Drone warfare has become the defining policy of Obama’s war on terror. Unmanned aerial vehicles provide a unique solution to the unpopular politics of war, granting the United States the ability to take out targets in the remotest parts of the world without any risk to American life.

Drone, directed by Tonje Hessen Schei and four years in the making, was screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 13 April 2015. The documentary explores the true cost of drone strikes, from civilian casualties to the mental health of drone pilots and the implications for international law.

Tonje Hessen Schei

“I’ve been obsessed with this issue since 2010, but now after all these years of the drone strikes and all the people that have been killed, to meet people on the street that don’t know what a drone is… it scares me,” said Schei.

“I’m not anti-drone,” Schei told the Frontline Club audience. “What I’m very critical of is the CIA’s use of drones where they’re killing thousands of people outside of declared war zones.”

One of the underlying problems with drone strikes that Schei’s documentary explores is the lack of intelligence. In Waziristan, the remote part of Pakistan that Drone largely focuses on, accurate intelligence is almost impossible and this is reflected in the statistics.

Director Tonje Hessen Schei

“I think some of the recent numbers [of targets killed] are around 69 high level militants. So then you wonder, what about the other 90 percent. Who are they killing? And what kind of ‘imminence’ are these people posing to the security of the States?”

“One of the main things that we hope to do is to sort of take down the whole selling point on the drones being this perfect surgical weapon in the war on terror… it is important to acknowledge the thousands of people and the thousands of civilians that have been killed in this war.”

Creating this film was no easy task, as gaining access both in the US and in Pakistan proved difficult.

Schei told audience members that she was starting to get “a little bit desperate” whilst trying to get access to the US Air Force.

“Interestingly enough, as soon as Brandon [Bryant] agreed to participate in the documentary, the US Air Force opened their front door, pretty much almost the day after,” said Schei. Bryant was an ex-drone pilot who, after leaving the Air Force with severe post-traumatic stress, told his story to Der Spiegel.

“There was something about the way he told his story and the importance of his voice that really made an impact on me,” said Schei. She spent nine months building up trust with Bryant because of the “incredible media hunt” which he experienced after the Der Spiegel story was published.

Once the US Air Force were sure of Bryant’s participation in the documentary, they extended invitations to Schei to visit airbases and provided access to their video library.

Tonje Hessen Schei

“What do you really think the chances are of seeing genuine prosecution?” asked a member of the audience. “Is there really a chance of actual indictment of the head of the CIA for war crimes?”

In fact, two of the film’s protagonists, Shahzad Akbar and Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, have recently been making legal progress in Pakistan.

“[Akbar] actually, last week, won a very important case in Pakistan where a judge is now opening up the possibilities for the CIA officials to be prosecuted for their involvement in the 2009 strikes against Kareem Khan and his family,” said Schei.

Drone strikes still have significant popular support in the US, likely because they give the impression of security without the human cost of the lives of US soldiers. “They [the American public] don’t have enough information about what is really going on,” said Schei. However, the use of drones in warfare is not solely an American issue.

Over 100 countries worldwide are currently developing drone technologies, including the UK, Israel, China, Russia and Iran. Schei told audience members that the use of drones by the US is setting a dangerous precedent, both with regards to international law and international standards surrounding the use of drones.

“I think it’s going to be very very difficult for us to point our finger at anybody else that starts going after whoever they might see as imminent threats around the world,” she said, “…it’s just a matter of time before we will see this.”

Visit the Drone website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.

A president’s second term is usually regarded as the one in which he has the potential to reinvent the world. On 13 June, a panel chaired by author and journalist Michael Goldfarb explored the foreign policy legacy of the Obama administration.

Michael Goldfarb, Kim Ghattas and Nick Schifrin.

Kim Ghattas, BBC State Department correspondent and author of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, opened the discussion by asking:

“How much power does the US really have to implement its decisions? There is still this image out there of an omnipotent superpower. ( . . . ) People often ask ‘Why doesn’t the US just intervene and end the conflict in Syria?’”

On Syria, Professor Michael Cox, founding co-director of LSE IDEAS and Professor of International Relations at LSE, said:

“I think the US strategy on Syria is entirely right. The idea of the US getting involved in another war without an end in sight, against whom and for what we don’t know, strikes me as the craziest thing the US could do.”

Nick Schifrin, foreign correspondent for ABC News, drew the attention to Obama’s speech on drones and Guantanamo on 23 May this year, at the National Defense University.

“He [Barack Obama] said ‘All wars must end,’ it seemed an attempt to define that legacy and say ‘We’re going to move beyond the post-9/11 world.”

Nick Schifrin, Professor Michael Cox and Dana Allin.

Ghattas remembered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the uprising in Libya: “Once the Arab league and the Golf Corporation Council had called for a No-Fly-Zone, Clinton was already convinced that something had to be done.”

Schifrin, who was reporting from Benghazi during this week, added:

“From the ground it was very simple: If the No-Fly-Zone hadn’t passed by the weekend, tens of thousands of people would have died. ( . . . ) There were a lot of mercenaries behind the other planes who would have been happy to flatten Benghazi.”

Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs and Editor of Survival: Global Politics and Strategy at The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), brought the Israel-Palestine peace process into the foreign policy evaluation:

“Focusing on the settlements clearly failed when [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu said ‘No’ [to build 3,000 new homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem for Palestinians] and Obama didn’t have a Plan B. This was the largest foreign policy defeat of the president. ( . . . ) Sometimes Obama seems overwhelmed by the power of his own eloquence.”

Obama has detoxified (not ended) the war on terror by officially repudiating #torture @frontlineclub

— Elisa Peter (@ElisaPeter) June 13, 2013

The panel identified that Afghanistan has become Obama’s war. Professor Cox explained:

“He detoxified the war on terror but continued it and increased the number of troops and drones in Afghanistan. ( . . . ) We get to the point where we can’t blame George W. Bush for everything anymore.”

A member of the audience is contributing to the debate.

The debate was then opened to the public. One member of the audience asked: “He’s pouring more and more money in Afghanistan, but the country seems to be a drain that absorbs troops and money. Pakistan is an unreliable ally, to say the least. What could he [Obama] have done differently?” Schifrin mentioned failed American attempts to support and strengthen Pakistan.

“For every Dollar he spent in Pakistan, he spent 30 in Afghanistan. ( . . . ) But people need to see more than ‘more troops and drones.’ They tried to open an American hospital in Islamabad but that wasn’t successful. Overall, there would have to be more effort.”

Moving on to the unpredictable and time-consuming problems with Assad in Syria, Ghattas concluded:

“The problem with US policy is that it’s often based on hope. And it doesn’t work like that in the Middle East.”

Watch and listen to the event here: