veiled4allah: their terrorism, and ours

The deputy leader of al-Qaeda was not in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border which was hit in an apparent missile attack, Pakistan officials say... ...The unnamed officials said the attack - in which at least 18 people were killed - was based on "false information"...

...Reporters who reached Damadola spoke of three houses hundreds of metres apart that had been destroyed.

Shah Zaman said he lost two of his sons and a daughter. "I ran out and saw planes. I ran toward a nearby mountain with my wife. When we were running we heard three more explosions. I saw my home being hit.

Shah Zaman said two sons and a daughter were killed in the strike

"I don't know who carried out this attack and why. We were needlessly attacked. We are law-abiding people."

[The crime] is that the US assumed the right to drop a bomb in a civilian area on the assumption that someone they want is there, regardless of how many are murdered in the process. And further, they must stand upon this right because they calculate that if he is not there, such an attack would certainly terrify anyone thinking of supporting or 'harbouring' the enemy. Were Iran to launch such an attack on a neighbouring state, one would hear 'bloody murder' hallooed from every cathode tube.

But where is the intelligence in this intelligence? The occasion that was said to bring both of these high-level figures together was celebration of the Muslim eid. The idea was to kill the men, and whoever else happened to be present for the feast, while they were engaged in a religious ritual. In this sense the tactic is the same as a suicide bomber who walks into a crowded mosque and sets off a bomb or someone who assassinates a cleric because he is a cleric. Pakistanis in the region are understandably upset that their own government cannot protect them and U.S. special forces can operate seemingly at will even on one of the holiest days of the year. The problem with the way the current administration is waging this war on terrorism is that it has at times, like this case, adopted the tactics of the terrorists. In this attack it was the end that justified the means (meaning collateral damage to human beings), even if it turns out (as it usually does) that the intended target was missed. The logic here is that of Saddam Hussein rather than Thomas Jefferson. Terrorists in this region operate out of a combination of hate and passion, both of which are heightened in the overall community every time we carry out such attacks on civilian targets. How many recruits for hating America did we just create, and not just along the Pakistani border?