Philip Hammond ignores the truth about drone atrocities | Clive Stafford Smith
Drones are killing civilians in Pakistan and Yemen, while Britain refuses to admit its co-operation with illegal US attacks
The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, would apparently like us to focus on the kinder face of the “Remotely Piloted Air System”, known as the RPA, in his article In defence of drones.
Hammond takes issue with “the picture of devastation so often painted by [drone] activists”. But critics are not nearly as effective as the manufacturers themselves when it comes to making drones sound evil. General Atomics decided on the name Predator drone. And the Reaper surely attracts the image of the Grim Reaper, harvesting the souls of those damned with its Hellfire missiles.
Hammond focuses almost solely on Afghanistan, where at least there has been a war for the past decade. He writes: “This capability saves the lives of our personnel, our Afghan allies and Afghan civilians on a daily basis.” Yet he completely ignores the most contentious use of Hellfire missiles, terrorising swaths of Pakistan and Yemen, where no war has even been declared. Indeed, Hammond’s snapshot of what he calls the “precision” RPA is presented in the same week as the latest drone atrocity, with at least 15 Yemeni people slaughtered in what turned out to be a convoy of wedding guests, not al-Qaida terrorists.
Hammond says it’s wrong to suggest that “the government’s use of unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft is shrouded in secrecy”. Yet his government (with several taxpayer-funded QCs) is fighting tooth and nail to keep secret Britain’s policy for co-operating with illegal US drone attacks. And neither the US nor the UK will say how many civilians they think they are killing, although we at Reprieve represent more than 150 civilian victims and families of those killed in drone strikes.
Hammond tells us that “the most basic falsehood” of all is the notion of automation. They are piloted, he says – albeit by a pilot drinking coffee thousands of miles from the target. Yet it is the ambition of the UK military – along with the Americans and everyone else – to develop genuinely autonomous drones. As Professor John Jackson of the US Naval War College said in testimony before the US Congress in 2010, “autonomous systems could soon be developed that are capable of making life and death decisions without direct human intervention.” They feed in your photograph, programme it to kill you, and send it on its way.
Hammond says he wishes to “put the myths to bed”. I hope for a more sensible debate in the new year.
