Obama Confirms Pakistan Drone Strikes

Obama Confirms Pakistan Drone Strikes

www.bbc.co.uk

US President Barack Obama has confirmed that unmanned drones regularly strike suspected militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Mr Obama called the strikes a "targeted focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists".
The US does not routinely speak publicly about drone operations.
Mr Obama made his comments during an hour-long video "hangout" on Google's social network, Google+, which was also streamed live on YouTube.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Not huge news and we all knew it but hey, atleast he's admitted to something..I guess.

According to the AFP news agency, 64 US missile strikes were reported in the area in 2011, down from 101 in 2010.

Yeah? Well, dead men tell no tales do they? I'm sure this is more accurate reporting from AFP.





www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

How people still support him, I don't know.

reply to post by GLaDOS


This should be somewhat big news, especially on ATS. So let me see if I can't add a thing or two to spice up this thread.

Here's the video of Obama during this online video chat talking about the drone strikes and how it hasn't killed a lot of Pakistanis. US drone strikes have killed enough civilian to cause Pakistanis to protest the US military, calling them terrorists. So I believe Obama is totally playing this issue down.



The Pakistiai Gov't is just like any other Gov't, same type of politiicians and all. They cater to both parties, in this case they cater to the US Federal Gov't and their own people, playing both sides of the issue.

The truth about American drones could be very inconvenient for Pakistan

blogs.telegraph.co.uk...

But President Obama's admission of the obvious was probably not made with Pakistan in mind. The new openness is probably the result of a strike last year that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen who rose to fame as an online propagandist for al-Qaeda. It left Obama with an awkward legal question about the rights and wrongs of killing Americans overseas and last night's admission may well be part of a new policy.

The question now is how the Pakistani government will respond. Islamabad has been quite content to leave the drones in a grey area, condemning each strike, shouting angrily about infringements of sovereignty while tacitly giving the green light. A Wikileaks cable released in 2010 revealed how Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, summed up his government's position:

"I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."

The militants in Pakistan's tribal areas pose a deadly threat to Islamabad. But supporting the drones in public risks further inflaming deep-seated anti-American anger and mobilizing waves of suicide bombers against anyone seen as a stooge of the West.

Pakistanis protest latest U.S. drone strike(1/11/12)

Pakistanis protest U.S. drone attacks

old.tehrantimes.com...

Thousands of Pakistanis have staged an anti-U.S. demonstration in the port city of Karachi, calling for an end to U.S. drone attacks, and Washington's interference in the region.

According to Wikipedia there's been a total of 286 drone attacks in Pakistan, minimum number of people kill is 1,731, the maximum number of people kill is 2,696.

From Wikipedia's civilian causality section,

According to Bloomberg

A January 2011 report by Bloomberg stated that civilian casualties in the strikes had apparently decreased. According to the report, the U.S. Government believed that 1,300 militants and only 30 civilians had been killed in drone strikes since mid-2008, with no civilians killed since August 2010.[434]

But there are those who disagree with Bloomberg

On 14 July 2009, Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution stated that although accurate data on the results of drone strikes is difficult to obtain, it seemed that ten civilians had died in the drone attacks for every militant killed. He suggested that drone strikes may kill "10 or so civilians" for every militant killed, which would represent a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of 10:1. Byman argues that civilian killings constitute a humanitarian tragedy and create dangerous political problems, including damage to the legitimacy of the Pakistani government and alienation of the Pakistani populace from America. He suggested that the real answer to halting al-Qaeda's activity in Pakistan will be long-term support of Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts.[13]

Drone attack in Pakistan: 2005-2012

Currently the Middle Eastern nation that has seen the most US drone attacks is Libya.

Not anything new. He's just continuing what Bush did. But he's picking up the pace, and apparently getting some good results.

Originally posted by GLaDOS
How people still support him, I don't know.

edit on 31/1/2012 by GLaDOS because: (no reason given)

How people still support the Pakistani's I don't know, I don't really want to know.

reply to post by Blahable


Not only picking up but increasing drone strikes from when Bush was in office.

topics.nytimes.com...

More C.I.A. drone attacks have been conducted under President Barack Obama than under President George W. Bush.

Among other things, since taking office Obama has:

Originally posted by Swills
reply to post by Blahable

 

Not only picking up but increasing drone strikes from when Bush was in office.

topics.nytimes.com...

More C.I.A. drone attacks have been conducted under President Barack Obama than under President George W. Bush.

Among other things, since taking office Obama has:

Well so far our actions in Pakistan has gotten us Bin Laden who was basically hiding in a mansion down the street from their West pointe, and countless other terrorist.

Pakistan is a hotbed of terrorism, look at the attack they pulled off in India a few years ago.
I really do not have a issue with the drone strikes.

reply to post by Blahable


The problem here, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, is that this is kind of an act of war. You cannot just go around just things in other countries up just because you want to. If China decided to start flying drones into the US to take out targets they deemed a threat, you people would fly off the god damned handle. Pot, kettle and all that.

reply to post by Blahable


If you wanna believe that fairy tale that's up to you but I'm not buying that story. The US govt can find Saddam hiding in a hole but for over 10 years they could not find Bin Laden, a man who was never charged with the 9/11 attacks, and committed no terrorist acts since 9/11. But you feel safer because you're told Pakistan is a hot bed for terrorism. Yes the drones are killing "terrorist" & innocent people. So you're okay with innocent people being killed to keep yo safe from the boogeyman terrorists?

Sounds like the actions of a weaker person to me.

Originally posted by Blahable
I really do not have a issue with the drone strikes.

I'd like you to say that when one of your family member died in a drone attack.

Originally posted by GLaDOS

Originally posted by Blahable
I really do not have a issue with the drone strikes.

I'd like you to say that when one of your family member died in a drone attack.

edit on 3/2/2012 by GLaDOS because: (no reason given)

My friends and I were affected on 9/11 when that violent cult some call a "religion" attacked decided to kill nearly 3k innocent people.

WE watched these people in Pakistan cheer and celebrate on 9/11.
We watched the pakistani protest when we killed their demonic hero Bin Laden.

We were affected when the PAKISTANI terrorists attacked India.

So I will always support those drone strikes.

I don't believe 9/11 conspiracies those are fairy tales in my opinion.

Originally posted by Blahable

Originally posted by GLaDOS

Originally posted by Blahable
I really do not have a issue with the drone strikes.

I'd like you to say that when one of your family member died in a drone attack.

edit on 3/2/2012 by GLaDOS because: (no reason given)

My friends and I were affected on 9/11 when that violent cult some call a "religion" attacked decided to kill nearly 3k innocent people.

WE watched these people in Pakistan cheer and celebrate on 9/11.
We watched the pakistani protest when we killed their demonic hero Bin Laden.

We were affected when the PAKISTANI terrorists attacked India.

So I will always support those drone strikes.

I don't believe 9/11 conspiracies those are fairy tales in my opinion.

edit on 7-2-2012 by Blahable because: (no reason given)

3k innocent people? what about the million innocent civilians killed in Iraq?
As for the celebrations, there will always be extreme people in every country.
The protest was in response to the US illegally entering their country without permission.
As for the India situation, you're just making it up. How were you affected? unless your family/friends died or you live in India I doubt you were affected...