Drone strikes, right or wrong? What the national newspapers say
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Version 0 of 1. Can you guess which national newspaper began its editorial as follows? “This paper has not an ounce of sympathy for the two Britons killed with a fellow jihadi by an RAF drone last month. Whatever they were doing in Syria, their association with the barbarians of Islamic State marks them down as traitors and enemies of our way of life. But anyone who values that way of life, and its liberal civilisation, can be forgiven for feeling queasy about using drone strikes as an instrument of government policy - though in this instance, parliament was only belatedly told - in countries with which we are not at war.” Those were the opening paragraphs to the Daily Mail’s leading article in which it aired concern about the killing of Reyaad Khan. It said the public “has grown wary of prime ministerial assurances based on secret intelligence” following Tony Blair’s assurance that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Mail continued: “While we have nothing but contempt for British jihadis, we fear that death by drone could be counterproductive.” It raised questions about the danger of killing civilians and thereby acting as recruiting sergeant for the enemy. And the paper then worried about the possibility of “a wider intervention in the Syrian civil war.” It asked: “What, precisely, are our war aims? Have our depleted Armed Forces the means to achieve them? What is our exit strategy? And, since both sides include terrorists who are the West’s most savage enemies, which should we back?” The Times also raised doubts about the wisdom of the drone strike: “misgivings”, it said, “have emerged about the legal and moral basis for pursuing them.” Aside from the fact that one of the men who died alongside Khan had not been on a British target list, the paper pointed out that “the specific event against which Khan is said to have plotted an attack had passed off peacefully by the time he was killed.” Like the Mail, the Times was sceptical about “the intelligence cited but not published in support of these drone strikes”. Was it old or exaggerated? The paper said: “If so, intelligence is being misused in the public sphere and this government must accept as a legacy of the Iraq war that the public will not give it the benefit of the doubt on either count.” The Times argued that “members of the military alliance against Islamic State cannot abandon the rule of law as the jihadists have done. Yet neither can they hope to defeat this enemy if hobbled by self-imposed constraints that are not remotely justified by supposed threats to the rights of the terrorists.” It called on the government to “be more transparent to parliament about its war aims, and gain authorisation for them” and concluded that David Cameron “must find the courage to call another vote on using force in Syria, and this time he must win it.” The Independent also hoped that Cameron’s intelligence information was better than Tony Blair’s. Even so, it was not entirely convinced that Cameron had a legal right to sanction the drone killings. It said: “The definition of what constitutes an actual threat to the UK, justifying a pre-emptive strike, is elastic... It is to be hoped that the extravagant praise Mr Cameron’s action has received from some quarters for this drastic intervention does not give him the idea that, in Syria, he has a licence to kill.” The Guardian contended that drones “raise disturbing questions. The ability to sit in front of a flickering screen, safe in the Lincolnshire flatlands, and take lives in Syria certainly makes killing alarmingly easy.” But “the physical distance introduces emotional distance as well, and armies that can kill without putting themselves in harm’s way may kill more casually.” It reminded readers that Britain is not only not at war in Syria, parliament rejected a proposal to go to war two years ago. So the drone attack was “highly irregular”. The right to life, said the paper, “can be overridden if an imminent need to protect innocent people requires it, just as the concern about military meddling behind someone else’s borders can be set aside when there is demonstrably no alternative.” The Guardian said: “Both of these get-out clauses were invoked by Mr Cameron when he faced the Commons, but how is the public – which has not seen the intelligence – meant to judge whether they truly apply?” It thought it “a stretch” to imagine that Reyaad Khan posed an imminent threat and continued: “As with Tony Blair on Iraq, there is a great deal to take on trust. Because of that unhappy precedent, Mr Cameron should be going out of his way to give as much information as is safe, encouraging parliamentary investigations and sharing legal advice. Instead, No 10 is shutting things down, while basking in the glory of bloodthirsty parts of the press.” A bloodthirsty press? The Sun published a spread headlined “Jihad it coming” and a page devoted to a leading article that announced itself as “a message to the spineless left” and “the human rights brigade contorting themselves with anguish over the drone killings.” The paper said “Britain overwhelmingly backs precision attacks on the monsters plotting slaughter on our streets... let’s spell the arguments out...” Reyaad Khan, Ruhul Amin and Junaid Hussain were not in Raqqa, Syria on holiday. “They went to join a death cult which... burns fellow human beings alive, filming it for their perverted pleasure and to post online... This is the subhuman sect our jihadis enthusiastically joined.” The Sun continued: “Some on the left argue that Britain shouldn’t stoop to the terrorists’ level. But we don’t. We don’t decapitate aid workers. We killed to neutralise an armed threat. Get the difference? Was Britain meant to write them stern letter?” Turning to the legality of the action, the paper argued that the men “were plotting imminent armed attacks. So the attorney general gave the drone strike the legal nod... These killings were legal — and justifiable both militarily and morally.” The Sun concluded: “If there is similar hard evidence against other IS terrorists posing a threat to Britain, have no doubt... The Sun will back more drone strikes. And so will the public.” The Daily Express, in a leader headlined No sympathy for jihadists killed in RAF drone strike, agreed. It scorned suggestions that the government should pay compensation when military forces kill members of Isis. Their families “do not deserve a penny”, it said. The men “were traitors, enemies of our nation and members of a terror group that has the blood of innocent Britons on its hands.” It added: “Nobody who values the safety and security of this country will shed a tear at their passing. They deserved everything they got. The extent to which Britain should be militarily involved in Syria is a complex issue. But the decision to kill the terrorist masterminds planning attacks against this country is a welcome sign that the government can and will take on IS in their own backyard. The RAF’s drones offer a remarkable capability to track down and eliminate our enemies without endangering service personnel. The prime minister and the defence secretary should not be afraid of using this capability again if it helps to keep us safe.” So, the Sun and Express aside, it does appear that the initial enthusiasm for Cameron’s decision to sanction the drone attacks withered within a day. The Mail’s measured editorial reflects a change of mind, if not of heart, about the wisdom of killing people by remote control in another country based on information from intelligence services that has been found wanting in the past and, in this case, appears odd. Why kill people for plotting to launch terrorist attacks after the gatherings they were supposed to have been planning to attack had passed off without incident? |