Peter MacKay defends drone attacks

Addressing a security conference in Singapore Peter MacKay Canada's defense minister took the opportunity to defend drone attacks spouting the same sort of rhetoric in defense of the attacks that U.S. spokespeople use. Of course Canada has not mounted any drone attacks. I am not sure we even have any armed drones to carry out such attacks.

However, MacKay is no doubt trying to winning brownie points with the U.S. or perhaps the U.S. suggested it might be a good idea for him to defend the drones rather than the U.S. carrying that burden all the time.

As with U.S. defenders MacKay stressed how accurate the drones were in hitting their targets. Of course accuracy is no virtue if the intelligence about the target is incorrect as sometimes happens. MacKay said “These eyes-on systems that can literally read a license plate from outer space have increased our ability to decrease civilian casualties.”“We want to reduce if not eliminate collateral damage," Well that's comforting. I did not really think that the intention was to increase collateral damage. However it occurs anyway.

There is no mention in the article that MacKay considered the issue of mounting attacks in Pakistan even though there have been three motions in the Pakistani parliament that they cease. MacKay did his job, acting as an apologist for U.S. drone attacks.

MacKay also warned about cyber attacks and urged that intelligence and technology be used to battle cyber attacks that could shut down crucial infrastructures including communications and transport. Of course he was not critical of the U.S. and Israeli cyber attacks on Iranian centrifuges I expect. He said:“The consequences of cyber attacks haven’t really washed over us as to just how devastating they could be,” “It’s a monster in our midst.” For more see this article.

Drone strikes in Pakistan had 12.5 per cent accuracy.

Although these are surgical strikes according to the official spin the surgeon strikes the wrong victim about seven out of eight times. In the US everyone gets excited if a doctor takes off the wrong leg just once but at least that doctor did not kill his victim. It seems to cause little fuss not only that the drone is judge and executioner without any trial but that innocent people are often killed. What on earth is wrong with people. Imagine if authorities used drones within the USA to target criminals and as a result killed 7 inn0cent people for every criminal eliminate. Drone attacks would never begin yet alone be increased. This is from presstv.

In Pakistan, more civilians fall victim to US drones


The civilian mortalities from US missile attacks on the Pakistani soil in 2009 indicate a threefold increase in compared to the previous year.

Using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones to carry out the attacks, the US Central Intelligence Agency, in cooperation with the Pentagon, are responsible for more than 700 civilian deaths in Pakistan this year, reports say.

In 2008, there were 32 strikes that killed about 240 people, according to Reuters. The attacks in 2009, meanwhile, had a mere 12.5 percent accuracy in targeting the supposed militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal area, raising questions about the efficiency of the method.

The attacks, believed to be initiated from airbases located inside Pakistan's territory, have also played a strong role in the growing anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

The CIA is accused of ignoring legal and moral principles in its running of deadly operations against civilians on a sovereign soil.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the attacks are hailed as a 'surgical' counterinsurgency tool. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi recently condemned the attacks as "counterproductive and unhelpful."

The latest round of the attacks left some seven people dead in the northwestern area of North Waziristan over the past two days.

Pakistanis confront Clinton over drone attacks

As with many other US officials Clinton seems completely insensitive to the anti-Americanism that is rife in Pakistan. Quite the contrary she pours more fuel on the flames. Of course it is standard for US spokespeople to say nothing about the drone attacks. They never even officially admit to their existence it would seem. They are like Israeli nuclear weapons except in the case of the drones they are regularly used. In some cases they are even claimed to have eliminated militant leaders although they also no doubt kill innocents. The questioner is probably c0rrect. However it is not possible to state action to be terrorist at least if it is by the good guys! Terrorism is by definition an epithet applicable only to bad people especially bad people who lack weapons of mass destruction.

Pakistanis confront Clinton over drone attacks

Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over Predator drone attacks _ 'executions without trial'

ROBERT BURNS
AP News

Oct 30, 2009 18:46 EST

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp rebukes from Pakistani audiences Friday, including one woman who accused the U.S. of conducting "executions without trial" in aerial drone strikes. Slapping back, Clinton questioned Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorists.

"Somebody, somewhere in Pakistan must know where these people are," Clinton said in an exchange almost as blunt as her exasperated comments a day earlier that Pakistani officials lacked the will to target al-Qaida.

Her stormy three-day visit, rocked at the start by a terrorist blast in Peshawar that killed 105 Pakistanis, revealed clear signs of strain between the two nations despite months of public insistence that they were on the same wavelength in the war on terror.

By speaking bluntly about the Pakistanis' failure to find and eliminate top al-Qaida leaders — eight years after they were run out of Afghanistan — Clinton appeared to be trying to prod the Pakistanis to go beyond their current military campaign against internal militants in South Waziristan.

Pakistan's army recently launched a major offensive in the border area to clear out Pakistani Taliban elements from hideouts there. But two earlier army efforts made little progress there — leaving questions about the military's resolve to tackle al-Qaida head-on.

Clinton's tough talk on Pakistan's apparent inability to root out al-Qaida also appeared to be aimed at reminding the country's civilian and military leaders that the assault on Pakistani Taliban elements in South Waziristan would not be finished unless al-Qaida too was targeted. She noted explicitly that the Taliban militants there are "in league with" the terror group that fomented the Sept. 11 attacks.

"After South Waziristan is finished, the Pakistanis will have to go on to try to root out other terrorist groups, or we're going to be back facing the same threats," she warned.

During the visit and talks with Pakistani leaders, Clinton found herself repeatedly on the defensive from ordinary Pakistanis brimming with resentment toward U.S. foreign policy.

During a live broadcast of an interview before a predominantly female audience of several hundred, Clinton struggled to avoid describing the classified U.S. effort to target terrorists, and still try to explain the efforts of American foreign policy.

One woman asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.

"Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?" the woman asked. Then she asked if Clinton considered both the U.S. missile strikes and militant bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier in the week as acts of terrorism.

"No, I do not," Clinton replied.

Another man said bluntly: "Please forgive me, but I would like to say we've been fighting your war."

But she was also on an offensive of her own, coiled with pent-up frustration about Pakistan's incremental handling of terrorists. The sentiment was quickly echoed by other U.S. officials, including on Friday in Washington by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

As she sparred with Pakistani citizens and journalists, Clinton faced sharp questions about the secret U.S. program that uses unmanned aircraft to launch missiles to kill terrorists along the porous, ungoverned border with Afghanistan.

But she refused to go into detail about the classified strikes that have killed both key terror leaders and bystanders, long a source of outrage among Pakistan's population despite an equally deadly campaign of militant-spawned bombings.

Asked repeatedly about the drones, a subject that involves highly classified CIA operations, Clinton said only that "there is a war going on." She added that the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents.

Before flying Friday to the United Arab Emirates for consultations with Palestinian leaders on Mideast peace prospects, Clinton appeared to slightly temper her earlier comments that some Pakistani officials knew where al-Qaida's upper echelon has been hiding and had done little to target them.

....A top Pakistan official insisted Friday that his country is fighting back against militants. "We have decided to fight back," said Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who joined Clinton at a police training center.

Bill Moyers on Bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan

This is an excellent half hour long video with text on Bill Moyers' journal. It is an interview with authors Marilyn Young and Pierre Sprey. There is quite a bit about Obama's policy especially in Pakistan. I was rather surprised that there was no consideration of the legality of drones under international law. Also, their view that bombing of civilians is never effective in underming morale is not true. Surely the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was effective.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01302009/watch.html