Thanks for the op-eds. They represent a useful contribution. The discussion remains difficult and clouded by an absence of verifiable fact, particularly WRT actual casualties. Claims and counter-claims are largely unproductive to advancing further understanding when the stark reality is that nobody actually knows.
U.S. Drone Strike Kills 25 In Pakistan's North Waziristan-Reuters April 21, 2011
"The drone strike happened in Mir Ali town, about 35 km (20 miles) east of the region's main town of Miranshah.
A Pakistani intelligence official in the region who declined to be identified said the house was being used as a militant hideout.
"They have surrounded the area and are not allowing anybody to go there," the intelligence official said, referring to militants.
Twenty-five bodies had been recovered from the rubble and three women were among those killed, he said."
How often have we read something similar? Numbers of dead and wounded are ascribed yet no verification is possible. How can this be anything more, then, than simply an etching of the event in the most vague terms? Somebody, of course, may know with a high degree of accuracy but the means for doing so are protected...and this is understandable even should it not contribute to our understanding.
I'll be interested to see if drone facilities are ever relocated away from Pakistan. That'll be the clearest indication that the Pakistani government has forsaken PREDATOR's value in preference to public sentiment. Anything less represents a duplicitous pursuit of the weapon's benefit while attempting to allay the concerns of a largely uninformed Pakistani public.
Could America continue such attacks anyway? Maybe. Both Jalalabad and Asadabad might be sufficiently large enough to house such facilities while also close to the primary target areas.
Unlike Pakistan, however, the major concern would be the security of such locations. Currently, PREDATOR operates from Pakistan AFBs throughout Balouchistan and are secure from taliban attack. That might change should those aircraft be deployed from the afghan side yet near their primary target areas.
It takes an air base sufficiently large to prevent accurate rocket/mortar fire on hanger, ammunition and staging facilities. Bagram and Kandahar provide such but are not particularly close to N. Waziristan. Whether the base facilities currently exist in the aforementioned areas would be a major limiting factor.
EDIT: 4100 posts!! Woo-hoo!!!
