Why I'm Going to Pakistan: Under Scrutiny, the Drone Strike Policy Will Fall

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/29-0

It's Official Dogma in political Washington right now that you can't touch the Pakistan drone strike policy. "Wasting bad guys for free" is too popular, the story says; besides, Democrats have to have some military killing of foreigners that they're for, to give them political cover for the military killing of foreigners that they're against. Most Democrats want to get U.S. troops the hell out of Afghanistan (outside of Official Washington, most Republicans agree.) But, the story goes, these Democrats have to have an "alternative," and the "alternative" is drone strikes.

As a political matter, this story is true as far as it goes: it's true because people believe it to be true. But in order for this political story to continue to work, drone strikes have to continue to be a black box, about which you can claim "success," regardless of whether it is true. If people have to confront the actual reality of the Pakistan drone strike policy - the reality in which its impact is mostly about killing and terrorizing civilians and alienating Pakistani public opinion from the United States as opposed to the fairy tale in which it is all about wasting top-level "bad guys" - the political story will fall apart. A policy that does more harm than good isn't an alternative to anything.

Recall that in 2006-8 there was very little Democratic opposition to the war in Afghanistan. It was the "good war" and the "right war," unlike Iraq, which was the "bad war" and the "wrong war." If you pressed Democrats on why they were cheerleaders for the war in Afghanistan while they slammed the war in Iraq, some would say what amounted to: "well, we have to be for some war."

Today the situation is totally reversed on Afghanistan: Democrats overwhelmingly want to get out. What changed? Did the war change? Was the war in Afghanistan from 2009-12 fundamentally different from the war in Afghanistan from 2006-8? Or was it more that the perception of the war in Afghanistan changed, as the drawdown of troops in Iraq and the escalation of troops in Afghanistan brought the Afghan war under greater public scrutiny, so that it couldn't be a black box anymore, about which you could claim "success," regardless of whether it was true?

[Vincardog]

1. What changed? They smoked OBL.

[bemildred]

2. It's a stupid policy, pure domestic political theater, while antagonizing the locals.

There is zero chance it will have a positive effect, now or ever.

[cpwm17]

3. There's a moral question that has been asked in surveys:

Would you let die an anonymous person on the other side of the world for a significant amount of money? In one survey I saw, a large minority of people admitted that they would. Ones honest answer to this question does a great job of telling if you are really a decent human being.

It appears that a large percentage of US politicians answer yes, and they take a more active role in the murders than in the survey question. They do it for selfish political gain.

In my lifetime, there's no country that can equal the US in the support of terrorism and brutal world leaders that destroy lives.