Daykundi Province

Are Drones the Future of Warfare? Targeted Killings and the U.S. Government (2013)

• Report rights infringement
• published: 13 Apr 2015
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An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone or drone, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is usually armed (aircraft ordnance). Aircraft of this type have no onboard human pilot. Presently only few Countries namely US, UK, Israel, Pakistan and China possess the Drones capable of delivering missiles. These Drones are usually under real-time human control, with "the human's role in UCAV system [varying] according to levels of autonomy of UCAV and data communication requirement[s]".[2] Equipment necessary for a human pilot (such as the cockpit, armor, ejection seat, flight controls, and environmental controls for pressure and oxygen) are not needed, as the operator runs the vehicle from a remote terminal, resulting in a lower weight and size than a manned aircraft. Common UAVs that rely on a single propeller engine are slower and less maneuverable than manned high performance aircraft. Collateral damage of civilians still takes place with drone combat, although some (like John O. Brennan) have argued that it greatly reduces the likelihood.[44] Although drones enable advance tactical surveillance and up-to-the-minute data, flaws can become apparent.[45] The U.S. drone program in Pakistan has killed several dozen civilians accidentally.[46] An example is the operation in 2010 Feb near Khod, in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan. Over ten civilians in a three-vehicle convoy travelling from Daykundi Province were accidentally killed after a drone crew misidentified the civilians as hostile threats. A force of Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopters, who were attempting to protect ground troops fighting several kilometers away, fired AGM-114 Hellfire missiles at the vehicles.[47][48] As of March 2013, the evolution of laws governing drones use continued to be debated.[49][50] In July 2013, former Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson said, on a panel at the Aspen Institute's Security Forum, that he felt an emotional reaction upon reading Nasser al-Awlaki's account of how his 16-year-old grandson was killed by a U.S. drone.[51] In December 2013, a U.S. drone strike in Radda, capital of Yemen's Bayda province, killed members of a wedding party.[52] The following February, Human Rights Watch published a 28-page report reviewing the strike and its legality, among other things. Titled "A Wedding That Became A Funeral", the report concludes that some (but not necessarily all) of the casualties were civilians, not the intended regional Al-Qaeda targets. The organization demanded US and Yemeni investigations into the attack. In its research, HRW "found no evidence that the individuals taking part in the wedding procession posed an imminent threat to life. In the absence of an armed conflict, killings them would be a violation of international human rights law."[53] Professor Faisal Kutty of Valparaiso University Law School argues that the use of drones creates "blowback" and undermines core principles of American identity.[54] He cites statistics from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,[55] Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the findings of reports issued by Henry L. Stimson Center[56] and a joint report issued by Stanford Law School and New York University School of Law[57] to make his case.[54] The Stimson report was issued by a bipartisan ten-member panel (co-chaired by John Abizaid, a retired US Army general and former chief of US Central Command and Professor Rosa Brooks from Georgetown). The report unequivocally concluded that "The United States should not conduct a long-term killing program based on secret rationales."[56] Kutty also pointed to an op-ed published by two members of the panel, John B Bellinger III, former legal counsel to the White House National Security Council and Jeff Smith, former legal counsel to the CIA, who wrote arguing that a long-term, secret US drone programme, even if authorised under US law and defensible under international law, may not be consistent with "more basic rule-of-law principles that are at the core of the American identity and that we seek to promote around the world." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_combat_aerial_vehicle