Posted on 05/22/2011 2:03:59 AM PDT by Cardhu
The leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, and its Web site on Friday began publishing a selection of more than 4,000 American diplomatic cables obtained from WikiLeaks that are devoted to Pakistan, opening a window onto the American-Pakistani relationship and domestic politics never before seen here.
The cables, which were reviewed and in some cases reported on by The New York Times last year, include a request from the head of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, for American surveillance drones to fly over South Waziristan, where the army was fighting the Taliban.
The request by General Kayani referred only to unarmed surveillance drones, but the very mention of the army chief’s asking the United States Central Command head at the time, Adm. William J. Fallon, in January 2008 for American surveillance drones is likely to prove embarrassing.
The Pakistani military and the civilian government have insisted in public that they do not support the C.I.A. drones that attack militants in the tribal areas, even though they have acquiesced to the strikes in private.
A front-page article in Dawn on Friday said the cables confirmed that the drone strikes within Pakistan had more than just the tacit acceptance of the military leadership.
The story quoted from a cable from February 2009 by Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in which she said that General Kayani “knows full well that the strikes have been precise (creating few civilian casualties) and targeted primarily at foreign fighters” in Waziristan.
In another example of how until recently the drone strikes were appreciated by the Pakistani leadership, the story quoted Ms. Patterson as saying that the military aide to President Asif Ali Zardari estimated that 60 Pakistani soldiers would have been killed if they had been directed to attack a site that was the target of drones.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Pakistan is doing the job the MSM refuses to do when there is a Democrat in the White House.
"embarassing" is sometimes code for "deadly", in the Islamic world.
I wanna puke.
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