Who ELSE Can You Target with Predator Drones? Drug Cartels and Pirates?
Noah Shachtman focuses on one troubling part of this long article on the Obama Administration’s fondness for Predator drones: the suggestion that the Administration prefers killing alleged terrorists to capturing them, since we don’t have a good place to hold them.
But there’s another aspect I find just as troubling: the other uses for Predator drones considered by the Bush and Obama Administrations.
The Bush Administration apparently considered using them with drug cartels in Mexico.
A former U.S. intelligence official said there were discussions late in the Bush administration about the possibility of using armed drones to help Mexican fight narco-traffickers. But the idea of “shooting missiles on the outskirts of Mexico City” ran into opposition, he said.
And it appears someone within the current Administration thinks they’d make good tools against Somali pirates.
Back in Washington, the technology is considered such a success that the U.S. military has been positioning Reaper drones at a base in the Horn of Africa.
The aircraft can be used against militants in Yemen and Somalia, and even potentially against pirates who attack commercial ships traversing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, officials said.
“Everyone has fallen in love with them,” a former U.S. intelligence official said of the drone strikes.
Aside from the really horrifying way in which Predator drones appear to be treated like a nifty all-purpose tool, it suggests the legal analysis on the use of Predator drones is backwards. Any use with either drug cartels or pirates would be so far outside the realm of self-defense in the context of a war to be nonsensical in the argument–at least–that Harold Koh has given. But what led the Bush Administration to decide not to use drones with drug cartels, it appears, was an issue of pragmatism–the impracticality of using drones outside of Mexico City (or, more likely, just south of the American border), rather than any issue of law or proportionality.
In other words, it appears that Bush had and now Obama has a hammer. And they’re finding nails that are getting further and further from counterterrorism and closer to raw power, anywhere in the world.
And to continue the logic flow to another conclusion, someday the Predator/Reaper drones and their ilk will be used here for domestic “law enforcement” activities.
Stuff like tracking and surveillance will be first. Then will logically follow targeting for “executive action” or “necessary force” (i.e. shoot to kill).
Add to drones the ongoing development of smaller “less destructive” munitions, and even drone-mounted laser-targeted “rifles”, and you’re going to see a real domestic law enforcement future right smack dab out of the sci-fi genre.
And the government (Federal, State, and Local) will primarily do it not because it’s right, ethical or even someday legal, but simply because they can.
The timeline?
As EW points out with even with the very title of this post, you can watch the inexorable expansion of the usage of this technology and calibrate it by how fast it spreads from its original purpose.
Initially the drones were for surveillance purposes. By 2002-2003 or thereabouts, as a high-level terrorist targeting platform.
By 2008 (5 years or so), it had become a mid to low-level terrorist targeting platform.
Next up pirates and drug cartels?
So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that within 20 years (by 2030), the usage of drone technology will have become ubiquitous domestically.
You can bank on it!
I expect that, at some point down that road, the next version of Darth Cheney will be using them to target opponents … think ‘gas explosions’, even in all-electric houses, or car engines blowing up.
I really didn’t want this to be the mirror universe. Or for us to become the Klingons.
I can see President Sarah Palin playing with her joystick and saying: “Sure beats shooting wolves from helicopters, you betcha!”
And add in the lovely ways Obama is getting his “intel” prior to his Cambodia drone bombings – disenfranched and disgruntled locals wanting to get their enemies taken care of, boozed up contractors who can be paid off by other interests to accomplish the same, etc.
What about the Khadr family in Canada? Or the “mistaken for” Kotter family – oh well, I guess bombs are just like dreams, another ticket out.
BTW – the “mystery” of why Obama just “couldn’t” get Dawn Johnson in at OLC gets a bit less mysterious with everyone Obama kills, doesn’t it?
My favorite is the delirious eleventy dimensional chess die hard Obama sycophants who, upon learning Johnsen’s nomination had finally been formally withdrawn, thought it was so he could appoint her to the Supreme Court.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Jonah Goldberg will discover the differences between Fascism and communism, and how they differ from socialism, and how they all differ from anything remotely close to the policies Mr. Obama pursues before Obama and Emanuel allow Ms. Johnsen into the DoJ, even as on a guest pass.
Gods. I had not seen that.
The man is going to be re-elected in 2012. With supporters this insane, anything goes. It’s like Bush – Through The Looking Glass. Look, he is left-handed now!
We could also use them to target border crossers along the Mexican border. Hit ’em in the desert where there’s no witnesses and no colaterial damage.
We can justify it by saying it’s the only way to get the actual smugglers. And besides, they’re NOT US citizens and they’re engaged in activity that congress has declared a threat to our national security. What more do we need?
Boxturtle (Next, we get the pushy female liberal bloggers that took out ObamaLLP’s good friend Blanche)
And if you happen to hit a few Minutemen or take out a u-haul moving a family of US citizens by mistake – oh well, at least we know that Obama feels in some detached, esoteric, consequence free way, “responsible.”
It does seem to be the pattern, doesn’t it, this obsession of recent presidents with the tools of, as you say, “raw power”? Eisenhower couldn’t resist flying the U-2s, even after he had publicly claimed we weren’t. Even after one was shot down, its pilot captured.
Upon assuming power, John Kennedy and his brother Robert both became quickly enamored of the CIA and its glamorous license (and willingness) to kill. They wanted details, personal meetings with tough guys. We all know how well that eventually went.
Reagan and Bush, evidently needed no engraved invitation to see the CIA as their own private army and – another important CIA role over its many decades – private funding tool.
The drones are just the latest irresistible toy for leader of the free world’s boyish enjoyment.
Reagan liked being the ‘boy next door’ with the power to do pretty much what he wanted.
Bush41 knew damned well what he was doing with the CIA: he’d run it, after all. (I suspect that a lot of his oil bidness employees had their brains picked after overseas trips, if they weren’t knowingly reporting to the agency.)
Reagan, for all his sins, had a perfectly normal human response to Da Power Of Da Nuke and the little button that goes with the presidency, and he actually tried to do something about it. The man might have just been dead serious about abolishing nukes, much to the dismay of the ‘stablishment.
Try that one for size of the Nobel Posturer, Mr. Reliable NPT Replacement.
This fits right in with Garry Wills’ new book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. He says the modern trend began with the Manhattan Project. I’m pretty sure he’d say that the predator drones are a logical outcome of the Manhattan Project– not in terms of the technology, so much as their usefulness in extending presidential power.
Bob in AZ
Murder? Or war?
Longer me: I guess if the people let the Exec branch get away long enough with prosecuting great big wars without formally formally declaring them, it gets a lot harder to complain when they start prosecuting lots of little tiny one-enemy-person wars without formally declaring them.
That constitution / UN Charter thing. Since joining from ’50 on, declaring war is “Illegal” except when repulsing an attack therefore most actions since then aren’t “wars” rather they are ” police actions”.
Did you see this story in the Austin American Statesman published last week? Wasn’t sure what to make of it. But this paragraph stood out
The article also says:
Also, I think the Quaddrennial Defense Review talks about using the drones for drug cartels or it may have been one of the press conferences surrounding the release of the review.
I mentioned this the other day, but this from NPR is a little stunning:
The LA Times had a story on this right around the time the Quaddrennial review came out. It’s truly unbelievable.
Oh and this was the story where Gate said the drones could also be used to battle narcotics trafficking. He’s very matter of fact about it, which is kind of scary.
I messed up the blockquotes on that one. Sorry
That is one unforeseen consequence, I suppose, of Obama possibly keeping his promises to bring the troops home from war: lotsa tech needing new applications.
And by the way, sweet article you put out today. For those who haven’t seen it, Jason focuses on the former EPA lead criminal investigator Scott West and the prior conviction of BP in Alaska and how the exposure was minimized and ignored.
ah thanks so, so much bmaz. That was a ridiculously lengthy story and I really appreciate that you took the time to read it.
Full disclosure: My inspiration in pursuing it was your post last month.
You know, I still maintain that a creative prosecutor could likely find a way to bootstrap up a probation violation case under the Texas felony conviction for the Gulf malfeasance by BP. As I think I went in to in that post, the cute thing about the probation violation vehicle is it gives you full investigatory scope on the new allegations (effectively built in probable cause) and you can resentence on the old case based only on a preponderance of the evidence as opposed to the usual beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a whole heap of leverage in the hands of a prosecutorial agency that actually wants to do its job.
That is quite the prosecutorial insight. Thank you.
EW, thank you for the post. The bigger problem with this unilateral response is that we have set the stage for a bilaterial response/equilibrium. So what are we going to do when the pirates or the Mexican gov decides to protect the Drug cartel with their own drones?
On the border use, I would argue that this is an illegal exercise of unilateral war power by the President.
I had to read the signature on that comment twice.
When bmaz starts offering tips to prosecutors, you know that something very odd is going on.
Heh, I thought that too. What would Rumpole think?
It’s unclear to me how interested ObamaLLP will be in penalizing BP for it’s actions or lack thereof. All the prosecutors are under his control.
I’d rather count on local prosecutions and civil suits then hope that ObamaLLP will suddenly aquire an interest in prosecuting a major source of political donations that can manipulate gas prices right before the upcoming elections.
Boxturtle (Otoh, we oughta be seeing tarballs in Virginia right about early November)
Hey, have you thought of turning that comment into a post? I think it would be a great post; especially, put in the contextually history with a timeline on the previous violations.
It’s that last bit that has today’s DoJ stymied, at least when doing its job relates to reining in either corporate or governmental chief executives or making them pay for the destructive consequences of their acts. Nailing whistleblowing employees that try to expose and minimize those consequences? They’re fair game.
bmaz, thanks for linking to Jason’s piece.
Jason,
You and Scott West need to expand your piece into a book. I. Am. Serious.
(And file for the creative rights to developing the movie script.)
Looks like you found one more of their targets.
More likely, the friendly outsourced manufacturers of drones, surveillance equipment and ordnance are suggesting all sorts of profitable ways their nifty devices could be employed to do all sorts of things that computer jockeys would love to do just to pass the time. You know how lonely it can get being shut up in those dark rooms with only a computer console and camera to keep you company.
Proliferation, that’s the ticket. And here’s a possible use of the new, exciting drone technology. No need for more men in black doing messy assassinations. Just a well-aimed drone to put an end to this kind of mischief. And you know they’ll do it, given half a chance. LINK.
So let me see if I’ve got this right: It’s being proposed that the way to stop human smuggling — which we want to do because it’s so very bad for the person being smuggled — is by killing the smuggler, specifically by means of drone strikes. Even though that has the side effect of also killing the person being smuggled.
Riiiiiiight.
Well said!
And somehow, we must find a way to fight them.
You better hurry, because you are out of time. There is going to be a stable necrosis in the Transcend.
Skynet is People.
// and if you got all three references, you are a bigger nerd than me
Last year an unarmed Predator was assigned to the northern border of Minnesota and North Dakota by Homeland Security on an experimental basis. There was quite a bit of publicity about it then, but not much since. It was jointly operated by the US and the Canadians, and the object was to monitor border traffic, particularly snow mobile tracks made when thirsty Canadians cross for an American Beer — or alternatively, thirsty Americans looking for Canadian Ale. (The Great Border Crime.) The idea, as publicly stated, was to keep the actual human border guards south (or north) of the border where there are east-west roads, thus using the human assets more efficently. They have also used it several times to locate remains of private planes that crashed, and last summer it was used by coast guard over Lake Superior, looking for reported pleasure craft that had gone astray. I suspect if it had proved an efficent substitute for human beings, they would have generated some publicity. I think the whole operation is being run from a joint US/CAN center at Pembina ND.
Recently there has been some publicity about another application — storm chasing. I think efforts are underway to fly drones high over tornado producing cells, attempting to predict their direction and intensity, and in addition, a special version apparently has been built that flys very high and on lengthy flights, and can follow hurricane cells as they develop out in the Atlantic. It is intended to replace the risky business of flying into the eyes of hurricanes.
Well, that chills this li’l ole lady sitting on the north shore of Lake Ontario to the bone. I’ll have to go looking for some sources, although I don’t doubt these things are going on. There is some integration of our military with yours at some levels; Canadians vaguely know about it but the politicians try to keep news of what’s happening muffled because they know that Canadians are also always vaguely irritated/disturbed at the thought. Drones along the border or over the lakes, rationalized in any way at all, would bother most people, so I’ll see what I can do to make them more bothered.
At 3-5 million each for the predator and maybe 100k for each hellfire missile, it is a bit rich for us. Especially as something like 1 in 5 predators are lost to unforeseen circumstances. Though I am sure that Steve is only too happy to allow unlimited flyovers. It probably makes him feel like they are part of his own military.
It turns out to be amazingly easy to google “Canada U.S. border drones.” The first one had a trial last fall along the Manitoba-N.Dakota border, and then in February one began sailing along the middle of Lake Ontario. What do they expect to catch out there? Rum runners (as during Prohibition)? Americans seeking asylum in my basement?
I’m sure that drone could see me from its kitchen. If I thought it was still up there, I’d go down to the lakeshore and shake a pitchfork at it, but these sound from all I’ve read like trials for the time being.
“It turns out to be amazingly easy to google “Canada U.S. border drones.” The first one had a trial last fall along the Manitoba-N.Dakota border, and then in February one began sailing along the middle of Lake Ontario. What do they expect to catch out there? Rum runners (as during Prohibition)? Americans seeking asylum in my basement?”
As long as the drones are unarmed, I don’t think it is all that different from flying the border in a piper cub. And if I remember the discussion about Pembina last year, the CAN/US agreement was about unarmed drones, and setting up joint centers where the border officers on both sides could learn to use the joy sticks. The problem out here west of Lake Superior is that the border stations are hundreds of miles apart, and there are not any good roads on either side of the border that go east-west. You have to go about 20 miles south or north of the border to find all weather roads. (Essentially it is all flat wheat fields, with a few bogs thrown in for interest.) But drug dealers use the area at times. I know they made a big meth haul out there sometime last winter. Most of the illegal cross border traffic is US Indians smuggling cigs into Canada. (Indian Smoke Shops pay no Taxes).
Is Lake Ontario open during the winter to Seaway Shipping? There was much talk about using the drones to track Salties on the lakes, just in case someone gets a bright idea to use the Seaway as a site for Terrorism.
It’s certainly true that our government and its agencies are all co-operation with your government and its agencies. I find that problematic.
The seaway from Montreal west is closed for variable periods each winter because the locks can ice up. I’m not quite sure why that matters though. I’m not that much of a believer in either the “war” on drugs or the “war” on terror, and it definitely doesn’t bother me that the Mohawks ignore the border. (We call them First Nations now.)
The whole issue illustrates the current lawlessness of the people running the government and our intelligence and other so-called “law enforcement department”. Basically, in a country where the Bill Of Rights and various other Constitutional amendments were respected, this stuff would not even be considered seriously for a second. For some reason though, the people in power, having power, have to consider using that power, even if it is used extra-legally, without oversite, to kill and maim other people, without trial, and certainly outside of the realm of international law and treaties to which the United States is signatory to.
Look how far we’ve come from the days of Harrison Ford in “Clear and Present Danger”, where a President is brought down for doing what these folks are now openly advocating that the United States do with a nudge and a wink. The movie is from less than two decades ago, yet the lawless, power hungry hacks and sociopaths now have enough sway within the government that this sort of thing is seriously considered and thought to be okay by many? This country has fallen quite away from actually believing in humane treatment and justice of anyone who gets in the way of “policy”, has it not? It seems to me that if this continues in the veins of our body politic for much longer, the gangrene will be too serious to remove without atomic radiation therapy. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that as that will be a most painful, possibly fatal surgery, perhaps even administered involuntarily.
In otherwords, history shows that as lawlessness increases, human suffering increases. Now that we have a lot more ways of inflicting suffering on many more human beings it is a wonder that we are not more careful with all our matches, not less. The hawks and the neo-cons are definitely playing with so much fire.
The American ruling elite has all the prescience of the French Empire marching towards Sedan. The end will not be pretty. This is not an analogy between the military situation of Louis Napoleon’s France in 1870 and America today, except in this only… in the rule of a blind and puffed-up, cock-sure group of rulers, who don’t understand that they are marching their own country off a cliff.
Trillions for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars = the bankruptcy of America, and the fall of Wall Street. I would welcome such a collapse (as there is nothing to admire and much to detest in the rule of this particular elite), if only the human cost would not be so great. Can the American people divert themselves from a strange mixture of apathy and fear to right the ship of state before it is too late? History argues not. We stand at the threshold of great and awful events, and I pray that a better world rises from its ashes.
It’s painful to remember an article I read several decades ago warning to NEVER give the military the ability to wage “remote controlled” war.
Basically when the military types (to include the pols) no longer have to risk soldiers to wage wars, the required level of justification to start one goes ever downward.
One of the underlying moral questions about using (manned at the time) aircraft in war was the disconnect between the bomber crew and their targets. They killed thousands of people and never had to be a witness to the carnage of their actions. By the end of the day they were at the bar and then home for the night.
Now where are we? Stay home and kill a few hundred people?
Not much risk, not a big thing anymore.
When I first started reading this article I remembered how absurd everyone thought it was to see the Iraqis surrendering to the surveillance drones in the first gulf war. They saw what was coming (‘thought it was already here, actually).
The end result is being able to kill a single person, which means collateral damage is either going to be zero or 100 percent, depending on whether you accept the lifestyle pattern “intel”.
You will see missiles and sniper rifles become smaller to accomodate loiter drones (including rotary wing hover UAVs), and move from the expensive “warheards on foreheads” to “precision strikes” and “decapitation” by .50 cal and less.
Then you will start to see taser bots. Try “Sleep Dealer” for the new border experience – every ATM exercising its corporate owners 2nd amendment rights.
Late to the discussion, but in the future can we look forward to a whiz-kid teenager whipping up a home-made version in his basement and targeting the home of the school bully? Or the WH?
Methinks this is one genie that will be hard to put back into the bottle.
Here are some photos of the consequences of O’s fiddling while the oil filled the Gulf. Primary the fraud and failure. Dean, Sanders, DeFazio, Feingold, Whitehouse, Kuccinich, someone step up and challenge the first black Republican president.
http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/coast-guard-and-bp-threaten-journalists-with-arrest-for-docume
Oh, this is rich (from the Coast Guard statement):
Embeds, eh? And they’re allowed to observe “response efforts” and “clean-up” way out on the water. They’re just not allowed on the beaches.
Well, now that a camera crew has been out in the bayous and marshes with Jindal, they’ve gotten some pictures out for everyone else to see.
Apologies. I just found that article and linked to it in the latest post by EW. Didn’t mean to duplicate your effort, skdadl.
Bloggers who don’t like Obama would make a likely target.
In Steve Coll’s piece on Afghanistan in the current New Yorker (May 24), I read the following on p. 53:
My understanding has always been that, after 9/11, Bush delivered to the Taliban a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to hand over bin Laden or else, whereupon the Taliban responded with an offer to hand over bin Laden to a third country for trial if the U.S. provided evidence of bin Laden’s guilt, an offer to which the U.S. made no response beyond starting bombing on Oct. 7. I believe I remember a statement of Bush’s saying we would not negotiate. Did we do any negotiating after 9/11?
“I believe I remember a statement of Bush’s saying we would not negotiate. Did we do any negotiating after 9/11?”
Not really negotiating, but Bush made demands between 9/11 and the beginning of the air war on 10/5. He wanted Omar to turn over bin Laden to the US. There was a long conversation about Omar’s plan to set up a council of Islamic Scholars to review Bush’s evidence that bin Laden had done the deed, and we had TV photos of long bearded turbaned Islamic Scholars going to a meeting to review the Koran so as to determine whether they could judge Bush’s evidence if it was ever produced. The Taliban had a representative in Islamabad who kept giving press conferences, and he kept the International Media entertained. It all pretty much pettered out when the Special Forces got active with the Northern Alliance, and the media made it into Northern Afghanistan and started following the action there. I remember the day a plane load of uniforms arrived for the Northern Alliance, and they had video of everyone getting fitted out.
In the plains and sparsely populated areas in the US there is much expenditure on monitoring traveling vehicles exceeding the safe speed limit. Imagine the savings if instead of the airplanes depicted on the speedlimit signs, the traffic safety departments had oversize model planes like robotic drones to observe speeders, and photograph the licenseplate.
Yeah, thanks for that idea John. Jeebus.
Think electronic toll, GPS and cell-phone tracking. No need to use drones, but the drones have to come first, because if The People will fight for anything, it is the right to not get a speeding ticket for every violation.
Maybe make it a lottery. That would fit the New Economy to a T-Bill.
@46bmaz, sorry for the cavil, it seemed to fit, wide open lands, whether the trusty pickup hauling to the livestock auction, or the sports sedan, ellipsis…
More on-topic, Turse has occasional articles, that from 4 months ago seems near obsolescence.
Hey thanks Klynn and all who read my BP story. As I noted above, I pursued this story and the interview with former EPA senior criminal investigator Scott West after reading this post by bmaz from May 3. Bmaz had quoted a statement West issued back in October 2008 and West ended up being the centerpiece of my story. Overall, what bmaz wrote a few weeks ago resonates even more now.
Try this one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/25/AR2010042503114_pf.html