First up: The drone war over Pakistan. This time last year, it was most definitely underway. But in 2009, it kicked into high gear. The Obama administration launched more than 50 reported robotic strikes, killing several hundred people. Compare that to 2008, when there were just 36 drone attacks.The character of the drone war changed, too. A year ago, the Pakistani government was denying any connection with the attacks. So was the U.S. military. And the idea that Blackwater was somehow mixed up in the whole thing was a plot twist worthy of Hollywood. But that was before Google Earth spotted U.S. Predators parked on a Pakistani runway; before the Air Force let slip that their drones were running missions east of the Durand Line; and before the CIA publicly announced that it was cutting Blackwater’s contract for rearming the drones. By May, the unmanned attacks had become such an open secret that CIA director Leon Panetta confessed that the robotic campaign was “the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership.” (This, despite the militants’ apparent understanding of how the drones were targeted, and how to see through the robotic planes’ eyes.) That view was shared by some in the White House, who wanted to recast the Afghanistan fight along the lines of the drone-heavy effort in Pakistan. But counterinsurgency experts continue to worry that the robotic attacks could destabilize the region as they continue into 2010 and expand to a new front: Yemen.
— Noah Shachtman
[Photo: Noah Shachtman]
