Drone Policy The current use of drones to fight terrorism appears to be yielding negative results to U.S. administration. The recent drone attack on families and friends heading to a wedding in Yemen just cements the worrying trend on the negative effects of current drone policy adopted by the government. Worse still, the Obama administration is drastically escalating targeted killings by using drones as a core attribute of its counterterrorism policy (Wojtanik, 2014). Recently, the government started revealing much of its drone policy like in public statements by various top officials. Although the public has welcomed this information, it has failed to address completely public concerns. The number of civilian casualties coupled with a dearth of clarity about whom the government considers a civilian in these circumstances has painted the drone policy a negative image. These concerns, together with the absence of public information revolving around the policy, demand the administration to explain the policy and its legal ground.

Today, individuals are killed easily by pushing a button craft. For this reason, the legality of drones has become a controversial matter in most world countries. My contention is that drones are an illegitimate weapon for war. Due to the drone strikes, not only militants but also noncombatants are killed. During the Obama administration, drone attacks killed between 900 and 1200 persons with about seven hundred were civilians. Therefore, in the specified duration, the civilian fatality was estimated at 34%. This is a colossal mortality rate. The drone attacks have given more damage to civilian population than militants. The following study disproves the U.S. Drone policy with the argument that Drone strikes are posing an immense threat to humanity.

The Drone Strikes

Violates Sovereignty

It is a violation of sovereignty, has issues with legality, and causes tensions (Rogers, & Hill, 2014). CIA drone attacks on targets have led to far-reaching civilian casualties than the American government has realized. Sovereign nations support their long-standing perspective that they have not consented to the remote-exhibited missiles campaign that forms the centerpiece of the American strategy to eliminate militants. The drone policy entails the use of force on the territory of another nation, hence, is a violation of another nation's sovereignty.

Rebuttal

On the contrary, proponents of the drone policy argue that drones are not a violation of national sovereignty. This dimension is two-pronged. First, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) legalizes the use of drones because it allows other nations to use force in a sovereign territory where there is a condition of ongoing conflict. This means that the drone force is being used against a "shared enemy" (Rogers, & Hill, 2014). For instance, the drone strike in 2004 killed Nek Muhammad Wazir, the leader of Pashtun terror gang, who is alleged to have posed a significant threat to Pakistan. Secondly, the way the surgical attacks are carried violates the law. The surgical strikes of the predator are not by both the IHL principle of proportionality as well as that of discrimination, which is stipulated in the Geneva Conventions 1948. Discrimination holds that a nation or state using the force differentiate between civilians and military. In the meantime, the proportionality clause restricts the permissible degree of force based on the threat posed. Also, this principle requires that targeting decisions in military activities avoid excessive civilian casualties that relate to the projected military advantage.

High Civilian Casualty

A civilian casualty is a major issue associated with drone strikes. The primary source of public controversy regarding the drone policy is who is being killed in the strikes. Studies illustrate wildly varying estimates on how many civilians have been killed by militants. For instance, Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institute estimates that for every one militant killed, ten civilians are also killed. Looking at a recent report released by the CIA, since 2009, not a single civilian has been killed by the drones. More so, the New American Foundation conducted an in-depth analysis of drone attacks and reports that between 2005 and 2020, drone attacks killed between 900 and 1200 persons with serious civilian casualty (Wojtanik, 2014). The numbers of civilians being killed in drone attacks raises two serious issues for the people following the drone policy. The first relates...

Research highlights that only one out of seven U.S. drone attacks kill a militant leader, and less than two percent of the strikes have led to the deaths of militant group leaders. As the Obama administration increases the number of drone attacks, the number of low-ranking militants and civilians beings killed is increasing (Woods, 2014). Drones serve to alienate the residents and motivate recruitment into the positions of the militants. Right now, the drone policy is all about killing. In other words, the U.S. counterterrorism campaign has been reduced to showering remote communities with missiles. The drones are killing people almost in an indiscriminate manner and furnishing otherwise non-threatening citizens a justification to fight. In fact, ISIS is using the drone policy as a recruitment tool. Such activities have destabilized countries such as Pakistan. Besides, the drones serve as an impetus for revenge on the side of people who have been hurt by the strikes. For this reason, they are encouraging efforts at terrorist attacks within the U.S. A perfect illustration of this is the attempted attack on Times Square by American-Pakistani Shahzad. Conversely, it can be said that the drone attacks could drive militants out of their tribal locations and into main cities. This would trigger a concomitant increase in violence in the cities. Therefore, as with the rise in drone strikes, so would militant violence.
Rebuttal

However, proponents of the drone policy believe that it is possible to achieve precision strikes on high-value militants without introducing troops into the air to kill or capture the targeted persons. Pakistan is a perfect example here as they are experiencing a great degree of public sensitivity to the matter of U.S. troops on Pakistan land. While the U.S. drone strikes are aggravating most Pakistanis by infringing the Pakistani airspace and hence sovereignty, they are less of the salient footprints in comparison to U.S. troops entering Pakistani to capture and kill targeted militants. The Pakistani response to the matter of foreign troops is well demonstrated by the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden. Drones are an approach to dampen the anger if the operations are not conducted with the collaboration of the Pakistani officials (Rogers, & Hill, 2014).

Unreliable Intelligence

Drones do not produce intelligence needed to prevent a terrorist's successor from stepping into the role. Heavy reliance on drones is only adding to America's potentially risky shortfall of human intelligence on terrorists (Cortright, Fairhurst, & Wall 2015). Because they are no longer capturing human beings to get this intelligence, it means they are missing part of the bigger picture. Although the U.S. can depend extensively on electronic intelligence, they still require human intelligence to put the full picture together. It would make sense for the U.S. government to return to capture-and-interrogate approach in light of intelligence gathering. Raids would allow the security officers to capture high-value targets and exploit their knowledge via interrogations. When soldiers are on the ground, they can collect raw materials of intelligence value, which could support follow-on-operations.

Rebuttal

Advocates of drone policy have debunked the argument that drones do not produce intelligence by claiming that the usage of UAVs in some operation theaters has clear advantages. Remote-controlled drones used over nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan are generating massive video intelligence, such that, according to analysis, it has become more challenging to keep up with it. Drawing from latest news by the New York Times, the Air Force drones gathered almost three times as much video over Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 as in 2009 (Cortright et al. 2015). Experts argue that this volume be projected to multiply in the coming years because drones will start using multiple cameras to shoot in various directions. Already, security analysts are watching each second of the footage live as it streams to the Air Force base in Virginia, as well as other intelligence centers. As such, they are quickly passing security warnings about roadside bombs and insurgents to troops in the field.

Moreover, besides lingering over an area for longer periods than manned aircraft, the drones are much affordable, do not risk the life of pilots, can go undetected by the enemy and could accurately direct precision weapons on targets. In theaters of operation where targets stay in one place for a short period, it seems useful to have a platform of weapons that can spot the target when it appears and then engage the target as directed by the remote operator. A human operator could do all these in a safe manner out of harm's way, possibly various miles away (Mohammadi et al. 2012).

Conclusion

As outlined in this paper, by the U.S. using equipped drones and the uncertain worldwide controversy declare that the results of drone growth for other nations and its effects for U.S. passions will be significant. As with other technology-driven…