The post-9/11 world has intensified the debate over the very nature of modern warfare and the ethics of employing high-tech weaponry in non-traditional military situations. The spread of worldwide terrorism and the previously unimaginable notion of American vulnerability created a punitive and vengeful environment among the nation’s political leaders, Republican and Democrat. In such a charged atmosphere, legal niceties and due process gave way to political and military expediency. In a political landscape that has enabled water boarding and unprecedented leeway in the monitoring of private citizens, it comes as no surprise that the U.S. government feels itself morally justified and legally supported in its ongoing campaign to obliterate terrorist threats to the United States and its allies. A consideration of whether, from an objective vantage, America is ethically justified in summarily condemning, hunting and killing targets in sovereign states with which the U.S. is not at war reveals that the government has overstepped its domestic authority and violated its responsibilities as part of the international community.
The proliferation of drone attacks and the collateral damage they cause has stirred concerns in the legal community that the U.S. is heading down a path that must eventually lead to international despotism and a future in which terrorist attacks are commonplace. But perhaps the most pressing question is whether, by authorizing drone strikes against individuals in places like Pakistan, with which the U.S. is not at war, America is violating its own fundamental, foundational precepts. The U.S. has used the attacks on its soil, horrific as they were, to justify the application of military power wherever the government deems necessary, with no oversight, without the consent of foreign governments and with no appreciable accountability at home. The George W. Bush and Obama administrations have insisted that drone strikes are effective and indispensable to America’s national security. However, “critics say CIA attacks inside Pakistan violate international laws of armed conflict because the United States is not at war with Pakistan, is not using its drones as part of Pakistan’s own military operations and its drone strikes are carried out by civilians in secret far from active battlefields” (CQ Press, 657). Thus, based on the ethics of international conduct, diplomacy and politics, the United States is acting in an illegal manner when it carries out drone strikes on foreign soil. Such behavior is imperialistic in nature and violates the very idea of national sovereignty.
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"Betrayal of Principle: America’s Unethical Use of Drone Technology".
The drone program has evolved largely without scrutiny, both from a technical and administrative standpoint. It is as if the government, having discovered the ideal weapon to use against terrorist threats abroad, determined that it was simply too valuable and important to subject to Congressional oversight. The Predator, the most powerful and technologically advanced generation of the drone program, is a prime example of governmental abuse of its authority. The “embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion, given that it represents a radically new and geographically unbounded use of state-sanctioned lethal force” (CQ Press, 657). At the root of this dilemma lies the CIA, which is a significant player in the drone program. As a shadow government, the CIA has virtually no accountability under the present circumstances. Indeed, many would argue that the war on terror has consolidated the CIA’s power within the framework of government, granting it a degree of autonomy unknown since World War 2.
This raises an important question: “Are drone operators working for the CIA – and not the U.S. military – in compliance with international law, including, under certain circumstances, the laws of war governing ‘lawful combatants?’” (CQ Press, 657). The CIA, acting with unilateral authority in the matter, it can be argued, does not truly rise to the level of lawful representatives of the U.S. government in these actions, not to mention the fact that the CIA operates beyond the pale of public accountability. Here is the betrayal of America’s own foundational principles. The federal government, according to the nation’s founders, was to be little more than an administrative agent of the states and the people who lived in them, operating under strict restraints on any actions that impacted other nations. At present, it cannot be argued that the CIA, or the government that purports to control it, has anywhere near the accountability to which every U.S. government agency is supposed to be subjected.
Of further concern is the presence of drone technology in other parts of the world, specifically, in places like China and Iran. It is only reasonable to assume that drone technology will continue to improve in such places, just as it will continue to grow in the United States. The United States’ widespread use of drone warfare, it must be expected, will motivate others to apply such technology against American targets, particularly in light of the rising anger and defiance over America’s use of drone strikes against specific human targets, and the consequent deaths of innocent bystanders. In summation, the unrestrained use of drone technology against foreign targets, in countries that maintain their own national sovereignty, is unethical given that it represents a violation of America’s own principles of government and the doctrine of checks and balances.
- “Drone Warfare: Are Strikes by Unmanned Aircraft Ethical?” CQ Researcher, 20(28), 6 Aug. 2010, pp. 653-676.
