''When you ask two Pakistanis about a certain issue, you get three conflicting opinions. But on some subjects there is total unanimity of opinion. The people do not like the war in Afghanistan and believe America is destroying their country by waging a futile and unwinnable war there.
There is not much love lost between the ultraorthodox militants and middle-of-the-road majority, but on the question of attacks by American drones on Pakistani territory they have similar views.
They complain about the enormous civilian toll these attacks extract. There were 124 attacks by pilotless American plans controlled by the CIA in 2010 on Pakistani soil. Of the 1,200 people killed, there were 481 suspected militants, and of those only 20 were considered high-value targets.
In December 2009, the New York Times wrote poignantly about those drone attacks. “For the first time in history,” the Times wrote, “a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.”
http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20110110/COLUMNIST12/110109527
There is not much love lost between the ultraorthodox militants and middle-of-the-road majority, but on the question of attacks by American drones on Pakistani territory they have similar views.
They complain about the enormous civilian toll these attacks extract. There were 124 attacks by pilotless American plans controlled by the CIA in 2010 on Pakistani soil. Of the 1,200 people killed, there were 481 suspected militants, and of those only 20 were considered high-value targets.
In December 2009, the New York Times wrote poignantly about those drone attacks. “For the first time in history,” the Times wrote, “a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.”
http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20110110/COLUMNIST12/110109527