The morality of Covert Lethal Drone Programs : the case of Pakistan

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Abstract

This thesis is about the use of lethal drones by the United Stated in Pakistan. I have tried to examine the role morality plays in the use of the lethal drone and in the organization behind this kind of pro-grams. First I have looked at the CIA and the bureaucratic way this institute is organized. Here I ex-plain the ways bureaucracies can be used to commit crimes. Bureaucracies are inherent rational and efficient and can be used to complete any kind of task, also an evil one. Because of the way bureau-cracies fragmentize the total human act, the person who assumes full responsibility for this act van-ishes. I also examined the reasons why many argue in favor of the lethal drone program. I refute their claim on self-defense by using the conditions for a pre-emptive strike as described in just war theory. Further I refute their claim that the program in Pakistan is efficient. I use empirical evidence to show that many civilians are victims and to show that the program is counter effective, because of the growth of anti-American sentiment. Last I argue that the example that the US is setting for the rest of the world is dangerous, considering that most countries will have access to lethal drones in the near future.

Keywords: Covert lethal drones; bureaucracy; Pakistan; terrorism; just war theory; obedience to

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The Morality of Covert Lethal Drone Programs

The Case of Pakistan

1. Introduction

On the second of May 2011, Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in Pakistan. From this moment on, Pakistan would be known to the main public as a hiding place for terrorists (Sanger, 2012: 112). The United States government had started a covert lethal drone program in Pakistan seven years before this high profile rate. This program, ran by the CIA, was expanded when the Obama administration took office. Many drone attacks have taken place over the last years and have gotten relative little media coverage. Previous research has shown that the attacks are frequent and are causing structural problems to Pakistan (Living Under Drones, 2012: 94). For this reason it is im-portant to look critical at way the attacks are executed and the goals the US government is trying to reach. This thesis focusses on the morality of the covert lethal drone program taking place in Paki-stan. Its main purpose is to examine the program and the attacks and describe the role morality has in its results.

I will argue that the use of drones by the United States in Pakistan is not morally permissible. In section two I will explain what the covert lethal drone is and the way it has been used in Pakistan. In section three I will discuss the bureaucratization of the program behind the use of the lethal drones by the US in Pakistan. The place of morality in a highly bureaucratic system will be examined, and the way morality of war is influenced by the use of drones. These factors combined will show us how morality is not a part of the drone attacks in Pakistan. In section four I will discuss the claim on self-defense proponents of the program make. In this section I will also refute the claims of efficiency of the covert lethal drone program. Here we will see why the program is not efficient and even counter effective. Before ending with a conclusion, I will shortly try to explain the consequences this kind of drone programs can have on the future of armed conflict in section five.

2. The covert lethal drone

The United States defense department defines unmanned aircrafts or drones as follows: ‘An aircraft

that does not carry a human operator and is capable of flight with or without human remote control’

(US Department of Defense, 2014: 276). The most important characteristic of the drone is the capa-bility of flight by remote control. This definition includes all drones, armed and unarmed. In this

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the-5 sis only armed and lethal drones will be discussed, which are not in the list of definitions of military and associated terms by the US defense department. The lethal drone only leaves the targets and people around them vulnerable and brings no risk to the attacker which can control the drone safely from miles away. The first armed drones were used in Afghanistan in early October 2001, since then the US arsenal of Predator drones increased from 167 till over 7000 (Mulrine, 2011).

In this thesis, I will not say anything about the morality of lethal drones used in declared warzones like for instance Afghanistan. This is a very important distinction. Military drones are con-trolled by military personnel and are used against recognized military targets (Adam and Barrie, 2013: 248). I will focus on the use of lethal drones by the Central Intelligence Agency in areas where there is no declared war. These programs that run in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia (unlike military programs) have little congressional oversight and are even being denied by the Obama administra-tion in the courts (Boyle, 2013: 2). For example, in federal courts in Washington the department of justice stated:‘The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence [of the drone pro-gram or related records]’ (Melber, 2012). The Obama administration stated that any form of

confir-mation or denial would jeopardize national security (ibid). We can conclude that these are covert attacks, kept away from the public. For this reason the term “covert lethal drone” will be used in this thesis.

2.1 Drones in Pakistan

In 2004 the use of the covert lethal drone started in Pakistan. Pakistan has been described by the Obama administration as one of the biggest international concerns for the national security of the US. This security issue mostly consists of terrorist organizations housing in regions of Pakistan and the possibility of them stealing nuclear material (Sanger, 2012: 58). Pakistan is where the “war on terror” is at its most important if we choose to believe the Obama administration. Not only because of the government, but because of the freedom terrorist have to organize themselves. The epicenter of the drone program is the FATA of Pakistan (Living Under Drones, 2012: 21). This territory is semi-autonomous and runs along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The president of Pakistan decides which domestic laws apply in this region. The government of Pakistan has officially always been a friend of the US government, but the use of drones and the killing of Osama Bin Laden have compli-cated an already difficult relationship. David Sanger goes as far as saying that the moment Obama succeeded in killing Osama Bin Laden, he lost Pakistan (Sanger, 2012: 68).

While Obama did not start the program in Pakistan, he extended the purpose and the scale of the program. The first strike ordered by Obama is described below by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker. These strikes are in ways characteristic for the many strikes that followed.

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‘The first two C.I.A. air strikes of the Obama Administration took place on the morning of Jan-uary 23rd—the President’s third day in office. Within hours, it was clear that the morning’s bombings, in Pakistan, had killed an estimated twenty people. In one strike, four Arabs, all likely affiliated with Al Qaeda, died. But in the second strike a drone targeted the wrong house, hitting the residence of a pro-government tribal leader six miles outside the town of Wana, in South Waziristan. The blast killed the tribal leader’s entire family, including three children, one of them five years old. In keeping with U.S. policy, there was no official acknowl-edgment of either strike’ (Mayer, 2009).

Since the strikes started in 2004 there have been protests in Pakistan. These protests intensified as the strikes occurred more frequently and more viciously. These protests have not had a lot of atten-tion in the internaatten-tional media per se, but are coming more noticeable on the internet in the form of blogs and on fora (Website Drones Pitch Interactive). More and more personal stories and pictures are becoming available to the general public. There is a lot of discussing about how many people have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and how many of these people are civilians. The US gov-ernment states that civilian casualties are in the single digits (Living Under Drones, 2012: 29). Other sources go from 500 till 780 civilian deaths. The most comprehensive research comes from the Bu-reau of Investigation Journalism, the New American Foundation and the rapport Living Under Drones by Stanford Law School and NYU School of Law. These state that there have been 3213 deaths, which contain fifty high profile deaths, 535 civilian casualties, 175 children and 2453 others (Website Drones Pitch Interactive). The category “others” is very big, because of the difficulties that occur with identifying and thus categorizing victims. This specific problem will be discussed later on when I dis-cuss the efficiency and effectiveness of the program.

3. The bureaucracy of covert lethal drone programs

In this section, I argue that the kind of organization in which this covert lethal drone program is exe-cuted plays an essential role in the immoral outcomes of the program. The term “program” is used because the covert killing has become so highly administered and organized, of such a scale and is executed on a very impersonal and morally remote level (Adams and Barrie, 2013: 246). The covert lethal drone programs are part of a very big bureaucracy. The bureaucratization of a program or or-ganization can have very extensive consequences. Before we look in to the covert lethal drone pro-gram in Pakistan as part of the CIA specifically we will take a closer look into the way bureaucratiza-tion has an influence on the role that morality can play in policy and the execubureaucratiza-tion of this policy. First

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7 we will look at Bauman and his theory about bureaucracy as a system. After that we will take a closer look inside bureaucracy by using Milgram’s theory regarding obedience to authority.

3.1 Bureaucracy as a system

The most horrendous example of what bureaucracy can be used for, is the Holocaust. The Holocaust for this reason is the most comprehensive researched event when it comes to bureaucracy. While the drone attacks in Pakistan are very different and less horrific in many aspects, the way bureaucra-cy contributes to the mission is largely the same. Zygmunt Bauman describes the role of bureaucrabureaucra-cy in the beginning of the Holocaust in his book “Modernity and the Holocaust”: ‘Bureaucracy started

from what bureaucracies start with: the formulation of a precise definition of the object, then regis-tering those who fitted the definition and opening a file for each’ (Bauman, 2000: 105). A bureaucracy

capable of this first task, cleansing a state, is likely also capable of more ambitious tasks, and the choice to perform these more ambitious tasks will seem almost natural according to Bauman. In the case of the Holocaust for example, why stop at Germany (ibid)? Given the very effective cleanings facilities the bureaucracy had at its disposal, why not use them on the entire empire?

Academics have been split on this topic into the intentionalist and the functionalist camps (Milton, 1990: 269). The first state that the killing of all Jews was the intention of Hitler and Nazi ide-ology from day one. They argue it was a predetermined decision and the only thing that was holding Hitler back was a lack of favorable conditions. The functionalist on the other hand argue that Hitler can only be given credit for the general idea of “finding a solution” to the “Jewish problem” (Bauman, 2000: 105). They basically argue that Hitler had a clear vision of a “clean Germany”, and the decisions evolved almost accidently. Nazi ideology, they state, offered only a vague idea of the practical steps necessary to accomplish its vision (Milton, 1990: 269). Both intentionalist and functionalist do not deny the central role bureaucracy has played between vision and execution. Without a huge and rational bureaucratic machine Hitler his ideas, no matter how vivid his imagination was, would have not accomplished much. While bureaucracy is not to blame for the ideas underlining the Holocaust, it is to blame for its execution. In short Bauman explains: ‘Bureaucracy made the Holocaust. And it

made it in its own image’ (Bauman, 2000: 105). The only thing bureaucracy needs is a definition of its

task. Bureaucracy is inherent rational and efficient, and for that reason it can be trusted to see whichever task it is given to its end.

But it were not only the capacities of bureaucracy that made the Holocaust possible, it was also its flaws. Bureaucracies have a tendency to focus on the means rather than the original goal. Bureaucracy doesn’t determine the goal, it only finds a way to reach the goals it is given. With the result that the means turn into ends (Bauman, 2000: 106). The machinery, once set in motion, cre-ates its own driving force. The more the German bureaucracy excelled at its task of cleansing

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territo-8 ries from Jews, the more it sought for new places to use its skills to do the same. We saw this in the way the machine kept going even when Hitler approached defeat. Mass murder had to go on, simply because the capabilities were there. Bauman states that the morbid tendency of substituting the means for the ends were most visible in ‘the uncanny and macabre episode of the murder of

Romani-an Romani-and HungariRomani-an Jews, perpetrated with the Eastern Front just a few miles away, Romani-and at Romani-an enor-mous cost to the war efforts: priceless rail carriages and engines, troops and administrative resources were diverted from military tasks in order to cleanse distant parts of Europe for the German habitat which was never to be’ (Bauman, 2000: 106).

What Bauman helps us understand is that the Holocaust has proven that bureaucracy is in-herently capable of evil, going as far as genocidal action. Bureaucracy does not however create vi-sions. For bureaucracy to engage in genocidal action or lesser crimes it needs to come across an actor that can provide a vision in which pursuit it is necessary to commit such a crime. Only if the two en-counter, a crime such as genocide seems possible (ibid). Both bureaucracy and individuals with strong visions are not uncommon in today’s society, and the possibility that they meet, although small, is present. Genocide may be the worst crime that can be committed, but bureaucracy can also be used for lesser crimes then genocide following the same mechanisms.

3.2 Obedience to authority

While Bauman explains the bigger picture of bureaucracy and the way it can be used to commit crimes, we will use Milgram’s work “Obedience to Authority” to take a closer look inside bureaucra-cy. Characteristic for bureaucracy is hierarchy. The relation between a superior and his subordinate is central to this system. This means that the way people are or aren’t obedient to authority is central to understanding the potential problems bureaucracy can bring (Milgram, 1974: 3). Obedience to authority is a topic that has been discussed by philosophers ever since Plato. Conservative philoso-phers argue that structure of authority is the most important thing in society. They state that it is better to act out an act prescribed by an authority, even if this is an evil one, than to wrench this structure (Milgram, 1974: 4). Some philosophers, Hobbes for instance, argue that an evil act execut-ed out of obexecut-edience for authority is in no way the responsibility of the person who carries out this act. Hobbes explains in Leviathan that the responsibility for this act can only belong to the authority that has ordered the act (Moloney, 1997: 263). Off course not everybody agrees. Humanists claim that ‘the moral judgments of the individual must override authority when the two are in conflict’ (Mil-gram, 1974: 4). I agree that in an ideal world we will always choose the morally justified option, no matter the circumstances. But the real question in this case is not what we should do, it is what we actually do in case this situation occurs. Do we choose to be obedient to authority or do we follow our own moral judgment if the two are in conflict?

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9 Milgram’s experiment teaches us that people are obedient to authority to a very far extent (Milgram, 1974: 7). In this famous experiment two people take part in a study about learning and memory in a psychology laboratory. One will play the role of “teacher” and the other the role of “learner”. In reality only the person designated to be the teacher is a subject, the learner is an actor. The teacher gets told that the learner has to remember a list of word pairs and if he makes a mistake in recalling them he needs to give the learner an electric shock. Every time he gets it wrong the chock increases in intensity from 15 volts to 450 volts. While the chocks get more intense he will hear the reaction from the learner, who will scream and bag to be let go when the electric chocks get danger-ously high. The experimenter will keep telling the subject to apply the chocks (Milgram, 1974: 5). Milgram was mostly interested in how far the subject will go in inflicting pain on a protesting victim. When will the subject refuse to obey to authority in this experiment?

More than two thirds of the subjects obey the experimenter till the very last chock, no mat-ter how much the person being electrocuted protested and bags to be let go (Milgram, 1974: 7). This study has been done multiple times at multiple universities and time after time most subjects are obedient to authority. These are ordinary people who electrocute the learner out of a sense of obli-gation, not because they have any aggressive affinities, but because they feel it is their duty as a sub-ject (Milgram, 1974: 7). The experiment teaches us that ordinary people can easily become actors in a horrific destructive process. Even when certain moral obligations are undeniable present, most people will not act on them if this means resisting authority. Just like Hobbes argued they do not see themselves as responsible for executing an evil act. They hold the experimenter completely respon-sible for their actions (Milgram, 1974: 9). In a bureaucracy there is so much fragmentation of the total human act, that the person who assumes full responsibility for this act has vanished (Milgram, 1974: 13).

It is not so much that morality disappears in bureaucracy, it just takes a completely different form. People do not longer feel shame or pride because of how morally right or wrong they acted. They are programmed to feel shame or pride because of how well they acted out the actions ordered by authority. The morality of a person is no longer important, it is the way in which he fits in to his role and plays his part right (Milgram, 1974: 148). In this way he helps the system function, which is most important. For this reason people or soldiers who participated in crimes like the Holocaust or crimes of war often defend themselves by saying “they were simply obeying orders” or “doing their duty” (Milgram, 1974: 147). They feel that they do not really have a choice for a certain reason. The price for disobedience in a bureaucracy is very high. Even if by being disobedient a person chooses the morally right action, he will be burdened with the knowledge of having disrupted the social or-der. He has actively worked against a cause he promised to support and by doing so he will have the

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10 feeling he did something wrong. If he just followed orders he would have not experienced this bur-den (Milgram, 1974: 165).

Apart from the system the relation with the victim is also of great importance. Hitler spent years dehumanizing the Jews before he started the genocide. He started to devaluate them till the point he denied the Jews the status of human beings and had convinced many of his views (Milgram, 1974: 11). Milgram did not test if people would have less trouble electrocuting the learner if they were convinced the learner was a criminal for example. But something else interesting happened. The subjects for the most part came up with reasons on their own on why the learner deserved to be chocked. After inflicting pain on the learner, the subjects found it essential to find reasons he was an unworthy person, who deserved the pain because of his own shortcomings and faults (Milgram, 1974: 11). They called him stupid or stubborn for not remembering the word pairs for example. As Milgram puts it: ‘The psychological mechanism is transparent: if the victim is an unworthy person,

one need not be concerned about inflicting pain on him’ (Milgram, 1974: 162). This teaches us that

devaluating people is almost always a part of hurting another human. Someone can do this for you, but most people are also capable of doing this themselves even after they have already hurt the per-son. The combination of the conviction that the victims somehow deserve it and the lack of respon-sibility people give themselves in a bureaucratic system makes is possible for ordinary people to par-ticipate in an evil act, going as far as genocide.

3.3 The case of Pakistan

Brian Orend has distinguished three features of the covert lethal drone program he believes should be changed (Orend, 2013: 137). The first is about who runs the show. Orend thinks it is worrisome to have the CIA be completely in charge. In the case of Pakistan, the program is completely run by the CIA as stated before. Secondly, Orend argues for a program that is fully transparent about the role the lethal drone has as a weapon. This argues against any kind of covert attacks. And last he argues for a constant attempt to minimalize civilian casualty rates as collateral damage (ibid). Orend is not worried about the lethal drone as a weapon per se, but at the way it is managed. The way drones are being used in Pakistan is a direct result of the program is it organized in. Orend like many others state that the CIA is not the right institute to control the program, and I argue that this is because the CIA is a highly bureaucratized institute, with no democratic oversight.

To be able to look deeper into the bureaucratization aspect it is important to go beyond vague descriptions of drone attacks and victims that may or may not be militant. We are sure that not all victims are militant, but for this argument it is more interesting to look at some specific fea-tures of the attacks. Attacks with the use of the covert lethal drone started because it was a low risk way to kill high profile targets in areas where there was no official war. The CIA was given this task

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11 because these were not military missions, these were mostly political executions also known as per-sonality strikes (Living Under Drones, 2012: 12). This was part of the post 9/11 responds from the Bush administration. The targets were as far as data can tell all identified and directly associated with organizations that the US government described as terrorist. The bureaucracy of the CIA did, what Bauman explained they would do. It formulated a precise definition of the object, registered those who fitted this definition and opened a file for each. This was the beginning of the covert lethal drone program. But following Bauman’s argument, a system that is capable of the task of identifying and killing high profile terrorist in non-war areas, is likely also capable of a more ambitious task.

Bureaucracy on its own is not capable of executing morally impermissible actions. Therefore it needs to cross paths with a certain vision. President Obama brought this vision to the CIA. Of course one can wonder if the drone attacks in Pakistan under the Bush administration were even morally permissible. But the escalation of the covert lethal drone program started with the beginning of the Obama administration (ibid). Obama redefined the goals that the CIA had to accomplish in Pakistan. A highly bureaucratized institute as the CIA is intrinsically rational and efficient and can be trusted to see these renewed tasks to its end. These new task seems to be to eliminate all possible danger from Pakistan to the US. The CIA started with defining the object they need to eliminate for accomplishing this task. All men of military age are now defined as militant, and thus a danger. While the personality strikes of the Bush administration stayed, signature strikes where added (Boyle, 2013: 8). These strikes are not based on identifying a target, but on the behavior of not known individuals. What behavior exactly qualifies one to become a target is not known (Living Under Drones, 2012: 13).

The sorts of strikes that take place since the Obama administration took office are known. There is a lot of discussion about civilian casualties for example, but there is enough empiric evidence to describe at least two types of strikes. The first one is a so called double-tap strike (Living Under Drones, 2012: 74). Practically this means that after the first strike, the CIA waits until first responders occur, and then the drone strikes again. Apart from this being against international law, it is also highly traumatic and discouraging for the first responders that do survive. One of the consequences being that people don’t come out to help drone victims anymore, because they are too afraid of a second strike. Secondly, funerals have become a frequent target of drone strikes in Pakistan (Living Under Drones, 2012: 92). This makes people scared to attend or organize funerals at all. Not being able to say goodbye to loved ones or bury them in the way that is cultural acceptable makes the situ-ation even tougher on the society. People feel that there is no safe place for them anymore, and that their behavior does not influence their likelihood of becoming a target of the covert lethal drone program (Living Under Drones, 2012: 97).

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12 Bureaucracy accepted a task and ran with it. Just as described by Bauman and Milgram, the means are being put above the ends. The CIA has the skills to execute everyone that is a potential threat and so they will. They do not necessarily identify people anymore, behavior can be enough to become a target. If every man of military age is a militant, then methods as killing first responders and bombing funerals seem effective ways to eliminating the dangers in Pakistan (Boyle, 2013: 7). In this way you kill the targets and the people who try to help these targets or are associated with the targets. That this is completely disrupting a society and these people may as well be innocent is not of any concern to the bureaucratic system. After the task was given, the fact that the CIA can elimi-nate a national threat to the US this way, is enough reason why they will. Like Milgram said, the re-sponsibility inside the bureaucracy to think about the execution of the task, or the goodness of the task itself, evaporates. In a bureaucratic system, like the CIA, not one person feels fully responsible for the entire mission. And even if they have any moral objections, disobedience comes at a high price. People who walk away or try to make secret missions public are in high risk of being prosecut-ed to very steep sentencprosecut-ed (Jouvenal, 2013). It is not that every operator inside the CIA necessary feels this program is morally permissible, it is that they mostly choose to be obedient to authority and “do their duty”.

4. Self-defense and efficiency

Politicians and academics alike use two major arguments defending the covert lethal drone program. Firstly they claim the US is acting on a form of self-defense, which we will discuss using the frame-work of just war theory. Secondly they claim the program is highly efficient and very effective in reaching his goal of weakening terrorist organizations all over the region. For these two reasons they don’t see any problems in the way the covert lethal drone program is organized. I will refute the sec-ond claim in two different ways. First, I will use empirical evidence to look in to the measurement of this so-called efficiency. Second, I will argue that efficiency shouldn’t be the main goal of any strate-gy, because efficiency tells us nothing about the morality or general “goodness” of a strategy. But first I will explain why almost all the missions of the program in Pakistan cannot be considered self-defense.

4.1 Just war theory

In this thesis we have been considering a conflict, but not a war. So which legal rules apply? In classic just war theory the only reason to use violence is to defend yourself or to defend others that aren’t capable of defending themselves (Walzer, 2004: 52). The same rules apply in most domestic law

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sys-13 tems of democratic countries. The aggressor is always in the wrong. In some cases both sides in a conflict are in the wrong, but if you are only defending yourself in a proportionate matter you are almost never in the wrong. Legally in the absence of a war only international human rights law apply in international conflict, but this doesn’t tell us everything we need to know (Living Under Drones, 2012: 117). International human rights law also tells us that self-defense is the only reason to apply lethal force and only if there are ‘no other means, such as capture or non-lethal incapacitation, of

preventing that threat to life’ (ibid). These requirements are not met in Pakistan. But the rhetoric of

the Obama administration isn’t suggesting direct self-defense, it’s suggesting that the drone attacks are necessary to prevent security threats for the US in the near future (Melber, 2012).

This line of argumentation falls in line with a statement in just war theory that a pre-emptive strike can be morally permissible in exceptional cases. There is an important distinction between preventive strikes and pre-emptive strikes. Preventive strikes are never permissible and have in the past mostly been used to prevent a shift in the balance of power. For a strike to be preventive there has to be no imminent threat, only a possible threat foreseen in the future (Walzer, 2006: 76). This threat only exists in the mind’s eye as Michael Walzer explains it. A pre-emptive strike, on the other hand, is a reaction to a very real and clear threat. For this reason it is possible for such a strike to be morally permissible. Walzer differentiates legitimate and illegitimate first strikes by looking at the level of threat that is present. He argues that there must be sufficient threat to legitimize a first strike (Walzer, 2006: 81). There are three conditions that have to be met for the threat to be sufficient. First there has to be a manifest intent to harm, secondly there has to be a certain level of active preparation that makes the intent an actual danger. Last, the choice to not fight, or wait, has to sig-nificantly magnify the risk (ibid).

I would like to argue that if it is permissible for a country to act out a pre-emptive strike on another country if these requirements are met, it is also permissible for a person or organization to use a pre-emptive strike. These can be seen as the conditions that have to be met to use lethal force by a state in another state in a non-war zone. Unless self-defense as explained in international hu-man rights law already applies. Imagine a person who told you hu-many times he is planning to kill you. Next this person buys a gun, you see him buying this gun and ammunition. The next day you see him practicing shooting his gun and he is doing pretty well. You try to reason with him and calling the police, but they make clear they are not going to help you. He tells you he is coming to kill you to-morrow, the next day you see him out your window walking towards your house with his gun. You shoot him from your window, he dies instantly. Although you were the first to actually use violence, it was morally permissible for you to do so. You met all the conditions of a pre-emptive strike and felt that this was the only way to protect your own life.

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14 While some personality strikes may have met these conditions, all signature strikes don’t. Even for personality strikes it is hard to imagine a situation where all the conditions are met. The first two conditions are not very hard to meet. A manifest intent to harm citizens of the US, and an active preparation that makes this intent possible to act out are present in several terrorist organizations. The choice to wait, or at least not use lethal force, does not automatically magnify the risk. Especially if we consider the actions that can be taken towards an individual that cannot be taken against an entire country. Like for instance capture and trail. Only if there is a case where an individual is willing and fully prepared to use lethal force towards US citizens and the only possible way to stop him is by using lethal force against him, it is morally permissible for the CIA to use lethal force. It is very clear that very little, if any, of the drone attacks in Pakistan are commissioned under these conditions. While the attacks are not executed out of self-defense, we have not ruled out yet the attacks are efficient in reaching their goals, which is a much heard statement.

4.2 Drone efficiency

The first thing to do here is to ask ourselves why the covert lethal drone program is called efficient by so many. To determine if you killed a terrorist or another kind of enemy of the United States you have to decide how to identify these kinds of people. As mentioned the covert lethal drone program in Pakistan uses two strategies for this (Boyle, 2013: 7). The first strategy that was mostly used be-tween 2004 and 2007 identified high value leaders of armed, non-state groups. These personality strikes targeted people who were individually looked into. The second strategy has been introduced by the Obama administration when it took office. This strategy contains the use of signature strikes. For selecting targets a pattern of life is analyzed. Groups of men who have certain signatures or char-acteristics that can be associated with terrorist activity become targets of signature strikes (ibid). The identities of these men aren’t known and which behavior counts as associable with terrorism is un-clear. What is clear is that a significant part of Pakistani men are likely part of this group.

This idea is confirmed by the way the US decides if a victim is a civilian. Every male of military age is considered a militant unless explicitly proven otherwise (Boyle, 2013: 7). If every male that is killed is seen as another terrorist defeated the efficiency of the covert lethal drone program is more easily advocated. The use of the double-tap strategy and the bombing of funerals also make it seem unlikely that all the victims are indeed militants. After all, not only first responders come to a site after an attack, also the families of the victims visit these sites and therefore the victims must be random to a certain point. The CIA has simply turned the tables here by making civilians prove that they indeed are civilians. This clearly goes against the fundaments of both international law and US law (Boyle, 2013: 7). In both law systems a person is innocent to proven guilty, not guilty to proven innocent. No system can seem inefficient if every outcome is portrait as the desired one.

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15 Some defenders don’t necessary argue that there are no civilian casualties in Pakistan, but claim that whatever harm the drones are doing will be nothing compared to the harm an actual war will cause (Boyle, 2013: 4). This argument that the covert lethal drone program is more efficient than troops on the grounds is a very misleading one. Drones might be an efficient weapon in a warzone. The drone program executed by the CIA is not a strategy used in war, it is a covert program exclusive-ly used in non- warzones. The realistic alternative in Pakistan is not war, it is diplomacy, economic sanctions and the selective targeting of high profile members of armed non-state groups, known as personality strikes (Boyle, 2013: 13). The rate on Osama bin Laden would be an example of the latter. This argument used by many is a too easy way to discard the practices of the program and the way it is managed. It only looks at the way the situation can be worsened and not bettered. Worst of all, it assumes without any thought that using lethal force is an effective way of solving national security problems of the US caused by non-state groups in Pakistan.

The assumption that the US and the world are a safer place because of the covert lethal drone program is short sided and mistaken. While looking at the problem of terrorism, many in the US government always look at external factors when it comes to the causes of it. This is a mistake, because without considering the causal role of US policy in this matter, the structural reasons for terrorism will never be resolved. Amaney Jamal states that US policy had a central role in the un-democratic state of most Arabic countries (Jamal, 2013: 2). Her theory is interesting because of the important role anti-American sentiment plays in it. A lot of extremist and terrorist organizations use the hate they have for the US as a central selling point. The way civilians look at the US is very im-portant for the popularity of terrorist organizations (Jamal, 2013: 13). In many cases the hate to-wards the US is a result of US hypocrisy. People for instance hear speeches from US presidents about hope and democracy and listen to them making promises to help citizens guarantee their human rights. But what they really get is the US supporting their dictators. These are relatively vague rea-sons to hate the US as a whole. Even so, anti-American sentiment has grown fast in the Middle East ever since the Arab Spring started (Jamal, 2013: 30).

The reasons people have to hate the US in Pakistan on the other hand are far more concrete. Or as Noor Behram puts it: ‘When people are out there picking up body parts after a drone strike, it

would be very easy to convince those people to fight against America’ (Living Under Drones, 2012:

133). US drone strikes are extremely unpopular in Pakistan, and this worsens with every civilian death. The dangers that come with putting an entire country against you have not been unnoticed in the US government. More than two dozen US congressmen expressed their concerns in a letter to Obama two years ago. In this letter they make the essential point that frequently drone strikes are the only direct contact that the targeted communities have with the US (Living Under Drones, 2012: 134). With every strike there is a new reason for revenge and with every civilian death there is a new

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16 reason to believe that the US only has bad intentions. With the direct consequence that people go looking for a way to fight back. By continuing the drone program as it is, the fact that drones have replaced Guantánamo Bay as the number one recruiting tool for Al Quada, is completely being ig-nored (Boyle, 2013: 13). Not only is the covert lethal drone program not efficient, it is counter effec-tive and potentially creates more terrorist activity than that it exterminates.

Here we again see the crucial role of the CIA. Because this organization is in complete control of the covert lethal drone program, the concerns people in government have do not have any influ-ence on the output. Not only is the CIA a highly bureaucratized organization, it also has nearly no congressional oversight (Adams and Barrie, 2013: 251). The organization does kill in the name of the US and thus her citizens but has no democratic legitimacy. There is no channel present for a citizen or even someone in government to challenge the programs of the CIA. If the frequent use of lethal force is the right and or efficient thing to do is a choice that should be made in an at least partly democrat-ic manner. Even if it was the most effdemocrat-icient way, the CIA is in no way the right organization to make this choice.

Even if we assume that the covert lethal drone program executed in Pakistan is both effective and efficient we can still find reasons why it is not morally permissible. For this argument we will assume that the most positive data presented is accurate. This data tells us that only known enemies of the United States and terrorist are being killed by drones. They state that not more than nine civil-ians died since the beginning of the program in 2004. For the sake of the argument we will assume this is true and see why it still cannot be the case that the program is morally permissible.

There are a lot of situations where we might not think the most efficient or effective way to solve a problem is also the most desirable or even morally right. Imagine a prison filled with only criminals. These criminals are all rightly convicted of certain crimes. The town where the prison is in is having financial problems and must make budget cuts to keep itself from bankruptcy. If the town does apply for bankruptcy the town will no longer be able to provide secondary needs to its people. Schools will close just like the post offices and garbage services. The prison cost a lot of money, be-cause all the prisoners need clothes, food etc. Even when they get released there is no way of know-ing if they will commit another crime. All the people that are livknow-ing in the town cannot commit crimes and would never end up in the prison. It would be very efficient to blow up the prison and kill every-body in it. This way everyevery-body can be certain that none of these criminals will ever commit a crime again. It is low in cost and the money that would have been spend on the prison can be spend to the good of people who aren’t criminals.

But still most of us won’t think that blowing up the prison is a permissible option to help the town out and take care of the people. We feel that a human life is special and shouldn’t be sacrificed just because it is an efficient way to solve a problem. The problems the town has would without a

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17 doubt be solved, and still we would let the prisoners live because they are of no direct threat to us. Their death could save the town, but they are not more responsible for the town’s problems than any other institution in the town. Just because they happen to be criminals doesn’t mean they de-serve to die. And in no case is efficiency a morally permissible reason to kill.

5. The future of drones

Drone technology is improving fast. This means that lethal drones are becoming more precise, but is also means that they are becoming more deadly (Sauer and Schörnig, 2012: 373). While the United States has a head start when it comes to drone development, other countries are not far behind. Partly because the US sells drones to friends and partly because countries like China and Russia know they have to develop lethal drones if they want to stay in the game (Boyle, 2013: 22). Above all drones are a means that can be used to serve a lot of different ends. A world where every regime has a certain access to lethal drones, democracy or autocracy, is not unimaginable. If we continue to look the other way when it comes the ways drones are and can be abused, this world will be a far more dangerous one than we live in at the moment. In a world where everybody has drones, not only kill-ing becomes easier. Surveillance of democracies and authoritarian regimes alike becomes simpler and they will have the ability to become more intrusive with the possibility to still be covert (Boyle, 2013: 26). This is why drones not only behold a potential military danger. They can also be a threat to civil liberties like privacy.

The improvement of drone technology shouldn’t be underrated when discussing the role of lethal drones in our future. The distance of which you can operate a drone is growing fast. This is important because the drones that are operated from relatively close by usually give you an image of the target and the operator can see if the target has been hit and even the blood splatter. The drones that are operated from hundreds miles away are known for looking like old videogames, were hu-mans are only vaguely visible. Drone operators stated that the killing of a person looked like squash-ing a bug (Brown, 2013). Anyone can imagine how that would affect the heaviness of the situation of killing a person. Research from 2010 already showed partly developed drones that can function on the ground instead of soldiers or to assist medics (Mies, 2010: 133). With the improvement of drone technology the distance between a war, civilians and their democracy will only expand. The main point here is that everyone should be aware of the technological potential of lethal drones and what the dangers would be if everyone has access to them. Because while this is the worst case scenario, the way we are handling lethal drones at the moment also makes this a plausible scenario.

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18 This thesis does not state it is impossible to use lethal drones as a weapon in a morally per-missible way. Its states that the way they are used at the moment is morally imperper-missible. We need to find a new way to organize lethal drone programs, because the drone technology is here to stay and improve. Drones are likely going to be used as weapons, just because the possibility exists. The bureaucratic system in which lethal drones are organized at the moment makes it very hard to keep morality in mind. The US is with its methods setting an example for the world, which is undesirable. The use of lethal drones is made too easy and uncontrolled, whereby the temptation for secret vio-lence or disproportionate viovio-lence is very high. Many thinkers believe that the easier it is to kill, the more likely we are to resort to it (Orend, 2013: 136). That is exactly why any drone program should be a public and transparent one, controlled by democracy, not intelligence agencies.

6. Conclusion

This thesis showed that the covert lethal drone program of the CIA in Pakistan in not morally permis-sible. In the third section the organization behind the program was examined. The program is orga-nized in a highly bureaucratized manner. Bauman’s theory showed that bureaucracy is inherent effi-cient and rational, and for that reason can be trusted to see every tasks it is given to its end. When bureaucracy crosses paths with a vision that requires certain crimes to be accomplished, it will com-mit those crimes, going as far as genocide. These crimes can be comcom-mitted because in bureaucracy no one takes responsibility for the full human act. Hierarchy is central to bureaucracy and people are often very obedient to authority. When they take part in an evil act, they will lay the responsibility with the authority that ordered this act. This, combined with the fragmentation of tasks, results in the evaporation of the person who assumes full responsibility for these tasks.

The CIA got the task to eliminate the dangers that exist in Pakistan for the United States. In a bureaucratic system, like the CIA, not one person feels fully responsible for the entire mission. And even if they have any moral objections, disobedience comes at a high price. Because of this system the attacks have gotten more frequently and the targets more random. In the beginning of the pro-gram only personality strikes were used. In 2008 the goals were redefined by the Obama administra-tion and signature strikes were added. Targets are no longer necessarily identified, but are selected based on behavior. Here we clearly see that within bureaucracy morality is not considered if the task it is given is immoral. It is not that every operator working for the CIA necessary feels the covert le-thal drone program is morally permissible, it is that they mostly choose to be obedient to authority and “do their duty”.

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19 In the fourth section I refuted arguments of proponents of the covert lethal drone program in Pakistan. First I argued that all signature strikes cannot be considered self-defense. Some personality strikes could be considered self-defense, but only if they meet all the conditions of a pre-emptive strike as described by Walzer. It is not likely most personality strikes meet these conditions. Further I refuted the claim that the program is efficient. Empirical evidence showed that there are a lot of civilian casualties. The double-tap strategy and the bombing of funerals both prove that not only terrorists are targets. Because the US considers all men of military age to be militant, efficiency is more easily advocated. If a man dies and he hasn’t proven his innocents he is counted as another terrorist defeated. This goes against both international and domestic US law. We can conclude that the US government is actively trying to make the program seem more efficient than is actually is.

In this section I also stated that the program works counter effective. Anti-American senti-ments grow because of covert lethal drone programs. The drone strikes are often the only contact people in targeted areas in Pakistan have with the US. These strikes are actively being used as a re-cruiting mechanism by terrorist organizations. It is very important that the US government recognizes the causal role its policy plays in creating terrorism. But even if the covert lethal drone program was efficient and effective it will still not be morally permissible. Efficiency is never a morally permissible reason to kill. There is something special about a human live that we want to honor above efficient solutions to problems, even safety issues. Further it is important that there is democratic oversight over the lethal drone programs, which is not the case at the moment. The CIA is killing in the name of the US and its citizens. These citizens have no possible influence on the program, but will be affected by its consequences. For this reason, if the lethal drone program should even exist in the first place, it should not be managed by the CIA.

In section five I discussed the undesirable example the United States is setting for the rest of the world. The US has a head start in drone technology but other countries are not far behind. To create a world were drones don’t form a danger to civilian’s safety and civil liberties, it is necessary to think of rules and conditions for using drones. Drones, especially lethal drones, are a means that can be used to achieve a lot of different ends. As weapons, drones make it easier to kill. And the eas-ier it is to kill, the more likely we are to resort to it. That is why any drone program should be a public and transparent one, controlled by democracy, not intelligence agencies. This is a topic were more research is needed. This thesis only explains the system in the US and does not give precise recom-mendations of the correct way to organize drones on a national and international level. Academic recommendations should exist about lethal drones for countries to form their domestic and foreign policy. Researching the lethal drone programs in other countries, like China and Russia, can be a good step forward in this field.

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21 Walzer, Michael (2006) Just and unjust wars. A moral argument with historical illustrations, Fourth Edition, New York: Basic Books.

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