Bring in the Drones

Scott Horton has a fascinating discussion about the appropriate use of dronesto remotely attack enemies of the US in the context of human rights, collateral damage and the rules of war. He raises questions on the degree of oversight of these operations, but concludes that such attacks in war zones are legitimate. However, as the targets become less significant and the innocent losses increase, the issues of accountablity becomes more difficult to analyze. His post was triggered by an article in the current New Yorker by Jane Mayer, and Horton includes a fascinating and chilling description of a recent successful operation.

On August 5th, officials at the Central Intelligence Agency, in Langley, Virginia, watched a live video feed relaying closeup footage of one of the most wanted terrorists in Pakistan. Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, could be seen reclining on the rooftop of his father-in-law’s house, in Zanghara, a hamlet in South Waziristan. It was a hot summer night, and he was joined outside by his wife and his uncle, a medic; the remarkably crisp images showed the uncle administering an intravenous drip to Mehsud, who suffered from diabetes and a kidney ailment.

The video was being captured by the infrared camera of a Predator drone, a remotely controlled, unmanned plane that had been hovering, undetected, two miles or so above the house. Pakistan’s Interior Minister, A. Rehman Malik, told me recently that Mehsud was resting on his back. Malik, using his hands to make a picture frame, explained that the Predator’s targeters could see Mehsud’s entire body, not just the top of his head. “It was a perfect picture,” Malik, who watched the videotape later, said. “We used to see James Bond movies where he talked into his shoe or his watch. We thought it was a fairy tale. But this was fact!” The image remained just as stable when the C.I.A. remotely launched two Hellfire missiles from the Predator. Authorities watched the fiery blast in real time. After the dust cloud dissipated, all that remained of Mehsud was a detached torso. Eleven others died: his wife, his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, a lieutenant, and seven bodyguards.