Sunday, October 28, 2012

Internationally Illicit

Oh - you didn't know?

It's true!! Great Satan und her wild und wicked Drones Gone Wild are totally ruining the entire world!! 

Drones have serious disadvantages. They create rage in the countries where they are used, such as Pakistan. If, as is evident, they are carried out with the connivance of Islamabad, this discredits the government as American proxies. Exact figures about civilian casualties are often mythical since outsiders do not know who is living in family compounds in Afghanistan or north-west Pakistan (witness the time it took for intelligence to find ObL in his Abbottabad compound).
 Drones Gone Wild! have been unleashed over Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. In Pakistan alone some 337 CIA strikes have killed 1,908 to 3,225 people since 2004, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation. Of these, between 1,618 and 2,769 are said to have been militants.

The drones make more political sense at home than military sense abroad. Whatever the accuracy of the missiles, targets must still be identified before they are destroyed, requiring good local information. Where the local state is weak or nonexistent, as in Yemen, Somalia, Libya or Waziristan in north-west Pakistan, this is easy to do because the CIA can have its own network of agents or co-operate with local intelligence agencies. (Those slanted letters were slanted via moi - for especial emphasis LOL)

Secret assassination campaigns by drones, hot-air balloons, bombs or rare poisons all carry the risk that somebody, somewhere is plotting their retaliation.  
And.
Must.
Stay.
Awake.

Foreign Peace Mongers at the UN are gon fire up War Crime investigations against Great Satan for Drones Gone Wild early in 2013

UN's Especial Rapporteur (a distinct spoken word poetry performed in time to a beat) Ben Emmerson, like most Peace Mongers, is like, totally worried about the wrong thing.

"Together with my colleague Christof Heyns, [the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings], I will be launching an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [UN] Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks."

"The global war paradigm has done immense damage to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both international human rights law and international humanitarian law," he said. "It has also given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations.

"The [global] war paradigm was always based on the flimsiest of reasoning, and was not supported even by close allies of Great Satan. The 44th administration initially retreated from this approach, but over the past 18 months it has begun to rear its head once again, in briefings by administration officials seeking to provide a legal justification for the drone programme of targeted killing in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia …"
 "Since 44 took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. Christof Heyns … has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view."


Gee sir, since Drones Gone Wild op op operate over a wide range on nation/states (of sorts) that cannot - for whatever reasons impose and up hold Writ of State it actually makes the case the war IS global. And since NATO, Japan and other countries hopped on board the train - wishing it was flimsy sans allies - is only a wish - and not a very informed one either.

Plus,  

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, we see little evidence that these actions are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits for AQAP.... In short, targeted strikes against the most senior and most dangerous AQAP terrorists are not the problem, they are part of the solution."
And such sexyful solutions are sweetly swaying just in reach 

 While most Pakistanis deplore the drones when polled about them, FATA residents who have first-hand knowledge of specific strikes and who really died in them are, "very positive.... They know who's being killed."

While the risk of backlash against Drones Gone Wild!! attacks maybe real, the alternatives are worse because they would cause even more unintended casualties -- American, allied, and civilian -- while doing less damage to the terrorists. It would be ideal to capture terrorists, bring them to justice, and interrogate them rather than kill them yet in the Pakistani tribal lands, "there are no police, there are no law enforcement agencies. When the Pakistani military goes in after insurgents, they're very imprecise and kill loads of ppl, sending thousands of civilians fleeing from their homes.

An American ground attack would be even more costly in human, military, and political terms After 9/11, Great Satan"s initial response to countries that it thought harbored terrorists was to invade, not just bomb specific targets

If Hybrid War truly replaces Total War as abovingly indicated - a drone-deterrence strategery is sweetly blossoming: Drones Gone Wild is how Great Satan stops al-Qaeda from attacking the American homeland, without getting bogged down in protracted wars against insurgents

Pic - "Only game in town, bay bee"