RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 1

DDI-RT-Drones Aff Fo' Realz1AC................................................................................................................................................. 2Pakistan Add-On........................................................................................................................... 13Solvency....................................................................................................................................... 15Case – Drones Fail – Hacks..........................................................................................................16Case – Drones Fail – Kills.............................................................................................................17Case – Drones Fail – Perpetuate War...........................................................................................19Case – Drones Fail – Informants Inaccurate.................................................................................20Case – A2: CIA.............................................................................................................................. 21Case – Racism............................................................................................................................... 22Virtual War Advantage................................................................................................................. 23Virtual War – Internal Links.........................................................................................................24Virtual War – Impacts – Endless War...........................................................................................25Virtual War – Impacts – Trivialization..........................................................................................27Virtual War – Impacts – Informal..................................................................................................28Virtual War – A2: Realism............................................................................................................29Virtual War – 2AC Biopower.........................................................................................................30ILAW Advantage........................................................................................................................... 31ILAW – Inherency – US Complying...............................................................................................32ILAW – Inherency – Inconsistencies.............................................................................................33ILAW – Inherency – Avoiding Definitions.....................................................................................34ILAW – Internal Links – Generic...................................................................................................35ILAW – Internal Links – UN..........................................................................................................36ILAW – Internal Links – Just War.................................................................................................37ILAW – Internal Links – LOAC......................................................................................................38ILAW – Internal Links – Oversight................................................................................................39ILAW – Internal Links – Definition of War....................................................................................40ILAW – Internal Links – Constitution............................................................................................42ILAW – Internal Links – CIA.........................................................................................................43ILAW – Impacts – Russia Model...................................................................................................44ILAW – Impacts – Britain..............................................................................................................46Counter-Insurgency Advantage....................................................................................................47T – Military Presence....................................................................................................................54Topicality – Presence....................................................................................................................59Topicality – Substantially..............................................................................................................64T – Pakistan.................................................................................................................................. 65Politics Link Turns........................................................................................................................66Neg Card...................................................................................................................................... 67

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 2

1AC

Contention 1 is Inherency

Obama increasing commitment to drones nowJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw TP

Since then, the C.I.A. bombardments have continued at a rapid pace. According to a just completed study by the New America Foundation, the number of drone strikes has risen dramatically since Obama became President. During his first nine and a half months in office, he has authorized as many C.I.A. aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W. Bush did in his final three years in office. The study’s authors, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, report that the Obama Administration has sanctioned at least forty-one C.I.A. missile strikes in Pakistan since taking office—a rate of approximately one bombing a week. So far this year, various estimates suggest, the C.I.A. attacks have killed between three hundred and twenty-six and five hundred and thirty-eight people. Critics say that many of the victims have been innocent bystanders, including children

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 3

Thus the plan:

The United States Supreme Court should rule that unmanned combat air vehicles are illegal on the grounds that the United States has a lasting obligation to address targeted killings under the International Humanitarian Law of the Geneva Convention.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 4Contention 2 is Instability

Drone presence in afghanistan doubled this past year – no signs of let-upNYTimes, 2/19/2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/world/asia/20drones.html

The use of the drones has expanded quickly and virtually unnoticed in Afghanistan. The Air Force now flies at least 20 Predator drones — twice as many as a year ago — over vast stretches of hostile Afghan territory each day.They are mostly used for surveillance, but have also carried out more than 200 missile and bomb strikes over the last year, including 14 strikes near Marja in the last few days, newly released military records show. That is three times as many strikes in the past year as in Pakistan, where the drones have gotten far more attention and proved more controversial for their use in a country where the United States does not have combat forces.

Targeted killings undermines Afghan rule of law. Hentoff 11/24/09 (Nat, member of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “Obama’s Extra-Judicial Killers Subvert American Values”, Milford Daily News and www.cato.org, accessed June 25 2010)

As he has now continued other Bush-Cheney legacies, President Barack Obama, as I previously reported, has permitted the CIA to operate freely and fully, with its dread pilotless Predator drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With regard to Afghanistan, the Associated Press (Nov. 7) reported that "Although the U.N. says most civilian casualties have been at the hands of militants" — why doesn't the AP say it like it is, terrorists? — "deaths of men, women and children in NATO air strikes have raised tensions between Karzai's government and the U.S.-led coalition." Again, say it plain that the United States is very much involved in the NATO air strikes — in addition to drone planes — that murder children, women and men who are not even suspected to be "militants." Just as Mayer's "The Predator War" generated little follow-up in the press, so too has the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock's revelations on Obama-authorized extra-judicial killings not of suspected terrorists but of dealers in opium in Afghanistan. Without any system of accountability in U.S. courts or Congress, "The U.S. military," Whitlock writes, "and NATO officials have authorized their forces to kill or capture individuals on the list, which was drafted within the past year as part of NATO's new strategy to combat drug operations that finance the Taliban." What's wrong with that — aside from our Constitution's separation of powers? As Whitlock emphasizes, there is "fierce opposition from Afghan officials, who say it could undermine their fragile justice system and trigger a backlash against foreign troops." The Afghan family survivors of those inadvertently but terminally killed nonterrorist men, women and children in implementing this hit list are deeply angry at this lethal operation by foreign forces including us. Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister for counter-narcotics operations, Gen. Mohammad Daud Daud, says that he's grateful for this NATO-U.S. help "in destroying drug labs and stashes of opium," but about those killings, he adds the names on the hit list are not told to Afghan officials. Says Daud: "They should respect our law, our constitution and our legal codes," Daud said. "We have a commitment to arrest these people on our own." Note: Arrest, not kill instantly. But these allies of Afghanistan don't respect their own laws and legal codes. On Sept. 12, 2001, George W. Bush assured the world: "We will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms." But haven't we changed our Constitution? Don't you know there's a war on?

Drone operations embolden the insurgency and lose the faith of the Afghan people Dressler 9/1/09 (Jeff, Research Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “Surge in Afghanistan: A Response to George Will,” The Compass http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/09/surge_in_afghanistan_a_respons.html#more)

What’s really surprising about Will’s commentary is his trumpeting of a counterterrorism strategy as the new “revised” policy. This failed Rumsfeldian approach is one of the most glaring reasons for the strategic failures of the past several years. Will contends that this can be done alone from “offshore” drones, intelligence and missiles. Unfortunately, effective counterterrorism is predicated on effective intelligence, that which can only been garnered through an effective counterinsurgency strategy. Some would argue that “offshore counterterrorism” would have serious unintended consequences, some of which we have been privy to over the past several years. Collateral damage (the death of innocent civilians) is perhaps the surest way to turn the population against Afghan and coalition efforts. In short, we become the enemy while the real enemy, the Taliban, capitalize on local discontent. For this very reason, one of General McChrystal’s first orders was to restrict the use of airstrikes, “air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly,” he said.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 5

The key to stability in Afghanistan lasts in the hearts and minds of the public and their faith in the rule of law – not military presence. Eric Holder, 6/30/10, Attorney General, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/June/10-ag-762.html

The United States is committed to succeeding in Afghanistan and breaking the Taliban’s momentum. As we heard President Obama say on June 23, the United States will "persist and persevere" and "we will not tolerate a safe haven for terrorists who want to destroy Afghan security from within, and launch attacks against innocent men, women and children in our country and around the world." There is no clearer sign of our commitment to Afghanistan than President Obama’s appointment of General David Petraeus as Commander of the International Security Assistance Force. General Petraeus fully participated in the U.S. policy review last fall, and he both supported and helped design the strategy that we have in place today. We have watched with interest from Washington the positive steps President Karzai and his Cabinet have taken to help improve governance and enforce the rule of law. We applaud President Karzai for his actions and encourage him to continue his efforts as much work remains to be done. The long-term stability of Afghanistan lies in the hands of the Afghan people. A key pillar of achieving stability is adherence to the rule of law. The United States is committed to partnering with Afghanistan to ensure that all Afghan citizens have access to a fair, efficient and transparent justice system. Rule of law should be an important dimension of the long-term U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership. The support and commitment of the United States to improving the lives of the Afghan people and establishing the rule of law will outlast any military presence in the country. The Strategic Partnership that will be signed by our two Presidents by the end of this year will codify this long-term commitment.

Afghanistan instability draws in Taliban rule – the best case scenario is a split AfghanistanStephen John Morgan, a political psychologist, researcher into Chaos/Complexity Theory, March 5, 2007, "Better another Taliban Afghanistan, than a Taliban NUCLEAR Pakistan!?" http://www.electricarticles.com/display.aspx?id=639 TP

They are low on adequate resources and relegated in importance. The former British Commander of NATO forces admitted that last year they came close to losing Kandahar, the second city. It is not ruled out that much of the south and east could fall into Taliban hands this year, paving the way for the fall of Kabul, the year after. The Taliban are ferocious fighters, with a messianic fervour to fight to the death. They bring with them the experience of veterans of the brutal Soviet war and the civil war which followed. Now regrouped, rearmed, their forces are prepared both for unfavourable open combat of almost suicidal proportions. Furthermore they are opportunistically changing tactics, both in order to create maximum urban destabilization and to win local support in the countryside. Boasting of more than 1,000 suicide volunteer bombers,they have also renounced their former policy against heroin cultivation, thus allowing them to win support among the rural population and gain support from local tribes, warlords and criminal gangs, who have been alienated by NATO policies of poppy field destruction. Although disliked and despised in many quarters, the Taliban could not advance without the support or acquiescence of parts of the population, especially in the south. In particular, the Taliban is drawing on backing from the Pashtun tribes from whom they originate. The southern and eastern areas have been totally out of government control since 2001. Moreover, not only have they not benefited at all from the Allied occupation, but it is increasingly clear that with a few small centres of exception, all of the country outside Kabul has seen little improvement in its circumstances. The conditions for unrest are ripe and the Taliban is filling the vacuum. The Break-Up of Afghanistan? However, the Taliban is unlikely to win much support outside of the powerful Pashtun tribes. Although they make up a majority of the nation, they are concentrated in the south and east. Among the other key minorities, such as Tajiks and Uzbeks, who control the north they have no chance of making new inroads. They will fight the Taliban and fight hard, but their loyalty to the NATO and US forces is tenuous to say the least. The Northern Alliance originally liberated Kabul from the Taliban without Allied ground support. The Northern Alliance are fierce fighters, veterans of the war of liberation against the Soviets and the Afghanistan civil war. Mobilized they count for a much stronger adversary than the NATO and US forces. It is possible that, while they won’t fight for the current government or coalition forces, they will certainly resist any new Taliban rule. They may decide to withdraw to their areas in the north and west of the country. This would leave the Allied forces with few social reserves, excepting a frightened and unstable urban population in Kabul, much like what happened to the Soviets. Squeezed by facing fierce fighting in Helmund and other provinces, and, at the same time, harried by a complementary tactic of Al Qaeda-style urban terrorism in Kabul, sooner or later, a “Saigon-style” evacuation of US and Allied forces could be on the cards. The net result could be the break-up and partition of Afghanistan into a northern and western area and a southern and eastern area, which would include the two key cities of Kandahar and, the capital Kabul.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 6This Taliban engagement in Afghanistan spills over ethnic conflict into Pakistan culminating in warStephen John Morgan, a political psychologist, researcher into Chaos/Complexity Theory, March 5, 2007, "Better another Taliban Afghanistan, than a Taliban NUCLEAR Pakistan!?" http://www.electricarticles.com/display.aspx?id=639 TP

However events may prove him sorely wrong. Indeed, his policy could completely backfire upon him. As the war intensifies, he has no guarantees that the current autonomy may yet burgeon into a separatist movement. Appetite comes with eating, as they say. Moreover, should the Taliban fail to re-conquer al of Afghanistan, as looks likely, but captures at least half of the country, then a Taliban Pashtun caliphate could be established which would act as a magnet to separatist Pashtuns in Pakistan. Then, the likely break up of Afghanistan along ethnic lines, could, indeed, lead the way to the break up of Pakistan, as well. Strong centrifugal forces have always bedevilled the stability and unity of Pakistan, and, in the context of the new world situation, the country could be faced with civil wars and popular fundamentalist uprisings, probably including a military-fundamentalist coup d’état. Fundamentalism is deeply rooted in Pakistan society. The fact that in the year following 9/11, the most popular name given to male children born that year was “Osama” (not a Pakistani name) is a small indication of the mood. Given the weakening base of the traditional, secular opposition parties, conditions would be ripe for a coup d’état by the fundamentalist wing of the Army and ISI, leaning on the radicalised masses to take power. Some form of radical, military Islamic regime, where legal powers would shift to Islamic courts and forms of shira law would be likely. Although, even then, this might not take place outside of a protracted crisis of upheaval and civil war conditions, mixing fundamentalist movements with nationalist uprisings and sectarian violence between the Sunni and minority Shia populations. The nightmare that is now Iraq would take on gothic proportions across the continent. The prophesy of an arc of civil war over Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq would spread to south Asia, stretching from Pakistan to Palestine, through Afghanistan into Iraq and up to the Mediterranean coast. Undoubtedly, this would also spill over into India both with regards to the Muslim community and Kashmir. Border clashes, terrorist attacks, sectarian pogroms and insurgency would break out. A new war, and possibly nuclear war, between Pakistan and India could no be ruled out.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 7 Contention 3 is ILAW

Obama is dodging illegal drone mission definitions – status quo US will violate Geneva PolicyJane Mayer, Staff writer for The New Yorker, 10/26/2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer TP

Under international law, in order for the U.S. government to legally target civilian terror suspects abroad it has to define a terrorist group as one engaging in armed conflict, and the use of force must be a “military necessity.” There must be no reasonable alternative to killing, such as capture, and to warrant death the target must be “directly participating in hostilities.” The use of force has to be considered “proportionate” to the threat. Finally, the foreign nation in which such targeted killing takes place has to give its permission. Many lawyers who have looked at America’s drone program in Pakistan believe that it meets these basic legal tests. But they are nevertheless troubled, as the U.S. government keeps broadening the definition of acceptable high-value targets. Last March, the Obama Administration made an unannounced decision to win support for the drone program inside Pakistan by giving President Asif Ali Zardari more control over whom to target. “A lot of the targets are nominated by the Pakistanis—it’s part of the bargain of getting Pakistani coöperation,” says Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who has served as an adviser to the Obama Administration on Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the New America Foundation’s study, only six of the forty-one C.I.A. drone strikes conducted by the Obama Administration in Pakistan have targeted Al Qaeda members. Eighteen were directed at Taliban targets in Pakistan, and fifteen were aimed specifically at Baitullah Mehsud. Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani lieutenant general and an authority on security issues, says that the U.S.’s tactical shift, along with the elimination of Mehsud, has quieted some of the Pakistani criticism of the American air strikes, although the bombings are still seen as undercutting the country’s sovereignty. But, given that many of the targeted Pakistani Taliban figures were obscure in U.S. counterterrorism circles, some critics have wondered whether they were legitimate targets for a Predator strike. “These strikes are killing a lot of low-level militants, which raises the question of whether they are going beyond the authorization to kill leaders,” Peter Bergen told me. Roger Cressey, the former National Security Council official, who remains a strong supporter of the drone program, says, “The debate is that we’ve been doing this so long we’re now bombing low-level guys who don’t deserve a Hellfire missile up their ass.” (In his view, “Not every target has to be a rock star.”) The Obama Administration has also widened the scope of authorized drone attacks in Afghanistan. An August report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee disclosed that the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List—the Pentagon’s roster of approved terrorist targets, containing three hundred and sixty-seven names—was recently expanded to include some fifty Afghan drug lords who are suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban. These new targets are a step removed from Al Qaeda. According to the Senate report, “There is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds goes to Al Qaeda.” The inclusion of Afghan narcotics traffickers on the U.S. target list could prove awkward, some observers say, given that President Hamid Karzai’s running mate, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, and the President’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are strongly suspected of involvement in narcotics. Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, who has written extensively on military matters, said, “Are they going to target Karzai’s brother?” He went on, “We should be very careful about who we define as the enemy we have to kill. Leaders of Al Qaeda, of course. But you can’t kill people on Tuesday and negotiate with them on Wednesday.”

Specifically, drone warfare undermines article 51 of the IHLUN Human Rights Council, 5/2010, p. 13, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf

A more difficult question concerns the extent to which persistent but discrete attacks, including by a non-state actor, would constitute an “armed attack” under Article 51. In a series of decisions, the ICJ has established a high threshold for the kinds of attacks that would justify the extraterritorial use of force in self-defence.80 In its view, sporadic, lowintensity attacks do not rise to the level of armed attack that would permit the right to use extraterritorial force in self-defence, and the legality of a defensive response must be judged in light of each armed attack, rather than by considering occasional, although perhaps successive, armed attacks in the aggregate. While this approach has been criticized,81 few commentators have supported an approach that would accommodate the invocation of the right to self-defence in response to most of the types of attack that have been at issue in relation to the extraterritorial targeted killings discussed here. Any such approach would diminish hugely the value of the foundational prohibition contained in Article 51

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 8IHL will become ineffective without the US’ complianceCassese 98 Antonio Cassese, Former judge for the International Criminal Tribunal, 1998. [European Journal of International Law, On the Current Trend Towards Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Breaches of International Humanitarian Law] CS

Unlike national courts, an international criminal tribunal has no law enforcement agency akin to a police judiciaire. It thus relies primarily on the cooperation of national authorities for the effective investigation and prosecution of persons accused of violations of international humanitarian law. Accordingly, all requests for assistance or orders of the ICTY, for instance, are addressed to and processed by the national system of the relevant state as the first resort Cooperation is necessary in relation to requests for assistance or orders of the ICTY for the identification and location of persons, the taking of testimony and the production of evidence, the service of documents, the arrest or detention of persons, and the surrender or transfer of the accused to the ICTY. States are obliged to cooperate with the ICTY for these purposes pursuant to Article 29 of the ICTY Statute. However, Rule 59 bis?6 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the ICTY provides an alternative procedure to that contemplated by Article 29 (and also Rule 55) concerning arrests by states. A Trial Chamber of the ICTY27 has held that 'once an arrest warrant has been transmitted to an international authority, an international body, or the Office of the Prosecutor, the accused person named therein may be taken into custody without the involvement of the State in which he or she was located'.28 Four successful arrests have been made by international authorities in the former Yugoslavia since the adoption of Rule 59 bis.29 Notwithstanding this development, the ICTY remains very much like a giant without arms and legs — it needs artificial limbs to walk and work. And these artificial limbs are state authorities. If the cooperation of states is not forthcoming, the ICTY cannot fulfil its functions. It has no means at its disposal to force states to cooperate with It This is to be contrasted with the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, which investigated and prosecuted war crimes committed in states held under military occupation by the Allied forces.

Broader incorporation of international law solves biodiversity loss.Glennon, Board of Editors, American Journal of International Law, 90 [Michael, Board of Editors @ American Journal of Intl Law, Jan., 84 A.J.I.L. 1]

It is now possible to conclude that customary international law requires states to take appropriate steps to protect endangered species. Customary norms are created by state practice "followed by them from a sense of legal obligation." 250 Like highly codified humanitarian law norms that have come to bind even states that are not parties to the instruments promulgating them, 251 wildlife protection norms also have become binding on nonparties as customary law. Closely related to this process of norm creation by practice is that of norm creation by convention: customary norms are created by international agreements "when such agreements are intended for adherence by states generally and are in fact widely accepted." 252 Several such [*31] agreements are directed at wildlife protection, 253 and CITES is one of them. It is intended for adherence by states generally 254 and is accepted by the 103 states that have become parties. In addition, some nonparties comply with certain CITES documentary requirements so as to trade with parties. 255 CITES is not "rejected by a significant number of states"; 256 only the United Arab Emirates has withdrawn from the agreement. In such circumstances, the International Court of Justice has observed, international agreements constitute state practice and represent law for nonparties. 257 Moreover, customary norms are created by "the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations." 258 Because CITES requires domestic implementation by parties to it, 259 and because the overall level of compliance seems quite high, 260 the general principles embodied in states' domestic endangered species laws may be relied upon as another source of customary law. 261 Even apart from the CITES requirements, states that lack laws protecting endangered species seem now to be the clear exception rather than the rule. 262 That there exists opinio juris as to the binding character of this obligation 263 is suggested by the firm support given endangered species [*32] protection by the UN General Assembly and various international conferences. 264

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 9

Biodiversity loss leads to extinctionDiner 94 (Diner, David N. B.S. Recipient. Ohio State University. J.D. Recipient. College of Law. Ohio State University. LL.M. The Judge Advocate General’s School. United States Army. Judge Advocate’s General’s Corps. United States Army. “The Army and the Endangered Species Act: Who’s Endangering Whom?” Military Law Review. 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161. Winter, 1994. Lexis-Nexis.)

No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a singleminded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . .[l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 10Contention 4 is Virtual War

The union of modern warfare and the ethical imperatives of US foreign policy elevated virtual war to a virtuous war. Mechanized warfare pixallizes the enemy, propagating a clean war and hiding the suffering of the victimJames Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2000, “Virtuous War/Virtual Theory”, jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2626459.pdfSo, is the virtualization of violence a revolution in diplomatic, military, let alone human affairs? On its own, no. However, deployed with a new ethical imperative for global democratic reform, it could well be so. In spite of, and perhaps soon because of, efforts to spread a democratic peace through globali- zation and humanitarian intervention, war is ascending to an even higher plane, from the virtual to the virtuous. At one time, the two words virtual and virtuous were hardly distinguishable (although the Latin virtuosos preceded virtualis). Both originated in the medieval notion of a power inherent in the supernatural, of a divine being endowed with natural virtue. And both carried a moral weight, from the Greek and Roman sense of virtue, of properties and qualities of right conduct. But their meanings diverged in modern usage, with 'virtual' taking a morally neutral, more technical tone, while 'virtuous' lost its sense of exerting influence by means of inherent qualities. Now they seem ready to be rejoined by current efforts to effect ethical change through technological and martial means. The United States, as deus ex machina of global politics, is leading the way in this virtual revolution. Its diplomatic and military policies are increasingly based on technological and representational forms of discipline, deterrence, and com- pellence that could best be described as virtuous war. At the heart of virtuous war is the technical capability and ethical imperative to threaten and, if necessary, actualize violence from a distance-with no or minimal casualties . Using net- worked information and virtual technologies to bring 'there' here in near-real time and with near-verisimilitude, virtuous war exercises a comparative as well as strategic advantage for the digitally advanced. It has become the 'fifth dimen- sion' of US global hegemony. On the surface, virtuous war cleans up the political discourse as well as the battlefield. Fought in the same manner as they are represented, by real-time surveillance and TV 'live-feeds', virtuous wars promote a vision of bloodless, humanitarian, hygienic wars. We can rattle off casualty rates of prototypical virtuous conflicts like the Gulf war (270 Americans lost their lives-more than half through accidents), the Mogadishu raid (i8 Americans killed), and the Kosovo air campaign (barring accidents, a remarkable zero casualty conflict for 772Virtuous war/virtual theory the NATO forces). Yet, in spite of valorous efforts by human rights organi- zations, most people would probably come up short on acceptable figures for the other side of the casualty list. Post-Vietnam, the United States has made many digital advances; public body counts of the enemy are not one of them . Unlike other forms of warfare, virtuous war has an unsurpassed power to commute death, to keep it out of sight, out of mind. In simulated preparations and virtual executions of war, there is a high risk that one learns how to kill but not to take responsibility for it, one experiences 'death' but not the tragic consequences of it. In virtuous war we now face not just the confusion but the pixillation of war and game on the same screen.

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Virtual war separates the pilot and the target by creating a dichotomy of “my space” and “their space”. This warfare is absent of any ethical relation to the victim whose suffering is sanitized by the computer screen Derek Gregory, Department of Geography University of British Columbia at Vancouver, 2006, Arab World Geographer, “‘In another time-zone, the bombs fall unsafely….’Targets, civilians and late modern war*”, http://web.mac.com/derekgregory/iWeb/Site/The%20city-as-target_files/%27In%20another%20time%20zone%27_illustrated-2.pdfThe second refinement of late modern war has been to produce an electronic disjuncture between ‘the eye’ and ‘the target’ that acts as meridian and membrane between ‘our space’ and ‘their space’. 31 But this electronic disjuncture is an extraordinarily labile medium that sustains both a radical separation – a sort of time-space expansion – and the most acute time-space compression. On one side, ‘their space’ is reduced to a space empty of people; the visual technology of late modern warfare produces the space of the enemy as an abstract space on an electronic screen of co-ordinates and pixels. These high-level abstractions sustain the illusion of an authorizing master-subject who asserts both visual mastery and violent possession through what Caren Kaplan calls the ‘cosmic view’ of air power. This is vertical geopolitics with a vengeance: ‘Outside the wire of Balad Air Base [north of Baghdad], the insurgency still rages and sectarian war looms,’ reported Michael Hirsh in May 2006, ‘but the sky above is a deep azure and, no small thing, wholly American-owned.’ 32 These high-level abstractions deploy a discourse of objectivity – so that elevation secures the higher Truth – and a discourse of object-ness that reduces the world to a series of objects in a visual plane. As I have argued elsewhere, bombs and missiles then rain down on on K-A-B-U-L but not on the city of Kabul, its innocent inhabitants terrorised and their homes shattered by another round in the incessant wars choreographed by superpowers from a safe distance. And the IDF can render the landscape of southern Lebanon as a ‘kill-box’, so that during the night of 29 July 2006 its forces can attack only ‘structures, headquarters and weapon facilities’, ‘vehicles, bridges and routes’, and the combat zone is magically emptied of all human beings. The result, fervently desired and artfully orchestrated, is optical detachment. ‘Remote as they are far from “targets”,’ Zygmunt Bauman once observed, ‘scurrying over those they hit too fast to witness the devastation they cause and the blood they spill, the pilots-turned-computer-operators hardly ever have the chance of looking their victims in the face and to survey the human misery they have sowed.’ 33 Just like Mr Barrow venturing into ‘the land of the Bushmen’ in the early nineteenth century, who, according to Mary-Louise Pratt, recorded not the Bushmen but merely ‘scratches on the face of the country’, so these screen images reveal scars on the face of the country but never on the faces of those who have been injured and killed there. 34

Virtual warfare facilitates enemy construction—simulations of war replace reality with our misconceptions of the enemy, perpetuating war over differenceJames Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2003, “War as a Game”, Brown Journal of World Affairs p. 45-46The charge of moral equivalency—in which any attempt at explanation is identified as an act of exoneration—should not deter investigations into the dangers of the mimetic relationships operating in war and games. People go to war not only out of rational calculation but also because of how they see, perceive, picture, imagine, and speak of each other: that is, how they construct the difference of other groups as well as the sameness of their own. Bin Lad5en and Saddam Hussein are not the first to mine this act of mimesis for political advantage. From Greek tragedy and Roman gladiatorial spectacles to futurist art and fascist rallies, mimetic violence has regularly overpowered democratic discourse. The question, then, is how long after Baghdad has fallen will this mimetic game of terror and counter-terror last? Bush, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein need their mimetic foes—it takes two to play. Without a reciprocal hatred, their politics and prophecies lose their self-fulfilling powers. Historically, terrorist movements either evolve into states, or, without a mass base, they quickly weaken and rarely last longer than a decade. And empires inevitably, by over-reach or defeat, fall. However, this mimetic struggle, magnified by the media, fought by advanced technologies of destruction, and unchecked by the UN or U.S. allies, has now developed a logic of its own in which assimilation or extermination become plausible solutions, credible policies. Under such circumstances, one longs for the sure bet, a predictable unfolding of events, or at least a comforting conclusion. “At this stage of the game” (as Schwartzkopf said in the midst of GW1), I have none, because the currently designed game, to rid the world of evil, cannot possibly find an end. Inevitably, what Edmund Burke called the empire of circumstance will surely, and let us hope not too belatedly, trump Bush’s imperial game as well as Bin Laden’s terrorist one. When tempted in the interim by the promise of virtuous war to solve the world’s problems, we best listen to the great Yogi: “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”

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It is our ethical obligation to look beyond the sanitized violence of the computer screen and condemn drone warfare and mediatization for their distancing of warDerek Gregory, Department of Geography University of British Columbia at Vancouver, 2006, Arab World Geographer, “‘In another time-zone, the bombs fall unsafely….’Targets, civilians and late modern war*”, http://web.mac.com/derekgregory/iWeb/Site/The%20city-as-target_files/%27In%20another%20time%20zone%27_illustrated-2.pdfOn the other side, this erasure of corporeality is twisted into another dimension through late modern war’s annihilation of space through time. The United States has increasingly deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as part of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs. In both Afghanistan and Iraq extensive use is made of Predator drones that carry three cameras and two Hellfire missiles. Take-offs and landings are controlled by pilots from Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadrons based at Bagram and Balad Air Bases, but once the drones are airborne the missions are flown by pilots from Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, part of the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, some 7, 000 miles away. When Robert Kaplan visited Indian Springs, he saw the trailers from which the missions were flown. ‘Inside that trailer is Iraq; inside the other, Afghanistan,’ he was told. ‘Inside those trailers you leave North America which falls under Northern Command, and enter the Middle East, the domain of Central Command [CENTCOM]. So much for the tyranny of Geography.’ 35 The irony of that last sentence evidently escaped its author, but the contortions of time and space that it conveys are given renewed force by a third refinement of late modern war: its mediatization. War reporting has a long history, but the emergence of a military-industrial-media-entertainment complex at the end of the twentieth century has sought to elevate late modern war from the virtual to what James Der Derian (fully conscious of the irony) calls the ‘virtuous’. By this, he means to signal both the priority attached to the visual and also the determination ‘to commute death, to keep it out of sight’: to produce war as a space of both constructed and constricted visibility. 36 News media and video games work hand-in-glove with the military to naturalize the reduction of the space of the enemy to a visual field through satellite photographs, bomb-sight views and simulations, and feed in to the staging of late modern war as spectacle. A public is produced that is made accustomed to seeing Baghdad and other ‘alien cities’ as targets; their people, their neighbourhoods, all the mundane geographies of everyday life are hollowed out. 37 These imaginative geographies work in the background to disable any critical politics of witnessing. Civilian casualties are rendered as unseen and uncounted (hence General Franks’ less than frank insistence that ‘We don’t do body counts’); as inevitable but irrelevant (‘collateral damage’, the unintended and unforeseen consequence of military action); or as legitimate targets through complicity or even ‘unworthiness’ (Agamben’s homines sacri). 38 In these ways the public is at once brought close to the action (the spectacle, the thrill) while being removed from its consequences. As Weber argues, this too involves a simultaneous reduction and maximization of distance. When a domestic audience watches video of a missile closing on its target, he writes, ‘The distance to the image, the target, is reduced and eliminated, and with it, the target-image is itself eliminated, vanishes from the screen. At the same time, everything is more distant than ever before. For we “know”, or think we know, that the target has been destroyed, and with it, everything that we have not seen: all the things and people presumably behind those walls. At the same time, we, who have followed this elimination of distance through the eyes of the camera, which is also the eyes of the missile, we are still whole, safe and sane in our homes. We are exhilarated at the sight of such power and control, we are relieved to be still in one piece, but something is indeed being “covered”, the way a “carpet” covers a floor, or the way “carpet bombings” cover an area. What is being covered is ultimately that which technology has always potentially covered: the frailty and limitations of the human body.’ 39 It is time to turn to those frail bodies.

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Pakistan Add-On

Drones are counterproductive in war on terror - Taliban’s appeal to victim discontent Jeff Dressler, Research Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, The Compass, Real Clear World Blog, September 1, 2009, “Surge in Afghanistan: A Response to George Will,” http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/09/surge_in_afghanistan_a_respons.html#more TP

Nobody said it was going to be easy. The day after Gen. Stanley McChrystal sent his strategic assessment to the Pentagon, the call for retreat is already being sounded, this time, from columnist George Will. But Will’s article demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of not only the nature of Afghanistan, but counterinsurgency writ large. Will quotes a Dutch commander in-theatre to highlight the backwards, primitive nature of Afghanistan…"like walking through the Old Testament” the commander said. Surely, Afghanistan does not conform to western understanding of a modern, advanced society… and America does not seek to make it such. Afghans are smart, they understand more than many Westerners assume. To their credit, the majority of Afghanistan’s population supports the war against the Taliban, including coalition and Afghan efforts to achieve some real progress after eight years of neglect. All they want in return is security. Thus far, they haven’t gotten it. Delving into Will’s discussion of counterinsurgency, he is somewhat correct in describing the Taliban’s ability to “evaporate and then return.” But the Taliban are not superhuman, they are not ghosts. Their ability to “evaporate and then return” is predicated on two current conditions: 1) the absence of sufficient Afghan and coalition forces; and 2) the ability to coerce and intimidate local populations. Much like in Iraq, a sufficiently resourced war (see Surge) and the ability to secure population centers are aimed at removing the insurgency from the population. If this can be achieved, the tide starts to turn. As far as the “time and ratio of forces” required for a successful counterinsurgency campaign… those numbers aren’t hard and fast either. Achieving the proper ratio will not necessarily require a massive coalition footprint for “a decade or more.” It will however require sufficient indigenous security forces to augment and eventually take-over. An entire brigade of the 82nd Airborne has been tasked with exactly that. The new benchmark for the ANSF is 160,000 police (up from 92,000) and 240,000 for the army (up from 134,000). I’m quite confident that the military understands the necessity of fielding a proper security force, both in sheer numbers and capability. As far as country’s history of central governance, Will contends that it “never” had one. That’s not exactly true either: “Afghanistan has been an independent country since the 18th century, with such strong monarchs as Dost Mohammad, who drove out a British incursion in 1842 and ruled for 33 years. Under King Mohammad Zahir Shah, who ruled from 1933 to 1973, Afghanistan made considerable economic and political progress, including the adoption of a fairly democratic written constitution. It was relatively peaceful and stable before a Marxist coup in 1978 set off a long period of war and turmoil whose most consequential events were the Soviet invasion in 1979, the Soviets' departure in 1989, and the rise of the Taliban starting in 1994.” What’s really surprising about Will’s commentary is his trumpeting of a counterterrorism strategy as the new “revised” policy. This failed Rumsfeldian approach is one of the most glaring reasons for the strategic failures of the past several years. Will contends that this can be done alone from “offshore” drones, intelligence and missiles. Unfortunately, effective counterterrorism is predicated on effective intelligence, that which can only been garnered through an effective counterinsurgency strategy. Some would argue that “offshore counterterrorism” would have serious unintended consequences, some of which we have been privy to over the past several years. Collateral damage (the death of innocent civilians) is perhaps the surest way to turn the population against Afghan and coalition efforts. In short, we become the enemy while the real enemy, the Taliban, capitalize on local discontent. For this very reason, one of General McChrystal’s first orders was to restrict the use of airstrikes, “air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly,” he said. What we have seen in Afghanistan, even to this very day is the remnants of Gen. McKiernan’s campaign plan. Over the past several years, we have been fighting in the wrong places, in the wrong way and with the wrong assumptions. A significant shortage of resources have contributed to the deleterious situation. A full-spectrum counterinsurgency strategy is needed, and that is exactly what was delivered to the Pentagon yesterday. There is nothing wrong with questioning the rational of an ongoing war; in fact, it is often quite the responsible thing to do. That said, a misguided call to inaction can be dangerous indeed. Gen. McChrystal was asked to conduct a 60-day campaign review of the war in Afghanistan. Yesterday, he sent that review to the Pentagon. His conclusion: “success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 14Taliban propaganda projects Pakistan’s drone policy as US puppets – leads to instabilityJane Mayer, Staff writer for The New Yorker, 10/26/2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer

After such attacks, the Taliban, attempting to stir up anti-American sentiment in the region, routinely claims, falsely, that the victims are all innocent civilians. In several Pakistani cities, large protests have been held to decry the drone program. And, in the past year, perpetrators of terrorist bombings in Pakistan have begun presenting their acts as “revenge for the drone attacks.” In recent weeks, a rash of bloody assaults on Pakistani government strongholds has raised the spectre that formerly unaligned militant groups have joined together against the Zardari Administration. David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency warfare expert who has advised General David Petraeus in Iraq, has said that the propaganda costs of drone attacks have been disastrously high. Militants have used the drone strikes to denounce the Zardari government—a shaky and unpopular regime—as little more than an American puppet. A study that Kilcullen co-wrote for the Center for New American Security, a think tank, argues, “Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.” His co-writer, Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger who has advised General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, told me, “Neither Kilcullen nor I is a fundamentalist—we’re not saying drones are not part of the strategy. But we are saying that right now they are part of the problem. If we use tactics that are killing people’s brothers and sons, not to mention their sisters and wives, we can work at cross-purposes with insuring that the tribal population doesn’t side with the militants. Using the Predator is a tactic, not a strategy.

Even an attempted insurgency destabilizes Pakistan into warFrederick W. Kagan, and Michael O'Hanlon, Resident Scholars, New York Times, November 18, 2007, “Pakistan’s Collapse, Our Problem,” http://www.aei.org/article/27122 TP

We do not intend to be fear mongers. Pakistan's officer corps and ruling elites remain largely moderate and more interested in building a strong, modern state than in exporting terrorism or nuclear weapons to the highest bidder. But then again, Americans felt similarly about the shah's regime in Iran until it was too late. Moreover, Pakistan's intelligence services contain enough sympathizers and supporters of the Afghan Taliban, and enough nationalists bent on seizing the disputed province of Kashmir from India, that there are grounds for real worries. Fortunately, given the longstanding effectiveness of Pakistan's security forces, any process of state decline probably would be gradual, giving us the time to act. The most likely possible dangers are these: a complete collapse of Pakistani government rule that allows an extreme Islamist movement to fill the vacuum; a total loss of federal control over outlying provinces, which splinter along ethnic and tribal lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani military in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda try to establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. All possible military initiatives to avoid those possibilities are daunting. With 160 million people, Pakistan is more than five times the size of Iraq. It would take a long time to move large numbers of American forces halfway across the world. And unless we had precise information about the location of all of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and materials, we could not rely on bombing or using Special Forces to destroy them. The task of stabilizing a collapsed Pakistan is beyond the means of the United States and its allies. Rule-of-thumb estimates suggest that a force of more than a million troops would be required for a country of this size. Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces. One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan's nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.

It’ll go nuclearStephen John Morgan, a political psychologist, researcher into Chaos/Complexity Theory, March 5, 2007, "Better another Taliban Afghanistan, than a Taliban NUCLEAR Pakistan!?" http://www.electricarticles.com/display.aspx?id=639 TPShould Pakistan break down completely, a Taliban-style government with strong Al Qaeda influence is a real possibility. Such deep chaos would, of course, open a “Pandora's box” for the region and the world. With the possibility of unstable clerical and military fundamentalist elements being in control of the Pakistan nuclear arsenal, not only their use against India, but Israel becomes a possibility, as well as the acquisition of nuclear and other deadly weapons secrets by Al Qaeda. Invading Pakistan would not be an option for America. Therefore a nuclear war would now again become a real strategic possibility. This would bring a shift in the tectonic plates of global relations. It could usher in a new Cold War with China and Russia pitted against the US

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Solvency

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Case – Drones Fail – Hacks

Drones fail – insurgents from Iraq and Iran have been able to hack the vehicles. Ewan MacAskill, Staff Writer, The Guardian, December 17, 2009, “US drones hacked by Iraqi insurgents” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/skygrabber-american-drones-hacked

One of America's most sophisticated weapons in the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the unmanned drone, has been successfully penetrated by insurgents using software available on the internet for $26 (£16). Insurgents in Iraq intercepted live video feeds from the drones being relayed back to a US controller and revealing potential targets. A US official said the flaw was identified and fixed in the past 12 months. The problem only came to light after the US found many hours' worth of videotaped recordings on militant laptops late last year and earlier this year. The insurgents used software programmes such as Skygrabber, developed by a Russian company and originally intended to download music and videos from the internet. The drones have become one of the most important parts of the US armoury. Their use has increased sixfold over the past five years. They are able to hover over suspect sites and launch missiles against alleged militants in Iraq and alleged al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border region. The use of the drones in Pakistan is particularly controversial, in part because some Pakistanis see it as US infringement of the country's sovereignty, but also because civilians are often hit too. The potential problem with the hacking was that insurgents, if they knew the locations being targeted, would be able to take evasive action. A US source with knowledge of the programme today confirmed the report, first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, but said that the quality of the pictures seen by the insurgents would have been of limited value. The pictures would have been fuzzy, making it nearly impossible to determine the location of a target in the deserts or mountains, the source said. The US air force is responsible for drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the CIA for those in Pakistan. The CIA video feeds are reported to have been encrypted, while some of the air forces ones were not. The Pentagon had been aware of the problem for many years, but had assumed the insurgents would not have the technical knowledge to intercept the feeds. Air force Lieutenant General David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, said: "Any time you have a system that broadcasts information using omnidirectional signals, those are subject to listening and exploitation. One of the ways we deal with that is encrypting signals." When asked about the problem, a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright, indicated that it had been addressed. He said: "The department of defence constantly evaluates and seeks to improve the performance and security of our various ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] systems. As we identify shortfalls, we correct them as part of a continuous process of seeking to improve capabilities and security." One defence official, however, said that upgrading the encryption in the drones would be a long process because at least 600 of the unmanned planes are in use, along with thousands of ground stations. The first the US apparently knew about the interception was last year, when video feeds from a drone were found on the laptop of a Shia militant in Iraq who was allegedly backed by Iran. The US and Britain have both accused Tehran for years of interfering in Iraq. More laptops were found in the summer that suggested that the insurgents shared the video feeds. While the US hints that Iran is the culprit behind the problem, it could simply be that an Iraqi searching for a football game or other broadcast came across the signal.

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Case – Drones Fail – Kills

1/3 of drone victims are civiliansGreg Bruno, Staff Writer, Council on Foreign Relations, July 19, 2010, U.S. Drone Activities in Pakistan, http://www.cfr.org/publication/22659/us_drone_activities_in_pakistan.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fby_type%2Fbackgrounder

Civilian casualties are another significant concern. The New America Foundation, for instance, found that of the roughly one thousand to fourteen hundred deaths attributed to drone strikes since 2004, approximately one-third were civilians. U.S. intelligence officials dispute this calculation and insist smaller missiles and better targeting procedures have limited collateral damage (WashPost).

Inaccuracy and profilingJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

The development of the Predator, in the early nineteen-nineties, was supposed to help eliminate such mistakes. The drones can hover above a target for up to forty hours before refuelling, and the precise video footage makes it much easier to identify targets. But the strikes are only as accurate as the intelligence that goes into them. Tips from informants on the ground are subject to error, as is the interpretation of video images. Not long before September 11, 2001, for instance, several U.S. counterterrorism officials became certain that a drone had captured footage of bin Laden in a locale he was known to frequent in Afghanistan. The video showed a tall man in robes, surrounded by armed bodyguards in a diamond formation. At that point, drones were unarmed, and were used only for surveillance. “The optics were not great, but it was him,” Henry Crumpton, then the C.I.A.’s top covert-operations officer for the region, told Time . But two other former C.I.A. officers, who also saw the footage, have doubts. “It’s like an urban legend,” one of them told me. “They just jumped to conclusions. You couldn’t see his face. It could have been Joe Schmo. Believe me, no tall man with a beard is safe anywhere in Southwest Asia.” In February, 2002, along the mountainous eastern border of Afghanistan, a Predator reportedly followed and killed three suspicious Afghans, including a tall man in robes who was thought to be bin Laden. The victims turned out to be innocent villagers, gathering scrap metal.

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Miscalculation kills civiliansThe Seattle Times, 5/29/2010, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011987740_afghan30.htmlKABUL — A biting U.S. military report released Saturday criticized "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by operators of unmanned drones for contributing to a mistaken February airstrike that killed and injured dozens of civilians in southern Afghanistan.Up to 23 people were killed in the attack in Uruzgan province, where a strike intended for what military officials believed was an insurgent force hit a civilian convoy. The incident was condemned by the Afghan Cabinet as "unacceptable," and it prompted Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, to apologize to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

One third of drone strike victims are civiliansChristian Science Monitor, 12/11/2009, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2009/1211/Drone-aircraft-in-a-stepped-up-war-in-Afghanistan-and-PakistanSince 2006, drone-launched missiles have killed between 750 and 1,000 people in Pakistan, according to the New American report. Of these, about 20 people were leaders of Al Qaeda, Taliban, and associated groups. Overall, about 66 to 68 percent of the people killed were militants, and between 31 and 33 percent were civilians, according to the report.

Drones destroy the lives of Afghanis both physically and mentallyBaroud 09 Ramzy Baroud, editor of PalestineChronicle.com, considered a main Political thinktank, 8/20/2009 http://ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2009/August/20%20o/Afghanistan%20Drones%20and%20Democracy%20By%20Ramzy%20Baroud.htm

But the facts are truly grim. 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. Contrary to widespread claims of progress, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, says the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has worsened. In fact, in February of this year, and for the first time in seven years, the UN launched a comprehensive humanitarian action plan to try and alleviate even a small portion of the suffering there. A study conducted by the American Medical Association a few years ago found that two-thirds of Afghans over the age of 15 are depressed. 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. It goes without question that these statistics have ballooned with the rising death tolls that plague the country. So, there hasn't been the kind of progress once hoped for; not so many schools built, there haven't been so many hospitals established. Hunger and illiteracy, for the most part have remained the same if not on the incline. The refugee population continues to swell, while delivering aid to desperately needy towns and villages becomes increasingly difficult. But one thing cannot be disputed regarding US contributions to the people of Afghanistan: a lot of people have been ripped to pieces by botched drone operations, a lot of young minds have been molded, through the tragedies that they endure and witness each day, to distrust this notion of "democracy".

Drones can’t be relied on to win the war—they can’t eliminate the majority of the terroristsGeorgy 1/18 Michael Georgy, Staff writer for Reuters, 1/18/2010 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE60H064.htm

Analysts say the high-tech aircraft -- designed to throw al Qaeda and Taliban operations into disarray -- are unlikely to break resilient militant groups in the long term and may only generate more anti-American anger in U.S. ally Pakistan. "Ultimately this is not really an effective weapon. The intent is, that if you can kill off or decapitate a significant extent of the leadership, that you can cause a rift within the movement," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at STRATFOR global intelligence firm. Drone attacks in northwest Pakistan have been intensified since the double agent suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, the second deadliest attack in the agency's history. Even if sustained over a long period, the drones can only produce limited results -- perhaps holding up suicide bombings for a few weeks -- since militant leaders are unlikely to be killed in quick succession, analysts say.

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Case – Drones Fail – Perpetuate War

Drone use makes war more likelyRT, Staff Writer, Russia-US News Site, July19, 2010, 7:28AM, “Drones make killing cheaper, civilian deaths less personal” http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-07-19/drone-danger-civilians.html

Specialists say that for the drone operator, the whole operation recalls a video game. The question many ask is, if it is so easy and convenient, will it make the international powers tempted to wage more wars in the future? “If war is cheap, then why not why use it a bit more, especially against smaller countries, organizations that in other cases you would try to sit around the table with and talk it over?” said Wezeman. Siemon Wezeman has produced a research report on drones for the European parliament. Among his concerns are the consequences of terrorists getting hold of such weapons – a scenario some might liken to real-life and deadly robot wars. Demonstrators outside CIA headquarters at the start of the year protested against indiscriminate killings by unmanned weaponry. They say that rather than winning wars, drones merely make more enemies by killing mostly innocent people, thus fuelling, rather than quelling, insurgencies.

Drones create vengeful terroristsGreg Bruno, Staff Writer, Council on Foreign Relations, July 19, 2010, U.S. Drone Activities in Pakistan, http://www.cfr.org/publication/22659/us_drone_activities_in_pakistan.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fby_type%2Fbackgrounder

"[Drones] are the emerging lethal and non-lethal weapons of choice that will continue to transform how the army prosecutes future operations and ultimately save lives." –U.S. Army's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2010-2035 The strikes may also have the unintended consequence of creating enemies where none existed or providing militants with a justification for striking Western targets. Both Faisal Shahzad, who confessed to the failed Times Square bombing in May 2010, and the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, implicated in a suicide-bomb attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009, justified their actions as attempts to avenge U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism expert at the Brookings Institution, writes that targeted killing programs have been counterproductive in other states in the past, most prominently Israel, evidenced by its efforts to decimate Hamas (Foreign Affairs).

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Case – Drones Fail – Informants Inaccurate

Successful Drone attacks are contingent upon accurate targets – informants misleadJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the local informants, who also serve as confirming witnesses for the air strikes, are notoriously unreliable. A former C.I.A. officer who was based in Afghanistan after September 11th told me that an Afghan source had once sworn to him that one of Al Qaeda’s top leaders was being treated in a nearby clinic. The former officer said that he could barely hold off an air strike after he passed on the tip to his superiors. “They scrambled together an élite team,” he recalled. “We caught hell from headquarters. They said ‘Why aren’t you moving on it?’ when we insisted on checking it out first.” It turned out to be an intentionally false lead. “Sometimes you’re dealing with tribal chiefs,” the former officer said. “Often, they say an enemy of theirs is Al Qaeda because they just want to get rid of somebody. Or they made crap up because they wanted to prove they were valuable, so that they could make money. You couldn’t take their word.” The consequences of bad ground intelligence can be tragic. In September, a NATO air strike in Afghanistan killed between seventy and a hundred and twenty-five people, many of them civilians, who were taking fuel from two stranded oil trucks; they had been mistaken for Taliban insurgents. (The incident is being investigated by NATO.) According to a reporter for the Guardian, the bomb strike, by an F-15E fighter plane, left such a tangle of body parts that village elders resorted to handing out pieces of unidentifiable corpses to the grieving families, so that they could have something to bury. One Afghan villager told the newspaper, “I took a piece of flesh with me home and I called it my son.”

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Case – A2: CIA

US Military controls vast majority of dronesGreg Bruno, Staff Writer, Council on Foreign Relations, July 19, 2010, U.S. Drone Activities in Pakistan, http://www.cfr.org/publication/22659/us_drone_activities_in_pakistan.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fby_type%2Fbackgrounder

It's unclear how many Reaper and Predator drones are stationed in or operating above Pakistan at any given time. What is clear is that the technology has become ubiquitous in war zones. Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who has studied the use of drones in war, estimates there are roughly 7,000 unmanned systems (PDF) currently in use by the military, "ranging from 48-foot-long Predators to micro-aerial vehicles that a single soldier can carry in their backpack." Of these, the U.S. army controls the lion's share, and drones are considered the "eyes" of U.S. ground forces, an inseparable part (PDF) of how the United States fights in the twenty-first century. "Unmanned platforms are the emerging lethal and non-lethal weapons of choice that will continue to transform how the army prosecutes future operations and ultimately save lives," predicts the U.S. army (PDF).

C.I.A. drones may be a civilian organization, but the USFG gives them the green lightJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

The Predators in the C.I.A. program are “flown” by civilians, both intelligence officers and private contractors. According to a former counterterrorism official, the contractors are “seasoned professionals—often retired military and intelligence officials.” (The intelligence agency outsources a significant portion of its work.) Within the C.I.A., control of the unmanned vehicles is split among several teams. One set of pilots and operators works abroad, near hidden airfields in Afghanistan and Pakistan, handling takeoffs and landings. Once the drones are aloft, the former counterterrorism official said, the controls are electronically “slewed over” to a set of “reachback operators,” in Langley. Using joysticks that resemble video-game controls, the reachback operators—who don’t need conventional flight training—sit next to intelligence officers and watch, on large flat-screen monitors, a live video feed from the drone’s camera. From their suburban redoubt, they can turn the plane, zoom in on the landscape below, and decide whether to lock onto a target. A stream of additional “signal” intelligence, sent to Langley by the National Security Agency,* provides electronic means of corroborating that a target has been correctly identified. The White House has delegated trigger authority to C.I.A. officials, including the head of the Counter-Terrorist Center, whose identity remains veiled from the public because the agency has placed him under cover.

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Case – Racism

UCAV warfare create racist and sexist evaluations of Afghan civiliansJutta Weber, Guest Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, 2009 [“Robotic Warfare, Human Rights and the Rhetoric of Ethical Machines”, www.gender.uu.se/filedownload.php?id=311, BBQ]

The Price of New Warfare Scenarios: On Racism, Sexism, & Cost-Efficiency Given this background, military forces proceed to rely increasingly on UCAVs in their ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Gaza (Mellenthin 2009). With nationalist rhetoric these systems are praised as the remedy to save the lives of one’s own soldiers. For example, Lin et al. 2009 (in this volume) write: “Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets to heartbroken parents, autonomous robots […] can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions.” This approach relies on a problematic ontological stance. Obviously, the priority is to save the lives of one’s own soldiers. There is less or no concern for the humanitarian costs of these new technologies with regard to the non-combatants of other (low-tech) nations from the South. Despite the common rhetoric of ‘precision air strikes’ by the military and media, the deployment of UCAVs using bombs and missiles for targeted killing costs the lives of a growing number of civilians. There seems to be an underlying racism and partially sexism that takes it as obvious that US (or NATO) soldiers are of much higher value than Afghan or Iraqi civilians – which means women, children or elderly people. Despite the fact that the attacks affect also some men and boys as well and US militaries include female soldiers, the sexism of this warfare politics lies in the structural effects of military politics and the politics of international relations (Tickner 2004). Both ignore to a wide extent the different situation and needs of women and children which leads to much more severe effects of war and conflict on women (Moore 2007) There are still astonishingly few discussions of the racist and sexist implications of the different valuation of the lives of Western troops and non-Westerns combatants as well as civilians (Butler 2008, Herold 2008). Sometimes, also the illusion is evoked that the coming wars will be robot wars only.

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Virtual War Advantage

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Virtual War – Internal Links

Drone warfare detatches and desensitizes pilots from their targetsChristine Cheng, Bennett Boskey Fellow in Politics and International Relations at Exeter College, University of Oxford, 2/8/2010, wordpress.com, http://christinescottcheng.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/civilian-casualties-and-the-ethics-of-drones/ Mark Jenkins is an experienced RAF pilot, flying combat missions over Afghanistan. But he works from an airbase in Nevada, 8,000 miles away. “I’ve got a 45-minute drive home. And then by the time I’m home, I’m kind of straight into family life.”Mark is completely detached from the people that he is killing. And this is the point of the program– the implication is that a person who has to put his or her own life at risk will be more careful before pulling the trigger. She can assess the situation better if she is there herself. She may think twice if there are civilians at risk. Former CIA lawyer Vicki Divoll said it best: “When the controls are manned by someone in a suburb of Washington rather than by someone in the field you become so detached that there’s no cost, there’s no limitation on you.”The whole thing starts looking like a video game. And it turns out that this assessment is not too far from reality: The US is already recruiting drone pilots from among young men skilled at computer games. Instead of flying into danger they may never need to leave the security of a cabin full of computer screens on home soil.What does it mean for warfare when killing people takes on the form of the virtual and the soldier never has to face the consequences of her actions? She will never see the family members’ suffering. She will not go to their house and pay compensation and apologize for causing “collateral damage”. She will never realize that she has sown the seeds of hatred for America and for the West in that one fleeting instant when she pressed a button and obliterated a real live human being. And because it is such a new phenomenon and there is no law in place as yet, if she chooses to kill an extra civilian or two, she will not necessarily be held to account.

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Virtual War – Impacts – Endless War

Victims die “face-less” ensuring a virtueless, endless warJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

Peter W. Singer, the author of “Wired for War,” a recent book about the robotics revolution in modern combat, argues that the drone technology is worryingly “seductive,” because it creates the perception that war can be “costless.” Cut off from the realities of the bombings in Pakistan, Americans have been insulated from the human toll, as well as from the political and the moral consequences. Nearly all the victims have remained faceless, and the damage caused by the bombings has remained unseen. In contrast to Gaza, where the targeted killing of Hamas fighters by the Israeli military has been extensively documented—making clear that the collateral damage, and the loss of civilian life, can be severe—Pakistan’s tribal areas have become largely forbidden territory for media organizations. As a result, no videos of a drone attack in progress have been released, and only a few photographs of the immediate aftermath of a Predator strike have been published. The seeming unreality of the Predator enterprise is also felt by the pilots. Some of them reportedly wear flight suits when they operate a drone’s remote controls. When their shifts end, of course, these cubicle warriors can drive home to have dinner with their families. Critics have suggested that unmanned systems, by sparing these combatants from danger and sacrifice, are creating what Sir Brian Burridge, a former British Air Chief Marshal in Iraq, has called “a virtueless war,” requiring neither courage nor heroism. According to Singer, some Predator pilots suffer from combat stress that equals, or exceeds, that of pilots in the battlefield. This suggests that virtual killing, for all its sterile trappings, is a discomfiting form of warfare. Meanwhile, some social critics, such as Mary Dudziak, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, argue that the Predator strategy has a larger political cost. As she puts it, “Drones are a technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks on . . . endless war.”

Drone use exacerbates the virtual war – the depersonalization of war sacrifices innocent livesRT, July19, 2010, Russia-US news site, RT, 7:28AM, “Drones make killing cheaper, civilian deaths less personal” http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-07-19/drone-danger-civilians.html

Researchers say the drone industry is booming internationally and raising fears it will lead to increased warfare. Activists claim the cheap and easy access to the weapons could also potentially harm innocent civilians. They come out of the blue A drone is ten times cheaper than a fighter jet, it requires no pilot so there are no troop deaths to explain. It is the perfect weapon for covert CIA operations in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, studies by independent international experts suggest that for every militant killed, as many as 15 civilians also die. There is no way of getting exact numbers, as the CIA keeps its drones program under wraps, but the United Nations and other international organizations question the legality of the extensive use of the weapon. “It becomes different when you will come to an undeclared war with organization like Al Qaeda or the Taliban and you go after a person,” said Siemon Wezeman, research fellow for Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “But who has proof that the person you are actually targeting are the terrorists? They are not in uniform.” Still, humanitarian concerns are doing little to dampen surging international demand for drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The military appetite is such that the market is expected to grow to a staggering 55 billion dollars within ten years. The trend worries specialists. “With the advance of technologies, they depersonalize warfare and therefore you have people willing to use them and you have people who do not understand the consequences,” said Lawrence J. Korb, senior advisor for Center for Defense Information. “People who are flying the drones are not on the battlefield. They are not in the plane, they are thousands of miles away and when they cause destruction they do not feel it.”

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 26Virtual warfare constructs reality in terms of a cosmic war, perpetuating the differences that cause us to go to warJames Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2003, “War as a Game”, Brown Journal of World Affairs p. 45-46The charge of moral equivalency—in which any attempt at explanation is identified as an act of exoneration—should not deter investigations into the dangers of the mimetic relationships operating in war and games. People go to war not only out of rational calculation but also because of how they see, perceive, picture, imagine, and speak of each other: that is, how they construct the difference of other groups as well as the sameness of their own. Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are not the first to mine this act of mimesis for political advantage. From Greek tragedy and Roman gladiatorial spectacles to futurist art and fascist rallies, mimetic violence has regularly overpowered democratic discourse. The question, then, is how long after Baghdad has fallen will this mimetic game of terror and counter-terror last? Bush, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein need their mimetic foes—it takes two to play. Without a reciprocal hatred, their politics and prophecies lose their self-fulfilling powers. Historically, terrorist movements either evolve into states, or, without a mass base, they quickly weaken and rarely last longer than a decade. And empires inevitably, by over-reach or defeat, fall. However, this mimetic struggle, magnified by the media, fought by advanced technologies of destruction, and unchecked by the UN or U.S. allies, has now developed a logic of its own in which assimilation or extermination become plausible solutions, credible policies. Under such circumstances, one longs for the sure bet, a predictable unfolding of events, or at least a comforting conclusion. “At this stage of the game” (as Schwartzkopf said in the midst of GW1), I have none, because the currently designed game, to rid the world of evil, cannot possibly find an end. Inevitably, what Edmund Burke called the empire of circumstance will surely, and let us hope not too belatedly, trump Bush’s imperial game as well as Bin Laden’s terrorist one. When tempted in the interim by the promise of virtuous war to solve the world’s problems, we best listen to the great Yogi: “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”

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Virtual War – Impacts – Trivialization

Continued drone deployment creates a Playstation killing mentality – lives are reduced to gamesPaul Koring, foreign correspondent, The Globe and Mail, June 4, 2010, “U.S. drone strikes blur the lines of war, UN warns,” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/us-drone-strikes-blur-the-lines-of-war-un-warns/article1591920/

Reapers and Predators – the grimly-named missile-firing drones remotely piloted by American agents with `Playstation mentalities' – blur the laws of war and threaten a new era of assassinations without accountability, warns the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings. President Barack Obama's escalating war against Islamic extremists inside Pakistan is increasingly reliant on drones – flown by CIA agents often half a world away from computer consoles – and missile strikes by pilot-less drones now average more than two a week. “Intelligence agencies, which by definition are determined to remain unaccountable except to their own paymasters, have no place in running programs that kill people in other countries,” said Philip Alston, the author of the report on drone use. Mr. Alston, an international law scholar and human rights expert, concluded there was nothing inherently criminal about firing missiles from drones, but warned that without clear rules and accountability, it could usher in a new era of chaotic, long-distance and anonymous warfare. Russia, Israel and Sri Lanka have all used drones to launch air strikes, but the United States – with hundreds of drones ranging from high-flying jets capable of patrolling for days to hand-launched, short-range versions little larger than toys – has more combat power in its burgeoning drone fleet than most countries have with manned warplanes. The CIA, chosen to fly drone U.S. missions over Pakistan to preserve a veneer of deniability for the uniformed military, claims its targeted assassinations of known extremists are legal and carefully monitored. Although the Obama administration doesn't openly announce strikes, its officials do quietly confirm successful killings, such as the claimed assassination earlier this week of a senior al-Qaeda operational planner. More than 40 countries – including Canada – either have or plan to buy large drones capable of firing air-to-ground missiles. ``The appeal of armed drones is clear: especially in hostile terrain, they permit targeted killings at little to no risk to the State personnel carrying them out, and they can be operated remotely,” Mr. Alston's report said. The report – the most critical yet of the fast-growing use of drones – doesn't conclude the missile-firing Reapers and Predators are outside the laws of war. “A missile fired from a drone is no different from any other commonly used weapon, including a gun fired by a soldier or a helicopter or gunship that fires missiles. “The critical legal question is the same for each weapon: whether its specific use complies with IHL (International Humanitarian Law.) However, the nature of the weapons system, with remote targeting, no consideration of proportionate force or how to deal with an intended victim who attempts to surrender and the vexed questions of the use of armed force on the sovereign terror Tory of states – such as Pakistan – which publicly claim to oppose them, raises difficult new questions. “Furthermore, because operators are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield, ... there is a risk of developing a ‘Playstation' mentality to killing,” warned Mr. Alston, in his 29-page report to the to the UN Human Rights Council.

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Virtual War – Impacts – Informal

Drone warfare transforms the battlefield into an inforwar—enemies appear in simulated battlefieldsDerek Gregory, Department of GeographyUniversity of British Columbia at Vancouver, 2006, Arab World Geographer, “‘In another time-zone, the bombs fall unsafely….’Targets, civilians and late modern war*”, http://web.mac.com/derekgregory/iWeb/Site/The%20city-as-target_files/%27In%20another%20time%20zone%27_illustrated-2.pdfOn the other side, this erasure of corporeality is twisted into another dimension through late modern war’s annihilation of space through time. The United States has increasingly deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as part of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs. In both Afghanistan and Iraq extensive use is made of Predator drones that carry three cameras and two Hellfire missiles. Take-offs and landings are controlled by pilots from Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadrons based at Bagram and Balad Air Bases, but once the drones are airborne the missions are flown by pilots from Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, part of the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, some 7, 000 miles away. When Robert Kaplan visited Indian Springs, he saw the trailers from which the missions were flown. ‘Inside that trailer is Iraq; inside the other, Afghanistan,’ he was told. ‘Inside those trailers you leave North America which falls under Northern Command, and enter the Middle East, the domain of Central Command [CENTCOM]. So much for the tyranny of Geography.’ 35 The irony of that last sentence evidently escaped its author, but the contortions of time and space that it conveys are given renewed force by a third refinement of late modern war: its mediatization. War reporting has a long history, but the emergence of a military-industrial-media-entertainment complex at the end of the twentieth century has sought to elevate late modern war from the virtual to what James Der Derian (fully conscious of the irony) calls the ‘virtuous’. By this, he means to signal both the priority attached to the visual and also the determination ‘to commute death, to keep it out of sight’: to produce war as a space of both constructed and constricted visibility. 36 News media and video games work hand-in-glove with the military to naturalize the reduction of the space of the enemy to a visual field through satellite photographs, bomb-sight views and simulations, and feed in to the staging of late modern war as spectacle. A public is produced that is made accustomed to seeing Baghdad and other ‘alien cities’ as targets; their people, their neighbourhoods, all the mundane geographies of everyday life are hollowed out. 37 These imaginative geographies work in the background to disable any critical politics of witnessing. Civilian casualties are rendered as unseen and uncounted (hence General Franks’ less than frank insistence that ‘We don’t do body counts’); as inevitable but irrelevant (‘collateral damage’, the unintended and unforeseen consequence of military action); or as legitimate targets through complicity or even ‘unworthiness’ (Agamben’s homines sacri). 38 In these ways the public is at once brought close to the action (the spectacle, the thrill) while being removed from its consequences. As Weber argues, this too involves a simultaneous reduction and maximization of distance. When a domestic audience watches video of a missile closing on its target, he writes, ‘The distance to the image, the target, is reduced and eliminated, and with it, the target-image is itself eliminated, vanishes from the screen. At the same time, everything is more distant than ever before. For we “know”, or think we know, that the target has been destroyed, and with it, everything that we have not seen: all the things and people presumably behind those walls. At the same time, we, who have followed this elimination of distance through the eyes of the camera, which is also the eyes of the missile, we are still whole, safe and sane in our homes. We are exhilarated at the sight of such power and control, we are relieved to be still in one piece, but something is indeed being “covered”, the way a “carpet” covers a floor, or the way “carpet bombings” cover an area. What is being covered is ultimately that which technology has always potentially covered: the frailty and limitations of the human body.’ 39 It is time to turn to those frail bodies.

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Virtual War – A2: Realism

Realism evaluates the international order incorrectlyJames Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2003, “War as a Game”, Brown Journal of World Affairs p. 45-46Obviously, there are multiple forms and a wider range of media now in play, but I want to focus on the transformations triggered by this intimacy between primetime media, realtime media, and the military. Again, some history might be helpful. By now there should be no need to rehearse the fall-of-the-wall and rise-of-the-internet story, but we do need to take account of how the coeval devolution of the Soviet Union into Russia and of ARPANET into the Internet produced important new constellations of power. Many international relations scholars saw the end of the Cold War as an occasion to spin theories over the merits of multipolar over unipolar state-systems, or like Kenneth Waltz, to wax nostalgic over the stability of a bipolar order. These debates Actors are radically different in identity and interests (state, corporate, group, individual) yet suddenly comparable in their capability to produce global effects. continued to be predominately state-centric as well as materialist in their interpretation of how power works. The United States has emerged as the dominant military and economic power, and even in Paul Wolfowitz’s worst-case nightmares, it is difficult to identify even potential peer competitors on the horizon. Post-Cold War, post-911, we witness instead the emergence of a heteropolar matrix, in which actors are radically different in identity and interests (state, corporate, group, individual) yet suddenly comparable in their capability to produce global effects. These actors function nodally in real-time networks rather than interacting contiguously in territorial politics. To tell their story we must operationalize a concept that aptly captures this new interpenetration of media and war: infowar.

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Virtual War – 2AC Biopower

Virtual warfare transmutes borders to an incorporeal plane that further disguises biopolitical diametricsStephen Graham, Centre for the Study of Cities and Regions, Department of Geography, University of Durham, 6/4/06, “Cities and the ‘War on Terror’”, International journal of Urban and Regional research, http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118603050/HTMLSTART The [US] Air Force wants to be able to strike mobile and emerging targets in fewer than 10 minutes so that such targets will have no sanctuary from US air power (Hebert, 2003: 36).All of which leads neatly to the third and final focus in our discussion of the imaginative urban geographies underpinning the 'war on terror': an exploration of the dialectical production of 'homeland' and 'target' cities within US military strategy. Here, strikingly, our emphasis shifts from discussions of disconnection and separation to those of integration and connection. This is because the huge research and development programme now going on to sustain the 'war on terror' emphasizes the use of the US military's unassailable advantages in military techno-science to address and construct both homeland cities and the targeted Arab cities as key geographical domains within a completely integrated, transnational 'battlespace'. Both sites are thus increasingly being integrated through the US military's advances in speed-of-light surveillance, communication and orbital, air and space-based, targeting capabilities (the result of what is widely termed the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' or 'network-centric warfare'— see Dillon, 2002 and Duffield, 2002, respectively). Post 9/11, this integration has also been marked by the creation of a strategic military command — NORTHCOM — to cover the continental USA (previously, the only part of the globe not to be so covered). There has also been a marked increase in the deployment and exercising of US military forces within US cities. This process is overturning a tradition that has prevented the routine deployment of non-reserve US military forces within the continental US that dates back to the late nineteenth century.Crucially, however, this very integration of geographically distanced urban sites through military techno-science is being done in a manner which actually hard-wires highly divisive judgements of people's right to life within the 'war on terror' into hard, military systems of control, targeting and, sometimes, (attempted) killing. These systems, very literally, enable, reinforce and inscribe the geopolitical, biopolitical and urban architectures of US Empire, with their stark judgements of the value — or lack of value — of the urban subjects and human lives under scrutiny within an integrated and all-encompassing 'battlespace'.In US cities, as we saw in this article's first discussion, this scrutiny is aimed at separating out, for extra-legal processing or incarceration, those deemed 'terrorists' and their sympathizers from legitimized and valorized US citizens warranted protection and value. In the 'targeted' Arab cities just discussed, however, all human subjects are deemed to warrant no rights or protections. In such cities, the exposure of human subjects within the unified 'battlespace' is, as we shall soon discuss, being combined with the development of new, high-tech weapons systems. These threaten to emerge as automated systems dealing out continuous violence and death to those deemed by computerized sensors to be 'targets', with little or no human supervision.

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ILAW Advantage

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ILAW – Inherency – US Complying

The US has gone to extreme measures in its attempts to abide by International Law – we’ve resorted to allowing Pakistan control over targets, leading to many unjustified killings. Jane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

Under international law, in order for the U.S. government to legally target civilian terror suspects abroad it has to define a terrorist group as one engaging in armed conflict, and the use of force must be a “military necessity.” There must be no reasonable alternative to killing, such as capture, and to warrant death the target must be “directly participating in hostilities.” The use of force has to be considered “proportionate” to the threat. Finally, the foreign nation in which such targeted killing takes place has to give its permission. Many lawyers who have looked at America’s drone program in Pakistan believe that it meets these basic legal tests. But they are nevertheless troubled, as the U.S. government keeps broadening the definition of acceptable high-value targets. Last March, the Obama Administration made an unannounced decision to win support for the drone program inside Pakistan by giving President Asif Ali Zardari more control over whom to target. “A lot of the targets are nominated by the Pakistanis—it’s part of the bargain of getting Pakistani coöperation,” says Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who has served as an adviser to the Obama Administration on Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the New America Foundation’s study, only six of the forty-one C.I.A. drone strikes conducted by the Obama Administration in Pakistan have targeted Al Qaeda members. Eighteen were directed at Taliban targets in Pakistan, and fifteen were aimed specifically at Baitullah Mehsud. Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani lieutenant general and an authority on security issues, says that the U.S.’s tactical shift, along with the elimination of Mehsud, has quieted some of the Pakistani criticism of the American air strikes, although the bombings are still seen as undercutting the country’s sovereignty. But, given that many of the targeted Pakistani Taliban figures were obscure in U.S. counterterrorism circles, some critics have wondered whether they were legitimate targets for a Predator strike. “These strikes are killing a lot of low-level militants, which raises the question of whether they are going beyond the authorization to kill leaders,” Peter Bergen told me. Roger Cressey, the former National Security Council official, who remains a strong supporter of the drone program, says, “The debate is that we’ve been doing this so long we’re now bombing low-level guys who don’t deserve a Hellfire missile up their ass.” (In his view, “Not every target has to be a rock star.”) The Obama Administration has also widened the scope of authorized drone attacks in Afghanistan. An August report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee disclosed that the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List—the Pentagon’s roster of approved terrorist targets, containing three hundred and sixty-seven names—was recently expanded to include some fifty Afghan drug lords who are suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban. These new targets are a step removed from Al Qaeda. According to the Senate report, “There is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds goes to Al Qaeda.” The inclusion of Afghan narcotics traffickers on the U.S. target list could prove awkward, some observers say, given that President Hamid Karzai’s running mate, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, and the President’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are strongly suspected of involvement in narcotics. Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, who has written extensively on military matters, said, “Are they going to target Karzai’s brother?” He went on, “We should be very careful about who we define as the enemy we have to kill. Leaders of Al Qaeda, of course. But you can’t kill people on Tuesday and negotiate with them on Wednesday.” Defining who is and who is not too tangential for the U.S. to kill can be difficult. John Radsan, a former lawyer in the C.I.A.’s office of general counsel, who is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minnesota, says, “You can’t target someone just because he visited an Al Qaeda Web site. But you also don’t want to wait until they’re about to detonate a bomb. It’s a sliding scale.” Equally fraught is the question of how many civilian deaths can be justified. “If it’s Osama bin Laden in a house with a four-year-old, most people will say go ahead,” Radsan says. “But if it’s three or four children? Some say that’s too many. And if he’s in a school? Many say don’t do it.” Such judgment calls are being made daily by the C.I.A., which, Radsan points out, “doesn’t have much experience with killing. Traditionally, the agency that does that is the Department of Defense.”

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ILAW – Inherency – Inconsistencies

Drone assassinations expose American legal inconsistenciesJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

The advent of the Predator targeted-killing program “is really a sea change,” says Gary Solis, who teaches at Georgetown University’s Law Center and recently retired from running the law program at the U.S. Military Academy. “Not only would we have expressed abhorrence of such a policy a few years ago; we did.” In July, 2001, two months before Al Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington profoundly altered America’s mind-set, the U.S. denounced Israel’s use of targeted killing against Palestinian terrorists. The American Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, said at the time, “The United States government is very clearly on record as against targeted assassinations. . . . They are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that.” Before September 11th, the C.I.A., which had been chastened by past assassination scandals, refused to deploy the Predator for anything other than surveillance. Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s counterterrorism director, and Steven Simon, a former counterterrorism adviser, report in their 2002 book “The Age of Sacred Terror” that the week before Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. George Tenet, then the agency’s director, argued that it would be “a terrible mistake” for “the Director of Central Intelligence to fire a weapon like this.” Yet once America had suffered terrorist attacks on its own soil the agency’s posture changed, and it petitioned the White House for new authority. Within days, President Bush had signed a secret Memorandum of Notification, giving the C.I.A. the right to kill members of Al Qaeda and their confederates virtually anywhere in the world. Congress endorsed this policy, passing a bill called the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Bush’s legal advisers modelled their rationale on Israel’s position against terrorism, arguing that the U.S. government had the right to use lethal force against suspected terrorists in “anticipatory” self-defense. By classifying terrorism as an act of war, rather than as a crime, the Bush Administration reasoned that it was no longer bound by legal constraints requiring the government to give suspected terrorists due process. In November, 2002, top Bush Administration officials publicly announced a successful Predator strike against an Al Qaeda target, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Harethi was killed after a Hellfire missile vaporized the car in which he and five other passengers were riding, on a desert road in Yemen. Paul Wolfowitz, then the Deputy Defense Secretary, praised the new tactic, telling CNN, “One hopes each time that you get a success like that, not only to have gotten rid of somebody dangerous but to have imposed changes in their tactics, operations, and procedures.” At first, some intelligence experts were uneasy about drone attacks. In 2002, Jeffrey Smith, a former C.I.A. general counsel, told Seymour M. Hersh, for an article in this magazine, “If they’re dead, they’re not talking to you, and you create more martyrs.” And, in an interview with the Washington Post, Smith said that ongoing drone attacks could “suggest that it’s acceptable behavior to assassinate people. . . . Assassination as a norm of international conduct exposes American leaders and Americans overseas.” Seven years later, there is no longer any doubt that targeted killing has become official U.S. policy. “The things we were complaining about from Israel a few years ago we now embrace,” Solis says. Now, he notes, nobody in the government calls it assassination.

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ILAW – Inherency – Avoiding Definitions

The US is avoiding the legal questions about drones—its statements on their legality avoid the actual legal problemsPhilip Alston, 5/28/10, International Law Scholar, Prof. of Law at NYU School of Law. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 8].

The military also has a target list for Afghanistan. A Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report released on 10 August 2009 disclosed that the military’s list included drug lords suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban.39 According to the report, “[t]he military places no restrictions on the use of force with these selected targets, which means they can be killed or captured on the battlefield . . . standards for getting on the list require two verifiable human sources and substantial additional evidence.”40 22. The Legal Adviser to the Department of State recently outlined the Government’s legal justifications for targeted killings. They were said to be based on its asserted right to self-defence, as well as on IHL, on the basis that the US is “in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, as well as the Taliban and associated forces.”41 While this statement is an important starting point, it does not address some of the most central legal issues including: the scope of the armed conflict in which the US asserts it is engaged, the criteria for individuals who may be targeted and killed, the existence of any substantive or procedural safeguards to ensure the legality and accuracy of killings, and the existence of accountability mechanisms.

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ILAW – Internal Links – Generic

The way US uses drones is illegalO’Connell 4/28 Mary Ellen O’Connell, law professor at Notre Dame, 4/28/2010. [Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Lawful Use of Combat Drones, p.1]

Combat drones are battlefield weapons. They fire missiles or drop bombs capable of inflicting very serious damage. Drones are not lawful for use outside combat zones. Outside such zones, police are the proper law enforcement agents and police are generally required to warn before using lethal force. Restricting drones to the battlefield is the most important single rule governing their use. Yet, the United States is failing to follow it more often than not. At the very time we are trying to win hearts and minds to respect the rule of law, we are ourselves failing to respect a very basic rule: remote weapons systems belong on the battlefield.1

Drones cannot attack terrorists according to international lawUN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 18].

With respect to the existence of a non-state group as a “party”, al-Qaeda and other alleged “associated” groups are often only loosely linked, if at all. Sometimes they appear to be not even groups, but a few individuals who take “inspiration” from al Qaeda. The idea that, instead, they are part of continuing hostilities that spread to new territories as new alliances form or are claimed may be superficially appealing but such “associates’ cannot constitute a “party” as required by IHL – although they can be criminals, if their conduct violates US law, or the law of the State in which they are located.

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ILAW – Internal Links – UN

US drone policies violate UN Basic Principles—they are used in many situations that are not allowed according to the UNO’Connell 4/28 Mary Ellen O’Connell, law professor at Notre Dame, 4/28/2010. [Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Lawful Use of Combat Drones, p.2]

What drones cannot do is comply with police rules for the use of lethal force away from the battlefield. In law enforcement it must be possible to warn before using lethal force, in war-fighting this is not necessary, making the use of bombs and missiles lawful. The United Nations Basic Principles for the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (UN Basic Principles) set out the international legal standard for the use of force by police: Law enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons except in self-defense or defense of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.4 The United States has failed to follow these rules by using combat drones in places where no actual armed conflict was occurring or where the U.S. was not involved in the armed conflict.

US drone attacks are illegal—the US does not follow UN lawUN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 10].

Targeted killing is only lawful when the target is a “combatant” or “fighter”55 or, in the case of a civilian, only for such time as the person “directly participates in hostilities.”56 In addition, the killing must be militarily necessary, the use of force must be proportionate so that any anticipated military advantage is considered in light of the expected harm to civilians in the vicinity,57 and everything feasible must be done to prevent mistakes and minimize harm to civilians.58 These standards apply regardless of whether the armed conflict is between States (an international armed conflict) or between a State and a non-state armed group (non-international armed conflict), including alleged terrorists. Reprisal or punitive attacks on civilians are prohibited.

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ILAW – Internal Links – Just War

Drones are both unethical and violate international law Anderson 5/14 David E. Anderson, Staff Writer for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, which is a PBS publication, 5/14/2010 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-topic/international/drones-and-the-ethics-of-war/6290/

Ethicists and religious leaders are beginning to challenge the morality of the drone program, arguing it violates international law as well as key precepts of just war theory. The Christian Century, for example, editorialized in mid-May (“Remote-control warfare,” May 18) that while the drone attacks have no doubt killed terrorists and leaders of al-Qaeda, “they raise troubling questions to those committed to the just war principle that civilians should never be targeted.” Taking aim at one of the aspects of drone warfare that make it so popular with the military and with politicians—that it is a risk-free option for the US military because it avoids American casualties—the Century editors said: “According to the just war principles, it is better to risk the lives of one’s own combatants than the lives of enemy noncombatants.”

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ILAW – Internal Links – LOAC

Drones don’t comply with international law--targets identities are not confirmed before they’re killedSperotto 3/17 Federico Sperotto, Staff writer for the periodical Open Security, masters in Political Science, and has written multiple books on International Humanitarian Law, 3/17/2010

The legality of drone strikes in the context of an armed conflict depends on interpretation of international humanitarian law, specifically those laws governing the conduct of hostilities. Unplanned and troops-in-contact interventions most risk contravening humanitarian law. To ensure legal conformity with the principles of discrimination, proportionality, necessity, and precaution, the rules of engagement require the positive identification of the target (PID). Although strikes on individuals carried out in self-defence, when troops come under attack or when terrorists are about to attack, are lawful, questions remain as to the use of excessive force and collateral damage, in terms of civilian casualties.

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ILAW – Internal Links – Oversight

CIA drones are illegal—there is no oversight and it violates war lawsMontero 09 David Montero, Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, 8/12/2009.http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorismsecurity/2009/0812/p99s01-duts.html

The drones are likely to become more a regular feature of counterterrorism. But as they do, the US – and allies like Pakistan – will have to confront important questions about their legality. Who, exactly, controls the drones? And by what laws are they governed?Surprisingly, nobody really knows.Many global observers are troubled by this fact. One of them is Hina Shamsi, a senior adviser to the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the NYU School of Law. She wrote recently for CBS News:There has been no real domestic public debate or meaningful congressional oversight over targeted killings, even though their strategic and policy consequences are hotly contested....Even the legal basis for the targeted killing policy in Pakistan is shrouded in secrecy. Is the CIA operating under the laws of war or some other law? Under the laws of war, only organized armed forces can kill during hostilities; civilian agencies like the CIA cannot. Who reviews CIA target selection and on what criteria? Unlike the military, which has the laws of war to guide it, we simply do not know how the CIA chooses targets and how many civilian bystanders it decides can be killed before it suspends an airstrike.

Drones don’t comply with international law--targets identities are not confirmed before they’re killedSperotto 3/17 Federico Sperotto, Staff writer for the periodical Open Security, masters in Political Science, and has written multiple books on International Humanitarian Law, 3/17/2010

The legality of drone strikes in the context of an armed conflict depends on interpretation of international humanitarian law, specifically those laws governing the conduct of hostilities. Unplanned and troops-in-contact interventions most risk contravening humanitarian law. To ensure legal conformity with the principles of discrimination, proportionality, necessity, and precaution, the rules of engagement require the positive identification of the target (PID). Although strikes on individuals carried out in self-defence, when troops come under attack or when terrorists are about to attack, are lawful, questions remain as to the use of excessive force and collateral damage, in terms of civilian casualties.

Obama’s use of drones is illegal—using the CIA and not accounting how decisions are made are illegalTimes 10 (Ben Macintyre, 3/25/10, "Obama must justify covert killing. Or halt it; It's not just Israel that is eliminating its enemies. The US is pursuing a programme of state-backed assassination", lexis)

The legal basis for drone strikes is also murky. Assassination may be justifiable in time of war, but the CIA is a civilian organisation, and the US is not at war with Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia. Winston Churchill was acutely aware of the dangers inherent in political assassination. Presented with an opportunity to attempt to kill off Hitler in 1942, he declined. The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi ruler of Czechoslovakia, had unleashed horrendous reprisals. Killing Hitler would ensure his martyrdom, galvanise Nazi passion and allow Himmler, arguably an even more appalling prospect, to take over. Mr Obama has plainly decided that "targeted killing" is a legitimate and effective tool of war. He must now justify that to the world and provide an official accounting of how, when and why life-and-death decisions are taken.

US must respect international law—there are UN regulations on drone useO’Connell 4/28 Mary Ellen O’Connell, law professor at Notre Dame, 4/28/2010. [Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Lawful Use of Combat Drones, p.5]

Even when the U.S. is using drones at the request of Pakistan in battles it is waging, we are failing to follow important battlefield rules. The U.S. must respect the principles of necessity, proportionality and humanity in carrying out drone attacks. “Necessity” refers to military necessity, and the obligation that force is used only if necessary to accomplish a reasonable military objective.14 “Proportionality” prohibits that “which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”15 These limitations on permissible force extend to both the quantity of force used and the geographic scope of its use.

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ILAW – Internal Links – Definition of War

Drones are illegal because they are used on terrorists and war must be declared on countries onlyO’Connell 4/28 Mary Ellen O’Connell, law professor at Notre Dame, 4/28/2010. [Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Lawful Use of Combat Drones, p.4]

Because armed conflict requires a certain intensity of fighting, the isolated terrorist attack, regardless of how serious the consequences, is not an armed conflict. Terrorism is crime. Members of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups are active in Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Yemen and elsewhere. Still, these countries do not consider themselves in a war with al Qaeda. In the words of a leading expert on the law of armed conflict, the British Judge on the International Court of Justice, Sir Christopher Greenwood: In the language of international law there is no basis for speaking of a war on Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group, for such a group cannot be a belligerent, it is merely a band of criminals, and to treat it as anything else risks distorting the law while giving that group a status which to some implies a degree of legitimacy.

US claims of self defense go against international law—the threat must be either imminent or already have happenedUN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 15].

The third key area of controversy is the extent to which States seek to invoke the right to self-defence not just in response to an armed attack, but in anticipatory self- defence, or alternatively, as a pre-emptive measure in response to a threat that is persistent and may take place in the future, but is not likely to take place imminently.90 Under a restrictive view of Article 51, the right to self-defence may only be invoked after an attack has taken place.91 In contrast, under a more permissive view that more accurately reflects State practice and the weight of scholarship, self-defence also includes the right to use force against a real and imminent threat when “the necessity of that self-defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.”92 A third view, invoked exceptionally by the US Bush administration, but which apparently may still reflect US policy, would permit “pre-emptive self-defence”, the use of force even when a threat is not imminent and “uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack.”93 This view is deeply contested and lacks support under international law.94

Drones can only attack civilians involved in hostilities, which is open to interpretationUN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 19].

In international armed conflict, combatants may be targeted at any time and any place (subject to the other requirements of IHL).108 Under the IHL applicable to non- international armed conflict, the rules are less clear. In non-international armed conflict, there is no such thing as a “combatant.”109 Instead – as in international armed conflict – States are permitted to directly attack only civilians who “directly participate in hostilities” (DPH).110 Because there is no commonly accepted definition of DPH, it has been left open to States’ own interpretation – which States have preferred not to make public – to determine what constitutes DPH.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 41Drone responses to Al Qaeda threats violate international law and expands state justification to use violenceUN Human Rights Council, 5/2010, p. 17-18, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdfThe tests for the existence of a non-international armed conflict are not as categorical as those for international armed conflict. This recognizes the fact that there may be various types of non-international armed conflicts. The applicable test may also depend on whether a State is party to Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions.100 Under treaty and customary international law, the elements which would point to the existence of a non-international armed conflict against a non-state armed group are: (i) The non-state armed group must be identifiable as such, based on criteria that are objective and verifiable. This is necessary for IHL to apply meaningfully, and so that States may comply with their obligation to distinguish between lawful targets and civilians.101 The criteria include:102 • Minimal level of organization of the group such that armed forces are able to identify an adversary (GC Art. 3; AP II). • Capability of the group to apply the Geneva Conventions (i.e., adequate command structure, and separation of military and political command) (GC Art. 3; AP II). • Engagement of the group in collective, armed, anti-government action (GC Art. 3). • For a conflict involving a State, the State uses its regular military forces against the group (GC Art. 3). • Admission of the conflict against the group to the agenda of the UN Security Council or the General Assembly (GC Art. 3). (ii) There must be a minimal threshold of intensity and duration. The threshold of violence is higher than required for the existence of an international armed conflict. To meet the minimum threshold, violence must be:103 • “Beyond the level of intensity of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence and other acts of a similar nature” (AP II). • “[P]rotracted armed violence” among non-state armed groups or between a non-state armed group and a State;104 • If an isolated incident, the incident itself should be of a high degree of intensity, with a high level of organization on the part of the non-state armed group; 105 (iii) The territorial confines can be: • Restricted to the territory of a State and between the State’s own armed forces and the non-state group (AP II); or • A transnational conflict, i.e., one that crosses State borders (GC Art. 3).106 This does not mean, however, that there is no territorial nexus requirement. 53. Taken cumulatively, these factors make it problematic for the US to show that – outside the context of the armed conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq – it is in a transnational non-international armed conflict against “al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated forces”107 without further explanation of how those entities constitute a “party” under the IHL of non-international armed conflict, and whether and how any violence by any such group rises to the level necessary for an armed conflict to exist. The focus, instead, appears to be on the “transnational” nature of the terrorist threat. Al-Qaeda and entities with various degrees of “association” with it are indeed known to have operated in numerous countries around the world including in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain, among others, where they have conducted terrorist attacks. Yet none of these States, with the possible exception of Pakistan, recognize themselves as being part of an armed conflict against al-Qaeda or its “associates” in their territory. Indeed, in each of those States, even when there have been terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda or other groups claiming affiliation with it, the duration and intensity of such attacks has not risen to the level of an armed conflict. Thus, while it is true that non-international armed conflict can exist across State borders, and indeed often does, that is only one of a number of cumulative factors that must be considered for the objective existence of an armed conflict. 55. With respect to the existence of a non-state group as a “party”, al-Qaeda and other alleged “associated” groups are often only loosely linked, if at all. Sometimes they appear to be not even groups, but a few individuals who take “inspiration” from al Qaeda. The idea that, instead, they are part of continuing hostilities that spread to new territories as new alliances form or are claimed may be superficially appealing but such “associates’ cannot constitute a “party” as required by IHL – although they can be criminals, if their conduct violates US law, or the law of the State in which they are located. 56. To ignore these minimum requirements, as well as the object and purpose of IHL, would be to undermine IHL safeguards against the use of violence against groups that are not the equivalent of an organized armed group capable of being a party to a conflict – whether because it lacks organization, the ability to engage in armed attacks, or because it does not have a connection or belligerent nexus to actual hostilities. It is also salutary to recognize that whatever rules the US seeks to invoke or apply to al Qaeda and any “affiliates” could be invoked by other States to apply to other non-state armed groups. To expand the notion of non-international armed conflict to groups that are essentially drugcartels, criminal gangs or other groups that should be dealt with under the law enforcement framework would be to do deep damage to the IHL and human rights frameworks.

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ILAW – Internal Links – Constitution

Drones are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international lawAnderson 10 Kenneth Anderson, Washington College of Law, American University, Stanford University, March 2010. [Senate Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Relations, The Hoover Institution]

"Drones are currently killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It should be noted that the United States is not at war with any of those countries, which should mean that in a sane world the killing is illegal under both international law and the U.S. Constitution," states Philip Girald, a former CIA officer and fellow of the American Conservative Defense Alliance. Girald's observation is seconded by Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School. In a research paper titled "Unlawful Killing with Combat Drones," Professor O'Connell writes: "The CIA's intention in using drones is to target and kill individual leaders of al-Qaida or Taliban militant groups. Drones have rarely, if ever, killed just the intended target. By October 2009, the ratio has been about 20 leaders killed for 750 to 1,000 unintended victims.

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ILAW – Internal Links – CIA

CIA drone use is considered war crimes under international lawUN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 21].

Reported targeted killings by the CIA have given rise to a debate over whether it is a violation of IHL for such killings to be committed by State agents who are not members of its armed forces. Some commentators have argued that CIA personnel who conduct targeted drone killings are committing war crimes because they, unlike the military, are “unlawful combatants”, and unable to participate in hostilities. This argument is not supported by IHL. As a threshold matter, the argument assumes that targeted killings by the CIA are committed in the context of armed conflict, which may not be the case. Outside of armed conflict, killings by the CIA would constitute extrajudicial executions assuming that they do not comply with human rights law. If so, they must be investigated and prosecuted both by the US and the State in which the wrongful killing occurred. The following discussion assumes, without accepting, that CIA killings are being conducted in the context of armed conflict.

CIA drones are illegal—there is no oversight and it violates war lawsMontero 09 David Montero, Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, 8/12/2009.http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorismsecurity/2009/0812/p99s01-duts.html

The drones are likely to become more a regular feature of counterterrorism. But as they do, the US – and allies like Pakistan – will have to confront important questions about their legality. Who, exactly, controls the drones? And by what laws are they governed?Surprisingly, nobody really knows.Many global observers are troubled by this fact. One of them is Hina Shamsi, a senior adviser to the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the NYU School of Law. She wrote recently for CBS News:There has been no real domestic public debate or meaningful congressional oversight over targeted killings, even though their strategic and policy consequences are hotly contested....Even the legal basis for the targeted killing policy in Pakistan is shrouded in secrecy. Is the CIA operating under the laws of war or some other law? Under the laws of war, only organized armed forces can kill during hostilities; civilian agencies like the CIA cannot. Who reviews CIA target selection and on what criteria? Unlike the military, which has the laws of war to guide it, we simply do not know how the CIA chooses targets and how many civilian bystanders it decides can be killed before it suspends an airstrike.

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ILAW – Impacts – Russia Model

Russia will break the law about drones if the US does first—empirically proven UN 5/28 United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, 5/28/2010. [Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on Targeted Killings p. 9].

In summer 2006, the Russian Parliament passed a law permitting the Russian security services to kill alleged terrorists overseas, if authorized to do so by the President.46 The law defines terrorism and terrorist activity extremely broadly, including “practices of influencing the decisions of government, local self-government or international organizations by terrorizing the population or through other forms of illegal violent action,” and also any “ideology of violence.”47 25. Under the law, there appears to be no restriction on the use of military force “to suppress international terrorist activity outside the Russian Federation.”48 The law requires the President to seek the endorsement of the Federation Council to use regular armed forces outside Russia, but the President may deploy FSB security forces at his own discretion. According to press accounts, at the time of the law’s passage, “Russian legislators stressed that the law was designed to target terrorists hiding in failed States and that in other situations the security services would work with foreign intelligence services to pursue their goals.”49 Legislators also “insisted that they were emulating Israeli and US actions in adopting a law allowing the use of military and special forces outside the country’s borders against external threats.”50

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Drones are unpopular among Afghanis and PakistanisBaroud 09 Ramzy Baroud, editor of PalestineChronicle.com, considered a main Political thinktank, 8/20/2009 http://ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2009/August/20%20o/Afghanistan%20Drones%20and%20Democracy%20By%20Ramzy%20Baroud.htm

It is simply arcane to read the bantering of mainstream US commentators these days, as they reflect on the upcoming August 20th elections and ponder what else the US must do to "win hearts and minds of the Afghani people". For one, might I suggest the arrest of the use of drones in targeted assassinations of US enemies. In May 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta delivered a speech where he claimed that, "(Drone) operations have been very effective because they have been very precise in terms of the targeting and it involved a minimum of collat-eral damage". But 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 — I'm not expressing a view – that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used." Lord Bingham's views, as those of others, are supported by ample evidence, of weddings that turned into funerals, and funerals that themselves turned into mass burial grounds. US officials tirelessly, although unconvincingly prattle of winning hearts and minds, as bomb blasts, drone attacks and death hover over the devastated place. Such a degrading view of human life, say nothing of our intelligence.

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ILAW – Impacts – Britain

Britains hate drones—considered inhumane and should be bannedBaroud 09 Ramzy Baroud, editor of PalestineChronicle.com, considered a main Political thinktank, 8/20/2009 http://ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2009/August/20%20o/Afghanistan%20Drones%20and%20Democracy%20By%20Ramzy%20Baroud.htm

It is simply arcane to read the bantering of mainstream US commentators these days, as they reflect on the upcoming August 20th elections and ponder what else the US must do to "win hearts and minds of the Afghani people". For one, might I suggest the arrest of the use of drones in targeted assassinations of US enemies. In May 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta delivered a speech where he claimed that, "(Drone) operations have been very effective because they have been very precise in terms of the targeting and it involved a minimum of collat-eral damage". But 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 — I'm not expressing a view – that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used." Lord Bingham's views, as those of others, are supported by ample evidence, of weddings that turned into funerals, and funerals that themselves turned into mass burial grounds.

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Counter-Insurgency Advantage

Drone presence in afghanistan doubled this past yearNYTimes, 2/19/2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/world/asia/20drones.htmlThe use of the drones has expanded quickly and virtually unnoticed in Afghanistan. The Air Force now flies at least 20 Predator drones — twice as many as a year ago — over vast stretches of hostile Afghan territory each day.They are mostly used for surveillance, but have also carried out more than 200 missile and bomb strikes over the last year, including 14 strikes near Marja in the last few days, newly released military records show. That is three times as many strikes in the past year as in Pakistan, where the drones have gotten far more attention and proved more controversial for their use in a country where the United States does not have combat forces.

Taliban uses drone strikes for propaganda, which could easily overthrow the Pakistani GovernmentMayer 09 Jane Mayer, Staff writer for The New Yorker, 10/26/2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayerAfter such attacks, the Taliban, attempting to stir up anti-American sentiment in the region, routinely claims, falsely, that the victims are all innocent civilians. In several Pakistani cities, large protests have been held to decry the drone program. And, in the past year, perpetrators of terrorist bombings in Pakistan have begun presenting their acts as “revenge for the drone attacks.” In recent weeks, a rash of bloody assaults on Pakistani government strongholds has raised the spectre that formerly unaligned militant groups have joined together against the Zardari Administration. David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency warfare expert who has advised General David Petraeus in Iraq, has said that the propaganda costs of drone attacks have been disastrously high. Militants have used the drone strikes to denounce the Zardari government—a shaky and unpopular regime—as little more than an American puppet. A study that Kilcullen co-wrote for the Center for New American Security, a think tank, argues, “Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.” His co-writer, Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger who has advised General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, told me, “Neither Kilcullen nor I is a fundamentalist—we’re not saying drones are not part of the strategy. But we are saying that right now they are part of the problem. If we use tactics that are killing people’s brothers and sons, not to mention their sisters and wives, we can work at cross-purposes with insuring that the tribal population doesn’t side with the militants. Using the Predator is a tactic, not a strategy.”

US drones destroy Pakistan’s trust in the US and lead to increased number of terroristsInnocent 09 Malou Innocent, specialist at the Cato Institute on Middle Easte and Persian Gulf security issues, member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 8/25/2009. [Cato Institute, The US Must Reassess Its Drone Policy]

Missile strikes alienate thousands of clans, sub-clans and extended families within a tribal society that places high social value on honor and revenge. To the Pashtun tribes straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, personal and collective vendettas have been known to last for generations, and are invoked irrespective of time and cost involved. Successive waves of Persian, Greek, Arab, Turk, Mughal, British and Soviet invaders have never successfully subdued this thin slice of rugged terrain. On August 12, the US special envoy for the region, Richard Holbrooke, told an audience at the Center for American Progress that the porous border and its surrounding areas served as a fertile recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. One US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called drone operations "a recruiting windfall for the Pakistani Taliban." Military strikes appear to be the only viable recourse against the tribal region's shadowy insurgents, with US officials pointing to the successful killing of high-value Al-Qaeda militants like Abu Laith al-Libi in January 2008 and chemical weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Masri in July 2008. However, even if tomorrow Osama bin Laden were killed by a UAV, the jihadist insurgency would not melt away. The ability to keep militant groups off balance must be weighed against the cost of facilitating the rise of more insurgents. Citizens living outside the ungoverned tribal areas also detest drones. "Anti-US sentiment has already been increasing in Pakistan … especially in regard to cross-border and reported drone strikes, which Pakistanis perceive to cause unacceptable civilian casualties," conceded US Central Command chief General David Petraeus in a declassified statement written on May 27, 2009.

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Drones lead to an increase in Pakistani terrorists, even if it helps solve Afghanistan problemsInnocent 09 Malou Innocent, specialist at the Cato Institute on Middle Easte and Persian Gulf security issues, member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 8/25/2009. [Cato Institute, The US Must Reassess Its Drone Policy]

America's interests lie in ensuring the virus of anti-American radicalism does not infect the rest of the region. Yet Washington's attempts to stabilize Afghanistan help destabilize Pakistan, because its actions serve as a recruiting tool for Pakistani Taliban militants. Just as one would not kill a fly with a sledgehammer, using overwhelming firepower to kill a single insurgent creates collateral damage that can recruit 50 more. Military force against insurgents must be applied precisely and discriminately. On the ground, Pakistani security forces lack training, equipment, and communication gear to carry out a low-intensity counterinsurgency. But drones provide a poor substitute if the goal is to engage rather than alienate the other side.

Drone attacks fuel terrorism—Times Square bomber wanted to avenge a drone attack on his homeAnderson 5/14 David E. Anderson, Staff Writer for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, which is a PBS publication, 5/14/2010 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-topic/international/drones-and-the-ethics-of-war/6290/

According to news reports, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in the failed Times Square bombing, has told investigators he carried out the attempted bombing to avenge US drone attacks in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan. Shahzad’s assertion adds more fuel to the simmering controversy over the ethics and effects of increasing reliance by both the CIA and the US military on unmanned drones to launch missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Drones produce terrorists from the Taliban’s appeal to victim discontent – means drones are counterproductiveJeff Dressler, Research Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, The Compass, Real Clear World Blog, September 1, 2009, “Surge in Afghanistan: A Response to George Will,” http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/09/surge_in_afghanistan_a_respons.html#more

Nobody said it was going to be easy. The day after Gen. Stanley McChrystal sent his strategic assessment to the Pentagon, the call for retreat is already being sounded, this time, from columnist George Will. But Will’s article demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of not only the nature of Afghanistan, but counterinsurgency writ large. Will quotes a Dutch commander in-theatre to highlight the backwards, primitive nature of Afghanistan…"like walking through the Old Testament” the commander said. Surely, Afghanistan does not conform to western understanding of a modern, advanced society… and America does not seek to make it such. Afghans are smart, they understand more than many Westerners assume. To their credit, the majority of Afghanistan’s population supports the war against the Taliban, including coalition and Afghan efforts to achieve some real progress after eight years of neglect. All they want in return is security. Thus far, they haven’t gotten it. Delving into Will’s discussion of counterinsurgency, he is somewhat correct in describing the Taliban’s ability to “evaporate and then return.” But the Taliban are not superhuman, they are not ghosts. Their ability to “evaporate and then return” is predicated on two current conditions: 1) the absence of sufficient Afghan and coalition forces; and 2) the ability to coerce and intimidate local populations. Much like in Iraq, a sufficiently resourced war (see Surge) and the ability to secure population centers are aimed at removing the insurgency from the population. If this can be achieved, the tide starts to turn. As far as the “time and ratio of forces” required for a successful counterinsurgency campaign… those numbers aren’t hard and fast either. Achieving the proper ratio will not necessarily require a massive coalition footprint for “a decade or more.” It will however require sufficient indigenous security forces to augment and eventually take-over. An entire brigade of the 82nd Airborne has been tasked with exactly that. The new benchmark for the ANSF is 160,000 police (up from 92,000) and 240,000 for the army (up from 134,000). I’m quite confident that the military understands the necessity of fielding a proper security force, both in sheer numbers and capability. As far as country’s history of central governance, Will contends that it “never” had one. That’s not exactly true either: “Afghanistan has been an independent country since the 18th century, with such strong monarchs as Dost Mohammad, who drove out a British incursion in 1842 and ruled for 33 years. Under King Mohammad Zahir Shah, who ruled from 1933 to 1973, Afghanistan made considerable economic and political progress, including the adoption of a fairly democratic written constitution. It was relatively peaceful and stable before a Marxist coup in 1978 set off a long period of war and turmoil whose most consequential events were the Soviet invasion in 1979, the Soviets' departure in 1989, and the rise of the Taliban starting in 1994.” What’s really surprising about Will’s commentary is his trumpeting of a counterterrorism strategy as the new “revised” policy. This failed Rumsfeldian approach is one of the most glaring reasons for the strategic failures of the past several years. Will contends that this can be done alone from “offshore” drones, intelligence and missiles. Unfortunately, effective counterterrorism is predicated on effective intelligence, that which can only been garnered through an effective counterinsurgency strategy. Some would argue that “offshore counterterrorism” would have serious unintended consequences, some of which we have been privy to over the past several years. Collateral damage (the death of innocent civilians) is perhaps the surest way to turn the population against Afghan and coalition efforts. In short, we become the enemy while the real enemy, the Taliban, capitalize on local discontent. For this very reason, one of General McChrystal’s first orders was to restrict the use of airstrikes, “air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly,” he said. What we have seen in Afghanistan, even to this very day is the remnants of Gen. McKiernan’s campaign plan. Over the past several years, we have been fighting in the wrong places, in the wrong way and with the wrong assumptions. A significant shortage of resources have contributed to the deleterious situation. A full-spectrum counterinsurgency strategy is needed, and that is exactly what was delivered to the Pentagon yesterday. There is nothing wrong with questioning the rational of an ongoing war; in fact, it is often quite the responsible thing to do. That said, a misguided call to inaction can be dangerous indeed. Gen. McChrystal was asked to conduct a 60-day campaign review of the war in Afghanistan. Yesterday, he sent that review to the Pentagon. His conclusion: “success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”

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Drone missions do nothing to halt increased insurgencyMatthew Frankel, Federal Executive Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings, June 1, 2010, “Why Killing Enemy Leaders Rarely Works,” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0601_al_qaeda_frankel.aspx

Much has been made of Monday’s announcement of the recent killing of the number three man in all of Al Qaeda. The consensus seems to be that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid’s death will be a significant blow in the war on terror, but it’s much more likely to have no effect at all. If the past seven years in Iraq is any indication, the removal of enemy leaders has little to no impact on the group’s ability to conduct attacks against us. The recent killing of top two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, is a perfect example. "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," said General Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, after the operation, which took place late last month. The good feeling lasted less than three weeks, however. A series of devastating jihadist-led coordinated attacks across Iraq, killing over 100 people, soon reduced Odierno’s comments to mere hyperbole. And the fact that Masri’s death didn’t mean the end of Al Qaeda in Iraq shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed Iraq closely since 2003. In the past, whenever officials have pronounced upon the significance of an enemy killing, it has always proven premature.

Drone mission’s insurgent removal worsens terrorist operationsMatthew Frankel, Federal Executive Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings, June 1, 2010, “Why Killing Enemy Leaders Rarely Works,” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0601_al_qaeda_frankel.aspx

So why hasn’t the removal of insurgent and terrorist leadership yielded more successful outcomes in Iraq? My research of twenty different high-value targeting campaigns from Algeria to Chechnya to Japan suggests that such operations have the greatest chance of success when conducted by local forces against a centralized opponent in conjunction with larger counterinsurgency operations. Until recently, American targeting efforts in Iraq failed to meet any of these criteria. One needs to go back in time only four years to understand this dynamic firsthand. In June 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was finally killed after a months-long manhunt. “Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to Al Qaeda. It's a victory in the global war on terror,” President Bush said at the time. But the “victory”—such as it was—proved to be short-lived. Weekly attacks against Coalition forces climbed from 950 in the week before Zarqawi’s death to 1400 just three months later. High-profile attacks nearly doubled over the next nine months, according to U.S. military data. And our struggles with high-value targeting operations in Iraq have hardly been limited to Sunni jihadist groups. Overemphasis on targeting operations plagued our efforts in the early years of the war. In the months following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, U.S. forces made finding the fugitive leader, his sons, and other holdouts from the infamous “deck of cards” their top priority, ignoring the fact that anti-occupation sentiment had spread to tribal and non-Baathist Sunni figures and spawned a broad decentralized insurgency. Poorly-conceived and poorly-managed targeting efforts added fuel to the fire. Brazen midnight US military raids sometimes led to the capture of an insurgent, but often created a new generation of enemies as a result of rough tactics and lack of sensitivity towards local customs. Furthermore, since the Sunni insurgency was decentralized, with local commanders holding large amounts of autonomy, the targeting campaign did little to stem the levels of violence. The eventual capture of Saddam, and the deaths of his sons, had no effect on the growing insurgency. Instead, it took a combination of persistent attacks by Shia militias and the rise of the Anbar Awakening to defeat the bulk of the Sunni insurgency.

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Drone operations fail due to the lack of understanding of local cultural dynamics – unnecessary collateral damage occurs. Matthew Frankel, Federal Executive Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings, June 1, 2010, “Why Killing Enemy Leaders Rarely Works,” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0601_al_qaeda_frankel.aspx

History has shown that a military force that fights insurgents far from its home turf, like American soldiers have done in Iraq, will have a severe disadvantage because troops don’t understand the local cultural dynamics and networks. Despite our technological superiority, the United States often falls short in the area of local intelligence collection, leading to poor target selection and unnecessary collateral damage as we have seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In these cases, it is essential that the goals and strategies of the occupying force and the host government are aligned. A U.S.-led targeting campaign against Shia militants didn’t succeed in reducing violence until the Iraqi government finally decided to turn its attention against the Sadrists after months of blocking U.S. efforts. This also gets to the larger point that targeting operations can’t succeed in a vacuum. The Sadrists weren’t defeated until the Iraqi government conducted large-scale operations—backed by U.S. forces—in Al Basrah, Al Amarah and Sadr City in 2008. This isn’t to say that the deaths of Masri and Baghdadi aren’t useful. Removing terrorist leaders from the battlefield will certainly have some positive impact, if only to demonstrate to the rest of al Qaeda that their leaders will continue to be in our crosshairs. But let’s not expect that their deaths will necessarily result in the demise of al Qaeda or even a reduction in high-profile attacks. Now that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has dropped below the number in Afghanistan, it’s important to think about the implications of Iraq for other combat zones. For targeting efforts—such as drone strikes campaigns in Pakistan—to bear fruit, the U.S. must work more closely with local governments and must include any targeting efforts within a broader counterinsurgency framework to have any hope of success. Because if we continue to conduct targeting operations in a vacuum, as we did in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, we will be doomed to failure.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 52US drones destroy Pakistan’s trust in the US and lead to increased number of terroristsInnocent 09 Malou Innocent, specialist at the Cato Institute on Middle Easte and Persian Gulf security issues, member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 8/25/2009. [Cato Institute, The US Must Reassess Its Drone Policy]

Missile strikes alienate thousands of clans, sub-clans and extended families within a tribal society that places high social value on honor and revenge. To the Pashtun tribes straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, personal and collective vendettas have been known to last for generations, and are invoked irrespective of time and cost involved. Successive waves of Persian, Greek, Arab, Turk, Mughal, British and Soviet invaders have never successfully subdued this thin slice of rugged terrain. On August 12, the US special envoy for the region, Richard Holbrooke, told an audience at the Center for American Progress that the porous border and its surrounding areas served as a fertile recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. One US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called drone operations "a recruiting windfall for the Pakistani Taliban." Military strikes appear to be the only viable recourse against the tribal region's shadowy insurgents, with US officials pointing to the successful killing of high-value Al-Qaeda militants like Abu Laith al-Libi in January 2008 and chemical weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Masri in July 2008. However, even if tomorrow Osama bin Laden were killed by a UAV, the jihadist insurgency would not melt away. The ability to keep militant groups off balance must be weighed against the cost of facilitating the rise of more insurgents. Citizens living outside the ungoverned tribal areas also detest drones. "Anti-US sentiment has already been increasing in Pakistan … especially in regard to cross-border and reported drone strikes, which Pakistanis perceive to cause unacceptable civilian casualties," conceded US Central Command chief General David Petraeus in a declassified statement written on May 27, 2009.

Drones lead to an increase in Pakistani terrorists, even if it helps solve Afghanistan problemsInnocent 09 Malou Innocent, specialist at the Cato Institute on Middle Easte and Persian Gulf security issues, member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 8/25/2009. [Cato Institute, The US Must Reassess Its Drone Policy]

America's interests lie in ensuring the virus of anti-American radicalism does not infect the rest of the region. Yet Washington's attempts to stabilize Afghanistan help destabilize Pakistan, because its actions serve as a recruiting tool for Pakistani Taliban militants. Just as one would not kill a fly with a sledgehammer, using overwhelming firepower to kill a single insurgent creates collateral damage that can recruit 50 more. Military force against insurgents must be applied precisely and discriminately. On the ground, Pakistani security forces lack training, equipment, and communication gear to carry out a low-intensity counterinsurgency. But drones provide a poor substitute if the goal is to engage rather than alienate the other side.

Drone attacks fuel terrorism—Times Square bomber wanted to avenge a drone attack on his homeAnderson 5/14 David E. Anderson, Staff Writer for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, which is a PBS publication, 5/14/2010 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-topic/international/drones-and-the-ethics-of-war/6290/

According to news reports, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in the failed Times Square bombing, has told investigators he carried out the attempted bombing to avenge US drone attacks in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan. Shahzad’s assertion adds more fuel to the simmering controversy over the ethics and effects of increasing reliance by both the CIA and the US military on unmanned drones to launch missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Drones can’t be relied on to win the war—they can’t eliminate the majority of the terroristsGeorgy 1/18 Michael Georgy, Staff writer for Reuters, 1/18/2010 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE60H064.htm

Analysts say the high-tech aircraft -- designed to throw al Qaeda and Taliban operations into disarray -- are unlikely to break resilient militant groups in the long term and may only generate more anti-American anger in U.S. ally Pakistan. "Ultimately this is not really an effective weapon. The intent is, that if you can kill off or decapitate a significant extent of the leadership, that you can cause a rift within the movement," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at STRATFOR global intelligence firm. Drone attacks in northwest Pakistan have been intensified since the double agent suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, the second deadliest attack in the agency's history. Even if sustained over a long period, the drones can only produce limited results -- perhaps holding up suicide bombings for a few weeks -- since militant leaders are unlikely to be killed in quick succession, analysts say.

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Drones are unpopular among Afghanis and PakistanisBaroud 09 Ramzy Baroud, editor of PalestineChronicle.com, considered a main Political thinktank, 8/20/2009 http://ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2009/August/20%20o/Afghanistan%20Drones%20and%20Democracy%20By%20Ramzy%20Baroud.htm

It is simply arcane to read the bantering of mainstream US commentators these days, as they reflect on the upcoming August 20th elections and ponder what else the US must do to "win hearts and minds of the Afghani people". For one, might I suggest the arrest of the use of drones in targeted assassinations of US enemies. In May 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta delivered a speech where he claimed that, "(Drone) operations have been very effective because they have been very precise in terms of the targeting and it involved a minimum of collat-eral damage". But 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 — I'm not expressing a view – that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used." Lord Bingham's views, as those of others, are supported by ample evidence, of weddings that turned into funerals, and funerals that themselves turned into mass burial grounds. US officials tirelessly, although unconvincingly prattle of winning hearts and minds, as bomb blasts, drone attacks and death hover over the devastated place. Such a degrading view of human life, say nothing of our intelligence.

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T – Military Presence

Drones are a military presence – includes aircrafts and naval presence

J.E. Peterson, Historian and political analyst on the Contemporary Arabian Peninsula and Gulf, February 2009, “Foreign Military Presence in the Gulf and its Role in Reinforcing Regional Security: A Double-Edged Sword” The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, “Arabian Gulf Security: Internal and External Changes”

Levels of Foreign Military Presence 1. Intervention and occupation 2. Proximate expeditionary force in region – power projection 3. Bases and other permanent installations (ranging from full bases, with the FMP enjoying internal sovereignty, to small support functions, such as naval replenishment or technical facilities) 4. Non-permanent deployed units 5. Joint or multilateral exercises 6. Pre-positioning and access agreements 7. Offshore naval presence 8. “offshore” ready deployment capability (e.g. from neighboring countries or regions) 9. Mutual or multilateral security treaties or agreements (CENTO, NATO, SEATO) 10. Arms and equipment transfers 11. “technical” facilities (intelligence, space, communications) 12. Aircraft over-flights (generally unseen and uncontroversial but reverses on occasion of aircraft trouble or in time of conflict or crisis) 13. Surrogate forces (support for revolutionary or irredentist movements; Cuba in Africa)

Military’ is anything pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfareWords and Phrases ‘9, “Military” v26C

E.D.Va. 1945. "Military" means of or pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfare; soldierly, warlike; martial; done, supported, or carried on by force of arms; assigned to or occupied by troops.—Poweii v. U.S., 60 F.Supp. 433, affirmed 152 F.2d 228, certiorari granted 66 S.Ct. 978, 328 U.S. S26, 90 L.Ed. 1604, affirmed 61 S.Ct. 742, 330 U.S. 238, 91 L.Ed. 868.

Military presence includes airpower, naval forces, and military equipment Department of Defense, 96(Remarks as delivered by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to the American Bar Association, Orlando, Fla., Aug. 6, 1996. “The Risks If We Would Be Free” Volume 11, Number 77 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=959)

Our military presence includes substantial airpower operating out of Saudi and Kuwaiti airbases. This permits us to enforce the U.N.-sponsored "no-fly" zone over Iraq. Our presence also includes naval forces operating continuously in the Arabian Gulf, also enforcing United Nations sanctions. And it includes two brigade sets worth of pre-positioned military equipment -- one in Kuwait and one afloat offshore -- and we are adding a third brigade set in Qatar. This pre-positioned equipment allows us to insert a substantial deterrent force into the region in a fraction of the time that it took us in 1990. We actually exercised this potential in October of 1994, when Saddam Hussein again sent his forces toward the Kuwaiti border. That time, however, we were able to respond quickly enough that we were able to deter an attack. Our forward forces, backed by rapidly deployable U.S.-based reinforcements, are by far the strongest military force in the gulf region. They cannot be successfully engaged by any of the regional military powers. But this very capability, which makes our military forces such a successful deterrent force, also makes them an inviting target for those who oppose our presence and influence in the region. Our presence, of course, is opposed by Iran and Iraq, but also by home-grown dissidents in some countries of the region. The opposition includes extremist groups who are cold-blooded and fanatical, but also clever. They know that they cannot defeat us militarily, but they may believe that they can defeat us politically -- and they have chosen terror as the weapon to try to achieve this. They estimate that if they can cause enough casualties or threats of casualties to our force, they can weaken support in the United States for our presence in the region or weaken support in the host nations for a continued U.S. presence. In essence, they seek to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our regional allies.

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RT Drones Aff DDI 2010Tristan, Cory, Ke$hav, Barbie 55‘Military’ is anything pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfareWords and Phrases ‘9, “Military” v26C

E.D.Va. 1945. "Military" means of or pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfare; soldierly, warlike; martial; done, supported, or carried on by force of arms; assigned to or occupied by troops.—Poweii v. U.S., 60 F.Supp. 433, affirmed 152 F.2d 228, certiorari granted 66 S.Ct. 978, 328 U.S. S26, 90 L.Ed. 1604, affirmed 61 S.Ct. 742, 330 U.S. 238, 91 L.Ed. 868.

Military presence includes airpower, naval forces, and military equipment Department of Defense, 96(Remarks as delivered by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to the American Bar Association, Orlando, Fla., Aug. 6, 1996. “The Risks If We Would Be Free” Volume 11, Number 77 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=959)

Our military presence includes substantial airpower operating out of Saudi and Kuwaiti airbases. This permits us to enforce the U.N.-sponsored "no-fly" zone over Iraq. Our presence also includes naval forces operating continuously in the Arabian Gulf, also enforcing United Nations sanctions. And it includes two brigade sets worth of pre-positioned military equipment -- one in Kuwait and one afloat offshore -- and we are adding a third brigade set in Qatar. This pre-positioned equipment allows us to insert a substantial deterrent force into the region in a fraction of the time that it took us in 1990. We actually exercised this potential in October of 1994, when Saddam Hussein again sent his forces toward the Kuwaiti border. That time, however, we were able to respond quickly enough that we were able to deter an attack. Our forward forces, backed by rapidly deployable U.S.-based reinforcements, are by far the strongest military force in the gulf region. They cannot be successfully engaged by any of the regional military powers. But this very capability, which makes our military forces such a successful deterrent force, also makes them an inviting target for those who oppose our presence and influence in the region. Our presence, of course, is opposed by Iran and Iraq, but also by home-grown dissidents in some countries of the region. The opposition includes extremist groups who are cold-blooded and fanatical, but also clever. They know that they cannot defeat us militarily, but they may believe that they can defeat us politically -- and they have chosen terror as the weapon to try to achieve this. They estimate that if they can cause enough casualties or threats of casualties to our force, they can weaken support in the United States for our presence in the region or weaken support in the host nations for a continued U.S. presence. In essence, they seek to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our regional allies.

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Air Force presence should be considered military presenceThomas Donnelly et al., Resident Fellow and Director, Center for Defense Studies, September 2000 [Donald Kagan, Gary Schmitt, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf, BBQ]

The Air Force presence in the Gulf region is a vital one for U.S. military strategy, and the United States should consider it a de facto permanent presence, even as it seeks ways to lessen Saudi, Kuwaiti and regional concerns about U.S. presence

U.S. Drones are crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan (Drones are military presence – not a virtual presence)Slate Magazine, 2/20/09 [William Saletan, “The View From Above”, Lexis, BBQ]

This isn't the first time miscreants have used Google Earth. Two years ago, the Times notes, "its images of British military bases were found in the homes of Iraqi insurgents." And last year, "India said that the militants who attacked Mumbai in November had used Google Earth to familiarize themselves with their targets." Terrorists may not have their own drones or satellites yet. But they know how to use publicly available imagery.The picture, together with a second picture of the same site taken sometime this year and posted on Google Earth, destroys much of the political advantage of the U.S. drones. The drones aren't supposed to be a U.S. military presence in Pakistan. They're unmanned, and until now, they were thought to be flown exclusively from the Afghan border. The satellite images, backed by expert analysis, prove otherwise. The drones are on Pakistani soil. And if the drones are there, so are the U.S. personnel who physically manage them.

Drones are military presence – Canada provesToronto Star, 2/20/08 [Allan Woods, “New Surveillance drones for Kandahar by 2009”, lexis, BBQ]

The Department of National Defence will have unmanned surveillance drones in the air above Kandahar by next January, according to government documents. The new drone program, reported to be worth $120 million, will satisfy one of several conditions that must be met if the government is to extend Canada's military presence in Afghanistan past next February.

Military drones are presence – Georgia provesOfficial Kremlin International News Broadcast, 4/23/08, ["Media Stakeout with Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations; Subject: The Situation in Georgia; Location: Outside the U.N. Security Council, U.N. Headerquarters, New York City, New York Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008, lexis, BBQ]

And no matter how you describe the drone, you cannot state that those flights were not carried out for military purposes. Obviously, it was a military -- provocative military operation, which the Abkhazian side had every ground to regard as threatening in the context of increased Georgian military posture, increased Georgian military presence at the upper Kodori valley.

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Drones are considered military presence – the strikes that killed 29 Taliban members proveNew York Times, 5/5/09 [Jane Perlez, Pir Zubair Shah, "Porous Border With Pakistan Could Hinder New U.S. Troops", lexis, BBQ]

One Pakistani logistics tactician for the Taliban, a 28-year-old from the country's tribal areas, in interviews with The New York Times, described a Taliban strategy that relied on free movement over the border and in and around Pakistan, ready recruitment of Pakistani men and sustained cooperation of sympathetic Afghan villagers. His account provided a keyhole view of the opponent the Americans and their NATO allies are up against, as well as the workings and ambitions of the Taliban as they prepared to meet the influx of American troops. It also illustrated how the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella group of many brands of jihadist fighters backed by Al Qaeda, are spearheading wars on both sides of the border in what for them is a seamless conflict. The tactician wears a thick but carefully shaped black beard and a well-trimmed shock of black hair, a look cultivated to allow him to move easily all over Pakistan. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by his fellow Taliban members. But on an array of issues, discussed over six months of interviews with The Times, he showed himself to be knowledgeable of Taliban activities, and the information he provided matched up consistently with that of other sources. He was well informed -- and unconcerned, he said -- of the plans of the head of the United States Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to replicate in Afghanistan some of the techniques he had used in Iraq to stop the Sunni tribes from fighting the Americans. ''I know of the Petraeus experiment there,'' he said. ''But we know our Afghans. They will take the money from Petraeus, but they will not be on his side. There are so many people working with the Afghans and the Americans who are on their payroll, but they inform us, sell us weapons.'' He acknowledged that the Americans would have far superior forces and power this year, but was confident that the Taliban could turn this advantage on its head. ''The Americans cannot take control of the villages,'' he said. ''In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties.'' The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones -- virtually the only American military presence felt inside Pakistan. ''The drones are very effective,'' he said, acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes.

‘Military’ is anything pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfareWords and Phrases ‘9, “Military” v26C

E.D.Va. 1945. "Military" means of or pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfare; soldierly, warlike; martial; done, supported, or carried on by force of arms; assigned to or occupied by troops.—Poweii v. U.S., 60 F.Supp. 433, affirmed 152 F.2d 228, certiorari granted 66 S.Ct. 978, 328 U.S. S26, 90 L.Ed. 1604, affirmed 61 S.Ct. 742, 330 U.S. 238, 91 L.Ed. 868.

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Military presence includes airpower, naval forces, and military equipment Department of Defense, 96(Remarks as delivered by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to the American Bar Association, Orlando, Fla., Aug. 6, 1996. “The Risks If We Would Be Free” Volume 11, Number 77 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=959)

Our military presence includes substantial airpower operating out of Saudi and Kuwaiti airbases. This permits us to enforce the U.N.-sponsored "no-fly" zone over Iraq. Our presence also includes naval forces operating continuously in the Arabian Gulf, also enforcing United Nations sanctions. And it includes two brigade sets worth of pre-positioned military equipment -- one in Kuwait and one afloat offshore -- and we are adding a third brigade set in Qatar. This pre-positioned equipment allows us to insert a substantial deterrent force into the region in a fraction of the time that it took us in 1990. We actually exercised this potential in October of 1994, when Saddam Hussein again sent his forces toward the Kuwaiti border. That time, however, we were able to respond quickly enough that we were able to deter an attack. Our forward forces, backed by rapidly deployable U.S.-based reinforcements, are by far the strongest military force in the gulf region. They cannot be successfully engaged by any of the regional military powers. But this very capability, which makes our military forces such a successful deterrent force, also makes them an inviting target for those who oppose our presence and influence in the region. Our presence, of course, is opposed by Iran and Iraq, but also by home-grown dissidents in some countries of the region. The opposition includes extremist groups who are cold-blooded and fanatical, but also clever. They know that they cannot defeat us militarily, but they may believe that they can defeat us politically -- and they have chosen terror as the weapon to try to achieve this. They estimate that if they can cause enough casualties or threats of casualties to our force, they can weaken support in the United States for our presence in the region or weaken support in the host nations for a continued U.S. presence. In essence, they seek to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our regional allies.

Drones are a military presence – includes aircrafts and naval presence

J.E. Peterson, Historian and political analyst on the Contemporary Arabian Peninsula and Gulf, February 2009, “Foreign Military Presence in the Gulf and its Role in Reinforcing Regional Security: A Double-Edged Sword” The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, “Arabian Gulf Security: Internal and External Changes”

Levels of Foreign Military Presence 1. Intervention and occupation 2. Proximate expeditionary force in region – power projection 3. Bases and other permanent installations (ranging from full bases, with the FMP enjoying internal sovereignty, to small support functions, such as naval replenishment or technical facilities) 4. Non-permanent deployed units 5. Joint or multilateral exercises 6. Pre-positioning and access agreements 7. Offshore naval presence 8. “offshore” ready deployment capability (e.g. from neighboring countries or regions) 9. Mutual or multilateral security treaties or agreements (CENTO, NATO, SEATO) 10. Arms and equipment transfers 11. “technical” facilities (intelligence, space, communications) 12. Aircraft over-flights (generally unseen and uncontroversial but reverses on occasion of aircraft trouble or in time of conflict or crisis) 13. Surrogate forces (support for revolutionary or irredentist movements; Cuba in Africa)

Military presence involves drones, fighter jets and missilesTimes 12/31/09 [Giles Whittell, "Pentagon offers Obama a choice of surgical strikes or massive retaliation; A fresh list of targets has already been drawn up as the Administration moves from reassurance to thinly veiled threats, Giles Whittell reports", lexis, BBQ]

The US has never publicly acknowledged the rapid build-up of its military presence in and near Yemen since last year but sources say that attacks already mounted by Yemeni government forces on al-Qaeda training camps would have been impossible without American hardware and knowhow. Future strikes could involve the use of US drones, fighter jets and ship-launched cruise missiles.

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Topicality – Presence

Drones are military presenceCol. Russell M. Gimmi, served for twenty-six years in the United States Air Force and retired as the Director of Logistics, Air Education and Training Command, Clemson University, the US Army Airborne School, and the US Naval War College, Winder 2005 [Air and Space Power Journal, “Narrowing the Global-Strike, Gap”, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj05/win05/ricwin05.html, BBQ]

Long-range unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) coupled with unmanned tankers could provide continuous presence without the use of large, vulnerable, and expensive airborne aircraft carriers. We could place these UCAVs in extremely long-duration, continuous orbit in close proximity to the target area or anywhere else since they would no longer need to land to accommodate an onboard pilot, and unmanned tankers could refuel them. This arrangement would provide the flexibility to disperse the force and thus make it less vulnerable and visible during hostilities. Effective attack of a target would still require the principle of mass, but we would need to achieve mass only at the precise moment of attack. On the other hand, we could deliberately form the long-range UCAV force in mass to provide force presence, as we do today with the aircraft carrier.

Military Presence in Afghanistan consists of aircraft, helicopters, vehicles, weapons, equipment, troops , facilitiesKabul Press, 4/24/10 [“Exclusive report: American military creating an environmental disaster in Afghan countryside (Part 1of 3)” Matthew Natsuti, http://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article7985, BBQ]

The American military presence in Afghanistan consists of fleets of aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, weapons, equipment, troops and facilities. Since 2001, they have generated millions of kilograms of hazardous, toxic and radioactive wastes. The Kabul Press asks the simple question:

Military Presence in Afghanistan includes aerial bombing New York Times, 5/3/07 [Abdul Waheed Wafa and Carlotta Gall, staff writer, “Afghans Say U.S. Bombing Killed 42 Civilians”, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/world/asia/03afghan.html, BBQ]

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 2 — Aerial bombing of a valley in western Afghanistan several days ago by the American military killed at least 42 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 50 more, an Afghan government investigation found Wednesday. A provincial council member who visited the site independently put the figure at 50 civilians killed. President Hamid Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul that the Afghan people could no longer tolerate such casualties. “Five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue accepting civilian casualties,” he said. “It is becoming heavy for us; it is not understandable anymore.” There have been several episodes recently in which civilians have been killed and foreign forces have been accused of indiscriminate or excessive force. That has prompted Afghan officials to warn that the good will of the Afghan people toward the government and the foreign military presence is wearing thin. The government delegation reported that three villages were bombed last week in the Zerkoh Valley, 30 miles south of the western city of Herat, and 100 houses were destroyed and 1,600 people were now homeless, Farzana Ahmadi, a spokeswoman for the governor of Herat Province, said by telephone. “The report says that some women and children were drowned in the river, and it was maybe in the heat of the moment that the children and people wanted to escape and jumped into the water,” she said. “This all happened just because of a lack of coordination between international forces and our forces.” A provincial council member from Herat, Naik Muhammad Eshaq, who went to the area independently, said he had visited the three bombing sites and produced a list of 50 people who had died, including infants and other children under age 10. People were still digging bodies out of the rubble of their mud-walled homes on Tuesday afternoon, he said. American Special Operations forces conducted raids in the area on Friday and Sunday, and on both occasions they called in airstrikes when they encountered armed resistance, the military said. It said in a statement that it had killed 136 Taliban fighters, including some who were trying to flee across the river.

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Air Force presence should be considered military presenceThomas Donnelly et al., Resident Fellow and Director, Center for Defense Studies, September 2K [Donald Kagan, Gary Schmitt, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf, BBQ]

The Air Force presence in the Gulf region is a vital one for U.S. military strategy, and the United States should consider it a de facto permanent presence, even as it seeks ways to lessen Saudi, Kuwaiti and regional concerns about U.S. presence

U.S. Drones are crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan (Drones are military presence – not a virtual presence)Slate Magazine, 2/20/09 [William Saletan, “The View From Above”, Lexis, BBQ]

This isn't the first time miscreants have used Google Earth. Two years ago, the Times notes, "its images of British military bases were found in the homes of Iraqi insurgents." And last year, "India said that the militants who attacked Mumbai in November had used Google Earth to familiarize themselves with their targets." Terrorists may not have their own drones or satellites yet. But they know how to use publicly available imagery.The picture, together with a second picture of the same site taken sometime this year and posted on Google Earth, destroys much of the political advantage of the U.S. drones. The drones aren't supposed to be a U.S. military presence in Pakistan. They're unmanned, and until now, they were thought to be flown exclusively from the Afghan border. The satellite images, backed by expert analysis, prove otherwise. The drones are on Pakistani soil. And if the drones are there, so are the U.S. personnel who physically manage them.

Drones are military presence – Canada provesToronto Star, 2/20/08 [Allan Woods, “New Surveillance drones for Kandahar by 2009”, lexis, BBQ]

The Department of National Defence will have unmanned surveillance drones in the air above Kandahar by next January, according to government documents. The new drone program, reported to be worth $120 million, will satisfy one of several conditions that must be met if the government is to extend Canada's military presence in Afghanistan past next February.

Drones aren’t military presenceAssociated Press, 6/2/10 [Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writer, "UN expert: 'Targeted killings' may be war crimes", lexis, BBQ]

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of intelligence matters, said lethal drones were an effective and legal means to target members of al-Qaida and the Taliban in far-flung areas where the United States or its allies have no military presence.

Drones are special forces not military presenceTimes, 10/2/09 [Francis Elliott; Michael Evans, "Back your general and send more troops, Miliband urges Obama", lexis, BBQ]

Joe Biden, Vice- President Strongest public advocate of scaling back military presence; favours attacking al-Qaeda in Pakistan with special forces and unmanned drones

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Military drones are presence – Georgia provesOfficial Kremlin International News Broadcast, 4/23/08, ["Media Stakeout with Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations; Subject: The Situation in Georgia; Location: Outside the U.N. Security Council, U.N. Headerquarters, New York City, New York Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008, lexis, BBQ]

And no matter how you describe the drone, you cannot state that those flights were not carried out for military purposes. Obviously, it was a military -- provocative military operation, which the Abkhazian side had every ground to regard as threatening in the context of increased Georgian military posture, increased Georgian military presence at the upper Kodori valley.

Taliban member explains drones are military presence – trust him, he knows – 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikesNew York Times, 5/5/09 [Jane Perlez, Pir Zubair Shah, "Porous Border With Pakistan Could Hinder New U.S. Troops", lexis, BBQ]

One Pakistani logistics tactician for the Taliban, a 28-year-old from the country's tribal areas, in interviews with The New York Times, described a Taliban strategy that relied on free movement over the border and in and around Pakistan, ready recruitment of Pakistani men and sustained cooperation of sympathetic Afghan villagers. His account provided a keyhole view of the opponent the Americans and their NATO allies are up against, as well as the workings and ambitions of the Taliban as they prepared to meet the influx of American troops. It also illustrated how the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella group of many brands of jihadist fighters backed by Al Qaeda, are spearheading wars on both sides of the border in what for them is a seamless conflict. The tactician wears a thick but carefully shaped black beard and a well-trimmed shock of black hair, a look cultivated to allow him to move easily all over Pakistan. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by his fellow Taliban members. But on an array of issues, discussed over six months of interviews with The Times, he showed himself to be knowledgeable of Taliban activities, and the information he provided matched up consistently with that of other sources. He was well informed -- and unconcerned, he said -- of the plans of the head of the United States Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to replicate in Afghanistan some of the techniques he had used in Iraq to stop the Sunni tribes from fighting the Americans. ''I know of the Petraeus experiment there,'' he said. ''But we know our Afghans. They will take the money from Petraeus, but they will not be on his side. There are so many people working with the Afghans and the Americans who are on their payroll, but they inform us, sell us weapons.'' He acknowledged that the Americans would have far superior forces and power this year, but was confident that the Taliban could turn this advantage on its head. ''The Americans cannot take control of the villages,'' he said. ''In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties.'' The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones -- virtually the only American military presence felt inside Pakistan. ''The drones are very effective,'' he said, acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes.

‘Military’ is anything pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfareWords and Phrases ‘9, “Military” v26C

E.D.Va. 1945. "Military" means of or pertaining to soldiers, arms, or warfare; soldierly, warlike; martial; done, supported, or carried on by force of arms; assigned to or occupied by troops.—Poweii v. U.S., 60 F.Supp. 433, affirmed 152 F.2d 228, certiorari granted 66 S.Ct. 978, 328 U.S. S26, 90 L.Ed. 1604, affirmed 61 S.Ct. 742, 330 U.S. 238, 91 L.Ed. 868.

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Military presence includes airpower, naval forces, and military equipment Department of Defense, 96(Remarks as delivered by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to the American Bar Association, Orlando, Fla., Aug. 6, 1996. “The Risks If We Would Be Free” Volume 11, Number 77 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=959)

Our military presence includes substantial airpower operating out of Saudi and Kuwaiti airbases. This permits us to enforce the U.N.-sponsored "no-fly" zone over Iraq. Our presence also includes naval forces operating continuously in the Arabian Gulf, also enforcing United Nations sanctions. And it includes two brigade sets worth of pre-positioned military equipment -- one in Kuwait and one afloat offshore -- and we are adding a third brigade set in Qatar. This pre-positioned equipment allows us to insert a substantial deterrent force into the region in a fraction of the time that it took us in 1990. We actually exercised this potential in October of 1994, when Saddam Hussein again sent his forces toward the Kuwaiti border. That time, however, we were able to respond quickly enough that we were able to deter an attack. Our forward forces, backed by rapidly deployable U.S.-based reinforcements, are by far the strongest military force in the gulf region. They cannot be successfully engaged by any of the regional military powers. But this very capability, which makes our military forces such a successful deterrent force, also makes them an inviting target for those who oppose our presence and influence in the region. Our presence, of course, is opposed by Iran and Iraq, but also by home-grown dissidents in some countries of the region. The opposition includes extremist groups who are cold-blooded and fanatical, but also clever. They know that they cannot defeat us militarily, but they may believe that they can defeat us politically -- and they have chosen terror as the weapon to try to achieve this. They estimate that if they can cause enough casualties or threats of casualties to our force, they can weaken support in the United States for our presence in the region or weaken support in the host nations for a continued U.S. presence. In essence, they seek to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our regional allies.

Drones are a military presence – includes aircrafts and naval presence

J.E. Peterson, Historian and political analyst on the Contemporary Arabian Peninsula and Gulf, February 2009, “Foreign Military Presence in the Gulf and its Role in Reinforcing Regional Security: A Double-Edged Sword” The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, “Arabian Gulf Security: Internal and External Changes”

Levels of Foreign Military Presence 1. Intervention and occupation 2. Proximate expeditionary force in region – power projection 3. Bases and other permanent installations (ranging from full bases, with the FMP enjoying internal sovereignty, to small support functions, such as naval replenishment or technical facilities) 4. Non-permanent deployed units 5. Joint or multilateral exercises 6. Pre-positioning and access agreements 7. Offshore naval presence 8. “offshore” ready deployment capability (e.g. from neighboring countries or regions) 9. Mutual or multilateral security treaties or agreements (CENTO, NATO, SEATO) 10. Arms and equipment transfers 11. “technical” facilities (intelligence, space, communications) 12. Aircraft over-flights (generally unseen and uncontroversial but reverses on occasion of aircraft trouble or in time of conflict or crisis) 13. Surrogate forces (support for revolutionary or irredentist movements; Cuba in Africa)

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Military presence involves drones, fighter jets and missilesTimes 12/31/09 [Giles Whittell, "Pentagon offers Obama a choice of surgical strikes or massive retaliation; A fresh list of targets has already been drawn up as the Administration moves from reassurance to thinly veiled threats, Giles Whittell reports", lexis, BBQ]

The US has never publicly acknowledged the rapid build-up of its military presence in and near Yemen since last year but sources say that attacks already mounted by Yemeni government forces on al-Qaeda training camps would have been impossible without American hardware and knowhow. Future strikes could involve the use of US drones, fighter jets and ship-launched cruise missiles.

Presence includes units stationed in a particular areaMilitary Dictionary, 2010 [http://www.militarydictionary.com/definition/presence.html, BBQ]

Presence Definition Noun * the fact of having people or units which represent a particular country or organization within a particular area

Presence includes stationing of drone aircrafts Mark A. Patterson, US Navy Reserve Captain, 5/9/08 [“Defend The Approaches!”, httpwww.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA486738&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf, BBQ]

Throughout history, U.S. maritime strategy has evolved in response to the realities of a changing world. As world geo-political dynamics change, US national priorities may change and with it the threats, risks and potential operating environment for the nations’ armed forces. In response, the Navy (including the Marine Corps) develops new strategies or modifies existing ones to support US national strategy and priorities. One constant since the end of World War II has been the enduring principle of forward presence as a mainstay of US maritime strategy. The term presence encompasses many activities from port visits to stationing ships within sight of shore to full scale operations.1 For this paper, presence is the visible positioning or stationing of ships, aircraft and/or personnel for the purpose of influencing, assuring or engaging other state actors or non-state actors. The scope of this definition includes the full range of traditional and emerging military missions, including port visits, training (personnel and forces), Theater Security Cooperation Programs (TSCP), personnel exchanges, humanitarian assistance and limited or full scale permissive and non-permissive military operations.

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Topicality – Substantially

Substantially means important or essentialMerriam-Webster, ‘10 [“Substantial”, www.merriam-webster.com, BBQ]

Substantial 1 a : consisting of or relating to substance b : not imaginary or illusory : real, true c : important, essential

UAVs and UCAVs are key components of military presenceInteravia Business & Technology, 7/1/03 [Oliver Sutton, staff writer, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3126/is_672_58/ai_n29032312/?tag=content;col1, BBQ]

UAVs are today accepted as a vital means to improve intelligence gathering, targeting and battlefield situation awareness, while reducing the risks to military personnel, and doing a better job with the defence budget. Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) are seen as a key element in future air combat systems, on both sides of the Atlantic.

UAVs and UCAVs capabilities are significant aspects of the militaryMarshal Sir Glenn Torpy, Air Chief Marshal, KCB, CBE, DSO, BSc(Eng), FRAeS, RAF, 2006 [Hans-Joachim Schubert, editor, Lieutenant General, Executive Director, Joint Air Power Competence Centre, Journal Edition 3, “An Interview with Chief of the Air Staff Royal Air Force”, Transforming Joint Air Power, The Journal of the JAPCC, http://www.japcc.de/fileadmin/user_upload/journal/japcc_journal_06_edition3.pdf, BBQ]

Here I believe we can draw on the lessons from operations where we have small, relatively flat, HQ structures in which responsibility is genuinely delegated; we need to translate that experience into our peacetime HQs, rigorously shedding tasks that are no longer relevant. On the equipment front, Typhoon has to be our main equipment priority; it will be the backbone of our fast jet force for the future. We also need to develop our UAV and UCAV capability, both of which offer significant capabilities for the future.

Predator drones are substantial components of military strategyMicah Zenko, Fellow for Conflict Prevention, Council on Foreign Relations, 6/2/10 [Greg Bruno interviewer, Staff Writer, CFR.org, “Raising the Curtain on U.S. Drone Strikes”, BBQ]

The apparent killing of al-Qaeda's No. 3 in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, underscores the Obama administration's stepped-up use of unmanned drones to target militants in Pakistan's tribal areas. But despite the successes, drones remain a controversial tactic in the view of some experts. Senior UN officials are challenging the use of unmanned drones by U.S. intelligence agencies. CFR's Micah Zenko, who has studied the use of drones in the Afghan-Pakistan region, says while the technology does have its place in war, the Obama administration must shed new details on the tactic to justify their continued use. "Predator strikes are the worst kept covert secret in the history of U.S. foreign policy," Zenko says. "[S]ince they are such a significant part of U.S. national security strategy, they should be debated, not simply applauded."

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T – Pakistan

Drone bases are located in Afghanistan and Iraq – drones fly across bordersJane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw

The U.S. government runs two drone programs. The military’s version, which is publicly acknowledged, operates in the recognized war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and targets enemies of U.S. troops stationed there. As such, it is an extension of conventional warfare. The C.I.A.’s program is aimed at terror suspects around the world, including in countries where U.S. troops are not based. It was initiated by the Bush Administration and, according to Juan Zarate, a counterterrorism adviser in the Bush White House, Obama has left in place virtually all the key personnel. The program is classified as covert, and the intelligence agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed.

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Politics Link Turns

Bipartisan support for dronesNew York Times, 12/9/2010, “CIA to expand use of drones in Pakistan”, New York Times Online, http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:pkCQHlS20ncJ:scholar.google.com/+%22wired+for+war%22&hl=en&as_sdt=4000000000Yet with few other tools to use against Al Qaeda, the drone program has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and was escalated by the Obama administration in January. More C.I.A. drone attacks have been conducted under President Obama than under President George W. Bush. The political consensus in support of the drone program, its antiseptic, high-tech appeal and its secrecy have obscured just how radical it is. For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.

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Neg Card

Over 40 countries have Drone tech nowUN Human Rights Council, 5/2010, p. 7, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdfDrones were originally developed to gather intelligence and conduct surveillance and reconnaissance. More than 40 countries now have such technology. Some, including Israel, Russia, Turkey, China, India, Iran, the United Kingdom and France either have or are seeking drones that also have the capability to shoot laser-guided missiles ranging in weight from 35 pounds to more than 100 pounds. The appeal of armed drones is clear: especially in hostile terrain, they permit targeted killings at little to no risk to the State personnel carrying them out, and they can be operated remotely from the home State. It is also conceivable that non-state armed groups could obtain this technology.51

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