San Diego Discussion On Military Use Of Drones And Unintended Casualties

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is KPBS Midday Edition, I am Maureen Cavanaugh. Our top story today, talks in Pakistan and concern over drone strikes, outrage over the drone strikes and casualties have increased tensions in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. The US military and Obama have defended the use of unmanned aerial attacks. The drones can target hostile groups without endangering soldiers, but some people are becoming increasingly concerned about the matter and frequency of drone use. Today is Human Rights Watch day and tonight there will be a panel discussion on drones and the Forever War. Professor Dustin Sharp is here with the School of Peace Studies and will moderate tonight's discussion and welcome to the show. Laura Pitter is here with Human Rights Watch. She's part of tonight's panel as well. What is the Forever War? DUSTIN SHARP: The Forever War is a phrase used by different people. It was a battle in the 1970s but is recently brought back to the present there was a speech in Oxford and the conflict of Al Qaeda went on for twelve years. That is eight years longer than normal. It was longer than the Civil War. Longer than the American Revolutionary war. This war he meant that we need to disengage from Afghanistan and from Guant·namo. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is Human Rights Watch Day, tell us a bit about Human Rights Watch and its mission. LAURA PITTER: Human Rights Watch is an international organization based in about ninety different countries and our mission is to monitor the obligations of the international human rights obligations of various countries around the world, but we do that by investigating human rights abuses by a meticulous method of fact checking. We expose those investigations and we advocate for change. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: In October Human Rights Watch issued a report looking at the number of civilian causalities caused by drones, what was the focus of the report? LAURA PITTER: We did the research because there was discrepancy about the that the administration was saying about its killing program is extremely precise and they said at one point that there were civilian zero civilian casualties. But we were seeing reports that there were a lot of feelings has his casualties in the area; the need to investigate it is very difficult to get to some of these areas where drone strikes are happening and we looked at cases had that happened in Yemen and since the Obama administration began it asserts that program and it's increase the number of strikes. And there been more than eighty since the Obama administration. Weren't looking at six cases and it was found that of the eighty-two people killed, fifty-seven have that were civilians. See one where are the where is the US using drones? The largest number are in Pakistan and Yemen, but there been other strikes and other locations. That is where it's mostly focused. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is countries where it's not like Afghanistan where their ground troops, or not like Iraq where they used to be encountered. Pakistan and Yemen are not necessarily involved in a conflict with the US, so what is the protocol for using the drone strikes? LAURA PITTER: We would like to know that. One of the problems of the recommendations that we made in this report is for the administration to explain what exactly is legal framework that is operating under, is as is in compliance with international law when it uses these drone strikes, and what is the criteria they used to determine who can and cannot be killed in these programs. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: We don't have policies in place or are they just unclear? LAURA PITTER: We have been told that we have policy in the US but in they've been extremely careful to determine what should be struck under these programs, but the policies have not been made clear and we don't know exactly how the administration takes these determinations. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: They have not been made public? LAURA PITTER: They have not. Very few and we do not know how many people have been killed and the administration does not even admit that it's involved in the target program at all, both Pakistan and Yemen. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Are there countries it using drone technology in warfare? LAURA PITTER: Another a number of other countries and on the reasons we're so come concern is because this technology is now widely available. There is more than forty countries who have drone capacity and the US is the main one that is using and the only one using them in the killing program, but it's not long before other countries are going to have the same capacity as us is a the United States really needs to take the lead and said clear guidelines for when these very lethal weapons can and cannot be used. I want to be clear that we're not saying that drones are illegal, we recognize that they can be more precise weapons in wartime, if they can minimize civilian has of his but the way it is being carried out now without clear guidelines, our understanding when they should and should not be used, that is very problematic peer can and should set the very dangerous precedent going forward. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Professor, estimate the Forever War, discuss how drones facilitate extended wars that the US is been involved in, give us an idea of what role drones play in the fact that the timeframe for these have expanded. DUSTIN SHARP: That is a very ethical question. What we're doing in places like Pakistan and Yemen now if you can effectually remove yourself from the battlefield, and remove yourself from harm's way, people speculated that this insulates us even more politically for the consequences and makes even more feasible to carry out a war forever. These books on traditional executions has also speculated to whether the use of drones will use the PlayStation mentality in that this phrase not mine, in the sense that you don't know what it means to kill someone had what it means to make mistakes and to kill civilians. There a lot of questions, drones are not going anywhere and drone use is likely to increase and that is one of the reasons on a panel site is important that the drone use follows the law and not the otherwise around, we do have traditional force and traditional human rights worldwide humanitarian was a humanitarian law laws but is hard to assess whether that meets the standards because they don't want to tell us what are legal analysis is and we had to talk about facts on the ground about how people of died and we have rules but it's hard to apply them to programs that are secretive in the government and will they won't talk about. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And there are international laws that ever warfare as well, I'm wondering when drone strikes take place within a country, that is technically at least the noncombatant country, what kind of laws does the US have to follow just to say that there up if you think someone is putting us the United States in this area, we want to stop them. Is that following the conventions of international law? LAURA PITTER: In laws of armed conflicts in where there is in it is international and non-international conflicts, what many people are referring to as is not one country gets the other, anyone who, so one can be legally targeted if they are directly participating in hostilities, but it's questionable whether not they should at this stage even be considering this and armed conflict. There is a question about whether or not the hostilities are high enough level to determine this is a conflict. The United States believes that it's under a certain global world gone terror and they can. Carry out attacks forever, but there are standards as to whether or not a conflict actually exists. Implicit there is no conflict human rights applies and if there is no threat to human life. We don't even know the framework of the United States is operating under and the case that we looked at in Yemen for example, one of the worst cases was where of the number of people who were killed, there were twenty-one children and nine women and five of them are pregnant, some militants were killed and suspected militants killed but we do not actually know how the administration determined whether they are militants and ominous militants so we don't even know that either. There are twelve civilians killed and the target was nowhere near buying another case, so that is the framework that they say that they are conforming with international law that is the framework of international international law but we do not know that it's actually something that they are doing. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Human rights has done work on the ground with the drones flying above and I'm wondering what the civilians on the ground, what is there about those concerned about these unmanned armed aerial drones flying overhead? LAURA PITTER: It's pervasive in many areas and drones are over ten all the time in the can hear them even when the not striking. Is constantly at few that their living under and they never know when a strike is going to happen or what won't. It's also having enormous backlash in the community, or people in Yemen and especially in these areas have seen the bodies of men women and children killed in the strikes where civilians have been killed and in another case, someone was preaching against Al Qaeda and was targeted and killed in one of the strengths as well, it was an accident but when it kind of thing happens is a church member of the community and that has enormous backlash in many cases there is an argument made that the strikes are generating more enemies and members of Al Qaeda direction killing them. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: What argument is that if our government uses drone strikes at home, used in other countries that we would not tolerate it. It's a stretch of the imagination but what do you mean by that? DUSTIN SHARP: It's an experiment on how we value human life and how we value certain lives over others if you're in San Diego and you imagine there being a US-based terrorist, you imagine being in this foothills of being in San Diego instead of seeing person the way that we tend to do it, we just decided to take them out with an hellfire missile and actually put up a couple homes and mothers and children dead, you can imagine this is an outrage to the demands for some kind of investigation and accountability, and those are legitimate demands and is of the demands that people in places like women have come but we have not seen as investigations and we have not even seen a condolence payment to the 70s the question is why wireless standard so different from the expanded so we would expect for cells. We value these human life the Sterling sometimes it's hard to draw conclusion based on the current U.S. policy. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And how far are we along on being able to determine or influence US policy of this? Are there any hearings being held or any movement in place to make from the policies? LAURA PITTER: We have asked for a congressional investigation about it and we have that with the White House officials and Pentagon officials with our findings and they are certainly interested and one thing that is important to note is that the strikes are being carried out using Yemen intelligence and using video images and they can see quite a bit using drugs. They do not go on the ground and talk to people that way that we were what we are conducting investigations. We hope it will have some impact on a change in policy. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Is there an idea of making this an international effort to draw up international policies when it comes to unmanned aerial attacks? LAURA PITTER: There is law. There is international law and it covers all more in the United States is in cold clients with those, so do not think we actually need new standards, we stayed in a station to actually comply with the standards that exist. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And find out exactly what is going on. The panel discussion on drones international law and the Forever War, it takes place tonight from 7 to 830 at the University of San Diego. I've been speaking with Dustin Sharp and Laura Pitter, the senior national security researcher with Human Rights Watch. Thank you very much.