Age of the Zombie Drones

Zombie Drones

by C. L. Cook - Victoria Street Newz

A coalition of peace groups in the United States has declared April be dedicated to a new, people's campaign against drones, (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, specifically). Dubbed ‘April Days of Action,’ the demonstrators, which include: the Granny Peace Brigade, Grandmothers Against the War, and Raging Grannies among others, say;

"Too many civilians have been killed by these drones, and that includes women and children." 

They also express concern that burgeoning domestic drone fleets being deployed by law enforcement are turning the US into a surveilled society. 

Barack Obama disagrees with the venerable grey ladies, saying the drone attacks are; "exceptionally surgical and precise," insisting they "do not put… innocent men, women and children in danger."

An article titled, 'US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ are untrue,' the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) details its findings, taken from on-the-ground interviews conducted in Pakistan between September 2010 and June 2011. Examining the CIA's so-called targeted killings, they document ten cases of drone missile strikes producing civilian collateral damage, where at least 45 civilians perished. (Graphically rendered below).

Clearly, the Obama administration's claims of "zero civilian casualties caused by drones" is ridiculous, but it's the position the president's people stuck to, even in the face of the BIJ report. In June of 2011, John Brennan, then Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism, and now executive director of the CIA, made the astonishing pronouncement there had been not a single "collateral" death caused by CIA drone assassins. For the record, Brennan says;

"In fact I can say that the types of operations…the US has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop."

It was precision decidedly undeveloped in 2010, when the New America Foundation, a US-based policy think tank, released their report on civilian casualties caused by drones in Pakistan's restive Tribal Areas. The Foundation report, 'The Year of the Drone,' researched by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann says 1 in 3 people killed by drones since 2004 is an innocent, either in too-near proximity to someone targeted, the victim of errant missiles, or tragically misidentified. They may too be someone grudged into the crosshairs by a long-tongued neighbour.

Bergen and Tiedemann looked at 114 drone attacks, where more than 1200 people were killed, of which they say "between 549 and 849 were reliably reported to be militant fighters." That would leave between 651 and 351 non-militant fighters. Or, put another way, it means; for every sortie flown, between 3 and 6 civilians died collaterally. 

Those 114 cases studied are of course just a drop in the bucket of total drone attacks. Known drone-targeted nations joining Pakistan are: Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia. (Drones are too a feature of life for Palestinians, the constant whine of their engines above being a daily irritant and tacit threat in both Gaza and the West Bank). Writing for ProPublica, Cora Currier outlines the anatomy of Obama's Kill List, and how the drone program finds its targets. Currier says;

"[R]eviews now happen at regular interagency meetings at the National Counterterrorism Center. Recommendations are sent to a panel of National Security Council officials. Final revisions go through White House counterterror adviser John Brennan to the president."

From here, word is sent to one of the many bases, both within and without the US, where specially trained pilots will, from air conditioned cyber-stations, comfortably carry out the mission.   

But is the focus on drones and drone warfare missing the mark?

Hayes Brown follows the recent release of a Gallop Poll study of American attitudes regarding the use of drones. His ThinkProgress article, 'Polls on Drones Ignore Larger Issue of Targeted Killing' reminds; though drones aren't the sole weapon used to carry out the necessitated kills, they have uniquely captured the popular imagination. When asked by Gallop how the government should and should not use drones, 65% were OK with their use to kill "suspected terrorists living in foreign countries," with 41% agreeing they should be used to kill "suspected American terrorists living in foreign countries."

The numbers change dramatically though when drone deployment at home is proposed. Only 25% believed Uncle Sam should terminally target with drones suspected terrorists within the United States; while a meagre 13% think it right for the president to order the remote assassination of suspected homegrown terrorists inside the country.

Brown observes; "Most of the focus in the debate about the Obama administration’s policies has been on the use of new technology in the form of drones, rather than on the killing program itself."

What this poll also reveals is, ("...with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.") more than one in ten American adults think it alright for the president to order executed one of their fellow citizens without the onerous entanglements of warrants, and arrests, and a judge and jury trial. One in four would do away with those quaint old judicial demands where foreigners are suspected. 

Grannies raging and otherwise aside, I would ask America; "Are you really prepared to junk eight hundred years of jurisprudence, making the power of life and death a matter of a Tuesday morning hob-nobbing of bureaucrats in the bowels of the National Counterterrorism Center?"

Zombies are everywhere you look these days; on teevee, video games, starring in bestselling books, and at the movies. According to TV.Com, the zombie series, Walking Dead is America's third most favoured program. The show is described thus:

"The series follows a police officer, Rick Grimes, who wakes up from a coma to find the world ravaged with zombies. Looking for his family, he and a group of survivors attempt to battle against the zombies in order to stay alive."

Luckily for Officer Grimes, society as he had known it is gone. There is no zombie president fingering the kill switch, no spotty contractor "manning" the drone console between trips to the fridge. (I understand, a special medal is being struck to honour their sacrifice). The drones don't fly over the Walking Dead. Drones need people, because like the zombie they're both mindless and soulless.

The zombie drones need soulful men like the president, and clever ones like the executive-director of the CIA to get off the ground. And they need the goodwill of the people who take the polls and pay the tolls to stay aloft. The people must back the program, whether those birds are at home, or abroad.

BUT, it's more than a Year of the Drone, or even years of them we're seeing unfolding, it's a dawning New Age of Drones, and those birds are already home and roosted. And, it's gonna take a lot of Grannies' rage, and many more days of action than April provides to stop their mindless, soulless propagation.