FourScore
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:40 PM
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Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City |
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Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City U.S. officials seek to push CIA drone strikes into the major city of Quetta to try to pressure Pakistan into pursuing Taliban leaders based thereby Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes Senior U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in Quetta. Quetta, Pakistan at night. The proposal has opened a contentious new front in the clandestine war. The prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta, a sprawling city, signals a new U.S. resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington's relationship with Islamabad.
The concern has created tension among Obama administration officials over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic option. Proponents, including some military leaders, argue that attacking the Taliban in Quetta -- or at least threatening to do so -- is crucial to the success of the revised war strategy President Obama unveiled last week.
"If we don't do this -- at least have a real discussion of it -- Pakistan might not think we are serious," said a senior U.S. official involved in war planning. "What the Pakistanis have to do is tell the Taliban that there is too much pressure from the U.S.; we can't allow you to have sanctuary inside Pakistan anymore."
But others, including high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials, have been more skeptical of employing drone attacks in a place that Pakistanis see as part of their country's core. Pakistani officials have warned that the fallout would be severe.
"We are not a banana republic," said a senior Pakistani official involved in discussions of security issues with the Obama administration. If the United States follows through, the official said, "this might be the end of the road."
The CIA in recent years has stepped up a campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, much of it with drone strikes in the rural tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. The operations have been conducted with the consent of the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who has proved a reliable ally to America in his first 15 months in office.
Zardari, however, is facing mounting political woes, and the CIA airstrikes are highly unpopular among the Pakistani public, because of concerns over national sovereignty and civilian casualties. If drone attacks now confined to small villages were to be mounted in a sizable city, the death rate of innocent bystanders would probably increase.
Obama has endorsed an expansion of CIA operations in the country, approving the deployment of more spies and resources in a clandestine counterpart to the 30,000 additional U.S. troops being sent into Afghanistan...
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/14-12
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Richard D
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:41 PM
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Nikki Stone1
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:43 PM
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MUAD_DIB
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:43 PM
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roamer65
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:42 PM
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2. This area is where World War III is going to start. |
midnight
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:42 PM
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3. I wonder how this approach is going to help track down those 100 bad ones |
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that are left in Afghanistan?
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lwcon
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Mon Dec-14-09 10:44 PM
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6. But they're going to be... |
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... historically historic, transformative, 11-dimensional drones of peace!
Yay!!!!!
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jbnow
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:15 PM
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7. No one here is douting that this will happen? You assume |
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Obama will give the okay to strikes inside a city?
I saw more questioning when we'd get reports that bush/cheney were planning to bomb Iran.
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Name removed
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:26 PM
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Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
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rug
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:29 PM
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EFerrari
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:29 PM
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10. Somebody needs to smudge the Oval Office |
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because this is irrational.
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G_j
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:35 PM
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anarch
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:39 PM
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12. the hell? no he may not! |
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that's gotta be against the rules or something.
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pinniped
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:48 PM
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13. I guess these al-Qaeda dudes will run to either North Korea, Cuba, Iran, or.... |
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somewhere in South America.
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Ahpook
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Mon Dec-14-09 11:56 PM
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14. Why are all these tactics described openly? |
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As if we can't question this whole bullshit "War on Terror" anymore, all their so called strategies are in front of anyone to read about?
It simply stinks of the hoax we know this to be, or am I wrong?
I just feel America is one big fucking hoax!
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David Zephyr
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Tue Dec-15-09 12:02 AM
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15. How's sending explosive misiles into a city of 850,000 different than the 9/11 attack in NYC? |
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How is that terror different than this terror?
There's no difference. None.
And if Americans can't see that, rest assured that the rest of the world will see it.
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Turborama
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Tue Dec-15-09 12:29 AM
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Is misleading. Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City. makes it sound like President Obama is seriously considering it. Here's the title of the LA Times article this was taken from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-us-pakistan14-2009dec14,0,119787,print.story">Drone attacks may be expanded in Pakistan Just because "Senior U.S. officials are pushing" doesn't mean he's taking them seriously. "The concern has created tension among Obama administration officials over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic option." Could also be interpreted as Obama saying, "Thanks for your suggestion but that's totally unrealistic."
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David Zephyr
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Tue Dec-15-09 12:41 AM
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17. Senior officials pushed for 30,000 more troops, too. And they go them. |
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The real question is this:
Why does a city of 850,000 make some squeamish, while a village of 1,000 doesn't?
At what point in a civilian population is such murderous OK? 100 civilians? 850,000?
We have no business raining missiles down on people, where we continue to "miss" our targets again and again and thereby kill innocent children and civilians or wound them horrifically and cause great psychological harm to innocents.
850,000 civilians and we have to pause a moment before we attempt to kill there. 1,000 and, well, we are already used to that, aren't we?
Therein lies the incremental nature of warfare which generals depend on as they slowly get their own country comfortable with the collateral damage they inflict on innocents.
This is sick. It is vile that it is going on in this nation's name.
The rest of the world is coming to a conclusion that nothing changed here in the last election.
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Turborama
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Tue Dec-15-09 01:33 AM
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19. Why does a city of 850,000 make some squeamish, while a village of 1,000 doesn't? |
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Edited on Tue Dec-15-09 01:54 AM by Turborama
Good question and you make some valid points.
Also, how come Zardari has been consenting the drone attacks on villages and compounds up until now but wouldn't allow the bombing of a city?
From further into the article:
The CIA in recent years has stepped up a campaign against the death cult of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, much of it with drone strikes in the rural tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. The operations have been conducted with the consent of the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who has proved a reliable ally to America in his first 15 months in office.
Zardari, however, is facing mounting political woes, and the CIA airstrikes are highly unpopular among the Pakistani public, because of concerns over national sovereignty and civilian casualties. If drone attacks now confined to small villages were to be mounted in a sizable city, the death rate of innocent bystanders would probably increase.
=snip=
The CIA has carried out dozens of Predator strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt over the last two years, relying extensively on information provided by informant networks run by Pakistan's spy service, Inter-Services Intelligence. The campaign is credited with killing at least 10 senior Al Qaeda operatives since the pace of the strikes was accelerated in August 2008, but has enraged many Pakistanis because of civilian casualties.
IMO the best way to steer vulnerable Pakistanis and Afghans from the clutches of the Al Qaeda and Taliban death cults is to improve their standard of living and provide them with education.
"The rest of the world is coming to a conclusion that nothing changed here in the last election." Got any sources you can cite for this?
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Lydia Leftcoast
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Tue Dec-15-09 12:46 AM
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18. OK, so does this mean that Mexico can bomb El Paso to get at |
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members of the drug cartels?
:grr:
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OhioChick
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Tue Dec-15-09 01:35 AM
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