Drone Warfare, Pakistan - Effects, Civilians
the recent past, the US has increasingly replaced manned aircrafts with drones in the ‘Fight against terror'. The drones are preferred to manned aircrafts because they reduce the risk in soldiers' lives, they are much more accurate than people are and they have the ability to access otherwise inaccessible areas. Therefore, on the surface, drone deployment seems like the perfect solution to terrorism because terrorist networks are disrupted and the fear factor discourages further activity. However, this paper will show that deployment of unmanned aircrafts to neutralize terrorism threat in Pakistan and other countries is illegal, unethical, devastating to the locals and counterproductive.
Drone deployment leads to reduced faith in the government by Pakistan citizens and violates international regulations. One of the primary roles of a government is to protect her citizens from domestic and external threats. In addition, all governments have the responsibility of upholding the rule of law. Therefore, it is the duty of a government to ensure the human rights of all citizens are respected (Ahmad, 2013). Drone warfare violates this basic role of the government. For example, the targeted terrorists are simply executed without trial. While there is no doubt some extremists deserve their faith, this form of execution is simply unacceptable, both legally and morally.
For example, the Caroline laws allow a country to pursue her enemies in foreign territory if the enemy poses and immediate threat and there is no time for deliberation or selection of another mode of action (Davies, 2009). Therefore, in the event of an active attack, the American government is within its legal limits if it pursues a threat to where it is located. However, the detailed planning of the drone attacks and the lack of involvement of local authorities violates the Caroline laws (Davies, 2009). Therefore, drone attacks in Pakistan and other countries affect the local civilians and even the targets because they violate their legal rights.
[...] However, in the civilian population, drone ability has been magnified to such big proportions that it inspires fear (Mustafa, 2014). People never know when a drone will strike and therefore, they live in a constant state of fear. The fear results in psychological trauma for many Pakistanis. For example, terrorist's strongholds are attacked consistently and several times in a year (Ahmad, 2013). Drone attacks, as shown in this paper, often result in civilian casualties. In addition, the American government fails to recognize the cases of mistaken identities and downplays civilian casualty. [...]
[...] Its likelihood serves to highlight the violation of basic human rights in Pakistan when drones are deployed. The same would not be acceptable in the US. It is easy to make a mistake. For example, in military attacks, there are many civilian casualties as a result the human susceptibility to making mistakes. Therefore, advocates of the drone program in the US point to their accuracy and diligent compared to people and therefore propose they are a humane and moral choice because their deployment results in a reduction in cases of mistaken identity as well as reduction in the suffering of the victims before death (Delmont, 2013). [...]
[...] In addition, their role in increasing human suffering, both physically and emotionally, make them unacceptable. References Boyle, O. H. (2013). Costs and penalty of drone combat. worldwide Affairs, -29. [...]
[...] Therefore, drone attacks result in increased insecurity and many casualties in an indirect manner. For example, the Taliban militia in Pakistan is gaining momentum and is trying toppling the government of Pakistan (Serle, 2014). There is also the effect of drone warfare on the perception of citizens of their country's sovereignty (Boyle, 2013). Many people in the countries where drone attacks are carried out do not even know what a drone is. People who know what drones are have a negative attitude towards these war machines. [...]
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