Drone Strikes Will Continue
(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)
(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)
By GARETH PORTER
CounterPunch
"The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new unconventional approach to counterinsurgency.
But McChrystal’s background sends a very different message from the one claimed by Gates and the news media. His long specialisation in counter-terrorism operations suggests an officer who is likely to have more interest in targeted killings than in the kind of politically sensitive counterinsurgency programmes that the Obama administration has said it intends to carry out.....
W. Patrick Lang, formerly the defence intelligence officer for the Middle East, suggested in his blog Monday that the McChrystal nomination "sounds like a paradigm shift in which Obama’s policy of destroying the leadership of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan takes priority over everything else".
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and airstrikes that is generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence. "
CounterPunch
"The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new unconventional approach to counterinsurgency.
But McChrystal’s background sends a very different message from the one claimed by Gates and the news media. His long specialisation in counter-terrorism operations suggests an officer who is likely to have more interest in targeted killings than in the kind of politically sensitive counterinsurgency programmes that the Obama administration has said it intends to carry out.....
W. Patrick Lang, formerly the defence intelligence officer for the Middle East, suggested in his blog Monday that the McChrystal nomination "sounds like a paradigm shift in which Obama’s policy of destroying the leadership of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan takes priority over everything else".
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and airstrikes that is generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence. "
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