Pakistan and U.S. Have a Deal on Airstrikes

I think this arrangement has been obvious for some time considering the Pakistanis don't do anything but whine every time we kill people inside their borders. I mean, they don't shoot at us anymore. It also explains the neophyte Obama's comments during the debate that he would strike Al Qaeda in Pakistan even without Pakistan's permission. That is to say, he already knew we had their permission. He was just acting all John Wayne for the cameras. By the way, it doesn't make feel all that safe when Obama and the Washington Post announce our foreign policy strategies to the public.

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.
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Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Here's a really cool video that details how the U.S. military works those drones.