Sage
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In 1933, on radio and later as a highly popular television show, ‘The Lone Ranger’ depicted the lethal firepower in the hands of a masked hero's miraculous persona against the outlaws. He typically arrived from nowhere, overcame evil and departed, leaving behind only a silver bullet and echoes of 'who was that masked man’? The hero of this movie was a remedy for all intractable problems caused by the villains. Such has become the repute of the ‘Ghungai’ as the inhabitants of FATA call it which otherwise is known as Drone to the rest of the world. With a monotonous high-pitched whirr from the tail propeller, it comes from nowhere like the Lone Ranger and delivers extreme shock and awe against the target; leaving the spectators to ponder whether it was hurled from Shamsi, Bagram, Qandahar or all the way from Ramstein, Germany.
No political rant is complete without a dash of a drone-slogan nowadays. Jumat-e-Islami after giving up on the Kashmir issue is fortunate enough to have drones or else they must’ve dried their throats over Chechnya and Iraq. Imran Khan blocked even Peshawar ring road to prevent the sorties of the drone but the nasty thing broke the siege several times. Contrary to the highly biased and politicized rhetoric, no politician has so far understood the technical edges of the Drone Strikes against its adversaries. Most of the political parties have married up different issues to spawn their protest against this one issue. Do we have problem with the violation of our air-space? Do we have issue with the collateral damage in result of the drone strike? Do we have problem to be an ally with the US or the most important of all, do we have a problem with fighting against the Talibans? It seems that this is the last issue on the basis of which the politicians have led the vox-populi into dismay, as most of the politicians have precedents of Soviet-Afghan war to present the odds of winning on the ground. It’s been more than two decades of the Soviet defeat and since then the battlefield tactics and guerilla warfare have been revolutionized. On the other hand, the fusty political system is yet not ready to acknowledge the pros of the drone strike while the cons of which have been fictionally exaggerated.
Whether we can digest it or not, but we are at war with the most battle-hardened factions of seasonal fighters who have chosen a terrain, strategy and time of war by their own selves. Their tactics of carrying out suicide attacks on military, mosques, monasteries and masses have proven deadly. Their IED’s have taken out our tanks and top-brass. Their gruesome beheading of the kidnapped and prisoners run a cold chill in our spine. All this leaves us with no choice, but one; and that is to take the war to such a place where they could not position their selves. Boots on ground is possible in the modern battlefield only if you have air superiority. This is the gape which the UAV’s fill for us. Talibans have destroyed our tanks, they’ve shot down our choppers but they so far look helpless in tackling these robotic talons from above. The top-notch and the most veteran lot of both TTP and Al-Qaeda have been shattered by Hellfire Missiles fired from these drones. One such missile per unit cost roughly seventy thousand US dollars. Multiplying it with the number of strikes and missiles fired would reveal you that this tech is extremely expensive and cannot be afforded by Pakistan unlike US, nor can Pakistan afford to lose this war. Apart from this calculus, the fiasco of Damadola and Chenagai aerial strike happened due to failed ground intelligence which resulted in civilian casualties back in 2006. There is a long list of top ranked killed terrorist to the credit of drones. Most of the drone strikes are carried out in remote areas where it is nearly impossible to say how many were killed. Last year the Associated Press, after an independent study concluded that the strikes “are killing far fewer civilians than many in Pakistan are led to believe.” There are some un-reliable online sources that have gone to the extent of putting the ratio as one to forty-nine which is preposterous as the kill-ability of the Reaper and Predator is above ninety percent and such accuracy minimize collateral damage rather than laying waste around. Any failed strike so far has been the result of failed tip-off and not some malfunction or glitch in the sensors onboard.
The overture phase for peace with the TTP has come to an end with the PAF offensive in Hangu after TTP slaughtered twenty-three FC personnel. It could unfold a new decisive era of romancing the drone. There will be some fire-brand turban heads, few pseudo-intellectuals, and a bunch of retired army-turned-rhetoricians who would fuel the outcry of ‘civilian casualties’, which matters to them only when the drone strikes and not when a suicide bomber goes off. But they must realize that it’s been more than ten years that we are at war and we hit each other whenever we can.
Citing the caveat, the only alternative to carry out a drone attack when you can is to do nothing; and when you do nothing, you don’t win, your enemies win.
P.S: I wrote it for a news paper...It was published and I received some critical reviews from the readers. Whats your view? I will be happy to know !
No political rant is complete without a dash of a drone-slogan nowadays. Jumat-e-Islami after giving up on the Kashmir issue is fortunate enough to have drones or else they must’ve dried their throats over Chechnya and Iraq. Imran Khan blocked even Peshawar ring road to prevent the sorties of the drone but the nasty thing broke the siege several times. Contrary to the highly biased and politicized rhetoric, no politician has so far understood the technical edges of the Drone Strikes against its adversaries. Most of the political parties have married up different issues to spawn their protest against this one issue. Do we have problem with the violation of our air-space? Do we have issue with the collateral damage in result of the drone strike? Do we have problem to be an ally with the US or the most important of all, do we have a problem with fighting against the Talibans? It seems that this is the last issue on the basis of which the politicians have led the vox-populi into dismay, as most of the politicians have precedents of Soviet-Afghan war to present the odds of winning on the ground. It’s been more than two decades of the Soviet defeat and since then the battlefield tactics and guerilla warfare have been revolutionized. On the other hand, the fusty political system is yet not ready to acknowledge the pros of the drone strike while the cons of which have been fictionally exaggerated.
Whether we can digest it or not, but we are at war with the most battle-hardened factions of seasonal fighters who have chosen a terrain, strategy and time of war by their own selves. Their tactics of carrying out suicide attacks on military, mosques, monasteries and masses have proven deadly. Their IED’s have taken out our tanks and top-brass. Their gruesome beheading of the kidnapped and prisoners run a cold chill in our spine. All this leaves us with no choice, but one; and that is to take the war to such a place where they could not position their selves. Boots on ground is possible in the modern battlefield only if you have air superiority. This is the gape which the UAV’s fill for us. Talibans have destroyed our tanks, they’ve shot down our choppers but they so far look helpless in tackling these robotic talons from above. The top-notch and the most veteran lot of both TTP and Al-Qaeda have been shattered by Hellfire Missiles fired from these drones. One such missile per unit cost roughly seventy thousand US dollars. Multiplying it with the number of strikes and missiles fired would reveal you that this tech is extremely expensive and cannot be afforded by Pakistan unlike US, nor can Pakistan afford to lose this war. Apart from this calculus, the fiasco of Damadola and Chenagai aerial strike happened due to failed ground intelligence which resulted in civilian casualties back in 2006. There is a long list of top ranked killed terrorist to the credit of drones. Most of the drone strikes are carried out in remote areas where it is nearly impossible to say how many were killed. Last year the Associated Press, after an independent study concluded that the strikes “are killing far fewer civilians than many in Pakistan are led to believe.” There are some un-reliable online sources that have gone to the extent of putting the ratio as one to forty-nine which is preposterous as the kill-ability of the Reaper and Predator is above ninety percent and such accuracy minimize collateral damage rather than laying waste around. Any failed strike so far has been the result of failed tip-off and not some malfunction or glitch in the sensors onboard.
The overture phase for peace with the TTP has come to an end with the PAF offensive in Hangu after TTP slaughtered twenty-three FC personnel. It could unfold a new decisive era of romancing the drone. There will be some fire-brand turban heads, few pseudo-intellectuals, and a bunch of retired army-turned-rhetoricians who would fuel the outcry of ‘civilian casualties’, which matters to them only when the drone strikes and not when a suicide bomber goes off. But they must realize that it’s been more than ten years that we are at war and we hit each other whenever we can.
Citing the caveat, the only alternative to carry out a drone attack when you can is to do nothing; and when you do nothing, you don’t win, your enemies win.
P.S: I wrote it for a news paper...It was published and I received some critical reviews from the readers. Whats your view? I will be happy to know !
....May be Pakistan would yield something better after researching Hellfire and Burq 
...remember the case from Stinger to Anza 
