 70,000 members and well known for terror attacks and retaliation against policing and those that cooperate with police. Not some faked up al-Qaeda with at most maybe 500 members. MS-13 is a real terror organisation, why is it ignored in comparison, is it because in some insane psychopathic capitalist world they are OK because they are motivated by profit and greed.
So why isn't the US, Mexican and various South American governments firing missiles at each at each other. Basically at any sounds like, looks like grouping of people that in resemble a gang member meeting to plan terrorist attacks (apparently as long as they are motivated by profit they are non-terror).
See the insanity, you have eco-terrorists trying to protect the environment, peace activist terrorists trying to prevent conflict, union terrorists trying to get better conditions for workers but where capitalistic greed for money is the root driver they are simply a 'gang'. A real problem and the administration is silent waffling on about brown people overseas instead and killing them a random, whilst losing parts of cities to gangs and those lost neighbourhoods growing in size all of the time.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Drones strikes are great... (Score:4, Interesting)
If all those, what, 1.6 billion 'Muzzies', as you call them, were just running around killing everything they see, there wouldn't BE 1.6 billion of them around, they'dve killed each other off centuries ago. When you get down to sheer numbers, it's about 1/100th of a percent that's the problem, Painting them all with the same brush just makes it easier to sell the US military more helicopters, guns, ammo, drones, and cruise missiles because the American public will stand still for the expense. It's almost like saying all Americans are addicted to and only eat Big Macs and fries all day, every day. Or that we all live and die with the exploits of Snookie and/or the Kardashians. Or that the US is still the Wild Wild West, and if you go further west than St Louis, you're in immenent danger of being scalped by the Cheyennes, who wait behind every bush and rock waiting for the whites to send a wagon train through with a fresh supply of blondes.
Back in the Bad Old Days of the Soviet Union, our enemy wasn't the average Ivan on the streets, it was about 3,000 high level Party members collectively refered to as 'the nomenklatura', 'the List' in English. These are the guys that the US government used to rile up the American people with claims that 'the Russians hate us for our freedom' and it would take a monumental struggle to put them down 'like the mad dogs they are'. When Nikita was getting ignored and shouted down at a conference table, he pulled off his shoe, hammered it on the table to get everybody's attention while screaming 'We'll bury you!' What the American people weren't told was, the phrase 'we'll bury you' was Russian slang for 'we'll leave you so far behind that it'll look like you've been buried'. Yeah, it loses something in the translation, and it was spun hard enough to justify the Vietnam war.
NeoCon theory, as espoused by the prophet Leo Strauss, says that a people must be united, with little if any individuality, or the culture will collapse from the 'corruption of the people'. Another part of his teachings was the theory of myth as culture builder. A culture must believe its myths to remain coherent, and it's the job of the leadership to create and manage them. The big myth doesn't have to have anything remotely resembling the facts, it just has to be sellable, and in the 70's, it was 'Moscow is running every terrorist network on the planet!' By having an ultimate enemy that popular 'wisdom' says is bent on destroying us all, the myth binds us together.
The biggest problem with the end of the Cold War is, it deprived the NeoCons with a ready-made enemy. So we found one in the radical Jihadists. The problem, of course, is the same one we had in Vietnam. These guys don't exactly have a uniform, so identifying them can be a bit of a bitch, but hey, if we call them all 'enemy combatants', scoop up every goat herder in the current conflict zones, pack them off to places like Camp XRay til we can sort them out, at least we can point at it and say 'Hey, we're doing something, ain't we?'