Today a CIA drone bombed the house of a Taliban official's in-laws in Pakistan (the 29th drone attack this year). He may or may not have been there but three children and one woman (possibly his wife) were killed. [Added: Initial reports were that he (Baitullah Mehsud) was definitely not killed. If he was, that is good in that it will at least justify the attack to many Pakistanis (and he was a murderous thug). But there have been many drone attacks launched against him before, only resulting in the deaths of civilians. That is one problem with remote control killing- the downside doesn't seem so steep from such a distance.] All this will do, as it has in the past, is turn more Muslims against us. If this is how we'll continue to prosecute the war on terror, whose side are we on? This attack will likely spawn more unrest in Pakistan. In Viet Nam the word was escalation (through troop increases). We are escalating our WOT, as we did in Iraq, by creating more and more enemies through our military actions.

How are drone attacks not assassinations or murder (unsuccessful or not)? What is the difference between someone pulling a trigger on a Somalian "rebel" from right behind them or from a control room in Florida (and don't answer 5,000 miles, smart-ass)? I realize that there is argument now about CIA and/or military assassination squads, which was not so much a surprise as was the fact that Congress was left out of the loop. Bush allegedly rescinded President Ford's loosely defined assassination ban, but that hardly seems to matter considering the Bush administration's demolition of limitations on executive and military actions. (And when did the CIA become our military lead?) At the very least, it will surely at some point, encourage others to do likewise. What will we say then? What will our conflicts look like then?

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