Afghanistan
Written by: Vidur Srikrishna
Summary:
The U.S. is saying that a drone strike killed the al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The missile was launched from a drone in Afghanistan and it killed the al Qaeda leader. The Wall Street Journal article says, “...Ayman al-Zawahiri, a founding member of the jihadist movement and one of the key strategists behind an international campaign of terror that clumnated in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.” President Biden described him as a terrorist leader who was the mastermind behind the attacks against Americans. Specifically, Zawahiri was the most important adviser of Osama bin Laden in the lead up to the 9/11 attacks. Zawahiri was killed by 2 missiles when he stood on the balcony of the safe house in Kabul. The Pentagon officials said that they didn’t know about the strike, and according to the Wall Street Journal article, the senior Biden administration official declined to specify which U.S. agency was responsible. Furthermore, this suggests that it was a CIA operation; however, the CIA declined to comment. The White House said that there were no civilian casualties from the strike. Al Qaeda has no known response.
The Taliban, however, said that it was a violation of international law and the agreement that it signed with the U.S. The last strike killed 10 civilian members of a family. At first, the operation was described as successful, but later it was admitted that the target was a mistake. The U.S. intelligence official said that they have high confidence that the dead person is Zawahiri. President Biden made the decision to order the strike at a July 25 meeting with top advisers, and all the participants recommended going forward with it. The intelligence agencies also tracked many of Zawahiri’s family including his children and his wife as they moved to Kabul. The Wall Street Journal article says, “‘The fact that he was killed in Kabul is direct evidence that he was there with the support of the Taliban. He wasn’t hiding in the mountains of northern Afghanistan,’ said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the foundation for the Defense of the Democracies. ‘He was in the heart of Kabul.’”
Analysis:
Using a drone strike is risky in the fact that it has a high potential for collateral damage (or killing innocent people). As said above, last year there was a drone strike which killed civilians. It was at first thought of as a success but was later admitted to be a mistake. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there have been a minimum of 13,072 drone strikes in Afghanistan. It says that 4,126-10,076 people have been killed in total from these strikes. 300-909 of them were civilians and 66-184 were children. These numbers show that drone strikes don’t always hit the correct target. There are two reasons for these civilians and children being killed. The drone may have mistaken a civilian for its target, or the drone may have had its aim on the right target but missed and hit someone else. As technology improves, accuracy will become better with drones, which will minimize the amount of lives being taken—whether by the drone itself or the perpetrator being targeted.
I think it’s not wrong to kill someone, such as a terrorist, if it will save more lives. If someone is threatening the lives of people, it’s worth the strike to save lives because they are innocent and have nothing to do with the issue. If someone is attacking civilians by doing something like hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings, then it’s justified to use a drone strike to kill the mastermind behind the attacks in order to prevent further innocent lives from being taken. Also, if someone in general is trying to harm normal people, it makes sense to use a drone strike to kill them and prevent the attack from happening. Overall, I think it depends on the situation to choose whether it’s right or wrong to kill someone by using a drone strike. If it’s to keep more people safe, then it’s right. If it’s to harm the civilians, then it’s wrong.
