Should be more concern about kicking out the Islamic terrorists than about kicking out the U.S. killing the terrorists.
Pakistan Tells U.S. To Leave 'Drone' Attack Base
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Should be more concern about kicking out the Islamic terrorists than about kicking out the U.S. killing the terrorists.
AgNoStiC MuSliM
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Both should be kicked out and there should be 'equal concern' about both.
Both are conducting illegal operations on Pakistani soil and acting like thugs.
'US changes law to kill in Pakistan'
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly using airbases in Afghanistan to launch deadly drone attacks on Pakistan despite Islamabad's warnings against continued unauthorized US air raids on its soil.
The US is pressing ahead with its unsanctioned drone bombing of Pakistan by using an Afghan airbase, as CIA claims the aerial operation originally launched from a Pakistani airbase have stopped over the past three months, according to a Saturday report by The Washington Post.
The report states that the US stopped drone strikes from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan in April after a diplomatic row over a CIA operative, Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistani nationals in Lahore on January 27.
The newspaper added that since then the CIA has carried out its drone attacks on the Pakistani soil from an airbase in Afghanistan.
Ties between Islamabad and Washington have become tense over the attacks, which Pakistan considers as a violation of its sovereignty.
Press TV interviewed Rick Rozoff, Manager of Stop NATO Organization in Chicago.
Press TV: These drones, do we know where they are getting their information on what targets to attack?
Rozoff: Do we know how they are obtaining information and how they are targeting people for unmanned aerial vehicle attacks? I have got an idea of how the operation works. Your lead into our conversation, of course, mentioned over a thousand people have been killed in the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan last year, you know the total figures since the US drone war in Pakistan, starting in 2004, are at least 2,500 people. I mean this is a large scale killing of course.
The so called pilots to direct the drone attack are based in the United States, and that information is provided via video communication from the theater, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, back to the States where the strikes are ordered. I mean that's the general mechanism used for the strikes.
I don't know if it has been noted but I think it is worth paying attention to the fact that the new Defense Secretary of the Unites States, Leon Panetta, has come to that post, coming from being the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, which in fact is in charge of the predator drone attacks inside Pakistan, and even though there has been a decrease in those attacks under the former chief military commander of US and NATO forces, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, were intensified under his successor David Petraeus, who is now taking over the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency.
So, you have a CIA director who really ramped up the drone attack taking over the Pentagon, and you have a military commander who officiated over or collaborated with the drone attacks taking over the CIA which runs them. So, all indications are that you're going to see a dramatic escalation of deadly drone attacks inside Pakistan.
Press TV: How is it the US is expanding in Afghanistan, when the Afghan people and President Hamid Karzai has specifically said they want the US soldiers out as soon as possible.
Rozoff: They want ISAF out ASAP, they are correct to say that. You know, a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that the foreign troops in his country, which are an enormous amount, they are up to 150,000 US NATO and partnership troops in the country, that's the largest amount of troops ever stationed on Afghan soil incidentally. It's substantially larger than the Soviet troop presence at its highest, and it is also the largest number of troops and largest number of countries ever stationed in one warzone, over 50 countries all together with 48 officials that NATO calls troop contributing nations, and other numbers in addition to that. You alluded to airbases like those of Bagram, I would also recall that at Shindand in the western part of Afghanistan.
So, one of the major objective that the United States and NATO have had in invading and occupying Afghanistan, for what will soon be 10 years, is to come in the possession of an upgrade in the Soviet assisted air bases in Afghanistan, and use them to police the entire region, which means northward to Central Asia and eastward to the Indian sub-continent and of course west to Iran and the Persian Gulf.
So, frankly I cannot tell you from where the predator drones take off for their deadly mission inside Pakistan, you know the Bagram airbases have been expanded to a monumental size in recent years, and it is a clear indication, that notwithstanding Afghan President Karzai's demand that foreign troops leave the country, the US and NATO have no intention of doing that.
Press TV: These drones are considered illegal acts of war by the UN Council for Human Rights and also considered targeted killings, how is it that the Unites States gets away with these inhumane acts?
Rozoff: That's a very good question. I would say it is simply the moral default of the world that permits them to get away. You know with very loosely phrased UN resolution permitted the United States and NATO to move into Afghanistan 10 years ago in the first place, comparable to UN resolution in many ways, 1970 and 1973, recently which is allowed for what is now a 105 day war against Libya with no end in sight.
The fact is that the major legal adviser to the US State Department, Harold [Hongju] Koh, uses exactly the term that you have just used, targeted killings in Pakistan. You know Dawn News, one of the major English language news sources in Pakistan, estimated some 18 months ago that not only last year there were over 1,000 killed, but a year prior to that, of 700 people killed in Pakistan, five of them were so called al-Qaeda operatives or forces, so there was a 140 to 1 ratio of civilians killed for every targeted terrorist, and Harold Koh in State Department uses the term targeted killing, not targeted assignation, which in fact it is, because of a law passed in the 1970s in the United States based on the CIA operation, prior to that which makes it a violation of the law to conducted targeted assassinations, so they simply changed the name.
Now, if you are somebody in Pakistan whose entire family isn't wiped out in a hellfire missile attack, it's a small consolation to be told that it wasn't a targeted assassination, it was a targeted killing. And in fact in my opinion this is a gross violation of international and certainly humanitarian law.
PressTV - 'US changes law to kill in Pakistan'
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly using airbases in Afghanistan to launch deadly drone attacks on Pakistan despite Islamabad's warnings against continued unauthorized US air raids on its soil.
The US is pressing ahead with its unsanctioned drone bombing of Pakistan by using an Afghan airbase, as CIA claims the aerial operation originally launched from a Pakistani airbase have stopped over the past three months, according to a Saturday report by The Washington Post.
The report states that the US stopped drone strikes from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan in April after a diplomatic row over a CIA operative, Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistani nationals in Lahore on January 27.
The newspaper added that since then the CIA has carried out its drone attacks on the Pakistani soil from an airbase in Afghanistan.
Ties between Islamabad and Washington have become tense over the attacks, which Pakistan considers as a violation of its sovereignty.
Press TV interviewed Rick Rozoff, Manager of Stop NATO Organization in Chicago.
Press TV: These drones, do we know where they are getting their information on what targets to attack?
Rozoff: Do we know how they are obtaining information and how they are targeting people for unmanned aerial vehicle attacks? I have got an idea of how the operation works. Your lead into our conversation, of course, mentioned over a thousand people have been killed in the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan last year, you know the total figures since the US drone war in Pakistan, starting in 2004, are at least 2,500 people. I mean this is a large scale killing of course.
The so called pilots to direct the drone attack are based in the United States, and that information is provided via video communication from the theater, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, back to the States where the strikes are ordered. I mean that's the general mechanism used for the strikes.
I don't know if it has been noted but I think it is worth paying attention to the fact that the new Defense Secretary of the Unites States, Leon Panetta, has come to that post, coming from being the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, which in fact is in charge of the predator drone attacks inside Pakistan, and even though there has been a decrease in those attacks under the former chief military commander of US and NATO forces, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, were intensified under his successor David Petraeus, who is now taking over the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency.
So, you have a CIA director who really ramped up the drone attack taking over the Pentagon, and you have a military commander who officiated over or collaborated with the drone attacks taking over the CIA which runs them. So, all indications are that you're going to see a dramatic escalation of deadly drone attacks inside Pakistan.
Press TV: How is it the US is expanding in Afghanistan, when the Afghan people and President Hamid Karzai has specifically said they want the US soldiers out as soon as possible.
Rozoff: They want ISAF out ASAP, they are correct to say that. You know, a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that the foreign troops in his country, which are an enormous amount, they are up to 150,000 US NATO and partnership troops in the country, that's the largest amount of troops ever stationed on Afghan soil incidentally. It's substantially larger than the Soviet troop presence at its highest, and it is also the largest number of troops and largest number of countries ever stationed in one warzone, over 50 countries all together with 48 officials that NATO calls troop contributing nations, and other numbers in addition to that. You alluded to airbases like those of Bagram, I would also recall that at Shindand in the western part of Afghanistan.
So, one of the major objective that the United States and NATO have had in invading and occupying Afghanistan, for what will soon be 10 years, is to come in the possession of an upgrade in the Soviet assisted air bases in Afghanistan, and use them to police the entire region, which means northward to Central Asia and eastward to the Indian sub-continent and of course west to Iran and the Persian Gulf.
So, frankly I cannot tell you from where the predator drones take off for their deadly mission inside Pakistan, you know the Bagram airbases have been expanded to a monumental size in recent years, and it is a clear indication, that notwithstanding Afghan President Karzai's demand that foreign troops leave the country, the US and NATO have no intention of doing that.
Press TV: These drones are considered illegal acts of war by the UN Council for Human Rights and also considered targeted killings, how is it that the Unites States gets away with these inhumane acts?
Rozoff: That's a very good question. I would say it is simply the moral default of the world that permits them to get away. You know with very loosely phrased UN resolution permitted the United States and NATO to move into Afghanistan 10 years ago in the first place, comparable to UN resolution in many ways, 1970 and 1973, recently which is allowed for what is now a 105 day war against Libya with no end in sight.
The fact is that the major legal adviser to the US State Department, Harold [Hongju] Koh, uses exactly the term that you have just used, targeted killings in Pakistan. You know Dawn News, one of the major English language news sources in Pakistan, estimated some 18 months ago that not only last year there were over 1,000 killed, but a year prior to that, of 700 people killed in Pakistan, five of them were so called al-Qaeda operatives or forces, so there was a 140 to 1 ratio of civilians killed for every targeted terrorist, and Harold Koh in State Department uses the term targeted killing, not targeted assignation, which in fact it is, because of a law passed in the 1970s in the United States based on the CIA operation, prior to that which makes it a violation of the law to conducted targeted assassinations, so they simply changed the name.
Now, if you are somebody in Pakistan whose entire family isn't wiped out in a hellfire missile attack, it's a small consolation to be told that it wasn't a targeted assassination, it was a targeted killing. And in fact in my opinion this is a gross violation of international and certainly humanitarian law.
PressTV - 'US changes law to kill in Pakistan'
somebozo
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Drones have limited fuel onboard and cannot supply a long distance from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Secondly flying them from Afghanistan gives us the excuse of having them shot down by non-state actors!
Overall, there is very little faith in anything coming from PressTV. Its a typical liar channel controlled by Iranian clergy!
Secondly flying them from Afghanistan gives us the excuse of having them shot down by non-state actors!
Overall, there is very little faith in anything coming from PressTV. Its a typical liar channel controlled by Iranian clergy!
100 percent Iranian propaganda of which we should be mindful of.
Tiki Tam Tam
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The Predator can fly at around 70 mph, slow enough to hide from such radars. It can fly for over 24 hours and out over 500 miles.
The Honeywell TP331-10 engine, producing 950 shp, provides a maximum airspeed of 260 kts and a cruise speed for maximum endurance of 150-170 kts. The MQ-9B can carry a payload mix of 1,500 lb. on each of its two inboard weapons stations, 500-600 lb. on the two middle stations and 150-200 lb. on the outboard stations.
Another version of the Predator B, with a 20-ft. wing extension, started flying in late 2002. The standard MQ-9, at a takeoff weight of 10,000 lb., can carry 3,000 lb. of payload and 3,000 lb. of fuel. With no exterior stores, it could stay aloft for 32 hr. at an altitude of more than 50,000 ft.
The version with the wingspan extended to 86 ft., about the same as a 737 airliner, can carry 34 hr. of internal fuel. With two 1,000-lb. drop tanks and 1,000 lb. of weapons it can fly a 42-hr. mission. Payloads can vary, but a favorite is the steadily upgrading Lynx synthetic aperture radar with a range of about 15 mi. even through clouds and rain.
MQ-1 Predator Factsheet :: Air-Attack.com
The Honeywell TP331-10 engine, producing 950 shp, provides a maximum airspeed of 260 kts and a cruise speed for maximum endurance of 150-170 kts. The MQ-9B can carry a payload mix of 1,500 lb. on each of its two inboard weapons stations, 500-600 lb. on the two middle stations and 150-200 lb. on the outboard stations.
Another version of the Predator B, with a 20-ft. wing extension, started flying in late 2002. The standard MQ-9, at a takeoff weight of 10,000 lb., can carry 3,000 lb. of payload and 3,000 lb. of fuel. With no exterior stores, it could stay aloft for 32 hr. at an altitude of more than 50,000 ft.
The version with the wingspan extended to 86 ft., about the same as a 737 airliner, can carry 34 hr. of internal fuel. With two 1,000-lb. drop tanks and 1,000 lb. of weapons it can fly a 42-hr. mission. Payloads can vary, but a favorite is the steadily upgrading Lynx synthetic aperture radar with a range of about 15 mi. even through clouds and rain.
MQ-1 Predator Factsheet :: Air-Attack.com
Jango
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Karzai should look at this first that there are more troops at the moment doing essentially the same thing as the ruskies, the difference being that they are not declared enemies rather friends, but the ruskies were enemies. Before honking about pakistan firing 300 odd rockets into wasteland border of afghanistan, a thing that ISAF does daily with 1000 rockets, karzai SOB hypocrite.
Shamsi airbase was never used for drone attacks: PM Gilani 
MULTAN: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said the present government never allowed Shamsi airbase to be used for drone attacks. He added that the previous government had however permitted it to be used for surveillance purposes.
The Prime Minister was talking to the media at the Multan Airport.
Gilani also claimed that the government will not take any external orders for the North Waziristan operation. “The government will decide on its own when to start the operation,” Gilani said.
Speaking on politics, Gilani said PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif’s dreams of mid-term election in the country can never be fulfilled as the political leadership is united on major issues.
He said PML-N and other political parties should prepare themselves for the next election.
Gilani said that the PPP will continue its policy of reconciliation. He said MQM has always supported the PPP and negotiations to bring them back are in process.
Talking about the power crisis in the country, Gilani said there is a huge increase in the demand of electricity due to the ongoing developmental projects which in result has created shortfall in supply.
The prime minister vowed that an additional 2,000mw would be added to the country’s electricity grid very soon. He also said that the price of petroleum had been raised due to a hike in prices globally.
Speaking about the ongoing construction of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Gilani said that 1,100km of the pipeline had been constructed so far.
----------------------------------------------------------
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Shamsi air base: ‘Drones parked at, but don’t fly from the base’
While serving ministers battle out the status of US forces at Shamsi air base, The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the CIA suspended its long-standing use of the air base as a launch site for armed drones three months ago, according to US and Pakistani officials.
American personnel and Predator drones, meanwhile, remain at the facility in Balochistan, with security provided by the Pakistani military, the report revealed.
All US drone strikes in the past three months have been launched from Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Jalalabad, the report quoted officials as saying.
Asked to leave
Interestingly, the report corroborated Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar’s claim that Islamabad had been pressing the US to leave the base even before the May 2 incursion in Abbottabad.
After the raid, Mukhtar told reporters on Wednesday, “We told them again.”
The Washington Post, quoting a senior Pakistani defence official, reported that in the weeks after Pakistan’s release of the CIA contractor Raymond Davis, top Pakistani military and intelligence officials made “a formal, personal request … a demand … more than once” to their US counterparts to end the flights and leave Pakistan.
In response, the US official said that “there has been some thinning out at the base, and the drone missions suspended.” An American official said the CIA’s decision to suspend the launches was part of a US effort to “pay attention to the sensitivities” of the Pakistanis.
Not vacating
Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan on Friday, however, dismissed Mukhtar’s statement that the US had been asked to vacate the airbase in Balochistan.
“It’s just a statement for the media,” Awan told a media gathering in Lahore. “I am also a member of the defence committee and the matter was not discussed there.”
Meanwhile, American officials had also rebuffed Mukhtar’s statements saying there was no plan to evacuate the base.
“That base is neither vacated nor being vacated,” a US official familiar with the matter was reported as saying.
Thawing relations
The Washington Post report also claimed that “the rupture in [US-Pakistan] intelligence cooperation has slowly begun to heal.”
Pakistan has reversed its freeze on visas for United States intelligence officials and allowed dozens of Central Intelligence Agency personnel to reenter the country, the report quoted officials from both countries as saying.
Who granted the permission?
The report appearing in the Washington-based newspaper also said that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf secretly authorised the CIA to operate drones from Shamsi, a small air facility in Balochistan.
The air strip, located about 600 miles southwest of Islamabad, apparently was constructed years ago by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates as an arrival point for falconry and other hunting expeditions in Pakistan.
The present use of the airfield was revealed in a book published by retired Gen Tommy Franks, the former head of the US Central Command, The Washington Post added.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2011.
MULTAN: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said the present government never allowed Shamsi airbase to be used for drone attacks. He added that the previous government had however permitted it to be used for surveillance purposes.
The Prime Minister was talking to the media at the Multan Airport.
Gilani also claimed that the government will not take any external orders for the North Waziristan operation. “The government will decide on its own when to start the operation,” Gilani said.
Speaking on politics, Gilani said PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif’s dreams of mid-term election in the country can never be fulfilled as the political leadership is united on major issues.
He said PML-N and other political parties should prepare themselves for the next election.
Gilani said that the PPP will continue its policy of reconciliation. He said MQM has always supported the PPP and negotiations to bring them back are in process.
Talking about the power crisis in the country, Gilani said there is a huge increase in the demand of electricity due to the ongoing developmental projects which in result has created shortfall in supply.
The prime minister vowed that an additional 2,000mw would be added to the country’s electricity grid very soon. He also said that the price of petroleum had been raised due to a hike in prices globally.
Speaking about the ongoing construction of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Gilani said that 1,100km of the pipeline had been constructed so far.
----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Shamsi air base: ‘Drones parked at, but don’t fly from the base’
While serving ministers battle out the status of US forces at Shamsi air base, The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the CIA suspended its long-standing use of the air base as a launch site for armed drones three months ago, according to US and Pakistani officials.
American personnel and Predator drones, meanwhile, remain at the facility in Balochistan, with security provided by the Pakistani military, the report revealed.
All US drone strikes in the past three months have been launched from Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Jalalabad, the report quoted officials as saying.
Asked to leave
Interestingly, the report corroborated Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar’s claim that Islamabad had been pressing the US to leave the base even before the May 2 incursion in Abbottabad.
After the raid, Mukhtar told reporters on Wednesday, “We told them again.”
The Washington Post, quoting a senior Pakistani defence official, reported that in the weeks after Pakistan’s release of the CIA contractor Raymond Davis, top Pakistani military and intelligence officials made “a formal, personal request … a demand … more than once” to their US counterparts to end the flights and leave Pakistan.
In response, the US official said that “there has been some thinning out at the base, and the drone missions suspended.” An American official said the CIA’s decision to suspend the launches was part of a US effort to “pay attention to the sensitivities” of the Pakistanis.
Not vacating
Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan on Friday, however, dismissed Mukhtar’s statement that the US had been asked to vacate the airbase in Balochistan.
“It’s just a statement for the media,” Awan told a media gathering in Lahore. “I am also a member of the defence committee and the matter was not discussed there.”
Meanwhile, American officials had also rebuffed Mukhtar’s statements saying there was no plan to evacuate the base.
“That base is neither vacated nor being vacated,” a US official familiar with the matter was reported as saying.
Thawing relations
The Washington Post report also claimed that “the rupture in [US-Pakistan] intelligence cooperation has slowly begun to heal.”
Pakistan has reversed its freeze on visas for United States intelligence officials and allowed dozens of Central Intelligence Agency personnel to reenter the country, the report quoted officials from both countries as saying.
Who granted the permission?
The report appearing in the Washington-based newspaper also said that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf secretly authorised the CIA to operate drones from Shamsi, a small air facility in Balochistan.
The air strip, located about 600 miles southwest of Islamabad, apparently was constructed years ago by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates as an arrival point for falconry and other hunting expeditions in Pakistan.
The present use of the airfield was revealed in a book published by retired Gen Tommy Franks, the former head of the US Central Command, The Washington Post added.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2011.
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