By owning up to the drone strikes inside Pakistan's territory President Barack Obama has said the obvious; howsoever, cleverly articulated the American position that the issue being an "intelligence matter", there is no comment and the people of Pakistan never ever believed that the deadly raids were beyond the knowledge and control of the United States government. From day one in 2004, when ex-President General Pervez Musharraf allowed the drone attacks in return for Bush administration's political support, the raids by these killing machines were never seen as the revenge of some angry celestial power. In fact till very recently, some of these attacks had materialized right from inside our national territory, but as whistleblower WikiLeaks said our leadership had decided to 'look the other way'. The truth is that if Washington till this moment not admitted to flying these deadly machines, we too never told the people the whole truth. Otherwise it is inconceivable that the drones' strikes should have continued despite the high-sounding parliamentary resolutions opposed to them. So, there must be some very cogent reason now that has triggered President Obama's admission. What that reason could be, gets reflected from the presidential confession. Upholding his perception that the drone attacks have been "very successful in eradicating terrorist hideouts" and that the Pakistani military doesn't have the required capacity, he said that he would like to continue the drone strikes. Not too intriguingly, President Obama's admission comes only a couple of days before the joint session of Pakistan's parliament expectedly endorses the recommendations of a parliamentary committee, tasked to prepare the 'terms of engagement' for the future co-operative relationship with the United States. One thing common to almost all the declarations made by various centers of power, official and public, following the Abbottabad get-Osama raid, has been the total rejection of drone attacks. Of course that turning point had come in the wake of two equally disturbing developments; the CIA contractor Raymond Davis's daylight murders in Lahore early last year and the murderous drone attack on a peaceful tribal meeting on March 17, just one day after Davis was released. Not that earlier too, Pakistan was getting increasingly concerned about the choice of drone targets: they were much more geared up for the strikes at the pro-Pakistan Taliban factions like the Haqqanis and Mulla Nazeer. But even at this stage the Pakistan government is not totally against the use of drones in fighting terrorists in the Fata areas. Aware as it is that it was a drone attack that took out Baitullah Mehsud, there is still room for agreement, for Foreign Office spokesman, while condemning President Obama's disclosure, did concede the "tactical advantages" of drone technology. It seems that the Pakistani authorities would like to have effective veto power over the targets that the US drone strikes hit, a proposition which has the potential to clinch a bilateral Pak-US agreement on the use of drones. But much depends on how the two sides play out their cards, as they decide the terms of agreement for their co-operation in future. For them the task to arrive at an understanding on the use of drone technology is no more as simple as it was when General Musharraf was all in all. Not only is there enormous opposition against drone attacks in Pakistan, their use is also being criticised all over the world. The prompt reaction of Amnesty International to President Obama's statement being one strong signal. The AI has asked the United States to disclose the details of the "legal and factual basis" for the use of drones against Pakistan. What form the Pak-US anti-terrorism co-operative alliance would take, is difficult to predict; all the more now as anti-drone sentiments in Pakistan rise and the Obama administration seems committed to turn to robotic warfare. Frankly, we are not very optimistic about an agreeable-to-both outcome, given that the Pentagon is planning to trim American armed forces by 100,000 while boosting the global fleet of armed drones. President Obama seems to be overwhelmed by his love for drones, and love you know is blind - as are the drones that kill without any sense of remorse. Copyright Business Recorder, 2012
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