Military joins Obama’s drone war in Pakistan

Posted on 11. Dec, 2009 by Nathaniel Bacon in Israel & Jewish Issues, Politics, War Coverage

The headquarters for the American military’s war in Central Asia and the Middle East is located in a converted medical warehouse on an undisclosed base in a country the U.S. Air Force would rather not name. The lights are turned down low, so the troops can see the giant screen at the far end of this cavernous, classified facility.

Over the past year and a half, the United States has stepped up drone strikes against militants in Pakistan—–killing as many as a thousand people, by some estimates.

But since the Pakistani government bans reporters and aid organizations from the tribal lands, where the majority of drone strikes have been reported, no one can say for sure how many have really been killed by the unmanned attackers.

The drone strikes in Pakistan have been widely credited with taking out senior leaders of both the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. But they’ve also come under increasing criticism, as a secret extension of the war in Central Asia fought under uncertain authority and questionable morality.

It wasn’t long ago that the United States condemned Israel for it’s “targeted killings” of Palestinian “terrorists.” Now, the U.S. pursues a similar tactic in its campaign against Al Qaeda.      FULL ARTICLE