Obama May Widen Drone War Over Pakistan
March 18th, 2009Via: Wired:
Six times in the last two months, the new administration has used unmanned aircraft to strike at Taliban camps in the largely-ungoverned tribal wildlands on Pakistan. That could be just the start, however. New York Times reports that President Obama’s national security team is considering an expansion the target set, to include the Pakistani mainland. Specifically, they’re setting their sights around the city of Quetta, in Baluchistan.
Some American officials say the [drone] strikes in the tribal areas have forced some leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda to flee south toward Quetta, making them more vulnerable. In separate reports, groups led by both Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in the region, and Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, a top White House official on Afghanistan, have recommended expanding American operations outside the tribal areas if Pakistan cannot root out the strengthening insurgency.
Already, some counterinsurgency specialists warn, the unmanned attacks have been destabilizing to an already-fragile Pakistan government. “If we want to strengthen our friends and weaken our enemies in Pakistan, bombing Pakistani villages with unmanned drones is totally counterproductive,” influential counterinsurgency adviser David Kilcullen recently told Danger Room. And that was before the mass protests in Lahore, the standoff between Pakistan’s two leading politicians — and these new reports, the drone war may extend even further than before.
Classic Machiavellianism suggests that Obama’s hard-on about Afghanistan and Pakistan is simply a hedge to keep the Amerika-uber-alles fringe at home from being able to mobilize to the point of assassinating him. As long as he’s doing something they love, they won’t be able to generate enough momentum to get any serious anti-Obama animus going. Obama knows that Afghanistan and Pakistan are so foreign to Americans to be virtually unintelligible to them and therefore essentially non-existent, making them a perfect foil for preserving his political (and biological) viability. In other words, the only successful politician is a cold-blooded politician.
@Peregrino: I agree with your analysis, but Obama better watch his ass anyway. Here’s how they generate that “serious anti-Obama animus”: http://9112010.com/9112010.html. Dick’s just biding his time, until enough of it has passed that no one could even think of blaming him (like his minions blamed Clinton for 9/11 I). Oh, how good he’ll look, after so many months of being vilified. And doing it right before the 2010 midterms will, obviously, be the best time.
Oh, and making Obama into the ultimate “failed protector” would be a SH*TLOAD better, politically, than killing him outright. Assassination is SO 1960’s.