Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Predator Drone Groundhog Day

Just once I'd like to wake up, open the Washington Post, and read "Predator drone hits what it was aiming at in Pakistan." Today a drone fired six missiles into a South Waziristan militant training camp in an effort to kill Baitullah Mehsud, but killing six militants. Yesterday a drone fired two missiles and killed 12-16 militants in a training camp in South Waziristan in an effort to kill Mehsud. Sound familiar? For those keeping score at home, that's three drone strikes in four days, and at least the 26th of the year. Who taught us how to shoot, the evil henchmen from a James Bond movie?
Not that I'm at all arguing against striking terrorist camps. But the Pakistani military is doing just fine with both its air and ground campaigns. Training camps are fairly stationary and provide good targets for the Pakistani Air Force. We should be far more selective with our drone strikes in order to actually hit high value targets like Mehsud, not places where he might be or just was.

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