CIA Escalates Pakistan Campaign, Diverting Drones From Afghanistan

Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON--The U.S. military is secretly diverting aerial drones and weaponry from the Afghan battlefront to significantly expand the CIA's campaign against militants in their Pakistani havens.

The shift in strategic focus reflects the U.S. view that, with Pakistan's military unable or unwilling to do the job, more U.S. force against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan is now needed to turn around the struggling Afghan war effort across the border.

In recent months, the military has loaned Predator and Reaper drones to the Central Intelligence Agency to give the agency more firepower to target and bombard militants on the Afghan border.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[kingbuzz]

12:21 PM on 10/04/2010

jfk.

[HeavyHitter]

10:37 PM on 10/03/2010

Almost all of the commenters on this thread are knee-jerk pacifists and have a very simplistic view of some very complex problems. I too abhor war as does our President. The bad guys, i.e., the guys we should have been going after when Bush took his eye off the ball, are being sheltered in Pakistan. Had we been more aggressive during the lead-up to 9/11, 9/11 never would have happened. We had solid intelligence concerning OBL's whereabouts but did nothing because we were afraid of harming innocent civilians. You saw where that got us. OBL and his minions would love to procure WMD's and use them on us. Duh. How would you like to be thie first President to have a WMD attack on American soil? We are not targeting innocent civilians. Nor are we knowingly harboring terrorists, which distinguishes us from Pakistan. They know how to make it stop. Until then, we must do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves. I say pull the troops out (except special ops) but continue the drone strikes.

[Max Wellbrock-Talley]

11:04 AM on 10/13/2010

Oh, certainly we should protect the United States at all cost. The problem is, though, that defending the United States doesn't include (or at least doesn't need to include) attacking every quasi-Feudo-Capitalist nation in the Middle East. That's offensive Imperialism. What should have happened after 9/11, instead of pursuing a reactionary goal of global hegemony via the justification of revenge/anti-terror, we should have put the $700 billion/year that the Department of Defesne receives to buffing up our defensive troops, investing in a legitimately successful missile defense system, and working diplomatically to ensure that nobody wants to kill us all (people won't hate you without justification, after all). Heck, if we would've done this during the Cold War, instead of backing every anti-Soviet movement or every oppressive, pro-Western dictatorship, maybe we wouldn't have so many people trying to kill our civilian population now.

[DemCentrist]

06:51 PM on 10/03/2010

Good for the Obama administration.

They finally get that we are fighting against a clear and present danger.

[dfranz]

04:49 PM on 10/03/2010

According to Bob Woodward, the President was more or less forced to accept the militarys solution. I understand his position and can imagine the reaction if he were to have directly contadicted them. But have they learned nothing from history? You cannot change the hearts and minds of people with force. This anonymous war is doing nothing but creating resentment and helping recruit volunteers to the jihad. We play right into alQaeda's hands. What we learned in Iraq was that if we could make allies of local warlords they would get rid of the terrorists themselves. What we learned in Vietnam is that there aren't enough bombs and a rawer less equipped force could force a much larger force to concede because they had the hearts and minds of the population.

[kinogod]

08:45 AM on 10/03/2010

When does it end? There is no hearts and minds campaign here.... So when does it end? When we kill every man woman and child coming up thst is against us? What is victory? The war zealots talk of hundred years wars like its an aphrodesiac. What is victory? There isnt.

[syrius]

07:08 AM on 10/03/2010

SkyNet is here! Drone wars!!!

[kmichal2000]

07:02 AM on 10/03/2010

Go Team Obama!

[tacevad]

06:41 AM on 10/03/2010

the only positive is that THIS diversion of resources from the Afghanistan War is staying in theater and actually going after so called bad guys unlike George's Iraq invasion.

[flamflurm]

07:04 AM on 10/03/2010

That's enough, right?

[lqw]

08:29 AM on 10/03/2010

If Obama kill innocent people it's OK with you ?

[mgray34]

12:27 PM on 10/03/2010

All President's kill innocent people, everytime they use their military. Obama doesn't want an open ended war. I think this might be a hail mary type strategy. The is to start ending the war next year in a draw down similar to the Iraq war. They are going to take out as many terrorists in Pakistan as they can before leaving.

[JoeBlough]

02:30 AM on 10/03/2010

Just how many different agencies do we have ki||ing civilians?

[flamflurm]

07:04 AM on 10/03/2010

Just wait till the gov takes over the hospitals!

[trustnoone]

02:14 AM on 10/03/2010

Are we winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan and Pakistani people??

[Christopher Greenfield]

11:58 AM on 10/03/2010

It's impossible to win over the hearts and minds of a people when you're killing their children.

[mikesw]

02:12 AM on 10/03/2010

Great idea! Another "secret bombing" campaign!!!! Because that worked so well in Cambodia...

I would expect nothing less from talents like Gates, Petraeous and Panetta...

[DocSyracuse]

03:57 AM on 10/03/2010

...and the Commander in Chief as well.

[I3edlam]

01:19 AM on 10/03/2010

I believe the CIA will be much less invasive than a ground army. It's reprehensible that civilians are killed, and one can only imagine how we Americans would feel if someone were trying to root out a cancerous organization in our mists and accidentally killing civilians. Anti-American propaganda will no doubt be growing one way or another. The more precise and less invasive the work the better.

[disgruntledprogressives]

01:19 AM on 10/03/2010

After reading the WSJ article, it appears we (NATO) could go to open war with Pakistan even before we're go to war with Iran! The CIA-Pentagon Junta must view that scenario as a miracle!

[stargazer13]

12:38 AM on 10/03/2010

CIA is a little to big for it,s britches in my opinion !!

[tacevad]

06:54 AM on 10/03/2010

always has been, do a little research, with a former director becoming a President and then His Son made president who as one of his very first Presidential actions was to seal Presidential records of his father.

[CognitoErgoSum]

12:35 AM on 10/03/2010

Here is a suggestion to walk circumstances back to before this ongoing mess happened and chart a new, sustainable path with the U. S. on the periphery where it belongs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMz9UWTsb6Q

[parlimentMike]

03:26 AM on 10/03/2010

I recommend the vid, thanks.

We really are acting in so many ways like Great Britain at the end of it's world primacy.

[Christopher Greenfield]

12:01 PM on 10/03/2010

I've been saying for a while now that we, as a nation, are at the same cross roads that the Britain was 200 years ago. They were forced to make a decision. They sacrificed their Empire to save their Republic. Sadly, we appear to be making the opposite decision.

[Susan Shaffer]

04:37 AM on 10/03/2010

l believe that you think this is right but i can tell you that punjab is the breadbasket for the rest of pakistan.

further americans fought their own civil war to stay as one country

as soon as you go down this path then india will invade what is left of pakistan

then what

[CognitoErgoSum]

10:39 PM on 10/04/2010

Pakistan is not an accidental country. Muslims under the British Raj had campaigned for their own homeland since the late 19th century. After Pakistan gained its independence in 1947, there was a massive influx and exodus of millions of refugees who made the conscious choice of where they thought they belonged. Also, there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, many who have attained high levels in the government. Pakistan will not be as easily Balkanized as you fear.

As for India, Kashmir, at one point had been promised to Pakistan prior to the partition. What Pakistan wants from Kashmir is a referendum among the Kashmiris as to whether Kashmir should remain part of India or be annexed to Pakistan. If India were really confident Kashmir would prefer to remain with them, they would have no objection to this. Once a referendum has been done, that matter should be settled once and for all. That in and of itself would defuse much of the tension in the region.

When it comes to foreign policy, due to India and Pakistan's shared history, languages and ethnic group, it is best to treat them as twins. Only do for one what you can do for the other. Parity with India in trade and technology assistance is EXTREMELY important to Pakistan and their perceptions of the U. S.