Pew: Pakistanis Unaware of Drone Program
Danger Room flags down a survey which shows that most Pakistanis are actually unaware of the drone program going on in the country:
Here in the America, the CIA’s drone program targeting extremists in the tribal areas of Pakistan is the subject of heated debate. The CIA calls it a uniquely valuable and precise counterterrorism tool. The Obama administration, which has stepped up the program significantly since taking office, considers it legal under the 2001 congressional Authorization to Use Military Force. The human-rights community, along with many security experts, fear that the program will create more terrorists than it kills due to anger at civilian casualties.
Pakistanis, however, think the drones are — sorry; huh? What are you talking about? Did you say clones?
That’s according to a new Pew poll on Pakistani attitudes (.pdf) that’s filled with surprises. Top of the list: “Just over one-in-three Pakistanis (35 percent) have heard about the drone strikes.” Apparently, Pakistanis barely know this program even exists. Another 43 percent say they’ve heard “nothing at all” about the drones. You can hear the champagne corks popping at Langley.
But it’s not exactly time for bottle service. Amongst those Pakistanis who have heard of the drones, opinion skews predictably negative. Ninety-three percent say they’re a bad or “very bad” thing. Ninety percent say they kill too many innocent people. While some researchers claim that if you limit your pool of respondents to the tribal areas, support for the drones actually goes up, 32 percent of overall respondents think they’re a necessary measure. (Although perhaps that’s a robust total of people saying a foreign government should shoot missiles at their fellow countrymen.) And almost half of Pakistanis believe the fiction that the drone strikes occur without Pakistani government approval.
