Chomsky: Obama Is ‘Dedicated To Increasing Terrorism’

[limpyhobbler]

202. It's easy to dismiss evidence even when presented with it if your mind is already made up.

US Drone Strike Policies Foment Anti-American Sentiment and May Aid Recruitment to Armed Non-State Actors

Admiral Mike Mullen has observed,

Each time an errant bomb or a bomb accurately aimed but against the wrong target kills or hurts civilians, we risk setting out strategy back months, if not years. Despite the fact that the Taliban kill and maim far more than we do, civilian casualty incidents such as those we’ve recently seen in Afghanistan will hurt us more in the long run than any tactical success we may achieve against the enemy.(39)

It is clear from polling and our research team’s interviews that drone strikes breed resentment and discontent toward the US, and there is evidence to suggest that the strikes have aided militant recruitment and motivated terrorist activity.

US drone strikes are extremely unpopular in Pakistan. A 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitude project found that only 17% of Pakistanis supported drone strikes. And remarkably, among those who professed to know a lot or a little about drones, 97% considered drone strikes bad policy.(40) As numerous analysts have noted, “(i)f the price of the drone campaign that increasingly kills only low-level Taliban is alienating 180 million Pakistanis–that is too high a price to pay.”(41)

The Waziris interviewed for this report almost uniformly reported having neutral or in some instances positive views of the US before the advent of the drone campaign. One 18-year-old, for example, admitted, “(f)rankly speaking, before the drone attacks, I didn’t know anything about a country called America. I didn’t know where it was or its role in international affairs.”(42) But the strikes now foster the development of strongly negative views toward the US. Another interviewee explained: “Before the drone attacks, we didn’t know (anything) about America. Now everybody has come to understand and know about America . . . . Almost all people hate America.”(43) Noor Khan, whose father, Daud Khan, a respected community leader, was killed when a drone struck the March 17, 2011 jirga over which he presided, remarked that “America on one hand claims that it wants to bring peace to the world and it wants to bring education. But look at them, what they are doing?”(44) One man, who has lost relatives in drone strikes, expressed his deep-seated anger toward the US, declaring that “we won’t forget our blood, for two hundred, two thousand, five thousand years—we will take our revenge for these drone attacks.”(45) A Waziri who lost his younger brother in a strike stated that there would be revenge: “Blood for blood. . . . All I want to say to them is . . . why are you killing innocent people like us that have no concern with you?”(46)

A teenage victim of a drone strike commented: “America is 15,000 kilometers away from us; God knows what they want from us. We are not rich . . . . We don’t have as much food as they do. God knows what they want from us.”(47) Unable to find any other explanation for why US strikes have struck innocent people in their community, some Waziris believe that the US actively seeks to kill them simply for being Muslims, viewing the drone campaign as a part of a religious crusade against Islam.(48)

Recognizing the danger posed by a campaign that breeds such hostility, more than two dozen US congressmen penned a letter to President Obama in June 2012 that described drones as “faceless ambassadors that cause civilian deaths, and are frequently the only direct contact with Americans that targeted communities have.”(49)

Many of the journalists, NGO and humanitarian workers, medical professionals, and Pakistani governmental officials with whom we spoke expressed their belief that, on balance, drone strikes likely increase terrorism. Syed Akhunzada Chittan, for example, a parliamentarian from North Waziristan, expressed his conviction that “for every militant killed,” many more are born.(50) In another interview, a Pakistani professional told us that a professional school classmate had joined the Taliban after a drone strike killed a friend of his.(51) Noor Behram is a Waziri-based journalist who has spent years photographing and interviewing victims of drone strikes. Having personally witnessed the immediate aftermath of numerous strikes, he relates: “When people are out there picking up body parts after a drone strike, it would be very easy to convince those people to fight against America.”(52)

Numerous policy analysts, officials, and independent observers have come to similar conclusions. David Kilcullen, a former advisor to US General David Petraeus, has stated that, “every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.”(53) Der Spiegel has also reported that in Pakistan “militants profit in a gruesome way from the drone missions. After each attack in which innocent civilians die, they win over some of the relatives as supporters—with a few even volunteering for suicide attacks.”(54) As a May 2012 New York Times article succinctly put it, “(d)rones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.”(55) Pakistani Ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a recent interview that the drone program “radicalizes foot soldiers, tribes, and entire villages in our region,” and that “(w)e honestly feel that there are better ways now of eliminating Al Qaeda.”(56) It is also important to note that similar counter-productive effects have been noted in Yemen.(57)

While quantitative data is limited, one study, in June 2012 by the Middle East Policy Council, identified a correlation between drone strikes and terrorist attacks in the years 2004-2009. That study found it “probable that drone strikes provide motivation for retaliation, and that there is a substantive relationship between the increasing number of drone strikes and the increasing number of retaliation attacks.”(58) A July 2010 study by the New America Foundation revealed that almost six in ten residents of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) now believe that suicide attacks are often or sometimes justified against the US military,(59) although a July 2012 journalistic assessment by Bergen and Rowland suggests that drone strikes may have contributed to reduced suicide attacks in Pakistan in 2010-2011.(60)

Indeed, US drone strikes have been explicitly referred to as a motive for a number of specific planned or implemented terrorist attacks. For instance, a suicide bomber who targeted a CIA compound in Khost, Afghanistan identified drones as his motivation, announcing that “(t)his (suicide) attack will be the first of the revenge operations against the Americans and their drone teams outside the Pakistani borders.”(61) Faisal Shahzad, who allegedly attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, viewed his planned attack as retaliation for several US policies, including drone strikes.(62) In addition, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan who allegedly plotted to attack New York’s subway system was “in part, motivated by drone strikes in (his) ancestral homeland().”(63) Similarly, a group responsible for the bombing of a Pakistani police academy in early 2009 cited the collaboration of Pakistani authorities with the US drone campaign.(64) It is also clear that some US officials themselves consider that drone strikes may influence the likelihood of terrorist activity in the US. A June 2012 deposition suggests, at least, that the New York City Police Department has monitored conversations involving individuals from “countries of concern”(65) following and about drone strikes,(66) to “find those people that were radicalized towards violence.”(67)

Those we interviewed in Pakistan emphasized their belief that enmity toward the US stems largely from particular US rights-violating post-9/11 policies, and could be reversed if the US changed course. Many expressed hope for reconciliation with the US, for good relations with the American people, and aspirations for a peaceful future. A victim of the March 17, 2011 jirga strike, for example, stated: “We don’t have any revenge or anything else to take from America if they stop the drone attacks.”(68) Many interviewees repeatedly implored our research team to ask the US government to stop or fundamentally change drone strike policies,(69) and instead assist their communities through, for example, investments in health and education infrastructure.(70)

http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report-strategy/