Do You Support the Increasingly Frequent US Strikes in Pakistan?

[tekisui]

US drones, thought to be flown by the CIA have been sending missiles into Pakistan for nearly a year now. Two strikes have occurred in the last 24 hours, 5 in the last two weeks--one of which may have killed up to 80 at a funeral. The targets seem to be Baitullah Meshud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, and his training camps.

Pakistan is also firing on Meshud, with the intention of ground troops moving in later. Although Pakistan denies they are working with the US, and 'protests' the drone strikes, it appears they are a concerted effort.


The question is: Do you support US drone strikes in Pakistan?

__________________________________________________________________________

[madrchsod]

1. Cambodia-Laos......

[tekisui]

2. k

[bigwillq]

3. No (nt)

[SteelPenguin]

4. I'm Torn

On the one hand that's where the 'bad guys' are. Bin Laden, the Taliban leadership...The people who if they can worm their way into the Pakistani government and military enough will get their hands on nukes...And while I don't think Iran is dumb enough to use a nuclear weapon even if they had one, Islamic Fundamentalists operating without a country are different. The strikes are attempts at decapitating their leadership, keeping them chaotic, and unable to effectively plan and develop coordinated future attacks on our country.

On the other hand these people hate us because we send drones to their weddings and funerals which not only kill the leadership but their children. We blow up bridges, factories, food stores, make people go hungry, grow up in poverty with scars and dead siblings, and who then turn around and try and get weapons to harm our country with. So every time we kill 1 bad guy, if we take 20 innocent people with him the math doesn't look all that good for us, we're just delaying the inevitable, rather than effecting an actual solution.

Also I think we should cut our military budget by 50%, so gotta trim the fat wherever we can.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Bin Laden is dead

[tekisui]

8. And this operation has nothing to do with those did attack us,

or anyone who would attack us. It is a Pakistani problem, that we are lending fire power to, at our own expense.

[SteelPenguin]

16. It's a problem that would become OUR problem

If we do nothing and Pakistan becomes completely destabilized, rather than just what..80% destabilized, what happens then? What if these nutjobs take over Pakistan, get a hold of actual nukes. That GAO thing today showed them smuggling in bombs EVERYWHERE they could. I'm not afraid of Iran having nukes. I'm afraid of unstable people getting their hands on Pakistani nukes.

There are enough people there who hate us enough that they'd be willing to carry one of those into New York Harbor and go bye bye to make me want to just sit back and watch it happen.

Am I saying that drone bombing funerals or kids birthday parties is rightie-o ok with me? No. I'm just saying that it IS a valid concern, that we need to pay attention to and possibly intervene in before millions die.

[SteelPenguin]

15. I mentioned more than just Bin Laden

Whether or not he's dead, he's not our only problem over there which is why I mentioned more than just him.

[hack89]

5. Since the drones are based in Pakistan

and therefore (I assume) have the support of the Pakistani government, I vote yes. I would oppose strikes that the Pakistani government actually opposed.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5755490.ece

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/02/19/world/worldwatch/entry4812368.shtml

[tekisui]

7. Does the US/CIA run a for hire bombing operation?

Should they?

[hack89]

9. No - I think both sides view it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. nt

[Johonny]

13. Yeah I'm with you

If Pakistan is really dedicated to cleaning up it's side of the boarder. Do we really trust the Pakistan government and can a government with such a fractured power struggle effectively control it's own country? In the in end the middle east war is going to have to be won by the people there.

[timeforpeace]

10. Cambodia is an apt comparison. War crimes are being committed.

[earth mom]

11. Exactly. nt

[tekisui]

12. Fresh attack since this poll went up, 40 dead.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6013486

[CrispyQ]

14. No.

Killing Hope by William Blum

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html

"(American leaders) are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care ... the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them ... then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home-the ones who make it back alive-with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things."

William Blum. Killing Hope

"It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?

An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention."

William Blum

[timeforpeace]

17. Not much interest in this, but invading Honduras, now that's got support.