A Dozen Predator Drones to Pakistan: Fill 'er Up Boys!

As headlines zipped across the news ticker last week I couldn't help but ask, 'Why the hell is the U.S. giving the government of Pakistan a dozen of our most-secretive and recently effective aircraft, the now infamous Predator Drone?' After all, Pakistan is already a nuclear weapons giant, developing an effective bomb over 10 years ago in 1999.

In addition, the Pakistani government is highly unstable, extremely unpopular and headed by a U.S.-backed puppet in President Al-Zadari who is a 'softer' version of the belligerently hard-fisted military dictator Perez Musharraf who resigned in 2008amid constitutional controversies. Many Pakistanis still suspect Musharraf was involved in the assassination of political icon and opponent Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Meanwhile, the once-fabled but now real but small cadre of idealistic, disparate and unconnected young men tagged the foreboding "Al-Qaeda" is growing their presence and gaining once-unattainable political popularity in Pakistan.

It's not hard to remember the famous images of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983 or Kennedy, Carter, Bush I and Obama foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski pep-talking Afghan mujahadeen fighters that same year.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that your friends today may very well become your enemies tomorrow.

With that in mind, perhaps it isn't a great idea to give a highly unstable developing nation and almost certain future enemy our most top secret weapon. And if we don't know how to properly caretake of such a weapon with massive implications, perhaps we shouldn't even be using it ourselves.

The Might of Sovereignty

As reported last week, the United States and Pakistan shared an intensely tenuous moment when American helicopters incurred across the Afghan border and into the sovereign nation. Giving a stern warning, the Pakistani military fired warning flares, and a short exchange of warning shots, prompting the Americans to leave and return back into the seven year old colony. In the Khost Province right across the border, the American military has been known in the past months to pursue terrorists into Pakistan, incurring anger from Pakistani officials. While the military dictator Perez Musharraf might have encouraged such blatant violations of national sovereignty, the new Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari, will not allow it. The widower of recently assassinated Benzair Bhutto sent a strong message to the United States: respect our borders.

Even in the midst of a region engulfed with a US militaristic nation-building enterprise, Pakistan is not afraid to stand down. Not only must they deal with American incursions, but also historically tenuous relations with nuclear neighbor India, and China's growing influence in their hemisphere. While Pakistan seems prompt to allow the United States a sphere of influence in the region, the new president is not afraid to draw the line on what is termed acceptable in America's obsessed War on Terror.