Q&A: Targeted Killings in Damadola, Pakistan - New York Times

A representative of the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations interviewed on the topic of "targeted killings," focusing on the recent Predator bombing in Damadola, Pakistan, answers this question from the NY Times: "Have recent U.S. attempts at targeted killings gone awry before?"

Two instances are worth noting. The first, originally reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, occurred in Afghanistan in October 2001 when a CIA-operated Predator aircraft picked up the convoy carrying ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. At the time, the CIA did not have the authority to launch a missile and deferred the decision to Gen. Tommy Franks, then-commander of United States Central Command, who explained, 'My JAG [military lawyer] doesn't like this, so we're not going to fire.' Omar escaped and remains at large.

The second example occurred on April of 2003, when U.S. intelligence suggested Saddam Hussein and his sons were dining in a Baghdad restaurant. U.S. forces rained scores of missiles down on the area, destroying the restaurant and a few nearby homes, only to discover Hussein was not present. The blasts did kill fourteen civilians. While U.S. officials likely knew the attack could harm some civilians, they clearly believed the military advantage gained by Hussein's death would outweigh the civilian cost.

If he is correct in what he says in that last sentence, and I think he probably is, then my eyes have been opened. I don't know what, except the mainstream television news and my own hopeful naivete, perhaps, made me think that the leaders of this country would not knowingly or intentionally kill innocent civilians in attacks like this. I don't know why it suddenly seems so clear to me whereas I willingly ignored evidence of it in the past, giving the US the benefit of the doubt that civilian deaths like these were truly accidental (like negligent homicide or manslaughter rather than premeditated murder). But I was just wrong. There really are people in power, in government, who consider themselves equal to God, deciding who lives dies and when and how. But they fuck it up all the time, which goes to show how arrogant and misguided they really are in thinking they have a right to use that power.

It doesn't take the compassion and will of a Gandhi or a Mother Theresa to set a better, more peaceful, life-affirming example in the world, does it? If you asked me and, I'm sure, millions of mainstream Americans to search our consciences and vote whether to bomb that restaurant, knowing we'd be sending fourteen, give or take, unknowing civilians to certain death, I would simply say "No, not at all. Find another way. Find another way or find something else to do in this world. There's plenty to do right here at home. Let's let them eat while we think over our own choices here. Perhaps we can try again somehow."

The problem with everyone, including me, is that our thinking is infected with a delusion that not just Saddam or al Qaeda or Bin Laden or even "terrorism" can be eradicated, but that evil itself can be. And in our deluded quest to achieve the impossible, we end up becoming that which we destroy.

I'm running out of steam here with the politics. Railing against the infinite wind of ignorance, violence and anger is a fool's errand that goes nowhere, though it may accomplish catharsis, which can be therapeutic. I do feel the US is on a bad track. I hated the fact that Clinton lied. I was just a kid when the old Bush, Reagan and Carter did their terms in office. The first election I was eligible to participate in was when Clinton ran the first time. But George Bush is the first President in my life whom I've really felt is just terrible.

September 11 was horrible, yes, no matter where it happened. It happened to occur in the US. You have to wonder why, but few of us do. We're content to lash back with our anger without really questioning what motivates all these suicidal, hyper-religious maniacs. Some 2,752 were murdered. So was the tsunami that killed some 283,000 people, which defies all logic and should cause us to stop for a moment and consider what the hell we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. The US is well on the road to causing a death toll of tsunamic proprtions. The US has obliterated far, far too many good, innocent, normal human beings in Bush's well-intentioned (arguably, though some have posited darker motives having to do with Middle East oil pipelines, and you'd be naive not to consider the possibility of ulterior motives which even Bush may be unable or unwilling to admit) but naively optimistic quest to eradicate terrorism.

Bush and his cronies are arguably the worst terrorists in the world now. According to a conservative and well-documented source, around 30,000 Iraqis have died as a direct result of the US's involvement in Iraq, not to mention 2,238 American soldiers. Might as well add to these totals the estimated 3,800 Afghan civilians the US killed, but which we all seem to have forgotten long ago. Don't neglect the 14-18 Pakistani civilians we just pulverized in Damadola this month (still waiting for someone to find the remains of those al Qaeda we supposedly killed there, so the numbers are still sketchy).

I have no faith in this mission. I never did. But now I am really uncomfortable about it. It's gone on far too long and there is no end in sight. It's really, really time for a change of course.