But we've kept it up and expanded the strikes since then. And the Pakistan Taliban are hurting. And Pakistanis haven't risen up in anger over the strikes:
Terror group leaders in the Pakistani tribal territories are openly admitting that the CIA UAV missile attacks have done serious damage to their leadership. ... But it gets worse.
While the Islamic terrorist groups in Pakistan's tribal territories are not happy with the six year CIA decapitation (kill the leaders) campaign, many of the local tribesmen are. ... The locals love this, because the Islamic radicals have been nothing but trouble.
I've long said that the argument favored by our Left that using force against jihadis is counter-productive is bunk. They commonly say that force just creates more jihadis. I say using ineffective force is counter-productive, because it just angers the enemy without hurting them sufficiently to cow them or kill them off.
And that's what I worried the drone strikes would be. The short-term penalty of inspiring anger in Pakistan seemed worth it to avoid a dangerous gap in between administrations that the enemy could exploit. But I didn't think we could sustain effective use of force in the drone strikes.
I was wrong. They've worked. The jihadis are hurt and terrorized themselves. The locals are quietly happy at the damage we've done to the jihadis. And the rest of Pakistan hasn't been angry enough to seriously complain about them. Clearly, this is effective use of force against jihadis.
