Drones kill any chance of peace in Afghanistan

A good opinion piece. When the developed countries are not actively selling arms & weapons to developing countries, they are actively bombing them through drones. Of course, US is far ahead in this activity around the world, but others are not far behind, either.

As the writer plainly states that these drone strikes kill civilians (or as we call them, "collateral damage"), which in turn, angers the surviving relatives & neighbours of those killed, & hence, force those surviving loved ones to take up arms against foreigners. The words "collateral damage" brings an Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2002 movie in my mind of the same name, in which, his family is killed in a bomb blast & his family was "collateral damage" & how he wants to avenge their deaths. Anyway, so of course, in their seething hatred, the surviving family members will kidnap & kill any foreigner, be he/she is working on a humanitarian mission in that conflict zone.

The consequence of killing even one innocent person, be it in Afghanistan or Somalia or Syria or Iraq or Libya or Yemen, that it creates hatred & anger among the survivors & then, as General Stanley McChrystal (former US & NATO forces commander in Afghanistan), said: "for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies."

Since, the drones & drone strikes result in far fewer military casualties for the country which is using drones, it becomes a much more useful option. Coupling that option with the policy of "shoot first, ask questions later" only makes life hell for all people, innocent & guilty, alike, on the ground below. American military was using napalm 40 years ago to kill innocents in Vietnam & now using drones to destroy the lives of people on the ground in large balls of fire.

The irony is that after selling military wares, supporting authoritarian regimes (who use those weapons of mass destruction on their own people), & then also using drones to make lives of poor people even more miserable & hellish, people in the West very innocently claim that Afghanis, Yemenis, Somalis, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans etc. hate their way of living & want to destroy it.

As I have always blogged previously that the most simple solution for the developed countries to save their own countries from so-called "terrorists" & "terrorism" is become selfish, which essentially means, that stop selling arms & weapons to developing countries & stop intervening, militarily or non-militarily, in national matters of other countries. Since, you are keeping yourself to your own business, no one would then has any reason to bother you. After all, if terrorists are so hellbent on spreading Islam everywhere & want to kill anyone who is not a Muslim, then why Brazil, Argentina, Switzerland, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea etc. are not being attacked? They are all emerging or developed economies & are Christian-majority countries, but no one cares about these countries, because they keep to themselves. So, Mind Your Own Business is the perfect solution to end most, if not all, major conflicts in the world.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/06/drones-kill-chance-peace-afghanistan-150628132016117.html

The use of unmanned US drones in Afghanistan has stepped up since January. With the launch of the new US counterterrorism mission, Freedom Sentinel, the ongoing & intensifying drone campaign has reportedly killed around 400 people in Afghanistan over the last 6 months.

But insurgents are not the only ones being killed.

Targeted drone attacks kill scores of civilians & armed opposition forces alike. These strikes violate Afghan sovereignty & international law, & severely undermine human rights while underscoring the ongoing threat to civilian lives in Afghanistan. Yet, the Afghan national unity government remains silent on the issue.

Beyond the civilian casualties caused by these strikes, drones also fuel terrorism, increase anti-government sentiment &, as a result, increase recruitment opportunities for the armed opposition in Afghanistan.

Extrajudicial killings

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government must take seriously the issue of civilian casualties from US drone strikes & put an end to the extrajudicial killings of Afghans by the unmanned machines of our so called "strategic partner".

Over the past decade, US drone missions in Afghanistan were unilateral. Unlike Pakistan, the use of drones lacked the agreement of the country's leadership. The large number of civilian casualties in drone & air strikes caused increasing tensions between Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president, & US officials.

So why has Afghanistan become the most heavily drone-bombed country in the world? What is the legal justification for the US' drone mission in Afghanistan when there is no mention of drones in its Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US?

Since the establishment of the Afghan national unity government in Afghanistan, Ghani's government has given "American commanders a freer hand on night raids & air strikes", according to a recent New York Times report.

Recent attacks show that drone operators are now authorised by "eased" counterterrorism guidelines, which permit them to hit a target even without having "the knowledge of the identities of the individuals marked for death".

Despite the US administration's repeated announcements of the end of its combat mission, US forces in Afghanistan now have "a more aggressive range of military operations" - mostly drone missions & special operations.

Several attacks a week

Focused in the south & east of the country, US drones are hitting Afghanistan frequently, at a rate of one to several attacks every week. Nangarhar, Paktia, Paktika, Kunar, Nuristan, Khost, Farah, Helmand, & Logar are all provinces that have been targeted by US drone operations.

According to international & national media reports & the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, civilian casualties are involved in most of these incidents, but these go without any acknowledgement from the current Afghan government.

Some Afghan TV channels report misleading & misinforming stories on the "effectiveness" & the "role" of drones in Afghanistan. Early this month, according to Afghan MPs & media reports, a US drone strike in the Alisher district of Khost province southeast of Afghanistan, killed more than a dozen civilians, reportedly "members of two families".

On the condition of anonymity, a government official in Khost confirmed the killings to Pajhwok, an Afghan news agency.

The media office for foreign troops in Kabul also confirmed the attack with a routine addition that "reports about civilian casualties were being investigated".

As the Afghan national unity government continues to keep silent & neglects to send any delegation to investigate the incident, Afghan MPs & the former Afghan president have "strongly condemned" the strike in Khost.

Ending the secrecy

It is time to end the secrecy on the matter. The Afghan government should conduct its own investigation & assessment of each drone incident.

Now, as the US "war on terror" in Afghanistan increasingly becomes an open-ended conflict, reports suggest that the US will "maintain an aerial capacity beyond 2017 ... to conduct air strikes".

More US drone strikes means more civilian deaths for Afghanistan. These civilian casualties can severely risk the Afghan national unity government's legitimacy & sustainability.
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As Ann Wright, the former American deputy ambassador in Afghanistan, put it, drone killings, "because of the number of civilian casualties", are "jeopardising US national security & creating large numbers of people who despise the United States".

The US administration & the Afghan government should take the advice of former US & NATO forces commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who once rightly said: "For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies."


Aimal Faizi is an Afghan journalist & former spokesperson for former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai from 2011-2014.

With a $42 Billion defense budget, is Japan a hawk in dove's clothing?

An informative piece. I didn't know that Japan was a pacifist nation but then still spends $42 Billion on its defense budget & a naval force more powerful than China's.

South China Sea & Eastern Europe are the next 2 battlegrounds for US & its allies. With everyone beefing up their military muscles, this is not going to be a great world to be living in the next 10-20 years. There might not be another nuclear war, but more than enough armament at hand, politicians being pressured by military hawks to use that armament pile their countries have built up, & a decreasing war-time casualty rate due to drones will make it seem like a nuclear war happening all around the world.

Wishing for peace in this world is only that; a wish. The world may seem "modern" to a naïve person, but it seems to me, that humans are regressing towards a cavemen mentality. Technology has only made it easier to attack another human or nation, just like a club or any other piece of ancient war-time technology made it easier for a caveman to attack its fellow being.

The humans & hence, the world, are definitely not moving towards a bright future for this planet. Perhaps, that's why, the rich are exploring ways to emigrate from this planet (e.g. Virgin Galactic) & Hollywood keep peddling movies where the Earth has been abandoned because of environmental disasters.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/28/idUS56270205620150428

Japan’s identity as a pacifist nation, as defined by Article 9 of its constitution, is increasingly at odds with reality. The Japanese Naval Self-Defense Force is the second-most powerful naval force in the region, trailing only its close ally, the US Navy. Japan has the seventh-largest defense budget in the world; its Ministry of Defense is the largest department in the entire Japanese government.
 
Strategically, a strong Japanese military allows the US — a close ally of Japan’s — to maintain distance from any military confrontation with China over territorial claims. It deprives China of the argument that the US is neither a party to the dispute, nor native to the region. The problem for the US lies in convincing allies, especially South Korea, that an increasingly robust Japanese military does not risk a return to Japanese imperialism.
 
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, adopted in 1947, forbids Japan from having “land, sea, & air forces, as well as other war potential.” The article established Japan as a pacifist nation, but in 1950 change was already needed, as the US deployed its troops from Japan to Korea and left Japan defenseless. To counter this vulnerability, General Douglas MacArthur authorized the establishment of national defense forces to protect the Japanese home islands. Reinterpretations have continued ever since, to the point that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are an army, a navy & an air force in all but name.
 
For all of the reinterpretations, Japanese forces remained confined to Japanese home territories without much change until 1992. At that time, Japanese embarrassment over being unable to contribute anything but financial support to Operation Desert Storm led to the passage of a law reinterpreting Article 9 to allow the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
 
In 2004, Japan sent troops to Iraq to conduct humanitarian relief, where they were only allowed to fire if fired upon, & were not permitted to come to the aid of other coalition troops under attack. The cloak of pacifism, though markedly smaller, still adequately covered all sensitive aspects of the JSDF. But in the last few years, most of the remaining cover has been pulled away.
 
Last year the Japanese government adopted a new law, reinterpreting Article 9 yet again, this time to allow for “collective self-defense.” Japanese forces can now be deployed to assist allies under attack. While the US & the Philippines welcomed this development, other countries in the region were less than enthusiastic. It is no surprise that China, which has long criticized Japan for not adequately acknowledging & repudiating its past atrocities, objected to this change. But a sharp negative response from US ally South Korea must have rattled US military planners. Even Australia, generally in lock-step with US defense policies, gave a tepid response.
 
Already, the widening scope of the Japanese military is changing the defense landscape in the region. Japan has negotiated agreements to cooperate with Vietnam & the Philippines in conducting naval exercises & patrolling disputed areas in the South China Sea, which should give China pause as it considers its next steps in the region.
 
These agreements continue to stretch the envelope of collective self-defense. Protecting allies from bullying is a far cry from aiding allies in a war. The US & Japan are walking a fine line, as the US encourages Japan to be a greater participant in defense issues, well beyond limits on collective self-defense expressed just months ago, while not raising the specter of a Japanese return to militarism.
 
Japanese Prime Minister Abe has long advocated changing the Japanese Constitution to allow Japan to become a “normal” nation, with a military matching its economic & diplomatic instruments of power. While he is unable to say it out loud, the christening of the Izumo warship last month has normalized Japanese naval power to a great degree. The Izumo is an indigenously developed helicopter-carrying destroyer, & the largest vessel in the Japanese fleet. The Japanese are careful not to call it a carrier, which would make it an offensive weapons system, but in size & capacity, it is very similar to a US Marine Corps’ helicopter carrier. While currently slated to carry only general purpose helicopters, the Izumo could be modified to handle attack helicopters, the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, or even the F-35B, the Marines’ vertical short takeoff & landing version of the new fighter. Configured in this way, the Izumo would be a clear match for China’s lone aircraft carrier.
 
Today, Japan’s cloak of pacifism has been reduced to little more than a fig leaf. The Japanese are developing capabilities that allow it to fight any adversary. The fig leaf will soon be gone.

"Drones vs Torture" by Rick McKee

"Drones vs Torture" - Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle, Augusta, GA, US