Here in 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. Thehuman-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.

That's not all the poll found: Pakistanis are freaked out about their economy; highly anti-American; and less concerned about terrorism than they used to be – although that latter part might not be such a bad thing.After a $7.5 billion aid package passed Congress last year to bolster Pakistan's civilian government and reeling economy, here's what the United States has to show for it: Pakistanis exhibit as much anti-American sentiment as any populace on earth. According to Pew, 59 percent of Pakistanis consider the United States an enemy, and only 17 percent consider the Unites States a friend. "Pakistanis give the U.S. its lowest ratings among the 22 nations included in the spring 2010 Pew Global Attitudes survey," the poll notes. You have to go to Egypt or Turkey to find similarly negative views of the United States in Pew's findings – a fact, perhaps, that helps contextualize why the Pakistani intelligence apparatus funds U.S. enemies in Afghanistan, as WikiLeaks reminded us this week. Still, 64 percent say they want better relations with the United States.

Then there's Pakistani attitudes on terrorism, something the poll considers ominous. "As Pakistani forces continue to battle extremist groups within the country, nearly all Pakistanis describe terrorism as a very big problem," it warns. "However, they have grown markedly less concerned that extremists might take control of the country." Specifically, 69 percent worried in 2009 that the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated groups might rout the government. Now only 51 percent feel that way. Is that necessarily bad?

Haider Mullick, a Pakistani scholar at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University recently returned from a wide-ranging trip surveying Pakistani military development during the army's 18-month campaign against the Tehrek-e-Taliban, or TTP. The effort brought Pakistani troops into tough battles in South Waziristan. In his view, it's natural for Pakistanis to be less concerned about an enemy that they see their army battling, especially considering that last spring, the Taliban were entrenched barely 60 miles from the capitol city of Islamabad.

"TTP lost major territory in Swat, Buner, Shangla, Bannu, South Waziristan. That's very significant," Mullick says. "Also, historically speaking, once an insurgent group becomes weak, popular support for reconciliation goes up." And the fight against the insurgents still has popular backing: 49 percent of Pakistanis support it, far more than the 20 percent who oppose it, though 30 percent register mixed feelings.

The Pakistani military effort in the tribal areas is a mixed picture. By January 2010, the United Nations Refugee Agency accommodated 114,000 refugees from the fighting in camps it set up in the Northwest Frontier Province, with nearly a million more living in nearby "host communities." The military is apparently holding territory in Swat and South Waziristan, though there's not much of a civilian government presence there. Militants have been making their way to the Punjabi heartland of the country and the military has yet to advance into North Waziristan, the remaining safe havens of al-Qaida, the TTP and their allies. But the campaign has won persistent accolades from generals David Petraeus and Jim Mattis, who note – as did the Pakistani ambassador to the United States this week – that more Pakistani troops have died fighting Taliban than NATO troops have in nine years.

Paradoxically, the military's fight against the Taliban may have impacted Pakistani sentiments toward extremist groups. Fifteen percent of Pakistanis rate the TTP favorably, though, and 18 percent have favorable views of al-Qaida. Both are higher than last year's 10 and 9 percent favorables, respectively. But Pakistani perceptions of both groups are still down from 2008 levels, when a roughly a quarter of Pakistanis expressed approval of al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban. And the negative ratings for both groups are high, although the TTP's 65 percent unfavorable rating outstrips the 53 percent antipathy Pakistanis record for al-Qaida.

Still, no matter how you dissect the poll, what comes through is Pakistani dissatisfaction. President Asif Ali Zardari has an approval rating of 20 percent, more than 40 percent lower than when he took office. The economy has been hit hard by the global downturn, and about half of Pakistanis expect things to get worse, while only 35 percent were pessimists last year. "Corruption, economy, energy, inflation trumps the threat from terrorism in many places," says Mullick. See? We're not so different after all.

Credit: U.S. Air Force

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