Chuck Spinney: Drones — Of Idiots, By Idiots, For Idiots + Meta-RECAP

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
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Chuck Spinney

Attached is a really first rate assessment of the real benefits and costs of the American infatuation with drone warfare.  The writer, Patrick Cockburn, is one of the very best reporters now covering the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Chuck Spinney
Cap Ferat, France

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America is deluded by its drone-warfare propaganda

World View: The use of unmanned aircraft to assassinate its enemies is guaranteed to backfire on Washington

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, Sunday, 10 June 2012

As the US and its allies ponder what to do about Syria, one suggestion advanced by the protagonists of armed intervention is to use unmanned drones to attack Syrian government targets. The proposal is a measure of the extraordinary success of the White House, CIA and Defense Department in selling the drone as a wonder weapon despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The attraction of the drone for President Obama and his administration five months before the presidential election is self-evident.

[1] The revelation that he personally selected targets from the top ranks of al-Qa'ida for assassination by remote control shows the President as tough and unrelenting in destroying America's enemies.

[2] The programme is popular at home because the cost appears not to be large and, most importantly, there are no American casualties.

[3] The media uncritically buys into claims of the weapon's effectiveness, conveniently diverting voters' attention from the US army's failure to defeat puny opponents in two vastly expensive campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[4] The Republicans cried foul, alleging that the administration is selectively leaking highly classified secrets to portray Obama as a man of decision untroubled by liberal qualms in his defence of his country. The White House expressed itself deeply shocked by such a claim of political opportunism, and last week the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, appointed two lawyers to track down the leakers, though without giving them special powers to do so.

Almost unquestioned in all this is the utility of the drone strikes and whether they really are the wonder weapon they are claimed to be. After all, air forces have been over-selling precision bombing as a way of winning wars on the cheap since Lord Trenchard ran the RAF in the 1920s. Politicians of all nations have been attracted by new war-winning armaments or commando-type organisations. Examples include Churchill in the Second World War and President Kennedy, who favoured the Green Beret special units and helicopter-borne forces in Vietnam. The media has traditionally gobbled up and publicised tales of magically effective arms or the derring-do of elite detachments, often ignoring their lack of long-term military success.

The most striking but understated feature of the drone strikes in the North-west Frontier districts of Pakistan is that they could not take place without the co-operation of the Pakistani army and its all-powerful military intelligence branch, the ISI. Some government co-operation is essential in Yemen, too, though less so than in Pakistan because of the weakness of the Yemeni state.

The problem is that high-precision weapons still need ground-based intelligence to identify targets. In Pakistan, the ISI says privately that its agents provide the details without which the drones would not know whom to pursue and eliminate. The difficulty for those guiding the drones from command posts far away has not changed much since “precision bombing” in the Second World War or the far more accurate missile strikes in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Large, immovable facilities or power stations are easy to identify; individuals are not. In 2003, President Bush brought forward the start of the bombing and missile strikes because US intelligence believed it knew the exact location of Saddam Hussein in south Baghdad. This was destroyed by missiles, but research after the war showed that Saddam had never been near the place.

Up-to-the minute intelligence about who is in what house, and when they are there, requires a network of local agents who can communicate their information immediately. It is very unlikely that the ISI would allow the CIA to have this sort of network in Pakistan. The crucial information that enabled the US to find and identify Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad reportedly came from the ISI itself.

Of course, an assassination target might be stupid enough to give away his or her position by using a mobile, satellite phone or some other form of electronic communication. But few insurgent groups today are likely to give away their position so easily.

The result of reliance on the ISI is that it is Pakistani military intelligence officers, and not President Obama or his security and military staff, who really determine what sort of person is killed by the unmanned drones. This is in keeping with Pakistan's cynical but successful approach to dealing with the US since 9/11. This is to be, at one and the same time, its best ally and worst enemy.

It means allowing the US to kill or capture members of al-Qa'ida in Pakistan, successes that have important electoral benefits for any administration in Washington. At times, Pakistan may look to the US to eliminate a troublesome member of the Pakistan Taliban such as its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who over-reached himself in the eyes of the Pakistan authorities and was killed by a drone strike in 2009. Over the years, the White House or the CIA has been able to claim successes, such as the elimination of the second in command of al-Qa'ida or the killing of most top al-Qa'ida commanders, as if Bin Laden's old organisation were the same size as the Pentagon.

What we have not seen is the effective use of US drones against the Afghan Taliban and its allies, who rely on their safe havens in Pakistan. It is here that the Afghan Taliban's leadership is based, and its ability to retreat into Pakistan has ensured the US military failure in Afghanistan, just as it ensured the Soviet Union's inability to wipe out the insurgents fighting its forces in the 1980s. The lack of good US intelligence on the Afghan Taliban leadership is striking. How else would a shopkeeper from Quetta be able to extract a large sum of money and pose as a Taliban leader in peace negotiations in Kabul?

Unmanned droned strikes are all about American domestic politics rather than about the countries where they are used.

They cater to illusions of power,

  • giving Americans a sense that their technical prowess is unparalleled, despite the Pentagon's inability to counter improvised explosive devices, which are no more than old-fashioned mines laid in or beside roads.
  • The drones have even been presented as being more humanitarian than other forms of warfare, simply by claiming that any dead males of military age killed in a strike must have been enemy combatants.

The downside to these exaggerated successes is that the White House and the US security agencies believe more of their own propaganda than is good for them.

  • Ramshackle insurgent movements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are not like regular armies, in which the elimination of officers or senior cadres might be a crippling blow to the organisation.
  • Just as important, in the long term, assassination campaigns do not win wars, and they create as many enemies as they destroy.

Phi Beta Iota:  Drones are idiocy–pilots are cheaper than bandwidth, pilots have more situational awareness, and somewhere in there, the system has a modicum of ethics.  What CIA does with drones–what the USAF does with drones–what the Secretaries of Defense and of Homeland Security allow to be done with drones, is clearly idiotic at all possible levels.  The technology gets more and more expensive and less and less useful with every war, while the thinking gets dumber and dumber, less ethical, less serious, than ever before.  We the People get the government we deserve — drones are a microcosm of all that is wrong with the Republic–no intelligence, and no integrity.

See Also:

Anthony Hall: When War is a Remedy for Terror?

Berto Jongman: Does Terrorism Work? What Do They Want? + Meta-RECAP

Berto Jongman: ICSR Report – As American As Apple Pie – How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad + US Government Assassination RECAP

Chuck Spinney: Cancer of Careerism – Final Word on Colin Powell’s Moral Suicide

Chuck Spinney: Myth of Precision-Guided Coercion

Chuck Spinney: Real Cost vs Real Value of Drones? + RECAP

Chuck Spinney: Richard Falk on USG Learning Disability

Chuck Spinney: The Liquidation of al-Awlaqi – Droning Mindlessly Into an American Jihad

Chuck Spinney: Why US War Machine Goes On…and On…

CIA Further Out of Control–New Persian “Base”

David Isenberg: NSA Ubber Alles, Drones in the Toilet

David Isenberg: Steve Coll Reviews Three Books on Secret American Security State

David Swanson: 10 Excellent Reasons to Attack Iran

David Swanson: 1939 Essay Predicted Hitler, Predicts US Dictatorship

David Swanson: Lies and Consequences Across 15 Wars

David Swanson: Obama OK on Israel Nuking Iran — AFTER the November 2012 Election

David Swanson: Shifting Strategies of the US Empire

David Swansson: When the World Outlawed War – A Model for Occupy to Achieve Electoral Reform Act of 2012

DefDog: Air Force Integrity? Get Hacked Tell No One

DefDog: Army’s Mental Health Questionable

DefDog: CIA Decides Who to Blow Up – Without Having Any Idea Who They Are…

DefDog: Counter-IED Network Analysis – Works for Law Enforcement, Ignored by US Military

DefDog: Delusions of Power – Absolute Corruption of US Power

DefDog: Drones Kill US Forces – Once Again, BAD IDEA

DefDog: Inexpensive Drone Do It Yourself Cyber-War

DefDog: Internal US War Over Spy Blimps

DefDog: Iran Hijacks US Drone Shows Film + RECAP

DefDog: Mystery Drone in Pakistan–And No HUMINT

Defense Science Board to DoD: Get Brain + RECAP

Dolphin: Their Drones, Our Drones, and EMP Rays

Dolphin: US and Israeli Targeted Killings

Drones Everywhere, Some Tiny, None Smart

Eagle: Obama’s SOTU “Urinating on Public Intelligence”

Electronic Frontier Foundation: 2011 Secrecy Skyrockets

Event: 28-29 Apr Washington DC International Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remote Control

G.I. Wilson: Killer Drones, Moral Disengagement, + War Crimes RECAP

John Pilger: The War on Democracy Comes Home

John Robb: Automation of Censorship and Extra-Judicial Assassination

John Robb: Drone Diplomacy – Comply or Die + Meta RECAP

John Robb: The Official US Process of Death by Powerpoint

John Robb: Micro Drones Threaten US Citizens at Home

John Robb: When Security is Huge, Stupid, & Out of Control

John Robb: Worms, Drones, SuperBugs, & Plagues – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Journal: A Tale of Two Flying Pigs

Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management

Journal: Constant Technical Stare vs. Engaged Brain

Journal: Drones of War

Journal: Drones versus Pioneers–Defining the Finish Line

Journal: Dumbest Weapons Money Can Buy…

Journal: Gorgon Stare (All Eyes, No Brain)

Journal: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

Journal: Legality of US Drones as Killing Machines . . .

Journal: Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as a Metaphor for a Predictable Defense Meltdown

Journal: Pentagon Strategy & Policy Oxymoron Squared?

Journal: The Legal And Moral Issues Of Drone Use

Journal: USN Refuses NGF for USMC–Gap Clearly Identified by Expeditionary Factors Study in 1989

Marcus Aurelius: 10 Years Along, Still No Intelligence…

Marcus Aurelius: Admiral Lyons Blasts US Intelligence Community – No Improvement Since 9/11 — Could It Even Be WORSE? With Comment by Robert Steele

Marcus Aurelius: CIA Counter-Terror Drone Boss – Cognitive Dissonance in Spades + RECAP

Marcus Aurelius: Defense “Strategy” & “Budget” — Ignorant Duplicitous Theater + META-RECAP

Marcus Aurelius: For the Record – DoD Eats Entire US Government

Marcus Aurelius: Obama, CIA, Murder by Drone…

Marcus Aurelius: Polish Lid Comes Off Global Rendition-Torture Pot

Marcus Aurelius: SecDef to McCain on Sequester + RECAP on DoD Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

Marcus Aurelius: The Covert Commander in Chief

Marcus Aurelius: US Army Chief of Staff Toes the Party Line + Meta-RECAP

Marcus Aurelius: US Navy Hypes Water Drone Threat

Matt Taibbi: GRIFTOPIA – RECAP

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: All Eyes No Brain

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: All Eyes No Brain Part II

Mini-Me: Assassination – Made in America – At What Cost? Impeachable Treason.

Mini-Me: CIA Chief Lawyer on CIA Authorities to Use Force Around the World

Mini-Me: End of the Delusional UAV Era

Mini-Me: Leon Panetta on Dysfunctional Government + Meta-RECAP

Mini-Me: The Future of Intelligence is Your Dishwasher?

Owl: 63 Drone Launch Sites Across the USA

Patrick Meier: Drones for Non-Violent Resistance

Paul Craig Roberts: Unethical Elites + Ignorant Public = Tyranny

Paul Craig Roberts: Washington Leads World Into Lawlessness

Penguin: CIA’s Metamorphis Into the Drone Machine

Penguin: US/UK Perpetuate Soviet False Flag Model + Meta-RECAP

Reference: Gorgon Stare–USAF Goes Nuts (Again)

Review: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

Review: Extreme Prejudice – The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-Ups of 9/11 and Iraq – The Ultimate Conspiracy to Silence the Truth

Review: The Art of Intelligence – Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service

Richard Wright: General Flynn to Head DIA – Exile or Reward? PLUS Comments by BG Bubba Boo, Ralph Peters, and Airborne Ranger

Richard Wright: Mike Vicker’s Trillion Dollar Adventure

Secrecy News: Costs of Major US Wars, Contractors in Iraq & AF, Drones & Homeland Sec

Secrecy News: The Costs of War & More (CRS)

Steven Aftergood: Secret Systems Cluttering the Electromagnetic Spectrum

The Drone Wars

Theophillis Goodyear: US Veteran Suicides: 25 for each combat death, 18 a day every day year after year + Meta-RECAP

The Year of the Drone: Map & Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010

USA Has Become Deaf, Dumb, and Blind

USAF–From Gorgon Stare to Micro-Drone Puff

US Intelligence & Policy on China & Pakistan Lack Consistency & Common Sense (i.e. Integrity)

US Slow Burn in Pakistan….and DOA Elsewhere…

USA Spectrum Out of Control & Self-Destructing

Yoda: In with Flynn, Out with What? Can He Effect Change Clapper Could Not?

WInslow Wheeler: Congress Blows on the F-35

Winslow Wheeler: Drones Dead on Arrival

Winslow Wheeler: Elitist Corruption on the Defense Budget

Winslow Wheeler: ONE COLONEL TELLS THE TRUTH – Major Investigation Called For + Meta-RECAP

WInslow Wheeler: USAF Cost Over-Runs–DoD Micro-Look

Women of Washington–The Lunacy Continues

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