[Peace-discuss] Making his bones

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Obama killed people this week, as he said he would.  With the acts described 
below he begins to fulfill his campaign promise and make the Bush 
administration's killings -- in countries with which we're not as war -- look 
like "baby steps."  I don't know why people don't listen to this guy and believe 
what he says.  (We got out of the habit with Bush, perhaps.)  Obama seems to 
trust his rhetorical skills enough to tell the truth -- e.g., he's going to 
widen the war -- in such a way that people believe something else.  And he, like 
Clinton, can avoid giving any but the most puerile explanation for the killings 
-- the "war on terror"! --CGE]

	Two US Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama's Pakistan Policy
	Saturday 24 January 2009
	by: R. Jeffrey Smith, Candace Rondeaux and Joby Warrick,
	Washington Post Staff Writers

Leaders from Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area along the border with 
Afghanistan met with Pakistani Army officials last February. On Friday, the US 
launched air attacks in Pakistan within the Waziristan area in a concrete 
demonstration of the Obama administration's Pakistan policy. (Photo: John Moore 
/ Getty Images)

     Two remote U.S. missile strikes that killed at least 20 people at suspected 
terrorist hideouts in northwestern Pakistan yesterday offered the first tangible 
sign of President Obama's commitment to sustained military pressure on the 
terrorist groups there, even though Pakistanis broadly oppose such unilateral 
U.S. actions.

     The shaky Pakistani government of Asif Ali Zardari has expressed hopes for 
warm relations with Obama, but members of Obama's new national security team 
have already telegraphed their intention to make firmer demands of Islamabad 
than the Bush administration, and to back up those demands with a threatened 
curtailment of the plentiful military aid that has been at the heart of 
U.S.-Pakistani ties for the past three decades.

     The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart and 
involving five missiles fired from Afghanistan-based Predator drone aircraft, 
were the first high-profile hostile military actions taken under Obama's 
four-day-old presidency. A Pakistani security official said in Islamabad that 
the strikes appeared to have killed at least 10 insurgents, including five 
foreign nationals and possibly even "a high-value target" such as a senior 
al-Qaeda or Taliban official.

     It remained unclear yesterday whether Obama personally authorized the 
strike or was involved in its final planning, but military officials have 
previously said the White House is routinely briefed about such attacks in advance.

     At his daily White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to 
answer questions about the strikes, saying, "I'm not going to get into these 
matters." Obama convened his first National Security Council meeting on Pakistan 
and Afghanistan yesterday afternoon, after the strike.

     The Pakistani government, which has loudly protested some earlier strikes, 
was quiet yesterday. In September, U.S. and Pakistani officials reached a tacit 
agreement to allow such attacks to continue without Pakistani involvement, 
according to senior officials in both countries.

     But some Pakistanis have said they expect a possibly bumpy diplomatic 
stretch ahead.

     "Pakistan hopes that Obama will be more patient while dealing with 
Pakistan," Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said in an 
interview Wednesday with Pakistan's Geo television network. "We will review all 
options if Obama does not adopt a positive policy towards us." He urged Obama to 
"hear us out."

     At least 132 people have been killed in 38 suspected U.S. missile strikes 
inside Pakistan since August, all conducted by the CIA, in a ramped-up effort by 
the outgoing Bush administration.

     Obama's August 2007 statement -- that he favored taking direct action in 
Pakistan against potential threats to U.S. security if Pakistani security forces 
do not act -- made him less popular in Pakistan than in any other Muslim nation 
polled before the election.

     Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated during her Senate 
confirmation hearing that the new administration will not relent in holding 
Pakistan to account for any shortfalls in the continuing battle against extremists.

     Linking Pakistan with neighboring Afghanistan "on the front line of our 
global counterterrorism efforts," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee that "we will use all the elements of our powers -- diplomacy, 
development and defense -- to work with those . . . who want to root out 
al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other violent extremists." She also said those in 
Pakistan who do not join the effort will pay a price, adding a distinctly new 
element to the long-standing U.S. effort to lure Pakistan closer to the West.

     In blunt terms in her written answers to the committee's questions, Clinton 
pledged that Washington will "condition" future U.S. military aid on Pakistan's 
efforts to close down terrorist training camps and evict foreign fighters. She 
also demanded that Pakistan "prevent" the continued use of its historically 
lawless northern territories as a sanctuary by either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. 
And she promised that Washington would provide all the support Pakistan needs if 
it specifically goes after targets such as Osama bin Laden, who is believed to 
be using Pakistani mountains as a hideout.

     At the same time, Clinton pledged to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan, 
long dwarfed by the more than $6 billion funneled to Pakistani military forces 
under President George W. Bush through the Pentagon's counterterrorism office in 
Islamabad.

     "The conditioning of military aid is substantially different," as is the 
planned boost of economic aid, said Daniel Markey, a Council on Foreign 
Relations senior fellow who handled South Asian matters on the State 
Department's policy planning staff from 2003 to 2007.

     Bush's focus on military aid to a Pakistani government that was led by an 
army general until August eventually drew complaints in both countries that much 
of the funding was spent without accountability or, instead of being used to 
root out terrorists, was diverted to forces intended for a potential conflict 
with India.

     A study in 2007 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies 
reported that economic, humanitarian and development assistance under Bush 
amounted to no more than a quarter of all aid, less than in most countries.

     The criticism helped provoke a group of senators who now have powerful new 
roles -- Joseph R. Biden Jr., Clinton and Obama -- to co-sponsor legislation 
last July requiring that more aid be targeted at political pluralism, the rule 
of law, human and civil rights, and schools, public health and agriculture.

     It also would have allowed U.S. weapons sales and other military aid only 
if the secretary of state certified that Pakistani military forces were making 
"concerted efforts" to undermine al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In her confirmation 
statement, Clinton reiterated her support for such a legislative restructuring 
of the aid program, while reaffirming that she opposed any "blank check."

     Some Pakistanis have been encouraged by indications that Obama intends to 
increase aid to the impoverished country, said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani who 
directs the South Asia Center of the Washington-based Atlantic Council of the 
United States. Nawaz said Pakistanis may be willing to overlook an occasional 
missile lobbed at foreign terrorists if Obama makes a sincere attempt to improve 
conditions in Pakistan.

     "He can't just focus on military achievements; he has to win over the 
people," Nawaz said. "Relying on military strikes will not do the trick." 
Attaching conditions to the aid is wise, Nawaz said, because "people are more 
cognizant of the need for accountability -- for 'tough love.' "

     --------

     Rondeaux reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in 
Islamabad contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012304189.html?tid=informbox