The Los Angeles Times (11/2/09) gives readers a mostly upbeat account about the use of unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan-- weapons that have killed hundreds in Pakistan in recent years. But Times reporter Julian Barnes tells us their popularity with U.S. military officials has "changed the nature of the current policy debate in Washington."  The evidence:

The technology allows us to project power without vulnerability," said a senior Defense official. "You don't have to deploy as many people. And in the modern age you want as little stuff forward as long as you can achieve the effects as if you had lots of people forward."

But some officials caution that policymakers should not rely too heavily on the unmanned drones.

"It has made some people feel there can be a pure counter-terrorism mission without any counter-insurgency strategy," said a government official. "But that isn't truly viable without taking on a certain amount of risk."

Huh. So some anonymous government officials really seem to love them, while other anonymous government officials think they should be used in conjunction with other types of warfare. What a debate!

In the same piece, readers are told that in Pakistan the drones are unpopular--"much of the population believes they have killed civilians as well as militants." In other words, they believe in things that happen to be true.

Back in May, CBS' 60 Minutes aired a terrible report on the Air Force's use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan-- see FAIR's action alert for all the details. CBS never responded to the criticism, but they did re-air the segment this past Sunday, without any major changes. To let CBS know how you feel about this one-sided reporting, here's the contact info:

CONTACT:
CBS
60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

Email: 60m@cbsnews.com
Phone: (212) 975-3247

In his introduction (TomDispatch, 5/12/09) to Pepe Escobar analyzing the current politics of the Aghanistan/Pakistan region, Tom Engelhardt describes how "there, the skies are filled with planes and unmanned aerial drones, and civilians as well as combatants die every day in increasing numbers as ever more frequent attacks and expanding conflicts make daily headlines." But there's more to the story:

Those are, of course, the front-page stories. Energy, especially in the form of oil and natural gas, fuels everything from civilization to its various discontents and means of destruction, and yet it remains largely on the business pages of our papers. Even in a time of relatively depressed oil and gas prices, energy runs like an undercurrent just beneath global headlines. Under the carnage of war, that is, courses what Escobar likes to call the Liquid War, and just how the energy flows and through which territories controlled by whom does turn out to make--quite literally--a world of difference, even if that isn't what captures our attention most of the time.

Of "The Real Afghan War," Escobar writes in his essay: "In the ever-shifting New Great Game in Eurasia, a key question--why Afghanistan matters--is simply not part of the discussion in the United States. (Hint: It has nothing to do with the liberation of Afghan women.) In part, this is because the idea that energy and Afghanistan might have anything in common is verboten."

Pointing to a May 9 Boston Globe editorial saying that Barack "Obama conveyed the right message last week by hosting Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari" to emphasize "the close link between Pakistan and the anti-Taliban struggle in Afghanistan," before admitting that "U.S. military strikes against militants in both countries inevitably provoke anger and indignation among civilians," Palestine Chronicle editor Ramzy Baroud (5/14/09) notes that "this is as much as most U.S. media... are willing to concede as far as U.S. responsibility in lethal wars, civil strife and militancy in both countries is concerned."

Baroud elaborates in ways unheard in corporate media:

The escalation in Pakistan is not entirely surprising, however, as U.S. officials and media pundits have been adamant in advising the new administration that it was not Afghanistan that posed the greater threat to U.S. interests, but Pakistan. It was similar to the attitude of neoconservatives in the Bush administration after its failure in Iraq. It was not Iraq that the U.S. should have attacked, but Iran, they tirelessly parroted, hoping to generate yet another war.

What we are not told, however, is that unremitting U.S. bombings of the utterly poor and neglected northern provinces of Pakistan have garnered untold animosity towards the U.S. and its central government allies. It provoked, in some areas, total chaos and lawlessness, which in turn gave rise to the Pakistani "Taliban."

Closing with distressing estimates of "1 million Pakistanis already on the run in the northern and eastern parts of the country," Baroud tells us how "they are threatened by fighting, hunger and all sorts of predators, including U.S. drones circling overhead"--which U.S. media also are keen to push as the latest bloody solution in the region. See the new FAIR Action Alert: "CBS Pro-Drone Propaganda: 60 Minutes Slights Critics of Controversial Weapons" (5/12/09).

Reading Mark Lander's and Elizabeth Bumiller's New York Times "tidbit out of an overheated Washington last week: 'President Obama and his top advisers have been meeting almost daily to discuss options for helping the Pakistani government and military repel the [Taliban] offensive,'" Tom Engelhardt (TomDispatch, 5/7/09) decides to toss some cold water on "this kind of atmosphere that naturally produces the bureaucratic equivalent of mass hysteria":

Reports indicate that Obama's national security team has been convening regular "crisis" meetings and having "nearly nonstop discussions" at the White House, not to mention issuing alarming and alarmist statements of all sorts about the devolving situation in Pakistan, the dangers to Islamabad, our fears for the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and so on. In fact, Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landy of McClatchy news service quote "a senior U.S. intelligence official" (from among the legion of anonymous officials who populate our nation's capital) saying: "The situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse, and no one has any idea about how to reverse it. I don't think 'panic' is too strong a word to describe the mood here."...

You know, that offensive in the Lower Dir Valley. That's near the Buner District. You remember, right next to the Swat Valley and, in case you're still not completely keyed in, geographically speaking, close to the Malakand Division. I mean, if the Pakistani government were in crisis over the deteriorating situation in Fargo, North Dakota, we would consider it material for late night jokesters.

Reminding you that "if Pakistan poses a mortal threat to you in New York, Toledo or El Paso," you'll just have to "get in line"--and "it will be a long one and you'll be toward the back"--Engelhardt sees "a certain irony" in that "we essentially know what those crisis meetings will result in. After all, the U.S. government has been embroiled with Pakistan for at least 40 years and for just that long, its top officials have regularly come to the same policy conclusions--to support Pakistani military dictatorships." Even McClatchy reports on how "that, another senior official acknowledged Wednesday, 'means another coup.'"

In today's New York Times (4/16/07), Jane Perlez is wondering about Pakistani government officials who complain about  U.S. drones attacks in their country. Perlez starts by floating the idea that Pakistan can't possibly be against the strikes, because the government has asked to have some control over the use of the drones:

In fact, both sides have grown accustomed to an unusual diplomatic dance around the drones. For all their public protests, behind the scenes, Pakistani officials may countenance the drones more than Mr. Qureshi's reprimand would suggest, Pakistan and American analysts and officials say.

Why else would Pakistani military officials be requesting that the United States give them the drones to operate, asked Professor Riffat Hussain, of the defense studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

I'm not sure how that adds up. Most governments would like to have better weapons, wouldn't they? Especially those that are being used against their own populations.

But in case you might believe that the Times thinks civilian deaths are the least relevant factor in this discussion, this piece comes out and more or less says so:

But as effective as the attacks have proved, the Pakistanis' discomfort with the drones is real. The larger issue surrounding the drone strikes is the trade-off between decapitating the militant hierarchy and the risk of further destabilizing Pakistan--by undercutting the military and civilian government, by provoking retaliatory attacks from the militants, and by driving the Taliban and Al-Qaeda deeper into Pakistan in search of new havens.

Then there is the matter of public perception, particularly over the civilian casualties caused by the drone strikes, which infuriate Pakistani politicians and the media.

The deaths make it difficult for any Pakistani leader to support the drones publicly. At the same time, the Pakistani disavowals only reinforce the popular notion that the war against the militants merely furthers America's interests, not Pakistan’s own.

Well, it's good that civilian deaths--"the matter of public perception"-- was tacked on after other "larger" issues. The Times goes on to cite a number of deaths, but then finds someone to justify the killings:

About 500 civilians have been killed in the drone attacks, Talat Masood, a former Pakistani general, estimates. But, he said, the government fails to point out that many of those killed are most likely hosting Qaeda militants and cannot be deemed entirely innocent.

That's not all; Perlez closes with a survey of Pakistani opinion that serves the piece's point of view nicely:

One intriguing aspect of the drone attacks is that people living in the tribal region under the militants' grip may be more accepting of them than other Pakistanis, according to a recent but limited survey.

Perlez acknowledges that the survey can be "described as unscientific," but it's clearly too important to the point of the piece to leave out.

Considering the fact that, "while the Obama administration says that the problems of the region cannot be solved by military means, the basic approach is reliance on heightened military means," FAIR associate Norman Solomon (Huffington Post, 3/24/09) thinks that "we desperately need a substantive national debate on U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Solomon notes that one attempt at such a debate, an open letter that "lays down a clear line of opposition to the rationales for stepping up the warfare," garnered signatures from only "14 members of the House (eight Democrats, six Republicans)." But the U.S. Congress looks positively enlightened when compared to its hometown paper:

One of several journalists in Afghanistan on a tour "organized by the staff of commanding Gen. David D. McKiernan," the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, wrote a March 23 op-ed in support of an invigorated "counterinsurgency strategy." With journalistic resolve, he explained: "Everyone expects a surge of violence and American casualties this year; no one expects a decisive improvement in the situation for at least several years beyond that."

The commanding general, Diehl added, does not anticipate that the Afghan army "can defend the country on its own" until 2016. In effect, the message is to stay the course for another seven years: "The thousands of American soldiers and civilians pouring into the country deserve that strategic patience; without it, the sacrifices we will soon hear of will be wasted."

Solomon hears "chillingly familiar echoes" in "the perverse logic of escalating the war in Afghanistan. 'Strategic patience'--more and more war--will be necessary so that those who must die will not have died in vain."

The lead of an article in the New York Times today (3/23/09):

KABUL, Afghanistan — A predawn raid by United States Special Forces that killed five people on Sunday has produced sharply conflicting accounts from the American military and local Afghan officials as to whether the dead were civilians or militants, resurrecting a sore point that has troubled the American-led war here.

"Resurrecting a sore point?"  For something to be resurrected, it has to have gone away, right? That's not the case with civilian deaths in Afghanistan--nor would most people belittle such suffering as a "sore point."

The day before, the Times had a Week in Review piece on drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan with the awkward headline "The Downside of Letting Robots Do the Bombing." Reporter Mark Mazetti can't be held responsible for that headline, but the piece plays down the impact that such attacks have on civilians, which is treated as mostly an afterthought (the real question, of course, being what waging war by "joysticks" means for the United States):

Over the last six months, CIA operatives wielding joysticks have launched more than three dozen strikes by Predator and more heavily armed Reaper drones. Missiles fired from them have hit militants gathering in mountain redoubts, and they have hit truck convoys ferrying ammunition across the border into Afghanistan.

Some agency veterans draw comparisons to the Israeli policy of "targeted killings" of Hamas leaders--killings that claimed scores of the group’s top operatives in the Palestinian territories, but didn’t keep new recruits from attacking Israel.

Intelligence officials in Washington and Islamabad said it was nearly impossible to measure the impact of the strikes on the so-called "war of ideas." Even when precise, the drone strikes often kill women and children in militant compounds. When that happens, local Pashtun customs of "badal" obligate their survivors to seek revenge.

There's a lot going on here, but the upshot is that civilian deaths are treated as some sort of inexplicable fallout-- that "even when precise," such drone attacks kill women and children, or that somehow Israeli strikes on "Hamas leaders" don't prevent other Palestinians from seeking retribution. Mazetti writes of "local Pashtun customs" that "obligate"  survivors to "seek revenge" against those who killed their families. Is that such a strange concept, meriting a special foreign term, for U.S. readers to fathom--in an article that is in part about the war in Afghanistan, after all?

From the Washington Post
yesterday--emphasis added:

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

If this is true, what will reporters do when news of an airstrike surfaces? Given that the default position of the U.S. government will seemingly be to deny everything, will media report such denials as if they are meaningful?