President Obama's use of drone technology in the middle east is drawing a lot of criticism. A British lawyer, Ben Emmerson, has been investigating the US use of drone technology to report to the UN. He recently gave and interim report to the UN's Human Right's Council saying that national security doesn't justify withholding middle-eastern civilian casualty reports. He ultimately states that use of drones themselves is not illicit, but the withholding of reports is.
On this case, I am pretty ambivalent. I think that drones are a pragmatic, efficient method of counter-terrorism. I do however, admit that since US intelligence is sometimes ambiguous, it does not necessarily lend itself to exactness. I do think that there is a lot of paranoia associated with the word "drone" and I think that since the military is a volunteer organization that it doesn't lend itself to quite as much corruption as people tend to think it does.
On releasing civilian casualties, I think that if it were only the UN the US were accountable to that the US could justify withholding the reports; however, the US is not only accountable to the UN, it is accountable to its people. I think that there ought to be a little more transparency (and I realize that some of the reports relate to ongoing counter terrorism and therefore must remain secret) toward the people. I won't go into the manifestations of this transparency, because, frankly, I don't know what would be a pragmatic way to do so. Perhaps I am just being ideological and that realistically the US is just as transparent as it can safely get.
I appreciate any questions or comments.
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