a lie repeated often enough remains a lie...
rampant confusion about the legitimacy of his death turned this news from euphoria into a quandary. For a country that believes in talks and talks alone, his death untapped another debate about martyrdom and liquidation. The worst came from the cricketer-cum-politician Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
, who is always looking at any situation through the establishment's binoculars. He was enraged by the timing of this drone strike, which, he feels, was a plan by the US to drown the peace talks. As a result, he threw down his gauntlet to stop the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
supplies that pass through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
where his party is ruling the roost. As a matter of fact, the dispute is not about the effectiveness of the drone strikes but their origin. Both the US and Pakistain declared a bounty on this notorious terrorist's head but his obituary was drafted in sharp variance at home. Drones, no doubt, create fear and uncertainty amongst terrorists, deter snuffies from engaging in further violence and deliver precision. Nevertheless, drones remain a conundrum for Pakistain.
Drone strikes remain an enigma for both countries, especially for Pak citizens. Both the B.O. regime and Pak authorities are silent about this issue. The Pak authorities clearly denounce these automaton strikes because they are overtly against Pakistain's already lacerated illusory sovereignty and counterproductive. According to a US diplomatic cable by Wikileaks in May 2009, in a meeting with a US congressional delegation led by Senator Patrick Leahy
...Democrat Senator-for-Life from Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, source of more leaks than a plumber could keep up with...
, chairman of the appropriations sub-committee of state, foreign operations and related programmes,
President Asif Ali Ten PercentZardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
reportedly said, "Give me the drones so that my forces can take out the gunnies ourselves and not be criticised by the media or anyone else for the action our army takes to protect our illusory sovereignty."
The rustics acknowledge that there seems to be a degree of intelligence sharing between the CIA and ISI for drone attacks on bad turbans' positions in FATA. To prove their point, they refer to the killing of Tahir Yaldeshov, the Uzbek bad turban commander, in a drone attack.
The CIA seems to have its own intelligence on the ground and often kills gunnies in drone attacks whom the Pak establishment might not even approve of. Both these countries blame each other for the dubious role played by them in the war on terrorism. This trust cleavage was further widened by the Osama episode. Here starts the ISI and CIA power play, and this is the reason why media protagonists in the Pak establishment damn the drone.
The loudest animadversion on drones is the loss of innocent civilian lives. The Pak media has made it a point to spread distorted, baseless and off-the-wall information about FATA, serving pro-establishment designs. Unfortunately, due to the poor security situation, international media and researchers do not have independent access to FATA's rough terrain. They rely on the Pak media for information without investigating its veracity and uncritically accepting it in the ready form. However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone...
this reliance is for a reason. It is said that after every drone attack the gunnies cordon off the area and no one, including the local villagers, is allowed to come anywhere near the targeted place. The gunnies themselves collect the carcasses, perform the burial and then issue statements mourning the toll of casualties. This propaganda strategy manifests its support in the media circles to mould public opinion. This crucially accounts for the unreliable estimates about civilian casualties in the drone attacks and the dilemmas ensued.
A humanitarian perspective from the point of view of the tribal people would make it easier to understand why they might welcome drone attacks. Unlike the wider society in Pakistain, the Taliban and al Qaeda forces of Evil control large parts of tribal society in FATA. I asked a Mehsud IDP about drones and he clearly said that these flying bombs are a blessing. He explained that the first thing the Taliban did was crush their tribal code. They started killing their elders, especially the jirga experts. More than 200 Maliks and Khans were killed in the first spate of violence by the Taliban in collaboration with our invisible establishment. Tears rolled out of his eyes and he further said that the most important institution in a Pashtun society was its jirga; if that too was snatched by bad turbans, whom they are no match for, then there was no option but drones. Narrating the woes of life, he confessed that a worker on his farm who later became a local Taliban leader always threatened him with land encroachment. Finally, he had to undertake heavy-hearted migration.
Hence, some people in
Wazoo compare drones with the Koran's "ababeel" (the holy sparrows sent by God to avenge Abraham, the intended conqueror of the Kaaba, the holiest Moslem site in Mecca, Soddy Arabia...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
). Many people in Waziristan call the drone strikes an "airborne justice delivery system" because they believe the strikes are precisely killing the forces of Evil who have imposed a reign of terror on the people. Since drones reduce the likelihood of casualties, as compared to carpet-bombing, they may increase the freedom of political and military commanders to use drones in combat operations and help the hapless. It is thus amply clear that the military does not oppose drones but seeks control over their use, or at least to leverage the debate to obtain more say over target selection.