BOB ABERNETHY, host: Amid the continuing investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing, President Obama this week spoke of the threat of self-radicalized individuals here in the US and the difficulty of identifying them. He said his counterterrorism team has discussed ways it can engage communities where such radicalization can occur. In recent years, American Muslim groups have launched their own efforts to combat extremism.

For more on this, I’m joined by our managing editor, Kim Lawton, and Haris Tarin. He directs the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Haris, welcome. The president referred to self-radicalizing. What—how does that work, and what can the Muslim community do to prevent it?

HARIS TARIN (Muslim Public Affairs Council): Well, the phenomenon of self-radicalization is where individuals who do not find a place in mainstream Muslim institutions, places like mosques and organizations, they don’t find a place for their fiery rhetoric, for their violent, extremist rhetoric, so they go online, and they listen to sermons, and they listen to individuals like Anwar al-Awlaki or Adam Gadahn or other folks who misinterpret the religion to give it a violent, violent ideology, and they fall prey to these individuals who are basically online predators, and they get influenced by these individuals to address their grievances through violence.

ABERNETHY: And then what can you do about it?

TARIN: I think what we can do, number one, is to ensure that there’s a counter-narrative, that there’s a narrative of life, of positivity, that even if you have a grievance or you have a disagreement on policy, whether domestic or international, you can address those policy grievances through civic and political engagement and change that— maybe not overnight, but eventually you have the power to change policy.

KIM LAWTON: I know the Muslim community has been trying to offer these kinds of counter-narratives. Has that just not worked, or what do you need to do differently in order to combat this online issue?

TARIN: Well, I think, you know, I said before, I think to overwhelming extent the American Muslim community has not fallen prey to this. It’s individuals who are radicalized online, but I think what needs to happen is that we need to ensure that we have a narrative that goes viral. A lot of these videos, they are very emotive. These sermons they use violence and gruesome images to tug at the emotion of young people. And so we also need to ensure that when we put out the counter-narrative it’s as savvy, it goes as viral and addresses the same issues and that we’re not afraid to address some of the same policy grievances that they address, but to make sure that the outcome is positive and not negative.

LAWTON: And how do you deal with the perception that many outsiders have that the more religious someone, a Muslim, gets, the more prone he or she is to being violent or being an extremist?

TARIN: Well, I think that notion, fortunately, is false. There’s a notion that the more religious you get it leads to acts of violence. The studies have shown that when people go through rigorous religious training and understanding, they’re less prone to violence, but that people who skip that religious understanding part and have an awakening and then go straight to politics, that’s where they become more prone to violence and twisted ideologies and perverted interpretations of the religion.

ABERNETHY: Is there a special role here for young people? I mean, the perpetrators are young. Does that invite, then, or say that the people who can best correct that are young people?

TARIN: The first thing you have to understand is a lot of young American Muslims, they deal with everything else that all young Americans are dealing with—college tuition, jobs, but there is a place for them to ensure that their peers on college campuses and youth groups are having a conversation that’s positive, that when they see a negative conversation that they step in, and they interfere and ensure that they move the conversation towards a more positive aspect.

ABERNETHY: O.K. Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Kim Lawton, many thanks to you both.

TARIN: Thank you.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: At Thursday’s interfaith service, local religious leaders prayed for the healing of their city in the wake of the attack.

CARDINAL SEAN O’MALLEY (Archdiocese of Boston): We must overcome the culture of death by promoting a culture of life, a profound respect for each and every human being made in the image and likeness of God. And we must cultivate a desire to give our lives in the service of others.

LAWTON: Within moments of the bombing, clergy and faith-based groups mobilized to do what they could to help. As victims of the bombing were brought to Tufts Medical Center, Interfaith Chaplain Mary Lou Von Euew was on site to offer counseling and prayer. She says one injured woman expressed what many were feeling.

CHAPLAIN MARY LOU VON EUEW (Tufts Medical Center): She said “the hardest thing about this is that some human beings can treat other human beings like this. I just don’t understand it.”

LAWTON: Indeed, Von Euew says, after a tragedy like the bombing, clergy often hear age old questions about the nature of good and evil, suffering and the existence of a loving God.

VON EUEW: You know most of the time people deep down inside aren’t asking for an answer. They’re asking for you to fight and wrestle with the questions with them. We truly believe that God is with us when it happens, so we’re not suffering alone, that we have someone with us who loves us beyond all measure.

LAWTON: Rabbi Yitzhak Korff, Chaplain for the City of Boston, is helping to oversee counseling for first responders.

RABBI YITZHAK KORFF: It’s important that these people understand once they have fulfilled their duty to the citizens, the people they are serving and protecting and saving and making to feel safe and secure, they need to face any feelings that they might be having as well.

LAWTON: He says many of the victims and first responders are still in shock and will deal with theological questions later. Even then, he says, there will be little ultimate satisfaction.

KORFF: The macro answer is, we don’t know God’s plan. I don’t know of anybody that God’s called and said, “Here’s the deal.” And so there’s an unknown. And prayer and meditation can help bring a sense of calm.

LAWTON: Muslims in Boston, and across the US, were quick to condemn the bombing. Imam William Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center says all the members of his mosque felt the attack.

IMAM SUHAIB WEBB (Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center): They felt very violated, and they felt the sacredness of the city was violated and that the trust of our populous was violated, so there was a sense of wanting this person to be caught and subjected to justice.

LAWTON: Webb helped organize the interfaith prayer service and urged his congregation to donate blood and find other ways to serve those who are suffering.

WEBB: Reminding people of God’s wisdom then also reminding that we are not allowed to use his wisdom to be placid or inactive. We have to go out and help and work and be positive and stay involved.

LAWTON: Some faith groups found unusual ways to offer help. Lutheran Church Charities dispatched its K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry.

TIM HETZNER (Lutheran Church Charities): People many times, all ages, will talk to a dog before they will talk to a person.

LAWTON: The ministry took the specially-trained dogs to Boston hospitals to visit victims and their families, and set up a petting station at a local church. Ministry leaders had also taken the dogs to Newtown, Connecticut after the school shooting.

HETZNER: Whether it’s a bombing or a shooting or divorce or death, whatever happens in life, which life throws stuff at us, they bring the mercy and the compassion of Christ and comfort to people that need to work through whatever it is they’re facing.

LAWTON: Rabbi Korff says the bombing had a profound spiritual impact on the city.

KORFF: We rely on a sense of knowing if I do this then this is what’s going to happen. And so, that’s what gets upset, what upsets the balance in these critical incidents, and that’s what needs to be restored as quickly and as easily as possible.

LAWTON: He and other religious leaders urged the community to come together in grief and then move forward with a new sense of hope. I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We want to talk now via Skype with Reverend Samuel Lloyd, the priest-in-charge at Trinity Episcopal Church, right in Copley Square in Boston, where the bombs went off. We are old friends. Sam, welcome. What can a pastor say to his people at a time like this, a terrible time like this, and what are people saying to you?

REV. SAMUEL LLOYD (Priest-in-Charge, Trinity Church): I think the pastor first needs to acknowledge what a trauma this has been and listen carefully to what people are saying and what I hear a lot is a sense of the fragility of people’s lives and their sense of how vulnerable they’ve been. And so what I have been doing and will continue to do as I’m with my community is to remind them of the core convictions of a power behind all of life that is sustaining us and our faith in a God who goes with us even in the toughest of times and promises always to bring healing beyond the crisis at hand.

ABERNETHY: What about the old questions of where was God in this and how could God have permitted so much suffering? Are you hearing that at all?

LLOYD: I’m not hearing it as much as I did after 9/11. It’s more people’s sense of fragility but when those questions come they always invite an explanation of the fact that we are people who’ve been given extraordinary freedom, we in this human race, and with that comes the enormous possibility of love and delight and also the kind of terror we’ve seen.

ABERNETHY: And also comes the ability to do terrible things.

LLOYD: That’s right. To do unimaginable damage and yet that’s never the last word.

ABERNETHY: People around the country are being told by officials and pastors to pray for the people of Boston. What do you suggest we pray for?

LLOYD: Prayer is an enormously important gift in this time because it binds all of us together as a country. I think it’s a great gift that people are praying for the people of Boston. I’d ask them to pray for courage and strength as we continue to make our way through a time of trauma. I’d ask for them to pray for a sense of our own connectedness to each other. And I’d ask them especially to pray for the magnificent police, law enforcement people, medical people and first attenders who have done an amazing job and continue to be doing crucial work. They are a model for us all.

ABERNETHY: But the thing I’m interested in, that the primary thing that you’ve been hearing is fear and what do you say about how faith can cope with that?

LLOYD: Well one of the first things I say is that fear loves isolation and what we need to do is be in touch with each other so I’m encouraging my community to text and email and call people they know and love and care about, get together as they can because we are reminders to each other of the faith we carry and the trust we’ve known and the love we’ve known through the years that gives us the courage to continue on in what we’re doing. The second thing I do is I try to send them even back to their old scriptures where the psalm for this Sunday is the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want and I’m sending everyone back to be reading that day and night these days to be reminded that there’s someone holding us.

ABERNETHY: Anything good that you see coming out of the response to this terrible thing?

LLOYD: You know, amazing, there’s been immense good. It’s just, just as when the sky is at its darkness we can see the most light. In this dark time, we see the love and care that emerges. I’ve been thinking a lot about what Mr. Rogers said in response to 9/11. Someone asked him what his advice was and he said keep your eyes on the helpers and if you look at the helpers, you’re seeing this a story of enormous courage and compassion and devotion that makes you proud to be a Bostonian and proud to be a human being and grateful for a God of love working through all of this.

ABERNETHY: Reverend Samuel Lloyd, the priest-in-charge at Trinity Episcopal Church, in Copley Square in Boston. Sam, many thanks.

LLOYD: You’re welcome, Bob.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: The fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu has been designated a world heritage site, largely because of its priceless collection of Islamic manuscripts dating back to the 13th century. The international community was outraged by reports that the departing militants had ransacked a major library and torched it, destroying some of the documents. Outside experts spent the week trying to confirm what had happened. At the University of Cape Town, Professor Shamil Jeppie leads a project to study the texts. He says the majority appear to have been saved.

PROF. SHAMIL JEPPIE (Univ. of Cape Town): The manuscripts were moved out of Timbuktu, we are told. This is the latest news from Timbuktu, that 25,000-odd manuscripts were actually quietly moved in the past nine months from Timbuktu to the capital.

LAWTON: Timbuktu was considered an ancient seat of Islamic learning. Its collections include texts on theology, math and science, as well as history and politics. When militants took over the city last April, they imposed a strict version of sharia law and began destroying historic sites, including centuries-old Sufi shrines that they deemed to be idolatrous. Many scholars fled the city, but before they left, Jeppie says they apparently hid what manuscripts they could.

JEPPIE: The images we see of manuscripts damaged and burnt and so on are very few, very few, maybe as many as two thousand. That is bad enough, but not the kind of damage and destruction we heard of previously.

LAWTON: Jeppie hopes scholars can now get back to their work in Timbuktu, uninterrupted by violence. I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Joining me now to talk about some of the major news of the week are Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program, and Kevin Eckstrom, editor-in-chief of Religion News Service. So, Kevin, a fourteen-minute video is posted on YouTube and triggers violence all over the Muslim world, demonstrations resulting in the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. What are the messages from all that, especially the religious messages?

KEVIN ECKSTROM (Editor-in-Chief, Religion News Service): Well, I think, you know, we live in this increasingly smaller world, interconnected world, and things that happen in one place instantaneously affect things in another place, and religion obviously is playing a larger and larger role in global affairs, and what you’ve seen, I think, this week is that one of the greatest barriers to interfaith understanding is actually technology and the ability to get these messages out. You know, five years ago, ten years ago, somebody could have made a video like this and nobody ever would have seen it, but now you can post it on YouTube or you can put it on Twitter or Facebook, and it’s around the world instantaneously, and it automatically pits one religion against another, and that’s a huge challenge that nobody, I think, has quite figured out how to deal with just yet.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): And it was interesting watching some of the debate within the religious community, because there was sort of a little difficulty over the emphasis, and a lot of the interfaith leaders blamed the video, and you know, really were harsh on the video in saying it provoked all of this, and then other people were saying well wait a minute, what’s the responsibility of the people who were perpetrating all the violence, and what responsibility do they have and, you know, there was talk even in political circles, were people too sympathetic towards those doing violence, and even if you don’t like a video or even if it’s offense to your religion, is it justified, or even if you try to understand why the violence was committed, how strongly do you, you know, blame the video versus blaming the violent behavior?

ABERNETHY: And it shows the volatility in the Muslim world and the enormous role and passion that goes along with the religion.

ECKSTROM: Right, this is sort of a crash course for a lot of people into Islam again. But also, you know, why depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are so problematic, and why Muslims are so sensitive about that, and it shows that, you know, this is not just a religious question, but whenever you are dealing with the Muslim world that religion and politics are intermarried and one thing is going to affect the other, so this is not just about Christians versus Muslims or Jews versus Muslims. I mean, this is about Egypt versus the United States. It takes on a whole new meaning when you get into this arena.

ABERNETHY: And many of them apparently don’t have much of an understanding of the role of free speech in this country.

LAWTON: Well, this has been a big international debate. I was actually at a conference a couple years ago with journalists talking about this notion of defamation of religion and should it be criminalized. There’s been a movement in the U.N. to actually make it a crime to defame someone’s religion and a lot of people don’t see insulting someone’s religion as free speech, and we might say here in the United States, well ,I don’t like that but that’s free speech, but in other contexts they see religion as something different, and it’s not free speech in their minds to do something offensive but, you know, for us the question becomes, well, who makes that determination, and what’s offensive to me may not be offensive to you.

EKSTROM: And there was, you know, I was really struck watching the video coming out of Cairo and the people in the streets were saying Obama knew about this, you know, Obama could have stopped this video, he has the best intelligence agency in the world, and he could stop this video, and he has to put an end to this. Well, he can’t do that at all. And so there’s this large gap that I think we’ve seen this week exposed between sort of the Western notions of freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the same notions in the Muslim world that are just vastly different.

ABERNETHY: And you can’t stop it, but religious leaders, both Muslims and Christians and others in this country, can come out very strongly, as some of them did this week, saying no, don’t demonize anybody else’s religion.

LAWTON: That was certainly one message we heard from the interfaith community, urging their members, don’t, you know, put out things that might stoke tensions. I was also surprised to see and interested to watch some of the reaction in the Muslim community. While many Muslim leaders certainly didn’t like the video and denounced the video, I did hear some pretty strong statements directed at their own community. I mean, the Muslim Public Affairs Council released a statement saying we look to our Muslim leadership to reflect on how we’ve come to such an extreme point in our own community as well.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton and Kevin Eckstrom, many thanks to you both.

ECKSTROM: Thanks.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor and Guest Anchor): There has been an outpouring of interfaith sympathy and support for the US Sikh community after last Sunday’s attack (August 5) at a temple near Milwaukee that took the lives of six worshipers. In what officials called an act of domestic terrorism, a gunman with neo-Nazi ties opened fire as local Sikhs—or “sicks” as some adherents call themselves—had gathered for a worship service. Religious groups across the spectrum condemned the attack. Many communities held prayer services and vigils to remember the victims and to pray for religious tolerance. Groundswell, the social action initiative of Auburn Seminary in New York, gathered thousands of messages of hope and healing for Milwaukee’s Sikh community. They called the project “We Are All Sikhs Today.” Groundswell’s director, Valarie Kaur, who is Sikh, delivered the messages in person. She joins me now from Milwaukee.

Valarie, thank you for being with us. Why did you feel it was important to bring these messages?

VALARIE KAUR (Groundswell, Auburn Seminary): Well, this is a tragedy not just for the Sikh community, but for all Americans, and I know that many Americans were hungry to express their love and support in some way. They understand that this is deeply personal for every Sikh American in this country. That when we see the television screen we see our own gurdwaras, we see our own aunts and uncles, our own brothers and sisters, our own children caught in the gun fire. And so every message sent, every prayer whispered, every candle lit has meant so much, not just to the Sikhs in Milwaukee but across the country. And we felt it was important to deliver those messages in one piece to the people here on the ground.

LAWTON: And there in that community, a week later how are people doing? How are they coping? How are they trying to rebuild?

KAUR: Well, people are in deep grief and sadness, but they’re not letting that grief paralyze them. They’ve understood that this moment is unprecedented in the history of the Sikh community. You know, my grandfather came to this country one hundred years ago, and in one hundred years we have never entered the national spotlight like we have in the last few days. So the family members, community members are finding the courage to step before the sea of cameras, to tell the story of the Sikh faith to the American public, many of whom are not, have not known about Sikhs before. And they are also finding the courage to call for an end to hate violence, not just against the Sikh community but all Americans still struggling in this country. It’s been deeply inspiring to be here to witness that.

LAWTON: And what is there in the Sikh faith, in the spiritual tenets, practices, that people are really calling upon during this time of tragedy?

KAUR: The spirit of resilience or chardi kala is deep in the heart of the Sikh faith. I was just at the gurdwara when it reopened and allowed community members to step inside and when they stepped inside it was still a crime scene. There was blood on the carpet. There were bullet holes in the walls and in an instant I saw Sikh men and women jump into action. They were scrubbing the floors. They were painting over the bullet holes. They were repairing the broken windows, listening to prayers as they worked together. I was literally watching a community rebuild itself before my eyes, just hours, just days after the attacks. And so I think that spirit of resilience is something that we’ve drawn upon from not just a hundred year history in this country, but a five hundred year history where Sikhs have died for their turbans, died for their faith, but drawn from their faith in order to rise up again and not be afraid, and that’s what I’ve seen here on the ground in amazing ways.

LAWTON: And what does this moment mean for the entire Sikh community across this country?

KAUR: At the town hall meeting the other night, Sikh community members spoke to the White House, to the Department of Justice and the FBI, and every single one of them said, you know, what happened on Sunday was not an isolated incident. This is part of a struggle that we are experiencing, that we have undergone for so long, to be seen as Americans in this country. Our children are still bullied, our men are still searched, profiled at airports. We’re still facing discrimination in workplaces, in the U.S. military, for example. And we still face racial slurs. We still face hate violence, so they’re calling upon our nation’s leaders to help this community and all communities who are struggling for full rights and recognition in this country. So this is the work going forward after this week.

LAWTON: And, very briefly, is there a message for all America here?

KAUR: Yes. This is—this moment calls us to do much more than put up tougher laws against gun violence. This moment calls us to have a national conversation about the rise of hate, fear, and discontent in this country. The difference between the coverage of Aurora and Oak Creek shows that this is a harder conversation for our nation to have, but this means that everyone, every American listening right now is called upon to join us, to recommit to a vision of a country without terror, without fear.

LAWTON: Alright, Valarie Kaur. Thank you very much for being here.

KAUR: Thank you for having me.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: In Pakistan, the U.S. government’s use of armed drones to target militants continues to strain relations between the countries. In the past, the administration has avoided talking about its drone program, but on Monday (April 30), a top White House official strongly defended use of the controversial technology. At the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, called weaponized drones both legal and ethical and said their use is consistent with the country’s right to defend itself:

John Brennan: “There is nothing in international law that bans the use of remotely piloted aircraft for this purpose or that prohibits us from using lethal force against our enemies outside of an active battlefield.”

ABERNETHY: For more on this, Kim Lawton is here. She is managing editor of this program. We are joined by Stephen L. Carter, a professor at Yale Law School and author of The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama. He joins us from New Haven. Professor Carter, welcome to you.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN CARTER (Yale Law School): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: John Brennan said that the use of drones is legal, perfectly legal. You agree with that?

CARTER: I think the administration is right. We’re a nation at war, and in time of war a belligerent certainly has the right to target the leaders of the other side who are in the chain of command, and that’s what we are doing.

KIM LAWTON, managing editor: But if the battlefield in essence here has become the entire globe, how does that change the moral calculus of when and how the U.S. uses force justly?

CARTER: Well, I think you’re right that the more important questions are the ethical ones, and one of the ethical questions is how big the battlefield is, because the administration claims the right to target leaders wherever they may show up in the world. A second moral problem that arises is the problem of civilian casualties. Even if we have the right to go after leaders of Al Qaeda, we have to do it, both as a matter of law and as a matter of ethics, in a way that minimizes civilian casualties. The administration doesn’t actually count civilian casualties, so we don’t know how many there have really been. Mr. Brennan says that there have been times that they haven’t actually taken the shot because civilians have been in the line of fire, and if so, I’m glad to hear that, but I still think that we’d be better off if we could have a conversation in which we could talk more about the civilians who are killed. And there’s another ethical problem that we don’t spend enough time thinking about, and that’s the way that the drone war goes away from the front pages. It’s not on the evening news. In Iraq, we’re on the evening news. In Afghanistan, it’s on the evening news. With the drone war, it’s done in secret, it’s clandestine, it’s hard to keep track, and we really should know what’s being done in our name.

LAWTON: What kind of moral oversight would you like to see taking place surrounding this?

CARTER: At minimum, we members of the public ought to demand as much disclosure as possible from both our government, and also that the media cover the drone wars as closely as we cover other wars. There’s no greater and more difficult moral decision a nation makes than killing other people, and it’s quite important, if we are going to do that, that it remain in the forefront of our consciousness, that we not be distracted by other issues.

ABERNETHY: How do we know how many civilian casualties there are? Isn’t that a big danger, that this—that the use of drones will spill over and there will be a lot of civilian casualties?

CARTER: Because the administration doesn’t tell us when there are civilian casualties, or how many, it’s very difficult to keep track. We tend to rely on sources on the ground, some of whom have their own agendas and want to exaggerate it for one reason or another. But if we don’t know how many civilians are dying, we really can’t give a good assessment of the ethical principles that are underlying these attacks.

ABERNETHY: Professor, just very quickly, why now? Why did the administration come out with this now?

CARTER: There have been a lot of voices, including my own, that have been urging an open discussion of this. Because the administration has not acknowledged in the past that this drone program even exists, it’s hard to have public conversation about it. Now we can have an ethical conversation about it, and it’s high time that we do so.

ABERNETHY: Many thanks to Kim Lawton of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and to Stephen Carter of Yale University Law School.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: Kashmir has long been known for its peaceful vistas but for the 13 million inhabitants this mountainous region has been anything but peaceful. It is one of the world’s most militarized places. India alone has an estimated 600,000 troops in the part it controls, four times the number of American soldiers who were in Iraq at the height of that war. Although it has a two-thirds Muslim majority, Kashmir as a whole is quite diverse, the southern region mostly Hindu, the northeast Buddhist. But for six decades this province with a land mass the size of Idaho has been bitterly fought over by India and Pakistan.

It all dates back to 1947, when the departing British decided to partition the newly independent India. Muslim majority areas were to form the new republic of Pakistan. But Kashmir had a Hindu ruler, and he opted under pressure to join India. That set off the first of three major wars between India and Pakistan, ending in a ceasefire with India controlling about two-thirds of Kashmir, Pakistan most of the rest. The so-called “line of control” that divided Kashmir has served as an international border for 65 years, but Kashmir has festered as a sore point between the Islamic republic of Pakistan and mostly Hindu India.

Although the conflict has long been cast in religious terms, Joseph Schwartzberg, a leading scholar on Kashmir, says it’s more complicated than that. And within Kashmir, he says, there’s a long tradition of tolerance.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SCHWARTZBERG: The Hindus frequently attended religious ceremonies that were held by Muslims, and the converse was also true. In terms of actual day to day religious practices it was a fairly eclectic area, and the type of strident militaristic Islam that we think of when we think of, say, the Middle East—that was not present in Kashmir at all.

DE SAM LAZARO: That began to change in the 1980s in Indian-held Kashmir with more religious tension and extremism. Schwartzberg blames corruption, non-functioning local government, and meddling from India’s capital Delhi in local elections.

SCHWARTZBERG: India is a pretty good functioning democracy in most parts of the country, but with respect to Kashmir it was exceptional. They felt that they couldn’t afford to lose elections. They managed to rig election after election, and the people simply got fed up. In 1987—and it was a pretty corrupt administration, so the people just had it— they initiated a series of demonstrations which were put down with a heavy hand, and in 1989 it really got out of hand, and the Indian government moved in in force.

DE SAM LAZARO: The clampdown triggered a militant separatist insurgency—or vice versa, depending on who is telling the story. India has blamed Pakistan, especially its intelligence service, and Islamist extremist groups. Pakistan says it offers only moral support for the insurgents. Groups like Human Rights Watch blame militant groups, but they also finger Indian security forces for widespread abuses under the guise of rooting out militants. India insists that most are infiltrators from Pakistan-held regions and beyond. Tens of thousands of civilians have died or gone missing. Kashmir’s grand mufti, the top religious leader recognized by India’s government, also blames both sides for excesses, and his numbers are much higher.

BASHIR UDDIN AHMAD (Grand Mufti): Since 1989, when the situation became more critical, hundreds of thousands of people are missing and hundreds of thousands more have been killed. We have no knowledge of where they are. The killing continues unabated, and the situation is still simmering.

DE SAM LAZARO: In recent years, the Kashmir dispute has taken on a new dimension as India has announced plans to build several dams, seeking hydro-electric power for its fast-growing economy. But Kashmir’s rivers also irrigate the breadbaskets of both India and Pakistan. So far there have been no problems sharing the waters under an internationally brokered treaty in 1960. However, Pakistan says the Indian dams could affect seasonal water flows to its farmland.

KAMAL MAJIDULLA (Pakistan Presidential Advisor): It’s devastating, because if the waters are not available to me in the quantities that I need them at the time that I need them, then I’m looking at a very low productivity of my agricultural sector.

DE SAM LAZARO: Pakistan has taken its protest to arbitration provided for under the Indus water treaty. India insists it is in full compliance. However, the fact that India, being upstream, could in theory manipulate flows could be politically toxic, particularly after the severe floods Pakistan has endured in recent years.

Hafiz Saeed is a man the US government has branded a terrorist and for whose capture it has offered a $10 million bounty. Saeed has blamed India for worsening the flooding. Pakistani presidential advisor Kamal Majidulla says such rhetoric resonates among farmers who are hurting.

MAJIDULLA: The farming community, which otherwise could look after their children, are unable to do, so the children have been going off and staying in madrassas instead of going to the local school system, because the madrassas feed them. I’m not saying all madrassas are bad. They do perform a social function, and some of them perform a very good social function, but a fair number of them are not. And this is where the cannon fodder comes from. So there is a direct linkage between water availability, low agricultural productivity, and the rise of terrorism.

DE SAM LAZARO: Officials in India’s capital Delhi say the Pakistani fears of water treaty violations are overblown. Ashok Jaitly, a scholar at a Delhi-based think tank, says the bigger threat is poor conservation and water mismanagement on both sides.

ASHOK JAITLY (Energy Resource Institute): If you had a cooperation based on good scientific river basin management of the Indus basin, and that’s where the Indus water treaty does not provide for it, it only provides for sharing of water. It does not provide for scientific integrated river basin management. If you could have that, then I think a lot, I won’t say all the problems would be solved, but a lot of the problems between India and Pakistan would be resolved, or could be resolved.

DE SAM LAZARO: Back in Kashmir, long squeezed as its two nuclear armed neighbors fight over it, Mufti Bashar Uddin says growing numbers want no part of either.

MUFTI UDDIN: As a religious leader, I would tell the people that if the option of independence is offered, that would be the best bet for Kashmir.

DE SAM LAZARO: That seems highly unlikely—both India and Pakistan reject the idea. So, to most analysts, does any quick resolution of the Kashmir stalemate. In recent months, there’s been a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan, with proposals to vastly increase the amount of trade across the border. Coincidence or not, Kashmir has enjoyed one of its quietest periods in years. The natural beauty is once again luring tourists. In 2011, more than one million visitors came here, most of them Indian. It remains to be seen whether and how much more tourism and commerce can repair 65 years of suspicion and upheaval.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Drones are increasingly becoming some of the most valuable weapons in America’s arsenal.

Drone operator speaking on video: This is going to save someone’s life today.

LAWTON: Unmanned aircraft such as the Predator and the Reaper can hover over remote areas and do surveillance for hours, even days. Their operators are often in places as far away as Nevada or Virginia, and the drones can release missiles or bombs with no risk to those operators. Experts say within 20 years the vast majority of America’s fighting aircraft will likely be pilotless. The use of drones may be strategic, but is it moral?

PROFESSOR EDWARD BARRETT (US Naval Academy Center for Ethical Leadership): If you believe that a society has a duty to reduce unnecessary risk to its combatants, then these systems do that, so that would be actually one moral obligation, and then also the state has an obligation to effectively and efficiently defend its citizens, and these systems are effective and efficient.

PROFESSOR MARY ELLEN O’CONNELL (University of Notre Dame Law School): To accept killing far from the situation of battlefields where there is an understanding of necessity is really ethically troubling for many of us.

LAWTON: America’s use of remotely piloted aircraft or drones has increased dramatically since President Obama took office. Both the military and the CIA use them in combat operations and counterterrorism missions. Drones have been engaged in lethal operations in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya. Retired Lieutenant General David Deptula oversaw the US Air Force’s drone program from 2006 until last year. He says remotely piloted aircraft achieve a moral good.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL DAVID DEPTULA: The precision, the persistence, and the accuracy that remotely piloted aircraft bring to the equation actually enhance our ability to accomplish our objectives while minimizing loss of life.

LAWTON: Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter, author of the book “The Violence of Peace,” agrees that minimizing risk to US troops is a worthy goal. But he says it also has moral implications that should not be ignored.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN CARTER (Yale Law School): When America has troops on the ground and people are dying as well as killing, it’s on the news every day. When we’re using standoff bombing, when we’re using missiles that kill but place no risk, it fades from the nation’s consciousness. That means it’s easier to fight, which means it’s more likely that we’ll fight.

LAWTON: Notre Dame Professor of International Law Mary Ellen O’Connell worries that the growing availability of unmanned aerial systems lowers political and psychological barriers to killing.

O’CONNELL: These sleek, attractive, small glider-like planes fly out of their hanger and slip in to a village somewhere and drop a bomb. That seems so easy to do, and on the screen it doesn’t look any different than the video game that the soldier plays later at her home.

DEPTULA: Are these people arguing that, you know, we should only fight if you are exposed to threats and putting your life at risk? That’s silly, and I think it’s ill-founded.

LAWTON: Edward Barrett is director of strategy and research at the US Naval Academy’s Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. He says, in fact, high-tech sensors on the drones give operators a very detailed picture of what they are doing.

BARRETT: So they’re operating from afar, but their senses are very close to the situation. They see very clearly the battle damage that they are doing, and therefore they know they’re not playing a video game.

LAWTON: He says the distance allows operators to make moral decisions about the use of force.

BARRETT: A soldier in the situation is scared and possible hasty in deciding what to do and acting and possibly even angry, whereas an operator who’s not threatened can use tighter rules of engagement and is not going to be fearful and therefore is going have a much cooler head.

LAWTON: Deptula says much ethical oversight surrounds the US military’s use of drones.

DEPTULA: You have many, many more sets of eyes that are watching what’s going on and many, many more people in the decision loop in terms of employing lethal ordnance if, in fact, that is going to be applied.

LAWTON: O’Connell says she supports the use of drones in combat situations like Afghanistan. But she argues that their use in non-combat settings, such as Pakistan, is morally and legally wrong.

O’CONNELL: International law says that on a battlefield in which armed groups are engaged in organized armed fighting we have a presumption of necessity that persons may be killed without warning in that situation. You can ask any member of the United States armed forces where are we engaged in combat today, and they will all tell you Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They will not tell you Pakistan.

LAWTON: The CIA oversees drone strikes as part of counterterrorism operations, but US officials refuse to discuss the program publicly. According to a tally by the nonpartisan New America Foundation, since 2004 there have been more than 260 US drone strikes in Pakistan, which the foundation estimates killed between 1,600 and 2,500 people. The strikes have generated strong protests from Pakistanis who claim that many civilians as well as militants have been killed. The US takes the position that those strikes are permissible as part of the war against terror.

DEPTULA: Our principal adversary since bin Laden has declared war on the US in the mid-nineties has been al Qaeda. It is fully in cognizance with the laws of international armed conflict to pursue those individuals wherever they reside.

O’CONNELL: They’ve actually been lulled into a sense that killing with drones is not extraordinary, that these are bad people as determined by our CIA, and therefore we can just kill them. This is killing large numbers of persons who we would never allow to be killed if they were in another geographic zone—if they were in the United States, for example.

CARTER: You need really good intelligence on where those missiles are going, because otherwise you’re going to blow up a lot of wedding processions and make a lot of enemies instead of hitting the al-Qaeda leader who you thought was in the car but really wasn’t.

LAWTON: The New America Foundation estimates that while the civilian mortality rate from drone strikes in Pakistan had been about 20 percent, last year it fell to about five percent. As drone technology advances, even more difficult questions may lie ahead.

BARRETT: Perhaps more ethically challenging is the issue of autonomous lethal systems. The idea is that you can use software that recognizes the targets and then makes a decision that’s ethical to destroy targets, with no human intervention.

LAWTON: Wherever the technology goes, ethicists say the moral dimensions must be a significant part of the discussion.

O’CONNELL: We have to be aware of what these technologies are capable of and what they’re doing and demand of our leaders that our ethical, moral, and legal principles that we hold dear, that are the basis of this country, remain uppermost in all of our minds.

LAWTON: Carter believes the principles of the just war doctrine, which have informed military policy for centuries, are still relevant for determining when to use drones.

CARTER: Is there a just cause? Is this the last resort? Can the use of force actually do the thing that we claim we are setting out to do? And is our use of force proportional to the problem we are trying to solve? When we ask questions like that we’re asking moral questions. I think those are the right questions to ask.

LAWTON: The Department of Defense currently has about 8,300 remotely piloted aircraft, not including the CIA’s, and plans to spend about $6 billion in 2012 adding to that inventory.