While having given tacit approval for such attacks, publicly Pakistan has repeatedly protested U.S. missile strikes. Last November, for example, the Pakistani government made an official protest with U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson.

"These kinds of acts are counter-productive ... it adds to our problems," said Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's Prime Minister, at the time.

Missile strikes do not only kill Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, but they also kill civilians. In many of the missile strikes, Pakistani civilians are also killed. Whether or not the Taliban and al-Qaeda are using the civilians as shields is not the point. Each dead civilian is one more reason for a friend or family member to fight back against the U.S.

Yesterday, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict released a new report "Losing the People: The Costs and Consequences of Civilian Suffering in Afghanistan" (pdf) that found:

The international coalition in Afghanistan is losing public support, one fallen civilian at a time... A once welcoming picture of the population has turned into scenes of frequent, widespread and sometimes violent protests over civilian deaths and a perceived lack of concern by international forces...

Billions of dollars are spent to win, keep and rebuild Afghan communities, but it only takes seeing one family maltreated and ignored by military forces for a community to turn against the international effort.

"Civilian deaths from airstrikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch last September when the report, "'Troops in Contact': Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan" (pdf), was released.

For obvious reasons, more militants creates more problems for the U.S. and NATO too. Both in the form militants that have put the Taliban in control of southern Afghanistan, but also makes military operations in Afghanistan more costly for the U.S. and NATO. The U.S.-led coalition largely relies on supply convoys through Pakistan. When locals are upset because of missile strikes, then militants have an easier time attacking supply depots and convoys in northwest Pakistan such as with this attack yesterday that destroyed 14 NATO trucks.

The Times reports that two high-level reports advocate "broadening the target area" in Pakistan, which so far has been limited to the tribal areas. Baluchistan is "a sprawling province that is under the authority of the central government" and borders southern Afghanistan where the Taliban is entrenched.

Reports by U.S. Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute "have recommended expanding American operations outside the tribal areas if Pakistan cannot root out the strengthening insurgency." Some U.S. officials claim the extensive C.I.A. Predator and Reaper missile strikes have "forced some leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda to flee south toward Quetta" and suggest the attacks "in the tribal areas have been effective at killing 9 of Al Qaeda's top 20 leaders".

Many American intelligence officials say that several of the top Taliban commanders remain in hiding either in the sprawling Afghan refugee camps near Quetta or in some of the city's Afghan neighborhoods.

Missile strikes or American commando raids in the city of Quetta or the teeming Afghan settlements and refugee camps around the city and near the Afghan border would carry high risks of civilian casualties, American officials acknowledge.

"High risks of civilian casualties" is precisely what Obama should be avoiding in constructing "a smarter Pakistan policy".

Instead since the first days of his presidency, Obama has been actively pursuing a policy of U.S. missile strikes and now, according to the administration's latest trial balloon, the administration may seek to expand the use of missile strikes.

If this does become Obama's long-term strategy, then there is no chance for defeating the Taliban in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO may as well withdraw their troops now. Such a move would save Afghan and Pakistani lives, which actually may be a "smarter" strategy in comparison since less civilians killed are fewer militants recruited.

 
^{Cross-posted from Daily Kos.}