Friday, July 16, 2010

Carl Levin Wants To Expand Drone Strikes In Pakistan By sudhan

Sam Stein, The Huffington Post, July 13, 2010

Levin

The top Senate Democrat on defense issues said on Tuesday that he would like to see an expansion of the U.S. military’s controversial drone-strike operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a group of reporters that he favors targeting the militant insurgent group, the Haqqani network, through drone strikes — something that U.S. forces don’t currently do.

“As a matter of fact, I think we have to include on the list other threats to the Afghan mission,” Levin said, during a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “We have to have, I believe, we should have on our list the headquarters of the Haqqani network. We know where they are. We know where that headquarters is… I don’t think they should be off-limits to those strikes. They directly threaten the Afghan mission.”

“I think we have got to have them on a list of targets, absolutely,” he added, after the breakfast. “I don’t see any reason why they are not on a target list and I won’t be surprised if they are. So I’m not gonna go beyond that.”

Continues >>

No comments: