http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/07/wired.terrorist.drone.strikes/index.html?hpt=C1

(WIRED ) -- Once upon a time, the CIA had to know a militant's name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it's enough to call in a drone strike.

It's another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale -- if undeclared -- war in Pakistan. And in a war, you don't need to know the name of someone on the other side before you take a shot.

Across the border, in Afghanistan, the rules for launching an airstrike have become tighter than a balled fist. Dropping a bomb from above is now a tactic of last resort; even when U.S. troops are under fire, commanders are reluctant to authorize air strikes.

In Pakistan, however, the opposite has happened. Starting in the latter days of the Bush administration, and accelerating under the Obama presidency, drone pilots have become more and more free to launch their weapons.

"You've had an expanded target set for [some] time now and, given the danger these groups pose and their relative inaccessibility, these kinds of strikes -- precise and effective -- have become almost like the cannon fire of this war. They're no longer extraordinary or even unusual," one American official tells CNN.

This official -- like many other officials -- insists that the drone strikes have torn up the ranks of militants.

"The enemy has lost not just operational leaders and facilitators -- people whose names we know -- but formations of fighters and other terrorists," the official tells the Los Angeles Times. "We might not always have their names, but ... these are people whose actions over time have made it obvious that they are a threat."

National security law experts, inside the government and out, are in the middle of an intense debate over whether the remotely piloted attacks are legal. One leading law professor told Congress last week that the drone operators could be tried for "war crimes," under certain circumstances.

The State Department's top lawyer counters that the drone attacks are a legitimate act of self-defense.

The connection between the robotic strikes over there and our safety here appears to be growing, The Pakistani Taliban, who have claimed credit for the botched Times Square bombing, say the car bomb was in retaliation for drone strikes.

But the robotic aircraft are only one component in the war in Pakistan. American troops are on the ground there, and getting into firefights. American contractors are operating a fleet of helicopters above. Higher in the sky are the American drones, flown by the U.S. Air Force and the CIA.

Apparently the deal with Pakistan is that the Pakistani government permits it clandestinely, but has a free hand to publicly denounce the USA for using drone strikes, in return for getting cash.

nanatehay wrote on May 10^th, 2010 at 3:58pm:


Whatever happened to the "guns-don't-kill-people" argument?

Bombing raids traditionally follow a declaration of war. Sure, Cambodia and Panama have been notable exceptions, but you'll never get the US before a war crimes tribunal. They're not on the Security Council for nothing.

But if you support the US sending a drone into your backyard and blowing up anything they want by remote control, you might as well support Osama. I can't see the difference.

Still, it must be fun to have the technology to send a remote control robot anywhere you want and just blow away any old thing that walks past.

From a desk in Huston, Texas, everyone's the enemy.

I think it's OK to kill the enemy in a war, don't you?

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As I recall Osama already used up his drones, or rather, jetliners full of innocent civilians.  It was fascinating to watch afterwards, the people choosing to leap from the WTC towers rather than burn to death. Passive consumption of action? I guess so. I just wish the whole thing was over, but Bush/Cheney muffed their chances of resolving anything in Central Asia when they diverted all our resources and focus into their imbecilic invasion of Iraq. Welcome to the Forever War.

nanatehay wrote on May 14^th, 2010 at 2:09pm:



The shrivelled smallness of spirit is startling.

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Tell me Soren, do you think before you comment or do you just wipe and flush?  Regarding your displeasure at my description of people jumping from the WTC as fascinating - and it WAS fascinating, as many horrible things are -  I watched my fellow citizens die in their thousands that day in real-time, so stuff your outrage and everything you presume to know about me up your smug little ass my friend.  

nanatehay wrote on May 15^th, 2010 at 4:38am:

Did I claim to know anything about you? Apart from having a shrivelled spirit, that is? No. We all watched the news all day that day. Fascinating it wasn't.

Anyway, if you can be fascinated by it then I can also find you shallow on that account. You are presumptious in the extreme if you think that you deserve only approval because you happen to be their felllow citizen. Being an American does not give you a pass to be 'fascinated' by people leaping to their deaths.