DRONES NEGATIVE EVIDENCE The Military Portion of the Drone Program is Largely Unobjectionable Jane Meyer, The New

w Yorker, The Predator War, 10/26/2009.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1AkqKXzZX

The U.S. government runs two drone programs. The militarys version, which is publicly acknowledged, operates in the recognized war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and targets enemies of U.S. troops stationed there. As such, it is an extension of conventional warfare. The C.I.A.s program is aimed at terror suspects around the world, including in countries where U.S. troops are not based. It was initiated by the Bush Administration and, according to Juan Zarate, a counterterrorism adviser in the Bush White House, Obama has left in place virtually all the key personnel. The program is classified as covert, and the intelligence agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed. The CIA is not a miltary or police Presence Military Presence is defined as bases, military aid, active duty personnel, and combat threats Ladan Nekoomaram November 10, 2009 (US military presence in foreign countries exceeds rest
of world, http://inews6.americanobserver.net/articles/us-military-presence-foreign-countriesexceeds-rest-world) Military presence is defined by any nation where the U.S. has a military base, where the U.S. is providing military aid, active duty military personnel, or where U.S. soldiers are engaged in combat theaters.

The CIA Drones are Flown by Civilians Meyer in 09 The Predators in the C.I.A. program are flown by civilians, both intelligence officers and private contractors. The CIA drone program, while controversial, is our most effective tool against terrorism. Meyer in 09 The Predator program is described by many in the intelligence world as Americas single most effective weapon against Al Qaeda. In May, Leon Panetta, the C.I.A.s director, referred to the Predator program as the only game in town in an unguarded moment after a public lecture. Counterterrorism officials credit drones with having killed more than a dozen senior Al Qaeda leaders and their allies in the past year, eliminating more than half of the C.I.A.s twenty most wanted high value targets.

Drone Attacks Have a Deterrent Effect on Terrorism Meyer in 09 Supporters of the Predator program argue that it has had positive ripple effects. Surviving militants are forced to operate far more cautiously, which diverts their energy from planning new attacks. And there is evidence that the drone strikes, which depend on local informants for targeting information, have caused debilitating suspicion and discord within the ranks. Four Europeans who were captured last December after trying to join Al Qaeda in Pakistan described a life of constant fear and distrust among the militants, whose obsession with drone strikes had led them to communicate only with elaborate secrecy and to leave their squalid hideouts only at night. As the Times has reported, militants have been so unnerved by the drone program that they have released a video showing the
execution of accused informants. Pakistanis have also been gripped by rumors that paid C.I.A. informants have been planting tiny silicon-chip homing devices for the drones in the tribal areas.

The Best Evidence is That Drones Rarely Strike Civilians Spencer Ackerman, The Washington Independent, New Study Suggests Drone Strikes Dont Kill as Many Pakistani Civilians as Claimed, 5/28/2010 a forthcoming study, led by Brian Glyn Williams, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, finds that the civilian death toll from the drones is lower than most media accounts present. We came to the conclusion that the drones have a unique capability for targeting militants, as opposed to civilians, Williams said in an interview.
Williams study, which he provided to The Washington Independent, has yet to be published. A writer for a blog affiliated with the International Herald Tribune, Farhat Taj, blogged some of the key details of his research today, but prematurely stated that the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point will be publishing Williams work. Erich Marquardt, the editor of the centers journal, said that he hasnt even begun to review Williams submission yet. Much like the New America Foundation study, Williams team relied on English-language media accounts of the drone strikes in Pakistan to compile a data base of how many civilians and militants were reported to be killed. He conceded from the start that such a reliance is a serious limitation of the study news reports can, after all, be incorrect but the tribal areas of Pakistan where the strikes occur are often off limits to Western researchers, and even their Pakistani counterparts. (Still, Williams plans on traveling to the tribal areas on June 10 to attempt a poll of local attitudes about the strikes.) His team took measures to mitigate that limitation: they only considered strikes that had been reported by multiple independent outlets and they erred on the side of treating the deaths of people in disputed militant status as either civilians or unknown.

Williams results, which he said have been peer-reviewed, are as follows: According to our database, as of 1 April 2010, there have been a total of 127 confirmed CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, killing a total of 1,247 people. Of those killed only 44 (or 3.53%) could be confirmed as civilians, while 963 (or 77.23%) were reported to be militants or suspected militants.

Drone Strikes Are Largely a Non-Factor to Pakistanis Spencer Ackerman, Wired, Pakistanis Ask Drones? What Drones? 7/29/10 The human-rights community, along with many security experts, fear that the program will create more terrorists than it kills due to anger at civilian casualties. Pakistanis,
however, think the drones are sorry; huh? What are you talking about? Did you say clones? Thats

according to a new Pew poll on Pakistani attitudes (.pdf) thats filled with surprises. Top of the list: Just over one-in-three Pakistanis (35 percent) have heard about the drone strikes. Apparently, Pakistanis barely know this program even exists. Another 43 percent say theyve heard nothing at all about the drones. You can hear the champagne corks popping at Langley.