Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.
Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using on-board missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.
Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation's top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing "an amazing number" of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks' well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation's tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes -- jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation's elite.
Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense "patriots" or would you call them "terrorists"? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?
Fortunately, most Americans don't have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation -- well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.
Though we don't like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government's undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.
"Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders," David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. "But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed."
Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have "shot an amazing number of people" and "none has proven to have been a real threat." Meanwhile, President Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare -- and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.
By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant's motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.
"This is a blowback," said Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. "This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let's not be naive."
Obviously, regardless of rationale, a "reaction" that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama's move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi's statement about "expecting" blowback seems radical, he's merely echoing the CIA's reminder that "possibilities of blowback" arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.
We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions.
David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and "The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota. This is his latest column for Creators Syndicate.
Follow David Sirota on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidsirota
"If anyone slays a human being it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind"
American leadership in the past was led by example not by force. It was not until our country started its recent jingoistic crusade that we started to see resistance to our influences on peoples' religions and cultures. Most of these 'influences' come in the form of the MIC and transnational corporations trying to control the natural resources and politics of countries they want to exploit and dominate. When citizens of these countries begin to protest like they do in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan, we threaten to use force by drawing lines in the sand. Finally, our hubris got to the point where the line in the sand was actually drawn behind the foot of our enemy and so we no longer needed to justify blowing up a country like Iraq to smithereens.
Whether it is called "blowback", the "chickens come home to roost", or "reaping" what we "sow", our failure to examine how America's best interest is not always what's "best" will always bring out the worst in people who disagree with us.
Gitmo closed.. NOPE and won't be any time soon
Out of the "illegal war" in Iraq in 16 months.. NOPE... he promised Iraq our support indefinetly
Stuck in the new Vietnam over in Afghanistan.. YUP
Declaring the war an terror "overseas contingency planning".. yup then doing a 180 and saying there remains "evil" in the world and factions that won't negotiate and need to be eliminated.. hmm very Bushy.. don't you think?
Allowing rendition to continue... we are all against water boarding but its OK to send suspect terrorists to countries where we know they will be REALLY tortured.. no waterboarding.. just the electrodes to the genitals type stuff.
Not much change here and very little hope!
Once again I ask rhetorically, where or where has Code Pink gone.. ANSWER.. just follow Karl Rove's book signings..
It is inevitable that there will be more terrorist attacks in the US - and that some will succeed. The successes will be cause for great jubilation in the Middle East - and inspire both further attacks AND further actions by the US there. And so it goes.
Whose great idea was it to start this dance? Are alternative energy sources really so pernicious as to warrant this kind of avoidance?
Not fair - the Middle East is not naturally bloodthirsty despite the ingrained stereotype here. I suspect many Europeans too would smile a bit if we had our comeuppance. Some cheers for our pain after years of our arrogant global misbehaviour would be quite normal. But then I imagine they would just want us to leave them alone to rebuild their lives the way they see fit.
did you read the article?
If I were to try a descriptive analysis I would say any successes in murdering innocent civilians in the US may give a sense of revenge or a sense righteous retribution to the Pakistanis and Afghanis; a feeling of "thank goodness they get the message of how it is to live in fear when you are innocent yet can expect to be murdered indiscriminately by a drone, maybe now they will stop their leaders from sending their boys to fight us with the bravery of being out of range and we can live in peace"
this has always been the message of terrorism as perceived by the populations from the midst of which terrorists come, this is why terrorists find succor and support among the population.
Egypt started winning it's war on terrorism when it moved away fro mass arrests, burning of wheat fields to deny the terrorists refuge, shutting down entire villages; and instead started apprehending terrorists in a targeted way, one by one, cell by cell; it meant the security forces got more into harms way, but it ultimately led to the state getting help from the people to win it's battle when this approach was used and coupled with improvement of social services, jobs provision, fighting graft and infrastructure development
Sirota brings up the excellent point that drone attacks amount to "a haphazard massacre" and that we should expect blowback.
We kill 50 civilians for every militants killed in a drone attack.
I just wish to highlight our own Orwellian logic when it comes to official U.S. government thinking about terrorism.
The following quote comes from the National Counterterrorism Center, the "2008 Report on Terrorism," published on April 30, 2009, pages 4-5, available through the FBI website page on publications:
"Terrorist attacks against combatants count as reckless and indiscriminate when terrorists could have reasonably foreseen that their attack would result in civilian casualties. Therefore, combatants may be included as victims in some attacks when their presence was incidental to an attack aimed at noncombatants, and some attacks may be deemed terrorism when they recklessly affect civilians when targeting combatants."
In other words, if insurgents conduct an attack against combatants they count as a terrorist attack if "they recklessly affect civilians..." or, if they "could have reasonably foreseen that their attack would have resulted in civilian casualties."
By our own official U.S. government definition (or counting rules), Pakistanis could reasonably argue that we are committing state-sponsored terrorism with our reckless and indiscriminate drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In our Orwellian "war on terrorism," if we are "reckless" and "indiscriminate," that is collateral damage. If insurgents are "reckless" and "indiscriminate," they are terrorists.
Blowback's a bitch.
Blowback by terrorists against us is one side effect. But if the Pakistani government ascertains that the increasing drones attacks are against ITS interests, there's another factor which is a danger for us.
That is China's response. China is Pakistan's most steadfast ally and so far, they have been quiet.
We are risking riling up China against us in all of this if we further encroach upon Pakistan's sovereignty...
how many innocent people would it take to die as collateral damage for people to be outraged in the US if the cops were busting into a crack house in a any major US metropolis? one? two? 700? how many crack dealers caught or killed would legitimize the "collateral"? 14:700? does that sound reasonable to you? would it fly?
"Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders," David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. "But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed."
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Even if it is true that 700 civilians were killed, shouldn't this read that 50 civilians for every militant LEADER was killed? Or are you asking me to believe that over that 3 year period a total of 14 militants were killed?
It appears Sirota does a better job exaggerating the "slaughter" over there than the Taliban.
My question is why?
forget statistics, each of us feels the trend simply by watching the news (at least if you get Al Jazeera International or the BBC).
The recipe is easy- check out a few isolationist blogs read a Chomsky or two and then surrender and cut-and-run while sobbing inconsolably.
I hope we pull out of this one with more grace and dignity than evidenced by the last pictures from Saigon.
1) we agitate a confrontation with Pakistan, which has walked the western tightrope remarkably well compared to other neighbors...they got them some Machiavellian diplomats there...
2) Pak gets increasingly nervous and seeks aid against American aggression...I mean, look at Iraq, they have a case on the world stage;
3) Pak pulls Russia in; relations are already strained with Russia especially with the powers calling for a renewal of the nuke program;
4) Economic collapse appears as weakness to Russia so Russia might make a stand with Pak...
It would be beyond ironic if for the next 20 years, Russia aids the middle east against us. Stranger things have happened. Talk about blowback.
1. Pakistan and Russia DO NOT LIKE each other at all. Pakistan is a Chinese ally.
2. Russia already "helped out" the middle east during the cold war. How did that work out? Hujdreds of smoked out T-62's and BMPs in front of the Golan Heights in 1973.
3. Nodoby is seriously talking about any kind of intevention in Pakistan. Really. I mean it. There is no secret plan. The biggest Pakistani complaint against our policy is that we keep throwing them under the bus, not that we are involved.
4. You are right about their machiavellian abilities, which is a big reason this wouldn't happen.