Pakistan may allow drone strikes if given control over campaign: Former CIA official

[HRK]

Pakistan may allow drone strikes if given control over campaign: Former CIA official
By Reuters
Published: December 23, 2013

Its too late for this ..... Uncle Sam has already created such a mess .... that will not 'serve the purpose now' ......

That can work only if Pakistan stops making the self-defined distinction between the "good" and the "bad" Taliban.

distinction of good and bad is not that 'bad' if that can serve the interest ..... same as in Syria in recent past ....or even at the time of capturing Kabul by Allied forces helped by 'good War lords'

 

[janon]

Otherwise pakistan won't allow drones strikes?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I think It means we decide the targets, you fly and destroy it

Somebody already must be on the ground figuring out the targets in North Waziristan. I highly doubt there are a bunch of CIA agents standing on street corners saying so-and-so Taliban guy just got in a car and needs can be targeted. Those are informants for Pakistan intelligence. So Pakistan already has a say on the targets.

 

[VCheng]

Otherwise pakistan won't allow drones strikes?

Ouch! Play nice now.

 

[janon]

Somebody already must be on the ground figuring out the targets in North Waziristan. I highly doubt there are a bunch of CIA agents standing on street corners saying so-and-so Taliban guy just got in a car and needs can be targeted. Those are informants for Pakistan intelligence. So Pakistan already has a say on the targets.

CIA does have a clandestine network in pakistan, harvesting much more and better information than the much vaunted and much feared ISI. How do you think they learnt of OBL's residence in a cantonment? Who do you think Raymond Davies was?

Don't underestimate the CIA. It doesn't have to be CIA agents, but paid informers working for handlers. Just like any other intel agency works. But the CIA does have an admirably entrenched network in pakistan. That's their job, to set up networks in USA's area of interest - which at present is the af-pak region.

 

[Not Sure]

20th August 1998.

Osama was located in the tribal region of Afghan Pakistan border.

India offered full ground support to the US to launch a missile strike, but Americans were wary that Pakistanis might mistake it as an Indian missile and it might trigger an Indo-Pak war.

2 hours before the strike, Clinton confided in Nawaz that Americans will launch a missile from Arabian ocean and that it will not be an Indian missile.

1 hour before the strike, Osama disappears from the location. Missile hits a village killing dozens of villagers - No protest.


This tradition of defiant leakage continued till Kayani and Pasha. Bomb making factories were dismantled within hours of sharing information with the Pakistani counterparts.

The Americans decide that drones be more used for snooping than for striking. Same continues today. The moment information is shared with the Pakistani intel agency, it is bound to make way to the targets.

It is not that the ISI in its entirety wants greater collateral damage to get the region rid of Americans, rather it's the Islamist agents within the ISI who are trying to wrest the control away from the Army. Musharraf saw that, and got rid of most of them and 'cleaned' the ISI, but the phenomenon of joining the Beareded/Salwar Kameez brigade has once again taken momentum. I go as far as to say that the attacks on the Airforce bases were less a success of the Talibs, and more a failure of the ISI.

The thing is, ISI has too many holes and moles. Information sharing with the ISI has time and again been so counterproductive that it cannot be relied upon anymore. This is why the snooping drones outnumber the striking drones by 10:1.

Giving Pakistan the control over drone strikes will only result in rise in terrorism, with Pakistan itself as the main target.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

CIA does have a clandestine network in pakistan, harvesting much more and better information than the much vaunted and much feared ISI. How do you think they learnt of OBL's residence in a cantonment? Who do you think Raymond Davies was?

Don't underestimate the CIA. It doesn't have to be CIA agents, but paid informers working for handlers. Just like any other intel agency works. But the CIA does have an admirably entrenched network in pakistan. That's their job, to set up networks in USA's area of interest - which at present is the af-pak region.

I don't doubt they have a network in Pakistan and yes I'm pretty sure Raymond Davies was part of it.
While they would love to "go it alone" (ie without ISI help) that is going to be pretty difficult in the tribal territories where everybody is suspicious of strangers. Yes they could have paid informants there but it is more likely they are mostly ISI informants.

 

[xyxmt]

Somebody already must be on the ground figuring out the targets in North Waziristan. I highly doubt there are a bunch of CIA agents standing on street corners saying so-and-so Taliban guy just got in a car and needs can be targeted. Those are informants for Pakistan intelligence. So Pakistan already has a say on the targets.

CIA has local assets all over the world, money buys everything

That can work only if Pakistan stops making the self-defined distinction between the "good" and the "bad" Taliban.

They always have and always will, Pakistan has talibani assets that they want to use to get influence in Afghanistan in post withdrawal era and I dont think Pakistan is going to give it up now. There would be no need for it if we had a friendly govt in Afghanistan. This is a major point in Pakistan's Afghanistan policy.

 

[VCheng]

.............
They always have and always will, Pakistan has talibani assets that they want to use to get influence in Afghanistan in post withdrawal era and I dont think Pakistan is going to give it up now. There would be no need for it if we had a friendly govt in Afghanistan. This is a major point in Pakistan's Afghanistan policy.

Of course Pakistan has the right to formulate policies that further its national interests. But, having said that, this also means that it will not be able to control targeting of the US drones as it sees fit as is being discussed here.