The U.S. is expanding its drone program into Yemen and Somalia
Reacting to the big piece in the Washington Post on America's not-so-covert effort to drone-patrol Yemen and Somalia, Matthew Yglesias remarks:
'The reporters say the â??rapid expansionâ? of these military efforts â??is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia.â? No doubt it is that. But itâ??s also a reflection of a very grandiose conception of the appropriate role of the American military in the world. After all, a radical whoâ??s in Yemen or Somalia is, by definition, not in the United States. It would be cheaper and easier to focus on making sure people canâ??t get from Yemen to Yuma or from Somalia to Sacramento than for us to go halfway around to try to kill them. But Americaâ??s strategic concept is basically that if thereâ??s a problem anywhere in the world that could potentially be ameliorated by dropping American bombs, then we ought to drop the bombs. '
Well, yes and no. It would have been quite helpful if the U.S. had the ability to accurately drop a bomb on bin Laden & co. in the late 1990s. Secondly, building a series of bases and airstrips to fly drones to conduct surveillance on al-Qaeda isn't a bad thing - intelligence collection should be the principle weapon in combating terrorism. Still, there is a legit concern about the extent to which drones will be used to actually kill people as opposed to just spy on them.
Just how often the CIA intends to pull the trigger and at which targets will go a long way to determining whether such a policy is making the U.S. safer or is self defeating. It's interesting to note that as far as making headway against al-Qaeda, the drone attacks have more or less eviscerated the core al-Qaeda group that existed in Pakistan but that did not stop splinter groups from forming in Yemen and Somalia. A similarly robust strategy of drone attacks in either of those countries may just duplicate the Pakistan model - a defeat of the "original" group but the migration and emergence of the same threat somewhere else. And this says nothing about the distortions and destruction that the U.S. will leave in its wake in the target country. Still, the political incentives are what they are: the Obama administration understandably does not want a significant terrorist attack on its watch and it's taking steps with that, and not the long term consequences, in mind.