Richard Clarke Uses Fiction to Criticize Our Use of Drones

RichardClarke

 

When Richard Clarke discussed the Drone program with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, he raised issues that warrant serious discussion. If only we had a congress capable of having a serious discussion.

Clarke crossed the line between his fictional account and the reality on which it was based to criticize the Obama Administration’s use of drones on two central points – their expansion of the program and a lack of transparency, especially when things went wrong.

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As is the case with every book Clarke will ever write, Sting of the Drone was reviewed by the government before it was released and the government didn’t object to any parts of the book.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to your book. Often it is said that you can write more truth in a fiction book than in nonfiction. You, Richard Clarke, have written “Sting of the Drone.” By the way, CIA officers, agents who write books have to be vetted by the CIA. But did your book have to be vetted by any government agency?

RICHARD CLARKE: Yeah, unfortunately, all of my books for the rest of my life have to be reviewed by the government.

AMY GOODMAN: And did they object to any parts of this book?

RICHARD CLARKE: They did not.

Generally, Clarke raises two objections to the current program.  First, it is used more broadly than he intended it to be and second, that there isn’t as much transparency as he would like.  Few would argue with these criticisms. Commenting on a drone attack in Pakistan that killed a sixty seven year old woman who was picking vegetables, Clarke points to the costs of the secrecy surrounding the Drone program.

RICHARD CLARKE: It raises the question — obvious question — how did that happen? And what was the result of that? Did anybody get punished? There is a file. You know there is. There has got to be a file somewhere in the United States government about that incident. And we don’t know if anyone looked into it, if anyone was punished. We don’t know if we understand why the mistake was made. And that is part of the problem with the drone program is there is such secrecy and such lack of transparency that we just have to take the government’s word for it, that there are very few mistakes, and that we learn from our mistakes. But I think in an incident like that, it would actually serve the government’s purpose better to share the results of an investigation, to do an investigation, which I hope and assume there was — but we don’t know — and to show the results of that investigation.

Few would object to an investigation of the drone attack that killed a 67 year old Pakistani women while she was picking vegetables and as importantly a subsequent discussion in which we can learn from our mistakes.

The current political climate is one in which facts are overrated, and concern about an issue is limited to how it can best be exploited for political gain.  So while there is validity to criticizing the Obama Administration for lack of transparency, I have to wonder to what extent the whacko bird approach to politics bears some responsibility.

We’ve seen what Republicans think warrants investigation and what those investigations look like with the IRS and Benghazi clown shows.

Does anyone really believe an investigation on the use of drones would be any different?

Does anyone really believe that a Republican or, god help us, a Tea Party Administration would care about a possibly avoidable loss of civilian life in countries populated by brown people most of whom are not Christians and some of whom are Muslims?

The probable answer to that question, in itself, doesn’t remove the problem that assuming there was an investigation, we should have known the outcome and there should have been a constructive discussion on how to prevent more loss of innocent lives.

In that sense, we as a country are paying another price as a consequence of the Republican clown show.  Blind trust in government is never a good thing for a civilized and free society.  But when the opposition is so blinded by its own ideology that it is deaf to the facts and mute to a constructive discussion to prevent mishaps from occurring again, it means they cannot be trusted to hold the government accountable.

Image: Democracy Now


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