CSteele,

"To quote from Reuters: ..."

And your point is?

Belly,
Pay no mind to what CSteele says.

Dear Belly,

The deaths at the funeral were part of a mission to get one man, Baitullah Mehsud.

“the recent campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud offers a sobering case study of the hazards of robotic warfare. It appears to have taken sixteen missile strikes, and fourteen months, before the C.I.A. succeeded in killing him. During this hunt, between two hundred and seven and three hundred and twenty-one additional people were killed, depending on which news accounts you rely upon.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1BCMp1PSe

If I can't appeal to your humanity I will try to appeal to your fears.

There is a very real concern that the drone strikes are destabilising the Pakistani government;

From the New Yorker;

“David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency warfare expert who has advised General David Petraeus in Iraq, has said that the propaganda costs of drone attacks have been disastrously high. Militants have used the drone strikes to denounce the Zardari government—a shaky and unpopular regime—as little more than an American puppet. "

The article makes the point that “the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the U.S. is not at war.”

At least the Israelis make sure their strikes are done by the military where military “lawyers have to be convinced that the target can’t reasonably be captured, and that he poses a threat to national security. Military specialists in Arab culture also have to be convinced that the hit will do more good than harm.”

In America a large part of the operation is carried out by the contractor Xe Services (formally Blackwater) and as with their controllers the CIA under no legal scrutiny. Both the contracting and the strikes have provoked a lot of dissent within the CIA. Obama however recently signed an order adding 50 Afghan drug lords to the list of targets supposedly because they pay money to Al Quaeda. What next? The DEA controlling drones and their missiles?

So when the blowback happens mate I'm not going to be shy about pointing the finger at your good self. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Dear SPQR,

My post was as much to Yabby as your good self as you both seem to be saying one of the defining features that make the Taliban so dispicable and deserving of the US committing war crimes over is that they don't wear uniforms.

Well neither do some of the Special forces units. Does this mean that any action by the Taliban against them is completely justifiable even if outside any rules of warfare?

P.S. You haven't answered Belly's question? "Boazy are you at it again?"

Well?

/// Well neither do some of the Special forces units. Does this mean that any action by the Taliban against them is completely justifiable even if outside any rules of warfare? ///

There’s a world of difference between SPECIAL forces and ALL forces.
I do think you are trying to cloud the issue, a liiiittle!

And it’s not just the issue of them not wearing uniforms, but them systematically using civilians as shields --and when the inevitable happens—people like you crying “for God sake “ the Americans are targeting civilians.

/// The deaths at the funeral were part of a mission to get one man, Baitullah Mehsud ///

And this piece to Belly is hype/tripe :

1) The ones most concerned about the drone strikes are the ones who already hate the Americans (and the West generally)–they are probably part of this mob.http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/360985,flowers-pakistan-court-appearance.html
“The suspect in this week's assassination of a close presidential aide was showered with rose petals Thursday as he appeared in an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan.”

2) The impetus behind such hate is not US use of drones , or US involvement in Afghanistan , or US support for Israel –it’s ten thousand madrasahs that teach young hormone charged ,sex denied men, that if they die fighting the infidels they will merit 72 dark eyed virgin houris who will eternally minister their every desire.And it’s hundreds of thousands of CSteele’s in the West who are always willing to trumpet any “wrong” the US does.

And PS: I don’t intend to do anything to identify myself –I’m on special forces assignment ,too

I think, may be wrong, you already unmasked Boazy, that spelling of liiittle had your finger prints on it.
IF I am wrong forgive, but I NEVER will dig a hole and bury my past posts good or bad I remain me.
Now csteele fear, gee you can twist reality hammer it to fit any hole but it remains wrong.
Any thoughts on stoning deaths of women.
Use of children in death missions.
And the outright theft of food aid in these country's.
What is you answer to terrorism based on hate.
Do you believe in a God, what one?
Crawling under the table after I leave,full of fear, no must just be if you say so.
My lack of humanity is impressive isn't it?

Dear Belly

Please do not think that I regard you as an inhumane person because I don't, far from it. I just felt that on this issue other concerns intruded for you which is understandable but they ultimately clouded the truth of what is being done in both our names.

I believe the stoning of women to be wrong.
I believe the use of children in death missions to be wrong.
I believe the theft of food aid to be wrong.

All I am doing is adding one more wrong to that list.

I believe the use of drone missile strikes by the CIA in Pakistan to be wrong.

My response to terrorism based on hate is that it can not be to produce more hate.