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TechnoratiErrant Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan
WASHINGTON - The U.S. program of drone aircraft strikes against higher-ranking officials of al Qaeda and allied militant organizations, which has been touted by proponents as having eliminated nine of the 20 top al Qaeda leaders, is actually weakening Pakistan's defence against the insurgency of the Islamic militants there by killing large numbers of civilians based on faulty intelligence and discrediting the Pakistani military, according to data from the Pakistani government and interviews with senior analysts.
Some evidence indicates, moreover, that the top officials in the Barack Obama administration now see the program more as an incentive for the Pakistani military to take a more aggressive posture toward the militants rather than as an effective tool against the insurgents.
Although the strikes have been sold to the U.S. public as a way to weaken and disrupt al Qaeda, which is an explicitly counter-terrorist objective, al Qaeda is not actually the main threat to U.S. security emanating from Pakistan, according to some analysts. The real threat comes from the broader, rapidly growing insurgency of Islamic militants against the shaky Pakistani government and military, they observe, and the drone strikes are a strategically inappropriate approach to that problem.
"Al Qaeda has very little to do with the militancy in the tribal areas of Pakistan," said Marvin Weinbaum, former Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the U.S. Department of State and now scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute.
John McCreary, a senior intelligence analyst for the Defence Intelligence Agency until his retirement in 2006, agrees with Weinbaum's assessment. "The drone program is supposed to be all about al Qaeda," he told IPS in an interview, but in fact, "the threat is much larger."
McCreary observes that the targets in recent months "have been expanded to include Pakistani Pashtun militants." The administration apparently had dealt with that contradiction by effectively broadening the definition of al Qaeda, according to McCreary
Ambassador James Dobbins, the director of National Security Studies at the Rand Corporation, who maintains contacts with a range of administration national security officials, told IPS in an interview that the drone strikes in Pakistan are aimed "in the short and medium term" at the counter-terrorism objective of preventing attacks on Washington and other capitals.
But as they have shifted to Pakistani Taliban targets, Dobbins said, "To degree the targets are insurgents and are Pakistanis not Arabs it would be correct to assess that they are part of an insurgency." That raises the question, he said, whether the drone program "is feeding the insurgency and popular support for it."
The drone program cannot even be expected to be a decisive factor in al Qaeda's ability to operate, according to McCreary. "All you can do with drones is decapitate leadership," McCreary told IPS in a recent interview. "Even in relation to al Qaeda's organizational dynamics, it has only limited, temporary impact."
McCreary warned that the drone strikes will cause much more serious problems when they increase and expand into new parts of Pakistan as the administration is now seriously considering, according to a New York Times article Apr. 7. "Now al Qaeda is fleeing to other cities, "said McCreary. "The program is escalating and having ripple effects that are incalculable."
McCreary said one of the longer-term consequences of the attacks is "the public humiliation of the Pakistan Army as a defender of the national patrimony". That effect of striking Pakistani targets with U.S. aircraft is "the least understood dimension of the attacks, the most discounted and most dangerous". McCreary said the attacks' "ensure that successive generations of Pakistani military officers will be viscerally anti-American."
Administration officials have defended the drone strikes program as necessary to weaken and disrupt al Qaeda to prevent terrorist attacks, and officials have leaked to the media in recent weeks the fact that the program has killed nine of 20 top al Qaeda leaders.
But the Pakistani government leaked data last week to The News in Lahore showing that only 10 drone attacks out of 60 carried out from Jan. 29, 2009 to Apr. 8, 2009 actually hit al Qaeda leaders, while 50 other strikes were based on faulty intelligence and killed a total of 537 civilians but no al Qaeda leaders.
The drone strikes have been even less accurate in their targeting in 2009 than they had been from 2006 through 2008, according to the detailed data from Pakistani authorities. Of 14 drone strikes carried out in those 99 days, only one was successful, killing a senior al Qaeda commander in North Waziristan and its external operations chief. The other 13 strikes had killed 152 people without netting a single al Qaeda leader.
Dobbins, speaking to IPS before the Pakistani data on drone strikes was released, said it was difficult for an outsider to evaluate the benefits of the program but that "we can assess that there is a significant price that is being paid" in terms of the impact on Pakistani opinion toward U.S. efforts to stem the tide of the insurgency.
Dobbins said one of the reasons for the continuing drone attacks, despite the high political price, is that "it is an incentive aimed prodding the Pakistani government." He said he believes the United States would be happy to trade off the strikes in return for a more effective counterinsurgency campaign by the Pakistani government.
Further bolstering that interpretation of the objective of continued drone strikes is a report, in the same story in The News, that the most recent strike took place only hours after U.S. officials had reportedly received a rejection by Pakistani authorities Apr. 8 of a proposal for joint military operations against militant organizations in the tribal areas from U.S. South Asia envoy Richard Holbrooke and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, who were visiting Islamabad.
Other analysts suggest that the program has acquired bureaucratic and political momentum because it a politically important symbol that the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are against al Qaeda and because the United States has no other policy instrument to demonstrate that it is doing something about the growth of Islamic groups that share al Qaeda's extremist Islamic militancy.
McCreary believes that the program is related to the fear of the Obama administration that it would be unable to get support for operations in Afghanistan if it didn't focus on al Qaeda. "I think it was a way to link Afghanistan operations to al Qaeda," he said.
"That suggests to me that the tactic for motivating domestic support is influencing the policy," said McCreary. The former senior DIA analyst added that the drone strike program "has acquired its own momentum, which is now having immense consequences."
Weinbaum told IPS in an interview that the drone attacks are being continued, "primarily because we're enormously frustrated, and they represent the only thing we really have."
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
37 Comments so far
Show AllI for one love the idea of these drones.
I am sure they will be getting better with their accuracy, just as they have done with so many of their weapons and satellites.
Boy, if it werent for the drones, these hungry bastards in Madrasas would have no reason to become militants and hate America.
Love
Zero
"The U.S. program of drone aircraft strikes against higher-ranking officials of al Qaeda and allied militant organizations, which has been touted by proponents as having eliminated nine of the 20 top al Qaeda leaders ... "
Interesting. How many times have "we" killed the second or third in command of CIAl Qaeda? Many news reports have announced these successes. Now "we've" just killed nine more of the top 20. That organization must consist of nothing but leaders.
"That raises the question, he said, whether the drone program "is feeding the insurgency and popular support for it."
He added that more research would be needed to determine whether the sky is blue, bears shit in the woods, and whether the Pope is catholic.
"McCreary said the attacks' "ensure that successive generations of Pakistani military officers will be viscerally anti-American."
Ya think?
"The other 13 strikes had killed 152 people without netting a single al Qaeda leader."
Who are the terrorists?
"Other analysts suggest that the program has acquired bureaucratic and political momentum because it a politically important symbol that the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are against al Qaeda and because the United States has no other policy instrument to demonstrate that it is doing something about the growth of Islamic groups that share al Qaeda's extremist Islamic militancy."
Besides, and even more importantly, the profit margin on drones is enormous.
I've said this before, but my mother said that the doodlebugs of 1944/5 (V1) were more frightening than the blitz had been, and these modern drones are simply doodlebugs re-visited. Of course more 'innocent' than 'guilty' people will be killed, we know that, but no Americans will be, and I'm afraid that is all that matters to the US government.
The fact that the middle east's visceral hatred of America will escalate and remain for generations to come seems to matter not at all. And then there is the morality of the killing technique to consider, as if that matters though.
I simply fail to understand what we are trying to do in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The finality will be retreat, leaving hatred and contempt behind, and this just as we need more and more of the region's diminishing oil. Pakistan may well collapse and then what will happen in India? And meanwhile the situation in the near east gets no better.
I am astonished by the lack of sagacity our leaders possess.
"We're enormously frustrated, and they represent the only thing we really have." How absolutely sad. Pitiful.
"..we're enormously frustrated, and they represent the only thing we really have."
Other than the ability to analyse, think and perhaps NOT act like the global madmen that we all know you are??
"Kaboooooooommmmmmmmm.."
"Ohhhhhh..NOOOOOOOOOOO... Awe and shock on US soil ... again.."
"oh why oh why do they hate us so what have we peace loving Christian good guys ever done to them?????"
Idiots
When Iraq fell, stockpiled weapons disappeared and were later used against our troops. Pakistan has nuclear stockpiled weapons. They too, will disappear, to be used against our troops, and, for sure against India. Pakistan is a powderkeg, and we are dropping matches everywhere. Pakistan's explosion will engulf Afghanistan and India. Then the real shit will hit the fan.
I totally agree. It is just so obvious, that it MUST be the goal, an insane goal of course, but what you have written is so obviously predictable it MUST be the plan.
I smell truth.
Divide and conquer, escalate and instigate. Neocons want WW3
and they will get it, because corpobama is a plant and continues
what corpobush started.
Personally I think these drones are fantastic.
The reason I like them so much is that they are cheap and easy to build.
And given the global satillite communications network they are also easy to train on our own leaders.
Obama had better enjoy this tactical advantage in the brief time he has it. This particular technology is A LOT easier to build than any kind of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon.
The terrorists are going to find it a LOT more effective to start blowing up houses of government with their own drones than blowing up a lot of innocent women and children and when they figure this one out we will all know the meaning of the word 'anarchy'.
I like this weapon because I foresee that it is a weapon which will, ultimately, force international agreement and cooperation. Leaders fear for themselves far more than they fear for their countries and when all leaders are underneath this drone-sword-of-damocles we will all see a LOT more effort on the peace front.
Obama is wrong. 100% wrong. Yeah, I know, I know.
Pakistan may fracture in months. Zardari just signed into law that the Koran is Law in the Swat Valley and part of the NWFP. The Taliban, truckloads of them are ensconced 60 miles from Islamabad. Drones will mean nothing over Islamabad as attacks commence. With ISI help. The goal is chaos leading to no governance. It will be easy and natural to see Sharia throughout the land. This is close.
Obama knows it. His homicidal attempts to stop it are insuring and quickening Pakistan's transition to Rule by Koran.
Maybe by July 4th or so, a Celebration time for new countries!
joseph
Analyst: Drone Attacks Have 'Incalculable Effects'
________________________________
I imagine that the people tasked with cleaning up the blood and washing away the viscous bits and remains of wedding food and such might idly wonder whether the wise and learned conqueror bothers to include such mundane effects of their sophisticated murder weapons in its calculations.
Oh, that's right-- it's listed under the nought of "collateral damage".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Shame on the first afro-american President in history.
Incomprehensible for me how a member of an ethnic group
that has endured so much suffering from their 'masters'
to the masses of white supremacists is acting up like
his racist predecessors.
This humanitarian failure brought upon the world by
nothing less than a bunch of freaking fascists in suits
will bring the US down. Which leads me to the conclusion
that in order to attain global hegemony it is important
to torture, rape and drone out the unbelievable patience
the whole area has had with western powers so far.
It reminds me of German Nazis wearing Polish uniforms,
entering Poland and shooting at Germany for Hitler to
declare "Seit heute morgen wird zurueckgeschossen"
(Since this morning we are shooting back).
The pentagon wants nothing more than a retaliation of
the Pakistanis in order to justify a nuke attack on
Pakistan.
Militarist pigs need to be removed from the face of the
Earth. How I don't know, but with those criminal insane
bastards in regimes world wide, most prominent in the US,
global peace is not only unattainable, it is impossible
due to the nature of the MIC.
And enough already with this 'National Security' BS. Did
we not hear recently the biggest threat to 'National
Security' is the imminent global climate change?
What a disgrace of a president got 'elected' into the
executive order chair this time? There is absolutely no
excuse for his continuation of unconstitutional bush
policies from wire tapping to pre-emptive war waging.
Al Queda is Quichotesque wind mill that justifies the
total disenfranchising of the majority of the world
population. Or in other words, the Bolsheviks of the
Nazis are the Al Queda of the Angloamerican fascists.
Sometimes You just know, without ever being able to
explain why, like when Your child lies to You.
When I saw and heard Mr. Obama for the first time I
knew what would come our way.
Have You ever seen bumperstickers that state:
"There is NO excuse for domestic violence"?
Make it:
"There is no excuse for State Sponsored Terrorism"
Where are the supreme extraterrestial Aliens when
You need them to eliminate global militarism?
"the drone attacks are being continued, 'primarily because we're enormously frustrated, and they represent the only thing we really have.'"
So, it's not that the random bombings accomplish anything. Maybe the MSM press is in charge of the war, and the Pentagon is a bunch of moral cowards who just want quick promotions and no accountability for their huge losses, something like bankers.
Blitz-creek? ..................check!
Multiple war fronts? ........ check!
Torture? .........................check!
Doodle Bugs or Buzzbombs?...........check!
"Your papers are not in order"...........rodger!
SS spying on citizens? ........... checklist complete.
Haven't I already seen this bad movie somewhere? When do we get to the part where we are burning books and shooting our own Generals?
Since the Rand Corporation is involved, that must mean we are in the middle of an Agent Orange Vietcong disaster of untold horrors that we won't learn about for ten years.
Turn off the light. I can't watch anymore.
Many in the Penatagon will soon retire, collect their pensions, and go to work for defense contractors, which they've actually been working for all along. Meanwhile, average Pakistanis and Afghanis are killed out of the blue. Their relatives, friends, and associates only know that they were killed from orders by the man you and me elected; and, that many of those would now (not before, not because of our way of life) like to kill us (no matter we voted for; they lack that data).
Ground the f*****' drones! Bring our boys home!
Yes, this is hard to believe. People who used to seem bright, like Barack, Hillary and Richard, no longer do. I'm not including Joe Biden, because he at least tried to make a few moves in the direction of reason. Nor Bob Gates, who I take to be a military hack, incapable of helpful thought on Afghanistan or achieving peace. Barack, Hillary, and Richard, though-- these are the ones who should know better.
My admittedly dark speculations include the idea that the president spent 13 too many minutes with his predecessor when they were alone together in the White House. I think that Barack Obama, like many people who actually have met George W. Bush, came to like him-- something that would be absolutely fatal for any American who thought he only wished the best for this country.
A prime example is Bob Woodward, who came out with the softest of books early in the W. Bush administration. He's tried ever since to regain the credibility he developed over Watergate but never can. He is stuck forever with representing the toad that lurks in all of us. I see it as hyper-vulnerability to the dazzle of celebrity.
Then there's Hillary, a left-brained lawyer with all the meanness of temperament that implies, although everybody has seen her softer, more feminine and maternal side-- it comes out often in her work with children, with third world women so long as they aren't in Iran, Palestine or Afghanistan. She and Barack both need to read-- and I mean slowly and carefully enough to absorb-- THREE CUPS OF TEA by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin-- to discover how things really work in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, and to see the clear possibility there, as Mortenson has done.
There are simply no possibilities for the advancement of American interests in Afghanistan so long as we prolong war, i.e., keep shooting and exploding civilians though scary drones and other ways.
Over and over I keep pointing to testimony by the Winter Soldiers, available to anybody, that shows how routine our destruction of civilians is anywhere there is the hysteria or mania or whiff of the freak-out word "terrorist." And do I get an answer? Never! To an American soldier (or contractor-- face it), every civilian they see is loaded with explosives. Do they have the language or cultural skills to find out differently? Of course not.
Finally there is Richard Holbrook, who obviously had a once in a lifetime experience in Dayton, Ohio. Has it been downhill ever since? No, he has what appears to be the nicest of Hungarian wives, but after all that he has been through, does he have the ENERGY to resist the defense-industrial complex? I doubt that very much, and yet such resistance, and more, REBELLION AGAINST IT, is, clearly, all that can save us.
'Incalculable Effects'
like turning nuclear armed Pakistan into another Somalia?
Welcome to the Terror Drone.
At least the drones are keeping us safe from wedding parties. You know how annoying they can be. That is why we need these drones to perform extrajudicial executions. Surely that will win the hearts and minds of the people and make the US popular...
Pakistan bluntly told the Bush Regime, they did not want, or appove, of the US invading their country, but the arrogant Regime did anyway. I believe the CIA captured bin laden a long time ago, stashed him in Pakistan, to be, " suddenly captured" when Bush needed a boost, the same as they did with Saddam. However, maybe, Pakistan refused to say where he is, and the main reason to wipe them out. Food For Thought!
bin Laden most likely died years ago. What is the likelyhood that a person needing dialysis and living in a cave could survive for 7+ years?
The US government needs to keep alive the idea of a bogey man (like Emmanual Goldstein in 1984) to control the people at home. They even had to re-invent a right-handed, new-nosed version of the left-handed bin Laden for the video tape that the CIA just happen to "find" in an abandoned house where bin Laden supossedly "confessed" to the the 9-11 attacks.
People in nursing homes in the U.S. don't survive two years. And that is in (supposedly) sanitary conditions. If bin Laden aka Tim Osman when the CIA was showing him around the U.S. some years back, is still alive he's living in a penthouse in Paris with Saddam Hussein and Ken Lay.
TOTALLY, Former muarhuddin, & CIA employee, Bin Laden is SUCH an "emmanuel goldstein" and everybody who thinks about it knows it, and 911 is SO fishy, and everyone knows it. So who is it that even "believes" the propaganda? nobody with any influence or resources anyway.
So where does this consent come from?
Either I cannot fathom the reasoning of these Pentagon types or they are totally berserk. The article notes that AlQaeda is not the real threat to Pakistan in that region, it also notes that the use of drones is turning people against the govt by the indiscriminate killing of civilians. So our illustrious and erudite new president believes we can use the drones to force Pakistani military to engage the militants.
Sorry folks but I believe we are in the hands of lunatics, maniacs even. Why does noone think of non military solutions to "winning hearts and minds"?
Keep talking. People need to hear this over and over to become deprogrammed from the idea that every problem begs for a military solution.
Joe
"Why does noone think of non military solutions to "winning hearts and minds"?"
Where is the profit in that?
Its not about winning hearts and minds; its all about profiteering.
I find it ironic that we are the folks who fully understand that there is money in peace too!
Astounding amounts of money. How about a nationwide high speed rail system for starters? Instead of the trillion dollars so far spent on Ir-Af-Pak, what if that had been spent developing solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and other alternative energies? Just for starters. I guess its more fun to murder innocent people.
But if you kill consumers dont you harm the bottom line? Oh, wait, they take great care to kill only the poorest.
Pakistan is a sleeping military giant that is being aroused for attacking America and I wish they would wake fully their superior air force and try an attack on America and give America something to cry about!
THIS IS THE MOST STUPID, POINTLESS, SELF DEFEATING, TRAGEDY I HAVE HEARD ALL DAY... THE PENTAGON NEEDS TO COMMIT MASS SUICIDE LIKE THEM FARMERS. AS WARRIORS THEIR CROPS HAVE FAILED.
HOW DO I RESIGN FROM THIS DOOMED SPECIES!?
Secede?
If this is not state sponsored terrorism, I don't know what is. The US military has chased the worst of the Taliban and a few remaining Al Queda memebers into Pakistan. Parts of the country are close to collapse and others, like most of Afghanistan are in Taliban control.
Al Queda is the bastard step child of the CIA and Pakistani ISI, Osama is surely dead or very far away. With every drone attack our government creates more anti-Amerikan sentiment.
What a total clusterf*ck, way to go USA!
Way to go Obama! And to think, I was almost ready to believe your snake oil really was going to be a cure-all.
Now that you've yanked the rug out from under my naive ass, what hope am I to cling to? That you're doing all this under a threat from globalist elites? Is that what they talked to you about at Bilderberg '08? It appears your soul is lost.
But they're having a great effect on General Atomic's bottom line.
Destablizing Nations ----------- Causing Civil War -------- Ethnic Cleansing of all Tribal People Resisting the Global Predatary Corporate Onslaught --- Total Destruction and Chaos.
This is the Imperial Corporates method of Conquering and Control of Sovereign Nations.
A one liner with which I can agree.