Speaking of drones, this is pretty interesting. Apparently, Pakistan has told the U.S. to abandon a secret desert base inside Pakistan that CIA drones fly out of. This is no doubt more fallout of the May 1 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and we’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a while.
From AFP:
Pakistan told the U.S. to leave a remote desert air base reportedly used as a hub for covert CIA drone attacks, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar was quoted by state media as saying June 29.
His remarks are the latest indication of Pakistan attempting to limit U.S. activities since a clandestine American military raid killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 and plunged ties between the anti-terror allies into chaos.
“We have told (U.S. officials) to leave the air base,” national news agency APP quoted Mukhtar as telling a group of journalists in his office.
Images said to be of U.S. Predator drones at Shamsi have been published by Google Earth in the past. The air strip is 560 miles southwest of Islamabad in Baluchistan province.
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman told AFP there were no U.S. military personnel at the Shamsi base.
This last line may be the key to seeing that this is simply political theater on Pakistan’s behalf. The very next sentence indicates that Pakistan is demanding the U.S. leave a base that it has already evacuated.
CNN reported in April that U.S. military personnel had left the base, said to be a key hub for American drone operations, in the fallout over public killings by a CIA contractor in Lahore and his subsequent detention.
So we left one, fairly small, base in the middle of nowhere. However, U.S. personnel are have been rumored to be operating out of at least two other Pakistani air bases including one near Ghazi and another at Jacocobad known as PAF Base Shahbaz.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I'd say we leave and take our billions of USD worth of aid with us. Pakistan should be treated like a terrorist state and dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately, they have nukes so we can't sit by and watch them fall into the hands of the likes of Taliban. Either way, this relationship isn't working out.
I thnk thats what everyone would like to do. But again we need to be careful in handling this as well. If we just get up and leave,whats to stop them from covertly giving Al qaueda a nuke? We need time for our tier one guyys to do their thing and make contingency plans in case sh** hits the fan
Don't forget about Jalalabad air base, which is closer to North Waziristan than Shamsi. Although, operating out of Jalalabad might compromise the whole "covert" aspect of these operations.
Fly from Qatar? UAE? to Pakistan etc area??
Use carrier for drones???
Longer flight times mean reduced loiter time. Carriers might be a maybe, but that's risking a flat-top with 5,000 sailors, plus a powerful escort group within range of Iran or Pakistan.
They'll keep on antagonising us because they are now busy cozying up to China.
No one can get closer to China than the U.S: We basically provide them a gigantic consumer market, protect their industrial ore supply out of Afghanistan, finance the military build-up of the biggest enemy (Pakistan) of China's big competitor (India), and sell them oil out of our strategic reserves. Every now and then you will hear a press announcement out of some corner of D.C. throwing a red herring, xenophobe protection scheme-spin to American local yokel types who don't pay attention to actual geopolitical facts, but they own us lock stock and barrel, and our leaders for the last two decades just take it and smile.
Your either with us or against us as for as terrorrism goes. And if we think there with us were only fooling ourselves. Majority rules and if most pakistans feel they have the inheren’t right for there fighters to encroach on other countries territories then in principal other countries have that same right. You just can’t have people from other countries terrorizing other countries and using a poor excuse that we can’t control the situation. If you can’t we will or it’s just all out war with Pakistan and embargoes. Let’s not fool ourselves where the cancer is growing and pacify them. I don’t want war and it’s a terrible thing but when someone brings what do you do capitulate.
I feel that DT may be correctly identifying the key sentence, but for the wrong reasons.
Read it again, with the added emphasis
"A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman told AFP there were no U.S. >>military<< personnel at the Shamsi base."
CIA operatives aren't military personnel.
Good Evening Folks,
I don't put much stock in this. Pakistan has a domestic political situation and has to show that it runs Pakistan and not the US military.
Now that the location of the base has been blown its cover, its time to shag arse and set up new digs. No big deal.
Th truth of the matter is, that this is a CIA operation, not military, CIA and contractors only and a "Dog Patch" base and air field that can be set up and operating in a few hours with the same MQ-9 Reapers that are currently being used.
We got bin Laden and must expect to pay a price, so far the government of Pakistan has only "demanded" peanuts, pay it.
These instant bases for supporting Special Operations are like speakeasies of the 1920's. This is the way to do business against the terrorists. It provides perfect deniability for the American President, can be removed in a few hours. All you need to do is put the planes in the air and land them at another "Base", set some prepared explosive charges, and extract a few "contractors and CIA officers" and presto it was never there.
This same method can also be used for a Special Operation platoon operating deep in Indian Country or an brown water Naval Base planting mines on a river deep in a somewhat hostile country. This is cheap, effective and keeps the terrorists on the move.
Welcome to the new Counterinsurgency Warfare model. Strike before dawn, and gone by lunch time. The CIA is the "New Military", they can go where they like, when they chose and don't need an invite. They are not going to build a city that employees thousands of locals and bribe officials so a BCT can operate. This costs hundreds of billions of bucks. We will go where the terrorists go.
If a country permits terrorists to operate they they can expect to have the CIA make a visit. When the CIA leaves, don't expect a tip form Uncle Sugar either, and they will have to clean up after the dogs.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Good old cold war days, then? We are learning from Soviet successes of getting locals to do their fighting and dying with small teams of advisors/technicians.
Byron, tinsta allons, TINSTA ALLONS! If ALLONS, then cats bark, and dogs meow!
lets go to a war and see what happened. nuke each other see who survive at the end of the day.