A Newsweek report (2/21/11) looks at the CIA’s aerial drone assassination program through the agency’s eyes–leaving questions about civilian deaths and the effort’s dubious legality for a couple of brief paragraphs at the end. To encourage Newsweek to take critics of the drone program seriously, see FAIR’s new Action Alert. Please leave copies of your messages–or comments on the alert–in the comments thread here.
Dear Newsweek:
I read with interest your February 21, 2011 piece on CIA drone assassinations. I have long been concerned about the legality of this weapon and fear its possible use on American targets someday. I wish you had included information on the possible illegality of this weapon system and more information on the civilian casualties of this method. We depend on you for balanced coverage of issues.
Thank you,
Vicki L. McReynolds
Moraga, CA
I sent basically the same thing. Thanks FAIR.org for helping us keep the media in check!
While I appreciate more attention being focused on our policy of using drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, the article you published comes across as a press release or a cheerleading session rather than investigative journalism. Where are the voices from outside the military or the administration who might have different perspectives about the legality of the program and more representative figures on civilian deaths? The report simply claims through quotes from insiders (often anonymous) that everything is carefully vetted and tastefully done. Since, for example, we know that Pakistani military officials are responsible for the targeting of some attacks, these claims are, if not patently false, at least hard to believe. When the lives of so many people who are unanimously considered innocent and the rest, whose guilt has been proven in no court of law, are at stake, we cannot stand by and let the US military and White House write the story on this tragic episode in our nation’s foreign and military policy, for while they have the best information available in many cases, they also have no stake in allowing the truth to be known.
Of a number of alarming developments — encroachments upon civil liberties, endless loops of military intervention, bankers and Wall Street flushing our economy down the drain, no accounting nor accountability to the common citizen who bears the burden, etc — your February 21 article by Tara McKelvey stands, quietly so, as an indicator of attitudes that enable the continuation of this insanity. One cannot rationalize the counterproductive and probably illegal actions — in this case the use of drones — to effect a desired tactical outcome. Collateral damage, literal and figurative, is unacceptable. Human beings are not statistics. They are lives and livelihood. And they are potentials — for productive good or for destructive evil.
While we, sophisticated in technology and brutish in its use, are poking around in search of counter-terrorist strategy that is mired in militarism that is dated and ineffective (advances in weaponry notwithstanding), we ignore the actual arena within which war was declared upon us — economic. In light of what is taking place on Wall Street or Main Street, the halls of capitalism or the halls of Congress, it has become sadly obvious that, not only are we losing the “War on Terror”, but that we are fully and foolishly intent upon it.
David Kahl
I took this opportunity to say why I think drone attacks are illegal:
In Newsweek’s February 21 article on the CIA’s drone assassination, was Newsweek saying that it opposes trials. None of the people who are killed by drones have ever been tried of anything, let alone convicted. We are not fighting terrorism by killing people that the government of Pakistan or any other government do not like. We need to be supporting healthy judicial systems in Pakistan and Yemen and other countries where the CIA is murdering people instead of supporting corrupt governments.
Would you also think Hitler’s doodle-bugs were ok? Or, as ever, because it is an American bomb it is somehow different? I’m fed up with there always being an excuse for what the biggest bully in the world is doing. It stinks and so does your paper.
This is what I said in an email to Newsweek:
In light of reports (such Pakistani ones which place civilian deaths at 90% of the total killed by drones), your February 21 article on CIA drones is definitely unbalanced. There is , of course, also the question of international law and invading the air space of a supposed ally to hit targets. You needed more information â┚¬“ and more experts that question the attacks to give a true picture.
E-mail to Newsweek:
Your Feb 21 article on drone attacks was little more than an advocacy piece for this bloody policy that indiscriminately kills civilians and innocents, no matter who is supposedly targeted. The perpetrators of this policy are no different from any other terrorists. The difference between delivering bombs via missile or automobile is too slight to matter. Your virtual silence on people and groups who protest these acts of war put you squarely on the side of media apologists for war crimes. You should be ashamed. As should our President.
Robert Lipton
Holyoke, MA
Dear Editor:
Your February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes appears to be little more than dictation for White House talking points while giving scant coverage to opposing viewpoints from groups like the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, and various former military and academic experts. They make the case that not only do the strikes kill too many civilians and are therefore counterproductive, are not particularly effective at going after terrorists, and quite likely illegal. They put both American military and Americans abroad in more, not less, danger and serve as a very effective recruitment tool for various Islamic radical groups for obvious reasons.
You also appear to defend defend and find admirable that “Obama and his advisers favor a more aggressive approach because it seems more practical–that administration officials prefer to eliminate terrorism suspects rather than detain them.” Since when does America favor executing “suspects” rather than make the efforts to find out if they are indeed terrorists before we condemn them to death. Are they all guilty, never to be proven innocent just because they live in a country not bowing down to US interests? Have we become so unethical and lacking in morality as a people, that random murder based on mere suspicion is tolerable to us? Is Obama’s “practical” laziness to be an accepted excuse for outright assassination? Really? Newsweek finds this reasonable and even to be admired? Shame on you and Obama.
Oh, and by the way, there has been plenty of outcry about Obama’s lethal operations in spite of the secrecy the administration has tried to impose about their actions. If you spent more time being investigative journalists and less time being dictation taking sycophants, you might have found this out through good, old fashioned, unbiased reporting. You know, the thing Newsweek is supposed to be doing.
Sincerely,
Jean Waller
Chicago, IL
Please add my voice to those who would like Newsweek to more fully report issues and not “drone on,” slavering over government talking points. Breathlessly quoting CIA officials whose livelihoods depend on Americans believing what they say is not really investigative reporting.
Drones are an immensely serious new form of warfare that is trivialized in your “USA! USA!” article. Drones increase civilian deaths (contrary to McKelvey’s happy scenario), causing outrage and despair from its victims. Drones are being abused for political purposes by Pakistan’s government, targeting clannish conflicts rather than threats to the US military. I say military, because these targeted folks are certainly not threatening American citizens. The use of drones may very well be an illegal form of warfare. The folks pushing buttons are so far removed from the scene that they might as well be playing PacMan — remember the sniggering murders of the Reuters workers, children and civilians Bradley Manning heroically brought to light. This system of “warfare” appears to be a violent abuse and punishment of impoverished, powerless people. Finally, drones are being incorporated into control of the US borders. Now that they are on our soil, it’s not a stretch to imagine they will be used against American citizens sometime in the near future.
Most Americans are fed up with these on-going, never-ending wars in which we appear to be propping up petty tyrants who certainly do not have America’s best interests at heart. The feeling of the times is that these war games are luxuries we do not want to continue supporting with tax dollars.
An elaboration on any of the points above would have made a real story.
Thank you for your consideration.
My two cents tossed to a two-bit corpress rag:
It occurs to me that there are many “high-level terrorism suspects” (make that “perpetrators”) in the US, aren’t there?
What if another country chose to “take out” some of them – killing many civilians, a single innocent party, or no one other than the targets, in the process – in retaliation for the deaths among its own population?
Would you consider those acceptable “acts of national security”?
“Terrorism” is in the eye – and the propaganda – of the beholder, isn’t it?
Hello,
I would like to know why such a positive spin is put on the CIA’s Pakistani’s drone attacks reported by Tara McKelvey in Newsweek on February 21, 2011. To downplay the effects to civilians is inconscionable, we are after all talking about killing innocents, for which we are pouring tons and tons of money into preventing American innocents from being attacked, you know for our security.
36 million kids die from malnutrition and starvation every year and there is no outcry to stop that tragedy. So much is being spent to justify the enormous sums being used to “keep us safe.” An entire army in 2 countries that supposedly are there to protect us from Islam terrorists. What about the threats from domestic terrorists? No mention of that.
Yet we claim that 5 to 10% of Muslims want to do us harm, but they have not been very successful so far. Drone attacks are said to be an effective way to fight these people, and civilian deaths are considered to be a necessary evil. Where do we draw the line in this fight. I suggest one way is to report the facts straight up without putting kudos on a method in which innocents are being killed, far more than McKelvey reports on. Just how much safer are we when we use drones that target indescriminately people considered expendable.
The picture McKelvey paints is not completely accurate in regard to the CIAs use of drones. I suggest a redo with more complete facts.
More innocents have been killed in the 2 wars in the middle east than have been lost to terrorists. Sure we lost in 9/11 about 3000 people but then another 4500 in the Iraq war and mor ein Afghanistan.
What is the USA doing?
Raymond
TO: Newsweek Editor
RE: Feb. 21st issue
Your February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes should have given more attention to critics of the CIA’s drone assassinations, who emphasize that the attacks kill civilians and may be illegal. This article is short on outside voices who might raise concerns about civilian deaths, or even question the legality of the CIA carrying out assassinations via remote-controlled drone aircraft.
There was a more sensitive report about the CIA’s drone program by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer (10/26/09) which suggested that the U.S. doesn’t even pick all its assassination targets, but allows Pakistani officials to direct many drone strikes–a concession to Pakistan’s government that would undermine the notion that the strikes are always the subject of careful vetting.
I just do not understand how Newsweek can justify the killing of civilians in “my name”. Groups like the ACLU (1/13/10) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (8/3/10) have long argued the strikes could violate the law, as has the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions (5/28/10). In fact, many both inside and outside the government have argued that the strategy is counterproductive.
Thank you for reading this letter, and taking my concerns into consideration.
Sincerely,
Athena B. Melville
hermes@pacific.net
Dear Editor,
Your article on drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan reported civilian deaths to be so low it discredited your entire story. Even the most respected advisor to the US Army in Afghanistan, counter-insurgency expert and author David Kilcullen, has stated that Hellfire missiles only hit valuable targets in approximetely 10% of cases. What of the other 90%? Who are they? Americans must wake up and realise the government they have voted in, a government proporting to promote peace, is in the business of fequent large scale, systematic massacres of innocent men, women and children.
Benjamin Gilmour
Film Director and Author
Pakistan
I take issue with many of the assumptions presented as facts in your Feb. 21 piece on American use of drones in Pakistan. You imply that the strikes are surgical, but that is far from clear. Civilians are often killed, and sometimes completely innocent people are killed. Beyond that, the piece accepts at face value unnamed Obama administration sources who assure us that the attacks are legal. To me they seem very much like state-ordered assassinations whose legality is very much in doubt, and I am not at all reassured by the fact that those who carry out these operations do so in an orderly and professional manner.
It was disconcerting that Newsweek’s analysis of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan was so short on voices critical of the program. Rather, the piece seemed more apologia than analysis, despite the existence of numerous groups and experts who question the legality of the assassination program. Could it be that there would be more of an outcry against drone attacks if publications like Newsweek presented figures on civilian deaths or views critical of the program?
Daniel Johnson
Binghamton, NY
Murder is murder, probably illegal. I understand from reading other sources (Jane Mayer: New Yorker) that Pakistan officials and not US officials direct the drones. Kinda knocks the ‘multi-layered and methodical’ right from under you, huh? Which by the way means what? And, who is estimating collateral damage? Your article seems in support of drone murder, and you don’t mention that these attacks probably increase the number of people who hate the US because of the very high rate of civilians killed. This article seems so Rah rah US slavishly and fawningly pro-government, not really insightful or honest journalism, another attempt to sanitize horror and corrupt thinking. Too bad.
Don McGinnis
Vancouver Canada
I was a subscriber of Newsweek for over a decade. Then viewing some propaganda journalism against Islam, Pakistan..i.e my home country, I stopped receiving the magazine for myself and my offices. Now through Fair Blog (which gives me a far more critical and balanced world view) I came to know that Newsweak supports and defends drone strikes in my country.
Journalism couldn’t be more Yellower than this.
So far not a shred of evidence has been presented by US gov on Afghanistan involvement in 9-11. On top of that the drone strikes in Pakistan killing hundreds of people with over 90% civilian innocents have become mere statistics or just Collateral Damage. Now WeakNews has attempted to justify the undeclared war and aggression against an ally. Against all norms of decency and international laws this rabidly yallow journalism justifies what legal professionals have called Illegal act of war. Multi layered system of target selection does not justify the act. Who gets to decide whether some act of aggression has been committed by the individuals being attacked or not? Where is the legal process?
By shame-stream media analogy, droning all US staffers (Raymond Davis etal), consulate vehicles etc suspected by Pakistan and Iran or any other country of financing and planning sabotage activities should be justified. By same analogy fomenting unrest in countries and defending such illegal drone attacks by journalists through writings should make them fair targets by a hit squad. Off-course the multi layered system of target selection would be there to exercise care. Facebook, Twitter executives would be fair game for Tunisian, Egyptian, Lebanese govts.
As News Weak logic all this would be based on suspicions only.
what a great world to live in…courtesy NewsWeak.
A critical legal and historical analysis of these wars is hereunder.
Part 1: http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/open-proposal-for-us-revolution-end-unlawful-wars-criminal-economics-1-of-4
Part 2: http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/open-proposal-for-us-revolution-end-unlawful-wars-all-from-known-lies-2-of-4?cid=parsely#parsely
for moderator.
my above posted mail is actually a letter sent to editor newsweek. Actual copy of mail sent is as under:
pl amend post accordingly
NewsWeek or WeakNews–Defending Dronesâ┚¬Ã‚Â
11:50 AM
Reply ┓¼
sajid yaqub
To letters@newsweek.com
I was a subscriber of Newsweek for over a decade. Then viewing some propaganda journalism against Islam, Pakistan..i.e my home country, I stopped receiving the magazine for myself and my offices. Now through Fair Blog (which gives me a far more critical and balanced world view) I came to know that your mag supports and defends drone strikes in my country.
Journalism couldn’t be more Yellower than this.
So far not a shred of evidence has been presented by US gov on Afghanistan involvement in 9-11. On top of that the drone strikes in Pakistan killing hundreds of people with over 90% civilian innocents have become mere statistics or just Collateral Damage. Now courtesy WeakNews, you have attempted to justify the undeclared war and aggression against an ally. Against all norms of decency and international laws your rabid journalism justifies what legal professionals have called Illegal act of war. Multi layered system of target selection does not justify the act. Who gets to decide whether some act of aggression has been committed by the individuals being attacked or not? Where is the legal process?
By your analogy, droning all US staffers (Raymond Davis etal), consulate vehicles etc suspected by Pakistan and Iran or any other country of financing and planning sabotage activities should be justified. By same analogy fomenting unrest in countries and defending such illegal drone attacks by journalists through writings should make them fair targets by a hit squad. Off-course the multi layered system of target selection would be there to exercise care. Facebook, Twitter executives would be fair game for Tunisian, Egyptian, Lebanese govts.
As per your logic all this would be based on suspicions only.
what a great world to live in…courtesy NewsWeak.
A critical legal and historical analysis of these wars is hereunder.
Part 1: Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic/criminal economics
Part 2: Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, all begun with lies
Part 3: Open proposal for US revolution: end parasitic and criminal economics
Part 4: Open proposal for US revolution: expose corporate media as propaganda
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, all from known lies. 2 of 4 – National Nonpartisan | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/open-proposal-for-us-revolution-end-unlawful-wars-all-from-known-lies-2-of-4?cid=parsely#parsely#ixzz1ECEEU2P7
Dear Sirs,
Why oh why did you not present a “fair and balanced” view of the drone program? Evidently civilian deaths make up to 32% of those killed. Would that be acceptable to you if say Mexico or Canada used drones on our population and had those ‘collateral” numbers? Shame on you!
Jack Ox
Dear Newsweek,
In my opinion and in the interest of balanced reporting, your February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes should have given more attention to critics of the CIA’s drone assassinations, who emphasize that the attacks kill civilians and may be illegal. Do you see nothing cowardly about the use of drones?
As you requested, I have pasted in my letter to Newsweek below. In addition, I think one of the bothersome aspects of the article is that while the assassin lawyer, in spite of the great harm of his behavior, is humanized for us by mention of his choice of dinner, his choice of tie, his victims â┚¬“ our victims â┚¬“ whose lives are shattered on his signature, remain featureless, even numberless, and thus will presumably seem, to many readers, inconsequential.
Dear Editor:
Having just read Newsweek’s February 21 article on drones, I am writing to express my distress. No country that engages in assassinations can claim to operate under the rule of law; what is done today to eliminate opponents on the other side of the world, will tomorrow be done to US citizens. Indeed, the progression has already begun: the US has openly stated its intention of murdering a certain American cleric. Where lives are being lost and we all have so much at stake, the banal neutrality of your article’s tone is therefore surprising, and even offensive. The illegality â┚¬“ I would say the criminality – of such actions has been asserted by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, the UN, numerous human rights organizations and many independent legal experts (see, for instance, the Oxford monograph on the subject by Nils Melzer).
Even assuming the practice of assassination – by drone or other method – were perfectly legal and could be justified morally, your article seems to conclude that the â┚¬Ã‹Å“meticulous’ bureaucracy of the CIA can be trusted to target the appropriately guilty parties for â┚¬Ã‹Å“elimination.’ This flies in the face of all the evidence of history. How accurate has the CIA been on any subject? Think only of its WMD in Iraq, the ratio of proven-to-be-innocent persons to proven-guilty persons in Guantanamo, or, most recently, the agency’s entire cluelessness about events in the Middle East in general.
Aside from the men who are unjustly targeted, your article skips over the number of women and children who end up dead or maimed as a result of these attacks. The Los Angeles Times of May 2, 2010 quotes an analysis by the New America Foundation to the effect that â┚¬Ã‹Å“drone attacks had missed [the targeted person] at least 16 times in the preceding 14 months.’ The Brookings Institution has estimated that around ten civilians are killed for every â┚¬Ã‹Å“militant.’ Most researchers consider that around 2000 persons have died in drone strikes. It’s not difficult to calculate how many of these were entirely innocent.
Nor is it difficult to calculate the degree to which such murders destroy America’s moral standing in the world, undercut, by example, the human rights of every person everywhere, and fuel deep resentment and even terrorist attacks in return.
Sincerely,
Michelle Granas
Your February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes should have given more attention to critics of the CIA’s drone assassinations, who emphasize that the attacks kill civilians, produce more terrorists, and may be illegal.
The CIVIC report points out that Pakistani media outlets, based on government figures, put the civilian death rate from drones at about 90 percent.
In fact, many both inside and outside the government have argued that the strategy is counterproductive; as London School of Economics professor Fawaz Gerges pointed out less than a year ago in the pages of Newsweek (6/7/10), former legal adviser to Army Special Operations Jeffrey Addicott argued that the strategy is “creating more enemies than we’re killing or capturing.” A more nuanced report about the CIA’s drone program by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer (10/26/09) also cited military advisers who make the case that the many civilian deaths from drone attacks result in “more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.”
Newsweek does not completely ignore critics of a government program to kill alleged terrorist suspects in Afghanistan and Pakistan; they are stuffed into the final paragraphs of the article.
Placing information about dead civilians and questions about legality at the bottom of the article–well after assurances to the contrary–signals that Newsweek does not consider these parts of the story to be of much importance.
I am deeply disappointed by your journalism and deeply horrified by the drone strikes.
We send armed drones after the bad guys…duh?. Great…. when the %^&%# anti-drone critics enlist their children and grandchildren in our military and insist that THESE kids be sent into the badlands to root out, kill or capture our enemies……. OK, if you don’t know where this is going just log off now and drink your Kool-Aid.
Sent the following to Newsweek today:
We would like to point out that your February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes should have given much more attention to critics of the CIA’s drone assassinations, who emphasize that the attacks kill civilians and may be illegal. former legal adviser to Army Special Operations Jeffrey Addicott argued that the strategy is “creating more enemies than we’re killing or capturing.” Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece also cited military advisers who make the case that the many civilian deaths from drone attacks result in “more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.”
Placing information about dead civilians and questions about legality at the bottom of the article–well after assurances to the contrary–signals that Newsweek does not consider these parts of the story to be of much importance.
The Beardman family.
It is absolutely illegal for the CIA terrorists to be flying drones in this or any war. CIA agents, operatives and assets are all illegal entities everywhere in our world including the USA. The CIA flying drone weapons in any war is illegal and makes the CIA terrorists flying drones illegal combatants.
The US news doesn’t like to talk about the CIA flying drones. The CIA is not mentioned when the media makes claims that they are killing militants. The fact of the matter is that many villagers of Afghanistan have run to the outer territories of Pakistan out of fear and also because some of their villages have been razed to the ground by incessant US bombing. For the most part these people being killed are ordinary people who have fled the US killing in their home country of Afghanistan and the innocent people of Pakistan living in the tribal areas trying to live their lives as best they can.
Also, remote drones are being flown from thousands of miles away in Creech Air Force Base in Nevada about 30 miles south of `Sin City`sometimes known as Las Vegas. These `video`game enthusiasts kill innocent people in Pakistan and Afghanistan from video game-like devices in air conditioned trailers in a very serial manner and then go to bed safe and sound far away from the people wretchedly holding their dead with little idea what is going on.
It is also interesting to note that Obama likes the drone idea and plans on making lots more.
Dear Newsweek,
I and many others have found your tiptoe journalism regarding the CIA drone strikes very discouraging and concerning.
The typical positive, generic rhetoric about who runs the program, “…a corps of civil servants who carry out their duties in a professional manner.” means nothing to me. At the least, the deaths of the strikes are comprised of 32% civilian deaths. As if that weren’t enough to wake you up to challenge the idea that requests for strikes “would go to the lawyers, and they would decide. They were very picky.”, The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) suggests that the civilian death rate from CIA drone strikes is 90%!
And quoting an anonymous official who says, “operations are conducted in strict accordance with American law.” gives me absolutely no comfort at all. It actually encourages the questioning of the legality of these strikes; something that isn’t included in your article until the last paragraph. By placing those who object to civilian deaths at then end shows Newsweek’s concern for this topic.
I want Newsweek to give a (better) voice to those critics of the CIA drone strikes and how they actually kill civilians and have questionable legality.
Sincerely,
Justin Gramley