The Reality of Drone Strikes

by Isfundiar Kasuri

Why exactly are Pakistanis upset by these drone strikes? Humiliation, suffering and distrust are the three words that come to mind. Pakistanis do not trust the US intentions and have a significant distaste for the involvement of an imperial power, especially the one that helped create the problem in the first place

There are people who contend that due to a media blackout in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and a successful smear campaign, the overall success of the drone missile strikes is being kept in obscurity. This argument is based on the findings of the FATA-based Aryana Institute’s 550 person poll, which suggests a ‘majority’ of the people in FATA support US drone strikes. This survey was carried out in early 2009 and is still being cited as evidence that the people of FATA do not mind the ‘collateral damage’ being caused to them in the US’s war on terror.

I personally see several points of issue here. First, can someone explain to me how, to the chagrin of the Gallup folks, this group figured out a way to conduct an accurate poll in an area that is under a media blackout? Second, according to this liberal version of the Zaid Hamid crowd, the Pakistani media, the ISI, the ISPR and even the judiciary are complicit in spreading misinformation about the drone missile strikes. The purpose, of course, is to increase anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

In the real world, however, nothing could be further from the truth. There are few, if any, instances in history when a nation has wished for an imperial power to interfere in its military operations to settle its own internal problems.

Since the country’s inception, Pakistan has remained a US client state with its militarisation as a primary goal of the US policy in the region. One of The New York Times reporters, commenting on ‘The Charlie Rose Show’, suggested as much after Prime Minister Gilani’s disastrous first state trip to the US, stating that the US is really going to be conducting its ‘meaningful business’ with General Kiyani. Today, despite Mr Holbrooke’s rhetoric to the contrary, the US continues to place its confidence in the Pakistan Army’s ability to control the situation in FATA and in Pakistan on the whole. Moreover, the assertion that the Pakistan Army is attempting to sabotage the US drone missile campaign through propaganda simply does not add up.

To the contrary, one could argue that Pakistan’s establishment is quite supportive of the drone missile strikes. During President Musharraf’s tenure, all strike locations were vetted personally by him. He and his American counterpart are now gone but the drone strikes have intensified. The ‘war on terror’ is now the Pakistani government’s mantra. From Ambassador Haqqani in Washington to President Zardari in Islamabad to General Kiyani at GHQ, the term is used as frequently as on Fox News. Specifically in the case of drone strikes, there seems to be a widespread acceptance on the part of all the actors in Pakistan and the US. This is despite the fact that no one chooses to directly acknowledge their existence, with or without approval, for fear of upsetting the body politic.

So why exactly are Pakistanis upset by these drone strikes? Humiliation, suffering and distrust are the three words that come to mind. Pakistanis do not trust the US intentions and, as mentioned earlier, have a significant distaste for the involvement of an imperial power, especially the one that helped create the problem in the first place. As Dr Noam Chomsky put it rather succinctly, “You tend not to like people if they bomb your villages.”

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, two-time US presidential candidate, went so far as to suggest that the US is a society “so sated with violence that we do not know any other way to relate to people”, acknowledging the great disagreement the Pakistani masses have with the drone missile campaign. Philip Alston, the UN investigator who spent much time researching this subject, said, “This strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the US or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extra-judicial executions.” I suppose ‘rules’ are meant only for the ruled.

In May 2010, an advocate for drone strikes cited the work of three Massachusetts-based researchers, who concluded that out of 1,247 casualties of 127 CIA drone strikes carried out as of April 1, 2010, “only 44 were civilians, while 963 were militants or suspected of being so”. The remaining casualties were placed in the category of ‘unknown’. According to the report, which was later published in The Sentinel, a US Military Academy Counter-Terrorism publication no less, a terrorist to civilian ratio of 3.4:1 was arrived at, assuming those from the ‘unknown’ category were all civilian. She then went on to say that these statistics defied the misinformation being spread by previously mentioned ‘actors’ and was proof that drone strikes were in fact successful.

First, what exactly does “militants or suspected of being so” mean? More importantly, who is doing the suspecting? There are still several hundred ‘suspected’ militants residing at Guantanamo for a decade now, most of whom have not seen the inside of a courtroom yet for lack of evidence. Reverse the situation for a moment. What would Americans do if Pakistan had illegally detained 500 Americans for the same period of time on the grounds that they were ‘suspected’ of being terrorists? The double standards are obvious and consistent with an imperial mindset.

What is unfortunate, however, is when Pakistanis take these kinds of positions. It is indicative of the fact that at least some of our elite and educated classes have yet to develop a post-colonial worldview.

In any case, for those of us who view drone strike proponents’ claims as suspect and oppose these strikes, there may be a silver lining. In spite of the US’s aggressive foreign policy, the Americans have more liberty than most others. Despite the efforts of media conglomerates to manufacture consent, ideas cannot be suppressed indefinitely like in other countries. The US citizenry is amongst the hardest working and the most ethical in the world. Moreover, as the realities of US imperialism and unregulated free trade have begun to hit home, American civilians are finally becoming aware that they have more in common with the world’s people than they previously believed. True ‘change we can believe in’ may be upon us soon, no thanks to the Obama administration and Pakistan’s leadership that still cannot comprehend what the creation of Pakistan really meant 63 years after independence.

Isfundiar Kasuri is a TV journalist

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