In a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington, President Barack Obama spoke for an hour about drone strikes, the “war on terror,” Guantanamo and the handling of dangerous prisoners. He offered no immediate solutions, no easy answers as to how a democracy can best handle the realities of war in the 21st century. He deserves credit, however, for raising the question. The task now is for Congress and the nation to further that discussion. As the president said, “This war, like all wars, must end.”
With that, Obama opened a can of worms, one that very much needs to be exposed, examined and mulled over. Nothing about this is simple or straightforward, while all of it is – in the most literal sense – deadly serious.
Guantanamo is a logical and legal mess, the very existence of which reflects the fact that there is no coherent understanding as to what its inmates are. We have an extensive and sophisticated system for handling criminals and a long tradition of humanely dealing with prisoners of war. There is no clear idea what to do with those who are neither – or both.
Beyond that, it is expensive and wasteful. CNN has reported that it costs $800,000 per year to keep one prisoner at Guantanamo, while 86 of the 166 men held there have been determined to be guilty of nothing important or are at worst low-level fighters who pose little threat.
But no one seems to know what else to do. No one wants to send them home lest they turn out to be the perpetrators of a future attack. No one wants to be the person who let them into the United States – even to prison – and no one really knows how they fit in the U.S. legal system.
Drones are even more vexing. Part of the context of Obama’s speech was an intergovernmental squabble about who should control the day-to-day operation of the drone war. The president kept that authority to himself rather than delegating it to the military as both the Pentagon and the CIA reportedly wanted. That is probably for the best. The nebulous nature of the drone campaigns is troubling enough without further confusing who is in charge.
Drones bother people, for a variety of reasons. In the end, though, the real questions are no different – and no easier – than those that surround any question of war and peace.
There is something about the impersonal, robotic quality of drones that deeply disturbs people. Some critics even invoke a kind of chivalry, complaining that a drone operator killing people from hundreds or thousands of miles away is somehow less honorable than a soldier or pilot on the scene and at risk.
But there is little chivalry in modern war, and arguments about the mechanics of killing divert attention from more important questions about who decides who is to be killed, why and on what authority. The issue with drones is not their unmanned nature or the interesting but largely unspoken class issues involved in replacing pilots with “operators.”
Nor is the problem that innocent people are sometimes killed in drone strikes. Innocents always die in wars, which is a good reason not to go to war lightly. And according to CNN, “collateral damage” had been greatly reduced.
The real danger with drones is that by freeing presidents and Congress from the threat of losing American lives (and by costing far less money) they allow for an Orwellian state of perpetual war with little oversight and virtually no accountability.
Obama offered no answers Thursday, but in speaking publicly about Guantanamo and drones, he opened the door to some questions that need to be answered. He and Congress alike should be held to those questions and finding those answers.
