Should the United States continue the policy of striking at al Qaeda’s network inside Pakistan? Over at Danger Room, Noah Shachtman interviews Dr. David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who has advised CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Dr. Kilcullen believes the U.S. should severely curtail the strikes:
Dr. Kilcullen’s suggestion to use the strikes wisely and for maximum effect should be heeded, but there are a few items that should be addressed. First, not all Pakistanis want the strikes to stop. Some secretly wish for the attacks to continue. Not everyone in Pakistan, particularly those in the northwest, enjoy living under the Taliban’s jackboot (jacksandal?). Second, just about every time we’ve informed Islamabad about targets in the tribal areas, these targets have magically disappeared. I’ve heard numerous such complaints from intelligence officials. The level of co-operation we get from Pakistan concerning al Qaeda has been less than helpful. Perhaps the Pakistanis can explain why Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man behind the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, is plotting attacks from a Pakistani jail? Or why Rashid Rauf, one of the masterminds of the 2006 plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, magically escaped Pakistani custody? I could list numerous Afghan Taliban commanders and leaders who have been captured in Pakistan and subsequently released, such as Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the Taliban’s former minister of defense and a member of the Taliban’s Shura Majlis, or executive council; and Mufti Yousuf, a top military commander in eastern Afghanistan. Third, much of northwestern Pakistan is “an area outside of effective Pakistani sovereignty” and under Taliban and al Qaeda control. There is no shortage of targets. The U.S. strikes have been selective considering the very serious security issues inside Pakistan. Fourth, the U.S. isn’t “collecting scalps” as Dr. Kilcullen puts it, but is directly targeting al Qaeda’s external network. A look at the key players killed in the attacks shows this.
