The reality of U.S. targeted killings is more complex than the unlikely or hypothetical scenarios offered in the past few weeks. For example, there has not been a U.S. targeted killing in Somalia in almost 14 months, since the al Qaeda-affiliated organization al-Shabab was weakened by African Union, Kenyan, and Ethiopian troops deployed throughout the country. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, stated last week that al-Shabab was "significantly weakened in the past year," while James Clapper, the director national intelligence, described it as "largely in retreat." That this relative good news has occurred without the assistance of U.S. cruise missiles or special operations raids holds lessons for confronting extremist militants elsewhere.
At the same time, the CIA's drone strikes in Pakistan have declined from a zenith of 122 in 2010, to 48 in 2012, to 6 so far in 2013. Since 2008, these strikes have primarily focused on suspected militants who threaten U.S. servicemembers with improvised explosive devices, suicide bombs, and small-arms fire across the border in Afghanistan. As additional U.S. troops withdraw, drone strikes that are intended to protect them should also become increasingly rare. Moreover, if Afghanistan exercises its sovereign right to prohibit the United States from using its territory for external military operations -- once a possibility, now increasingly likely -- then the laws of geography and logistics make drone strikes into Pakistan basically impossible. This also assumes that Pakistani officials remain unable to fulfill their repeated pledge of ending U.S. drone strikes -- a pledge first made in January 2006, or 341 strikes ago.
Finally, the number of targeted killings in Yemen against suspected members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and militants fighting an insurgency against the security forces of the regime of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, went from 10 in 2011, to 42 in 2012, to 5 so far in 2013. These are difficult to assess, since reportedly some strikes are conducted by Yemeni and Saudi air forces, and others by the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command. The Yemeni government has also claimed responsibility for some U.S. strikes that caused civilian casualties in order to shield the United States from criticism and accountability. Based on conversations with Obama administration officials, whether the current strategy in Yemen is "working" to reduce the threat posed by externally-directed terrorism is one of the most hotly debated questions of U.S. foreign policy.
The overdue public and congressional debates about the Obama administration's targeted killings should be based on how those operations are actually justified and conducted, which is itself based on inconsistencies and unexamined assumptions that deserve close scrutiny. A debate that focuses on drone strikes that have not occurred, that are highly improbable, or that would be conducted with capabilities that do not exist, might get public attention, but it misses the real story.
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