Pakistani Drone Strikes! Now, with 10% More Enemies!
A few weeks ago, I noted a Pew poll that showed the rest of the world doesn’t like our drone strikes (and that there’s a big gender gap between men and women over drone strikes). I noted that Pew was holding off their results from Pakistan.
Maybe that’s because the results are fairly troubling.
Since Obama became President (and since the drone campaign accelerated in Pakistan), the number of Pakistanis who regard us as an enemy has gone up 10%, 5% in just the last year, to 74%.
More dangerous still, Pakistanis don’t want our help fighting extremists, nor do they want to use the Pakistani army to fight extremists in their own country.
Additionally, over the last few years, Pakistanis have become less willing to work with the U.S. on efforts to combat extremist groups. While 50% still want the U.S. to provide financial and humanitarian aid to areas where extremists operate, this is down from 72% in 2009. Similarly, fewer Pakistanis now want intelligence and logistical support from the U.S. than they did three years ago. And only 17% back American drone strikes against leaders of extremist groups, even if they are conducted in conjunction with the Pakistani government.
Since 2009, the Pakistani public has also become less willing to use its own military to combat extremist groups. Three years ago, 53% favored using the army to fight extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but today just 32% hold this view.
If Pakistan were a nice stable country, we might be able to blow off these results and just keep droning on.
But the instability in the country and the widespread opposition to the US is a recipe for disaster.
The US money spigot is but a drip away from dry. The US comity spigot is but a drip away from dry.
And no one can say we’ve left Pakistan better than when we found it (sometime right after 9/11) again.
When will our foreign policy leadership understand that a few hundred tactical drone “successes” are nothing compared to several dozen nation-state strategic “failures”?
Never is a long time, but that’s what the odds are.
The tilt accelerated by the Wahabi Madrassas etc started long before the drone attacks. I recall the broadcasts of high school students ready to volunteer to join the Taliban after 9/11.
Disaster is already there.
@greengiant: #2 and the usa can thank its erstwhile ally, Saudia Arabia, for those very well funded Wahabi madrassas, as the Saudias exported extremism to other countries via those very well funded Wahabi madrassas in an attempt to keep that extremism from spreading in the Holy Land. the usa can also thank Saudi Arabia for Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers. and oh yes, the usa can thank Saudi Arabia for all that lovely, lovely Oil. donchaknow.
My guess is this Administration could care less about blowback. There are no legal or political ramifications. All they have to do is increase the number of drones and increase the attacks and that keeps Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin et al happy as clams. The never-ending story of never-ending war. Drones for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. What country is next?
@MadDog: I agree with the $$$ is about to run out but it looks like they might have found some new friends with $$$$.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NF30Ag02.html
@jo6pac: And we should assume the Chinese are giving even more $$$$$.
@jo6pac: Interesting article. Written by a career Indian diplomat.
I can’t say whether he’s right or wrong, only to note that nothing in that region ever seems to go the way the participants plan. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip as the saying goes.
Stable relationships in that region seem to me to be rather short-lived and ever-changing. Mostly to me it looks like a flock of vultures picking over vulnerable carcasses.
I would also note, as one who majored in Russian Studies decades ago, that Russia these days has little success to show for a great many of its tactics, and even less success to show for its strategies.
Putin is understandably angry and embarrassed by Russia’s fall from “great power” status, and the corresponding dismissive treatment from the West.
He is also embarrassed by China’s ascent to “great power” status in place of what used to be Russia’s seat at the big table. Couple that with the ever-present Russian fear and animus in regard to China, and you still have an unpredictable relationship between the two no matter how many “letters of understanding” they sign.
Just as I believe that the US is not a master of relationships in that region, so too do I believe that the other vultures are little better.
Yes, they all will fight over the carcasses, but predicting outcomes there is an illusion that only the foolish practice.
@emptywheel: One suspects that regardless of who provides how much money, the inevitable Pakistani corruption will play its usual role.
University of Texas Researchers Demonstrate First Successful “Spoofing” of UAVs (Drones) Using False GPS signals Just Like Tehran Said
http://www.engr.utexas.edu/features/humphreysspoofing#
http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-hacked-texas-gps-2012-6
Let’s sell more drones overseas! That’s the rallying cry from US drone makers. Via the Los Angeles Times:
Only in America could cheerleading for death, destruction and instability be somehow equated with business success.
And in case you missed it, from MSNBC:
Off topic
Emphasis added.
@joanneleon: Interesting. Thanks.
More off topic:
@joanneleon: With his Vietnamese ancestry, is this déjà vu all over again?
@greengiant:
agree
interminable military coups were the first signs of a failing nation state – musharraf’s was only the last of them so far
the cold war and cia’s nurturing of the isi simply speeded up the process