OBAMA'S NEW FOREIGN POLICY?

IHT 2009/01/23

ISLAMABAD: Two missile attacks launched from unmanned American aircraft killed at least 15 people in western Pakistan on Friday, suggesting that the strategy of using drones to kill militants inside Pakistan's own borders would continue under President Barack Obama.

According to President Obama's recent inaugural statements he wants America to lead the world by example "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." ..."And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

"Recall that earlier generations... understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

Is this just rhetoric and nothing has changed?

Under President Bush ramped up attacks on Taliban near the end of his tenure, remotely piloted Predator drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have carried out more than 30 missile attacks since last summer against Al Qaeda members and other suspected terrorists deep in their redoubts on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan.
But the attacks have also killed civilians, enraging Pakistanis and making it more difficult for the country's shaky government to win support for its own military operations against Taliban guerrillas in the country's lawless border region.

A most grievous mistake occurred in November (5) 2008 when a CIA drone hit a wedding party compound killing more than ninety Afghan civilians.

"The Tuesday wedding ceremony came under US-led forces’ aerial bombardment in Wocha Bakhta village some 80 km (50 miles) north of the southern city of Kandahar in Kandahar province. American sources (See my blog below) at first claimed there were 30 insurgetns killed. However it became clear that the American story was just that. There had been no return fire...in fact there were no evidences of allied forces on the ground. The drone fired at a wedding party...killing nearly one hundred civilians. The worst part of the story was that these individuals happened to be allies and their families who had worked for a near-by British camp. Few news reports of this story were made in the US papers.

Even as the CIA continues its strikes just inside Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Obama and his top national security aides are likely to review in the coming days other counter terrorism measures put in place by the Bush administration, American officials said.

These include orders that President George W. Bush secretly approved in July that for the first time allowed American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government.
Is this the new way? Has President Obama and his vaunted foreign policy team thought this out clearly?

Both of Friday's missile attacks hit Waziristan, a remote and mountainous region completely controlled by the Taliban. It is part of Pakistan's semi autonomous federally administered tribal areas along the Afghan border.

The first struck a village known as Mir Ali in North Waziristan late in the afternoon. Pakistani government officials issued a statement saying the attack destroyed the house of a man identified as Khalil Dawar and killed eight people. The statement said that militants surrounded the area and retrieved the bodies. But a senior Pakistani security official said that four of those killed were Arabs. Pakistani intelligence officials often take the presence of foreign fighters as indications of Al Qaeda. But there were no formal identification of the men or their nationalities..if they indeed were foreigners.

In the second attack, missiles struck a house near the village of Wana in South Waziristan, killing seven people, according to local accounts and Pakistani news reports. The reports said three of the dead were children.

American officials believe the drone strikes have killed a number of suspected militants along the frontier since last year, including a senior Qaeda operative who was killed Jan. 1 and was believed to have been involved in the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad four months ago.
But the accompanying civilian toll has helped spur a fury among Pakistanis. One senior Pakistani official estimated that the attacks may have killed as many as 220 individuals many of them women and children.

American and Pakistani officials are known to share some intelligence about militants, but it remains unclear whether Pakistani officials have in any way acquiesced to the drone strikes or helped provide any intelligence for them while maintaining opposition in public. Openly supporting the attacks would be untenable for a government already straining against the popular perception that it is too close to the American government.

The chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, Major General Athar Abbas, told CNN in an interview broadcast on Friday that the drone attacks were counterproductive and had made it harder for Pakistani troops to operate in regions where they are battling Taliban militants.
"We face much more difficulty as a result of drone strikes," Abbas said.

While the military is trying to "wean away the tribe at large from the militant component of the tribe," he said, the drone strikes "diminishes the line which divides the militant component and the tribe at large." Other sources indicate that Islamabad is facing angry demonstrations against the US for their violations of Pakistan sovereignty and which affects equally innocent civilians.
Since last August, the US has hit more than 30 sites in Pakistan, while in the most part they did not bother to identify the missile shots: at least 263 persons have been killed, for the most part these have been considered insurgents, but there has been little or no proof of this. On the other hand there are many witnesses who attest to the fact that many innocent civilians have been killed.

In a recent article entitled: "The Wrong man..", Scott Ritter(http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/24-0) quotes veteran British military experts who flatly state that there are no military solutions in Afghanistan-- only political ones. In the end, rather than killing Taliban as these drone attacks are designed for we will have to eventually begin a dialog with this group. The British experts add, the Taliban are part of a solution in Afghanistan.

At least 132 people have been killed in 38 suspected U.S. missile strikes inside Pakistan since August, all conducted by the CIA, in a ramped-up effort by the outgoing Bush administration.
It remained unclear yesterday whether Obama personally authorized the strike or was involved in its final planning, but military officials have previously said the White House is routinely briefed about such attacks in advance.

Further facts on this story...as they became available.

A claim by US forces in Afghanistan that they killed 15 Taliban fighters in the eastern province of Laghman, in Wasiristan has been disputed by village elders.

A US statement said on Saturday that soldiers killed the fighters after coming under fire from opposition fighters. This is a common refrain from the CIA who does not field foot soldiers. In the Nov 5 2008 attack in Afghanistan which left more than 90 dead they also claimed that they were responding to an attack by the insurgents as they approached the compound...however their story fell apart when it was revealed that it was a marriage celebration.

But in this case the elders say they swear on the Quran all those who died were civilians.
"The operation in Mehtar Lam District, approximately 60km northeast of Kabul City, targeted a Taliban commander believed to conduct terrorist activities throughout the Kabul, Laghman and Kapisa provinces," a US military statement said.

"As coalition forces approached the wanted militant's compound, several groups of armed militants exited their homes and began maneuvering on the force."

Nine fighters were killed by small-arms fire and four killed by "precision close-air support", the statement said, adding that two other fighters were killed during a subsequent search of the houses in the compound.

One of the attackers killed in the initial fight was later identified as female, the US military statement said. village witnesses claim there were several children and women killed.
But Abdul Rahmzai, head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders had told him in the hours after the raid that those killed were civilians.

For an update on this blog: See Sunday Jan 25 piece in Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090125/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan