The one unspoken fact about the use of Predator drones in Pakistan to kill militants is that the drone strikes have the tacit approval of the Pakistani government. That was the case when General Musharraf was running the country and it remains true under President Zardari.
Say there was an insurgency in Mexico and the top rebels had homes in Arizona. If the Mexican Air Force were to conduct bombing raids against locations in Tucson, would we be quiet about it? Would there not be strident demands in Congress to do something about Mexico's trampling on American sovereignty?
Betcher ass there would.
Yet the drone attacks are expanding, which tells me that the Pakistani government, for all of the offense that many in Pakistan are taking against the attacks (for the same reasons we would) are fine with it. And they will permit the attacks to go on until the domestic political cost is too high to bear, or until the Taliban leadership relocates to more populated areas in Pakistan. Which they can do, and may be doing, but that also exposes them to more traditional forms of undercover attacks.
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3 comments:
I am thinking that they are allowing it because the alternative would be undesirable.
I have also read that these cells of militants number only in the hundreds and are on the run into Pakistan.
Care is needed because Pakistan is a state w/nukes.
Depends which militants, Liberality. Al Qaeda are only supposed to number in the hundreds. While I haven't heard numbers for the Taliban, it seems reasonable that there are plenty more of them. They've kept a pretty large number of troops busy in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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