Obama Expands Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan- (With Pakistani Intell?)

[tekisui]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.

The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops.

The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against suspected terrorists in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign. At the same time, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back some of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, which he has criticized as counterproductive.

Mr. Mehsud was identified early last year by both American and Pakistani officials as the man who had orchestrated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister and the wife of Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari. Mr. Bush included Mr. Mehsud’s name in a classified list of militant leaders whom the C.I.A. and American commandos were authorized to capture or kill.

It is unclear why the Obama administration decided to carry out the attacks, which American and Pakistani officials said occurred last Saturday and again on Monday, hitting camps run by Mr. Mehsud’s network. The Saturday strike was aimed specifically at Mr. Mehsud, but he was not killed, according to Pakistani and American officials.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/washington/21policy.html?_r=1&ref=world

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Sen. Feinstein already let the cat out of the bag, and google confirmed that some drones take off from a Pakistani base. Does the CIA also receive intelligence help from Pakistan?

Is CIA Using Pakistani Base And Intel?

Source: CBS News

(CBS) Viewed from space, a remote air base in Western Pakistan looked innocent enough, until the day a satellite exposed its secret.

Images published this week show what appear to be predator drones, which the CIA uses to launch missiles against terrorist safe-havens inside Pakistan, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

Although Pakistan publicly condemns the strikes, it not only provides a base for the drones, but also intelligence about their targets - and it imposes restrictions on exactly which terrorists can be hit.

Some of the biggest fish, such as Taliban leader Mullah Omar, are never targeted due to their secret ties to Pakistani intelligence, according to Christine Fair of Rand Corp.

"These fellows are completely off-limits, and yet these fellows are so responsible for so much of the violence that is happening in Afghanistan," she said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/20/eveningnews/main4817042.shtml

[thunder rising]

1. One thing is for sure ... dead men tell no tales. Obama has got to stop this.

[PurityOfEssence]

2. Iraq was a war of conquest; THIS is a religious war and intervention in a civil war

History is pretty clear that there are no conflicts uglier than civil wars, except for serious religious wars. Ones that are both are no fun at all.

This just smacks of us not having thought it through. Simplistic though it is, I've consistently felt that Obama's hot-to-trot threats on Afghanistan stemmed mostly from a need to disprove the "softness" of Democrats. Sticking our noses into a fundamentalist civil war in Pakistan, especially in light of our ties with India simply doesn't bode well.

[stillcool]

3. This is a war of conquest too...

as are all of the wars..covert and overt..that the U.S. has been involved in over the last 50+ years. Religion has nothing to do with it, unless your talking about the religion of power and money.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Don't be silly; it absolutely IS a religious war

I don't think WE'RE fighting a religious war, but THEY certainly do and will DEFINITELY use that as an excuse and a rallying cry. In a way, if we're trying to sustain a government that grants women's rights and allows the dreadful, ungodly curse of MUSIC, the we actually are fighting a bit of a religious war, whether one likes to admit it or not.

Sure, natural gas is a major issue, and probably the principal one, but please pardon my not being crystal clear with my contention: this will be thought of by the enemy and the other locals as an incursion (yes, an invasion) of an alien culture, and will be politicized along religious lines. There's simply no escaping it. Women without veils are an insult to their nasty mindset, and the infidels are at the gates.

Often what matters is what's perceived, not what's actually going on. If you think the locals are damning the wicked Americans for coming in to send oil from the Caspian to India, I think you're wrong; they're telling their children that the infidels are coming for the womenfolk with their crusade to despoil them and enslave the true believers, etc., etc., etc.

Even if the leaders are more clever than all that, that's the sales pitch. I guarantee ya.

It's about perception. It has nothing to do with all of the greedy and addle-headed reasons we're there, it has to do with how it's sold to the locals by their leaders.

[stillcool]

5. the locals and their leaders..

are far more knowledgeable about the American government, and wars of conquest than the American people could even dream of being. Funny what people believe.

[PurityOfEssence]

7. And how will they sell it to their people?

Are you SERIOUSLY going to say that they're not going to scream bloody murder and infidel crusading against their religion and their culture? This is their standard operating procedure. THAT'S the problem.

[stillcool]

8. You are right...

The problem is that foreign countries don't like the permanent presence of the United States in their country. I don't care what you call them, or how you want to rationalize our actions against them. It's the same as it's ever been.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. It's a civil war where the overwhelming majority are on the side we are helping

Most of the civil wars we stick our nose into have something to do with us propping up an unelected government that we put in place or helped put in place. The Pakistani government is elected by the people and supported by the people. The Taliban are an insurgent group that seeks to destabilize the government and institute Islamic fundamentalism. That is rarely the case in any country where the United States sticks its nose into, including into Afghanistan, but in Pakistan this really is a war to save a democratically elected secular democracy from fundamentalists.

The problem is that the Pakistanis aren't wild about the civilians killed in the process of our bombing the Taliban and rightfully so. This is a case where I think our intentions really are good but perhaps we just can't use our strength to stabilize Pakistan.