At least seventeen suspected militants were killed in a drone attack in Waziristan, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on Friday. The attack by four American unmanned aircraft is the first such operation in Pakistan since bin Laden’s capture and execution by US Special Forces a little over a week ago. The drone attacks have sparked severe anti-American sentiment against the Obama Administration. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has released home videos of bin Laden rehearsing for his video addresses. The material was obtained during the raid last week and was released in order to undermine bin Laden’s martydom. In the wake of the operation, Pakistanis have expressed concern that the US violated Pakistani sovereignty during its mission to capture bin Laden because it operated without the consent of the Pakistani government. Bin Laden was captured down the street from the country’s elite military academy, and the Pakistani military has already been ridiculed for being too inept to capture bin Laden. Pakistan, a growing nuclear power, has had a rocky relationship with the United States. Activist and professor Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote in the Pakistani newspaper, The Tribune, “Bin Laden was the ‘Golden Goose’ that the army had kept under its watch but which, to its chagrin, has now been stolen from under its nose. Until then, the thinking had been to trade in the Goose at the right time for the right price, either in the form of dollars or political concessions.” This year alone, Congress has appropriated $3 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan. However, a bill introduced to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is calling for Pakistan to prove that it knew nothing about bin Laden’s whereabouts in order to continue receiving aid. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the co-sponsors of the bill of being too hasty to punish Pakistan. “I think people who have been married 30 years still have some problems, but they don’t get divorced,” says House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon about the bill.
GUEST: Shahid Mahmood, political analyst, former editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate.
