OBAMA 2.O / DRONE WARFARE
States. The Jan. 3 strike which
killed Mullah Nazir, for instance,
ostensibly removed a senior battlefield commander.
But, according to the Long War
Journal, Nazir was replaced within a day by Bahwal Khan, his top
aide for the past 16 years, an Afghan fighter closely allied with al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups
in the region. As a result, “little
will change,” a U.S. intelligence
official told the Journal. “It will
be business as usual, we’ll continue to have to take shots at al
Qaeda leaders and others” in the
area, the official said.
Given all these difficulties, said
Zenko, “the trajectory of U.S.
drone strike policies is unsustainable.” On the military side, a global arms race to acquire and deploy
armed drones could erode the U.S.
freedom of action and threaten
American friends and allies.
On the domestic side, the rising
clamor of public opinion could either force the program deeper into
the shadows, or impose unwieldy
or counterproductive reforms
from the outside — for example a
ban on all armed drone strikes.
Many security experts acknowledge that armed drones provide
the United States a needed na-
HUFFINGTON
01.27.13
tional security capability which
should be retained — and can be
done so safely with a little more
transparency and safeguards.
For example, Zenko suggests in
a new policy paper that the president should move quickly to disclose more of the legal justification
for the strikes, end the practice of
crowd killings, authorize classified briefings to Congress, and, to
increase accountability, assign the
drone program to either the Defense Department’s Joint Special
Operations Command or the CIA,
but not both.
“Obama has ducked questions about
whether or not he personally reviews
each strike package.”
Beyond that, he said, the United
States might usefully set up an
international protocol to limit the
spread of drone technology, much
as it has done with nuclear weapons technology.
“Reforming U.S. drone strike
policies will be difficult and will
require sustained high-level attention to balance transparency
with the need to protect sensitive
intell Y