The Arrogance of Power - Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/22-2

“These people weren’t gathering for a bake sale ... They were terrorists.”

So went the American response to Pakistan’s complaint that our drone-launched missiles killed mostly “peaceful citizens, including elders of the area” in an attack last week. Now, a decade of explanations that civilian deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan were a regrettable (but inevitable) part of our War on Terror have pretty well inured me to government mendacity. But somehow, this one – well you know, it took the cake. “A bake sale” – No, they probably weren’t there for a bake sale. Bake sales are what they hold here in America to run the schools we don’t have enough money for. Making new enemies for this country is pretty expensive you know.

The story this time is that the missiles apparently killed 26 of 32 participants in a “jirga” called to settle a local dispute between two tribes in North Waziristan over the operation of the chromium mine. Their target was the local Taliban officials expected there to mediate in their role as the de facto local government. Pakistan’s Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani called the attack “carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life,” reporting that there were, in fact, 13 Taliban present, but 15 of those killed were not Taliban. Some locals claimed a death toll as high as 40. And the U.S. response was anonymous because officially we have never launched a missile into Pakistan. We’re not at war there, so that would be illegal. And the CIA would never do anything illegal.

If the military hasn’t yet created a decoration for arrogance, they should. Otherwise, a lot of lot of spectacular efforts – such as this one – will go unrewarded. Could we ever imagine another country killing American civilians because they were in proximity to government or military figures, and then telling the world, “Those people were criminals. That was no cattle show, you know”? Of course not – no country is capable of such an action, so why bother even imagining such a thing?

More at the link --

[Aerows]

1. Perhaps they heard there were pineapple cakes being sold

Seriously, we have a multi-level problem in the Middle East if we want to actually end wars there. We have intelligence problems in that we are paying many of the same people that attack our people. We pay off tribal leaders to stop attacking us, which, of course, makes more people want to threaten us to get their piece of the pie. We have CIA assets that we are paying who are supposedly on our side, but then reveal themselves to be playing both sides of the fence for their own gain.

Then we have our military members who have been engaged in war for 10 years, stretched thin, and undoubtedly, not able to exercise good judgment every single minute of the day given the environment they are operating in. Then, on top of it all, we have mercenaries that have nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping the population stirred up, and inflamed, combined with a lack of accountability since they are not US Armed Forces, but contractors.

All of those factors have turned our involvement in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan into a cauldron of turmoil, destruction, theft, graft and death.

I am not religious in the slightest, but I pray to God we don't end up in the same situation in Libya. Quagmire doesn't begin to describe our involvement in the Middle East.