practice for those living in targeted areas have been largely omitted from coverage in the US, this report focuses on these effects. Opposition to drone strikes has accompanied increasingly negative perceptions of the US. Roughly three in four now consider the US an enemy, an increase from both 2010 and 2011.77 David Kilcullen, former Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus, and Andrew M. Exum of the Center for a New American Security have explained that “[p]ublic outrage at the strikes is hardly limited to the region in which they take place . . . . Rather, the strikes are now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion in Punjab and Sindh, the nation’s two most populous provinces.”78 Pakistani officials have been very vocal, particularly in 2012, in their opposition to ongoing drone strikes in FATA. They have asserted that the strikes are unlawful, a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, and counterproductive.79
CONFLICT, ARMED NON-STATE GROUPS, AND MILITARY FORCES IN NORTHWEST PAKISTAN For decades, and including back at least to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s, northwest Pakistan has been the site of significant unrest. When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it persuaded Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to assist its regional counter-terrorism operations,80 contributing to a change in FATA dynamics.81 Fighting in FATA intensified in the coming years as the Pakistani
Id. at 10. David Kilcullen & Andrew McDonald Exum, Death From Above, Outrage Down Below, N.Y. TIMES (May 17, 2009), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17exum.html?pagewanted=all. 79 See Pakistan: Drone Strikes Are Violations of Sovereignty, REUTERS (June 4, 2012), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/pakistan-drone-strikes_n_1568016.html; see also infra Chapter 5: Strategic Considerations. 80 See, e.g., Tony Karon, Why Musharraf Failed, TIME (Aug. 19, 2008)(noting that, “Pakistan was forced to support the U.S.—or at least not stand in the way of its assault on Afghanistan.”), available at http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1833820,00.html; see also Daniel Schorn, Musharraf: In the Line of Fire, CBS NEWS: 60 MINUTES (Feb. 11, 2009)(noting that, “[t]he U.S. made it clear that [the Pakistani government’s] relationship [with the Afghan Taliban government] would have to end.”), available at http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2030165.html. 81 See, e.g., SHUJA NAWAZ, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, FATA- A MOST DANGEROUS PLACE 9 (2009), available at http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/081218_nawaz_fata_web.pdf. 77
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