Pakistanis confront Clinton over drone

ISLAMABAD — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was confronted repeatedly by Pakistanis Friday as she ended a tense three-day tour of the country, chastised by one woman who said a U.S. program using aerial drones to target terrorists amounted to "executions without trial."

Asked repeatedly about the drones, a subject that involves highly classified CIA operations, Clinton said only that "there is a war going on." She added that the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents.

OK so two points, the Pakistanis claim it is execution without trial, and Clinton claims there is a war.

My stand is obvious for those who know me, execution without trial is where I stand.

The report asserted that the US government has failed to keep track of civilian casualties of its military operations, including the drone attacks, and to provide means for citizens of affected nations to obtain information about the casualties and any legal inquests regarding them[117].

Any such information held by the U.S. military is allegedly inaccessible to public due to the high level of secrecy surrounding the drone attacks program[118].

The US representative at UNHRC has argued that the UN investigator for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions does not have jurisdiction over US military actions[117], while another US diplomat claimed that the US military is investigating any wrongdoing and doing all it can to furnish information about the deaths[119].

Pakistani bases are used for drone attacks:

Shamsi airfield, also called Bandari, is a small airfield located in Balochistan, Pakistan, about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Quetta near the town of Washki. In 2009 media reports alleged that the airfield was used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a base for Predator drone attacks on militants in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Image of US drones in Pakistani airfield

Sattellite image of Shamsi puports to show three Predator aircraft on a parking ramp.

Target casualties compared to civilian deaths:

The paper, authored by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedmann, reports that somewhere between 750 and 1,000 have been killed by the strikes, including between 250 and 320 noncombatants and only 20 "leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban and allied groups"

Sources of this report

those figures were derived by compiling the available data from a variety of news sources, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and major English-language papers in Pakistan.

The Ultimate Conclusion From my Perspective: execution without trial


Reference

www.google.com...

en.wikipedia.org...-80

www.thedailybeast.com...

Dang OOze, you got a pretty good thread here. Star and Flag.

Seems like Clinton got drilled and maybe even caught off guard by the drone question.

The drone question reminds me of this thread posted a few days ago.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I am not sure if I would call it an execution without a trial. there are no trials on the battlefield during a war.

I'm not being one sided. You make a good case. And the fact that we are authorize for war in Afghanistan, not Pakistan would probably add to your case.

But IF America is guilty of these drone killings in Pakistan, isn't Pakistan just as liable for allowing us to conduct such operations?

Originally posted by jam321
Dang OOze, you got a pretty good thread here. Star and Flag.

Seems like Clinton got drilled and maybe even caught off guard by the drone question.

The drone question reminds me of this thread posted a few days ago.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I am not sure if I would call it an execution without a trial. there are no trials on the battlefield during a war.

I'm not being one sided. You make a good case. And the fact that we are authorize for war in Afghanistan, not Pakistan would probably add to your case.

But IF America is guilty of these drone killings in Pakistan, isn't Pakistan just as liable for allowing us to conduct such operations?

Yes Pakistan is also liable, that is why I pointed out that Pakistani bases are used for drone attacks.

The Pakistani government is not following its people's will instead making decisions it think will help them survive. Weak government will always tend to do that. They would stick themselves on the side of powers instead of people. At least from my observational stand.

Thanks for your thoughts

oz

Thought there might be proof that Pakistan was operating the drones within their own country, but have yet to find any. But they are working together.

Reporting from Washington — The U.S. military has flown drones into Pakistan at least a dozen times in recent weeks in cooperation with the Pakistanis as part of a new program, U.S. officials acknowledged Wednesday.

The military conducted test flights in March to demonstrate intelligence gathering capabilities to the Pakistanis. Those were followed by Pakistani requests for additional Predator flights to collect intelligence on suspected militants, said an official from U.S. Central Command, which oversees forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In response, the Central Command official and other military officers said Wednesday that a formal U.S. proposal for the joint effort did not include the use of armed strikes on suspected militant positions.

articles.latimes.com...