International Herald Tribune, France

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America's Drone War: 'Without Legal Basis' (Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany)

"The U.S. drone program has no legal basis. Since most of its activities are concealed, classified as secret and operated by the CIA, how is it even possible to identify the victims involved in such hostilities? What possibility does a Pakistani farmer have to appeal against an attack? Who could he bring to justice? As long as such questions remain outstanding, the drone attacks must be stopped."

By Barbara Lochbihler

Translated By Nathalie Klepper

December 20, 2012

Germany - Frankfurter Rundschau - Original Article (Germany)

A survey of 20 countries by the Pew Research Center has turned up one country that supports drone strikes: The United States. EXPRESS TRIBUNE, PAKISTAN: Activists of American group Code Pink demonstrate U.S. drone strikes in Plaistan, Oct. 7, 00:01:36.

Is a drone "just a plane," as international legal expert Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg stated recently in this newspaper? What difference does it make whether a soldier is himself at the cockpit controls, or from thousands of miles away, he operates a joystick to reach his target - to obliterate - human beings? Yes, that makes all the difference, because the use of unmanned aerial vehicles raises fundamental ethical, international legal, and human rights issues.

There is no question: remote-controlled bombers make killing easier. The further away an attacker is from his target, the less inhibited he is. When controlling a drone over Somalia from a U.S. airbase in Nevada, the inhibition threshold for pulling the trigger is extremely low. With the click of a mouse, human lives are exterminated.

Unfortunately, recent studies confirm that the more remote-controlled drone warfare occurs, the more human beings will fall victim to it. Ever since U.S. President Barack Obama chose unmanned missiles as his main weapon in the battle against terror, there have been more that 300 attacks that killed about 3,000 people - most of them obviously civilians. Studies from Stanford and New York University have calculated that for attacks in Pakistan between 2008 and 2011, up to 75 percent of all victims belonged to the civilian population. Cautious estimates are based on a ratio of 30 percent. In other words, in three years, these bombers have killed at least 1,000 people.

It is probably easier to limit attacks like these than it is conventional bomb raids, but the only ones being protected are U.S. soldiers. Which brings up another questionable objective of these flying robots: drones inflict little political cost on the aggressor. A war that doesn't claim many victims of one's "own" can be more easily sold to the population. Are drone mission thus also designed to make military intervention more acceptable to a war-weary society? Is it Washington's strategy to operate without complaint, as long as no coffins arrive at domestic airports from international theaters of war?

The U.S. drone program is particularly dubious with regard to human rights and international law. After all, the U.S. military uses its missiles within regions America has not declared war: Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Under these circumstances, state-murder is only acceptable when it is demonstrably necessary to save lives. In that event, the U.S. government would have to substantiate every single victim. As long as this is not the case, drone attacks remain "extrajudicial killings" - and thus serious violations of human rights.

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