Friday, February 20, 2009

Pakistan's objections to American drone attacks somewhat less credible now ...

I don't think many people trusted the sincerity of Pakistan's complaints about American drones invading their air space. That number has now gotten even smaller ...

Google Earth exposes a U.S. drone base in Pakistan. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

... The image was freely available on Google Earth until Wednesday, when the News of Pakistan published a story about it. At that point, it vanished, as other sensitive military pictures have done. Today, you can still view it on the Web site of the Times of London. If you're a Pakistani citizen, it confirms that the United States has been launching its killer drones from inside your country, contrary to your government's pretense of opposition...

The bright side of the news is that this is positive sign of US-Pakistani cooperation. The consensus on the drone attacks is that they're killing bad people -- in addition to innocent bystanders of all ages. Their accuracy must be coming from Pakistani intelligence sources, which have presumably deeply infiltrated the Taliban.

The down side is it would have been nice for Pakistan to have had more deniability.

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