No-Name Terrorists Now CIA Drone Targets (US at War in Pakistan)

[tekisui]

Source: Wired

Once upon a time, the CIA had to know a militant’s name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it’s enough to call in a drone strike.

It’s another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale — if undeclared — war in Pakistan. And in a war, you don’t need to know the name of someone on the other side before you take a shot.

Across the border, in Afghanistan, the rules for launching an airstrike have become tighter than a balled fist. Dropping a bomb from above is now a tactic of last resort; even when U.S. troops are under fire, commanders are reluctant to authorize air strikes. In Pakistan, however, the opposite has happened. Starting in the latter days of the Bush administration, and accelerating under the Obama presidency, drone pilots have become more and more free to launch their weapons.

“You’ve had an expanded target set for time now and, given the danger these groups pose and their relative inaccessibility, these kinds of strikes — precise and effective — have become almost like the cannon fire of this war. They’re no longer extraordinary or even unusual,” one American official tells CNN.

(snip)

National security law experts, inside the government and out, are in the middle of an intense debate over whether the remotely piloted attacks are legal. One leading law professor told Congress last week that the drone operators could be tried for “war crimes,” under certain circumstances. The State Department’s top lawyer counters that the drone attacks are a legitimate act of self-defense.

The connection between the robotic strikes over there and our safety here appears to be growing, The Pakistani Taliban, who have claimed credit for the botched Times Square bombing, say the car bomb was in retaliation for drone strikes. But the robotic aircraft are only one component in the war in Pakistan. American troops are on the ground there, and getting into firefights. American contractors are operating a fleet of helicopters above. Higher in the sky are the American drones, flown by the U.S. Air Force and the CIA.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/no-name-terrorists-now-cia-drone-targets/#ixzz0nLNRsljs

[lib2DaBone]

1. The Times Square Bomber said he did it because of US Drone attacks...

Drone attacks killing innocent people. Also, Pakistan refugees forced to live in squalor as they flee the country.

If we stopped attacking Pakistan.. would the terror attacks stop?

"They hate us for our freedom"

[Phx_Dem]

2. It's not just drones that accidentally hit innocents. Traditional bombs

and soldiers with guns to do the same, accidentally. Sometimes errant bombs kill our own troops when a coordinate is not properly programmed and sometimes soldiers accidently fire on our own troops.

It ugly, it's tragic, but it's what happens in war. Innocents get killed by mistake.

[ClarkUSA]

3. The bomber had family friends in the Taliban AND who were involved in the Mumbai terrorist bombing.

The reason why he was upset was because one of his family friends who was a Taliban leader was injured by a drone attack and later died. Big boo hoo.

"Faisal Shahzad's family background may help explain why he grew radicalized and allegedly contacted the Pakistani Taliban, sources say."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bomb-motive-20100508,0,3573650,print.story