Democracy Destroyed by Drones
The Presidential elections in Afghanistan this past week saw a bigger turn out by voters than at first thought. The attacks by the Taliban against voters and polling booths were repelled by security forces and largely prevented by allied soldiers.
Although one of the main reasons why Australian soldiers joined with US forces in Afghanistan was to eliminate the Taliban and allow a growth of democracy, especially in encouraging women voters, the whole process of democracy is likely to be defeated by drones.
As the US public has been regretting the loss of American life in its armed forces from Taliban attack, so the US Government under both the present and the previous Presidents has stepped up its use of drones.
Drones are unmanned, high tech, silent aircraft, with the ability to carry huge bombs, and laser guided missiles that circle 3.5 kilometres above the earth. They can track the movements of people or vehicles, day or night, and are currently deployed over Afghanistan and Pakistan. They bring via satellite, real images in real time of real target people on screens to the far side of the earth, to joystick moving agents of the US Government in Creech Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. This is where the buttons are pushed to launch the bombs or missiles, instantly blowing the targets to pieces without endangering one American, and at a fraction of the cost of keeping soldiers in the field.
For the Taliban in on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border, death comes silently without warning from the skies from these drones that continuously circle out of sight, unheard by their targets. This current form of warfare is called Operation Enduring Freedom.
We were told our soldiers were being deployed to build hospitals and schools and so replaced the Taliban in the minds of the civilian population. It was an act of liberation from the mistreatment and abuse of women, reforming the nation, eliminating illiteracy, advocating women’s rights, improving access to food, proper educational institutions, development, with access to healthcare, and bringing hope and democracy to Afghani and Pakistani children.
But the use of drones in targeted assassinations of US enemies is destroying the trust in democracy and the West. The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war has been decried as “so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance”, according to Lord Bingham, one of Britain’s most senior judges, in a recent interview cited in the Independent. “It may be that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon that the international community should decide should not be used.” (Aug. 6 2009)
The problem is exacerbated by the many mistakes made by operatives who mistake the house supposedly hiding Taliban, or the vehicle, with the results that many civilians are killed, like the five Afghan farmers who were thought to be shifting explosives when they were merely picking cucumbers for market.
US enthusiasm regarding the success of the drones has in fact crossed borders into Pakistan, also claiming the lives of hundreds. (See TIME, June 1st 2009 “The CIA’s Silent War in Pakistan”). Former senior counterinsurgency advisor to the US Army, David Kilcullen told Congress in June 2009, “Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes. In the same period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.”
According to a recent UNICEF report, an estimated 22 million Afghans, or 70 per cent of the population, live in poverty and substandard conditions. Forty per cent of children less than three years old are underweight and 54 per cent of children under five are stunted. Over 100,000 people — most of them children and women — remain displaced by conflict and drought. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder was also reported as prevalent, with 41 per cent of non-disabled persons showing symptoms.
Of the individuals surveyed, 80 per cent expressed feelings of hatred. We are losing the war for the hearts of the people to the Western way of life. The botched drone operations are confirming in hundreds of thousand of civilians hatred for the invaders of their country and for our notions of democracy, Christianity and the Western lifestyle. The drones are destroying democracy and in the process are certainly making thousands of new terrorists, and young recruits for the Taliban. Our own methods will ensure we will not win in this conflict.
Last Friday I read an alarming news release: the US Government has outsourced the assassination of Taliban leaders, taking it out of the hands of the CIA and Air Force personnel at Creech Air Base in USA. They have now awarded the contract for killing the Taliban, by pushing the button to fire the missiles from the drones, to the Blackwater Company, the disgraced security and provisions firm that has been working in Iraq. It was bad enough to have the US Air Force and CIA operating the drones killing hundreds, but to outsource it to a private firm to kill America’s enemies is completely unacceptable.
Kevin Rudd should call it quits in Afghanistan now!
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.