| Do libs support President Obama's expanded Predator and Reaper drone attacks on Pakistan? (I needed to ask this again as the really lucid liberals are just now waking up.) Obama widens drone attacks in Pakistan The Obama administration has granted secret permission to the CIA to carry out more indiscriminate drone missile strikes in Pakistan, even as protests over civilian casualties caused by the attacks continue to grow. Officials revealed this week that the US intelligence agency is operating under rules that allow it to target suspected “militants†in Pakistan based upon “pattern of life†analyses, without even ascertaining their identity. For the most part, they acknowledge, the names of those assassinated with Hellfire missiles fired from Predator and the larger Reaper drones are never known. This description of the drone program flies in the face of official propaganda, which has presented the missile attacks as part of a carefully prepared exercise in “targeted killings†aimed against high-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “Instead of just a few dozen attacks per year, CIA operated unmanned aircraft now carry out multiple missile strikes each week against safe houses, training camps and other hiding places used by militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan,†the LA Times notes. There have been 34 missile strikes so far this year, at least two every week, according to figures compiled by the New America Foundation. This compares to 53 for all of last year and 30 during the last year of the Bush administration. Intelligence officials report that the size of the drone fleet being deployed over Pakistan has doubled since Obama took office in January 2009. According to the New America Foundation, of the up to 247 people reported killed in attacks carried out so far in 2010 only seven have been publicly identified as “militants.†Given this scale of carnage, the deaths of civilians cannot be viewed as a matter of unfortunate accidents, but rather constitute a deliberate reign of terror that is being imposed upon what Washington views as a hostile population inhabiting the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. These assassinations by remote-controlled pilotless aircraft have provoked mounting anger throughout Pakistan itself. Investigators have reported that Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in last weekend’s abortive Times Square car bombing attempt in New York City, has stated that he decided to attempt the terrorist attack after a return to his native country, where he saw the bloodshed caused by the missile strikes. The American Civil Liberties Union issued a letter to President Obama in conjunction with the congressional hearing, noting recent reports that this administration had targeted a US citizen living in Yemen—the American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki—for assassination by means of a drone attack. The letter expressed “profound concern about recent reports indicating that you have authorized a program that contemplates the killing of suspected terrorists—including US citizens—located far away from zones of actual armed conflict. If accurately described, this program violates international law and, at least insofar as it affects US citizens, it is also unconstitutional.†http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/dron-m07.shtml Politics - 5 Answers Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions : 1 : Not at all. Obama is just as bad a bush on foreign policy 2 : I think the General should allow the troops on the ground to shoot the enemy even when they drop their weapon. 3 : I do support it. Al Quada has moved (illegally) to Pakistan. Pakistan does not want them there. And I do not believe for one minute the the ACLU wrote a letter expressing concern for a known terrorist, US citizen or not, whose main concern is destroying the US. 4 : I believe, sincerely, that if Bush had not rescinded Clinton's 'fire at will' order to the CIA, when the first armed drones were being flown over Afghanistan, that OBL and his chief minions would have been dead before 9/11 happened it was due to 'sensitive' meetings with the Taliban, initiated by the Bush White House, over natural gas pipelines being placed through the northern region, that the 'shoot to kill' order was rescinded and, the CIA requested three times to take out Al-Zawahiri's camp in the Kurd controlled territory of Iraq, and they were turned down three times by Bush 5 : I support it .Anything to keep our troops out of there . We have the technology why not use it |
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