Journalism can only illuminate what it knows. A magnificent piece of writing by Jane Meyer in the New Yorker of October 26 – The Predator War – tells us that Predator drones are now the most effective anti-terrorist weapon in the US military/CIA armoury. The first programme, run by the military, targets enemies and is an extension of conventional warfare. The second, begun under the Bush and continued under the Obama presidency, is aimed at terror suspects everywhere, including where there are no US troops:

          The programme is classified as covert, and the intelligence Agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge or how many people have been killed…because of the CIA programme’s secrecy, there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country (Pakistan) with which the US is not at war.

Meyer makes the point that these drones do in secret what the Israeli army has been condemned for doing in public in Gaza – targeting terrorists, with collateral damage and casualties to civilians, including children.

Most of the CIA Predator action happens within Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have been closed to news media, and to humanitarian organisations. The result is that very few accounts or photographs are available of Predator strikes, and of their consequences.

Meyer quotes the political philosopher Michael Walzer as follows:

          There should be a limited, finite group of people who are targets, and that list should be publicly defensible available. Instead it’s not being publicly defended. People are being killed, and we generally require some public justification when we go about killing people.

Secrecy is sometimes required in wars. The Predator programme does not seem to be in this category. Journalists should be in these areas, bearing witness to a war being fought in the name of our freedoms. Jane Meyer has shone what light she could.