[HCCN] Kathy Kelly, Pakistan, US drone attacks

[Judith Robbins]

for reports and photographs of Kathy Kelly's delegation and work in  
Pakistan, see http://vcnv.org/gallery2/main.php/v/pakistan-+delegation/



Published on Monday, June 22, 2009 by RebelReports
Obama's Undeclared War Against Pakistan Continues, Despite His  
Attempt to Downplay It

In a new interview, Obama said he has “no intention” of sending US  
troops into Pakistan. But US troops are already in the country and US  
drones attack Pakistan regularly.
by Jeremy Scahill
Three days after his inauguration, on January 23, 2009, President  
Barack Obama ordered US predator drones to attack sites inside of  
Pakistan, reportedly killing 15 people. It was the first documented  
attack ordered by the new US Commander in Chief inside of Pakistan.  
Since that first Obama-authorized attack, the US has regularly bombed  
Pakistan, killing scores of civilians. The New York Times reported  
that the attacks were clear evidence Obama "is continuing, and in  
some cases extending, Bush administration policy." In the first 99  
days of 2009, more than 150 people were reportedly killed in these  
drone attacks. The most recent documented attack was reportedly last  
Thursday in Waziristan. Since 2006, the US drone strikes have killed  
687 people (as of April). That amounts to about 38 deaths a month  
just from drone attacks.

The use of these attack drones by Obama should not come as a surprise  
to anyone who followed his presidential campaign closely. As a  
candidate, Obama made clear that Pakistan's sovereignty was  
subservient to US interests, saying he would attack with or without  
the approval of the Pakistani government. Obama said if the US had  
"actionable intelligence" that "high value" targets were in Pakistan,  
the US would attack. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, echoed those  
sentiments on the campaign trail and "did not rule out U.S. attacks  
inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband, then- 
President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in  
Afghanistan in 1998. ‘If we had actionable intelligence that Osama  
bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure  
that they were targeted and killed or captured,' she said."

Last weekend, Obama granted his first extended interview with a  
Pakistani media outlet, the newspaper Dawn :

Responding to a question about drone attacks inside Pakistan's tribal  
zone, Mr Obama said he did not comment on specific operations.
‘But I will tell you that we have no intention of sending US troops  
into Pakistan. Pakistan and its military are dealing with their  
security issues.'
There are a number of issues raised by this brief response offered by  
Obama. First, the only difference between using these attack drones  
and using actual US soldiers on the ground is that the soldiers are  
living beings. These drones sanitize war and reduce the US death toll  
while still unleashing military hell disproportionately on civilians.  
The bottom line is that the use of drones inside the borders of  
Pakistan amounts to the same violation of sovereignty that would  
result from sending US soldiers inside the country. Obama defended  
the attacks in the Dawn interview, saying:

"Our primary goal is to be a partner and a friend to Pakistan and to  
allow Pakistan to thrive on its own terms, respecting its own  
traditions, respecting its own culture. We simply want to make sure  
that our common enemies, which are extremists who would kill innocent  
civilians, that that kind of activity is stopped, and we believe that  
it has to be stopped whether it's in the United States or in Pakistan  
or anywhere in the world."
Despite Obama's comments about respecting Pakistan "on its own  
terms," this is how Reuters recently described the arrangement  
between Pakistan and the US regarding drone attacks:

U.S. ally Pakistan objects to the U.S. missile strikes, saying they  
violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy  
because they inflame public anger and bolster support for the militants.
Washington says the missile strikes are carried out under an  
agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to publicly  
criticise the attacks. Pakistan denies any such agreement.
Pakistan is now the biggest recipient of US aid with the House of  
Representatives recently approving a tripling of money to Pakistan to  
about $1.5 billion a year for five years. Moreover, US special forces  
are already operating inside of Pakistan, along the Pakistan- 
Afghanistan border in Baluchistan. According to the Wall Street  
Journal , US Special Forces are:

training Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force responsible  
for battling the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, who cross freely  
between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said. The U.S.  
trainers aren't meant to fight alongside the Pakistanis or accompany  
them into battle, in part because there will be so few Special Forces  
personnel in the two training camps.
A senior American military officer said he hoped Islamabad would  
gradually allow the U.S. to expand its training footprint inside  
Pakistan's borders.
In February, The New York Times reported that US forces are also  
engaged in other activities inside of Pakistan:

American Special Operations troops based in Afghanistan have also  
carried out a number of operations into Pakistan's tribal areas since  
early September, when a commando raid that killed a number of  
militants was publicly condemned by Pakistani officials. According to  
a senior American military official, the commando missions since  
September have been primarily to gather intelligence.
It is clear-and has been for a long time- that the Obama  
administration is radically expanding the US war in Afghanistan  
deeply into Pakistan. Whether it is through US military trainers  
(that's what they were called in Vietnam too), drone attacks or  
commando raids inside the country, the US is militarily entrenched in  
Pakistan. It makes Obama's comment that "[W]e have no intention of  
sending US troops into Pakistan" simply unbelievable.

For a sense of how significant US operations are and will continue to  
be for years and years to come, just look at the US plan to build an  
almost $1 billion massive US "embassy" in Islamabad, which is  
reportedly modeled after the imperial city they call a US embassy in  
Baghdad. As we know very clearly from Iraq, such a complex will  
result in an immediate surge in the deployment of US soldiers,  
mercenaries and other contractors.

© 2009 Jeremy Scahill

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