drone

The Obama administration is frustrated with the Pakistani government's inability to quell the Taliban. Who are the US to be frustrated? The answer to the frustration's apparently a stepping up of the pilotless drone campaign. The term CIA drone campaign has embedded itself in the coverage. You know the one -- this last month's been the heaviest for attacks -- and civilian deaths -- from drones. It's the war we haven't declared and only have tacit Pakistani approval to be waging.

The media face of the war in Afghanistan is a woman's face--one particular mutilated woman, in the case of Time. Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women's Mission notes, though, that this is a clear strategy from those who benefit from the war to win over European and American audiences. Meanwhile, Afghan women who oppose occupation, like former GRITtv guest Malalai Joya, are silenced in the media just as they are silenced in Afghan politics. Sonali joins guest host Esther Armah to talk about the media obsessions in Afghanistan--and why almost no attention is being paid to Pakistan which is still facing U.S. drone strikes and repercussions from heavy flooding. As Sonali Kolhatkar pointed out, "progress" in Afghanistan is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. While the vast majority of the American people believes that the war will end badly, General Petraeus is now repeating the same lines we've heard before, on Iraq and Afghanistan--things are going better, we can win this war.

"The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan." So began a Feb 4th piece by Jane Perlez in the New York Times. But even all these days on, it's been a very discreet unveiling. Lest we forget, US servicepeople are not supposed to be dying in Pakistan. It's not Iraq, it's not Afghanistan. There's no agreement for combat troops to operate. Until recently, U.S. officials have repeatedly officially denied having any combat troops in place. This month's killing exposed that lie -- so what were the US troops doing there? What we've learned so far is the soldiers were part of what federal officials say is a small contingent of American soldiers who've been training Pakistan's army for 18 months now. As the Times puts it, "the trainings has been acknowledged only gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis.....so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment." For a taste of that gingerly-acknowledging, read the Times story. In more than 1, 000 words Perlez quotes roughly a dozen sources, all but two of them US officials, or Pakistanis working implicitly or explicitly with the US embassy. Of two non-official sources, one makes the obvious point: The American soldiers were probably made targets as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University. ?The attack seems a payback for the mounting frequency of the drone attacks,? Professor Hussain said. It's an obvious point because the Pakistani press and local activists have been making it loudly, n the press and in street protests for months now. In the same week that Perlez's piece appeared, the country's English daily, The News, ran a long editorial on the rapid increase in US drone attacks, making the point that roughly 41 civilians have been killed for every alleged Al Qaeda or Taliban target. The Taliban's rewarding its fighters with new cars when they bring down US drones -- "The shooting down of the drone has lifted the morale of our fighters. It?s a huge success for the poorly armed Taliban against a powerful enemy,? remarked a senior Taliban commander, at the car-award ceremony. Among the Pakistani public, surveys constantly show that Pakistanis consider the US a greater threat than the Taliban, despite 3,021 Pakistani deaths in terrorist attacks last year. If the drones are controversial, the presence of US soldiers on Pakistani soil is far more so. Perlez's piece is bylined Islamabad, yet her readers get no whiff of the Pakistani fury. If we're quietly seeing a shift in the war, don't American readers need to know what might be the implications of that? The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

In Syracuse, New York, this weekend about 250 people gathered to protest drone aircraft, controlled from the Hancock Air National Guard Base. Among them were Kathy Kelly, Daniel and Jerry Berrigan. Drone aircraft strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan have increased under the Obama administration. Thanks to Essential Dissent for the video.