Brian Williams - Predators

Then there is the problem of population displacement that comes from full-scale antiterrorist operations carried out by the Pakistani military as an alternative to pinpoint drone strikes. As the Taliban execute civilians, terrorize populations, burn schools, enforce shariah law contrary to Pakistani laws, dispatch suicide bombers to kill and maim, and attack Pakistani police and military in their jihad against the Pakistani state, the Pakistani army has to respond. The Pakistani army’s resulting clumsy operations against the Taliban in Swat, Bajaur, South Waziristan, and elsewhere have destroyed houses and whole communities with artillery and aerial bombardments. This has forced millions of Pakistanis to flee these zones for their lives. According to John Schmidt, author of The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad , Pakistani military operations against the Taliban in the appropriately named Operation Earthquake in South Waziristan led to the destruction of four thousand homes and the displacement of 200,000 people. Another five thousand homes were destroyed in military operations in Bajaur that displaced 300,000 people. A further 3 million Pakistanis were made refugees by Pakistani military operations in the Swat Valley. 59A Pakistani author from the FATA region summed up the benefits of the drones compared to these full-scale Pakistani army and air force operations:

The people feel comfortable with the drones because of their precision and targeted strikes. People usually appreciate drone attacks when they compare it with the Pakistan Army’s attacks, which always result in collateral damage. Especially the people of Waziristan have been terrified by the use of long-range artillery and air strikes of the Pakistan Army and Air Force. People complain that not a single TTP or al Qaeda member has been killed so far by the Pakistan Army, whereas a lot of collateral damage has taken place. Thousands of houses have been destroyed and hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed by the Pakistan Army.

On the other hand, drone attacks have never targeted the civilian population except, they informed, in one case when the funeral procession of Khwazh Wali, a TTP commander, was hit. 60

A survey among Pashtuns from the region found that in contrast to Pakistani army operations, “the drone attacks cause a minimum loss of innocent civilians and their property. The respondents appreciated the precision of such attacks.” 61The BBC similarly reported, “Zahid, from Wana, in South Waziristan, said: ‘I think the drone strikes are good: they target the right people, the terrorists.’ Bahar Wazir, from Shawal, North Waziristan, said: ‘I prefer the drone attacks to army ground operations, because in the operations we get killed and the [Pakistani] army doesn’t respect the honour of our men or women.’” 62Another Pashtun said, “I have heard people particularly appreciating the precision of drone strikes. People say that when a drone would hover over the skies, they wouldn’t be disturbed and would carry on their usual business because they would be sure that it does not target the civilians, but the same people would run for shelter when a Pakistani jet would appear in the skies because of its indiscriminate firing.” 63

An article for the Pakistani Daily Times titled “In Favor of Drone Attacks” reported, “According to the Aryana Institute of [ sic ] Regional Research and Advocacy, 80 percent of tribals think that drones hit exact targets as pointed out on the basis of authentic information. They compare this with military operations that prove more destructive. In military operations, hundreds of homes are demolished, people are compelled to flee and civilian casualties become a natural thing. They also provide the Taliban with anti-army sentiment.” 64

Another interview with Pashtuns from the FATA found,

The reasons why people living in the tribal areas might support drone strikes are rarely heard on Pakistani television. But Safi says they include both dislike of militants and fear of what alternative countert-error strategies entail….

All the [Pakistani army] ground operations have caused massive population displacements as people fled the conflict areas. Many refugees said they not only feared being caught in the crossfire but also becoming targets of retribution killings by either militants or troops as territory changed hands…. Safi says that he and many others in the tribal areas regard the drones as accurate and much less likely to kill civilians than is ground fighting. 65

A Pashtun from the region writing for the Daily Times supported the drone strikes: “What is clear enough is that the drone strikes, however unpopular they may be, are likely to be more popular than the realistic alternatives: the Taliban’s violence or the Pakistani army’s operations, which have displaced millions.” 66

As for the Pakistani leadership, they reportedly appreciate the drone strikes, for they save them the Pakistani soldiers’ lives that would surely be lost in fighting against the well-armed militants. 67This is of paramount importance to the Pakistanis, who have lost more soldiers fighting the Taliban than the U.S.-led coalition has lost in Afghanistan. The United States has pressured the Pakistani government to invade North Waziristan (the focus of most drone strikes) to fight the Haqqani Network, but the Pakistanis are already stretched thin from fighting in South Waziristan, Swat Valley, and Bajaur. The drone campaign provides pinpoint killing of terrorists in North Waziristan and saves the Pakistanis from having to launch a full-scale, bloody invasion of this territory, which they consider to be controlled by “good Taliban” (i.e., Taliban fighters who are not at war with the Pakistani state). For that the region’s inhabitants are undoubtedly grateful.

DRONES DON’T VIOLATE PAKISTANI SOVEREIGNTY; AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN DO

In October 2011 Pakistani writer Sayeda Asrar Bukhari summed up the feelings of many Pakistanis when he wrote, “Every time America launches a drone attack on our soil, it violates our sovereignty. By using its fight against terrorism as an excuse, America has killed thousands of our innocent citizens in the tribal areas.” 68Many average Pakistanis similarly speak in almost reflexive fashion about drones violating their sovereignty. But, as has been demonstrated in the previous chapters, both their elected leaders (Musharraf, Zardari, and Gilani) and their military leaders have actively supported the drone campaign—so much so that they have allowed the CIA to run drone strikes on the Taliban and al Qaeda from the Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan. If the United States is, or was, allowed to operate on Pakistani soil with Pakistani troops guarding the drone base at Shamsi, their operations cannot be termed a violation of sovereignty. The same certainly cannot be said for al Qaeda or the Taliban, which have openly declared a bloody war on Pakistan and have carved off much of the tribal lands from that state.

Yet many Pakistanis seem to be in a state of denial; they do not want to recognize that the Taliban or foreign al Qaeda fighters are a threat to their nation’s ability to rule its own territory. They see Taliban militants as misunderstood fellow Pakistani Muslims who have been scapegoated by the “imperialist American infidels.” They believe that the drones, not the terrorists, cause the terrorism. The truth, however, is that terrorism and militancy in Pakistan long predated the drone war of 2008. As the 2007 Lal Masjid incident, in which militants tried to take the capital hostage and enforce strict shariah law nationally, clearly demonstrated, the Taliban are very much the enemy of the Pakistani state. More than anything else, the bloody Lal Masjid episode drove the Pakistani Taliban to break its temporary and advantageous “truce” with the Pakistani government and declare a secessionist-terrorist jihad against it. Since then the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies have commenced a suicide bombing war/insurgency on Pakistan that has led to thousands of deaths and have conquered territory within a hundred miles of the Pakistani capital. The Taliban have also enforced its will in places as far away as relatively cosmopolitan Lahore, in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab, where they forced vendors to burn DVDs and music and demanded the closure of an ancient red light district. These terrorist efforts have nothing to do with the drones or the CIA.