Voicing serious concerns over ongoing US drone warfare, top analysts at a discussion warned against immediate and long-term repercussions of the covert attacks that Washington conducts to target suspected militants on foreign soils.
The debate took place at the launch of Pakistani scholar Akbar Ahmed’s book, The Thistle and the Drone, at the American University. The book adds to the growing domestic and international criticism of the drone programme and the Obama administration’s excessive reliance on the clandestine operations.
President Obama’s advisers claim that over the years drones have been an effective counterterrorism tool against al Qaeda-linked militants but international human rights and peace activists as well as recent US studies have criticised the drone programme for absence of transparency and public accountability and loss of civilian lives.
Dr Ahmed’s book takes an anthropological look at implications of the US drone strikes for the tribal societies, which exist on the periphery and are often at the receiving end of the central governments.
The study also examines Pakistan’s tribal areas in the political, social, and human perspectives and throws up some provocative questions on the thorny issue of drones and its impact on local people from a humanitarian standpoint.
Speaking at the book launch, former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich said drones have exacerbated sufferings of the tribal societies. Since 9/11, he said, the US had “exceeded” its constitution and that the controversial drone actions have “put us in a mode of permanent warfare”.
The US, he said, has a right to defence, but it should have never involved itself in occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The US, he said, should not have been trapped in dichotomised thinking of “us versus them”.
“Where do we stand – it is disappointing that we cannot see what drones are doing we are making the world more dangerous,” said the former lawmaker from Ohio, who has been a long-time critic of the drone policy.
Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired US army colonel, who served as chief of staff for former secretary of state Colin Powell in the crucial years of Afghanistan and Iraq wars, faulted the drone programme on account of its irreverence for international law and ethics and a lack of clear-cut methodology.
Drones, he remarked, represented a militarisation of the US foreign policy and are miring the United States in an “endless war in the name of terrorism”.
“We are creating at least ten more (militants)” by targeting one, he noted while reinforcing the argument that instead of curbing militancy, drone operations inflame the very problem.
Professor Randolph Persaud, director Designate of the Comparative and Regional Studies Programme in SIS, praised the profound insight the book provides on the drone actions “that have gone on for too long”. He said instead of using drones, the US should partner for development of peripheral people towards a peaceful world.
Author Akbar Ahmed, who is Ibn-e-Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at the American University, offered some practical suggestions on the way out for the United States and the tribal societies as he rejected the notion of clash of civilisations.
The steps the US could take should include support for educational advancement in tribal territories, said Ahmed, who several years ago served as political agent in South Waziristan. He called for the need to change the “war on terror paradigm” with realisation on part of the US policymakers that the US exists within a world.
Ahmed, who previously served as Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London, said as proponent of fostering better understanding between the United States and the Islamic countries, “I’m not sure why drones are being used.”
