Published time: September 26, 2013 16:54
A Predator drone operated by U.S. Office of Air and Marine (AFP Photo / John Moore)
The chairman of the House of Representative’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is questioning the White House’s counterterrorism strategy amid an increase in violent attacks across the globe.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) raised concerns over
United States President Barack Obama’s foreign policy during an
interview this week with Fox News.
At a time when terrorism attacks around the world
remain rampant, the US has significantly scaled back its use of
unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, which had up until recently
been the administration’s signature method of eradicating alleged
extremists in locales such as Pakistan, Yemen and
Somalia.
A recent report from the West Point Counterterroism
Center determined that more than 60 terror attacks have been
conducted internationally this year, while the US has been linked
to only 22 drone strikes targeting terror-affected countries
during that same span.
“It’s not diminishing,” Rep.
Rogers said of the continuing terrorist attacks during an
interview with Fox News on Tuesday. “There
have been counterterrorism changes made by the administration
that have concerned us all, things that we’ve been working on for
a period of months that we’re trying to work through that are
very, very concerning. This is no time to
retreat.”
Most recently, an incident at a shopping mall in
Kenya last week yielded over 60 deaths and has been attributed to
theSomalia-based group
al-Shabab.
During an address in Washington earlier this year,
Pres. Obama said his administration was entering
“a new phase” with
regards to its counterterrorism strategy. Speaking broadly of
America’s use of drones against suspected terrorists overseas,
the president said, “To say a military
tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or
moral in every instance.”
“For the same human progress that gives us the
technology to strike half a world away also demands the
discipline to constrain that power — or risk abusing
it,” Obama said.
On his part, Rogers has long defended the use of
drones to combat terrorism overseas, and approved of the
Obama-authorized strike in 2011 that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an
American citizen suspected of being involved with
AL-Qaeda.
“This was a tool that we could use to stop further terrorist
attacks against Americans,” Rogers told CBS News in
February.
Indeed, the White House has continued the use of UAVs
against suspected terrorists, albeit not with the same intensity
as during earlier years of the Obama administration. A drone
strike in Pakistan last week is believed to be launched by the US
has been credited with killing six suspected militants.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in response that
“strikes are counter-productive,
entail loss of innocent civilian lives and have human rights and
humanitarian implications.”
In August, US Secretary of State John Kerry hinted that
America’s drone operations in Pakistan could soon be suspended
entirely.
“The program will end as we have eliminated most of the threat
and continue to eliminate it,” Kerry said last month.
“I think the president has a very real time line, and
we hope it’s going to be very, very soon.”
Copyright: RT