Killer Drones

There was a time when only Israel used targeted killing as a means by which they could rid themselves of the constant threats of terrorist leaders who had committed barbaric acts of butchery against Israeli citizens, and continued to plan for more. It seemed then, that the international community held that kind of activity, self-defensive, of a small, young country against the incorrigible determination of covert-action enemies both in awe and in condemnation. 

But it did work to Israel's advantage. Mostly in establishing a no-nonsense reputation for hard responses to hard attacks. Embellishing the already-established legend of a small country capable of defending itself handily against the collective ambush-and-attack of its far more populous neighbours eager to hasten its departure from the Middle East. To a limited degree, that is.

Somehow, though terrorist leaders who enjoyed great heroic acclaim and popularity among the wider Arab population throughout the Middle East, were dispatched in this manner to the rage of those who supported the action of the terrorists, their absence from active duty led to a temporary lull in bloody revenge. There were always others, equally skilled in mounting their hatred for Jews into bloody action, to take their place.

And so it has proven to be the reality now that terrorism has moved confidently onto the wider stage of world activities. But now terror haunts those who hate Jews, as well. It comes in the guise of militias representing vicious sectarian hostility against those Muslims whose particular form of Islamic devotion is held by others to be heretical in nature.

In Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran and Bahrain, for example, Sunni squads or terror groups hunt down Shia pilgrims. And Shia squads or terror groups are happy to reciprocate. Evidently hatred of the apostates and the heretics is more sacred than faith in Islam, for mosques, those holy temples dedicated to Allah, as the Prophet Mohammed directed, are also targets for destruction if they host the wrong sect.

Much as Christian churches and Judaic Synagogues are held to be fair game for destruction, from the Middle East to Europe, for they host the unspeakable Crusaders, infidels and much worse; Zionists. Islam in general does not seem to generate self-inspection of its values and mores, related to these seemingly unstoppable internal ravages. Introspection of that kind seems to be a Western philosophy.

Despite which, two members of the UN Security Council, held to be China and Russia, have taken umbrage at the use of Predator drones by the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan, targeting high-value Islamists like Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. As a result British lawyer Ben Emmerson, UN rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights has been charged to investigate the use of killing drones.

"The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law", announced Mr. Emmerson, in speaking of his probe. Countries using drones have "an international law obligation to establish effective independent and impartial investigations into any drone attack in which it is plausibly alleged that civilian casualties were sustained".

Fair enough, but the U.S. is fairly assiduous in doing follow-up in such instances, and if able to corroborate that civilians were deleteriously impacted in the dispatch of terrorist leaders, proffer sincere regrets. There is the simple enough fact that terror groups have established a protocol, where they deliberately mingle with and disappear into civilian enclaves to avoid detection or to deter attempts at responding to their violent barrages.

This has been seen and verified time and again, in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Gaza with Hamas, in Afghanistan with the Taliban, and similarly in Pakistan. The response has been, under the firm direction of the 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, Barack Hussein Obama, to increase the number of drone attacks in Pakistan quite considerably from their initial introduction under a war-mongering Bush administration.