Ethics Assignment - Terrorism in America

Ethics Assignment

        September 11, 2001 is a day that will forever be remembered in the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere. Of course that was the day of the infamous plane crashes into the twin towers as they were called. But that was also the day that Americans felt unsafe on their own homeland. Terrorism had completely introduced and it had Americans on alert. As most know, the terrorist attack on New York City was headed up by members of the terrorist group known as Al Qaeda. While the leaders of that group responsible for the plane crashes have already been disposed of, many more leaders exist and are terrorizing other parts of the country, most recently Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. To combat (literally) this ever-present issue President Barack Obama started a drone war against Islamic Extremism.

        In January of 2010, the end of Obama’s first year in office and Detroit had just avoided a terrorist catastrophe. He then realized that a successful terrorist attack could derail his presidency. George Bush started the drone program but merely as a way to spy on his terrorist enemies. But with the recent up rise in terrorism thanks to Al Qaeda and ISIS, Obama felt that it was time to send these drones on a mission of assassination rather than just reconnaissance. Obama laid out the faces of various terrorist leaders with their biographies on the back of the pictures. Almost as if they were collectible cards. And then the targeted killing program was put into place.

        The targeted killing program essentially allows the CIA and JSOC to kill whomever they please without knowing the identity of the individual(s) they have killed. What happens is that the CIA targets or marks an Al Qaeda compound for a “signature strike” rather than the actual terrorists themselves. This can lead to accidental killing of course which if you have been paying attention to the news recently you would know that Americans held hostage by terrorists have indeed been killed accidently by our drone program. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that there have been over 400 U.S. strikes in Pakistan which have killed between 423 and 962 bystanders along with killing the hundreds of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. To reiterate these are only estimates because U.S. officials refuse to give the number of attacks. A week or two ago news came out that an American hostage had been killed as a result of one of the U.S.’s signature strikes. Warren Weinstein was his name. Even though the program has been successful with its primary goal of ridding the world of these terrorist groups and their operatives but killing innocent people in the process is certainly no way to go about it, especially since the public is getting so riled up about the whole thing.

        The drone attacks have certainly come under fire in recent days not just because of the mixed results but also because of the morality of the issue. Is it ethical to use drones to kill terrorist leaders and operatives at the expense of innocent lives? I am not sure that I think it is. And it is apparent that the media deems it as a mistake. But President Obama, while I do not think he is inherently okay with killing innocent people, does think that the ends justify the means in this scenario, he and the rest of his cabinet/government. "It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and our fight (against) terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur," Obama said. That does not seem like very remorseful comment to me.