You Might Have Missed: Israel, Iran, and Drone Strikes in Pakistan and Somalia

• Jeffrey Gettleman, “Africa’s Dirty Wars,” The New York Review of Books, March 2012.

I saw how hollow such leadership can be when I attended an expensive Darfur peace conference in Sirte, Libya, in 2007. What fascinated and attracted the rebels was not the plenary sessions or the one-on-one meetings with United Nations officials. It was the all-you-can-eat hotel buffet where turbaned figures laughed as they heaped mountains of rice and meat onto their plates and drank gallons of Pepsi. None of the Darfurian rebels I talked to at that conference could tell me what he was fighting for. In fact, although I had spent much time in the region they came from, it was hard to know if any of these men were fighting at all. The leaders I had met in the field were not there.

• Shibley Telhami, “Do Israelis support a strike on Iran?” POLITICO, February 28, 2010.

Only 19 percent of Israelis polled expressed support for an attack without U.S. backing, according to a poll I conducted — fielded by Israel’s Dahaf Institute Feb. 22-26 — while 42 percent endorsed a strike only if there is at least U.S. support, and 32 percent opposed an attack regardless.

A majority of Israelis polled, roughly 51 percent, said the war would last months (29 percent) or years (22 percent), while only 18 percent said it would last days. About as many Israelis, 44 percent, think that an Israeli strike would actually strengthen Iran’s government as think it would weaken it (45 percent).

(3PA: Only 19 percent of Israelis support attacking Iran without the United States, but fully 51 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government should remain neutral in the event of an Israeli attack.)

• Yochi J. Dreazen, “Panetta Calls for Tax Increases, Not Defense Cuts,” National Journal, February 28, 2012.

Panetta’s comments about the need for tax increases came as he reiterated his long-standing warnings that so-called sequestration – the roughly $600 billion in automatic defense cuts which would take effect if no debt-cutting deal is reached by the end of the year – would hollow out the nation’s armed forces and directly threaten U.S. national defense.

In his typically colorful language, Panetta derided the sequester mechanism as a “meat axe” which would impose dangerous across-the-board cuts rather than the targeted plans the administration has also unveiled for shaving $487 billion out of the Pentagon’s budget over the next 10 years.

(3PA: In 2009, it cost $515,000 to keep one U.S.  servicemember in Afghanistan per year. Today, it costs $850,000, according to Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale.)

• Sebastian Abbot, “Study: Militants, not civilians, are primary victims of drone strikes,” Arizona Central, February 26, 2012.

The AP was told by the villagers that of at least 194 people killed in the attacks, about 70 percent—at least 138—were militants. The remaining 56 were either civilians or tribal police, and 38 of them were killed in a single attack on March 17.

(3PA: For other estimates on the range of Pakistani civilian casualties from drone strikes: senior U.S. official: .0025%; Counter-Terrorism Committee: 3.5%; Long War Journal: 9.5%; New America Foundation: 20%; Bureau of Investigative Journalism: 17-27%.)

• Colin S. Gray, “Categorical Confusion? The Strategic Implications of Recognizing Challenges Either as Irregular or Traditional,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 24, 2012.

• “Clinton says Somalia air raids not ‘a good idea,’” Reuters Africa, February 23, 2012.

Replying to a question at a news conference following an international conference on Somalia, Clinton said: "I am not a military strategist, but I think I know enough to say air strikes would not be a good idea and we have absolutely no reason to believe anyone, certainly not the United States, is considering that."

(3PA: That very same day, a U.S. drone strike killed four people in Somalia—apparently the United States was doing more than considering air strikes.)

• Matthew M. Aid, Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror (New York: Bloomsbury Press).

A few mid-level American intelligence officials opposed the new policy, arguing that instead of killing al-Qaeda operatives, some effort should be made to try and capture these men if and when the opportunity presented itself. According to two former CIA counterterrorism officials, because no senior or even mid-level al-Qaeda official had been captured for years prior to the initiation of the policy, the CIA’s knowledge of al-Qaeda’s internal organizational structure and management dynamics, as well as the group’s plans and intentions, remained very spotty. But their appeals were rejected on purely utilitarian grounds. According to a senior U.S. intelligence official interviewed in 2009, “Capturing al-Qaeda officials is a bother. It is so much easier to just kill ‘em when you can find them.” (139)

Since entering office in 2009, the Obama administration has continued the policy initiated during the Bush administration of killing al-Qaeda leaders and fighters whenever and wherever they are found. The widely held sentiment inside the U.S. intelligence community remains that the only sure way to ensure that there will be no more 9/11s is, as one current senior administration official starkly put it in a 2009 interview, “We have to kill them all, every last one of them.” (145)