"Many intelligence reports in war are
contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. " Car Von Clausewitz.
The foiled terrorist attack at the Kerem Shalom border crossing adjacent
to Gaza and
Sinai on Sunday certainly proved the Prussian military theorist wrong. An unidentified terrorist group numbering 35 Sinai Bedouins attacked an
Egyptian border police post, killed 16 policemen and stole two vehicles and
armaments. On Sunday night they attempted to burst through the Kerem Shalom
border crossing determined to attack Israeli civilian and military targets..
One vehicle exploded before it reached the crossing, the other, a Fahd type
armoured personnel carrier, rammed through the barrier and drove south,
apparently by mistake. It was pursued
and destroyed by combined fire from IDF tanks and an airforce drone. Intelligence alerts received well in advance
enabled the IDF to prepare a “warm welcome” for the terrorists.
The ever increasing use of drones (unmanned aerial
vehicles) in military engagements has changed modern warfare. P.W. Singer author of “Wired for War,” wrote,
“And now we possess a technology that removes the last political
barriers to war. The strongest appeal of unmanned systems is that we don’t have
to send someone’s son or daughter into harm’s way. But when politicians can
avoid the political consequences of the condolence letter — and the impact that
military casualties have on voters and on the news media — they no longer treat
the previously weighty matters of war and peace the same way. “ So
far Singer’s comments are equally
applicable to the IDF and the Israeli public. He reminds us that. ”Today’s
unmanned systems are only the beginning. The original Predator, which went into
service in 1995, lacked even GPS and was initially unarmed; newer models can
take off and land on their own, and carry smart sensors that can detect a
disruption in the dirt a mile below the plane and trace footprints back to an
enemy hide-out. There is
not a single new manned combat aircraft under research and development at any
major Western aerospace company, and the Air Force is training more operators
of unmanned aerial systems than fighter and bomber pilots combined. In 2011,
unmanned systems carried out strikes from Afghanistan
to Yemen.
The most notable of these continuing operations is the not-so-covert war in Pakistan, where the United States has carried out more
than 300 drone strikes since 2004. “
“The flight of the drones,” was the title of a lead
article that appeared in The Economist in October last year. The author claimed, “Over the past decade UAVs have become the
counter-terrorism weapon of choice. Since 2005 there has been a 1,200% increase
in combat air patrols by UAVs. Hardly a month passes without claims that
another al-Qaeda or Taliban leader has been taken out by drone-launched
missiles.”
About the same
time Thomas L. Friedman wrote, “If we don’t storm our own brains and
redirect our Arab foreign aid to education for employment, we’ll forever be
killing the No. 2 man in Al Qaeda.”
Friedman is probably right, however the Arab recipients of US aid in the
Middle East prefer the money to western
education and democracy.
The same article
in the Economist further detailed the remarkable abilities of one type
of “loitering drone.” “The grim Reaper's ability to loiter for up to 24 hours,
minutely observe human activity from five miles above while transmitting “full
motion video” to its controllers and strike with pinpoint accuracy, has made it
the essential weapon in America's ‘long war’.” Ten years ago Frida Berrigan was early to
question the ethics of “War by Remote
Control?” in a piece in the New York Times she wrote, “The Central Intelligence Agency recently fired the opening
salvo in a new phase of the war on terrorism, ushering in the "war by
remote control." Using the Predator, an unmanned surveillance plane, the
CIA tracked and destroyed a car carrying Al Qaeda's "top man in Yemen,"
Qaed Salim Sinan Al-Harethi. The November 3rd attack, the first concrete instance of the
Bush preemptive strike policy, signals a radical escalation in the war on
terrorism, and raises a number of serious issues.”
Ms. Berrigan quoted Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh who had condemned the attack as a
"summary execution that violates human rights." “Her comments are
liable to hit a nerve in the Bush administration, which has criticized and
sought to distance itself from the Israeli policy of "targeted
killings" of Palestinian terrorists,” said Berrigan.
Three years ago I wrote about ethical reservations regarding the use of
armed UAVs. Journalist Roger Cohen had a number of ethical qualms about this
detached remotely controlled killing. In an
article he wrote for the New York Times Cohen noted that Obama had authorised as many drone
strikes in Pakistan in nine and a half months as George W. Bush did in his last
three years in office — at least 41 C.I.A. missile strikes, or
about one a week, that may have killed more than 500 people. Cohen was appalled
by the lack of accountability regarding these "hits." Of course a lot
more “people” have been “taken out” since then. Some of the deceased have been
mentioned by name others are often referred to in the news media as –
activists, militants, fighters,
insurgents, gunmen and other almost innocuous synonyms. "The dead have included high-value targets
like Osama bin Laden’s oldest son and Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader in
Pakistan — as well as bystanders, sometimes referred to as 'collateral damage,'.”
said Cohen. He
also quoted Singer, "These targeted international killings are no less real
and indeed more insidious, for their video-game aspect. The thing about robotic
warfare is you can watch people get vaporized on a screen in Langley, Virginia,
and then drive home for dinner with the kids.”
Watching the video footage of the terrorists being incinerated in their
stolen personnel carrier near the Kerem Shalom crossing, I thought of family
and friends in the Gaza periphery communities nearby and sat down to dinner
without giving it a second thought. However, there is a difference, Langley is a world away from Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Yemen.
Our enemies are much closer. Few Israelis have ethical qualms about the use of
drones in actions like the one at Kerem Shalom or even targeted killings. Hamas
and Hezbollah frequently use “human shields” whereas the IDF strives to reduce collateral damage to a minimum by
attacking with greater precision, pinpointing the target and using smaller and
more accurate missiles when required.
I quote again
from the Economist article of October 8th 2011. “So far, the
use of drones has not fundamentally challenged the Geneva Convention-based Law
of Armed Conflict. This requires that before an attack, any weapons system
(whether manned or unmanned) must be able to verify that targets are legitimate
military ones, take all reasonable precautions to minimise civilian harm and
avoid disproportionate collateral damage.”
In May 2010 a Reuters report quoted unnamed
counter-terrorism officials who speculated that the Obama administration's
closure of the secret CIA interrogation centres and intent to close the Guantanamo Bay prison had a direct influence on the
expansion of the drone targeted killings. According to the
officials, the killings are necessary because there is no longer any place to
put captured terrorists.” The same argument was phrased
differently in another publication, “Yet the administration’s very success at
killing terrorism suspects has been shadowed by a suspicion: that Mr. Obama has
avoided the complications of detention by deciding, in effect, to take no
prisoners alive. While scores of suspects have been killed under Mr. Obama,
only one has been taken into American custody, and the president has balked at
adding new prisoners to Guantánamo. Mr. Obama’s aides deny such a policy,
arguing that capture is often impossible in the rugged tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen and that many terrorist
suspects are in foreign prisons because of American tips.”
The ever increasing demand for UAVs has been tempered
by the craft’s disadvantages. Although UAV’s are cheaper than conventional
piloted aircraft some of the newer, larger and better equipped drones, like the
“Global Hawk” cost a king’s ransom. Providing
them with the means to keep them out of harm’s way is now an
essential part of their design and
development.
In the August edition of Jane’s International
Defence Review the magazine’s
correspondents Nick Brown and Caitlin Harrington Lee surveyed some of the UAV’s
disadvantages. “They remain vulnerable to ground fire and other air assets.” “Supporters of UAVs argue that all of this is
acceptable because unmanned systems were designed to be disposable, or at least
more disposable than manned platforms.” The authors cite the principle that UAVs were designed for
the jobs deemed too dull, dirty and dangerous for humans. “However,” they say, “there
are gradations of how disposable the craft is and no operator can realistically afford to
treat anything but the very low-level systems as such.”
The IDF prefers to use its own locally manufactured
unmanned aircraft. Like other local military
systems manufacturers, the industries producing UAVs rely a lot on exporting their products to
foreign customers. One indigenous UAV ,the Heron, has been sold to more than 40
countries. Its operational features
include a long-distance range, the ability to stay aloft for 52 hours non-stop
and tracking and targeting capabilities. The Heron is able to carry out complex
functions such as in-flight refuelling and slotting into strategic missile defence
systems. It carries 250 kg
of ordnance, mainly air to ground missiles. With this load, the Heron can reach
an altitude of 11,000
metres. Flying empty, it can reach a height of 13,700 metres. This
means that the Heron can fly above regular commercial air traffic without
becoming icebound thanks to another special feature, which is important in the
freezing Afghan winters. An additional
advantage is its price. It is cheaper than similar UAVs. Ethical reservations concerning
the use of UAVs shouldn’t be dismissed without due consideration. Improved
technology provides the operator with better tools to do the job with minimum
collateral damage. The day of the drones has come.
Have a good
weekend
Beni 9th of August, 2012.
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