For drone freaks (and these days Washington seems full of them), here's
the good news: Drones are hot! Not long ago -- 2006 to be exact -- the
Air Force could barely get a few armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
in the air at once; now, the number is 38; by 2011, it will reputedly be 50, and beyond that, in every sense, the sky's the limit.
Five months ago, shortly after the Pakistani government had
begun a military offensive against suspected Taliban fighters in the
northernmost area of the country, we arrived in Islamabad, the capital, as part of a small
delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). Our
initial travel plans had focused on learning more about civilian suffering
caused by U.S.
drone attacks.
An unremarkable paragraph
in a piece in my hometown paper recently caught my eye.
Washington has long been frustrated at Islamabad's reluctance to target the Afghan Taliban's ruling council, the Quetta Shura, which is accused of directing large parts of the insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.
State department and intelligence officials delivered the ultimatum to Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, last week as he visited the US for the United Nations' security council sessions and the G20 economic summit.
A US drone firing missiles into a village in northern Pakistan killed at least 19 people over the weekend. The targets were militants said the US military. The victims included six dead children said a local tribal elder.
"Suspected US drone kills Suspected Taliban Commander." That's becoming the stuff of very suspect news stories. The reporting is so weak there's almost nothing confirmed except that the killer operator is far away in front of a computer screen somewhere.
As part of an expanding programme
of battlefield automation, the US Air Force has said it is now training
more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots and signalled the
end of the era of the fighter pilot is in sight.
In a controversial shift in military thinking - one encouraged by the now-confirmed death of Pakistani Taliban
leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone-strike on 5 August - the US air
force is looking to hugely expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft by
2047.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A US drone fired missiles into a suspected militant camp in a Taliban stronghold of northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, killing up to 10 people on Tuesday, security officials said.
It was the first attack from a suspected US spy plane since last Wednesday, when Pakistani and US officials believe Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife at a family home in South Waziristan.
A survey commissioned by Al Jazeera in Pakistan has revealed a widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs.
The polling was conducted by Gallup Pakistan - a separate organisation affiliated with the US-based Gallup Inc - and more than 2,600 people took part.
Interviews were conducted across the political spectrum in all four of the country's provinces, and represented men and women of every economic and ethnic background.
WASHINGTON - The expanding US drone war against Al-Qaeda may be disrupting the terror network's operations but the lethal bombing raids carry risks for Washington and its ally Pakistan.
The head of the CIA has defended the attacks in Pakistan by unmanned aircraft as "the only game in town" when it comes to targeting Al-Qaeda and its allies. US officials credit the bombing raids with knocking off key figures in the terror network.
Yet an unknown number of civilians have died in the bombing war, possibly as many as 700, according to the Pakistani press.
TORONTO - Amid reports that the Barack Obama administration is quietly lobbying the Conservative government in Ottawa to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan's Kandahar province beyond 2011, Stephen Harper is finding himself in an increasingly awkward dilemma.
The Canadian prime minister needs to appease a popular U.S. president who just deployed 4,000 Marines in a new Afghan offensive in Helmand, and at the same time avoid further alienating a war-weary electorate.
