Pakistan’s government may have rejected US calls to expand the CIA drone strike program into the western province of Balochistan, but that does not mean that they are going to keep the US spy agency out of the region.
Rather Pakistan officials are now confirming that the government agreed to a “compromise” that would allow a significant increase in the number of CIA ground teams operating in the Balochistan capital city of Quetta, one of Pakistan’s largest cities and also where the US believes Afghan Taliban leadership are located.
So far US officials have only confirmed the demand for more drone strikes, which have already dramatically increased in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The attacks have sparked growing anti-US sentiment across Pakistan, and expanding the attacks outside of the tribal areas would likely do much more to harm the credibility of the Zardari government.
This is doubly so if US missiles started falling on Quetta, a city of nearly a million people. Pakistani officials have also expressed concern about the US eagerness to start attacking this city, particularly after strikes in the more sparsely populated tribal areas have proven so unreliable.
CIA needs no permission as the PPP govt. is corrupt and anti Pakistan. They have still two years to sell to america dollars against dead Pakistanis then they will leave Pakistan for america.
Americans will never learn to kill civilians is a war crime against the people and there is no legal ground but this is a notorious states creates problems and let the americans die.
This will be last war of americans on foreign territory and the next war will be on the neighbours i.e latin america. It will bring nothing new to americans.
It is not just the Zardari government, Musharraf government was doing exactly the same thing. And none of the major leaders have opposed drone attacks vociferously, indicating that all the future governments will support it. When the choice is between a complete economic isolation and potential of being bombed to stone age, or sacrificing a few hundered innocents on the altar of war; the latter appears to be more pragmatic. Lining up pockets with the American dollars is an additional incentive. Even in the tribal region some make money through NATO contracts while the others attack NATO convoys. Pakistan should have stayed out of this war but it is too late now. The only hope is that sensible elements will take control of American foreign policy and bring the war to an end. But the recent election suggests that that dream is not going to come true any time soon.