In this heated debate, Dr James Corum, American Air Power historian and lecturer at the University of Salford supports the use of drones and host John Harrison argues against their use. This is the first part of a two part series on the subject.
According to Dr Corum, armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used as far back as 1952 in the Korean War. Drones have been an integral part of the military ever since, particularly since the Kosovo War in 1999. There is no way to separate manned and unmanned aircraft anymore he says. John Harrison gives a radically different version of the history of the drone programme. He says that Obama, when he came to power, said that he would not put ‘boots on the ground’ and was hailed as a ‘Great Peacemaker’. But in fact he radically increased the drone programme, and the killing went on. Dr Corum replied that the use of UAVs was on the increase in any case because they became such a large part of military operations. Yes, there was an increase because of heightened international tensions in the Middle East, but one cannot link this specifically to Obama.
The use of drones has coincided with the increase in the use of power to authorise the use of force granted to the executive branch of the U.S. government, John Harrison says. Obama inherited such wide powers from G.W. Bush’s administration. Dr Corum advocates that there was a national debate when Bush won extra powers from Congress. He did not commit US troops to action without getting formal approval from Congress. This was in contrast to what happened in Libya in 2011 when there was no debate or congressional resolution. Obama simply decided that America should go to war.
John Harrison says the ‘Kill lists’ are decided upon by the CIA, and approved by the president. Dr Corum argues that there is a targeting procedure, and the CIA is involved, as is the National Security Council. But for daily operations, empowered military commanders who have links with intelligence, have authority to decide who should be killed. Many drone programmes are used in countries which the US is not at war with.
One of the major problems with drones is ‘collateral damage’ whereby people nearby so called ‘targets’ are killed. Dr Corum says that this a problem of war in general; where you have wars, you have collateral damage. He then argues that Pakistanis prefer drone attacks to attacks from terrorist organisations, which goes against what he calls ‘mythology;’ the idea that drones create terrorists out of desire for retribution. This leads onto a more philosophical discussion on whether drone killing is in fact justifiable at all. There are agreements, John Harrison points out, such as the Geneva Convention, and the UN Charter which state that unarmed combatants should be given the chance to surrender, not killed. Corum says that this is old stuff, and this sort of killing has been going on more than a century. John Harrison says that no country has the right to kill citizens of other countries who we are not at war with, particularly when the people concerned are not armed. Dr Corum says that if the President of the United States, backed by Congress, says that the President is authorised to use the military against Al Qaeda, be it with a non-state entity that is good enough for the military.
Harrison argues that drone warfare is taking the emotion and negative aspects out of killing, sanitising warfare to the stage where it is a computer game. Corum says that Hezbollah uses timers on bombs and walks away, and this is the same thing, to which Harrison points out that it is not, as the United States government is not a terrorist organisation like Hezbollah. Dr Corum argues that long distance warfare has been with us for quite a long time; the problem is that the press does not have experts who understand military affairs resulting in the public knowing little about these affairs. Harrison argues that the real reason for this is that the press is not given any information, which Dr Corum denies. John Harrison also says that the only time we read about this is when a US or UK citizen; one of us, for example. ‘Jihadi John’ was killed in 2015. But we do not hear about the thousands of citizens in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or other countries outwith the western world being killed.
John Harrison mentions that drone attacks are mostly carried out in dictatorships with weak institutions of law and order, and such incidents are quickly forgotten about, to which Dr Corum replies that if such a war was going on in a western nation, then drones would also be used there. He adds that one cannot carry out aerial operations without drones.
In conclusion, John Harrison reminds Dr Corum that those who advocate the use of drones support the idea of the ‘Greater Good,’ a utilitarian philosophy which justifies the killing of the few for the benefit of many, a policy advocated by Josef Stalin.
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