"In the Face of CIA Drone Strikes, Pakistan is Powerless"/Presentation at the "Drone Summet"
Last edited Mon Apr 30, 2012, 03:17 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
In the Face of CIA Drone Strikes, Pakistan is Powerless
By: Kevin Gosztola Monday April 30, 2012 12:33 pm
Dr. Amna Buttar at the Drone Summit (She is a Physician with dual American/Pakistani citizenship)]
The CIA launched a drone strike in Pakistan on Sunday that killed “three suspected militants” in an “abandoned school building” in Waziristan. As the New York Times notes in a report on the strike, this was the “first such attack since the country’s Parliament demanded an end to those missions just over two weeks ago.”
Jim White over at Emptywheel.net points out that this interrupted negotiations the US was engaged in with Pakistan. The attack just underlines the reality that the Obama administration is largely indifferent to the rage the Pakistani government has against the US drone program. In fact, some members of the administration will even slander studies on civilian deaths caused by drone attacks and say, “There are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.”
The reality is that Pakistan’s parliament is powerless in the face of the United States. So long as the Obama administration cares little about the concerns of the government and people of Pakistan, the covert operations will continue. Without political pressure from Americans, there is nothing to stall or stop the government from launching drone strikes every other day.
Over the weekend, I attended an international drone summit in Washington, DC, co-organized by CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve. Dr. Amna Buttar, a member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly in Pakistan, spoke at the summit. She shared with me in an interview just how powerless Pakistan is in the face of America’s covert drone program saying, “There’s no way,” the program will stop without pressure from Americans. “That’s what I feel. I am in the government there and I am a politician. And, I see that.”
I mean, if there was some entrenched terrorist group in the United States that only military people from other countries could discern by looking in through a remote monitor, I'm sure we'd be tickled pink to have them blow the terrorists in our midst to Kingdom Come. And so what if a few civilians were among the casualties? If it makes us all safer (well, not all of us, but you know what I mean), I should think the United States would be four-square behind such a program.
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"In the Face of CIA Drone Strikes, Pakistan is Powerless"/Presentation at the "Drone Summet" (Original post)
