It seems Santa has come early to Pakistan this year. This morning I read in my local newspaper that the Obama Administration has ended drone attacks and stopped raining death on the people of Pakistan.
This is a great decision and good for Obama for making it.
CIA has suspended drone attacks in Pakistan, U.S. officials say
We should all cheer the Obama Administration's decision to stop CIA drone attacks in Pakistan.
The number of drone strikes in Pakistan has increased dramatically during the Obama administration. Under President George W. Bush, most of them targeted known Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. In July 2008, Bush gave the CIA additional authority to kill militants whose names were not known, but whose "pattern of life," as the CIA called it, suggested involvement with terrorists or insurgent groups.
Under President Obama, the CIA has expanded the drone war to target anyone in Pakistan's tribal areas it considers a potential threat. The CIA has authority to fire at will, without authorization from outside the agency, as long as targets are in approved geographic "boxes" near the Afghan border.
The pause also comes amid an intensifying debate in the Obama administration over the future of the CIA's covert drone war in Pakistan. The agency has killed dozens of Al Qaeda operatives and hundreds of low-ranking fighters there since the first Predator strike in 2004, but the program has infuriated many Pakistanis.
Some officials in the State Department and the National Security Council say many of the airstrikes are counterproductive. They argue that rank-and-file militants are easy to replace, and that Pakistani claims of civilian casualties, which the U.S. disputes, have destabilized the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, a U.S. ally.
I don't want this to be about the prior use of drones in Pakistan. Instead, this is a shout out to the Obama Administration for reversing course and stopping the attacks. I am one of the first people to go after Obama and the Democrats when I think they screw up. But here, they are doing the right thing.
Obama deserves praise for this. And we should give it to him.
Here is the White House email link