Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakeemullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone strike at a compound in Danda Darpa Khel, and Imran Khan wants NATO supplies blocked after this US drone strike. The death of the TTP leader would fuel fury for revenge and should not contradict the true intentions of the Pakistan government to bring peace to the table. The US may celebrate the success but Pakistan would feel the heat and face resistance in negotiations with the militants. Whether the US is attempting or not to sabotage the peace deal, the death of the Taliban commander is set to inflame the fear of terrorist attacks across the country. I am afraid I can see dead people.
MQ-1B Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems), commonly known as drones, are currently in use in Pakistan. According to reports from Waziristan, a majority of the civilians who have been killed so far in the drone attacks are women or children of the militants in whose houses/compounds they hold meetings. Only limited media access to the area is possible, therefore no independent journalistic or scholarly work exists to recover the exact account of fatal damage from the drone attacks. The Taliban would simply not let this happen and may kill anyone trying doing so. Maybe we will have to think of a way to exactly report the plight of the people who are suffering the atrocities.
People living in North Waziristan describe life of extended terror and stress when they awake every day, a life that is caught between forceful militants and the unmarked death order scripted through the US drones hunting them. Natives report that even when the drones do not strike, drones hover day and night, scanning the alleys and markets with the constant reminder of hanging death. Nowhere has the fear of imminent death played out more directly than in Miranshah. It has become an anxious, fearful and paranoid town, which has been dealt at least 14 drone strikes since 2008, with an additional 25 in adjoining districts resulting in hundreds of casualties, unattended blood-bathed streets, shattered homes and compounds, more than any other urban settlement in the world. Victims want to know why the Pakistani security forces are not in charge when a sprawling base, with a long airstrip that is home to a fleet of US-made Cobra helicopter gunships, dominates the northern part of the town.
Concern about drone strikes in Pakistan is focused narrowly on the argument that strikes contravene human rights and innocent civilians are the victims of collateral damage. Politicians and the military in Pakistan may be sympathetic to the silent screams of the dead, but they fail to take account of the poor people on the ground that live with the everyday threat of lethal drones in their skies, with the constant reminder of death. Numerous reports are highlighting the disastrous impact of drones on the psychological wellbeing of people living in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and there is a growing fear that a significant majority of women and children are suffering from identifiable mental health problems, which would require treatment over the next two generations.
The available evidence suggests a critical gap in the understanding of specific psychological damage because of life under the drones, and the socioeconomic impact of drone strikes on civilians in North Waziristan. The challenging evidence draws attention to the fact that these impacts are mercilessly significant and erode the prevailing US government and media narrative that portrays drones as pinpoint precision weapons with limited collateral damage impact. It is critical that the Pakistan government takes a firm stance, and augments the voice raised by the Human Rights Watch in drawing the echoes of the broader civilian impact from drones in the corridors of the US policy makers.
Amnesty International examined in detail nine suspected drone strikes in Pakistan. The group reached the conclusion that dozens of civilians have been killed and that the US may have violated international law and even committed war crimes. Amnesty International’s report, based on Pakistani and other sources, says there have been 374 strikes since 2004, including four incidents it investigated in which more than 30 civilians were killed. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader, Imran Khan, would have to first share the dialogue between them, and then agree before inviting the Taliban to the peace table. In some ways, both the leaders are on the same page but there is an impression that they are being haunted by an ambiguity that they have deliberately cultivated for political point scoring.
The most direct impact of drone strikes, in addition to injuries and killings, include property damage, frequent severe economic hardships and emotional trauma for injured victims and surviving family members. Importantly, those reported also described how the presence of drones and the capacity of the US to strike anywhere at any time lead to constant and severe fear, anxiety and stress, especially when you have to also take into account the inability of those on the ground to ensure their own safety. In addition the US practice of striking one site multiple times and its record of killing first responders, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid to assist injured victims.
Further, those interviewed stated that the fear of drone strikes erodes people’s sense of safety to such an extent that it has at times affected their motivation to engage in a wide variety of activities, including social gatherings, educational and economic opportunities and funerals. Fear has also undermined and poisoned their general community trust, which has been the soul and spirit of their culture for centuries. Their social and mental fear is leaving them with a sense of anger and frustration, which is making them vulnerable to joining hands with the Taliban, a factor that the US is leaving for the Pakistan government to handle through discussions at the peace table. The cries of innocent children and women seem far from the sections that make the decisive actions on the ground, but the bodies of dead victims are a constant reminder that we have failed to protect our brethren who promised to hold the green flag whenever required.
Enough has been written that the indiscriminate killing of suspected terrorists by drone attacks in Pakistan cannot be justified on moral grounds because these attacks do not discriminate between terrorists and innocent women, children and the elderly. This tactical move of using the drones is counterproductive, and ‘unwittingly helping terrorists’ in the psychodynamic process, resulting in enhancing anger and victim sympathy, which multiplies recruiting, and thus the continuance of the cycle of terrorist attacks, further drone strikes and suspected killing of more civilians than the terrorists.
The US’s international counterterrorism efforts can be successful by formulating a clear strategy: adopting transparent, legitimate methods, which take into account the sufferings and human losses in Pakistan. Cameron Munter, a former ambassador to Pakistan, left his job in 2012 after a catalogue of disagreements with the CIA station chief over drone strikes, and conformists argued over whether the strikes, which pushed new boundaries of international law, were legal. On the contrary, while in public the drone strikes produced furious denunciations and angry posturing from Pakistani politicians and generals, behind closed doors it is a more muted process: discreet negotiations, secret deals and, in some drone strikes, full Pakistani cooperation. Amidst this mounting pressure lie the difficult decisions that would require sacrifice, and we have to be united as a nation to ask the simple question if we are ready.
The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, associate professor Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at [email protected]