http://news.antiwar.com/2012/05/04/us-doesnt-expect-pakistan-to-reopen-border-soon/
Nearly six months in, however, the Obama Administration seems to have wised up to the fact that killing 24 Pakistani soldiers was no small matter, and now it concedes that it doesn’t expect the Pakistani government to reopen the route any time soon.
Pakistan's Demand Remains: Halt Drone Strikes to Reopen Border
by Jason Ditz, May 04, 2012
Since the Pakistani government closed the border with Afghanistan in late November in retaliation for US attacks on Pakistani military bases, the constant US refrain have been that Pakistan would back down “soon,” and that the crisis would resolve itself.
Nearly six months in, however, the Obama Administration seems to have wised up to the fact that killing 24 Pakistani soldiers was no small matter, and now it concedes that it doesn’t expect the Pakistani government to reopen the route any time soon.
Pakistan has confirmed talks with the US on the matter, but the sticking point is that Pakistan’s parliament has drawn a line in the sand, saying that reopening the border must be predicated on the US promising to end its drone strikes on Pakistani territory. The US has ruled this out, and so the border remains closed.
The assumption that Pakistan would inevitably blink first in this stand off ignored an important factor, that between drone strikes, military attacks and the Raymond Davis fiasco last year, the US is politically radioactive in Pakistan, and with elections coming soon, even its usual allies in the ruling party don’t feel comfortable letting the US walk all over them. Since US policy toward Pakistan has for years centered on the assumption that the US can safely do as it wishes, the situation is going to require a massive rethink for officials.
and...
The President’s Private War
by Andrew P. Napolitano, May 05, 2012
Did you know that the United States government is using drones to kill innocent people in Pakistan? Did you know that the Pakistani government has asked President Obama to stop it and he won’t? Did you know that Pakistan is a sovereign country that has nuclear weapons and is an American ally?
Last week, the Obama administration not only acknowledged the use of the drones; it also revealed that it has plans to increase the frequency and ferocity of the attacks. White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan argued that these attacks are "in full accordance with the law" and are not likely to be stopped anytime soon.
Brennan declined to say how many people were killed or just where the killings took place or who is doing it. But we know that Obama has a morbid fascination with his plastic killing machines, and we know that these machines are among the favored tools of the CIA. We also know that if the president had been using the military to do this, he’d be legally compelled to reveal it to Congress and eventually to seek permission.
We know about the need to tell Congress and ask for permission because of the War Powers Act. This law, enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, permits the president to use the military for 90 days before telling Congress and for 180 days before he needs congressional authorization. Obama must believe that he can bypass this law by using civilian CIA agents, rather than uniformed military, to do his killing.
The Constitution limits the presidential use of war powers to those necessary for an immediate defense of the United States or those exercised pursuant to a valid congressional declaration of war. In this case of Pakistan, the president has neither. And international law prohibits entering a sovereign country without its consent. But Brennan argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which Congress enacted in 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11 to enable President Bush to pursue the perpetrators of 9/11, is essentially carte blanche for any president to kill whomever he wants, and that the use of drones, rather than the military or rather than arresting those the government believes have conspired to harm us, is a "surgical" technique that safeguards the innocent.
Attorney General Eric Holder made a similar unconstitutional argument a few months ago when he stated in defense of the president’s using drones to kill Americans in Yemen that the AUMF, plus the careful consideration that the White House gives to the dimensions of each killing and the culpability of each person killed, somehow satisfied the Constitution’s requirements for due process.
What monstrous nonsense all this is.
These killings 10,000 miles from here hardly constitute self-defense and are not in pursuit of a declaration of war. So, what has Congress done about this? Nothing. And what have the courts done about this? Nothing.
Prior to the president’s ordering the killing of the New Mexico-born and unindicted and uncharged Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki’s American father sued the president in federal district court and asked a judge to prevent the president from murdering his son in Yemen. After the judge dismissed the case, a CIA-fired drone killed al-Awlaki and his American companion and his 16-year-old American son.
In his three-plus years in office, Obama has launched 254 drones toward persons in Pakistan, and they collectively have killed 1,277 persons there. The New America Foundation, a Washington think tank that monitors the presidential use of drones in Pakistan, estimates that between 11 and 17 percent of the drone victims are innocent Pakistani civilians. So much for Brennan’s surgical strikes. So much for Holder’s due process.
The president is waging a private war against private persons – even Americans – whose deaths he obviously believes will keep America safe. But he is doing so without congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution, and in a manner that jeopardizes our freedom.
Who will keep us safe from a president who wants to use drones here? How long will it be before local American governments – 313 of which already possess drones – use them to kill here because they are surgical and a substitute for due process? Can you imagine the outcry if Cuba or China launched drones at their dissidents in Florida or California and used Obama’s behavior in Pakistan as a justification?
How long will it be before even the semblance of our Constitution is gone?
and....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/leaving-yet-staying-in-afghanistan/2012/05/03/gIQADCB1zT_story.html
Why are we in Afghanistan for the long haul?
Show of hands: Does anybody really understand the U.S. policy in Afghanistan? Can anyone figure out how we’re supposed to stay the course and bring home the troops at the same time?
I’m at a loss, even after President Obama’s surprise trip to the war zone. The president’stelevised address from Bagram air base raised more questions than it answered. Let’s start with the big one: Why?
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Eugene Robinson
Writes about politics and culture in twice-a-week columns and on the PostPartisan blog.
According to Obama, “the United States and our allies went to war to make sure that al-Qaeda could never use this country to launch attacks against us.” I would argue that U.S. and NATO forces have already done all that is humanly possible toward that end.
The Taliban government was deposed and routed. Al-Qaeda was first dislodged and then decimated, with “over 20 of their top 30 leaders” killed, according to the president. Osama bin Laden was tracked to his lair in Pakistan, shot dead and buried at sea. To the extent that al-Qaeda still poses a threat, it comes from affiliate organizations in places such as Yemen and from the spread of poisonous jihadist ideology. Al-Qaeda’s once-extensive training camps in Afghanistan have long been obliterated, and the group’s presence in the country is minimal.
That smells like victory to me. Yet 94 American troops have lost their lives in Afghanistan so far in 2012, U.S. forces will still be engaged in combat until the end of 2014, and we are committed to an extraordinary — and expensive — level of involvement there until 2024. Why?
Of the U.S. troops who died this year as a result of hostile fire — as opposed to accidents, illnesses or suicide — at least one of every seven was killed not by the Taliban but by ostensibly friendly Afghan security forces.
A report by military and political behavioral scientist Jeffrey Bordin, commissioned by the Pentagon last year and now classified, concluded that “the rapidly growing fratricide-murder trend” of attacks by Afghan soldiers and police against U.S. and allied troops reflects “the ineffectiveness in our efforts in stabilizing Afghanistan, developing a legitimate and effective government, battling the insurgency [and] gaining the loyalty, respect and friendship of the Afghans.”
Policies such as nighttime raids, in which civilians have been killed, and incidents such as the burning of Korans by allied soldiers have generated increasing resentment in a country that has never taken kindly to foreign occupation.
These friendly-fire killings are not just isolated incidents, the report says, but a “continuing pattern” that is leading to a “crisis of trust” between allied and Afghan forces. Unless there is reform of “profoundly dysfunctional Afghan governmental systems and key leaders,” the report predicts, “any efforts in developing a legitimate, functional and trustworthy Afghan army and police force will continue to be futile.”
It should be noted that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan strongly disagree. They express confidence that the Afghan army is becoming a much more competent and professional fighting force. But they acknowledge that the process requires time and a continuing commitment of troops and funding.
As Obama knows, however, polls indicate that Americans are weary of this war. He told the nation Tuesday night that 23,000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of the summer. This will reduce troop levels to about 65,000 — still far above what Obama inherited in 2009. By the end of 2014, Obama said, “the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country.” But how many Americans will remain? And, again, why?
At that point, Obama said, we will leave behind just enough personnel to support the Afghan government in counterterrorism operations and provide continued training for Afghan forces. At present, however, we’re in the midst of a counterinsurgency campaign of the kind that takes decades, at best, to succeed. If we’re going to switch to counterterrorism in a couple of years, why not just make the switch now?
Another question: Obama said we will establish no permanent bases in Afghanistan. But the agreement he signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai gives the United States continuing use of bases that we built and intend to transfer nominally to Afghan control. What’s the difference?
The United States has agreed to support Afghanistan’s social and economic development and its security institutions through 2024. Does this sound like nation-building to you? Because that’s what it sounds like to me.
“Tonight, I’d like to tell you how we will complete our mission and end the war in Afghanistan,” Obama said Tuesday. We’re still waiting.
