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CIA Shenanigans in Pakistan |
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How would you feel if the Pakistani secret intelligence, the ISI, ran a secret base in America and had struck a secret deal with George Bush allowing them to blow up your car if they thought you were a terrorist? Well, the CIA has been doing exactly that in Pakistan.
Some folks might not be up for reading the entirety of my post on Pakistan’s elections, so I wanted to make sure no one missed this (free registration required):
American officials reached a quiet understanding with Pakistan’s leader last month to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists by pilotless aircraft launched in Pakistan, senior officials in both governments say. But the prospect of changes in Pakistan’s government has the Bush administration worried that the new operations could be curtailed.
Among other things, the new arrangements allowed an increase in the number and scope of patrols and strikes by armed Predator surveillance aircraft launched from a secret base in Pakistan  a far more aggressive strategy to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban than had existed before.
But since opposition parties emerged victorious from the parliamentary election early this week, American officials are worried that the new, more permissive arrangement could be choked off in its infancy.
In the weeks before Monday’s election, a series of meetings among President Bush’s national security advisers resulted in a significant relaxation of the rules under which American forces could aim attacks at suspected Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the tribal areas near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
The change, described by senior American and Pakistani officials who would not speak for attribution because of the classified nature of the program, allows American military commanders greater leeway to choose from what one official who took part in the debate called “a Chinese menu†of strike options.
Instead of having to confirm the identity of a suspected militant leader before attacking, this shift allowed American operators to strike convoys of vehicles that bear the characteristics of Qaeda or Taliban leaders on the run, for instance, so long as the risk of civilian casualties is judged to be low.
The new, looser rules of engagement may have their biggest impact at a secret Central Intelligence Agency base in Pakistan whose existence was described by American and Pakistani officials who had previously kept it secret to avoid embarrassing President Pervez Musharraf politically. Mr. Musharraf, whose party lost in this week’s election by margins that surprised American officials, has been accused by political rivals of being too close to the United States.
The base in Pakistan is home to a handful of Predators  unmanned aircraft that are controlled from the United States. Two Hellfire missiles from one of those Predators are believed to have killed a senior Qaeda commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, in northwest Pakistan last month, though a senior Pakistani official said his government had still not confirmed that Mr. Libi was among the dead. A C.I.A. spokesman declined on Thursday to comment on any operations in Pakistan.
The new agreements with Pakistan came after a trip to the country on Jan. 9 by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director. The American officials met with Mr. Musharraf as well as with the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and offered a range of increased covert operations aimed at thwarting intensifying efforts by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to destabilize the Pakistani government.
Let me underscore the insanity of this: Musharraf agreed to let us blow up any car that we thought had a terrorist inside.
And we worry about the Taliban destabilizing Pakistan? What do we think is going to happen if US drones murder people who may or may not be completely innocent?
The War on Terror has stripped away so many protections on human life that none remain. The CIA is basically acting as detective and executioner all in one fell swoop (forget about “proof” or “trials” or “rights”) in Pakistan, making an absurdity of Pakistani sovereignty or any notion of human rights. Even more scary, these shenanigans represent yet another step down the road toward having US troops on the ground in Pakistan to “fight terror.” Robert Gates has been quietly pushing for that for months.
Let me get even more blunt: these moves are moronic. We need to leave Pakistan alone, especially in this moment of transition. The election results, many have pointed out, were a rejection not only of Musharraf but also of Bush and the US. How much worse will we make matters by hauling off and killing people before we can even prove that they’ve committed crimes?
So if the new government “chokes the program off in its infancy,” I say that’s good news. We need to be accountable and pragmatic, and stop treating Pakistan like a fantasy world where we can do whatever we please.
When I saw we did this last week I really thought that the ramifications of launching this attack and then notifying them in the midst of it would be catastrophic for our relations in Pakistan or anywhere for that matter. You can’t launch an attack and then in the middle of it say oh by the way were launching two hell fires at a convoy and a home we believe may be ‘high-level’ terrorists. The United States ego is unreal.
One always wonders, why can’t we treat terrorists like criminals? It would make things much simpler than trying to treat them like soldiers.
‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” - Storman Norman,On the Tonight Show.
i really dislike most desi’s(paki, indians, bangali), but i agree we need to leave pakistan alone, thats just wrong to go around hurting people that may or may not be involved in terrorist activities, its a lot like what we did to Arabs locking them in guantanamo bay without putting them on trials.