by Michael Shellenberger

A major report by New America Foundation's Peter Bergen and a long investigative piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker are raising questions about the efficacy of Predator assassinations of Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Peter Bergen, CNN's top terrorist expert and Senior Fellow at New America Foundation did an analysis of Predators, which are unmanned aerial drones that are frequently equipped with missiles to shoot at alleged terrorist commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan:

Bergen writes, "Since 2006, our analysis indicates, 82 U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan have killed between 750 and 1,000 people. Among them were about 20 leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied groups, all of whom have been killed since January 2008.... of those killed in drone attacks from 2006 through mid-October 2009, between 500 and 700 were described in reliable press reports as militants, or some 66 to 68 percent... the real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 250 to 320, or between 31 and 33 percent."

The report and article raise questions about the efficacy and morality of the DoD and CIA using these robot planes to shoot missiles into commanders' houses. Lots of civilians die for every Taliban member they whack. They are clearly being used to good propaganda effect by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. David Rhode, the Times reporter who was kidnapped for 7 months earlier this year, wrote a remarkable five-part series in the Times that ended yesterday, confirming that.

Plus, not that anybody cares, but it's actually illegal for the President to use assassinations as a weapon. This practise was banned by Congress in the seventies in reaction to the Church Committee hearings, though Mayer said most lawyers she interviewed thought the White House was on solid legal ground as part of Afghanistan war. Seems to me the legal issue only becomes salient when if the effectiveness of the attacks is in question, which they might soon be.

Predator advocates say that being able to kill top Al Qaeda and Taliban guys remotely is disrupting Al Qaeda. Cronin confirms that killing terrorist leaders does have a disruptive effect. It was Al Qaeda's most brilliant, worldly guy, Osama, who pulled off 9/11. Large scale terrorist acts require brains. Assassinating the brains works. Bergen says there's no question they've disrupted Al Qaeda, and that makes sense. The question might be for how long before Al Qaeda adapts. They killed the guy that masterminded the murder of Bhutto. Yes, some civilians die, but 250 - 320 is not exactly the firebombing of Tokyo. Far less than get killed with less precision bombings. The drone attacks were motivated by Bush administration frustration at Pakistan's inability to control the FATA rural region where westerners and others are trained to conduct terrorist acts in the US and Europe. They were increased by Obama because they were working.

Bergen writes, "As the drone attacks have put al Qaeda and allied groups under increased pressure, law enforcement authorities have uncovered few serious plots against U.S. or European targets that are traceable back to militants who had trained in Pakistan's tribal regions since the summer of 2008, when the drone program was first expanded." But, he points out, Zazi was the exception, as he traveled to FATA to get explosives training to use in the US.

Predator attacks may stop being useful. All of them have to be based on on-the-ground intel. We may have already hit the highest ranking guys, and Bergen points out that since potential information sources are dead and their cell phones and laptops blown to bits they also don't gather any additional useful intel.

On the other hand, both Peter and Jane point out, the attacks could be counterproductive in increasing recruits for Al Qaeda and legitimizing the Taliban. The war against terrorism is primarily a propaganda war. This is bad propaganda. It is seen as dishonorable -- like terrorism -- not honorable, like war, as you have suburban CIA joystick jockeys whacking guys on their rooftops half a world away and then going home for supper with their kids, at no risk of retaliation.

Peter comes down in favor of the Predator attacks as the "least bad option." Mayer seems more ambivalent. I think both pieces are powerful because they point to the Predator attacks as the thing you do when nothing else seems to be working. I left these articles feeling that the tactic (it's not a strategy, the authors point out) of shooting these leaders will soon stop working. But I also left thinking that as long as that part of the world is training people to bomb American civilians we are going to be engaged militarily in that region for the foreseeable future in something akin to a post-modern containment, where the region is never fixed exactly but prevented from doing the worst it wants to do. However, it also seems that addressing the motivations for terrorism requires consistent multi-decadal economic development to shift values in the secular-rational direction.