It is in a typically shameful lapdog journalism fashion, teasing “nuance” out of secret killings that undermine the rule of law, that the author justifies drone killings with all of the most shopworn pretenses. “There is no moral high ground”… setting up and then demolishing false moral equivalencies that nobody claims between our actions and the Taliban, and finally the Kafka-esque flourish that those who wish to protect innocent civilians from unjustified acts of war are “blaming the victims.”

The most egregious example of journalistic malpractice however, was the suggestion throughout that we must err to the side of caution rather than skepticism in evaluating our own governments claims regarding their secret drone strikes. This doesn’t mean accepting foreign governments’ claims uncritically either, but acknowledging that the truth of these matters will never be understood without an unflinchingly honest examination of the situation. But perhaps the most offensive thing about the tone of the article, and which clearly shows that you have abandoned that perspective in favor of advocating for the powerful, is your suggestion that the plight of innocent civilians is not the central issue in this campaign.

Your counterpoint is that Pakistan does much to encourage the problem in FATA and little to aid us, so therefore, we must use drones which will then be used against us to fuel anti-American sentiment which we are obliged to go around the world to fight, because Pakistan is encouraging this problem. This is circular reasoning of the most absurd kind.

let us start from the beginning. There is no such thing as FATA, the Pashtun land in the tribal territories is anautonomous region on both sides of the so called Durand line, a markation on the sand, in this case along the mountains and is not recognised todate by Afghanistan.

Pakista Govt. maintains a liasion officer, called the political agent for the purpose of contacts with the tribal chiefs who have allowed the road constructions by the Brits against a tribute which Pakistan Govt is now obliged to pay. Whereas, on the other side in afghanistan the Pashtuns are fully independent and are not subject to military conscription as the non Pashtuns are. Despite this the Pashtuns determine the head of the Govt in Kabul who is reagrde as the liasion officer fro maintaining contacts wih the outside world.

Nw look at the situation anew and give us your opinion about the differnce between the pilotless drones of today and the motorised low speed double wing aircrafts with the speed of 100km an hour which the Brits operated during colonal days. Th Pashtuns scurity system cannot be penetrated because one must speak the language and the dilect of the tribe to gain entry into the area.

No one has ever won a war in history without foot prints. No foreign power has therefore been able to intrude or deafet these people including the mlitary of Pakistan who are regarded as foreigners.

Rex Minor

Contrast the PA in the Tribal Areas and the Turkish Army near the Syrian border and its dealings with the PKK. One is effective and relentless, the other fails out of habit.

fear based rule can be imposed directly through visceral murders and gruesome punishments as well can it be fomented from reactive and distant compassion’s. it is a flippant desire for many with a heavy hand to dispense with measure, even in times of peace.

it is clearly, ‘not so clear’, the designs of humanity upon each other, either from aggressor or defender.

The same child of FATA who resists against Taliban rule can be killed by a drone, how is that justice? Drones don’t discriminate between those who resist and support the Taliban, because all military-aged men in FATA are “militants” according to US precedent.

If drones were as effective as the author suggests they could be, then we would see remarkable returns from Obama’s immense investment into the tactic. Just as the US enabled the training and development for militants that would eventually become the Taliban, this too is a failed policy initiative.

The Pakistani government should be condemned for their active and passive complicity to the oppressive rule of the Taliban in FATA, but to pretend that the US is interested in “liberating” the people of the region is a convenient fallacy undermined by every failed intervention in the name of “democracy” America has led from Baghdad to Kabul.

CODE PINK never seems to criticize the Taliban and I’ve seen personally how they mishandle data given to them by local activists.

You’re absolutely right that drone critics just white out the “many more deaths of civilians as a result of Pakistan army operations in FATA or Taliban violence.”

Even so, the campaigners against drones raise certain moral issues acutely, and certain issues need answers.

We won’t get better reporting on drones as long as the missions are run by the CIA and therefore kept classified. Now, with the infiltration of the Pakistani intelligence, maybe this is warranted, but we don’t even have a situation where relatives of those killed or persons wounded who weren’t combatants, like children, can’t get compensation precisely because the program *is* secret. Given that the US does compensate civilians killed in Afghanistan in the war, this should be fixed somehow, creating some kind of commission, and this would enable us to look at the cases and see the dimensions of the claims of collateral damage.

I’m not certain I buy some of your heavy anthropological takes on this situation, i.e. about the nature of this or that people and their degree or provenance of militancy, it could come from clientalism of a different type.