See, none of you, and that in itself is curious, has asked how or rather why is it that Al-Qaeeida and Talib position themselves among civilians?? In effect they are using civilians as human shields, isn't that so?? And yet none of you have thus far, had any problem with this - Why??
US and Pakistani COIN practices have reguired the seperation of the insurgent from the civilian society and while the US has focused on protection of the civilains, the Pakistani strategy, as we saw in Lanka and Swat, is to drain the swamp, that is to say get the civilians out of the effected area and then exhaust themselves on the Islamist insurgents - both policies have merit, whereas the US policy is backed up by their financial strength.
The Islamist insurgency is a cancer in the body of the nation state of Pakistan and just as surgery removes not only the cancer but also healthy tissue, in the same way, we must acknowledge that those described as "civilians" have been caught up in the drone attacks, at the same time we must acknowledge that the Islamist insurgency has been assisted by some so called "innocent" civilians - after all, if a house in which insurgents are or use, we must ask, in a effort to discern the "innocent" who come the Islamikst insurgents are being housed in a compound owned by a specific person, how come the "innocents" are collecting rent and shopping food and preparing meals for these Islamist insurgents, in effect they are facilitating the insurgency --- A question for those who take exception to the drone attacks, Why is it not the responsibility of parents and tribal leaders to ensure that their wives and children are no where near the Islamist insurgents??? The answer is simple, the civilians are human shields and while the drones target the leadership fo Al-Qaeeida and Talib, it is the propaganda of the Islamist insurgency which some have fallen victim to, first they use human shields, then complain that their human shields did not protect them the leadership cadres of the the Al-Qaeeida and Talib.
Bottom line is like this - the drone attacks have been exceptionally successful at targeting the leadership of the Islamist insurgency and this has allowed the Pakistan army to devastate the islamist insurgency - and in order to kill the islamist insurgency, the drone attacks will continue and ought to.
so ok, you dont want to discuss my points, ok fine, i will reply to you.
this is not gaza, you cannot impute the scenario of "hiding among civilians in this case"
the situation is far more nuanced, not that i agree with the gaza scenario anyway.
if the fact that bombing your own citizens and disregarding them as sub human is not enough for you then read the words of ex-cia station chief of afghanistan, read them carefully.
Pashtuns are also among the most fiercely nationalist, tribalized and xenophobic peoples of the world, united only against the foreign invader. In the end, the Taliban are probably more Pashtun than they are Islamist.
you see, these people are not all islamist wahabi types are they - theres a shade of grey in between your black and white world.
the way you characterise these people is ridiculous, its like you know nothing about pakistani people.
is might sound like a crazy idea to you but bombing people to shreds is not always the best solution, if you can tell me where its worked i would like to know.
these pashtun taliban types have been driven to side with extremist backwardness because we are prepared to let the US treat them as cannon fodder, like it or not thats what they think and feel.
in some scenarios they have no choice, to treat them as guilty by association is retarded and callous, how can you be a pakistani and say this?
do you have any regard for their lives?
we dont want to kill each and every one of them (pashtun peple caught up in the taliban mess), we want to bring them on our side and convince them that extremism and talibanism is bad for them and pakistan - instead you gleefully encourage their bombing - how will that bring them on our side?
you kill one pushtun, you make 20 enemies for atleast a generation, you are perpetuating your own problems, 1 leader dies, 10 other candidates rise and so on, explain how this is a good thing.