"Deal to kill Pakistan enemy was start of CIA drone war; Mission opened access to airspace" by Mark Mazzetti | New York Times, April 07, 2013
NEW YORK — Nek Muhammad knew he was being followed.
On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains.
Don't these guys ever learn to stay off the phone?
He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.
Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound.
Compound is the Zionist War Media's way of saying mud hut.
That was a lie.
Boy, is that chutzpah or what!
Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the CIA, the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a ‘‘targeted killing.’’ The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state.
In a secret deal, the CIA had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.
Related: Predator Drone Strikes: 50 Civilians Are Killed For Every 1 Terrorist, and the CIA Only Wants to Up Drone Warfare
That back-room bargain, described in detail for the first time in interviews with more than a dozen officials in Pakistan and the United States, is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate.
(Once again, blog editor's head slumps to chest. It's why you are not getting a lot of commentary or other things. It's just over. After Boston, it's all over)
The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the CIA to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization.
The CIA has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants, and civilians alike.
And they are all innocent because that cock-and-bull story the Jewish/CIA intelligence operation sold you was a complete and utter fiction. Turns out Muslims didn't do 9/11; Israel and her helpers in various western governments and intelligence agencies did.
While it was not the first country where the United States used drones, it became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war.
We are way, way, worse than the received propaganda about the Nazi blitzkriegs. Obama is evil.
Neither American nor Pakistani officials have ever publicly acknowledged what really happened to Muhammad.
And not just about that.
Btw, if so, why would we ever believe anything that government say publicly? I mean, I don't so it's no big deal, but.... you know.
But in recent months, calls for transparency from members of Congress and critics on both the right and left have put pressure on Obama and his new CIA director, John O. Brennan, to offer a fuller explanation of the goals and operation of the drone program, and of the agency’s role.
Related: Backtracking on Brennan
I'd rather not unless it's a recall.
Brennan, who began his career at the CIA and over the past four years oversaw an escalation of drone strikes from his office at the White House, has signaled that he hopes to return the agency to its traditional role of intelligence collection and analysis. But with a generation of CIA officers now fully engaged in a new mission, it is an effort that could take years.
What goes unmentioned is his integral role in torture.
Today, even some of the people who were present at the creation of the drone program think the agency should give up targeted killings because they have turned the CIA into a villian in countries where it is trying to gather information.
Aaaaaww, the poow CIA!
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That is such great reporting, huh?
Related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Really, what more is there to say?
I'll bet the Koch brothers can save them.
Who will save the innocent Pakistani men, women, and children?
"UN says drones violate Pakistan’s sovereignty" Associated Press, March 16, 2013
ISLAMABAD — The head of a UN team investigating casualties from US drone strikes in Pakistan declared after a secret research trip to the country that the attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said the Pakistani government made clear to him that it does not consent to the strikes — a position that has been disputed by US officials.
Oh, no, no, no, Pakistan is all in! I know because my Newspaper told me so!
President Obama has stepped up covert CIA drone strikes targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal region along the Afghan border since he took office in 2009.
Hey, look, another mass-murdering, war criminal president.
The strikes have caused growing controversy because of the secrecy surrounding them and claims that they have caused significant civilian casualties — allegations denied by the United States.
My government has been hanging around with Israelis for waaaaaayyy too long.
According to a UN statement, the Pakistani government told Emmerson it has confirmed at least 400 civilian deaths by US drones on its territory.
That's what, 397 more than Boston?
The statement was initially released on Thursday, following the investigator’s three-day visit to Pakistan, which ended Wednesday. The visit was kept secret until Emmerson left.
Imtiaz Gul, an expert on Pakistani militancy who is helping Emmerson’s team, said Friday that the organization he runs, the Centre for Research and Security Studies, gave the UN investigator during his visit case studies on 25 strikes that allegedly killed around 200 civilians.
The UN investigation into civilian casualties from drone strikes and other targeted killings in Pakistan and several other countries was launched in January and is expected to deliver its conclusions in October. The United States rarely discusses the strikes in public because of their covert nature. But a few senior officials, including CIA chief John Brennan, have publicly defended the strikes, saying precision weapons help avoid significant civilian casualties.
Obviously not, f***er.
And this precision bullshit we have been hearing from war-mongers and their promoters goes back to the turn of the 20th century. How disgusting.
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