So you know, I'm not American. I think your problem is the same a great many people share, and that's the belief that America is far more special than it actually is. America has a history littered with all kinds of horrific awful things, as you've spent a great deal of time pointing out. The trick is, if you take a look at any country and you find the same thing. The colonization by the British you already touched on. I'll include the mention of the colonization that most other european nations also partook in as well. I'll also ask you take a look at Russian and Chinese histories as well. There's an awful lot of dead people in that history, and never for very good reasons. Actually, look at the whole of human history and it's always been that way.

I insist on pointing this out because it MATTERS to how we view our world and actions today. America is no more special than any other nation. I instead ask on looking at the details and asking oneself if the actions taken by any state in a particular instance is leading to more or less death and suffering. I look at the drone strikes in tribal Pakistan and see enthusiastic murderers being killed off more efficiently than any ground offensive the Pakistani army could muster, if it actually saw any profit in it. Truth is though, the Pakistani army WANTS the suffering, it makes them look good, or at least makes the civilian governments look bad, which to them is the same thing.

I believe that the end of current American involvement in tribal Pakistan will lead to more deaths and suffering than it's continued involvement, both long and short term.

I would say diplomacy as a solution to Islamic jihadism is as naive as was diplomacy with the nazis. Pakistan's current rule of law is the death penalty for blaspheming the name of the prophet, and not only is that too secular for the taliban jihadists, it is so intolerably so that they are waging a war against civilians over it. The proudly claim credit for shooting children on school buses, and proudly note their intent to finish Malala off if given the chance. What kind of diplomacy do you expect to see followed exactly?

Should Pakistan's military and police really refuse to meet the countless taliban attacks on civilian targets with no use of force? Should they really just proceed to try and talk to the criminals prosecuting these crimes every single week? I think it's a strategy doomed to horrific failure, and one that invariably leads to far more death and suffering.

History doesn't exactly bare out that ignoring dictators and extremists leads to them just giving up and playing nice. Brutality was terribly successful and effective for the Pharoahs. Same for the Caesars. Same for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il and on and on and on. There comes a point when failure to face evil with force just emboldens and strengthens it.

My point is the situation exists and we do not have time machines. You posit drones are the wrong answer. I am simply asking you provide a better one then. The simplest alternative would presumably be doing absolutely nothing. Doing nothing as Pakistan heads towards either becoming a failed state or one run by Islamic jihadists doesn't seem a 'good' alternative.

You'll need to clarify for me what the rule of law in tribal Pakistan is. Plenty of evidence has been brought against terrorist criminals living in the region, and the Pakistani military, let alone police, are either unwilling or unable to attempt the arrest of said criminals. What do you propose as the right course of action in this scenario?

Follow the law. If there is some person or persons who are engaging in terrorist activity you ask them to be brought to justice and you bring evidence against them. America harbors way greater terrorists from people pleading for justice than Pakistan. There are ways to diplomatically go about this but instead America feels it owns the world and it can do what it wants.

The Magna Carta was created in 1215 and is the foundation for our laws including the concept of innocent until proven guilty. If we can't follow that, or the principles of the Nuremberg Trials we are pathetic.

You ignored the underlying argument. Policy towards tribal Pakistan is a no-win situation. If you can think of a 'good' or heck, even a better alternative please, please speak up. A great many very smart people have dedicated their lives to looking and there aren't many alternatives to be found. Long before 9/11 America was offering blank cheques to build schools for girls in tribal Pakistan. Even back then the money was refused because the schools would be burnt to the ground, and the people associated with it killed or run out of town for associating with the great Satan.

I wish there were a way to ask this without sounding belligerent, but what better foreign policy towards Pakistan and it's tribal areas would be recommended in absence of the current drone program?

@A10anis
ill answer that question.
neither.

your premise implies a moral "goodness" to one side while the other is "more" evil.
so you leave a choice of choosing the lesser of two evils.
yet both are evil.

how is it that when "they" perform violent acts of aggression it is "terrorism" but when "we" do the very same thing it is for the moral good.that somehow "our" violence is more righteous and justified.
see:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism

this is a classic hegelian dialectic=problem-reaction-solution

the choice of "lesser of two evils" totally ignores the first part.
the problem.
and the simple fact is:WE are the problem.
WE created the problem.
THEY react to the problem.
and then WE offer the solution.
in the form of violence.

i am not,by my commentary,dismissing the very actual and horrific truths of violence perpetrated by terrorists.

my point is simply:if you are going to look at a situation honestly you have to look at the board with open eyes.

let me put it in metaphorical terms:
which would you rather be eaten by?
a great white shark?
or a hammerhead?
neither...because BOTH are sharks.

i do totally agree with you in regards to pakistan.
they have been playing both sides for quite some time now,and lets not forget..they have nuclear weapons.

But if you fail to meet them with force you also run the risk of ending up like Poland, and well, most of the rest of Europe in WW2.

Or like Afghanistan.

Like it or not, the Taliban are openly waging war on moderate and secular society within Pakistan and have been doing so for a long time. Malala's not the first to be shot by them, she's not the most recent. As I pointed out earlier as well and you seem to think isn't relevant.

Yes, it does. The members of the Taliban aren't born into it. They sign on, they join up, they make a choice to follow the Taliban leadership. Every day they continue to identify themselves as Taliban is a reaffirmation of that. We don't have to kill every last one of them to eliminate them. If they all renounced the group and ideology it'd be gone just like that. You need to understand, the regions the Taliban are thriving in are filled with people readily joining them NOT to get back at the west, but the whole package. Men are superior to women, the true believers are superior to the infidels, killing those that disagree and taking from them by force is not only acceptable, but noble. Those core 'values' hold very large appeal to the tribal youth in those areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's ugly, it's brutal and trying to call it something else is ignoring the real depth and heart of the problem.

The Taliban are a minor irritation for us outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the moderate muslims and secular populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are the real victims of the Taliban thugs. Failing to call them thugs and to condemn them is doing nobody any favors.

It's not revelational, it's powerful.

That said, I think I'm too much of a realist and still believe leaders like her require people protecting them with the force required to stop people like the Taliban. Benazir Bhutto was in many ways a grown version of many of Malala's own ideals, and she is now dead at the hands of the same militant fanatics that tried to kill Malala. Female politicians in Pakistan have a regrettably short life expectancy, much like any male politicians who support them or anything remotely secular. For example the two politicians assassinated in the last year and a bit for asking to lift the death penalty for the crime of blasphemy.

Pakistan is in the middle of a very bloody war between the people like Malala and the people who tried to kill her. The trouble is the side we relate with is being decimated by assassinations which are either killing the moderates outright, or forcing them from the country to safety but more limited impact within Pakistan. Bhutto was similarly in exile for a long while for the same concerns, which proved out to be all to well founded.

For all the horrible things you can say about drone strikes, there has never before been such an efficient method of specifically killing enemy leaders in a war zone. Look at WW2 and Vietnam, and how many innocent civilians were killed for every high level enemy leader. The drone strikes in tribal Pakistan, even by the measure of Pakistan's own critics of them, manage better than 50% of their victims as bonafide militants. This includes a long list of high level Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Loss of civilian life is always tragic, but to kill 1 thousand militants and a thousand bystanders each year, while those same militants kill 10s of thousands of civilians on purpose is on the whole a good trade. Truth be told, if the Pak army was at the helm of the drones, the praises of the program would be unending. It's a combined pride and distrust of America thing.

I also think guys over here complaining need to better appreciate the ground situation over in places like tribal Pakistan. Tribal Pakistan is exactly that, a series of tribal communities. Outsiders are either welcomed in as guest and friend, or ushered out as mortal enemy, with a number of social and ethical codes dictating which will apply. If you are living in a community, that whole community has embraced you as one of your own and on a large scale sharing common cause and values. Any tribal community that's accepted high level Taliban militants into their community is guaranteed to share an extreme form of Sharia law. The community will not tolerate the education of their young girls. Blasphemy and apostasy will be immediate death sentences, without trial. Rape victims will be stoned and/or killed for adultery, as is only right. Our high standards of morality over here absolutely demand we still declare those people civilians, and mark their deaths as such, but the notion of them being potential allies turned enemies because of drone strikes is absurd.

I can see that you're not gonna listen, but I hope other people will read this.

http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2008/09/humanitarian-imperialism-by-noam.html

In it Chomsky makes the case for Humanitarian intervention, citing two specific instances where an invasion was justified as humanitarian.

"The most significant ones by far during the post–Second World War era are in the 1970s: India’s invasion of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), ending a huge massacre; and Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, driving out the Khmer Rouge just as their atrocities were peaking."

Neither of those instances was England and neither is the Falklands. It's a much more complex situation than just Evil Military Junta, and White Special Knights of England bravely saving the day. People who believe these fantasies give power to those who end up destroying a lot of fucking lives.

Every evil bastard cites defense, or humanitarian intervention. It's not true, don't fucking believe them just because you're too lazy to do the research.

its not a country, a country cant do anything. there are people, persons doing this.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are our allies, yet are the sources of the terrorism moreso than Afghanistan.

The FSA are civilians responding to their countrymen being MASSACRED, women, children, old people, by the GOVERNMENT, the SAA.

Really clueless people who think the FSA are terrorists and SAA is legitimate. Disinformation is winning despite the clear video evidence that Assad is massacring civilians of opposing religious factions. I see this clearly, but then again I watch the actual videos from places that dont put commentary on them. Its disgusting what they, the leaders of Syria, have done to the children of Syria using the army as a tool. You do not attack civilians or give militia leeway to do so.

Support the FSA.

What a complete and utter moron. Good detective work is more effective than starting wars and creating more hatred, giving terrorists more support around the world. Ya know how many people in Yemen hated us before we started to Drone the shit out of their tiny villages? Can you guess how easy it was to kill just a few dozen people and turn our allies and in rabid American Hating psychos?

Bush and Obama have hurt us around the world (and Obama got a fucking Nobel Fucking Prize). There's going to be more and more hate, more and more attacks on us and our children because of them. Because we supported them and we didn't wake up.

I don't care what people thought or were told to believe on Sept. 12th. I care what they do, and what we did was barely anything good. We started stupid wars, we threatened we cracked down.

We even commissioned a study on how to prevent future 9/11s and what did we do with the information? FUCK ALL. You can get a nuclear device from an increasingly destabilization Pakistan, which is Obamas fault with him surging the war to shit in Afghanistan. Get your Nuclear device, wrap it in a bale of fucking Marijuana, and put it in a fucking shipping container to the USofA. It'll get here, not be inspected, be taken to a fucking hotel room in lower Manhattan, assembled by a scientist who's fucking child was blown up by a fucking drone, and detonated.

We don't care, we don't THINK, we just keep going. They're not protecting us, they're not even trying. It's up to us to remove THEM so we can get in people who represent US.