| 'Look there, in the sky' |
When listening to the US administration’s justification for
drone strikes and the parameters for their use deemed acceptable, it is hard
not to feel that President Obama is setting a dangerous precedent for the use
of force by any state, nation, or group, against its enemies. One would have to
assume that, if this is the limit of the rules by which they consider
themselves bound, the use of violence in this way must surely be acceptable to
them where it is used by another, even by those considered enemies. By claiming
moral and legal justification for such acts of violence, you must accept that
you justify others use of the same justifications, otherwise it is deeply
hypocritical and we’d surely never see this from a US administration.
| Deadly drone |
By declaring this a global war, not restricted to areas of operations
or zones of ‘hot war,’ President Obama and his administration seek to justify
the killing of people not engaged in combat that they have deemed to be enemies
without charge, evidence, trial, representation or any legal process whatsoever,
and whilst residing in the sovereign territory of other states. The
justification for this is simply that these people are planning to harm the US.
What the many civilians also killed are guilty of has yet to be decided,
although it can be as simple as being a combat aged male, as the they would
rather argue over the numbers than the principle, a clear hint that there is no
legal or moral justification for the deaths of innocents caused by military
strikes within the sovereign territory of supposed allies. Where this
justification becomes dangerous is in following it to its logical conclusions
in terms of the scope of the reach of the US’s ‘war on terror’ and also in
terms of what it implies is a justifiable act in a war.
First of all, the implication that the US considers it
justifiable to attack its ‘enemies,’ who are planning to harm the US, no matter
where they are in the world has implications for us all. Whilst it is unlikely
that it would happen, it suggests that it would be legitimate to strike on UK
soil to take out someone considered to be plotting against the US, and of
course take out any innocent civilians who happen to be near them at the time.
This is of course highly unlikely given the intelligence sharing between the US
and the UK, the fact that we are allies in the same abstract war and that we
would be likely to either prosecute anyone plotting in this way in the UK or
extradite them to the US. It is worth considering however for the way in which
it would feel to be morally wrong and the way in which it would be expected to
be considered illegal as well. I use it mainly to illustrate the point that if
we would consider it to be morally and legally wrong if it were to happen in
the UK, then the same thinking should apply to anywhere else. It is always
worth considering how actions would affect you and your own country when trying
to understand the use of such actions in a place far removed from your reality.
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| Drone strike aftermath |
Secondly, the implication is that killing someone whom you
perceive to be a threat, and those who happen to be near them, is an acceptable
tactic in this modern war of ours. If this applies to enemies on the sovereign
soil of one’s allies, it surely must apply to any leader or service personnel
on the soil of your enemies, when you are at war these people must surely be
considered to be a threat to you. I think it obvious where I am going with
this, but I’ll spell it out anyway. The logical conclusion to the justification
of drone strikes is that it would be acceptable to kill soldiers and political
leaders, and of course anyone who happens to be near them, outside of a ‘hot
war’ zone if you consider them to be a threat to you, an example of which would
be killing a British soldier on the streets of London or the bombing of any
leading UK or US politician and their family. Given that we are apparently
engaged in a war on a global scale against radical Islam, a radical Islamist
could point to this justification of the US administrations drone strikes as a
justification for violence in the UK or US. As well as the above, this sort of logic
could be used for the removal of political dissidents abroad, political assassinations
and military strikes by states who consider certain people to be a
threat to their state. If this logic is to be acceptable to us as justification
for US violence then it is hard to argue against it if it were to be used by
Russia, Iran, China or anyone else, even though comparable actions have
certainly been condemned in the past
It almost feels as though the justifications trotted out by
the US administration for their use of drone strikes are the perfect
justifications for certain acts which would normally be labelled terrorism, were
they to happen in the West, or of state sponsored assassinations of political or military adversaries who have sought safety elsewhere. Once you start acting
outside the boundaries of what would normally be considered legal and you start
having to perform complex mental gymnastics to try and morally justify your
actions, it is time to start considering what it is that sets you apart from
your enemies. This is particularly relevant when you are already detaining
people without trial, torturing suspects, abusing prisoners, killing civilians,
eroding civil rights at home and prosecuting those who expose such actions.
Once we give up the rule of law and principles of fairness and liberty, we have
lost the war of ideas no matter what happens in the war of arms.
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