US DRONE STRIKE KILLS 5 MILITANTS IN PAKISTAN

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_PAKISTAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-01-04-07-09

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- U.S. drones fired a barrage of missiles at a vehicle and a house in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan Saturday, killing at least five suspected militants, Pakistani officials said.

The strikes in the North Waziristan tribal area were the first since news that a top commander of the powerful Haqqani militant network was killed in a drone strike late last month, also in the tribal region.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media, said U.S. drones fired seven missiles at targets in the village of Degan in an area of North Waziristan close to the Afghan border.

They said the area is dominated by anti-American militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, but they did not know whether the men killed belonged to his group.

[unhappycamper]

1. That works out to over $200 grand per person killed.

Seven Hellfire missiles = 7 x $160 grand - $1,200,000.

I wonder how many of those suspected militants were children? Or how many of them were women?

[xchrom]

2. i love that you figured out the $ of this.

and while the People suffer for the want of $1,200,000 worth of government services here or there -- we can see who is getting that money.

[Bonobo]

3. More violations of sovereignty that will bite us in the ass.

More murder with no due process and no declaration of war. No accountability and no proof that they were militants at war against the US.

No transparency. This is not something to be proud of.

[xchrom]

4. +1

[central scrutinizer]

5. Is it a militant must be killed?

or the other way around: if dead, they must have been a militant. I am so sick of the "surgical" strikes and "smart" bomb bullshit

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. " if dead, they must have been a militant"

You got it.
You may not remember the inexorable killings of Vietnamese during the "war" we were in back in the day.
It was a war fueled by body counts. and of course all dead were counted, no matter if the pieces of bodies that were found belonged to fighters or women or children or old people ...it was the count, that counted.

Because the USA "does not kill innocent people", all dead bodies are guilty.

[IDemo]

7. Always with the "suspected"

This is roughly equal to cops killing people with drive-by shootings who happen to be in the wrong hood at the wrong time.