Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City

[IndianaGreen]

Meanwhile, on the AfPak war front, this is what is about to happen boys and girls.


Quetta, Pakistan at night

Published on Monday, December 14, 2009 by the Los Angeles Times

Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City

U.S. officials seek to push CIA drone strikes into the major city of Quetta to try to pressure Pakistan into pursuing Taliban leaders based there\

by Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes

Senior U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in Quetta.

The proposal has opened a contentious new front in the clandestine war. The prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta, a sprawling city, signals a new U.S. resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington's relationship with Islamabad.

The concern has created tension among Obama administration officials over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic option. Proponents, including some military leaders, argue that attacking the Taliban in Quetta -- or at least threatening to do so -- is crucial to the success of the revised war strategy President Obama unveiled last week.

"If we don't do this -- at least have a real discussion of it -- Pakistan might not think we are serious," said a senior U.S. official involved in war planning. "What the Pakistanis have to do is tell the Taliban that there is too much pressure from the U.S.; we can't allow you to have sanctuary inside Pakistan anymore."

But others, including high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials, have been more skeptical of employing drone attacks in a place that Pakistanis see as part of their country's core. Pakistani officials have warned that the fallout would be severe.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/14-12

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[peoli]

2. THE TALIBAN ARE EVIL HUMAN RIGHTS OPPRESSING MURDERERS

mother fuckers

[mkultra]

3. you tilted yoru head back and GOBBLED DOWN THE KOOLAID

now your infested withthe OBAMAZ war fever and you want to drink blood. WAKE UP, YOUR NO VAMPIRE!

[IndianaGreen]

4. Plight of Afghan women may worsen as war effort is stepped up, warns report

The Guardian, December 7, 2009

Plight of Afghan women may worsen as war effort is stepped up, warns report

One survey found that 52% of women had experience physical violence, while 17% reported sexual violence

By Jon Boone

The already dire plight of women in Afghanistan risks deteriorating further as the US and its allies take steps to turn around the war against the Taliban, according to a report by Human Rights Watch today.

Eight years after the Taliban were ousted from power, rapists are often protected from prosecution, women can still be arrested for running away from home, and girls have far less access to schools than boys, the report says.

With the insurgency strengthening in the south and making inroads into the north, the few gains made for women's rights since the US-led invasion of 2001 could be further eroded if Hamid Karzai's government and the international community push for peace talks with factions of the fundamentalist movement.

Among the examples of abuses against women collected by the organisation was the case of a woman who was gang raped by a group that included a powerful local militia commander.

Although she fought to have her rapists prosecuted, they were subsequently pardoned by Karzai. Later, her husband was assassinated.

Rape was put on the statute books as a criminal offence this year but it is still not widely regarded by the police or the courts as a serious crime, with the attackers often receiving greater legal protection than the victims.

One survey found that 52% of women had experience physical violence, while 17% reported sexual violence.

"Police and judges see violence against women as legitimate, so they do not prosecute cases," said Soraya Sobhrang, a commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/12/07/plight-of-afghan-women-may-worsen-as-war-effort-is-stepped-up-warns-report.html

[IndianaGreen]

5. Bombing Quetta? (The Nation)

Bombing Quetta?

posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 12/14/2009 @ 1:34pm

If Afghanistan is Vietnam, and the Taliban is the Viet Cong, then, according to the analogy, Pakistan is North Vietnam. The really odd thing about that extended analogy is that, in the case of Vietnam, North Vietnam's ally was the USSR. But Pakistan's ally is, well, the United States.

Which points up the utter absurdity of the contemplated drone attacks into the Taliban's refuge in Quetta, Pakistan.

For years, since the early 1990s at least, Pakistan has been the chief sponsor of the Taliban. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, only three countries recognized its rule: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. After 2001, when the United States invaded Afghanistan with its token force -- in alliance with the India-backed Northern Alliance -- Pakistan pretended to stop supporting the Taliban, but its military command and its intelligence service, the ISI, continued to provide not-so-covert support. Despite the eight year US war next door, Pakistan has refused to halt its support for the Taliban, and it has allowed the Taliban leadership to operate freely from safe havens inside Pakistan, from Karachi to the tribal areas in Pakistan's northwest to, especially, the teeming urban center of Quetta, in the Baluchistan area of southwest Pakistan.

For weeks now, the United States has been telegraphing its intention to bombard Quetta in order to strike at Mullah Omar, the one-eyed pirate who leads the Taliban, and his confreres.

<snip>

But an attack on Quetta, and on the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is something else entirely -- and not just because bombing Quetta would probably result in mass civilian casualties.

Why? Because the core of Pakistan's military elite sees the Afghan Taliban as a strategic asset. The Taliban is Pakistan's ace-in-the-hole against India's burgeoning influence in Afghanistan, and they're not likely to give it up without a fight. By taking on the Taliban's shura in Quetta, the United States is in effect making the war in Afghanistan a war against both the Taliban and the Pakistani military.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/506118/bombing_quetta