Obama's Drone Surge in Pakistan Doing More Damage Than Good

[tekisui]

Source:Huffington Post

President Barack Obama's recent announcement to drawdown troops in Afghanistan struck an aporetic chord in Pakistan due to fears the U.S. will offset this deescalation by intensifying its covert war across the border -- a strategy which features a CIA drone program designed to execute high-value extremist targets sanctuaried in Pakistan's borderlands. However, because the policy was derived from stale paradigms that lack adequate contextual inputs, it has yielded the unintended consequence of breeding more insurgents than it has eliminated.

The timing of the strategic shift seems right given the U.S.-Pakistani relationship's all-time ebb triggered by the SEAL raid in May that killed Osama bin Laden in a safe house outside Pakistan's capital. Pakistani recalcitrance at launching military excursions against insurgents ensconced within the northwest tribal belt and its recent dismissal of CIA personnel from Pakistani soil has prompted the U.S. to send worrisome overtures to Islamabad.

Word has surfaced the administration plans on withholding from Pakistan some $800 million in military aid, news which comes on the heels of U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen accusing the Pakistani government of being complicit in the death of a prominent journalist.

A sure sign shadowy assets will play a larger role in Pakistan is General David Petraeus's move to Langley as CIA director. After taking command in Afghanistan Petraeus doubled the number of airstrikes and dramatically increased night raids, leaving Pakistan to wonder the degree to which the drone program will burgeon during King David's reign as intelligence chief.

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/obamas-drone-surge-in-pak_b_894437.html

[Taitertots]

1. Most people don't like having their friends and neighbors murdered by foreign invaders

It seems obvious.

[The Northerner]

2. +100