The Drone Papers
Secret military documents expose the inner workings of Obama’s drone wars.The link reveals secret details of the official Drone program. Simply secret details about the nature of a very unsecret program we are all aware of.
We have a new whistle blower:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-intercept-source-another-snowden_561f9cc6e4b0c5a1ce621c97?ry41v2t9
Read the comments to the link. Wet your finger and put it up in the air. I feel growing dissension and fractionalization in the USA. The symptom of a state-less social conflict? Who benefits?
Warfare has evolved over centuries in terms of "stand-off" capability to target and kill. From up close and personal with a blunt or sharp weapon to impersonal death dealt from thousands of miles away. Target detection has likewise evolved. So has the strategy of kill more of them than they kill us. The ultimate winning end of that game is kill them all at no cost of death to our side.
Is that a simple enough picture?
Drones are the ultimate weapon. Used to be the atom bomb. Still is. We have plenty. They are not used, except twice and how many enemy combatants did they kill? It was a different war then. Civilians populations were targeted. Not the sword and spear clashes of huge armies on open fields.
In 1996 I visited Ho Chi Minh's headquarters. Also his home. This is link to pictures:
https://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/vietnam/hanoi/hcm/stilthouse.html
He had his meetings in half of the downstairs. Lived upstairs. Bunker in the back. Next to the old Provincial French palace which he refused to occupy. I'm sure that his home was hard to see from the air. The palace however stood out plainly.
Is it possible that we did not know, could not find out where his house was and conclude that he was probably at home at some time?
It was never bombed but hundreds of thousands of bombs were dropped. Missions were flown over Hanoi. John McCain was fished out of a lake in the center of Hanoi.
It was a different war. The top leader of the enemy was not targeted. Village leaders were. By both sides. NVA and Viet Cong got a lot of media attention killing village leaders. US and ARVN did it also but not publicized.
Civilians are killed in drone strikes. A cost of doing business. Like and cost/benefit analysis there is a break even point. There are also probabilities of success/failure and definition of terms. It is a cold calculation when it comes to human lives. A calculation that involves moral values. What are they? Anything we wish them to be. The statistical probability criteria for civilian deaths? A low number I hope but probably contingent on the value of the target. Morally justified perhaps by proximity being guilt by association. Any reason will do.
Drone targets are not heads of state. They are stateless therefore not covered by the gentleman's war agreement not to officially target heads of state. "Terrorists" are free fire zone targets. The Drone Papers describe some official dissent that we cannot capture them for interrogation. Better alive than dead in that case. There is a point to be considered there. Probably being made by those government agencies in the torture business, which may have declined. Who knows, it is secret.
I admire Tom Engelhardt. He often writes and feature writers on the subject of drone warfare and related matters.
Examples:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175978/tomgram%3A_gregoire_chamayou,_hunting_humans_by_remote_control/
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175990/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_counting_bodies,_then_and_now/
"Stateless" enemies are "free fire" targets. There is no "State" country with military power to retaliate the attack. Were American Indians stateless targets? Indigenous peoples of other colonized countries? Something to ponder in the rules of war. Terrorists are stateless, little or no rights until they become a state. 1776?
Being or becoming a nation state has its security advantages. An attack on its citizens is an attack on the state. 9/ll?
It works in reverse. A nation-state may officially retain a name like Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria but in essence becomes a stateless entity in the eyes (unofficially) of external states when it is composed of warring factions. Then different rules of warfare apply, those generally applicable to stateless entities. Stateless entities have State of Being heads that can be targeted.
The long term game plan of Israel is getting increased attention lately as things go to hell in a handbasket in the Middle East. The plan for "Securing the Realm" is being looked at in terms of current progress and it seems to be doing so much better than other countries overt plans for the Middle East. The question arises: Are they the same plan? If so what is that plan?
If there is such a plan? Google "Strategy for Securing the Realm" selecting just the past week and there are 8 pages of hits. The strategy names countries, Nation States, what better strategy than to reduce a Nation State to stateless. A nation in name only but a geographic area of stateless actors.
Stateless actors become targets of different rules and have internal agenda not so much external unless they become a combined official state like a Caliphate which given their fractional divisions is a dream held by zealots to the advantage of Israel.
How does that benefit the USA? The USA has a nation building agenda based on Freedom. Might the true USA strategy be based on the Israeli strategy of reducing nation-states to basic statelessness.
The USA does not do nation building well.
I admire Andrew Bachavich and everything he writes:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176055/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_vietnamization_2.0/
The USA attacked Iraq. A nation-state. Afghanistan. A nation-state. No so good result. Shouldn't attack nations states so much any more. But factions within a nation state might be a better way to attack a nation-state. The only trick is to support the nation-state head of state until there is no longer a state to be head of because it is broken up into factions that we simply wash our hands of. A threat only unto itself, not us, not Israel.
Mission Accomplished.
Remain allied to one of the factions sending in the drones for support until they become "enemies" and side with another faction that become the good guys.
Perpetual war. Out of sight, out of the public mind.
The "Let's you and him fight" Strategy.
No rules for stateless entities or those with centralized power to impose it rules.
Jay Gould had a strategy:
Frequently attributed: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
Is the USA hiring half the population (or some faction with half the power) and paying them in Drone Strikes?
The "rules of war" should be re-written. Only hand held weapons weapons can be used and only those that can inflict death on another either held in the hand like a knife or club or thrown by hand like a spear. Inflicting death in such a manner can only be done upon an enemy holding in their hand one of the authorized weapons of war. Killing the old fashion way. Up close and personal with skin in the game.
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