CIA attack a blow but won't stop anti-terror hunt

[NJmaverick]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The use of pilotless drones was supposed to minimize U.S. casualties in the campaign to hunt and kill militants. But the deaths of seven CIA employees along the Pakistan-Afghan border has exposed an unfortunate truth: Drone strikes depend in part on good tips gathered through old-fashioned spycraft that sometimes goes terribly awry.

The deaths in Afghanistan last week were a severe blow to the expertise and talent pool of the CIA in a little-understood country where its spies are now most at risk. But the U.S. isn't pulling back on covert operations to hunt terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and will go on taking chances on human tipsters.

The United States struck back at militant targets in Pakistan on Wednesday with explosives apparently launched from an airborne drone - the latest of five such responses since the bombing that killed several top CIA operatives at a secretive eastern Afghan base reportedly used as a key outpost in the effort to identify and target terror leaders.

The past week's drone attacks were a lethal message that the Obama administration views its airstrikes as too effective to abandon, even though they are unpopular with civilians and the U.S.-backed governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The apparent strikes killed at least 13 people in an area of Pakistan's volatile northwest teeming with militants, who are suspected of directing the suicide attack last week across the border in Afghanistan.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CIA_AFGHAN_ATTACK?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Oh Joy! More killing by our murderers!

[NJmaverick]

2. You have a better way of going after Al-Qeada?

[gratuitous]

3. Yes

But since it doesn't involve wholesale remote-control killing and blowing stuff up real good, it's heresy in the Land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence. I've learned not to waste my time with the acolytes.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Yeah, you and John McCain.

[gratuitous]

14. I don't recall McCain's "plan"

But somehow I doubt that it left out wholesale killing and blowin' stuff up real good. But thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you from Broyhill.

[NJmaverick]

7. What is it?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. As well as our present strategy is working, almost anything will do.

As it is, we are busy supplying them with recruits by occupying nations and killing the people there in the idiotic notion that that will wipe out Al-Queda.

[whatchamacallit]

6. Thanks for the daily war cheer!

BTW Al Qeada is no more legit than you are.

[NJmaverick]

9. That's not a very good plan for going after Al Qaeda

Oh and you really should read a paper once in awhile, becuase the "Al-Qaeda is no longer a threat meme" was shattered on Christmas day.

[whatchamacallit]

10. Bullshit.

Ultimately that incident will turn out to be another dubious bit of theater in the fraudulent war on terror. Don't you get it? Everything is Al Qaeda when they need it to be. "Al Qaeda in Iraq", "Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia", "Al Qaeda in Yemen", "Al Qaeda in Des Moines"...

[arcadian]

12. This is the truth.

[sattahipdeep]

8. Stop committing the killings.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what we’ve been seeing over the last few days, I
mean, what happened with the jetliner, now President Obama coming out
yesterday talking about other attempts that were thwarted, like even on
Inauguration Day, and that was actually Somali. And what are the approaches
you think that President Obama should take?

ALLAN NAIRN: Right. Well, you know, the issue is not the safety of
Americans. The issue is the safety of people. All people. You have to count
not just the American deaths and potential American deaths, but the deaths
everywhere, since—you know, since everyone counts. And the best solution is
the one that protects the maximum number of people. And if you happen to be
the party that is committing the largest number of killings in the world, as
the US is now, then the solution is easy: stop committing the killings.

ANJALI KAMAT: So, Allan, what would you say is the difference between the
preceding eight years under the Bush administration and this past year, as
we move forward under Obama?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, in this respect, on matters I was just talking about,
there’s no substantive difference. In fact, as far as one can tell, Obama
seems to have killed more civilians during his first year than Bush did in
his first year, and maybe even than Bush killed in his final year, because
not only has Obama kept the machine set on kill, but he had his special
project, which is Pakistan and Afghanistan. He used this to get elected.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/obama_has_kept_the_machine_set

[NJmaverick]

18. What's the alternative?

[ShortnFiery]

11. This is total BUNK. We have no right to occupy and conduct SpecialOps in these sovereign

countries. The CIA needs to go back to being COVERT and RESPONSIBLE to the Legislative and Executive Branches instead of pulling our leaders around by the nose.

[ixion]

13. yep

I agree. :applause:

I can't believe people post crap like this here at DU. It belongs elsewhere...like in the trash.

[NJmaverick]

15. Do you have an alternative to going after Al-Qaeda?

[whatchamacallit]

16. So is it safe to say you've been a fan of Bush's foreign policy from the start?

:shrug:

[NJmaverick]

17. Nope

Bush should have tried negotiation before invasion. May not have worked but there was a moral and sensible responsiblity to at least try.

[whatchamacallit]

19. Ha, let's try again

Is it safe to say, barring the unknown result of diplomacy, you've been a fan of Bush's "military solutions"?

[NJmaverick]

21. The idea of going after the terrorists that committed 9/11 was more than Bush's idea

I guess you favored letting them all walk away scott free.

[whatchamacallit]

23. So everybody we've killed had it coming because they are all directly responsible for 9/11?

It must be liberating to be unfettered by logic or conscience.

[NJmaverick]

24. We are now addressing your desire to let Al-Qaeda run free and wild

[whatchamacallit]

26. Fail.

[NJmaverick]

27. So you try to claim

[seeinfweggos]

22. you aren't going to get an answer to that

[NJmaverick]

25. Yeah I have a feeling that is the case

it's easier to say what you don't want, rather than offer up any sort of reasonable alternative.

[mmonk]

20. Roaming assassinations and collateral damage by drones.

will not stop terrorism. The more civilians killed, the more people will seek out revenge and the more they will resist. This practice seems pretty much illegal on its face. It certainly is not congruent with the rule of law.