For many college students, Nov. 8 will be the first time we are voting for the president of the United States. Because of this fact, it is important to understand how fundamentally the office of the presidency has changed. In addition to his legislative achievements and failures, President Barack Obama will be remembered for his expansion of executive power and the failure to live up to the promises of transparency he emphasized when he first ran for president.
Before his inauguration, Obama sought to look inward while ending what he saw as harmful wartime abuses, like the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Faced with both the pressure to avoid foreign intervention and the conflicting necessity to combat violence by a stateless band of murderers, Obama reached a solution: Conduct your war and silence its sound.
No flag-draped coffins, no mentally and physically broken men and women and none of the loud reporting that does and should accompany the use of force. The din of war was replaced by the constant hum of a robot, which flies over Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. This robot, controlled by humans thousands of miles away, is responsible for the killing of very dangerous people.
It also kills civilians, more than the Obama administration would like to admit. In general, the almost-omnipotent presence of the drone strikes fear into anyone who sees and hears the machines and feeds directly into the narrative of the United States as a super-powerful force of violence and evil. The machine makes children fear clear skies, because that’s when the drones fly. They grow mad with anxiety. Their anguish is also silent.
The problems with Obama’s drone policy are manifold. For one, the process is opaque. Though the administration has released its “playbook” on the use of drones, the executive branch and its constituent agencies are ultimately responsible for drone action. Another problem is the silence. Who can hold the government accountable for a war which makes no noise, one we can pretend doesn’t exist?
Even the wording of the playbook itself can’t be taken at face value; though the document claims that strikes are only approved with the “near-certainty” of avoiding civilian casualties, the Obama administration marks as combatants all combat-age males killed in drone strikes — even if they weren’t the intended target. One can make the argument that, during wartime, the executive branch ultimately has the power to make these decisions, and thus Obama’s drone war is nothing new. But are we prepared to accept this new definition of war, wherein a President can strike any part of the globe, including sovereign countries, including areas where there are no active hostilities, including American citizens with little to no oversight?
The responsibility for the enlargement of presidential powers lies in part with Congress, which has seen fit to delegate most of its legislative function, in regards to the powers to make war, to the executive branch. Actions taken against al-Qaida derive their legitimacy from the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Passed in the days following 9/11, this document gives the president the power to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”
It doesn’t take a legal scholar to understand the opportunity for “creative interpretation” this bill allows. Since then, the document has been used to justify the use of force against other terrorist organizations, definition of terrorist not required. Admittedly, it is hard to nail down a legal definition when fighting a stateless group of anarchical jihadists. But the response to this legal ambiguity cannot be unrestrained authority. In fact, that is exactly this response which feeds groups like al-Qaida. These groups have political goals, and chief among them is to goad the United States into becoming the monster they always claimed it was.
That’s all spilled milk, though. The drone war is already a reality. We must remember that as Obama leaves office, the drone war is no longer his war. It is the United States’ war. It is our war, mine and yours. Only armed with this knowledge can we end it or reform it.
Aaron Bondar is a sophomore double-majoring in economics and political science.