Suspected U.S. Missile Kills 20 in Pakistan

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Suspected US missile kills 20 in Pakistan

By MUNIR AHMAD (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
February 14, 2009 3:01 AM EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft flattened a militant hide-out in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing 20 local and foreign insurgents, intelligence officials said. At least 15 militants were also wounded in the attack in the restive South Waziristan tribal region, where Pakistan has launched several military operations against the Taliban, al-Qaida and their local supporters in recent years.

The Taliban surrounded the targeted house and transported the dead and wounded out, said three intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media No government or military spokesmen were available for comment.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its fight against terrorism, but it has opposed missile strikes in the country's tribal regions where Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents are believed to be operating. The U.S. has launched more than 30 missile attacks in recent months.

Saturday's attack came days after Pakistani leaders told Richard Holbrooke, an American envoy dispatched by President Barack Obama to the region, that the U.S. attacks should be stopped as they were counterproductive and fueling anti-America sentiment in this Islamic nation. It also came a day after a militant group holding an American employee of the United Nations warned it would kill him within 72 hours and issued a grainy video of the blindfolded captive saying he was "sick and in trouble."

Read more: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20090214/49965de0_3ca6_1552620090214-553006189

[EFerrari]

1. So, all the dead are insurgents by default. Obama is following a bad path

and we will all regret it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Well, the BBC and Reuters says "the Taleban confirmed 25 militants were killed"

At least 25 people have been killed in a suspected US missile attack in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

The missile strike hit a house in the South Waziristan area, near the Afghan border, which officials said was used as a hide-out for Taleban militants.

The Taleban confirmed 25 militants were killed in the attack. The US has not confirmed it launched the strike.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7889950.stm

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. missile attack killed at least 25 al Qaeda-linked militants in a Pakistani tribal region on Saturday, security and Taliban officials said, the highest death toll of militants in a single such strike.

The strike by pilotless drones in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border was the third such attack since U.S. President Barack Obama took office last month and could ignite fresh popular anger in Pakistan over the cross-border raids from Afghanistan.

The Taliban official said those killed were mostly Uzbek fighters.

"Our people have informed us that at least 25 people were killed. It could be more," the official told Reuters. A resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said 25 to 30 people were killed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE51D0XH20090214

[EFerrari]

7. I wonder. In the first snip, did Taliban confirm 25 or militants?

I would think 25 because they probably don't call themselves "militants".

And ditto in the second clip. The "official" seems to be confirming the number and possibly, Uzbek.

But the impression these quotations are meant to give is that the Taliban are attesting that the dead are all fighters.

[PurityOfEssence]

2. Nothing like airstrikes to bring some solidarity...

Do we REALLY want Pakistan to go all fundy on itself? Things like this are just made for nationalists and put-upon religious extremists to exploit. It's also not going to help with some of the more level-headed types to see their country being blasted from the air.

Why are we doing this? Are these guys plotting to attack America? They're fighting an insurgent war against an invader. Sure, they're despicable misogynistic music-hating zealot primitives, but are we in the modernizing business here? That would make it a religious crusade.

The lesson of Vietnam is that if you try to subjugate people, you do it with overwhelming force and really MEAN it. Even if we had a right or a rational reason to do so, we don't have the means. Maybe we're being emboldened by Russia's hints of help, but this is hardly a good trade-off, unless the guys they got are the entire brain-trust of the operation.

I wonder what Gibbs will have to say. I wonder what the Prez, VP and Secretary of State will say if asked.

[bird gerhl]

3. n/m

[karynnj]

9. You are wrong on the lesson of Vietnam

You say:
"The lesson of Vietnam is that if you try to subjugate people, you do it with overwhelming force and really MEAN it." That is not the opinion of McNamara and other people who actually were in charge. McNamara said in "Fog of War" that he knew as early as 1968 that there was no way to "win" the Vietnam War.

We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all WWII - and there are estimates that we killed 3 million Vietnamese people. That sounds pretty "overwhelming" to me. Your comment is the right wing lie - that then argues that it was the peaceniks and others like John Kerry who prevented us from winning. The fact is that half the Americans who died died after the leaders KNEW we couldn't win.

(Google "Christmas Bombing" and Vietnam - that was overwhelming force - done not long before we left - out of frustration and anger on the part of Nixon. What effect did it have? )

[PurityOfEssence]

11. I completely disagree

First off, my point of saying all this is that it's sheer folly to even TRY. Far from being a right-winger, I'm a fairly left liberal, which these days makes me a screaming red bolshevik on this increasingly conservatizing board and in our constantly rightward moving Democratic Party.

At our peak, we had about 540,000 troops in Vietnam. The British figured out during the fifties in Malaysia that a 5 to 1 superiority would more or less work to SUPPRESS (not even then really DEFEAT)an insurgency, but THAT was a case where the insurgents didn't have the full backing of the civilians and where those doing the counterinsurgency actually had many local allies.

We never even had numerical superiority in Vietnam, much less a five-to-one superiority. We never even got close to parity. If you read my statement, instead of leaping to conclusions, you'll see that I don't claim that we could have won Vietnam. I don't think we could have; we were effectively supporting the corrupt remnants of colonialism and didn't put anywhere near enough resources into it. Conventional bombing doesn't win wars; the ground has to be secured by infantry, and we didn't commit enough and probably COULDN'T have committed enough.

That's my point: we don't have the wherewithal to "win" in Afghanistan. We're not even close. Besides all that, there's no sensible reason to be there.

How you skew my post to somehow being right-wing revisionism is beyond me. Do you just automatically equate all views that are contrary to yours?

The very concept of "winning" in Afghanistan is ridiculous; they can't even DESCRIBE what victory would be. Add into that the terrain, remoteness for logistics, fanatical religious insanity, tribal resistance and all that, and it makes one question the sanity or intelligence of anyone who would propose any such thing, even IF there was an aching national need or a clear and present danger. This is just symbolic, tough-guy posturing, and I attibute it largely to certain Democrats on a continual compensation kick to disprove the standard conservative intimation of weakness.

[karynnj]

12. You actually misread my post as much as I misread yours

In addition, we did not have the full backing of the civilians in Vietnam.

Most of what you said here is in agreement with what I said. There was no way that we would have put in more than 5 times the force - and as you said that would just be to suppress a counterinsurgency - which would have made for a never ending commitment five times larger than what we had. We could not economically sustain the peak level we had in Vietnam, nor could we sustain the national support. There was no way that 5 times as great was possible. This really does say that the war was unwinnable.

[PurityOfEssence]

14. Apparently we still are

I was pretty clear about pointing out that in Malaysia, the suppressors had lots of support within the population; this was in contrast to Vietnam.

We don't have the troops necessary to suppress Afghanistan, and we don't have the will or political ability to fight a cultural/religious war. Let's not even talk about the money.

Certainly, one doesn't win war by middling courses, and that seems to be this administration's default course of action for everything. What the hell are they thinking? It makes no sense whatsoever. With the Russians offering help we can possibly get ourselves into a REAL mess over there. Wait 'til Pakistan goes fundy; that'll be a real wing-ding.

War is serious business. Much as I can't stand Colin Powell, the vaunted "Powell Doctrine" is a good rule of thumb: only go into conflicts with overwhelming force.

There is no reason for going into Afghanistan. Do we want to fight a religious war? Much as I can't stand Islam, I'm no real fan of Christianity either. I also don't want my government playing around with religion in any form. Do we presume to be the moral policemen of the world? What makes us think it's even possible to "set them straight" anyway? It's all ridiculous at any level it's examined, and it's DANGEROUS. What the hell are people thinking?

[Hissyspit]

4. Update: 27 Killed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan;_ylt=AirrNhVIB6Bg44R6BsYmTa6s0NUE

[janx]

10. I'm not sure about the accuracy of this source, but here's more,

for what it's worth:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\02\15\story_15-2-2009_pg1_1

[dcindian]

6. Your all guilty and I am not a ....

Murderer. I see those good christian values at work here.

[closeupready]

13. Yes, and thus, we continue to create and expand hatred for America among Pakistanis.

Giving fundies a stronger hold in public dialogue about the direction the country should take. When is this insanity going to end?

[xchrom]

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