With the capture of the Taliban's #2 leader Mullah Baradar, the Imperial War Machine is really humming along. The media are in a tizzy over this one.
Vice President Joe Biden sometimes speaks in hyperbole, but the evidence suggests he basically had it right when he crowed on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday: "There has never been as much emphasis and resources brought against al-Qaeda. The success rate exceeds anything that occurred in the last administration."
The latest achievement in this counter-terror campaign was the capture in late January of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 official of the Afghan Taliban. The raid in Karachi was conducted jointly by the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, both of which kept the lid on the operation for more than two weeks, until it was disclosed Monday by the New York Times [who were asked by the military to keep the lid on the story for a few weeks]
Joe Biden is ecstatic that the Obama administration is killing far more terrorists in Afghanistan than those Bush klutzes ever did. Or so he thinks. Or so he tells you. As you may know, the United States has considerably upped its use of predator drones to kill al-Qaeda terrorists.
These raids have ravaged the top tier of al-Qaeda's lieutenants. The victims include Saleh al-Somali, the chief of external operations, who was killed Dec. 8; Abdullah Said al-Libi, the chief of operations in Pakistan, who was killed Dec. 17; and Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was killed in August.
All told, according to U.S. officials, since the beginning of 2009, the drone attacks have killed "several hundred" named militants from al-Qaeda and its allies, more than in all previous years combined. The drones have also shattered the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, which has been waging a terror campaign across that country.
If you read the Pakistani press, which is not high on Joe Biden's reading list, you will find out stuff like this—
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.
But hold on, it gets worse. Turning once again to Asia, we get this from the Asian Times published last year on June 17, 2009—
WASHINGTON - The United States Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned Predator drones in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region, combined with recent revelations that CIA operatives have been paying Pakistanis to identify the targets, suggests that managers of the drone attack programs have been using the total secrecy surrounding the program to hide abuses and high civilian casualties.
Intelligence analysts have been unable to obtain either the list of military targets of the drone strikes or the actual results in terms of al-Qaeda or civilians killed...
Since early 2009, Barack Obama administration officials have claimed that the predator attacks in Pakistan have killed nine of the 20 top al-Qaeda officials, but they have refused to disclose how many civilians have been killed in the strikes.
In April, Lahore newspaper The News [quoted above] published figures provided by Pakistani officials indicating that 687 civilians have been killed along with 14 al-Qaeda leaders in some 60 drone strikes since January 2008 - just over 50 civilians killed for every al-Qaeda leader.
It's hard to authenticate terrorist targets if you're bribing people to identify them. Read this Asian Times story for details on how Pay To Betray really works. This method of locating and killing terrorists is "intrinsically problematic" according to Nathaniel Fick of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). No kidding.
What is needed is "a strict definition of the target set" and "a definition of who is al-Qaeda", said Fick.
Press reports that the CIA is paying Pakistani agents to identify al-Qaeda targets by placing electronic chips at farmhouses supposedly inhabited by al-Qaeda officials so they can be bombed by predator planes has raised new questions about whether the CIA and the Obama administration have simply redefined al-Qaeda in order to cover up an abusive system and justify the program...[A] knowledgeable Washington source told IPS [that a] Guardian article was consistent with past CIA intelligence-gathering methods in Afghanistan and elsewhere. "We buy data," he said. "Everything is paid for."
Drone Damage — Maybe somebody simply had a grudge against the people in this village
You might also want to take a look at Death From Above, Outrage Down Below written by Fick along with David Kilcullen, and Andrew MacDonald Exum, both of whom are also with the security think-tank CNAS, in the May 16, 2009 New York Times op-ed section.
Allow me to conclude this tragic Imperial Farce by asking a simple question: what the hell are we still doing in Afghanistan? We've been there for over eight years! For every al-Qaeda terrorist we slay, we kill 50 civilians according to Pakistani officials. Aren't we after Osama bin Laden? Isn't that the most important thing we're supposed to be doing there? He was the ultimate force behind 9/11, right?
Osama bin Laden doesn't matter any more according to the Christian Science Monitor's After Taliban Baradar arrest, does Bin Laden matter?
The irony of Mr. Baradar's capture is that from an operational standpoint, he is far more important to America's enemies inside Afghanistan than Mr. Bin Laden is today – something that made his capture easier, since Baradar's ongoing involvement in planning operations against US troops left him more exposed to detection. Bin Laden, by contrast, is a powerful symbol for Al Qaeda and its self-styled global jihad, but from an operational standpoint he's a marginal figure inside Afghanistan. And globally, his dream of attracting legions of young Muslim men to his battle flag has fallen flat.
Huh? I've got some questions. Remind me again—what are we fighting for? Who are America's enemies? Do you mean to tell me that we're in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban now? Supporting the Tajiks at the expense of the Pushtuns? (as Selig Harrison explains). How the hell did we get caught up in Afghanistan's Tribal Rivalries? And Pakistan's divisive political interests in the region?
You've gotta watch this CBS video. South Asia's politics are an unholy mess, always have been. And we're up to our necks in this crap. The arcane explanations & speculations offered in this "official media" video are simply astonishing. It is really quite unbelievable what we've got ourselves involved in.
The U.S. scores what could be an important victory in the war against the Taliban ... winning hearts & minds
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Great post Dave! I didn't think that you were old enough to remember Country Joe and the Fish.
Posted by: John Hemington | 02/17/2010 at 07:42 PM