Kerry Admits Drone Strikes Are Counter-Productive

[tekisui]

Source: Daily Times(Pakistan)

ISLAMABAD: US Senator John Kerry admitted during a meeting with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that airstrikes by American drones on targets in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas caused large-scale collateral damage and were counter-productive in the war on terror.

Kerry, who was appointed chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, promised he would seek a review of the policy upon his return.

Kerry urged India and Pakistan to co-operate in the investigations of last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He said India should share whatever evidence it has gathered with Pakistan and Pakistan should try to bridge the trust deficit with India.

In the meeting at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, Senator Kerry assured Gilani he would make efforts for the early passage of the Biden-Lugar Bill by the US Congress and take up the issue of Pakistan’s genuine economic and defence requirements at the Capitol Hill and with the new US administration.

Senator Kerry, who is close to president-elect Barack Obama, also admitted that the lack of capacity of Pakistan’s law-enforcement agencies and a delay in midlife upgrade of its F-16s were impeding its capacity to confront terror, and that the US must remedy the problems.

Gilani said Pakistan wanted friendly ties with all its neighbours and would not allow any individual or entity on its territory to harm bilateral relations with India.

more: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\12\17\story_17-12-2008_pg1_6

[globalvillage]

1. Meanwhile ...

Meanwhile, US Senator Christopher Kit Bond said on Tuesday that US drone attacks on ‘high-value targets' in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas would continue.

He told journalists at the US embassy that the army chief and the ISI director general had raised the issue in their meetings, “and I told them that attacks were against high value targets".

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C12%5C17%5Cstory_17-12-2008_pg7_16

Kerry is in India and Pakistan urging cooperation between the two countries, and Bond is there at the same time doing his best to fuck it up.

[tekisui]

2. Let's hope Kerry is the more convincing of the two.

Surely, he could talk with more authority of the incoming administration.

[YvonneCa]

3. One more round of elections to get these RW guys...

...out of the Senate. There can't be that many of them left... :)