Drone Fever

India should avoid emulating the illegal use of unmanned aerial vehicles by the US.

On 1 November, Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) suffered the same fate as his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud, when he was killed by a combat version of the unmanned aerial vehicles – drones – that has been frequently used by the United States’ (US) military forces to assassinate individuals it finds hostile.

Mehsud was the leader of a group that has carried out a number of terrorist (including suicide) attacks that have killed many in Pakistan. It has also targeted members of the minority communities in the country. The TTP is reviled in Pakistan for its extremism, yet this revulsion does not mean that the people of Pakistan have welcomed the deaths in the drone attacks. Over the past few years, the drones have targeted insurgents belonging to the TTP, the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. But they have also taken the lives of civilians in the target area; even mourners and funeral attendees have been targeted. Other than periodic statements condemning these attacks, the Pakistani security state establishment has generally winked and nodded at the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles for assassination by the US.

The Barack Obama presidency in the US – in line with its predecessor that began these attacks – has been unapologetic about its use of drones for targeted killings. In fact, under Obama’s presidency the use of drones has grown exponentially and become the chief tool for offensive military operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas. There have been many independent studies that have sought to establish the indiscriminate nature of the drone attacks. While these studies have not managed to arrive at an accurate figure of the number of innocents who have been killed, the broad conclusion is that a very large number of civilian deaths have taken place. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that the deaths range from hundreds in Pakistan to thousands across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Far from deterring insurgency, the attacks have only radicalised a number of people who have either lost their kin or have been angered by the killing of innocents as has been the case with aerial bombardment carried out by the US and its allied forces in Afghanistan. Recruits to the Al Qaida and other radical extremist organisations have also spoken of the drone and aerial attacks as motivating them to sign up with the extremists.

Drone attacks cannot be justified even if the targeted victim is unambiguously identified as hostile to the US and the missile is exactly on target, killing none else. Such use of drones constitutes a clear violation of international law. They are being used in countries which are not involved in armed conflict or engaged in a war with the US. They are the 21st century version of the Central Intelligence Agency hitmen who have so often assassinated individuals they disliked. The lack of legal oversight on US drones means that there is no check whether war crimes are being committed, particularly when there is enough circumstantial evidence that the US may well be stretching both the definition of terrorists as well as of potential targets. Forget international law, the Obama presidency has even stalled any attempt by US civil society organisations to raise questions about the drone programme, leave alone respond to concerns expressed by United Nations’ (UN) agencies. The attacks have been called into question by, among others, the UN Human Rights Council and UN special rapporteurs. But nothing has deterred the US from continuing to use drones for targeted assassinations.

India has also used these unmanned aerial vehicles in the recent past. They were commissioned by the military following the Kargil attacks of 1999. So far, the unarmed variants have been deployed for reconnaissance and monitoring along the India-Pakistan border and also in zones of conflict with Maoists. The Indian state is also said to have procured “killer drones” from Israel even as attempts to create indigenous and sophisticated versions of unmanned combat aerial devices are underway. Increasingly there is talk of using such drones for attacks in Maoist-controlled areas. Such a decision would be disastrous, escalating an already unsustainable conflict that has resulted in hundreds of deaths since an expansive campaign against the Maoists began earlier this decade.

The adoption of drones by powerful states is an acknowledgement by them that their extensive armouries of nuclear weapons and massive hardware are incapable of winning wars. Further, they are adopting a military technology which subverts half a century and more of international efforts to put legal fetters on weapons which take the conflict to civilians – like landmines and chemical weapons. It is a technology which encourages lawlessness, not just by “non-state actors” but more so by powerful states, particularly so as technology reduces the size of these machines while increasing their firepower.

Drone attacks against domestic targets are sought to be justified as being just another form of a military attack, the only difference being, it is said, that drones are more sophisticated instruments of war and allow the operator to be physically withdrawn from the zone of attack. This withdrawal of the combatant from the field, the sanitisation of the attacker from the violence he perpetuates is crucial to the inhumanity of drones. This is why the use of drones closes the door on any other form of resolution – including engagement in talks to end insurgency. Unfortunately, it is not possible in these days of rabid realism to expect the Indian state to take the lead in building an international consensus to put an embargo on the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles. At least, the Indian state and its military strategists must avoid the temptation of deploying drones against its own citizens.