CIA drone program in North Pakistan is a point of contention by journalists and scholars alike over its legal status and following ethical implications. In terms of international law, CIA is operating on behalf of United States government, which has declared war against the terrorist network responsible for 9/11 attacks and the associated states that embark on sponsoring terrorist activities, under the principle of self-defense. [31] The principle of self-defense entails two fundamental conditions - proportionality and discrimination - that must be adhered to in order to be recognized as a legitimate activity. [32] The problem with CIA strikes, is that because of its covert nature, it is very hard to tell whether CIA in fact adheres to those principles, in other words, there is a problem of transparency and accountability. It is not to say that there are no mechanisms in CIA that ensure those principles are adhered to. It is the very fact that CIA secrecy "isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks" on the use of force that is in itself ethically troubling. [33] Alleged high number of civilian deaths reported by Pakistani news agencies that cannot be neither confirmed nor denied by the officials together with reported trends of ever-widening target list, [34] raises concern that government uses CIA as a foreign policy proxy that allows to carry out strategically vital objectives that would otherwise be widely unpopular among the public. This essentially means that citizens are left at the mercy of specific leader's interpretation of just war principles. [35] This drives a wedge between the international community that is likely to be left divided about the normative merits of drone strikes. [36]
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