U.S. Rejects Demands To Vacate Pakistan Drone Base
by Mark Hosenball and Kamran Haider
The United States is rejecting demands from Pakistani officials that
American personnel abandon a military base used by the CIA to stage drone
strikes against suspected militants, U.S. officials told Reuters.
U.S. personnel have not left the remote Pakistani military installation
known as Shamsi Air Base and there is no plan for them to do so, said a U.S.
official familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss
sensitive material.
"That base is neither vacated nor being vacated," the official said. The
information was confirmed by a second U.S. official.
The U.S. declaration that drone operations in Pakistan will continue
unabated is the latest twist in a fraught relationship between security
authorities in Washington and Islamabad, which has been under increasing
strain for months. . . .
["TAPI is the finished product of
the US invasion of Afghanistan. It consolidates NATO's political and
military presence in the strategic high plateau that overlooks Russia, Iran,
India, Pakistan and China. TAPI provides a perfect setting for the
alliance's future projection of military power for "crisis management" in
Central Asia.--M K Bhadrakumar, "NATO weaves
South Asian web," atimes.com, December 23, 2010]
[We are depriving the citizens of other countries of their life, liberty,
and property with no semblance of due process. This means that our actions
are not only in violation of international law, the UN Charter, and the
United States' Constitution but also violate basic human rights.--Jim
Fetzer, "On the
Ethical Conduct of Warfare: Predator Drones," Global Research,
February 22, 2011]
[For the past three years, Noor Behram has hurried to the site of drone
strikes in his native Waziristan. His purpose: to photograph and document
the impact of missiles controlled by a joystick thousands of miles away, on
US air force bases in Nevada and elsewhere. . . .
[Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending
billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen
and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt. . . .
He noted that the U.S. intelligence and homeland security communities are
spending about $80 billion a year, outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet
al-Qaida and its affiliates only have about 4,000 members worldwide. That's
$20 million per terrorist per year, Blair pointed out. . . .
Blair mentioned that 17 Americans have been killed on U.S. soil by
terrorists since 9/11 - 14 of them in the Ft. Hood massacre. Meanwhile, auto
accidents, murders and rapes combine have killed an estimated 1.5 million
people in the past decade.--Noah Shachtman, "Former Intel Chief: Call Off The Drone War (And Maybe the Whole War on
Terror)," wired.com, July 28, 2011]
[The reason Hayden pushed for a much bigger drone war, it now appears, is
that it had already created a whole bureaucracy in the anticipation of such
a war.--Gareth Porter, "CIA drone
war driven by internal needs," washingtonpost.com, September 7,
2011]
[The PTI leader criticised not only President Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz
Sharif but also blasted US policies in the biggest-ever show of political
power in Lahore in the past 25 years.--Hamid Mir, "Imran
Khan: new trouble man for US in Pakistan," thenews.com.pk,
November 1, 2011]
Gen. Hamid Gul -- former head Pakistan's ISI, November 29, 2011
[Pakistan's Defence Committee of the Cabinet . . . took the following
decisions: a) to close NATO's transit routes through Pakistani territory
with immediate effect; b) to ask the US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15
days; c) to "revisit and undertake a complete review" of all "programs,
activities and cooperative arrangements" with US, NATO and the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including in "diplomatic, political and
intelligence" areas; d) to announce shortly a whole range of further
measures apropos Pakistan's future cooperation with US, NATO and ISAF.--M K
Bhadrakumar, "US and
Pakistan enter the danger zone," atimes.com, November 29, 2011]
[Pakistan regained possession of the Shamsi air base in Balochistan
near the border with Iran after evicting the US military presence from
there. The base itself had been leased to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
since 1992.--M K Bhadrakumar, "US outed,
and far from drawn down," atimes.com, December 13, 2011]
[* Demands end to drone strikes, hot pursuit inside Pakistan
* Says Pakistan's sovereignty shall not be compromised
* Rejects transportation of arms and ammunition to Afghanistan through
Pakistan
* Seeks unconditional US apology over Salala incident
* Supports gas pipeline projects with Iran and Turkmenistan--Tanveer Ahmed,
"Parliament redefines relations with US,"
Daily Times, April 13, 2012]
[Putin is an action-oriented statesman and the unhappy part is that six long
years have passed since he first proposed at the SCO summit in Shanghai in
June 2006 the setting up of an energy club within the regional grouping
comprising the energy producing countries of Russia, Iran and the Central
Asian countries and the three big energy consuming countries of China, India
and Pakistan. . . .
It was at the very same Shanghai summit of the SCO that Putin came out
openly for the first time to say that Russia's energy leviathan Gazprom was
willing to take part in the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline. --M K Bhadrakumar, "A Russia
House on the Indian Ocean," Guardian, June 30, 2012]
[Khan's campaign strategy is simple: he has promised to uproot corruption
within 90 days, end the country's involvement in America's war on terror and
institute an Islamic welfare state.--Pankaj Mishra, "Imran Khan Must Be Doing Something
Right," nytimes.com, August 16, 2012]
[Secret US documents reveal that senior Pakistani government officials have for years
known of and endorsed CIA drone strikes--"Secret memos 'show Pakistan
endorsed US drone strikes'," bbc.co.uk, October 24, 2013]