Pakistan

Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed
By Jeremy Scahill | Nation

Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the "Tulip Time Festival" in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event's organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.

Despite Prince's attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.

In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight "terrorists" in Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described Blackwater's secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan. He called those fighting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan "barbarians" who "crawled out of the sewer." Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater "call[ed] in multiple air strikes," blowing up the facility. Prince boasted that his forces had carried out the "largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history." He characterized the work of some NATO countries' forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations "should just pack it in and go home." Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line that Blackwater is not in Pakistan. Read more.

Did You Hear the Joke About the Predator Drone That Bombed?
Obama's 'joke' at the White House correspondents' dinner was no laughing matter to the relatives of the hundreds of people killed in Pakistan by drones.
By Medea Benjamin and Nancy Moncias | Alternet | May 5, 2010 | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

"...New America Foundation's 2009 report "Revenge of the Drones...says that roughly 252 to 315 Pakistani civilians were killed by Predator and Reaper drone strikes between 2006 and 2009. Other reports place the figure much higher. Pakistani authorities released statistics indicating that over 700 civilians were killed by drones in 2009 alone, the year Obama took office. The running tally on the website PakistanBodyCount.Org is even more shocking: 1,226 civilians killed and 427 injured as of March 2010!"

At the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner, President Bush joked about searching for WMDs under Oval Office furniture. The joke backfired when parents who had lost their children fighting in Iraq said they found the joke offensive and tasteless. Senator John Kerry said Bush displayed a "stunningly cavalier" attitude toward the war and those serving in Iraq.

So it's odd that President Obama would make a crude joke about deaths that he is responsible for. But that's just what he did at the May 1 White House Correspondents Dinner. "Jonas Brothers are here, they're out there somewhere," President Obama quipped as he looked out at the packed room. Then he furrowed his brow, pretending to send a stern message to the pop band. "Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don't get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You'll never see it coming." Read more.

Catastrophically Ashamed
By Missy Comley Beattie

As I write, two million people in Massachusetts are under a boil, baby, boil alert after a water “leak.” When I think of a leak, I hear a drip, drip, drip. Like from a faucet that requires washer replacement. The word “leak” minimizes what some are calling a catastrophe in the Boston area.

Same with the use of the word “spill” in the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s place the responsibility not just on British Petroleum’s greed and our cavalier consumption of oil but on all politicians whose bodies are bathed in donations from Big Oil. This is an event of epic proportions, an ecological and financial catastrophe whose ramifications will unfold for decades, but it is not, as Texas Governor Rick Perry claims, an act of God.

Reports about the number of gallons gushing from the rig each day are conflicting. One account says a million but another doubles this. If there’s a “blowout,” 378 million gallons will spew. Or more, depending on which statement is accurate.

Four hundred species of animals are at risk.

Yes, we are scalp deep in catastrophes.

The AfPak-Iraq war, also is spewing—blood, tears, and immorality—while producing damaged DNA, destroyed lives, and environmental disaster.

Acknowledge, too, the criminal surges perpetrated by Israel’s Zionists, who with the unwavering support of the US government and the Zionists in our midst, continue their genocide of the Palestinian people.

The botched Times Square vehicle bomb could have been catastrophic. Simply put, this is retribution for our invasions and occupations. The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, is a US citizen of Pakistani descent. According to an article in the New York Post, Shahzad was living the American dream but went to Pakistan where he was eyewitness to our drone warfare. Perhaps, Shahzad had family and friends who were collateral damage when our aerial vehicles unleashed their vengeance on a “terrorist target” and killed 60 or 70 civilians. How many chickens will come home to roost before we GET this?

Times Square Terror: Drone Payback?
By Noah Shachtman | Wired

Faisal Shahzad tried to bomb Times Square as payback for American drone attacks in Pakistan.
That’s what the New York Post is reporting, at least. The tabloid, relying on anonymous “law-enforcement sources,” says that Shahzad was an “eyewitness” to the unmanned “onslaught throughout the eight months he spent in Pakistan beginning last summer.”

In a video made prior to the attack, the Pakistani Taliban leader Qari Hussain Mehsud said “the attack is a revenge” for “the recent rain of drone attacks,” and for the slaying of extremist leaders in Iraq and Pakistan.
There have been an estimated 121 American drone strikes in Pakistan since early 2008. Read more.

You know the financial failures. Here come the increased drone crimes, now to kill unknown people in Pakistan in -- get this -- "self defense":

Al Jazeera English:

US to Expand Pakistan Drone Strikes

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been granted approval by the US government to expand drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions in a move to step up military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, officials have said.

Federal lawyers backed the measures on grounds of self-defence to counter threats the fighters pose to US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan and the United States as a whole, according to authorities.

The US announced on Wednesday that targets will now include low-level combatants, even if their identities are not known.

Barack Obama, the US president, had previously said drone strikes were necessary to "take out high-level terrorist targets". . . .

Still unknown, but possibly Taliban was involved.

In which case, the brilliant thing to do would be to then escalate the war. That oughta help.

Also, suspect's house foreclosed on.

So let's not end the foreclosures. That would be too obvious!

Pakistani Taliban claim credit for failed NYC Times Square car bombing
By Bill Roggio | Long War Journal

Qari Hussain warned NATO that it must denounce the US and apologize for "the massacres in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistani tribal areas otherwise be prepared for the worst destruction and devastation in their regions."

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

All indications are the tape is legitimate. YouTube has pulled the video and shut down the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel since this article was published.

"This attack is a revenge for the great & valuable martyred leaders of mujahideen," Qari Hussain said. He listed Baitullah Mehsud, the former leader of the Pakistani Taliban who was killed in a Predator strike in August 2009, and Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the former leader of al Qaeda Islamic State of Iraq who was killed by Iraqi forces in mid-April. And although he was not mentioned, an image of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was also displayed in the images accompanying the audiotape. Read more.

Legal questions raised over CIA drone strikes
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer | Yahoo! News | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

Is the CIA's secret program of drone strikes against terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen a case of illegal assassinations or legitimate self defense?

That was a central question Wednesday as the program came under fire from several legal scholars who called for greater oversight by Congress, arguing the attacks may violate international law and put intelligence officers at risk of prosecution for murder in foreign countries.

Four law professors offered conflicting views, underscoring the murky legal nature of America's nine-year-old war against extremists. The conflict has spread from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a complex campaign against al-Qaida, the Taliban and other insurgents worldwide.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have defended the use of attacks from unmanned aircraft. But they have also tiptoed around the issue because the CIA program — which has escalated in Pakistan over the past year — is classified and has not yet been acknowledged publicly by the government.

The CIA strikes are "a clear violation of international law," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, who added that going after terrorists should be a law enforcement activity. Read more.

This event on Facebook

Fatal Math
By Missy Comley Beattie

On April 22, 1971, Viet Nam veteran John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Many of the statements made, then, are painfully pertinent to the situation in which we are criminally involved in AfPak-Iraq, today. Just substitute a few proper nouns and, there, you have it, the grim and undeniable truth.

For example, note these sentences from Kerry:

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We
saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very
coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American
soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

Omit “My Lai” and insert any number of atrocities committed during our current war of terror: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram; the deliberate killing of children; the rapes; and the execrable murder of civilians revealed recently by WikiLeaks. The latter crime is not an isolated incident.

By David Swanson

Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on Friday that he is working with Congressman Jim McGovern, a member of the Rules Committee, who has drafted a letter asking that the upcoming war supplemental be a clean vote not muddied by the inclusion of unrelated measures, such as aid to Haiti. I asked Kucinich if that request for a clean vote included a commitment by McGovern not to propose his own amendments, and Kucinich clearly did not know or did not want to speak for his colleague, but he expressed his own support for McGovern's exit timetable proposal. Kucinich said he expected the vote on $33 billion to escalate the war in Afghanistan to come up in the next two weeks.

Pakistan Airstrike Kills 71 Civilians: Official
by Riaz Khan and Zarar Khan | Common Dreams

Up to 71 civilians were killed in a weekend strike by Pakistani jets near the Afghan border, survivors and a government official said Tuesday — a rare confirmation of civilian casualties that risks undercutting public support for the fight against militants.

The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said authorities had already handed out the equivalent of $125,000 in compensation to families of the victims in a remote village in the Khyber tribal area.

Also Tuesday, a village elder claimed 13 civilians had been killed in U.S. missile strike on Monday night elsewhere in the northwest, contesting accounts by Pakistani security officials that four militants were killed.

Pakistan's tribal regions are largely out of bounds for reporters and dangerous to visit because of the likelihood of being abducted by militants, who still control much of the area, making it very difficult to verify casualty figures.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas on Monday denied that any of the dead in the Pakistani air force attack were civilians, saying the army had intelligence that militants were gathering at the site of the strike. The victims were initially reported to be suspected militants. The military regularly reports killing scores of militants in airstrikes in the northwest, but rarely says it is responsible for civilian deaths.
Read more.

Councilors approve anti-war resolution
By Casey Conley | Portland Daily Sun

City councilors have approved a resolution calling on Maine's U.S. Congressional delegation to oppose new funding for military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Unlike similar measures which have come before cities and towns in other part of the country, the resolution approved 7-1 Monday night didn't question war rationale or the justness of the campaigns themselves. Instead, the resolution argues that we no longer afford the wars given the fragile economy and deep budget cuts seen in communities across the state and the nation.

The nonbinding resolution was sponsored by Councilors John Anton, Dan Skolnik and Dory Waxman. Councilor John Coyne was the only councilor to oppose the measure.

Councilor Cheryl Leeman, who works for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, was not present for the vote.

In an interview Tuesday, Skolnik said he hoped the measure would increase consciousness "among four or five extremely influential people. And they are (Maine's Second District Congressman Mike) Michaud, Pingree, Snowe, Collins and (President Barack) Obama." Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales--should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.

These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.

Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes--including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.

AP INVESTIGATION: Cautionary tale from CIA prison

More than seven years ago, a suspected Afghan militant was brought to a dimly lit CIA compound northeast of the airport in Kabul. The CIA called it the Salt Pit. Inmates knew it as the dark prison.

Inside a chilly cell, the man was shackled and left half-naked. He was found dead, exposed to the cold, in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002.

The Salt Pit death was the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret prison network the CIA operated abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. The death had strong repercussions inside the CIA. It helped lead to a review that uncovered abuses in detention and interrogation procedures, and forced the agency to change those procedures.

Little has emerged about the Afghan's death, which the Justice Department is investigating. The Associated Press has learned the dead man's name, as well as new details about his capture in Pakistan and his Afghan imprisonment. Read more.

Drones Club Meets in San Diego
By Frank Green | Counter Punch

The manufacturers of drone airplanes, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are about to see their prospects soar as the Pentagon expands its vast arsenal.

At least that was the message at Tuesday's "Unmanned Aircraft Systems West" conference in San Diego, where advocates of the lethal composite birds dispassionately described how unpiloted planes directed via satellite will soon come to largely replace the human element on the killing fields.

Use of the so-called Predator and Reaper drones to fight the U.S.-spawned war in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan have rapidly escalated during the opening months of the Obama administration, with 51 reported strikes in Pakistan in 2009 alone - up from 45 during the previous eight years, according to a recent report by the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The foundation alleges in its "The Year of the Drone" account that more than 1,000 - or 32 per cent - of drone attack victims were civilians.

Tuesday's industry conference was held at the sprawling Sheraton Hotel on Harbor Island. A group of antiwar protesters picketed the event on a sidewalk near the facility's entrance. Read more.

Blackwater managers ran the CIA unit that allowed 9/11 hijackers into the US
By leveymg | Democratic Underground

Cofer Black was CIA Chief of Station in Khartoum in the mid-1990s at the time that bin Laden, Abu Zubaydeh, KSM and many of the other principal 9/11 plotters were running CIA-assisted paramilitary operations against the Russians from bases in Sudan. Black has admitted in Congressional testimony that he had met bin Laden there at the time. You can draw your own conclusions about whether Black was UBL's control officer, but it has to at least be considered as a possibility.

After the East Asia Embassy bombings in 1998, Black was brought in from the field by CIA Director George Tenet to head the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CIA/CTC), along with a Tenet protege Richard Blee, with Rob Richer as another Deputy. In late December 1999, the NSA picked up a communication from Nawaf al-Hazmi through an AQ communications center run by al-Hazmi's uncle in Yemen. That communique indicated that a summit meeting of al-Qaeda figures was being convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the first two weeks of January, 2000. The CIA/CTC had ten days to prepare, and started surveillance, including videotape, of that meeting. According to the 9/11 Commission, both the 9/11 Planes Operation and the USS Cole attacks were planned there. CIA Director Tenet was briefed about that meeting. In the second week of January, al-Hazmi and his partner Khalid al-Midhar departed Kuala Lumpur in the company of "Khalad" bin-Atash, who headed bin Laden's personal security detail in Sudan. Read more.

Update 2: Pakistan Arrests American Al Qaeda Member, Identity Not Confirmed
Pakistani Authorities Only Say They've Captured an American-born Member of al-Qaeda
By Martha Raddatz and Nick Schifrin | ABC News

A Taliban leader who goes by the name Abu Yahya, just like American-turned-al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, was picked up in Karachi in recent days, but that person is not Gadahn, a senior Pakistani government official told ABC News.

Reports of the capture of an American-born al-Qaeda member by Pakistani authorities gave rise to speculation over whether it was Gadahn, the 31-year-old California-born Muslim convert who has been wanted since 2004.

The official told ABC News the leader who was arrested was possibly Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam, said to be another American member of al Qaeda, but the Pakistanis have yet to make that identification positive, the official said. Read more.

Update 1: Report of American al Qaeda spokesman's arrest questioned | CNN

Conflicting reports emerged Sunday about whether Adam Gadahn, a U.S.-born spokesman for al Qaeda, has been arrested in Pakistan.

A senior Pakistani government official told CNN that Gadahn was arrested Sunday in Karachi, but a U.S. intelligence official said there appears to be no validity to reports of Gadahn's arrest. Other U.S. officials also said they have no indication that Gadahn has been captured.Read more.

Towards America’s Electronic, Troop-less Wars
Future U.S Wars will involve Massive Use of Drones
By Prof. Marc W. Herold | Global Research

Abstract.

Future U.S wars in the Third World will involve massive use of drones to police the territory, employ local satrap[1] forces (like those of Karzai’s Afghan Army) and once the territory has been pacified sufficiently, the deployment of “Government Ready-to-Rule (GRR)” kits. The drones provide the critical and the weak link: critical insofar as they represent the ultimate American-style war where only the “Others” (opponents and civilians) die but weak insofar as this type of warfare only works against an opponent without any anti-drone/aircraft capability. In other words, this type of technological warfare can only be carried out upon weak opponents lacking independent industrial capacities (not against China, Russia, and India). This approach represents the culmination of disconnecting the delivery of deadly force – the rain of Hellfire missiles - upon the Others and incurring no human (physical or psychological – PTSD) costs. Or put in other terms, it represents the quintessential American way of “solving” problems with technological short-cuts, a military effort begun in 1942 with the Allied fire-bombing of German cities.[2] The current American war in Afghanistan is a harbinger of what is to come, America’s electronic, troop-less war.

Prophetically the first victims in 2010 of Obama in his Afghan war were a teacher in a government school, Sadiq Noor, and his nine-year old son, Wajid as well as three other persons. Both were killed on Sunday night, January 3, 2010 in a U.S. drone strike involving two missiles fired into the home of Sadiq Noor in the village of Musaki, North Waziristan in Pakistan.[3] During January 2010, a record number of twelve deadly missile strikes were carried out on Pakistan’s tribal areas. Three Al-Qaeda leaders were killed and 123 innocent civilians.[4] During 2009, 44 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan killed 708 people but only five Al Qaeda or Taliban; that is for each enemy fighter 140 civilian Pakistanis had to die.[5]

Those who pull the gray trigger to fire are located in Nevada, Kandahar, or Pakistan.[6] As Philip Alston points out, “Young military personnel raised on a diet of video games now kill real people remotely using joysticks. Far removed from the human consequences of their actions, how will this generation of fighters value the right to life?”[7] In early 2010, the U.S. Air Force had more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.[8] Read more.

Drone attack 'kills four' in north-west Pakistan | BBC

Missiles fired by a suspected US drone aircraft have killed at least four militants in north-west Pakistan, security officials say.

They said that the attack targeted a militant compound in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Meanwhile, locals say two tribesmen accused of spying for the US have been killed by the Taliban in the same area.

North and South Waziristan are known sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and are often hit by drones.

There have been about more than a dozen such strikes this year alone.

Locals say the attacks have destroyed many training camps and compounds. They have also killed dozens of local and foreign militants, officials say. Read more.

by Marcy Winograd

Imagine if in 2010 we did not spend one more borrowed penny to manufacture new weapons, occupy new lands, or recruit new mercenaries. Going cold turkey on military spending would wipe out nearly $1 trillion of our 1.6 trillion dollar deficit. A year and a half of war & weapons abstinence could erase our debt entirely.

Unfortunately, America is addicted to war and to debt. Fortunately, we can work together to kick the perpetual war and debt habit.

Jailed Taliban Leader Still a Pakistani Asset
By Gareth Porter | IPS

WASHINGTON, Feb 18, 2010 (IPS) - Contrary to initial U.S. suggestions that it signals reduced Pakistani support for the Taliban, the detention of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the operational leader of the Afghan Taliban, represents a shift by Pakistan to more open support for the Taliban in preparation for a peace settlement and U.S. withdrawal.

Statements by Pakistani officials to journalists prior to the arrest indicate that the decision to put Baradar in custody is aimed at ensuring that the Taliban role in peace negotiations serves Pakistani interests. They also suggest that Pakistani military leaders view Baradar as an asset in those negotiations rather than an adversary to be removed from the conflict.

Pakistan has long viewed the military and political power of the Taliban as Pakistan's primary strategic asset in countering Indian influence in Afghanistan, which remains its main concern in the conflict.

The New York Times report that broke the story of Baradar's arrest Tuesday cited claims by unnamed U.S. officials that the Pakistanis "may finally have begun to distance themselves from the Taliban". But a Times story from Islamabad the following day revealed that the U.S. spin on the arrest had been highly misleading.

Wednesday's story quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying in an interview three weeks earlier that the United States had tried to prevent Pakistan from negotiating directly with the Taliban, even as the U.S. and Afghan government were approaching the insurgent leadership about peace talks.

"You cannot say that we are important allies and then you are negotiating with people whom we are hunting and you don't include us," said the official.

The story quoted the official as saying, "We are after Mullah Baradar. We strongly believe that the Americans are in touch with him, or people who are close to him."

That was a clear hint that Pakistan viewed the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's interest in capturing Baradar as being related to U.S. influence on peace negotiations.

Despite ostensibly close cooperation between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] Directorate, against Islamic militants in Pakistan, ISI officials are deeply distrustful of the CIA, as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid observed in an article in The New York Review of Books published this month. Read more.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Noel Shachtman from Wired's Danger Room: 3 G.I.s Killed in Pakistan. Now Can We Start Treating This Like a Real War? (Updated Once More)

Game Changer: China Plans to Open Military Bases Worldwide
by Pluto | Antimedius

This we know.

It has been speculated upon in open-source intelligence circles for years. So, there is little surprise for the rest of the world when it hears of China’s first major foray in its new role as a Superpower.

Although Americans might be surprised. That is, if they even hear about it before the Juarez, Mexico base goes live.

China mulls setting up military base in Pakistan

Well, why not?

China already pays for our military imperialism by loaning us the money to play soldier. So, why shouldn't the world's new Superpower just cut to the chase and open their own bases? Read more. Click "Read more" below to see the Economist magazine cover "How China Sees the World."

US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January
By Amir Mir | The International News

LAHORE: Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans.

The rapid increase in the US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that only two such strikes were carried out in January 2009, which killed 36 people. The highest number of drone attacks carried out in a single month in 2009 was six, which were conducted in December last year. But the dawn of the New Year has already seen a dozen such attacks.

The unprecedented rise in the predator strikes with the beginning of the year 2010 is being attributed to December 30, 2009 suicide bombing in the Khost area of Afghanistan bordering North Waziristan, which killed seven CIA agents. US officials later identified the bomber as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian national linked to both al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

In a subsequent posthumous video tape released by Al-Jazeera, Balawi claimed while sitting next to TTP Chief Commander Hakimullah Mehsud that he would blow himself up in the CIA base to avenge the killing of former TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack. The consequent increase in US strikes, first in North Waziristan and then South Waziristan, specifically targeting the fugitive TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud clearly shows that revenge is the major motive for these attacks. The US intelligence sleuths stationed in Afghanistan are convinced the Khost suicide attack was planned in Waziristan with the help of the TTP. Therefore, it is believed Afghanistan-based American drones will continue to hunt the most wanted al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, especially Hakimullah, with a view to avenge the loss of the seven CIA agents and to raise morale of its forces in Afghanistan. Read more.

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Movie Favorites from the Secretary of Defense
By Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com

To put just the president’s domestic cost-cutting plan in a Pentagon context: If his freeze on domestic programs were to go through Congress intact (an unlikely possibility), it would still be chicken-feed in the cost-cutting sweepstakes. The president’s team estimates savings of $250 billion over 10 years. On the other hand, the National Priorities Project has done some sober figuring, based on projections from the Office of Management and Budget, and finds that, over the same decade, the total increase in the Pentagon budget should come to $522 billion. (And keep in mind that that figure doesn’t include possible increases in the budgets of the Department of Homeland Security, non-military intelligence agencies, or even any future war-fighting supplemental funds appropriated by Congress.) That $250 billion in cuts, then, would be but a small brake on the guaranteed further rise of national-security spending. American life, in other words, is being sacrificed to the very infrastructure meant to provide this country’s citizens with “safety.” That’s what seven days in January really means.

Sometimes it pays to read a news story to the last paragraph where a reporter can slip in that little gem for the news jockeys, or maybe just for the hell of it. You know, the irresistible bit that doesn’t fit comfortably into the larger news frame, but that can be packed away in the place most of your readers will never get near, where your editor is likely to give you a free pass.

So it was, undoubtedly, with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, who accompanied Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as he stumbled through a challenge-filled, error-prone two-day trip to Pakistan. Gates must have felt a little like a punching bag by the time he boarded his plane for home having, as Juan Cole pointed out, managed to signal “that the U.S. is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated...and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it. In baseball terms, Gates struck out.” Read more.

Tom writes: There is no evidence that the drones are breaking the back of either the Taliban (Afghan or Pakistani) or al-Qaeda in our distant wars, but plenty of evidence that they are helping to destabilize Pakistan and create intense anti-American feelings there.  Now, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicated on arriving in Pakistan last week, we are thinking of giving the Pakistanis their own unarmed surveillance drones, while from Iran to China, Israel to Russia, powers everywhere are rushing to enter the age of 24/7 robotic assassination along with, or just behind, us.  You might think that this would give the Pentagon pause, but a prospective arms race just gets the blood there boiling, and when it comes to Terminator-style war, as Nick Turse indicates below, the U.S. Air Force has plans.  Boy, does it ever!  Tom 

The Drone Surge: Today, Tomorrow, and 2047
ByNick Turse | TomDispatch.com

One moment there was the hum of a motor in the sky above.  The next, on a recent morning in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a missile blasted a home, killing 13 people.  Days later, the same increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in Degan village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three.What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration.  And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace.  In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes -- which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike -- have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times. 

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway.  And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review -- a soon-to-be-released four-year outline of Department of Defense strategies, capabilities, and priorities to fight current wars and counter future threats -- is already known to reflect this focus.  As the Washington Post recently reported, “The pilotless drones used for surveillance and attack missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a priority, with the goals of speeding up the purchase of new Reaper drones and expanding Predator and Reaper drone flights through 2013.”
The MQ-1 Predator -- first used in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s -- and its newer, larger, and more deadly cousin, the MQ-9 Reaper, are now firing missiles and dropping bombs at an unprecedented pace.  In 2008, there were reportedly between 27 and 36 U.S. drone attacks as part of the CIA’s covert war in Pakistan.  In 2009, there were 45 to 53 such strikes.  In the first 18 days of January 2010, there had already been 11 of them. Read more.

Gates Confirms Blackwater, DynCorp in Pakistan

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has confirmed the private military firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Gates made the admission in an interview with the Pakistani network Express TV.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Because they are theaters of war involving the United States, there are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

Gates also announced the US will provide a dozen spy drones to Pakistan for the first time. The news coincides with Pakistan’s announcement it won’t launch any assaults against militants in North Waziristan for at least six months.

PUTTING MARTIN LUTHER KING’S WORDS INTO ACTION | Press Release

PDA is launching a venture called Brown Bag Lunch Vigils (BBLVs), an outgrowth of its "Healthcare NOT Warfare" campaign, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. to raise awareness among the public and our elected officials that the electorate is not being served by current U.S. policies." Dr. King's vision of social justice required him to take a stand that was enormously controversial even among his supporters: resolute opposition to the Vietnam war, which he understood guaranteed that money would not be available to undertake making the promise of real equal opportunity an actuality.

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has made the same link between our misbegotten military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which aren't enhancing but are undermining our national security and at the same time draining funds from the economy which are desperately needed for crucial elements of the progressive agenda.

The BBLV campaign is calling on [PDA] members, and like-minded individuals and organizations, to gather on the third Wednesday of every month in front of--and in--congressional offices in districts across the country. We’re asking you to spend your lunch hour exercising your First Amendment Rights by holding vigils, rallies, meetings with aides and representatives, pickets, and demonstrations that will serve to educate our elected officials, the public, and the press about the human and financial costs of war and militarism.

Specifically, PDA and our allies call on President Obama and Congress to support HR 2404, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan; HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan, and to establish improved and expanded Medicare for All to residents of the United States. We cannot let them forget that we are watching and waiting for the next election.

Colorful vigils and pickets are already planned in more than 20 congressional districts, including the following: AZ-3, AZ-5, CA-6, CA-22, CA-23, CA-48, FL-10, FL-17, MA-2, MI-9, OH-13, OH-17, PA-7, WA-2, WA-6, WI-3, WI-7. More details are available about each location online.