Originally received by The Intercept in 2015, the Drone Papers display multiple angles of the United States’ use of the latest evolution of military technology.
The Drone Papers contain documents between 2011-2013 from a whistleblower within the the intelligence community who worked on multiple aspects of drone operations.
Drone operations conducted by the US operate within 2 different areas of government, the CIA and JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command). These two entities compete for higher authority in the deployment of drone warfare in the military chain of command.
Deceptive Accounting
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama’s administration publicly masked the true number of innocents who were killed indiscriminately. They did this by categorizing other deaths—besides the intended target— as EKIA (enemies killed in action). The only way this classification would be changed to civilians is if it is proven after the fact, a reclassification the US military has no motivation to make. The source stated “if there is no evidence that proves a person killed in a strike was either not a MAM (military age male), or was a MAM but not an unlawful enemy combatant, then there is no question”...”They label them EKIA”.
This designation and statistic gathering was according to the source “insane. But we’ve made ourselves comfortable with that. The intelligence community, JSOC, the CIA, and everybody that helps support and prop up these programs, they’re comfortable with that idea.”
The military’s logic for drone usage relies on the idea of precision strikes and keeping American soldiers out of harm’s way. However these strikes are anything but precise...
In Northeastern Afghanistan the US conducted a special operation campaign called Operation Haymaker. Spanning 13 months between January 2012 and February 2013, these drone strikes killed over 200 people, with only 35 being the intended target. A 5 month period within the operation showed a 90% kill rate that wasn’t the intended target.
“Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association” the source said.
Unintelligent Intelligence
In more than half of all operations, SIGINT (signal intelligence) was used to identify and target people. SIGINT refers to metadata from cell phones and computers that is then used to geolocate targets. Much of this intelligence is collected by foreign entities. The US military even admits the SIGINT capabilities are “poor” and “limited” however that does not stop them from an over-reliance on it. The whistleblower has stated:
“There’s countless instances where I’ve come across intelligence that was faulty.”
“It’s stunning the number of instances when selectors are misattributed to certain people. And it isn’t until several months or years later that you all of a sudden realize that the entire time you thought you were going after this really hot target, you wind up realizing it was his mother’s phone the whole time”
The lethal shortcomings of the US drone program are painted in an even worse light after realizing the intelligence structure that they already had formed in the Middle East. Ryan Devereaux of The Intercept sums it up well:
“After more than a decade in Afghanistan, a robust network of intelligence sources—including informants on the ground... the operators leading the campaign included some of the most highly trained military units at the Obama administration’s disposal, and they were supported by the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance agencies, equipped with technology that allowed for unmatched tracking of wanted individuals,”
Even with the most advanced surveillance techniques and precision weaponry, the US drone program was lethally imprecise. When faced with their lethal imprecision, they decided to simply not count dead civilians.
This whistleblower was able to give the public just a snapshot of the realities of the American drone program during the Obama years. The true number of deaths will never be known by the public, but each death is felt and lived by the families.
War crimes aren’t punished, they’re rewarded with Nobel Peace Prizes.
Peace, Love, Anarchy,
