With the war on terror stretching on to the next decade, the spate of drone strikes in FATA seems to see no end. The strikes continue with the implicit support of the Pakistani government and army, who find themselves in a double bind: they acquiesce as allies in the war on terror, and yet protest against the challenge to sovereignty over violence inside state boundaries. When drones strike, the state fails as a guarantor of its citizens– rights. But in this war of ambiguity, do these citizens count? They are ambiguous targets, shifting between civilian and terrorist, and in the fuzzy legal space of de-territorialised warfare, they unfortunately have ambiguous rights.

The Obama administration favours drones for their surgical nature and impersonal combat: they are argued to be instruments of precision that take out significant targets without exposing soldiers to any danger. For a country that presents itself as a beacon of democracy and transparency, there is a paradoxical silence surrounding the analytical mistakes and operational errors that cause innocent deaths. The Obama administration has claimed that civilian casualties are only in single digits.[i] In fact, the death toll resulting from strikes so far is grossly understated especially that of civilians killed in cross-fire. According the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), between 2004-sept 2012, drone strikes caused 2562-3325 casualties, of which at least 474-881 people were civilians. Of these, 176 were children. Approximately 1228-1362 people were also left injured.[ii] Even for these numbers, there is a doubt of accuracy, and the real numbers of innocent deaths are thought to be much higher. The numbers of people suffering psychological trauma as survivors, or close of kin to the deceased is also extremely high.[iii] As with every intangible injury, these are mostly undocumented and unreported in mainstream statistics that are only interested in counting deaths and injuries.

Not surprisingly, the drone strikes fuel a strong ¿anti-American– sentiment within FATA, as well as all over Pakistan. With images of mutilated innocent bodies circulating in the media, even Pakistani who condemn the Taliban and Al Qaeda can relate to terrorists anger. One kind of violence (i.e. drone strikes) can perpetuate another (suicide attacks), this is a war of ¿terror vs. Terror–. The strikes are causing physical, psychological, and economic damage to the people living in FATA. It is also affecting everyday life of locals who are scared that innocent practices such as going to school, attending funerals, or even constructing houses may be misconstrued as dangerous and illicit activities by the ¿eye in the sky–.[iv]

While it is important to question the validity of US claims circulated in mainstream international media on the tactical and technical advantages of drone strikes over conventional warfare, it is also important to move beyond these debates and perhaps view these strikes as a strategy that rests on ambiguity for its success. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is widely commended by the Obama administration for its ability to reduce collateral damage. Collateral damage refers to damage to physical infrastructure or property that is beyond the target, and in the most widely used sense, it refers to the death of innocent people. In terms of assessing collateral damage, the damage to property is much more easily identifiable than the death of innocent people: while the former may be accurately reported, the cost of innocent lives is a value laden category. Who exactly is innocent? As the current judgement stands, all men of a ¿military age– are considered as potential combatants unless posthumously declared innocent.[v] The category of¿military age– itself is ambiguous: in effect, if anyone looks or acts suspicious, they are considered potential threats. The cultural ignorance of people working along different stages of the kill chain (from drone operators to data analysts) compounds the situation, where ¿combatant– in fact becomes a very arbitrary category. Innocence is never proven.[vi] No wonder the statistics produced by the US military show low counts of collateral damage.

This ambiguity on criminal, terrorist and civilian is also compounded by the ambiguity over legality. The killings of civilians can be attributed to a wide range of ¿glitches– along what the ¿Kill Chain–. This could be a result of technical errors in the drone itself, mistakes of analysts interpreting data, or even wrongly identified victims.[vii] But where does accountability lie? The numbers of human and technical actors working on the series of processes along the kill chain (ranging from identifying targets to making a killing) result in complicating the task of fixing responsibility in case of miscalculated judgments resulting in civilian deaths. But perhaps, this is another ambiguity that makes drones a valuable technology of warfare for the US military and government.

This ambiguity of who to hold accountable for mistakes increases the vulnerability of the victims of drone strikes. However, what makes the situation more complex is the broader legal territory surrounding drone warfare. Some analysts argue that with current international law standing as is, drone strikes can be viewed as ¿war crimes–.[viii] This idea is picked up by various international human rights organisations, which are helping victims find legal voice. Lately, survivors and family members of victims and survivors have filed legal action for compensation from the United States government and its intelligence sharing agencies. Following the 2^nd World War, the US government passed laws that offer compensation to innocent victims killed in combat as a gesture of good will. However, this law predates the use of unmanned aerial aircraft, and applies only to victims killed during combat mission. Whether or not a targeted killing through drones constitutes ¿combat mission– is highly debatable, and so the legal space opened up through national and international laws regulating warfare is not easy to navigate.[ix] Again, the ambiguous legality surrounding drone warfare serves against the interest of victims, while proving advantageous for the aggressors.

In this war of terror vs. terror, it is the civilians of FATA who are the biggest losers. The numbers of innocents killed are suppressed, surrounded by ambiguity of whether they are terrorists or civilians. The victims– deaths are unacknowledged and no accountability is taken for it by the responsible authorities because it is ambiguous as to where responsibility lies. The survivors or families of victims find it hard to get legal compensation because of the ambiguous legal infrastructure surrounding this mode of de-territorialised, surgical warfare. As Derek Gregory points out, drones expand the physical space or war, and shrink the moral space of war.[x]In effect, it offers a grim view of international politics, where countries that are beacons of freedom of speech, transparency and democracy find it hard to reconcile their international practices with national values.[xi]

Mrs. Sobia Ahmad Kaker, Visiting Research Fellow at CRSS and currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Newcastle, UK.