The ongoing use of Predator and Reaper drones to target senior al Qaeda and Taliban leadership in northwest Pakistan is deeply inflammatory to Pakistani popular opinion, who believe that the UAVs are a violation of their country’s sovereignty and that innocents are often caught up in the pinpoint attacks. The Pakistani government routinely issues denunciations against these attacks, but their protests are largely seen as a pro forma sop to the masses, since the government has at last become aware of the strategic threat the terrorist pose to Pakistan. The government is an awkward spot, since using national security forces and the army are a two-edged sword – there are elements within both the military and ISI that actively support al Qaeda and the various Islamic militants that make Pakistan a home. Nor is the Pakistani military trained or equipped for counter-insurgency, having long preferred to prepare to repel an Indian assault across the Punjabi plains.
So we have reached a kind of delicate consensus with Pakistan: They will pretend to protest when we do their work for them. We will pretend to listen.
A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an airbase inside that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counterterrorism collaboration with the United States.
The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.
At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan’s northwest border.
The level of paranoia in the Arab world about the CIA is difficult to overstate. And now, a senior US Senator has just put the Pakistani government of trying to explain why it is tolerating an operation of hunter/killer CIA drones on Pakistani territory.
Can’t anybody here play this game ?
Update: Apparently, revealing confidential information is nothing new for the California senator. An alert reader reminded me that while mayor San Francisco, Feinstein revealed crucial evidence about the Richard Ramirez “Night Stalker” case that enabled the serial murderer to escape as the jaws of justice were closing in on him and kill again.
Inside information is the coin of the political realm: What you know points to who you know. Of course, if you reveal or confirm inside information, it isn’t “inside” any more, is it?
Dianne Feinstein is the smarter of the two women senators from California. I’d always thought of her fellow California Senator, Barbara Boxer as, at best, a clueless twit.
Sadly it now looks like we’ve got a matched set of clueless twits. Once you throw Congressman MaxineWaters and the Congresswoman from Berkeley in, you’ve got four of a kind.
could not the Sergeant At Arms of the House do something about getting her clearance revoked and pull her access to such info?!?!
i mean, there has got to be SOMETHING that could be done to keep the children from divulging what the grownups are discussing.
As Archie would have said, “Dummy up, you’s.”
Feinstein needs to stifle it.
Feinstein is neither clueless nor unskilled at the political game. She knows exactly what she is doing.
I have to agree with Theodore. That just seems too calculated. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility of her being stupid.
First she sponsored the communication decency act, which was ruled unconstitutional (9-0) by the Supreme count. Now she discloses known classified material. Why isn’t she making little rocks out of big rocks at Leavenworth?
And yes, she knows what she’s doing.
Anyone remember Sen. Leaky Leahy? This sort of action sort of runs in the Democrat party.
Dum foxtrot at the best. But, if she did it for personal politial gain she moves into very dangerous tango territory. When we become our own worst enemy, when we say things that put nice patriotic people at risk, its like living somewhere in South America tha begins with Ven…
Greetings:
Loose crone crashes drones.
Theodore has it right. The question is why she could possibly think this is in The United States interest…. she’s not emberrassing the Bush administration as George is enjoying retirement in Texas.
Maybe she just wants us to fail.
okay, so she did it on purpose…. why? To what end?
yes,
But I would also mention that I believe the good Senator’s husband is a defense contractor. Perhaps there’s a link there to be explored?
Always follow the money.
I am just aghast at this. No, Feinstein is not a dumb twit (as are the others mentioned in comments above). She must think she knows what she is doing. I agree that she has stepped into deep waters of which she has not a clue. And I do hope that our operators escape with their lives.
Nancy baby is, as the British would say, too clever by half. My take is that she believes the Pakis to be deeply hypocritical and wants to call them on it to stiffen their efforts–all the while forgetting that the alternative to a publicly hypocritical/disengenuous Paki Govt could be a destabilized society/Govt that sees supporters of the Taliban in control of nuclear wpns.
Too clever by half, indeed.
To begin with, the fact is that Members of Congress do NOT get security clearances. They are deemed to not need them. (The Washington legend is that long ago the FBI was the adjudicating authority for all clearances and there were several influential Members of Congress-read Appropriators- who could not qualify for a clearance under the law. J. Edgar Hoover wasn’t about to offend the people who controlled his budget by refusing them clearances, so he ruled that by virtue of their election they did not need a clearance. Problem solved, budget saved.)
Feinstein isn’t the first senior Democrat to say things that severely strained Paki politics. During the campaign, then candidate Obama, talked about these missions, much to the detriment of those involved in hunting down the enemies of this country.
Let’s see. She decides to out the government of Pakistan as complicit in the reaper strikes in Pakistan and what is the expected/intended result? Will the government fall? Will they close the sea/land route to support our campaign in Afghanistan? Oh yeah.
She just wants us out of Afghanistan and if they must pay the price that her party forced the Vietnamese to pay once the democrats returned to power, then so be it.
She is willing to sacrifice every Afghan and every Pakistani to her principles of nonviolence and overall democrat idealism. 20 years from now, long after she is dead, we will watch the new Pakistan and Afghan Killing Fields documentary and her name will never come up.
I can’t help but remember about that video of an interview with a KGB defector who talked about the demoralization of the west. I want to cry…
She just outed a sensitive operation – at what point does that cross the line to treason?
Treason, plain and simple.
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.
The Attorney General should bring the full force of the Justice Department against her, and Congress should strip her of any assignment with access to classified information.
But, nothing will be done, and she is but little worse than many of the 535 idiots elected to serve.
We are so screwed.
this was not clueless or stupid, this was a calculated act. However, there was no sinister motive, none. It was done simply to show that she KNOWS, that she is “IN” on such information. Nothing more, nothing less…
Olga, by revealing that you know a secret you reveal that secret to others. Who weren’t aware of that secret before. Because it was, you know, a secret.
If it was a calculated act, that implies knowledge of the ramifications of that act. I fail to see how endangering soldiers overseas is consistent with having no sinister motive, outside of pure ignorance which you’ve stated as impossible since it wasn’t done of ignorance or sinister motives. The remaining reason is to merely brag. Which, if one were the Speaker, one might not have to brag unless ego needed to be salved, that somebody somewhere might not know the Speaker of the House might have been briefed on something classified confidential.
But then, the deaths of soldiers because of training mishaps, combat casualties, or merely leaking classified information is of little difference to her voters, those that care not a whit can elect her. So what did we expect from her? Leadership and obeying the law of the land?
As the scorpion said to the frog, you knew what I was when you offered me the ride.
– Max
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 2/14/2009, at The Unreligious Right
In no way do I agree with the means and method, but I wonder about the ends. Apparently she’s covering her tracks by having staffers state that she was merely referring to a previously reported story (from the WaPo, March 2008, Wright & Warrick). I read it, the link is still up. Assume for a moment that although it’s not supposed to be discussed, the nature of it may no longer be covert. Just not something the masses and the media ought not be talking about, for various good reasons. Fast-forward nearly a year later. Pakistan government, the targets, the influenced populace and world opinionators (nee US haters) turn up the squawks and Feinstein sez, “hey, if you’re so concerned, etc….”
I agree with many above; there are risks to this, and although I am loathe to find much on which I can agree with the Senator, she’s no dummy on the hill either.
Plausible deniability, no charge of treason and we’ll see how it plays out overseas. My hope is that in the meantime we keep demonstrating a pretty awesome capability. I mean really, it wasn’t that many years back folks were thinking, “ya know, what’d be really cool is if we had these really quiet, really small, really potent expendable air vehicles that could be remotely based and controlled putting high explosive ordnance on target with pin-point accuracy”.
It’s not like it’s all that hard to stir up the hornet’s nest in that particular region (FATA/NWFP). What comes to mind is something about reap & sow.
MaxD,
What I meant was she did NOT mull it over the entire night and then said to herself in the morning “today I am going to out that damned secret CIA UVA program so all these damned CIA operatives can lose their lives” Again, the motive was to show that SHE was in the know because SHE is now running with the big dogs. This is not about the CIA, Pakistan, our troops and GWoT, or even her constituents – this is about HER. And these actions simply CANNOT have sinister motives and consequences.
This line of reasoning is employed by all liberals around the world.
Yes, Olga, it’s ALWAYS about “me” for the left. And always in the name of the down-trodden “Them.” Plus the fact that power and high places is a reinforcement for narcissism–and basically narcissistic personalities self-select themselves into politics anyway–especially on the left. This is so because usually these people have no other lives or source of accomplishment–unlike those on the right who are often driven, not attracted, into politics to right some specific wrong, etc., as Sonny Bono was, simply because he was frustrated by the red-tape at City Hall in Palm Springs when he wanted to put up a new sign for his restaurant–so he ran for Mayor.
Even JFK was not immune. As Harvard’s Graham Allison relates in his seminal work, “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” when confronted with the proof that Khrushchev had indeed secreted IRBMs into Cuba, JFK exploded: “He can’t do that to ME!”
VX: I’m hoping ‘secreted’ was not in this sense:
“secrete (s-krt) – IRBMs into Cuba -
To produce and discharge a substance, especially from the cells of specialized glands. For example, the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas secrete the hormone insulin.” THAT I would have to see (and hear).
However I do ‘get’ the other meaning “to hide away”. Cool. I just had this mental image is all.
There is a certain degree of responsibility when entrusted with the nations secrets. One of the things you’re not supposed to do is “confirm” certain things that may be out in the open, such as Janes or stories in WAPO.
If there is a certain item that is classified, it is classified for a reason. Some highly researched forums may have that same information, and may publish it above. Or sometimes someone just opens their mouth when they’re not supposed to. When you KNOW the answer, and if the ANSWER happens to coincide with the story, by repeating it from a position of authority you then confirm it.
Sometimes we have to keep the Gomers guessing re how much we know. Makes them work that much harder, sometimes in the wrong direction. Thats why you’ll never see an Intel guy/gal confirm anything in Janes or what is written in Aviation Leak or other venues. Why no matter how many beers Lex has at Shakespeare, he and other operators still won’t go into the tactics or engagements from TOPGUN. You just don’t do it.
There’s a line and you don’t cross it. A big nono, which if it was done by any of us in uniform would result in vacationland in Kansas.
Not good. It was done simply for political purposes and with a certain degree of malice. I will not hold my breath waiting for punishment.
Spaz, I think the problem is the gravity points the wrong way in OZ. Up here, gravity points down. Down there gravity points up. How OZ Surveyors level their instruments is a bit of a mystery to me. I imagine it affects minds in much the same way.
QM: Yeah, & reverse Coriolis makes everything spiral down much better thanks very much.
Gravity sucks wherever you are but.
“The Predators flying over Afghanistan have operated from an air base in Jacobabad, Pakistan,” the New York Times reported, in November, 2002.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/02/pakistan-helpin.html