The lack of transparency surrounding the US use of drones has come under the spotlight over the past few weeks during the hearings to confirm John Brennan as head of the CIA. US politicians, journalists and campaigners have rightly criticised the secrecy that surrounds the US use of drones and called for greater openness from the Obama administration and more engagement with the public on the issue. Read more
Year: 2013
If you think like Paddy Ashdown on drones, then think again
Paddy Ashdown – or Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon – to give him his proper title, former Royal Marine, intelligence service officer and leader of the Liberal Democrats has an opinion piece in the Times entitled ‘If you’re opposed to drones, then think again’ (paywall).
Ashdown rehashes what are probably the top three pro-drone arguments. Firstly that drones are not indiscriminate like cluster munitions so can’t be objected to because they deliver ‘smart’ bombs; if we don’t use drones our citizens and soldiers will be killed; and finally there is nothing new about remote warfare, indeed he suggest “it goes back to the Roman trebuchet.” Read more
HRW: Israeli drone strikes killed Palestinian civilians and violated laws of war
Yesterday Human Rights Watch (HRW) released important information detailing 18 separate airstrikes by drones and other aircraft during ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’ in November 2012 which appeared to violate the laws of war. At least 43 civilians including 12 children were killed in the airstrikes.
The report provides rare detail into the impact of the use of Israeli drones but shockingly has so far received almost no Read more
Drones Over Africa: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
This week the New York Times reported that the US is planning to establish a new base for its drones in north-west Africa. While the base is to be used initially to fly unarmed surveillance drones, according to the article the US does not rule out the possibility of using the base to launch drone strikes in the future. One day after the NYT piece, Reuters reported the base would be established in Niger. According to “a senior government source” says Reuters, “the U.S. ambassador to Niger, Bisa Williams, made the request at a meeting on Monday with President Mahamadou Issoufou, who immediately accepted it.” Read more
Will UN Drone Inquiry get to the heart of the matter?
The UN inquiry into the use of armed drones for targeted killing, announced yesterday by London-based UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, is very much to be welcomed.
Undertaken at the direct request of several states, the inquiry is also in response to what Mr Emmerson called “the increasing international concern surrounding the issue of remote targeted killing through the use of UAVs.” Read more
Website Makeover
To celebrate our 200th post we have given the Drone Wars UK website a bit of a brush-up. Most obviously we have changed the appearance of the site, but there have also been some less obvious changes. Now all posts relating to a particular category can be seen on one page (for example see page about ‘British Reaper drones’ here). Our key categories are in the left hand column on the front page with the most recent post underneath each entry.
We have also added to the site a library of key documents and important articles. We hope this will be a key resource for researchers and campaigners and that the library will grow over the coming months and years. If you think we have missed a key document please do let us know Read more