Drone Killing is It Helping or Hurting

8/12/2019 Drone Killing is It Helping or Hurting

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[music]

Paris Dennard: [0:17] Good evening. First of all, thank you all for coming. My name is Paris Dennard. I am the Events Director here at the McCain Institute. This is our first debate here in Phoenix, so we're very excited to have all of youhere. [applause]

Paris: [0:31] Yes, thank you. Thank you. Before we begin, let me remind you thisis going to be live streamed online. So I want all of you to, if you have a smartphone or some type of device, put it on silent or vibrate. However, don't turnit off, because I want you to use it throughout the entirety of tonight's debate.

[0:51] If you have not liked us on Facebook, if you're not following us on Instagram, if you're not following us on Twitter, Google+, our YouTube page, please do so. You can find us, very simply, at "McCainInstitute."

[1:06] And so, throughout tonight's debate, please be sure to utilize all of thehashtags of MIDebatesDrones as you begin. So, without further ado, I'd like tobring up to the podium our Executive Director of the McCain Institute, Ambassador Kurt Volker. Thank you. [applause]

Ambassador Kurt Volker: [1:28] Thank you very much. And let me let our debaters,uh, take their seats here, in the room. And, uh, Aaron, if you just want to tak

e a chair over there, that would be great.

[1:40] And, uh, welcome. Uh, welcome to this evening's debate concerning the useof lethal drone strikes. Right at the outset, I want to say thank you to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and to the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations for joining us in putting this, uh, debate together here, in Phoenix, firsttime that we have the opportunity as McCain Institute to do that here.

[2:02] Um, as I was introduced, my name is Kurt Volker. I have the good fortuneto be the Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, which is a part of Arizona State University, and we have a presence both in Washington, DC and here, in Tempe, Arizona.

[2:19] Our mission is to advance character-driven leadership at home and aroundthe world, contribute to humanitarian action, and to make better designs for better decisions in national and international policy, and you can find us at mccaininstitute.org.

[2:35] Tonight's debate is part of a series of structured, timed debates on someof the most difficult foreign policy issues facing our nation. We've had previous debates on Syria, on Afghanistan, on Iran, on the defense budget, and tonightwe'll be looking at the issue of lethal drone strikes. Uh, through our debate series, we aim to illuminate the key challenges that our country has to deal with.

[3:03] We aim scrupulously to avoid partisanship and to get deeply into the diff

icult decisions that our leaders and our decision makers need to make.

[3:14] Before kicking off the debate this evening, I want to introduce Paul Johnson from the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations for him to say a few words of welcome as well.

Paul Johnson: [3:25] Thank you, Ambassador. My name is Paul Johnson, I'm the President of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations. We're an Arizona-based membership organization that attempts to educate our leaders here in Arizona and our members about foreign policy issues and we're thrilled to be one of the co-spo


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ountry with a permanent hit list administered by the President himself. We havefour distinguished debaters here tonight.

[7:30] A former colleague who is Ambassador to Pakistan, another who is a lieutenant general overseeing drone operations, law professors from Arizona State University and Pepperdine University who are expert in this issue of drone strikes.This is meant to be a structured and timed debate in order to give fair and equal hearing to all points of view, but we do want it to be lively, and dynamic, and interactive.

[7:52] You will have an opportunity to ask questions, and uh, I encourage you todo so and also to really put it as a question and uh let our debaters express the arguments, ah, as they are set to do.

[8:06] As Paris has said, phones on silent, but do tweet. Hashtag #MI, McCain Institute, hashtag #MIDebateDrones. After the opening of the debate, as I said, there will be questions, and uh, right now let me take the ah, opportunity to introduce our distinguished moderator, a professor here at Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and a broadcast journalist himself, Aaron Brown. Thank you. [applause]

Aaron Brown: [8:43] Thank you. That's great. Senator McCain, it is, uh, it's wonderful to see you. Uh, I will say that Senator McCain was a frequent and perfectguest on the show I anchored. He was interesting always and available almost al

ways, and that's what we care about. It's nice to see you.

[9:05] I was thinking today about all of this and I thought um, of welcoming youto the Cronkite School, how pleased Walter would be at a night like this.

[9:16] A thoughtful, civil, and important conversation about an issue facing allof us as Americans, it's the kind of conversation Walter would relish being a part of, and I like to think that he is somewhere in the larger audience uh listening to our work today.

[9:36] Um, let me, let me give a brief, um, I'm going to cut down the introduction a little bit to um, our panel.

[9:48] Um, this is a, Senator McCain alluded to, and I'm sure all of you understand, this is a hugely complicated question that defies the kind of simple blackand white answers that our politics often present to us and we will not presentit in kind of simple black and white terms. It's just not that sort of thing.

[10:09] Gregory McNeal is a professor of public policy at Pepperdine Universityfocusing on some of the very issues that bring us here tonight. The intersectionof law, security, and emerging technologies. His work includes, ah, helping theArmy train soldiers to prevent harm to civilians, as well as the legal work onmilitary tribunals at Guantanamo.

[10:30] His partner in this discussion is Major General James Marks. Spider Marks, General Marks, is a West Point grad, and in 30 years of service has just abou

t held, had just about held, every leadership position imaginable and he was great to meet tonight.

[10:47] The other side of the question, um, will be presented by Ambassador Cameron Munter, who, eh, is now on the faculty of Pomona, in Claremont, California,but had what is perhaps the hardest foreign policy job in the American Government. He was the Ambassador to Pakistan.

[11:05] And Daniel Rothenberg is a Professor of Politics of Global Studies, hereat ASU, and is currently co-editing a book on drone politics with my old friend


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, and CNN colleague, Peter Bergen, called, "Drone Wars."

[11:18] It is nice to have all of you here, and let's go to work.

[11:23] Ambassador and Professor Rothenberg, let's begin with you and you guys can divide your five minutes up as you please.

[11:32] You're not going to make the case that we shouldn't ever use drones. You're going to make the case, what...?

Cameron Munter: [11:41] Very good. Well, I'll begin. My name's Cameron Munter. Ihad the good fortune, or bad fortune, as the case may be, to be Ambassador to Pakistan between 2010 and 2012, during a time of a number of drone strikes.

[11:53] They took place doing strikes of different types that were very controversial. I'd like to make a few points in that brief two and a half minutes that I've been given.

[12:01] One is that, drones are, ah, ah, a weapon that can be, if used properly,a very humane weapon. A very precise weapon. A weapon that can do things that other weapons cannot.

[12:12] And there are people in Pakistan, especially those people in the tribalareas, who uh, newspapermen have found out, actually support the idea of the dro

nes. Because they, uh, have less collateral damage than say, traditional weapons.

[12:26] Nonetheless, if you're going to use a weapon this, and if you're going to talk about the complex legal, ethical, policy issues that we have to do, dealwith today, we must not lose site of the fact that we need a strategy. A long-term goal, within in which, the drones must function.

[12:42] One of the problems we had in Pakistan, when I was there was that we seemed to have as our goal, to eliminate Al Qaeda. And I would argue to you, as I argued then, eliminating Al Qaeda is not a goal. It is a means to an end.

[12:56] The goal is the protection of the United States and its allies. Preventi

ng a catastrophic attack on the United States. Working hard to make sure that wehave a long and sustainable strategic, uh, power, especially in that part of the world.

[13:11] When we began to see the elimination of Al Qaeda as a goal, we began toeh, uh, eliminate other elements in the policy. We began to use the drones, in my opinion, indiscriminately. And the indiscriminate use of drones can be very, very, difficult.

[13:27] Because what it did, among other things, was that it caused a public, ah, ah, ah, outrage against drones, and made our long term goal of having securityand stability in that region, more difficult.

[13:41] Using those, using drones as long-term artillery to help our soldiers inAfghanistan makes perfect sense, if the idea is forced protection. But for those people who are worried about a broader question, it's very dangerous to startthinking that way.

[13:58] I would argue, as I did at that time, that our main goal is to figure out in this region, politically, what is the great prize? Is it Afghanistan with 25 million people? Or is it Pakistan with 200 million people and 100 nuclear weapons?


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[14:13] Which country do you want to get right? Now, this is a tough kind of question, because no military commander wants to do anything that would not allow him or her, to protect his or her soldiers.

[14:24] But using drones across the border in the way that we did, using them inwhat so-called, "signature" strikes, was a difficult and, I believe sometimes erroneous decision. We have to have the debate about what this particular weaponis for. In which ways is it legal? But, in which ways is it effective?

[14:42] The final point that I want to make in the brief time, I'm co, coming upto the, the end here, is that we have, uh, decided that we must, uh, maintain secrecy under in the way the uh, the, uh, drone strikes are used in Pakistan, forexample.

[14:57] That had prevented me, as an Ambassador, from being able to reach out both to the American and to the Pakistani public, to give an assessment to the people of these two countries about what the effectiveness of drones was.

[15:11] Again, there are legal considerations. There are reasons why this, thisprogram is secret. There's reasons why different, different, uh, different arguments are made.

[15:20] But, my point was, if you're going to have a public debate, if you're going to bring the publics on your side, you have to figure out a way to talk hone

stly about drones in a way that's not limited.

[15:29] I'll turn it over to my colleague.

Daniel Rothenberg: [15:32] Um, thank you all for coming here tonight. Thank youvery much for the, to the McCain's, the McCain's too. Um, what I want to talk about is a broader picture of some of the problems that drones bring up.

[15:42] Uh, hopefully, we'll be able to touch on the various issues that make drones specific. Drones are actually tra, uh, first signaled of the transformationof warfare in a series of ways that have pretty profound implications.

[15:54] But, stepping back for a second, I teach law students, graduate students

and undergrads, and they fall into the range, age range of somewhere between 18, and say, 30, generally.

[16:03] And I commonly begin classes...I teach classes like, International Rights Law. I commonly begin the classes by saying, asking them how they feel about being members of a war generation.

[16:14] Um, my classes do not typically look like this audience, [laughs] in fact. I say that because, the standard response I get is this sort of surprise. They've never thought of themselves as part of a war generation.

[16:27] Even though they've come of age at a time, at a time when their country's been at war. In fact, they've become a political consciousness and paid attent

ion to the news during a period when the country has been, been, involved in a series of complex, costly, ah, dangerous wars.

[16:42] I don't think that the same response we would find among students, if wewere in the World War II generation, or for that matter, the Vietnam generation. And this isn't about drones per se, but it's about one of the core implications of expanding drones.

[16:56] Which is one of the main things that drones allow, is a significantly reduced domestic cost for engaging in warfare. Uh, because drones don't put at ris


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k any US personnel, it's substantially less costly for a drone operation to go bad.

[17:13] Or, for that matter, for a drone operation to, to, be launched. And as drones become increasingly more ubiquitous, we will see more, potentially more and more of these operations.

[17:21] And it requires us to reflect on what sort of war we want. As a society,what sort of war are we...What kind of war making do we want to be a part of? And very briefly, our society is...Oh, OK. We'll catch up with the...point

Senator McCain: [17:33] OK. [laughs] I want you, I want you to come sit on the floor, so they can't miss you. OK? So, we know exactly how much time we've got.

Man 1: [17:45] This is our time. But we had a clock, and as luck would have it,um...

Senator McCain: [17:50] I'm just trying not to take too much of your time, so [indecipherable 0:17:48]

Aaron: [17:53] Good. We're ten minutes behind. Um. [laughter]

Aaron: [17:59] But it's a structured debate, so, kind of shaky. Um, you guys have five minutes to split as you wish. Take a little extra time, because I want to

be fair to everybody. Uh, to make your case, and is the case you want to make,let me just ask it this way, that we're doing a difficult thing right? Is that?Make it.

Daniel: [18:27] So let me talk a little bit about, about what we're doing, um, and process, and I think to have an informed debate about this, it's really veryimportant for us to understand process.

[18:36] And it's actually very hard to understand parts of the process because you have two agencies, uh, two government agencies involved in the use, lethal use of drones. One being, the, the CIA, allegedly. And the other being the Department of Defense. All of that stems from legal authority.

[18:51] So I'm a law professor. I have one hammer. I'm going to hit on the law.Um, and so where does this legal authority come from? Uh, go all the way back tothe September 11th attacks, shortly after the September 11th attacks Congress passes an authorization for the use of military force that authorizes the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against those individuals he deemsresponsible for the September 11th attacks.

[19:13] Think of that, as a small group, and then watch as it gets, as legislation does, it gets worked through the courts, and the courts expand the authority,largely because of the Guantanamo litigation, to mean Al-Qaeda and associated forces. And so, we have the authorization for the use of military force, a UMF, authorizes us to use force against Al-Qaeda and associated forces that has expanded through judicial interpretations.

[19:36] You get a little bit of support from Congress because Congress has continually authorized through appropriations funding for both what the CIA does andwhat the Department of Defense does. Um, and so, with this, you give a bunch ofuh, government agencies a mandate, and they go out and they act on it. Um, and bureaucrats start making lists of people to kill.

[19:56] And so who goes on those lists? You have really two categories of targets -- those targets that fall squarely within the authorization for the use of military force, and then those targets that the President deems under his covert a


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ction authority, it would be in the national security and foreign relations interest of the United States for us to engage. Those targets, the covert action targets, get struck by the CIA. Other targets get attacked by the Department of Defense. Oftentimes the joint special operations come in.

[20:23] And so, on this list, how do you identify who you're actually going to put on the list? We're actually pretty careful about creating the names of individuals who go on the list. We identify who they are. So there's an identificationprocess. We vet them. What's their function? They're a senior bomb maker. They're the most senior bomb maker. We look at what would be the impact of attackingthem. They're no longer able to train people to make five bombs a month. Or, what's the impact of not attacking them? They'll continue to be able to train individuals. They might even, uh, they might even grow with impunity and feel like they can continue to launch attacks.

[20:55] There's also a validation question, all of which, by the way, this happens inside the bureaucracy. Could attacking this individual support the nationalobjectives. Is the target operational? Are they still a member? Are there any political or cultural side effects? Is there an impact on host state public opinion? This is the process that we follow for targeting.

[21:14] There are fights inside of our government about whether or not particular names should be on target lists. Um, it's not transparent to us that those fights are occurring. But it's actually occurring inside government. And ultimately

, um, this is documented in electronic targeting folders, with records of approvals, changes in intelligence, collateral concerns.

[21:34] If you're worried about the strikes that occur in Pakistan, and you're amember of Congress, for example, the only way that you can see the ETFs is if you're on House or Senate intelligence committee.

[21:45] And the public, by the way, has no awareness of the existence of the strikes, because of the, because uh, because it's denied, basically, as a matter ofcovert action. And I think this might be the one point of agreement for us where there really is an oversight challenge because of the two different agencies that are engaging in this. And I'm going to turn it over to my, my partner, General Marks.

General Marks: [22:02] Senator and Mrs. McCain, thank you very much.

Aaron: [22:03] You've got a, got a couple of minutes, General.

General Marks: [22:06] I'm sorry, Aaron.

Aaron: [22:06] Couple of minutes.

General Marks: [22:08] Got it. And Ambassador Volker, thank you as well. Um, I come at this from, essentially two perspectives. One, the technological perspective, rather practical. And from the intelligence process, having been an intelligence officer all my life.

[22:23] Um, I grew up with unmanned aerial vehicles and with drones. As a battalion commander over 25 years ago, I commanded drones. And I did that as a brigadecommander, and I was, uh, as a senior intelligence officer, when we went to warin Iraq, I was responsible for all things Iraq, and among those many tasks, itwas building the architecture so that we could move this video, these drone videos, so that we could share situational awareness.

[22:50] So I have a very practical and muddy boots and kind of broken-finger perspective. Um, the one thing I can state with absolute certainty is the technolog


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y that has gone into our drones has gotten incredibly precise and better, and every generation of our manufacturing and development has really been a light yeardevelopment in terms of enhanced capabilities. So the, it's a very precise, andit's a very capable weapon system.

[23:20] From the intelligence perspective, to your very point. We don't do a pretty good job, or we're pretty careful about this. We're extremely careful aboutwho populates these target lists. And it's based on collection, robust collection of intelligence, fusion of data, analysis of that data, distribution, shared perspectives on different targets. And all governmental agencies that have an intelligence, uh, contribution, and all, and there are, there were originally sixteen of those, contribute and argue and debate about who populates that list and who, in fact, should be on that list and in what order.

[23:57] So, from my perspective, it's a technological capability that we're notever going to put this genie back into a bottle. It is capability [inaudible 0:24:06] capacity available to it, to us. But we have to be able to more, I think,precisely define how we're going to employ this weapon system. And we right noware at the very edge of a debate as the Senator indicated as to whether this isan agency type of activity or whether it's a DoD., Department of Defense activity.

Aaron: [24:27] All right. A lot, a lot, a lot has been said, and there's a lot to digest. I want you, I want you each to take a couple of minutes. Let's, let's,

let's do two minutes, OK? Two minutes each side, just react to what they have heard, what you have heard. And that will kind of set the table for where we go from here. Everyone will have laid out, basically, their position.

Man 2: [24:52] I only want to make one point. And that is, the concern that I tried to describe was the concern about the long term implications. I believe thatwe are very good at doing the technological acts, coming up with lists, gettingcaught into what the counter-terrorism center does. The efficiency is fine. Butit does, in my opinion [inaudible 0:25:10] tend to the other side here, is thatit falls into one of the classic problems of drone discussions, which is the assumption is that everything related to how we should think and deal with dronesassumes US dominance of the drone, of drone deployment.

[25:26] So we know now, it's true that right now, there are only a handful of countries that have used drones militarily, the United States, the UK, Israel. Butover 80 countries have possession of drones, and it's inevitable that drones will become ubiquitous in their military deployment, which means they'll be used throughout the world.

[25:41] So what do we think? Step back a second. The overall argument here is tosay that the targeting mechanism is above board. And, in a word, we can call that the sort of just-trust-us argument. Maybe that's right. But we don't know, because it's secret.

[25:54] What would you all think if when you opened up the newspaper, instead ofseeing a wreck in, you know, a piece, a story about a drone attack in Yemen run

by the CIA, what would you think if there was a drone attack run by the Chinesegovernment targeting a Tibetan activist in Nepal or in Bolivia, or wherever, outside of a conflict zone, which was presented as a national security need with the exact same arguments as are being presented here. How would that feel to you,and then multiply that by all the different drone possessing nations in the world. What would that world look like?

General Marks: [26:27] My immediate response would be, to, to the very point, would be that we have to have an open dialogue, because the technology exists. Uh,military history is replete with examples of niche technologies that suddenly n


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ow alter the form of warfare -- the crossbow to the longbow, just as an, and infact how we employ those, are extremely important. We have to acknowledge that the technology and the capability will proliferate. How do we bring that forward,and how do we discuss in a very, very open forum. That needs to take place.

Aaron: [27:00] Can I, let me, I mean, let me ask a question on that, and let's just take a minute each, I guess, to toss it around. Because, um, I read this week about, uh, there's an air show, I think it was in Singapore. And the drones were like the hot item. Everyone wanted to get, you know, everyone with $20 million, which eliminates a lot of people in this room, but everyone else with $20 million wanted to buy a drone.

[27:25] And, in fact, someday the Chinese will have a military drone if they don't have one now, and maybe someday they'll attack someone in Tibet, and how is that different, honestly, than, in your mind, how we would feel if we woke up inthe morning and found out that a Chinese fighter jet had, or bomber had droppeda bomb on a village in Tibet? Why is it, why is the drone different, why shouldwe think about it differently, if in fact we should think about it differently?

Man 2: [27:57] If, if in fact we think that the model that we are projecting isthat we can go after people in places, in places where those people are in countries with whom we're not at war. It propos...it poses a problem that ultimatelyis not going to be because of the drone technology, it's not going to be limitedto us.

Aaron: [28:16] It's not the technology, it's the rationale of using the technology.

Man 2: [28:19] Yes.

Man 4: [28:20] Our underlying policy is that we are at war with Al-Qaeda and associated forces, and it's a trans-national armed conflict that follows those combatants wherever they go. And so, as a consequence of that, um, we have to recognize that other nation states may very well take that position. However, there isan argue...that would then just prompt a discussion about the underlying legitimacy of their arguments.

[28:43] And so, um, non-violent Tibetan protesters being bombed by Chinese drones or Chinese aircraft would subject the Chinese government to the types of criticism that we would expect.

[28:56] Whereas there's not a lot of reason to criticize the United States for targeting members of Al-Qaeda who the United Nations has even declared, and all nation states have signed onto believing that Al-Qaeda is a force that should becountered, sometimes with military force, or other times with law enforcement means.

[29:13] And so it goes to the legitimacy of the underlying cause, and that's whyI think it's a specious argument to sort of compare what we're doing to what would we think if the Russians did it. If the Russians are indiscriminately bombin

g civilians, it's very different than where we are purposely not trying to harmcivilians. And we're purposely going after a legitimate enemy.

Aaron: [29:32] I did cable TV, there's no such thing as a specious argument. OK?[laughter]

Daniel: [29:37] So one of the sadder stories of Guantanamo that you may be awareof was the fact that several Uyghur, Uyghurs, Muslim minority in China, were picked up and held in detention even though it was clear to all of those in the USgovernment that they were not posing any threat to the United States. Uh, their


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status, it's an odd story, but, you know we don't have to invent false cases.

[29:59] In fact, they were in a training camps, gaining armed insurgency skillsto then go back and challenge the Chinese government. Now perhaps it wasn't a substantive challenge. But I don't think it's difficult at all to imagine that, uh, that if the justification for targeting individuals all over the world, outside of traditionally understood war zones, becomes a question of trusting states evaluation of the targeting process, uh you know, why wouldn't multiple states engage in all sorts of actions? And if they were, they would certainly be able tosay that their secret criteria were as valid as our secret criteria.

Man 2: [30:35] But the idea that I shouldn't target Al Qaeda because the Chineseabuses its own people, to me, is the false argument. It doesn't present us witha real choice.

Aaron: [30:46] Let me, let me...

Man 1: [30:47] I don't think we're disagreeing. Last point on this is that the judicious use of drones is something that none of us, I think, would disagree with. But the procedure that is secret, therefore not to be, uh, shared, and the indiscriminate use that we, unfortunately, in my opinion, have engaged in, does leave us open to criticism. [crosstalk]

Aaron: [31:06] Let me, let me, let me do two, one thing and then ask a question

here that will...If you all have questions, I, there are two microphones, one oneach side of the room, and if you kind of wander that way we will, I promise you, get to them. I, I just would ask you graciously to ask questions as opposed to make statements or, you know. Because otherwise, I have to be the bad guy andI just, this is enough. OK? [laughter]

Aaron: [31:37] OK, so there's one there, one there. OK. I, I want to ask a couple things first that have come out of this that have jumped out at me. The word indiscriminately, Ambassador, you used the word indiscriminately, "We use these weapons indiscriminately." Uh, General, do we use these weapons, in your view, indiscriminately?

General Marks: [32:00] Not at all. Not at all. Indiscriminate, not the connotati

on, I think the definition would be very, very loose implementation of, of, of acapability. The process as described in terms of populating the target list isvery, I would say dogmatic, it's very doctrinaire. We prescribe to some very high standards.

[32:27] And because all of that data is, uh, classified in nature, albeit, theremay be some open source or some unclassified data. But the product that is derived from that is classified, often to the very highest levels, it's, it's goingto remain secret. The perception, then, is that when we use drones, the perception can be, and the Ambassador has indicated, with his spoke experience in Pakistan, nobody else can speak to that, is that there was an, uh, an element of indiscriminate use.

[33:01] I would argue that in order to simply, the decision to launch and employa drone against a known target is any, is absolutely nothing close to indiscriminate... [crosstalk]

Aaron: [33:12] Right. Ambassador, when you used the word indiscriminate, honestly, I got like a little goose bump thing happening here. Do you really mean indiscriminate the way I use the word?

Ambassador Munter: [33:20] You wanted this to be a good debate?


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Aaron: [33:22] I want, uh, yeah, I do. [crosstalk]

Ambassador Munter: [33:23] Let me be very...

Aaron: [33:24] Sure.

Ambassador Munter: [33:25] Let me be very straight with you about this and thatwas, and that's, let me correct that. When it is perceived as indiscriminate...

Aaron: [33:32] We've got an issue.

Ambassador Munter: [33:32] We've got an issue. And because of the use of what wecalled signature strikes where many of the criteria of which you spoke were less clear and certainly because of the secrecy of the program, less open to debateor less open to public scrutiny.

[33:49] We ran into a problem that we were perceived as being indiscriminate andthat the political blowback was, indeed, something that undercut our overall goals in the region. [crosstalk]

Aaron: [34:00] That's actually where I'd like to go next if I may. And that's akind of, do we win the battle, lose the war kind of question here. There's a story today that there was a drone attack in Yemen and that, uh, and that, uh, innocent civilians died. Which may or may not be true.

Ambassador Munter: [34:19] Right.

Aaron: [34:20] It may or may not be true. There may have been innocents who, whodied despite the, the, the perfection or, or, or, uh, improvements in the technology or maybe that's just what they say. But that's the story that's out therearound the world today and we are saddled, as a country, with that story.

[34:43] Did we win the battle or lose the war in trying to get people to be withus in this complicated long-term struggle? General? Professor?

General Marks: [34:55] It's very, it's very difficult when, when you're in the United States people are going to take shots at you all the time. That's the fact

of the matter. It's very, it's very difficult. The 12/12/13 strike in Yemen, um, those that were killed may or may not have all been members of Al Qaeda and/oraffiliates.

[35:13] The difficulty that, that the administration has to deal with right nowis that if you release all the data as to who they were, that gets into a lot ofclassified sources and methods. That becomes problematic, and the nature of theuse of the, of this weapon system. If all of these were civilians, we're probably not going to know that. So it's, frankly, it is a debate that's going to takeplace and there's no easy answer.

[35:39] So we, we could have, in fact, won that very tactical engagement and lost some ground, that's the cost of our engagement. And in this particular posture

, going after those targets. [crosstalk]

Aaron: [35:50] Mr. Ambassador, Professor, is that what makes you nervous here, that we're winning lots of little battles and running the risk of losing some larger national security war?

Ambassador Munter: [36:02] The point that I think we would agree on is that in this case, because of the way the debate works on an event like what happened inYemen, there is a gap in what we can speak about in public, to foreign publics with our elected representatives. And that does pose a big problem for our long-t


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erm strategic goals.

[36:24] I would argue that the debate about the debate that we're going into iswhat we have to, have to have, so that when we get involved in cases like this,the public is part, is aware and the foreign publics are aware of what we are trying to achieve. Because it is messy and it is difficult, but unless we have more of a debate in public, it is going to, increasingly, appear that we are achieving certain things and giving more away. Yes?

Aaron: [36:56] Yeah, go ahead... [crosstalk]

Aaron: [36:58] ...something stupid. Yeah, go ahead.

Man 4: [37:00] You brought up the Yemen strike. The Yemen strike was a Joint Special Operations Command strike, this was a military strike. It took place amidsta debate about whether we should transfer this authority from the CIA to the DoD. So you're seeing part of this debate is the bureaucratic in fire, DoD can't do it as well as the CIA can.

[37:22] And there's another contrast too, we've been talking a lot about Pakistan, but if you look how things are done in, in Afghanistan, ISAF is, our forces in Afghanistan are transparent about civilian casualty incidents, when strikes happen, and they have a semitransparent process. They don't give you the details,but they let you know that there is a process that's in place to investigate civ

ilian casualties.

[37:45] And when those civilian casualties occur there's a reparations process that's in place. That's what you get when you put it under DoD and you have ArmsServices Committee oversight. When you put it under Title 50, the intelligence community, nobody's allowed to acknowledge that the strike existed, so you can'teven have a public debate about it and talk about the things that we're talkingabout.

[38:06] And that's a real big problem with the way that we've gone for it. It made sense, early on, that the drone was there, collecting the intelligence, "Hey,put a missile on it." It also made sense for deniability purposes in Pakistan specifically to not have boots on the ground. But as we look to the future, to a

more sustainable policy, the CIA probably needs to get out of this business if we want democratic accountability as a nation.

Aaron: [38:31] And, and, I, I want to get some questions from the floor, but letme just ask you to consider something and we'll come back to it. Which is to most of your fellow citizens, whether it's the arm, it's the military or the CIA is a distinction without difference. Bad guys get popped, the people who did 9/11pay.

[38:56] I mean, I, I hate reducing, and I don't really mean to be glib on this,something horribly complicated to something that pathetically simple. But I really believe that this is one of those gut issues to most of the country. And whenwe start talking Title 10, Title 50, Title this, Title that, I just want to kno

w the people who killed 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers pay. Sir.

Skip Lend: [39:30] Am I up?

Aaron: [39:31] Yeah. You're the sir I was, yeah. [crosstalk]

Skip: [39:33] I'm Skip Lend, uh, Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, I think, to me, the realquestion is are we complying with all of our laws, ethics, morals, uh, that thiscountry has. Uh, it's nice to comply with, with a congressional mandate to go off and attack anybody we want to that has an Al Qaeda nametag on. But, uh, launc


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hing a weapon into a foreign country, the last time checked international law, was an act of war.

[40:01] Uh, have we gotten, uh, authorization from these foreign countries to launch these attacks into these countries? I don't believe that's true. And my question is... [crosstalk]

Aaron: [40:12] OK. Thank you.

Skip: [40:13] ...are we complying with all of the laws?

Aaron: [40:14] All right, the question is are we complying with the international law here? Somebody, I thought we were. [crosstalk]

General Munter: [40:25] Give it to the lawyers. [crosstalk]

Aaron: [40:27] We've got like three lawyers here, someone's got to know this. [crosstalk]

General Munter: [40:30] So the international law arguments are, one is the controversial one is actually the one I advanced before, which is that the United States is involved in a borderless conflict that follows the enemy wherever it goes. But you don't have to go that far if you believe that Pakistan is involved inits own, internal arm conflict against individuals in the federally administered

tribal areas, which they are.

[40:50] They send troops in there all the time. They, they have fights on the ground. They send their air force in. And then the only leap that you need is hasthe Pakistani government invited us in to their internal arm conflict in which case we're a participant in what's known as a noninternational arm conflict. Thatwould make it lawful. They publicly say, "We don't want you here."

[41:10] And then in private, you can read the WikiLeaks, they said, "Please bring on the drone strikes and we need you to hit the targets in the following areas."

[41:17] Yemen's an easier case. The Yemeni government has come out and said, "We

want you here, continue doing it."

[41:22] If you don't buy my argument on the Pakistan case, we were flying out ofPakistani airbases until 2011. A drone takes off with bombs on it, it comes back, the bombs only go one direction. And so you can figure out that everybody onthat...Every Air Force cadet here knows that we know exactly what was happening.

[41:40] We were there with the consent of that government operating from their,uh, from their territory. And... [crosstalk]

Man 3: [41:45] The short answer is yes.

Man 4: [41:47] Yeah, it's lawful. [laughter] [crosstalk]

Man 4: [41:50] Don't let lawyers talk.

Man 2: [41:53] One of the core principles of the laws of war, it's part of whatthe US calls the Law of Arm Conflict and what the world calls [indecipherable 0:41:58] law is distinction and distinction, in a word, is what allows military forces to legally kill an individual. So classically in, in the law of armed conflict, soldiers in uniforms were surrounded by many of them and the purpose, the legal reason, one reason, is so that you can be legally targeted, you can be distinguished from civilian populations and in this situation of war, be targeted.


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[42:22] So really briefly I'll try to...drones are changing the way, the natureof war, the innovations of drones is not that they deploy missiles. The innovation is that they provide constant surveillance, live, permanently recorded surveillance that then gets collated with other data, human intelligence data, signalsintelligence data.

[42:41] And what's most interesting, as a kind of response to whether or not these strikes are legal, is the signature strike idea. And in signature strikes, individuals are targeted, not based on existing understanding of distinction, theydon't have uniforms, we don't actually know who they are, as in the case of thepersonality strike. So know who Mullah Omar is, you know who Osama Bin Laden is.

[43:03] So there's a collation of data and the data gets brought together and determinations are made, such serious determinations that people are categorized to be killed. Now, just think, this is part of a transformation of the world where we're all data points and they can be collated together.

[43:18] And think how nervous Americans are about the way in which their data points are recorded and the way that can be used. So just imagine, as all of thisgets ever more sophisticated and the outcome of those data points is a signaturestrike that leads somebody to be killed and transforms the entire mechanism ofdistinction so that that becomes understood to be a way of targeting someone.

[43:40] So we need debate and discussion and serious open, uh, clarification ofhow all this should operate, not just with US forces. Because, in fact, the lawsof war are globally, they apply to all global militaries and we need to clarifythis.

Aaron: [43:57] That's just the simple... [crosstalk]

Aaron: [44:00] Yes.

Man 3: [44:01] The CIA doesn't comply with the rules of war.

Aaron: [44:03] OK. Question mark. Uh, yes sir?

Ryan: [44:11] Hi. I'm Ryan Stashrick, a student at Desert Vista High School downin Ahwatukee.

[44:16] Professor Neil, you talked about how, exactly, we vet these people thatare the targets of the strikes, and General Marks, you talked about how -- you rebutted the word indiscriminate in strikes. But there have been numerous media outlets, like Reuters, New York Times, Economist, et cetera, that have talked about secondary strikes. As in, immediately upon after we launch a drone strike, afew hours or even up to half an hour after which we launch another strike.

[44:43] I was wondering how exactly that process, how that process takes place and under what conditions we launch those strikes. Because oftentimes, there have

been claims that they kill several first responders.

Professor Gregory McNeal: [44:56] So, um, so...

Aaron: [44:58] Go ahead.

Professor McNeal: [44:59] So the first set of strikes, I think you accurately, uh, characterized my position. So then, uh, there's a second series of strikes that, uh, the, the veterans in the room would be familiar with, circumstances where you're in direct fire combat with the enemy or, uh, time sensitive targets whe


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re you would be calling in close air support.

[45:16] And the examples you're talking about, about rescuers, you still have tocomply with the law of armed conflict to ensure that the individual that you'retargeting is a lawful target, you would just be operating that under a compressed time, uh, uh, sequence.

[45:29] So how might that happen. Um, I strike an enemy, I strike the leading enemy in a caravan. Um, and the three vehicles behind it, because I've had persistent surveillance, I've been up on their phones, they're just coming from the rifle range, they're all in a convoy together. I very well might have enough piecesof data to put together that I don't know the names of those individuals, but Iknow that they're members of that armed group.

[45:51] Just like if I go to Fort Bragg and I see a bunch of guys at the range,I don't have to read their name tape to know that they're probably in the 82nd Airborne Division and they're probably soldiers, that's why they're carrying rifles and they're at the range.

[46:01] My degree of certainty is lower on that type of strike, but the Law of Armed Conflict doesn't require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it requires reasonable certainty, the reasonable judgment of a commander in that circumstance.

[46:12] And so in the circumstance as I described it to you, I don't think it wo

uld be unreasonable to target those individuals. And, contrary to sort of popular belief, first responders are not entitled to any special protections under theLaw of Armed Conflict, if they're lawful targets. And so, that's the short wayof answering the question.

Aaron: [46:29] I'm sorry. [crosstalk]

Professor McNeal: [46:29] Longer than the moderated one.

Aaron: [46:31] Let me, let me...General, that sounds like a slippery slope we just got on, where we, we kind of, we change the rules a little bit, we relax therules a little bit, is what I heard him say. We don't need the same level of specificity that we needed the first time, the second time. Am I...?

General Marks: [46:51] That's, that's not what I heard.

Aaron: [46:53] Well, he nodded yes, that's what he said. So I...

Man 5: [46:55] Certainty.

General Marks: [46:56] I'm nodding to say I understood your... [crosstalk]

Aaron: [46:58] Oh, OK. [crosstalk]

Man 5: [47:00] This is called acquiescence. The, there's a, there's a level of,of certainty and I think that's what you were talking about. Intelligence, the p

roduction of intelligence, the collection of intelligence, the production of intelligence, it's distribution, doesn't revert back to zero. You know, the intersection, uh, at all times. There is a foundation of intelligence upon which you build.

[47:21] So, fleeting targets and what we call targetable intelligence is extremely important because it could, in fact, that particular target could, in fact, disappear, go away. You may lose the opportunity to strike.

[47:35] So you've got a foundation of understanding that you've achieved. You go


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from data to intelligence, to et cetera. You kind of go through this linear progression, it can take place very quickly, as Greg indicated, and very truncatedtime periods. You've got a level of certainty and it might not be the same levelof certainty that you achieved upon the first strike.

[47:55] But you've confirmed that that foundation of intelligence has not been altered, ergo you make a decision to go after some of those other targets. So isthat a slippery slope? I think it's pretty solid ground.

Woman 1: [48:08] Hello. This is Javeria Tarid. I'm from Pakistan. I'm a journalist. And, uh, a lot more discussion is going on related to Pakistan.

[48:16] My question is, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Daniel, we all know, and you agreedthat the drone technology is very important to kill the militant like Taliban.

[48:25] So are we willing to accept that the innocent people have to die to bring peace or is this acceptable that the innocent have to die in order to bring peace and how would we promote human rights in this scenario?

[48:39] I just want to ask you this question and one more. Regarding the trial of the Musharraf, do you think it will impact the relationship of US and Pakistanand the situation with Nawaz Sharif garment? Thank you so much.

General Munter: [48:53] Let me take this on. First of all, I think the second qu

estion is not really germane to what we're talking about today, so I'll pass onthat. But the first one is that, um, I would take issue with the, the, the argument you make that there is a need for innocent people to die in order to win.

[49:09] There is no intention, I think, that any of us would say, there's no intent to kill people who are innocent. The argument we're having and the discussion we want to work on is how are we as certain as we can be, not only that the people who are targeted are people who are legitimately targeted. But in a broadersense, whether that act of doing it, however we do it, serves the larger strategic goals that we and our friends -- and I would consider Pakistan our friend, Iwould like to see a stable, prosperous Pakistan -- have as goals for the region.

[49:43] So the point is we can talk about the technology and the issues that we,that we, that we, um, uh, that we employ. None of us would argue that innocentpeople should be targeted for any reason.

[49:55] The question we're having is how effective is this, how does it furtherthe goals of the United States and, and it's allies, in trying to reach a, a, akind of stability that's, that's good for everyone.

Daniel: [50:06] We don't target innocents, just to be very, very precise, put areal, kind of a dot on this. You don't target innocents. Do innocents die? Sometimes they do. And within the process of the targeting that's taking place, there's a collateral damage estimate that's done and it's overseen by a number of, you know, legal, legal chops all the way down to include intelligence observations

.

[50:31] So a decision is made, a go, no go decision is made based on, largely, what's called the CDE environment. What does the collateral damage estimate looklike. And if it's far too high, the decision, more often than not, will be no go. So innocents are not targeted.

Man 3: [50:51] Let me ask for a minute from each of you on something here and then we'll go to this side.


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[51:02] Anybody who's ever seen pictures of drone, the controllers, it's like watching a weird video game, but it's not a game, it's real. Do you have any concern that it makes the killing too easy?

Daniel: [51:24] Why would you want to make killing hard? [laughter]

Man 3: [51:29] I want...I think...All right...Let me...All right. How about it makes war too easy? How about that? I want to make war hard. I, I do. I want...Iwant is...

Daniel: [51:39] The decision. That's right.

Man 3: [51:40] I want a...I want a full public policy debate on whether or not and the implications of. And I'm just wondering. I'm not making, I'm not taking aposition. I promised I wouldn't, and I won't, OK? You'll never, you won't be able to beat it out of me, General. [laughter]

Man 3: [51:58] But just it's so, in some way detach us from the, the, the, the process, the worst part of this process that it, it, it harms our soul in some way.

Man 1: [52:13] But Daniel, if I could just very briefly, Daniel made the point of, um, limited domestic cost. Uh, which really gets to the, the intellectual thread that brings you to the moral discussion about conflict. And that is it, is i

t more moral if I make a decision to go to war or engage is it more moral for meto look you in the eye before I stab you in the neck, or can I do that from distance and not put myself at increased risk, yet still achieve the same end state.

[52:43] Um, the decision to go to war has to be uh, an exceptionally difficult and arduous process. Where we have migrated over the course of the last decade isI would, I could argue intellectually that we are in a continuous state of conflict, and we will be through all your promotions up through the grade of O-5 andO-6. That for the next three decades, we're in a constant state of conflict, sohow do you engage if you assume that's correct, how do you engage and how do you employ force in that type of an environment?

Aaron: [53:18] Professor, take a minute on the question.

Professor McNeal: [53:20] So one of the ironies of drones is that they're both distanced in that the drone pilots, and in fact drones aren't unmanned, there areteams of people that are needed to run a drone. There's signals analysts, there's the maintenance teams, there's, you know, it's a massive operation with a lotof people.

[53:37] But one of the odd things, is that it's both very distanced in that drone pilots are literally thousands of miles away from where the drones are deployed, and yet it's exceedingly intimate.

[53:46] If you interview drone pilots, as I have, you'll find that they know the

ir targets with a level of specificity and detail that's almost unheard of in modern warfare. They hover over communities. They watch people. They don't just watch them involved in military activities. They watch them playing with their children, going to the market, all of the things that take place during a period ofintelligence gathering.

[54:07] And then after a drone attack, they hover over and do a damage assessment, and see the mangled bodies, and sometimes are even present for subsequent funerals. It's an extraordinary, intimate process, and yet it's also a process where all of the US personnel are separated from the impact by a...an enormous physi


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cal distance.

[54:26] And this is another element of the changing nature of warfare. It's bothcloser and more intimate, and more complex, in one way. And yet, it's physically distanced and separated by the mediation of technology.

Aaron: [54:40] Over here.

Soraya Souleymane: [54:41] We're going that way for...

Aaron: [54:42] Are we? OK.

Soraya: [54:44] My name is Soraya, and I'm a fellow at the Next Generation Leaders program of the McCain Institute. Uh, my question, I will ask this question from, um, a foreign point of view, because all the argument that you've put forth,ah, in favor of protecting the United States, their interests, their people, and everything.

[55:04] But look at it from an outsider point of view. You have this incredible,precise technology that is completely, uh, "more advanced" in quotes, as compared to normal, traditional warfare. And so, because it's so accurate, the marginof error that you allow yourself to have becomes a...becomes something of a lotof scrutiny.

[55:30] So, you have a precise technology, and any casualty that's comes as result of that technology will be looked at more severely than, uh, in a traditionalwarfare, because in a traditional warfare it's more obvious.

[55:44] So, we...bearing that in mind, do you think that you are achieving a greater goal of reducing or increasing people who hate the United States and what they are doing in some countries? Protecting the American interests, of course, but how do you think people are perceiving you out there?

Ambassador Munter: [56:06] I'll take a stab at that. One of the issues here is that, uh, you're mixing the question of the way, uh, a war is carried out with the broader foreign policy aims of working with other people in other countries. And I would argue that you have a point. We have to put these things into context

.

[56:26] It's not that we don't want to protect ourselves in the best way we can.And, given the fact that we were attacked, and that we have this weapon, the judicious use of this weapon is one of the most important things that we can have.

[56:39] I think what we're talking about today is how do we do that, and what you suggested should be part of that. What is the way in which that is perceived,not only by Americans, but by foreigners, as something that is reasonable?

[56:54] I would argue that the secrecy that has been part of this does prevent us. As a diplomat, it prevented me from engaging with the Pakistani public, for example, in making the case for why we're doing it, not being against doing it, b

ut making the case for why we did it in, in that way.

[57:10] So you raise a valid point, but it does mix something more than just drone and the drone issue. It has to do with foreign policy in general and the waythat we deal with foreign publics.

Man 1: [57:18] Let, let me ask in, in your response, if I may. It's just one ofthese, it's this terrible conundrum, in a sense.

[57:27] And on the one hand, it's hard to argue with the Ambassador that if we c


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ould make the case more publicly, we might mitigate, uh, some of the blowback that we get when things go wrong or when people just say things go wrong, whetherthey went wrong or not. OK.

[57:43] On the other hand, to do that is to sacrifice methods, operations, all sorts of things that we, that is not in our national interest to give up. Are wejust kind of trapped in this and then we have to accept there's going to be a degree of blowback, and that's just the way it is?

General Marks: [58:03] Are you asking me?

Man 1: [58:04] No, I'm not, actually, in this case.

General Marks: [58:06] So, there are, there are two dimensions to this. Um, first with regard to the specific question, I, you know, the, the, America is, is somewhat cursed because of our blessings. We have the financial resources to employ precision technology.

[58:20] And because of that, we have a moral, a legal obligation to use it if it's available. And we have the resources to make it available so that almost every, uh, piece of ordnance we drop is precision-guided.

[58:33] Whereas a country with less resources could drop a dumb bomb. And so, ifthey're your ally, they can drop dumb bombs, but we can't. And that's, and that

's actually a good thing, right?

[58:43] That, if we can make war, when we, when we make the decision to go to war, if we can make it more humane, that's a good thing.

[58:49] The second sort of, uh, point about the transparency, Ambassador Munterhit on this, it's, it depends on the, the, the strategic goal, right?

[58:58] So in Afghanistan, if you want to drop a piece of ordnance, um, prior toa pre-planned strike, against a name target, and you expect one civilian casualty before dropping that bomb, there was a point in time, in 2009, when the McChrystal directive came out, that you needed a four-star general's approval or theSecDef to sign off on that strike.

[59:18] We just slowed down and weren't dropping ordnance anymore because winning hearts and minds, it was a decision that that was part of our strategic goals.

[59:26] Now, if tomorrow the North Koreans roll over the border, you're not going to have a civilian casualty number of one. You're going to be pushing those decisions, because of the optempo, down to the company commander level, down to the platoon leader level, to make decisions, on the spot, about civilian casualties.

[59:40] And it all, our national, political, and strategic objectives flow intoour military objectives. And that's something that's oftentimes missing from thedebate from those who have, who have never worn a uniform and don't understand

the connection between the politics, our goals, and what we're doing on the ground.

[59:56] Um, and it's tough to answer it in any one abstract sense because our objectives in Yemen are different than our objectives in Pakistan and different than our objectives in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Munter: [60:05] It really is, to bifurcate this, you've got the counterinsurgency strategy, and you've got a counterterrorism strategy, two differentthings. In Pakistan, it was CT. In Afghanistan, it was CI, for the longest time


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.

[60:17] Um, that dictates how you engage and how you accept and then work with the perceptions, the blowback, the reactions that occur.

Man 1: [60:28] And Ambassador, I don't, I didn't mean to be rude there. [laughter]

Man 1: [60:31] You were, you did look like you wanted to say something.

Ambassador Munter: [60:35] No, I mean, the point here is that I'll, I'll just repeat what I think my colleagues are trying to say in a different way, which is that we do have to make sure that we've read our Clausewitz, that we, if you're going to engage as a military person, that the point of what you're doing in a military endeavor is toward a political goal.

[60:55] And the political goal, I would submit, as the questioner submitted, involves taking into account the perceptions of foreign friends, if indeed we feelthat's part of our own security.

Man 2: [61:06] May I say one thing in...

Ambassador Munter: [61:08] Sure.

Man 2: [61:08] So from the two, uh, um, foreign voices we've heard, one thing ofthe Pakistani journalist, I forgot your name, but it's got to be right that theUS respects human rights law.

[61:20] Legally, the country is legally obligated to respect this body of law. And so, when you bring up that point, that should be a fundamental baseline for any of these discussions. But linked to that, I think linked to what you're bothsuggesting is that the rule of law, and adherence to the rule of law, can't justbe something abstract that exists behind closed doors. This is true in our ownlives.

[61:40] We, we trust our government, we believe our government not only becauseof things we can see but actually because over a period of time, there's relatio

nships of trust, whereby you believe that, that entities given power will managethat effectively based on the kind of rule-based system, right?

[61:56] So there's an enormous cost for the US to be seen largely in the world as a non, as an entity that doesn't abide by rule of law principles, and there'senormous gain, I think, by doing those things that make drone deployments be understood to be more rule of law abiding to the degree that they are.

[62:16] There may be some debate here as to the degree they are, but certainly where the perception is severely against that, there's an enormous cost to it.

Man 2: [62:26] I, I just want somebody to tweet a question, because I'm too oldto have ever actually said, "We got this as a tweet." [laughter]

Rochelle Edwards: [62:39] Good evening Senator, General, Ambassador, and Gentlemen. My name is Rochelle Edwards, I'm a midshipman at ASU. Um, my question is purely moral, so this question is going to be based as um, from one human being toanother group of human beings. Um, with the use of drones, do you find that it takes away a human being's self, sorry, self of self-preservation and mode of, um, protection when you use a drone against unarmed people, whether they be of another military or not?

[63:09] Does it take away the humanity um, and the ability to protect oneself an


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d what are like the moral or and/or ethical um problems behind that?

Man 2: [63:21] My answer is that engagement of armed conflict, whether it's by use of drones, some other stand-off weapons system, or up close and personal, isan incredibly ethical, moral debate that we all need to have. And that needs tobe a debate you have a priori before the decisions on whether you're going to employ that force, and you've exhausted every other means to try to resolve the conflict.

Paul Hansen Matev: [63:50] Hi, my name is Paul Hansen Matev, I'm a citizen of the state of Arizona. Is it constitutional or more importantly, is it right that the current President, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and also a man who prevailed over audience member with us today, who was a former prisoner of war, is it rightthat that person has a kill list with United States on it in violation of judicial review, due process, and the age old principle of habeas corpus?

[64:22] It's directed first to the two lawyers and then to the ambassador and the colonel. Thank you, kindly.

Man 1: [64:28] Got demoted.

Ambassador Munter: [64:30] If a US citizen joins a foreign military in a conventional war, the fact that they're a US citizen becomes irrelevant to whether theycould be targeted, right? The US joined, citizen joins the Wehrmacht then is fi

ghting in the Second World War against Allied forces, right, that doesn't seem problematic. What really that question gets to the heart of is, what's the statusof that individual as a US citizen? And that gets, really that just brings us back to the same discussions we're having as to, as to under what legal conditioncan people be targeted.

Professor McNeal: [65:07] The keeping of a list to me, um, I'd rather we had a list than not a list. And in fact our, our, our current process at least as the Attorney General gave it as his speech at Northwestern, involves intra-executivebranch review, it's not just placing uh, it's not just going out and finding theperson indiscriminately, it's actually an extra level of review that non-citizens don't get. So I guess if I were a citizen of the world, uh, uh, verses Arizona or the United States, I'd look at it and I'd say, "Well, why did US citizens g

et special treatment?"

[65:39] And that's actually a decision that we've made, I think part to foreclose judicial review. But judicial, the idea of judicial review in, in warfare is something I think new that we've come up with. Think back to the Iraq war, it wasvery contentious. People sued to try and stop the idea of going to war itself,and the courts looked at it and said, "This is a non-justiciable political question. The president and the Congress decide this and they're accountable to the electorate."

[66:07] If you can't have a court review the decision to go to war itself, should a judge be reviewing individual targeting decisions? Be they for US citizens or should the judge be reviewing bridges? Which bridge should it be? And where do

judges come from? They're just lawyers. I already talk too much, I'm the lawyereverybody hates, right? And, and what would I be doing if I were a judge?

[66:25] I would be getting appointed to a judgeship, coming from maybe a bankruptcy or decision or that recent employment law case, and then I go, "Oh, what dowe got on our docket now? Oh! Targeting decision! What do I know about targeting? Not much, but let me take a look at the file and make a decision about whetheror not it's appropriate in warfare for us to do it. And, when I get it wrong, Ihave life, I have a lifetime appointment. I'm unaccountable. And, um, if the president, if I shut the president down, and I say you can't do it, and the person


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goes on to kill 200 people in a square in Baghdad, what does the president say?'I tried to target the person but the court wouldn't let me do it.'"

[67:00] And it allows us to all dodge accountability and push it off onto the courts. To me? I'm OK with that, with that authority resting with the Commander inChief, because that's where it is in the constitution under article two with oversight of people like Senator McCain and the rest of the congress. And so, that's my...I'm not very opinionated on it, but... [laughter]

Man 1: [67:21] There's nothing more refreshing than lawyer humility. [laughter]

Man 2: [67:26] I like that thought.

Man 1: [67:29] Just to be clear on this, because I got this lecture earlier actually. The American, there's a different set of rules in play for the American citizen than the non-citizen. Correct?

Man 2: [67:45] As a matter of US law.

Man 1: [67:46] As a, a matter of US law in practice, there is a different set oflaw, or a different set of rules. We look at it differently. OK.

Michael Perry: [67:58] Thank you, sir. My name is Michael Perry and I'm a cadethere at Arizona State. Um, my question is directed to both sides but especially

to you General Marks, Sir, from the perspective of a military intelligence officer. Uh, we have other options for executing these targets and I would point uh most recently in October of last year, to the capture of Anas al Libi from his doorstep in Tripoli, or more notably to the uh killing of uh Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

[68:29] Sir, do we run the risk sometimes of simply killing these targets and not exploiting the intelligence they have and the intelligence on the objective and does that sometimes outweigh the benefit of simply killing these targets and removing them from circulation, and Sir, how do we strike a balance here betweensimply playing Whack-A-Mole with terrorists in our counter-terrorism campaign and exploiting intelligence?

General Marks: [68:53] That's a military term, Whack-A-Mole. What year are you?

Michael: [68:59] I'm a senior, Sir, I'll be commissioning in May.

General Marks: [69:02] Great question. Great question. I, I must say when I wasa senior, I was not nearly as close as you are. It's not on my list of things Iwas talking about.

[69:11] Um, there is a, there is a fundamental initial decision that is made. And if you get to the point where this particular individual is on that list, is on that target list, and has met all the cri, individual criterion to be there, there's a capture or kill decision that's made. And it has to go to -- there area lot of considerations, so to keep it simple, it is what is the risk to try to

capture? What is the risk to try to kill? How do we want to try to exploit? Do we think we can exploit this individual or do we think there has already been a mechanism in place where we might have already gotten enough and that the risks are such that we need to have a kill decision versus a capture decision.

[69:53] In Libya, a decision was made to capture. There was a desire to have some exploitation. Also, that was a very congested area. There was CDE considerations. We're not going to strike the guy. We're going to conduct a very simple -- and if you look at the details -- an amazingly simple plan with incredibly high risk. But it was worth it to put our hands on him.


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[70:14] So that was the Libya dis, discussion. So there was no, there was a veryhigh, a very tight filter that we had to go through in order to make that decision.

[70:23] Uh, relative to Osama bin Laden, almost three years ago now, in May of '11, um, I think the decision to commit the SEALS was there needed to be the DNAverification that it was him and that he was either alive or dead. And there wasa possibility that he was going to give himself up. That didn't happen.

[70:46] There could have been a very strong argument had it not been UBL, that you could have used a drone in that case or some other means to just level the compound, but we needed to know that it was UBL. So I think those were some very tactical decisions that had amazingly strategic implications.

Aaron: [71:04] Just the, um, um, the "we" in that, "we needed to know." Who is the "we?

General Marks: [71:09] It's the administration.

Aaron: [71:10] The world needed to know?

General Marks: [71:11] The world needed to know. Our administration needed to beable to state with certainty, "This is the guy. We validated it, and he's..."

Ambassador Munter: [71:17] You've all seen the movie "O Dark Thirty." And you know the role when the ambassador in place, placed by George Clooney, is an incredible hero. You remember that part? [laughter]

Ambassador Munter: [71:29] No, you don't remember that part, because it wasn't in the movie! But...

Aaron: [71:33] There's nothing like Foreign Service Officer humility. [laughter]

Ambassador Munter: [71:37] No, but, but, but the point here is also, uh, what, uh, to add to what to what the general said, there is always going to be a calculation not only of the effectiveness in the terms of, uh, intelligence, but there

's going to be the effectiveness or the effect of any act on, uh, the politics,the policy in the region.

[71:55] And one of the things you have to reckon with is that if you drop a bombon Abbottabad, which is a settled region outside of the tribal areas of Pakistan, there will be a different reaction in the country and in the world than if you have what is seen as a more surgically, uh, clean, uh, uh, act as what we had.

[72:13] So in other words, it's not just the question of intelligence. It's alsothe question of politics.

Professor McNeal: [72:18] Let me just add one, one tiny thing. Given this audience. I mean, look on your shoulder. Are you a soldier, a sailor, airman or marine

? Are you a cadet or midshipman? That decision is not just at the general officer level. My eyes are failing me, but it looked like you're going to be an infantry officer.

Michael: [72:35] Yes, sir.

Professor McNeal: [72:35] About 18 months from now, you're going to be downrangesomewhere, and you're going to have to tell a squad leader take a particular building. And they're going to have to make a decision about, you're going to haveto make a decision about whether you're going to need indirect fire to support


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you while you fire maneuver.

[72:49] Your squad leaders are going to have to make decisions about whether they're putting 5.56 through a window where there might be civilians inside or they're going to slide their finger forward and put a .203 round through the window.

[72:59] And you're, they're making decisions about capturing people. They're making decisions about civilian casualties. We're pushing that down to the level ofthe 18 year old straight out of basic or AIT or the 23 year old, just out of the officer basic course in ranger school. And so -- hopefully ranger school.

Michael: [73:16] Yes, sir. [laughter]

Professor McNeal: [73:16] And so, and so we're, we're talking about this at sucha high level because of what we do as, as the United States of America with, with principles and deputies at the National Security Council deciding about target lists. But the Law of Armed Conflict entrusts that one of your squad leaders might make that decision. One of your, one of your just fire team members might make that decision.

[73:36] So, uh, when we make the decision to go to war, and we do it with a broad authorization for use of military force that goes on forever, we trust that atsome point in time at the tip of the spear, an 18 year old's making a decisionabout whether a bad guy's going to die and whether or not that might also inflic

t harm on civilians.

Michael: [73:55] Thank you, gentlemen.

Aaron: [73:59] Well, it's something to think, I mean, I teach 18 year olds. Youteach 18 year olds, you know?

[74:08] Five minutes. OK. Thank you. I almost lost track of you altogether.

[74:12] Um, let me take one more question and then give our panelists, uh, probably, unless I think of something I want to desperately ask, opportunity to wrapit up.

Mitchum: [74:22] Evening, gentlemen. Uh, in lieu of time we're going to ask oursas a joint question. You can answer as you see fit. I'm Mitchum [indecipherable1:14:29] . I'm, uh, at Arizona State. My quest, my question relates to this idea that you talked about with the disconnect of the kind of drone warfare and aswe improve in technology, we tend to separate ours...affect the effectiveness and the longevity of the drone, the drone strike program? Thank you, gentlemen.

Aaron: [74:48] That's a really, um...

Daniel: [74:49] So once, you bring up a really fascinating point that people whoare not familiar with drones may not be aware of which is if you're fly, flyingjets out of a base in a foreign country, you live on that base. Your life is full of base existence. Eating with other members of the military in a facility.

[75:08] A drone pilot, say, you know, in, in an ordinary city living on a US base might leave a mission, walk out of the base, get in their car, go home, go toa baseball game, eat dinner with their family, and it's an entirely new understanding of what warfare means.

[75:25] And I, this, I don't know that this fits into the theme of this discussion exactly, but it certainly has a lot to do with the ways in which war may be changing. And I don't think we know how to manage this.


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[75:35] What does it mean for people to effortlessly -- or not effortlessly -- to move back and forth between a place where they're, where they're engaged in killing and surveillance to a place where it's the ordinary life and they're at some fast food restaurant, wherever, a park. So that issue is profound.

[75:50] And we don't know how to make sense of it, because this is probably thebeginning of an entire new mode of projecting force where there's all kinds of ways in which we'll see warfare going in this direction. It's the beginning.

Aaron: [76:02] Is, um, I'm going to move towards -- this is my editorial observation. It's amazing to listen to, um, all of you, uh, the ROTC folks who have hadquestions, because honestly, I, I talk to my students all the time about, aboutjournalism and war. And their country, your country, our country has been at war half their lifetime. Half of your lifetime.

[76:29] And it's amazing how much smarter you guys are. How much more attentionyou pay. You have skin in the game. Since skin in the game counts as every Vietnam era kid knows, skin in the game matters, but it's really impressive. And you've, you've added immeasurably to the quality and the intelligence of the conversation that's gone on tonight. Thank you.

[76:54] Um, take, each of you, Professor, start with you, a minute and address,try in really a minute, like a real minute, like an honest minute.

[77:07] Um, because you were kind of on this. The nature of warfare is changing.So we have this thing. It's pretty new still. Where does the policy go or wherewould you like it to go moving forward?

Daniel: [77:26] So I think there is a sense in which drones are changing warfare. It isn't the drones themselves, right? It's what the drones represent. And forsome odd reason, drones are the only weapons system I think in this 13 years ofconflict that's garnered public attention.

[77:40] I think what we need to think about, we've seen other weapons systems and other innovations in warfare regulated and discussed. Chemical weapons, nuclear weapons. This shift to data driven warfare is substantial and transformative.I can't give the answer as to how we ought to engage with all of this, but there

are significant policy and legal implications, and they should be put at the forefront and they should be openly discussed. I think that should at, to the degree that that happens, that will be a benefit for this side.

Aaron: [78:11] Ambassador, are there specific things you would change in this policy going forward?

Ambassador Munter: [78:18] No, I would just echo, I think, what my colleague hassaid, that the way in a democracy that you come to the right answer about thisis through open discussion. Obviously, there are, there's gives, there's give and take, there's the question of methods, and the, the, the legitimately secret things that the people in the intelligence world need to protect.

[78:42] But we are not doing ourselves a service if we engage in this new era ofwarfare without a very healthy public debate. Otherwise, that which America stands for as a country of values and a democracy around the world is in peril.

Aaron: [78:58] Professor?

Professor McNeal: [78:58] Um, three things I would do. First, I would introducelegislation if I were capable of doing so. Maybe we could find someone?

Aaron: [79:06] We can get someone up... [laughter]


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Aaron: [79:08] I got the guy!

Professor McNeal: [79:10] That requires the Department of Defense, because I think DOD does it right and so I want their data to be transparent. Number of strikes, anticipated casualties prior to the strike and actual casualties that were measured after the strike.

[79:23] The military has this data. They maintain it at the, at the brigade level and at the division level. I want it published in an annual report to show that they're doing right and to shame the intelligence agencies into either being more transparent or getting out of the business of doing these strikes.

[79:37] So that's the first thing.

[79:39] The second thing that I would do is that with regard to the intelligencecommunity, I would think about, um, what, what's happened with the NSA and theprivacy and civil liberties oversight board. And I would have a group of security cleared people do an independent audit of the CIA's data and their strikes andtheir procedures and write a declassified report. They see the data. They writea summary of the report.

[80:02] It gives us some information. Nobody's on the hook for that in the legislature or in the executive branch, because it's an independent board. It comes f

orward and, uh, and puts this information out.

[80:12] And then the final thing is I would want greater transparency with regard to who are the people that we are targeting. The State Department has a designations list. Well, we'll, we'll publish when you're designated as someone that you can't do business with, because you're a, because you're a terrorist or a terrorist group.

[80:27] I want that to be part of the targeting process, so at least we know thegroups who we're at war with. And we could talk about the AUMF another time, but it's time to stop with the AUMFs that go on forever. We need to have sunset dates on those. We need to sunset the AUMF, the existing one, and have reviews onan annual or semi-annual basis about whether or not we should continue to be at

war.

[80:48] So that was four things.

Aaron: [80:50] General, bring us home.

General Marks: [80:51] Not to be facetious. Maybe we should publish the, the list of those that are being targeted. Might see some behavior modifications, um. [laughter]

General Marks: [80:58] I, no, seriously. If I was in Iran, if I was in Iran andI was sitting at the dinner table. And I said, "Mom, I want to be a nuclear physicist." I would think my mother might say, "You know, son. You might want to cha

nge your desired profession. You got a short, short life."

Aaron: [81:14] You don't think they know, huh? You don't think they figured thatdanger of that job out yet?

General Marks: [81:19] Nobody wants to be number five in Al Qaeda.

Aaron: [81:21] Or number three is a really bad gig, too.

General Marks: [81:24] Very shortly, I would say DoD, the subject and the verb i


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s DoD must take over the, the drone targeting process. Um, all of the, all of the, uh, you know, the, the points that you made, Greg, are absolutely germane tothat discussion. DoD knows how to do it and they do it quite transparently. I think that's the very first step in order to make it easy.

[81:46] The difficulty with having the CIA do it having lived in this world is that CIA, Central Intelligence, does not always share those, the sourcing that they have for their intelligence. And if I'm in DoD and I'm pulling the trigger, I'm accountable. I need to know why, who, how it all came together.

Aaron: [82:03] Gentlemen, thank you.

Man 1: [82:06] Thanks, General. [applause]

Aaron: [82:12] Um. You didn't, you didn't leave it all in the green room. Um, thank all of you for, uh, coming and sharing, um, this at, at, at Cronkite with us. As I said at the beginning, I think this is the kind of thing Walter would feel great about.

[82:32] And finally, Senator McCain, it's only slightly intimidating to do thisin front of you. [laughter]

Aaron: [82:38] Thank you, and the institute, for having us. [applause]

Ambassador Volker: [82:48] I, I would like just to add a couple of thank-yous. First off, thank you to our moderator, uh, Professor Aaron Brown. Excellent job.[applause]

Ambassador Volker: [82:58] Thank you to our audience. I think it is tremendous that you came out for this on a Thursday evening. Especially to our young men andwomen in uniform, thank you for coming, and thank you for your service. [applause]

Ambassador Volker: [83:17] And, and lastly, uh, thank you to our debaters, and thank you, Senator and Mrs. McCain, for making all this possible. Thank you. [applause]

Documents

Drone Killing is It Helping or Hurting