Drone Attack: Avaliable options

[HAIDER]

Joint control means, Pakistan is taking full responsibility of any mission failure. lolz. Strategically its bad choice. Let US do that, they have resources for damage control.

 

[roadrunner]

Joint control is a pretty good compromise from the Pakistan point of view, I think, since the US is not going to stop these attacks. At least you have influence on them now.

It's not an ideal situation, but it's time to put egos aside. Pakistan is in a not so great situation economically or politically at the moment and needs help - and nothing is ever free.

Joint control is just a way to blame it on Pakistan.

It's best not to be part of such a poisoned strategy.

 

[saiko]

Joint control is just a way to blame it on Pakistan.

It's best not to be part of such a poisoned strategy.

Joint control presumably gives Pakistan influence on when and where such strikes occur.

Anyone who believes the US should just give drones to Pakistan to use obviously feels such strikes are necessary whereas the Pakistan position is that the what and where are a problem.

Joint control may solve both of those issues at once.

Of course, if the real motive is just to get some free drones to use against India, obviously nobody is going to see eye to eye.

 

[saiko]

Joint control means, Pakistan is taking full responsibility of any mission failure. lolz. Strategically its bad choice. Let US do that, they have resources for damage control.

I think it would be worse for Pakistan to pretend the US is doing this against their will - it makes the government look extraordinarily weak.

Better to be seen as doing a bit of US dirty work than completely helpless. And in reality, the goal (regardless of if it's working or not) of suppressing the militancy helps Pakistan as much as it does the US.

 

[roadrunner]

Joint control presumably gives Pakistan influence on when and where such strikes occur.

Anyone who believes the US should just give drones to Pakistan to use obviously feels such strikes are necessary whereas the Pakistan position is that the what and where are a problem.

Joint control may solve both of those issues at once.

Of course, if the real motive is just to get some free drones to use against India, obviously nobody is going to see eye to eye.

Instead of attributing things to me, that I did not say, try reading my posts. It's the first way to having a constructive debate, instead of worrying about your dear India.

Show me where I said Pakistan should get any drones.

It's incredibly simple. Don't give Pakistan any drones. It has cruise missiles to use against India.

 

[sohailbutt]

US bombing a sovereign country: US lawmaker​

WASHINGTON: The House Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Congress heard an unusual speech from a Republican lawmaker who described US drone attacks as the bombing of a sovereign country and questioned America’s right to do so.

US special envoy Richard Holbrooke disagreed with this description of America’s military operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan and reminded Congressman Ronald Ernest Paul that US troops were there because people living in that region had invaded their homeland on Sept. 11, 2001.

But the explanation came only after Rep. Paul had completed his speech, urging policy makers in Washington to review the US foreign policies which were causing worldwide resentments against the United States.

‘We are bombing a sovereign country. Where do we get the authority to do that? Did the Pakistani government give us written permission? Did the Congress give us written permission to expand the war and start bombing in Pakistan?’ asked the US lawmaker.

‘Why do we as a Congress and as a people and as our representatives within the executive branch just so casually and carelessly expand the war and say, ‘Well, today we have to do this; we’ll worry about tomorrow.’

Mr Paul is an American physician and Republican Congressman from Texas, who gained widespread attention during his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. During the campaign he attracted an enthusiastic following which made use of the Internet and social networking to establish a grassroots campaign despite lack of traditional organization or media attention.

Rep. Paul wasted little time in formalities when the committee’s chairman, Congressman Howard Berman, invited him to speak.

After thanking the chairman and welcoming Ambassador Holbrooke, the lawmaker went straight to the question that seemed to be bothering him.

‘The main concern I have is I was hoping to see maybe a change in our foreign policy from the last administration, but, of course, we see just more of the same — more nation-building, more policing of the world, more involvement,’ he said.

‘And it just seems like we never learn from our past mistakes. We don’t learn from what kind of trouble the Soviets got into, and yet we continue to do the same thing.’

Referring to Mr Holbrooke’s earlier statement before the committee, Rep. Paul reminded him that he too had set ‘a grandiose goal.’

‘We want to work for a vibrant, modern democracy. Wow, what a dream. But think of how we’re doing this. I mean, we label everybody that opposes what we’re doing, we call them Taliban,’ he said.

While the US fought this war, ‘all of a sudden … many, many thousands of Pashtuns that are right smack in the middle, getting killed by our bombs, and then we wonder why they object to our policies over there.’

The bombing of this area, Mr Paul said, made him believe that the US was there for the long haul. ‘It’s going to cost a lot of money and it’s going to cost a lot of lives.’

The US lawmaker said that if the members of Congress had ever realized what Iraq would end up costing America in the number of deaths, in the number of dollars, ‘now trillion dollars,’ they would have been a little more hesitant to approve it.

‘They admit that now – ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t have.’ But who knows what this is going to end up costing in terms of lives?’ he asked, reminding other lawmakers that the odds of the US policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan working were very slim. ‘This is what my great concern is,’ he added.

Congressman Paul then explained Pakistan’s recent history to other lawmakers, recalling that in 1999 the country had an elected prime minister who was toppled by the military. ‘And (Gen.) Musharraf comes in and we support him.’

Mr Paul then accused the US administration of trying to engineer yet another change in Pakistan, a charge Mr Holbrooke vehemently denied.

‘So now it’s said that we have relationships with Sharif, which everybody knows exactly what that means. It means that we’re involved in their elections. That’s the way that we’ve done it for so many years,’ said the congressman.

‘But, you know, the Pakistani papers report it as ‘US taps Sharif to be the next Pakistani prime minister.’ Now, whether or not we literally can do that — I think we can have a lot of influence — that’s what they believe in.’

He then asked: ‘How do you win the hearts and minds of these people if we’re seen as invaders and occupiers? And here we are, just doing nothing more than expanding our role in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. I don’t see any end to it.’

Addressing Mr Holbrooke, the US lawmaker said he had several specific concerns about the current situation in Pakistan.

‘It has to do with Pashtuns that have been killed by our bombs. What about our national debt? We have $1.8 trillion debt facing us.’

He said that while the administration was currently seeking $3.5 billion to support its efforts in Pakistan, ‘it will turn out to be tens of billions of dollars after this.

‘So I’d like to know where you stand on this, the innocent killing of Pashtuns. Are they all Taliban, or are there some innocent people being killed?’

As Congressman Paul finished, a Pakistani in the audience commented: ‘This American lawmaker has defended Pakistan more eloquently than our ambassador ever has.’

Obviously displeased with the questions the congressman raised, Ambassador Holbrooke said he did not say exactly what Mr Paul imputed to him, but he had thought a long time about the issues raise.

‘And you mentioned Iraq. Afghanistan-Pakistan is not Iraq. The reason we are in this area, notwithstanding its immense difficulties, is because the people in this area attacked our country on September 11th, 2001, and have stated flatly they intend to do it again.’

The militants, he said, not only killed Americans on 9/11 but also killed hundreds of Pakistanis and Afghans and committed gross human rights violations.

‘And therefore, it is not Iraq and it’s not Vietnam, despite the fact that many people say it is. It’s about defending our country,’ he said,

Ambassador Holbrooke said he agreed with the lawmaker that the fight against the extremists was not easy and it was not cheap either.

‘And having seen wars on three continents, having been shot at for my country, I sure don’t feel comfortable in a situation where you ask brave young American men and women to risk their lives and sometimes pay the ultimate sacrifice,’ the ambassador said.

‘However, the president of the United States reviewed everything in regard to this and came to the conclusion … that our goal has to be to defeat al Qaeda. We cannot let them take over an even larger terrain, move into other parts of the world, and then plan what they’re planning,’ he concluded.

DAWN.COM | World | US bombing a sovereign country: US lawmaker

 

[HAIDER]

One of the architects of the successful ‘surge’ in Iraq, Dr. David Kilcullen, has called on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee to stop ‘drone’ attacks over Pakistan, saying they are counterproductive.
Kilcullen, a former Lieutenant Colonel of the Australian Army, served in Iraq as a top advisor to General David Petraeus and was one of the theorists of the successful ‘surge’ there. According to the Los Angeles Times, when a congressman asked him what the U.S. government should do to win in Pakistan, the experienced counterinsurgency man simply said:

We need to call off the drones.


The former Australian soldier also said to the House Armed Services Committee:

I realize that they do damage to the Al Qaeda leadership. Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they've given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. ... The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population.


Kilcullen, who is also an anthropologist, referred to the culture of the tribesmen in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area: "Using robots from the air ... looks both cowardly and weak," to the Pashtun people who have kept at bay or defeated all comers from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union in their mountainous homeland.

Pakistanis from government officials to journalists have long demanded the U.S. stop the drone attacks. They have argued that it violates Pakistani sovereignty that it is strange to kill civilians of a country who is your ally, and that it doesn’t work.

In an interview with a U.S. newspaper quoted by the Pakistani website Dawn.com, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, made the same point. He argued that the continuing drone attacks were causing anger among locals, thus ”creating more Taliban.”

Haqqani called for drones to be brought under Islamabad’s control.
?Call off the Drones? Expert Tells Congressional Committee - Digital Journal: Your News Network

 

[Patriot]

we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.
--
This is bad IMHO.I personally supported Drone attacks but this will have very dark effects on Pakistan.

 

[S-2]

So, does Dr. Kilcullen have an agenda now?

14 Al Qaeda plus 700 civilians says 714 killed by PREDATOR?

Or do we count taliban separate? Or are they "civilian"? Consider-

Porous Pakistani Borders Could Hinder U.S.-NYT

"The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones — virtually the only American military presence felt inside Pakistan.

'The drones are very effective,'

he said, acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes."

Twenty-nine killed. Militants certainly. How does Kilcullen account for this information? Are these "friends" militarily insignificant? Do they fit into the "700 civilians"? How did Kilcullen omit this category of combatant and why?

I have reasons to not favor PREDATOR- 1.) It attacks discretely. With each success, time ensues to afford a trained replacement. This STRENGTHENS the network by building trained redundancy within the organization and lifting "indispensibility" from the militant lexicon. Anybody can be killed therefore anybody is replacable and should train subordinates towards that planned obsolescence sped along by PREDATOR's work, and 2.) without question, those who may fairly be considered "targets" will move to those areas that have proven immune to PREDATOR strikes. Safe haven. That would be ANYWHERE that PREDATOR isn't actively engaging.

Problems arise as a result of both of these effects.

I can't say that Kilcullen's testimony overwhelms me. Worse, for expert access, this is an ill-considered and skewed presentation that leaves obvious holes in his argument unanswered.

I'd like to know more.

 

[pakomar]

Does n t forget my Pakistani brothers 10 Pakistan army soldiers including one officer martyred due to drone attacks. Clearly shows US does n t know what they are hitting.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

U.S. military, Pakistan carrying out Predator drone missions together - Los Angeles Times​

Washington has given Pakistan the freedom to launch airstrikes against militants, but so far the Pakistanis have been reluctant, officials say. The program is a marked shift for both sides.
By Julian E. Barnes and Greg Miller

6:01 PM PDT, May 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington — The U.S. military has begun flying armed Predator drones inside Pakistan and has given Pakistani officers significant control over targets, flight routes and decisions to launch attacks under a new joint operation, according to U.S. officials familiar with the program.

The project was begun in recent weeks to bolster Pakistan's ability and willingness to disrupt the militant groups that are posing a growing threat to the government in Islamabad and fueling violence in Afghanistan.

For the U.S. military, the missions represent a broad new role in searching for Islamic militants in Pakistan. For years, that task has been the domain of the CIA, which has flown its own fleet of Predators over the South Asian nation.

Under the new partnership, U.S. military drones will be allowed for the first time to venture beyond the borders of Afghanistan under the direction of Pakistani military officials, who are working with American counterparts at a command center in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said the program was aimed at getting Pakistan -- which has frequently protested airstrikes in its territory as a violation of sovereignty -- more directly and deeply engaged in the Predator program.

"This is about building trust," said a senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the program has not been publicly acknowledged. "This is about giving them capabilities they do not currently have to help them defeat this radical extreme element that is in their country."

The Pakistanis, however, have yet to use the drones to shoot at suspected militants and are grappling with a cumbersome military chain of command as well as ambivalence over using U.S. equipment to fire on their own people.

The program marks a significant departure from how the war against Taliban insurgents has been fought for most of the last seven years. The heavy U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has been largely powerless to pursue militants who routinely escape across the border into Pakistan.

But the initiative carries serious risks for Pakistan, which is struggling to balance a desire for more control over the drones with a deep reluctance to become complicit in U.S.-operated Predator strikes on its own people.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, on a visit to Washington last week, reiterated his nation's request for its own fleet of Predators. U.S. officials have all but ruled that out, and they described the new, jointly operated flights as an effective compromise.

Pakistani officials did not deny the existence of the new program, saying Tuesday that they were working with U.S. officials to better utilize the American technology. In a statement, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said the nation remained concerned that the "unilateral" CIA drone strikes violated its sovereignty.

"Pakistan has not been averse to using every available means in tracking down Al Qaeda and other terrorists," Haqqani said. "We have been working with the U.S. side to find ways in which the U.S. technological advantage matches up with our desire to uphold our sovereignty within our borders."

CIA Predators flown covertly in Pakistan continue to focus on the United States' principal target, Al Qaeda. The military drones, meanwhile, are intended to undermine the militant networks that have moved closer to Islamabad, the capital, in recent weeks.

Over the last month, officials said, the United States has offered Pakistan control over multiple flights involving both Predator and more heavily armed Reaper drones.

Pakistan declined an offer to use the drones for its recent military offensives in the Swat Valley and Buner areas, and poor weather has caused other sorties to be scrapped. But the senior U.S. military official said at least two missions had been flown in recent weeks under Pakistani direction.

So far the missions have not involved the firing of any missiles, and some U.S. officials have expressed frustration that the Pakistanis have not used the Predator capabilities more aggressively. Officials said Pakistan was given the authority to order strikes during the jointly operated flights as long as there was U.S. agreement on the targets.

"It is their decision," a senior military officer said. "We are trying to put them in the chain, so they control the whole thing, save the hardware."

The program may be one result of U.S. military efforts to cultivate closer ties with Pakistan. Over the last year, Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made repeated trips to Islamabad to push for greater Pakistani cooperation.

The program also is part of a broader overhaul of the U.S. military approach in the region. Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, named this week to become the new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, expanded the use of Predators while in Iraq and is expected to do the same in his new post.

The missions are being controlled from the jointly operated command center in Jalalabad. The center contains a "fusion cell" that merges information gathered from American surveillance with human intelligence collected by Pakistani and Afghanistan forces.

Debates between Pakistanis and Americans have taken place within the center over whether potential targets are Taliban leaders or Pakistani tribesmen with only loose ties to extremist groups. Nonetheless, U.S. officials said most Pakistani officers in the command center understood the militant threat and were anxious to move aggressively.

However, the Pakistanis' superiors have had more reservations and have equivocated when asked for permission to fire on suspected militants. U.S. officers said those Pakistani officials may not have understood that any delay could allow targeted individuals to slip away.

In response, Pakistanis have repeatedly emphasized to U.S. military officers that they are reluctant to fire missiles at their own citizens.

"They have asked us to try and understand what it is like to be a military that is now required to go against its own people," said the senior military officer. "I do not think we always have the right perspective of how difficult it is."

The Pakistani reluctance may also reflect ambivalence in Islamabad over the CIA's Predator program. The intelligence agency is in the midst of a campaign of strikes on Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan's tribal frontier.

The most recent CIA strike came Tuesday, reportedly killing eight people in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas Since August, the agency has carried out at least 55 strikes, compared with 10 reported attacks in 2006 and 2007 combined.

Despite Pakistan's frequent complaints about the strikes, U.S. officials have said the missions are authorized by the Pakistani government. CIA officials credit Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, with providing on-the-ground information that often leads to Predator strikes. In turn, the CIA has shared sensitive imagery and intercepts with Pakistani counterparts.

Despite that arrangement, U.S. officials avoided offering Pakistan greater control over the CIA drones, in part because of concerns about giving Pakistan direct access to a sensitive and secret intelligence operation. At times, U.S. intelligence officials have voiced suspicions that elements of the ISI, which has long-standing relationships with Taliban leaders, have warned targets in advance of U.S. strikes.

U.S. officials also cited a reluctance to take CIA drones away from their efforts to track and kill senior Al Qaeda figures, and stressed that the military drones would pursue a different set of targets, mainly Taliban-linked fighters.

The use of Defense Department drones presents disadvantages to Pakistan. The military's unmanned aircraft program, for example, is not shrouded in the same level of secrecy as the CIA's, eroding Pakistan's already attenuated ability to continue to deny involvement.

"If it's true that Pakistan is actually controlling some of these drones, that undermines the concerns [they express] about the attacks," said Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert at Rand Corp. who frequently travels to the region.

Pakistan's permission is crucial to Predator operations, representing an added incentive for U.S. officials to share control of the aircraft.

"The key is you've got to have the approval of the host government," said Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who is now a law professor at Duke University. "If you do not, you cross over the line of invading the territorial sovereignty of another country."

 

[roadrunner]

Pakistan should have nothing to do with any drones, they're tainted. Any attacks by drones that cause civilian casualties will only be magnified if it has a Pakistani influence over the results. Best to stay away from tarnished goods. It's the perception that is important.

 

[muse]

Who and what is tainted, time will tell - what is clear is that Pakistan are killing Talib and that is good, what is clear is that Pakistan seem to want to control their country, their territory and not allow AQ or talib to control it - and that is good.

 

[S-2]

Beautifully succinct.

 

[Sam Dhanraj]

Pakistan Gets Sensitive U.S. Drone Images, With Limits​

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: May 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States military for the first time has provided Pakistan with a broad array of surveillance information collected by American drones flying along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, American military officials said Wednesday.

But it is not clear whether the cooperation will continue. While American military drones flew a handful of noncombat surveillance missions along the border earlier this spring at the request of the Pakistani government, requests for additional flights abruptly stopped without explanation, the officials said.

The offer to give Pakistan a much larger amount of imagery, including real-time video feeds and communications intercepts gleaned by remotely piloted aircraft, was intended to help defuse a growing dispute over how to use the drones and which country should control the secret missions flown in Pakistani airspace, American officials said.

In meetings last week with President Obama and other American officials in Washington, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, repeated his insistence that Pakistan be given its own fleet of armed Predator drones to attack operatives of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

But the American intelligence operatives that fly the armed drones inside Pakistan remain opposed to joint operations with Pakistani intelligence services, pointing out that past attempts were a failure. Several years ago, American officials gave Pakistani officials advance word of planned Predator attacks, but stopped the practice after the information leaked to militants.

“We’re going after terrorists plotting directly against the United States and its interests,” said one American counterterrorism official. “Nobody wants to gamble with those kinds of targets. We tried a joint approach before, and it didn’t work. Those are facts that can’t be ignored.”

American military officials said Wednesday that there was no plan to allow the military to join the C.I.A. in operating armed drones inside Pakistan. They disputed a report in The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that said Pakistan had been given joint control of armed American military drones inside Pakistan. Obama administration officials are vigorously resisting sharing the drone technology with Pakistani security forces, but officials from both countries said compromises were possible.

American and some Pakistani officials spoke anonymously because the C.I.A. drone operations are classified.

Pakistani officials said that Mr. Zardari wants the drone technology partly to tamp down anger inside Pakistan over the campaign of C.I.A. airstrikes inside the country, which have killed civilians in addition to more than a dozen Qaeda leaders. If Pakistan had its own Predators, they said, the government in Islamabad could make a more plausible case to the public that Pakistani missiles, not American missiles, were being used to kill Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

“Pakistan’s concerns about the drones do not relate to their ability to take out bad guys, they relate to the collateral damage and concerns about national sovereignty,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States.

As a compromise approach, the American military in Afghanistan a few months ago offered to increase the amount of sensitive surveillance information it shared with the Pakistani military. American officials said the information could help Pakistani forces combat an increasingly lethal militancy that was spreading not only in the tribal areas, but also in the settled areas of Swat and Buner, closer to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

American and Pakistani officials said that such information-sharing initiatives could build trust between the security services of both nations, which have long been skeptical of each other’s motives.

In mid-March, the American military in Afghanistan flew a demonstration mission of a Predator drone along a stretch of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to show the kind of imagery and communications information the Predator could provide. The Americans transmitted the information to a border coordination center near the Khyber Pass manned by American, Pakistani and Afghan personnel, and the information was disseminated through Pakistani security databases.

The test run went well enough that Pakistan subsequently requested a small number of additional Predator reconnaissance flights to support their operations in the border tribal areas.

But American officials said the requests for additional surveillance missions ended suddenly in early April. “There was no reason given, it just stopped,” said one senior American defense official.

American officials suggested the change could be the result of internal divisions in the Pakistani military over how closely to cooperate with the Americans on sensitive intelligence.

For its part, the Obama administration has provided the Pakistanis with the surveillance information but has resisted sharing detailed information about how the drones operate.

“This is technology we haven’t given to our closest allies — the Brits or the Australians or NATO,” said one senior American official who is working on Pakistan issues.

Infusing this debate is a continuing suspicion by American intelligence officials of the premier Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Because the Predators, and now an even more sophisticated drone called the Reaper, have been among the most successful weapons against Qaeda and other militant leaders, there is deep concern that any information about the drones’ operating patterns, blind spots, and takeoff and landing locations could be leaked to the insurgents and used to take down the drones.

As the fighting in Swat unfolded this week, missiles fired by a remotely piloted American drone killed 15 people, suspected of being militants, in a village in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on Tuesday. The missiles, apparently three in all, hit a suspected safe house operated by local militants in Sra Khawra, a village that sits on the border between the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan.

It was the 18th American drone attack in Pakistan so far this year, compared with 36 in all of last year.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.