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Terror in New York and North Waziristan

By CHEN WEIHUA
Updated: 2010-05-04 00:00

No one walking through Times Square will ever feel quite the same after Saturday night’s failed bombing there. The suspect, seen on a video tape, has not been identified, although the Taliban in Pakistan has claimed responsibility.

US government officials have labeled the car bomb a terrorist attack, but have not confirmed that the Taliban was responsible.

Meanwhile in North Waziristan, at least six people were killed on Monday in a suspected US drone attack, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Since 2004, drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan have killed between 898 and 1,336 people, of whom between 609 to 958 were militants, according to press accounts.

The Washington-based New America Foundation estimates that at least 30 percent of casualties from drone attacks are civilians. Other sources put that figure much higher, some as high as 98 percent.

Whatever the exact figure, civilian deaths from drones qualify as a kind of massacre, an indiscriminative attack on militants and civilians alike. United Nations human rights investigator Philip Alston, who is also a New York University professor, has said he fears the drone attacks may violate international humanitarian law and international human rights laws.

While the US military celebrates the deaths of Taliban leaders, they do not seem to realize that these drone attacks have created more enemies and even aided the recruitment of Taliban forces.

The fact of the matter is that the families, friends, and neighbors of every militant and civilian killed in the attacks are much less likely to become friends of the United States than before. In Pakistan alone, fewer than one in five Pakistanis view the United States favorably.

So it should come as no surprise that some of these people join the Taliban and carry out retaliatory attacks, targeting New York’s Times Square or other American landmarks.

Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, says that of a wide range of enemies America faces in Afghanistan, only 2-3 percent cannot potentially be turned into friends.

Kupchan’s latest book, How Enemies Become Friends explores how adversaries can transform enmity into amity. He argues that diplomatic engagement with rivals, far from being appeasement, is critical to rapprochement.

Unfortunately US President Barack Obama, who has vowed to undertake more diplomatic engagement with “rogue nations”, has also continued to authorize the drone attacks initiated by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Even if there is no direct link between the Taliban and the Times Square bombing, the people of New York and North Waziristan share a fear that they may be senselessly attacked at any time. Like car bombs, the drone attacks only make the world more dangerous.