In Case You Were Feeling at All Patriotic…

I posted a link to an argument that almost definitely was part of Brennan’s motivation for posting the event. You might want to ask yourself why that makes you so indignant.

I didn’t make an argument. I posted a link to an article that was popular among the left and left-libertarian community about an alleged problem with how casualties are counted.

You asked, “what’s the problem?”

I posted a potential problem. Not sure why you want to get into a verbal fight about it.

@ec19d11c043a4750d56163625a65ddf2:disqus

Re your first question, let me ask one in return: If there is no reason to trust the initial empirical story, how is there a way to infer from that story that the action reported in it is obviously wrong? Re your second question: If we do not know who was killed in the strike, how do we infer that the wrong people were killed, and thus, that the action was wrong? This is just to return, by a different route, to the questions I’ve been asking all along.

I’m afraid I don’t know what your third or fourth questions are asking. I would simply say: factual indeterminacy in a news story is not a basis for a strident moral verdict on what is reported in the story. I am not the one who has offered any moral verdict on the events reported there. Brennan is. I have simply asked–repeatedly, and without getting an answer of any kind–for the evidence or set of inferences that led him to the conclusion that what happened at Buland Khel on Thursday night was wrong. I repeat that question for those too “obtuse” to grasp its point. If we do not know what happened at Buland Khel that night, we cannot know that what happened there was wrong. So if anyone wants to insist that it was wrong–indeed, that we should all feel ashamed of our country for it– they might begin by recounting what happened, and how they know what happened. If the Dawn story isn’t good enough for that purpose (and I’m not the one who cited it, am I?), feel free to supplement it. But by all means, get the facts straight and then explain why the strike was wrong. That’s all I ask, and all I’ve been asking.

As for your other questions, I don’t dispute that they are worth asking. What I would dispute is that they answer the question I asked, and having gotten here first, I think I’m entitled to have my question answered before we head off in other interrogative directions. No one doubts that there is uncertainty involved in drone targeting. But to ascribe wrongness to the Buland Khel strike, we would have to know the degree of uncertainty in the minds of the targeters who selected the target and the commanders who ordered the strike. That is NOT the same as OUR degree of uncertainty. It’s not even the same as the degree of uncertainty of Dawn’s correspondent, or that of the surrounding villagers, or anyone else on the ground. One of the remarkable things about drones is that they give you access to information on the ground that isn’t available to anyone on the ground–except, perhaps, the target (and sometimes not even the target).

Does Brennan have access to the information on which the targeters relied to initiate the strike on Buland Khel? If not, how does he know that they were uncertain about whom or what they were targeting or seeing? Does he know who was at the Buland Khel complex? If not, how does he know that the people in it were the wrong people to target for a strike? Does he believe that a TTP commander should somehow be regarded as hors de combat, or off limits as a legitimate target of a military strike? Then I’d like to hear him say so, and explain why. Does he think that TTP commanders should be served arrest warrants rather than targeted for assassination? Then I’d like to hear him explain how he thinks an arrest warrant would be served at Buland Khel, and by whom (and frankly, what court would have jurisdiction over such a proceeding, which is an amusing topic of its own). Or does he think that the peace-loving TTP should just be left alone to frolic in the FATA at its own pleasure? That’d be an argument worth hearing, too. But so far, I haven’t seen an argument here that even attempts to deal with the specificity of the case. The case has been trotted before us as though it taught us something of great moral gravity, but merely as window dressing for a set of postures and attitudes. No one seems to want to discuss the case itself.

As for “actual conditions of droning,” Fallon, you don’t seem to have noticed that the ONLY person here who’s asked a question about “the actual conditions under which droning takes place”–in the literal sense of “actual”–is yours truly. I’ve asked the same question over and over about “the actual conditions” of ONE actual drone strike and so far gotten NO actual response. Perhaps you should address your “actual conditions” lecture to those here who think that moral verdicts can be offered on drone strikes prior to any knowledge of the conditions under which they take place. I’m not one of them.

@ec19d11c043a4750d56163625a65ddf2:disqus

I haven’t made an argument; I’ve asked a question, several times, in a variety of forms. You haven’t answered it, and neither has anyone else here. My question is not about the CIA’s statistics. It’s about what happened last Thursday at Buland Khel. As for “peeling the onion deeper back in time,” and the need to make my arguments “relative in the moral sense” by my proving the “validity” of my “assumption” of “our military, country, what-have-you”: that isn’t intelligible enough to merit–or even be susceptible of–a response. If you don’t want to answer my question, or can’t, I’m content to leave the matter there.

The TTP is in a declared state of war with the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the people of FATA. Any avowed TTP commander is a legitimate target for assassination by any of those parties. Maulana Shakirullah was (or is) an avowed TTP commander. So it’s fair to kill him and all of his associates, until he and they surrender.

The presumption of innocence is a judicial concept that applies where a government has the capacity to apply it. No government has the capacity to apply it in FATA, and none ever has. For one thing, FATA has never even been under the full federal jurisdiction of the Pakistani government even in peacetime (despite what the acronym stands for). But beyond that, right now FATA is a war zone. No non-TTP police department can operate there in any relevantly effective way, or serve warrants on TTP “suspects,” or hold probable cause hearings or hold trials–much less convict or imprison anyone. (I don’t mean that no such actions take place, but that none take place in a way that’s relevantly effective at neutralizing the TTP threat.) Not even the Pakistani Army has managed to assume control of the place. And yet the TTP has to be dealt with somehow. Since inaction is not an option, diplomacy has repeatedly failed, and police action is unfeasible, the only alternative left is military action, and in that context, it’s sufficient to know that if someone is a high ranking TTP leader, you can kill him. No TTP leader enjoys a presumption of innocence in a war zone. No such leader is innocent. Being a TTP leader is, by itself, a confession of guilt.

If you think you can devise a way of dealing with the TTP that conforms exclusively to the procedural norms of ordinary criminal justice for dealing with ordinary murderers, robbers, rapists etc., feel free to describe it. But if you claim is that no method of dealing with it is legitimate unless it meets those (ridiculous) strictures, you’re really saying that NATO, the US, Pakistan, and Afghanistan should all surrender to the TTP–which is another way of saying that they should all lay down and die. But it’s possible that dropping dead at your whims is not the future they see for themselves, and not the future anyone should be wishing on them.

@ec19d11c043a4750d56163625a65ddf2:disqus
I didn’t say that “all bets are off,” and nothing I said implies it. That’s a moronic and dishonest misinterpretation, but one of the sort I’ve come to expect here. I merely note for the nth time that you have done absolutely nothing to explain what was wrong with the drone strike of last Thursday. And neither has anyone else.
Has it occurred to me that the TTP might have communicated some legitimate beefs? I guess it did occur to me at some point. But it also occurred to me at some other point that none of those beefs have the slightest legitimacy. Among the reasons I discovered this relatively obvious fact: the fact that I have family, friends and colleagues in Pakistan who hate and fear the TTP, and are at risk of death by them, despite being highly critical of the US and despite having done nothing to merit death by the TTP; the fact that one family friend was kidnapped twice by them despite having done nothing to merit such treatment; that fact that a gigantic scholarly and journalistic literature exists on the subject of the TTP, a good bit of which I’ve read, and the preponderance of which suggests that the TTP’s “beefs” are an amalgam of insane theocratic fantasies and psychopathic rage; the fact that I’ve followed from afar the long train of indiscriminate mass murder, kidnapping, and persecution that the the TTP and its alies have perpetrated wherever they’ve done, as well as the commentary on it, in Urdu and in English; the fact that I have a certain facility with Urdu and Punjabi, have been to Pakistan recently, and have talked to people there, who confirmed my views on the subject; and finally, I suppose, the fact that I am not a complete, all-out fucking fool who thinks that anyone who blows up Americans must have a “legitimate beef” on offer. Reasons like that will tend to cast doubt on the suggestion that the TTP has any “legitimate beefs.” There are others.
I didn’t say that NATO, the US, Pakistan, or Afghanistan have a right to exist without question. What I said is that they have the right to attack the TTP, which, without question, has NO right to exist. For the record, I do not even believe that the US should be in Afghanistan. But assuming its presence there, its forces have every right to subdue and destroy the TTP, ideally by drones. The Pakistanis, the Afghans, NATO, and the FATA lashkars have the same right. Too bad they don’t have drones.
I see that you haven’t addressed a single substantive claim that I’ve made in any post I’ve written here. So it’s time for me to stop wasting my time on you. My only parting thought is that you really ought to go and look up some of the recent interviews with Malala Yousafzai so as to to acquire at least the rudiments of an understanding of the subject under discussion. You could learn a lot from her about many things, including the nature of the TTP. Luckily, lots of her You Tube videos are in English, so no worries about any language barrier. In fact, she has remarkable mastery of English for a 14 year old ESL speaker–a better mastery, I’m inclined to say, than the people with whom I’ve wasted the last few days having the present “conversation.”

Irfan:
I think you are relatively new around here, so let me refer you to one of Jason’s previous posts on drone strikes: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/05/life-of-helai-parody-of-life-of-julia/. As I understand it, Jason’s view is that drone strikes are categorically wrong because, well, he’s smarter than everyone else and he says so. This, despite the fact that the TTP and their ilk are the lowest form of scum now alive on this planet.

@shemsky:disqus
I think your question is really one that ought to be directed at Hakimullah Masud, not me. He’s the responsible party for the declaration nowadays, so I guess he’d know why he declared it. Feel free to ask him your question–once you figure out who he is. I don’t know how good his English is, however, so you might want to brush up on your Urdu before you ask. I also don’t know if he answers his email regularly. So you might need to make an appointment with him for an in-person chat. When you come back, tell us why he’s fighting that war of his, and we can continue the conversation then, circumstances permitting.
I didn’t say that the TTP is merely in a declared state of war with the US. It’s in one against the US, NATO, the government and people of Afghanistan (who don’t support the Taliban), and the government and people of Pakistan (who don’t support the Taliban), whether in FATA or outside of it. That fact–which you’ve managed to misinterpret across the space of about five inches–suggests that it might be profitable to ask your question of Malala Yousafzai, as well. She’s very insightful on why the TTP does what it does. But give her a chance to recuperate first. She hasn’t been feeling well lately.
Bon voyage!

The government’s own reports in general state that drone attacks result in high amounts of collateral damage. Some say 50% unintended casualties. In addition, the CIA admits doubt over the validity of their own stats.
Your stance that the victims are guilty before I prove them innocent and that the CIA is innocent before I prove them guilty is blatant statism.

@shemsky:disqus

The item says that the drones killed “suspected militants,” correct. Whose phrase is that? The newspaper’s? The unnamed officials’? Or the people who did the targeting? The fact that a newspaper says that “suspected militants” died in a drone strike could mean any one of several things: (1) that the correspondent doesn’t know their identity and wants to hedge, (2) that the correspondent heard this phrase from a Pakistani official and feels the need to repeat it, (3) that the use of this phrase is the standard practice of the newspaper, even in cases where all the evidence is in, and it is certain that the suspect is guilty. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The use of the phrase does NOT mean that the people who targeted the drone and fired the missiles had inadequate evidence regarding the identity of the target. If you think, or Jason Brennan thinks, that they acted on insufficient evidence, I’d like to hear how you know that. I’d particularly like to hear an articulation of the relevant standard of evidential sufficiency. (Or else an argument that the use of drones is itself immoral. Or something beyond handwaving gestures at arguments that no one seems able to articulate.) But the newspaper item doesn’t say anything about the targeters’ state of knowledge, and there is no clear inference from what it says to the wrongness of the drone strike.

As for your question, “does it strike you as wrong?”, my first response is that the burden of proof is not mine to answer that question. The burden of proof re “why is it wrong?” lies with the person who made the original assertion that it *was* wrong. That person would be Jason Brennan, and everyone here who’s defended his post. He thinks (and they seem to think) that the targeters of the drone strike did something wrong. I am asking: what is it that they did that was wrong? If the answer is, “They failed to confirm the identity of the drone targets,” my response is: how could any reader of that newspaper item know what the targeters failed to do? The item doesn’t say anything about the targeters’ knowledge or intentions at all. Somehow people here have managed to infer that because Dawn’s correspondent doesn’t know the identity of the targets–and doesn’t know what information the targeters had–it follows that the targeters didn’t know the identity of the targets and acted on insufficient evidence. Well, that’s a non-sequitur. But I’m charitably supplying (bad) inferences here, because so far no one has even managed to make explicit what they’re really trying to say.

As for my own answer to your question: I think declared membership in a leadership position in TTP is a sufficient condition for being a candidate either for capture or death, whether by the Americans, the Pakistanis, the Afghans, NATO, or local militias. (Or a Good Samaritan, come to that.) But since the attempt to capture a TTP commander in a TTP safehouse in Orakzai Agency by ground assault involves enormous risks (and in some cases is virtually impossible), targeted assassination by drone is much the better option. Collateral damage should be avoided, but if it arises, blame for it should be chalked up to the TTP, which regularly uses the innocent non-combatants of FATA as human shields. Of course, not everyone in FATA is either a TTP commander or an innocent non-combatant. The less innocent they are, the fewer tears need be shed over them. But X’s TTP membership in a leadership position is all you need to know about X to target X, and fire away. If the TTP doesn’t want to be shot at, they should lay down their weapons and surrender. Until then, they should expect to get shot to pieces. And we should rejoice when they are.