Col Cullen's expertise is tiny tiny counter insurgency wars. He recently hit up Congress about those crazy, devastating drones.
"They do damage to the Al Qaeda leadership.Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.
"The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they’ve given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. … The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population.”
Oh Snap! Say it aint so!
Co Kilcullen also mentioned how uncool it appeared - after all Great Satan's precise technical superiority seemed awful suspect to enemies, enemy enablers and frenemies too. Weak even.
"Using robots from the air ... looks both cowardly and weak."A Taliban tactician's reference to drone attacks being 'very effective' could be traditional Pashtun appreciation for an enemy's prowess.
Or, encouragement for a self-defeating course of action. If drones gone wild truly are cranking out more Taliban than they are sweetly delivering straight unto the Perfumed Gardens of Paradise
Taliban tactical logistic officer "X" revealed that
“The drones are very effective” , acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes. "
As the awesomely daemoneoconic Max Boot (love that name!) put it:
"His friends were no friends of ours."
Dr Boot hit up terror warrior cats in the last admin that were not impressed with any ideas about stopping drones gone wild :
“The attacks have been devastatingly effective and it is a little bit hard to understand the argument about anti-Americanism in Pakistan. It was pretty rife long before we started the current drone campaign a year ago.”
Besides - if drones are freaking out supposed allies that can't seem to bear to thrash time traveling intolerant creeps devouring their magical one of a kind secterian Land of the Pure the only really option would be Surginfg right on in Pakistan with boots on the ground.
"If we can put a lot of boots on the ground, that’s a strategy much more likely to succeed.In Pakistan we don’t have the option of putting a lot of boots on the ground. We aren’t going to send large numbers of U.S. ground forces unless there is another 9/11-type attack planned from Pakistan."
"We want the Pakistani army to clean out the jihadists but we have repeatedly discovered that the Pakistanis are unwilling or unable to do the job. Efforts to bolster the Pakistani military should continue but probably will not pay dividends anytime soon."
Unlike Drones Gone Wild.
Pic - "Celebrating Predator strikes On Taliban and Al Qaeda"
i like the pic a lot
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