It is time to set aside the notion that U.S. drone missile attacks in Pakistan are some kind of secret. The pretense of secrecy has saved Obama Administration officials from having to publicly defend the military tactic.

But when Pakistani college students, think tank scholars, and New York Times reporters are all talking about this issue, U.S. officials should stop pretending that there is anything classified about it.

Indeed, once one takes a closer look at the discussion around U.S. drone missile attacks, it becomes clear that the claim of government secrecy is simply a way of avoiding debate. This needs to change, because there is a strong case to be made that drone missile attacks are both immoral and deeply counter-productive. Freedom Forward, the organization I helped found, has been encouraging people to make this point directly to the Obama Administration.

The latest example of this dynamic occurred during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan last week. As reported by Declan Walsh in The Guardian (UK), Secretary Clinton declined to respond to questions about drone missile strikes. She simply stated, “I can’t answer that question. It’s a military to military matter.”

But this “military to military matter” apparently is so secret that it includes writers for Esquire. The magazine has run two detailed articles on the topic that could not have been done without the support of U.S. military officials, government voices, and military contractors. Much of the content focuses on the unclassified drone operations in Afghanistan, but in many ways, this is a distinction without a difference. The articles discuss new drone technologies and profile Americans who carry out the remote attacks for a living.

When it helps to avoid uncomfortable questions, U.S. drone missile attacks are classified. But when information can be controlled and directed, there is always an official willing to talk off the record. This pretend secrecy needs to be challenged, and for good reason. Not only have drone missile attacks resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Pakistani civilians, but they have also increased anger at the U.S. from across Pakistani society. This is not good for long-term U.S. interests in the region.

In a narrow bean-counter sense, the attacks have likely killed a number of mid-to-high level Al Qaeda and Taliban members, though many have been replaced by new leaders. The number of civilians killed ranges from the low-end estimates of several hundred up to one thousand. New America Foundation scholars conservatively stated that one-third of those killed by U.S. drone missile strikes have been Pakistani civilians — approximately 300 innocent people. Earlier this year, a counter-insurgency adviser to General David Petraeus said that 98% of those killed were civilians — closer to 1,000.

These civilian deaths need to be acknowledged at a moral level. They also need to be considered in political terms. During Secretary Clinton’s visit last week to Pakistan, one Pakistani woman told Secretary Clinton that drone missile attacks essentially amounted to “executions without trial.” Another asked if the missile attacks were themselves a form of terrorism.

The comments hint at the anger many Pakistanis feel over these attacks. They also demonstrate the damage that the U.S. is sustaining in terms of how we are perceived. The people asking these kinds of questions are frequently drawn from Pakistan’s educated and cosmopolitan elite — not exactly a step forward for U.S. diplomacy or public relations.

There are more material costs as well. The drone missile attacks have pushed militants further into more settled parts of the country. Not only that, but the attacks also undermine a potential indigenous Pakistani consensus against militancy. The continued stream of drone-inflicted civilian deaths feeds into a long-standing Pakistani self-narrative regarding the history of U.S. political intervention in Pakistani affairs. That narrative recalls that all three rounds of Pakistani dictatorship received U.S. support.

These considerations lead to even more uncomfortable questions: Given the moral and diplomatic costs, why are Obama Administration officials continuing this practice? Do U.S. drone missile attacks offer an illusion of American military success that is politically important for the current administration?

After all, if you take drone missile attacks off the table, there is little left in this war that has the appearance of military “success.” Every time a drone missile hits a claimed target, the Obama administration can show that it is willing and able to kill terrorists. Never mind that many of the terrorists get replaced by subordinates, and never mind that the U.S. government is likely to be simultaneously negotiating with other Taliban militias.

Even though U.S. drone missile attacks kill many civilians and are politically counterproductive, it may well be that the PR costs are too great for U.S. officials to give them up. The attacks offer the illusion of military victory, even if only for a soundbite second. That’s why U.S. officials need to drop the pretend secrecy and engage the growing public debate.

It’s a situation Andrew Wilder, F89, F96, knows all too well. A research director for the Feinstein International Center since early 2007, he managed humanitarian aid and development programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan for 10 years … Born and raised in Pakistan, Wilder came to the United States to attend college.

According to Wilder:

The more money we try to spend in this environment, which has very limited human resources and institutional capacity, inevitably money overflows into the pockets of corrupt officials. Our aid programs are actually fueling the corruption, which is de-legitimizing the government, which is fueling instability.

50?  500?  5000?

After emailing the State Department to oppose drone missile attacks, I received the message below.  You may have as well.  This means that senior State Department officials will eventually get a report on the total emails received.

What will the report say?

If you haven’t already done so, please click here so that senior U.S. officials know that a significant number of people want the U.S. government to stop killing Pakistani civilians:  http://freedomforward.org

In a prior email, I already mentioned how U.S. military adviser David Kilcullen said that 98% of U.S. drone missile attack victims have been innocent civilians.  From 2006 to mid-2009, 700 Pakistani civilians were killed.

It is stunning that Vice President Biden now wants to expand these attacks.   Part of the reason why is that the U.S. government isn’t receiving much criticism for doing so – from within the U.S.

You can safely assume that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the target of American email campaigns on a range of issues:  Sudan, Afghanistan, negotiations on climate change — you name it.  That’s why it is all the more important that when a senior State Department official gets their report on emails from the public, our campaign against drone
missile attacks is high on the list.

I just did a google search on “take action, darfur.”  There are a whole bunch of organizations urging people to contact the U.S. government regarding the killings in Sudan.  Then I did a google search on “take action, stop drone missile attacks.”

I was excited to find one link — and I quickly realized it was our own.  There may be other organizations  sending a similar message to the U.S. government.  I just couldn’t easily find them.

So if you haven’t already, please take a moment now to send an email opposing drone missile attacks:

http://freedomforward.org

The Pakistani families who are being hurt by U.S. drone missiles don’t have the ability to lobby U.S. policymakers.

We do.  That’s why we have to speak up:   http://freedomforward.org

Sincerely,

Sanjeev Bery, Freedom Forward

P.S.  You can read the email response from the State Department below:

“Thank you for contacting the State Department.

Subject
——————————

The [Kerry-Lugar Pakistan] aid bill is also controversial in Washington, where a US AID official has complained about the plan to funnel it through Pakistani contractors rather than through American ones. The Agency for International Development official maintained that Pakistani organizations cannot be monitored effectively by the US, raising the possibility that the money will be embezzled…

I understand the difficulty of auditing NGOs in dangerous places like the FATA tribal areas. But it seems to me that it must be possible to audit the Pakistani pass-through organizations elsewhere regularly, and that the shell game of Congress giving foreign aid to a country in a way that actually just benefits US corporations and contractors is counter-productive.

The original complaint came in the form of a “sensitive but unclassified” internal memo from US AID Development Economist C. Stuart Callison, Ph.D., criticizing the U.S. State Department’s shifts in the routing of Pakistan aid:

Directing an immediate shift away from U.S. contractors already on the ground to local implementers without an appropriate transition period will seriously compromise the more important requirements for quick counterinsurgency and economic impacts…Based on past experience in Pakistan, very few Pakistani firms and NGOs can currently satisfy the stringent financial management audit requirements for USAID project funding.

The original USA Today article offers additional context:

USAID has long relied mainly on large U.S. firms to deliver aid. Secretary Clinton and Holbrooke have said they want to reduce the reliance on those American firms because, in their view, too much of the money spent that way is lost to overhead, security and expatriate salaries.

A report in March by the aid group Oxfam said the multibillion U.S. aid effort in Afghanistan had been ineffective in part because of an overreliance on contractors. In a series of audits, USAID’s inspector general found that many contractor-run aid programs in the region have not been working as intended.

None of this news, however, is likely to generate much Pakistani sympathy for American taxpayers. What American officials refer to as “anti-American sentiment” is actually a deep resentment of U.S. government involvement in internal Pakistani politics. It is worth noting that U.S. funding for Musharraf marked the third time we have supported Pakistani dictatorship in the country’s 60 years of history.

It is precisely this past that has come to haunt both Pakistanis and Americans today. The intersection of dictatorship and dollars has resulted in a Pakistani military that does not answer to the country’s civilian leadership. Every time American taxpayers financed an alliance with a Pakistani military dictator, we also forced Pakistani reformers to take a backseat.

If the U.S. wants to see a truly prosperous and democratic Pakistan, we must avoid taking steps that make life harder for Pakistani civil society. Towards this end, I joined with a group of independent scholars, activists, and human rights advocates to author The Call for a New U.S. Policy Towards Pakistan. This statement included the participation of Freedom Forward, a new effort that I am proud to be involved with.

From The Call:

For too long, Pakistani citizens have struggled under corrupt and undemocratic leaders who undermined the rule of law. Of these leaders, the most damaging have been the military dictators who ruled Pakistan for more than half its existence. Each of these dictators undermined Pakistani democracy while receiving U.S. aid for supporting U.S. foreign policy.

These dictators prioritized military budgets and personal wealth over the development of society. They encouraged and leveraged militant groups for their regional rivalries…Pakistan faces many problems as a result, including underdevelopment, terrorist attacks, and an insurgency in the tribal areas.

As is frequently the case, this history gets swept under the rug in our own political discourse. Consider the recent New York Times article that explores Pakistani anger at the US. Reporter Jane Perlez references “an already volatile anti-American mood” and “fierce opposition” among Pakistani elites.

What the article doesn’t offer is historical context. Thus, Perlez writes that a recently approved US aid package to Pakistan includes language to “ensure that the [Pakistani] military does not interfere with civilian politics.”

What she fails to explore is how this might look, given that just two years earlier, the U.S. was supporting a Pakistani military dictator. Though the Obama Administration cannot be held responsible for the Bush Administration’s decisions, contradictions like the above can cast U.S. intentions in a cynical light.

Through the combination of Pakistani politics and the steroids of U.S. military aid, the Pakistani military is now a parallel institution that acts independent of Pakistani civilian leadership. It has its own economic interests and financial entities. Military analyst Ayesha Siddiqa describes the Pakistani military as “one of the biggest landowners in the country.”

In her book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, Siddiqa writes of Pakistani military officers as members of a separate economic class:

“In fact, the military’s land acquisition, especially agricultural land, has transformed the military into one of the many land barons or feudal landlords. The behavior of senior military officers towards landless peasants or ordinary soldiers, who are also given agricultural land, is like that of any big feudal landlord.”

Fortunately, there are significant examples of civil society challenges to authoritarian power in Pakistan. As we wrote in The Call:

In 2008, Pakistani voters peacefully rejected both Islamist parties as well as candidates tied to the outgoing dictator, Pervez Musharraf. In 2008 and 2009, hundreds of thousands participated in two major “Long Marches.” These citizen-led movements challenged Musharraf’s dictatorship, as well as the corruption and manipulative actions of democratically-elected President Asif Zardari.

But if Pakistani reformers are to have better odds of success, we should end our habit of supporting the individual political elites and military rulers who stand in their way. This basic message, as reflected in The Call, is drawing support from diverse voices: professionals in Islamabad, a journalist in Seoul, a U.S. Navy veteran just outside Seattle.

Lets hope Congress and the White House get the message. Consider joining us.

Following growing public criticism, the Financial Times magazine fDi has withdrawn its recent “Asian Personality of the Year” award to Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.

fDi had stunned human rights advocates when it announced the original award in late August. It was under Modi’s government that Hindu mobs in 2002 slaughtered over 2,000 Muslims and drove thousands more from their homes. The Modi government has been accused of allowing the violence to continue, encouraging state police participation, and even obstructing attempts by victims seeking justice. Evidence suggests that Gujarat government officials may have directly encouraged the slaughter, perhaps for political gains among the Hindu electoral majority.

The fDi honor was announced in late August as one of several 2009 awards intended to highlight those who brought significant foreign investment into their local economies. (The magazine fDi itself stands for “foreign direct investment.”) In its original web announcement, which has since been taken down, fDi credited Gujarat’s Chief Minister for a large influx of foreign investment into Gujarat in recent years. Setting aside the economic rationale for the award, which itself is subject to debate, there is a bigger issue at hand.

Modi’s government in Gujarat has been linked to one of the bloodiest episodes of violence in recent Indian history.

The 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom occurred in the aftermath of an attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims that had stopped at a Gujarat train station. The pilgrims were returning from Ayodyha, a region that many Hindus consider to be the birthplace of Ram, an ancient king and incarnation of God. In Ayodhya, a Hindu nationalist movement had organized activists to demolish a Muslim mosque and erect a Hindu temple in its place. The mosque itself was considered by Hindus to have been built 500 years ago on the ruins of another Hindu temple.

At the time, it was reported that more than 50 Hindus died in the train fire at the Godhra train station. However, circumstances surrounding the alleged attack have been contested, including even the religious identities of the victims.

In the aftermatch, Hindu mobs went after Muslims in several Gujarat cities. Large numbers of Muslims were driven from their homes, attacked, and murdered. Muslim women were especially targeted for brutality, as noted by Amnesty International:

Violence against women and girls was a key feature of the violence. Scores of Muslim women and girls were sexually violated – raped, gang-raped or mutilated. Many saw their family members killed and their homes and businesses destroyed. After these traumatizing events many women victims were left to care for their family’s survival, often in makeshift relief camps with inadequate support, conditions and reparations.

Many Indian and international human rights advocates have directly pointed the finger at Gujarat law enforcement for allowing, aiding, and even coordinating the violence. As Human Rights Watch reported in April of 2002:

In some cases they were merely passive observers. But in many instances, police officials led the charge of murderous mobs, aiming and firing at Muslims who got in the way. Under the guise of offering assistance, some police officers led the victims directly into the hands of their killers. Panicked phone calls made to the police, fire brigades, and even ambulance services generally proved futile. Several witnesses reported being told by police: “We have no orders to save you.”

Some go further, arguing that the Gujarat Chief Minister actually encouraged or orchestrated the violence to boost political support in Hindu communities. The accusations were enough to lead to a visa denial for Modi when he attempted to visit the U.S. in 2005. Under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, entry is prohibited to foreign government officials who are “responsible for … particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” In 2008, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a body mandated by Congress, recommended that Modi again be denied entry.

It is within this context that the Financial Times subsidiary’s decision to honor Modi seemed especially out of place. Though the original fDi announcement is no longer available online, it received coverage in the Indian media.

One Indian friend in New Delhi reacted strongly to the news. Because she works for a prominent international technology company, she asked that her name not be published. She herself is of Kashmiri Muslim background, and she had this to say:

Why is this surprising? Hasn’t the business community, the great Indian elite, long admired Mr. Modi for his progressive thinking? He’s won awards before, and accolades aplenty. When you are talking to the man about the location of your factories, doesn’t part of your brain relay those indelible images of 2002? What do you tell yourself to continue having that conversation?

In the U.K., the Council of Indian Muslims issued a statement criticizing fDi for “being insensitive to the victims of anti-Muslim riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 and encouraging Hindu extremism in India.”

In the U.S., academic voices Mira Kamdar and Vijay Prashad led an effort to urge Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of the Pearson Group, to direct her Financial Times subsidiary to drop the award. Together with cosigners from inside and outside the U.S., they stated, “This award gives Mr. Modi, whose human rights’ reputation is most troubling, a huge boost of legitimacy where he deserves none.”

The signatories had picked a responsive target with prominent affiliations. Scardino serves on the board of directors for the MacArthur Foundation, as well as the board of trustees for the Carter Center. Together with others who emailed fDi directly, they succeeded in encouraging the magazine to retract its award.

In the words of the magazine itself:

Following a review prompted by the ongoing investigation into the 2002 Gujarat riots, fDi has decided to present its award to Gujarat state, rather than Mr Narendra Modi, the state’s chief minister…Mr Modi was chief minister of Gujarat at the time of the riots. Mr Modi’s alleged role in connection to the riots is under investigation but he denies any responsibility.

Though the Financial Times subsidiary should never have granted the award to begin with, fDi did the right thing in retracting the award. Narendra Modi’s government aided and abetted a terrible massacre. Modi should not be receiving congratulations today.

America’s Moral Responsibility in Afghanistan

Mr. Finel,

Thank you for posing some tough questions that deserve deeper discussion. To complicate matters, I would like focus a bit more on your question six — the nature of America’s “moral obligation” to protect, among others, Afghan women from Taliban oppression.

The fear of a return to Taliban misogyny should be weighed against the reality of significant misogyny in the policies being put forward by the Karzai government. After all, it was the Western-backed Afghanistan regime that recently produced legislation allowing husbands to starve sexually unwilling wives.

So in considering our moral obligation, we should also remember that U.S.-backed Afghan elites are making their own deals within the same misogynist political culture. In effect, the U.S. goal of building a stable, non-Taliban Afghan regime may itself result in a perpetuation of misogynist governance and human rights violations.

This kind of oppression may well differ from the level of oppression that we all would expect if Taliban militias regained power. But how big would the difference be? Given that the U.S. is explicitly exploring negotiations with certain Taliban leaders, this too is a question worth asking.

Sanjeev Bery

http://digdeeper.us/spilledink

Many proponents of escalation in Afghanistan highlight the American moral obligation to the Afghan people, in particular to Afghan women certain to be oppressed by a Taliban resurgence and the large number of men and women who have worked with American forces who would likely be targeted for retribution. What is the nature of this moral obligation? Is it absolute? Are there steps we could take to mitigate the consequences short of providing a permanent guarantee of human rights in the country?

It isn’t a pleasant question.  In asking it, we must also keep in mind that it was the Western-backed Karzai government that produced legislation allowing husbands to starve sexually unwilling wives. So in considering our moral obligation, we should also remember that U.S.-backed Afghan elites are making their own deals within the same misogynist political culture.  In effect, the U.S. goal of building a stable, non-Taliban Afghan regime may itself result in a perpetuation of misogynist governance and human rights violations.

It probably wasn’t the first time that someone had organized an Independence Day cricket match in Pakistan. But it almost certainly was the first time that such a match occurred between a team of professional cricket players and a team of transgendered Pakistanis.

As the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported, the transgendered team won.

Known as hijras, transgendered Pakistanis and Indians have historically lived in their own communities and within their own cultural contexts. The word hijra combines a range of sexual identities — gay crossdressers, hermaphradites — who identify as female, and male-to-female transgendered individuals. In Indian and Pakistani English, words like “eunuch” and “transvestite” are often used in place of the word hijra.

Of course, it goes without saying that many Pakistani hijras, like their Indian counterparts, live challenging lives of discrimination and social stigma. That is why it was such positive news when the Pakistani Supreme Court recently ruled that transgendered citizens cannot be discriminated against in Pakistani government welfare programs. The Court also directed the government to take specific steps to ensure their well-being.

In the words of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, “Eunuchs are also the citizens of Pakistan and should be given basic fundamental rights guaranteed in the constitution.”

Of course, even the most sophisticated consumers of American media are unlikely to be aware of such developments. Why? Because American media outlets didn’t report on them. For American reporters and editors, Pakistan only exists in the context of security concerns: the Taliban, terrorism, fundamentalist Islam, and the war in Afghanistan.

Outside of this context, there is no Pakistan.

By comparison, consider how the U.S. media reported on related developments in India. When the Delhi High Court threw out an Indian law banning gay sex, American newspapers trumpeted the news. As the New York Times reported, “In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality. ” Plenty of other U.S. media outlets sounded off too.

Taken on its own, this focus is a good thing. The expansion of equality deserves to be reported on, whether one is writing about the Indian Supreme Court’s decision in 2009, or the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that ruled similar bans unconstitutional across the U.S.

But the heavy U.S. coverage of the Indian Supreme Court’s decision also fits into a pre-existing Western narrative of India. As the story goes, India is a growing democracy and a rising economic power. In that context, the story of the expansion of Indian equality easily resonates in the American mind. Not only is the U.S. simultaneously addressing similar challenges faced by gay and lesbian Americans, but there is a strong underlying belief that democracies perfect themselves over time through an expansion of liberty across society.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s story of expanding equality for transgendered citizens doesn’t quite fit the pre-written American narrative. After all, Pakistan was supposed to be on the verge of becoming a “failed Islamic state.” How can the same country possibly have a Supreme Court that bars discrimination against a sexual minority?

The story of the Pakistani Supreme Court decision poses other challenges to the dominant narrative as well. Dawn identified the individual who brought forward the claim on behalf of transgendered Pakistanis as Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki, an Islamic jurist. As reported in Pakistan’s The News International, Dr Khaki “told the court that eunuchs were discriminated [against] everywhere, including hospitals, schools and colleges,” and that “eunuchs should be provided with an opportunity to interact with other segments of society including journalists, lawyers, ulema and the like.”

You can imagine the cognitive fit that such a news story might induce in the mainstream U.S. media. How can an Islamic jurist advocate for transgender communities? Why weren’t there Pakistani riots when the decision came down?

To make things even more interesting, it is worth pointing out that the Chief Justice who issued the Supreme Court ruling isn’t some isolated bureaucrat disliked by mainstream Pakistani society. No, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is actually a highly popular judge who was once removed from power by the U.S.-backed military dictator Pervez Musharraf. He was subsequently put back in office by a massive movement of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who marched on the capital of Islamabad twice.

While the Bush Administration was pumping billions of U.S. tax dollars into Musharraf’s regime, Musharraf worked hard to protect his reign by dismantling the rule of law at home. Independent courts have a way of interfering with dictators’ designs, so Musharraf replaced Chief Justice Chaudhry and his peers with more “compliant” judges. It took the protests of two “Long Marches” to bring the real Chief Justice back to the Pakistani Supreme Court.

None of this, of course, fits within the dominant U.S. narrative on Pakistan. First of all, transgender equality in Pakistan isn’t a security issue. Second, Muslim jurists and courts aren’t expected to advocate for the rights of sexual minorities. Third, it carries the subtle implication that U.S. support for Musharraf actually delayed the pursuit of equality for an aggrieved community.

No wonder the mainstream U.S. media couldn’t find space for this story. It just doesn’t fit.