The United States isn’t officially at war with Pakistan. But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from bombing whoever they want whenever they see fit. Nor has it stopped  the U.S. media from dutifully following up with celebratory applause as was the case this morning when news broke that a U.S. drone strike may have killed the Pakistani Taliban’s number two guy, Waliur Rehman, a claim the Pakistani Taliban explicitly denies.

Never mind that the strike destroyed a house and killed six other people in the process because according to the Associated Press, “the death of Waliur Rehman would be a strong blow to the militant group responsible for hundreds of bombings and shootings across Pakistan.” I’m no expert on Pakistan but it seems to me that killing a handful of alleged militants and their commander might serve as a provocation for more violence rather than a “strong blow”. 

The U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million dollar bounty  for Rehman’s capture for his alleged involvement in an attack on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but Rehman is far better known for being at war with the Pakistani government as deputy commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, one of the many militant groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban.

And as ABC News points out, “Pakistani Taliban commanders have been killed in the past, only to quickly be replaced. Like most militant groups, the TTP has a hierarchical structure with others ready to move up the ladder.”

So this militant, who we may or may not have killed in a country we’re not officially at war with, is easily replaceable, in which case what the fuck is the point of dropping bombs in a war that can never be won? And what will the consequences be for Pakistani civilians who will likely face the U.S.-fueled wrath of vengeful domestic militants?

It’s also important to note that today’s episode marked the first known U.S. drone strike since President Obama’s drone speech, which the news media collectively described as placing restrictions on future drone strikes.

In reality, Obama’s speech “appeared to be laying groundwork for an expansion of the controversial targeted killings,” reported McClatchy.

But Obama’s speech appeared to expand those who are targeted in drone strikes and other undisclosed “lethal actions” in apparent anticipation of an overhaul of the 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Al-Qaeda and allied groups that supported the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

In every previous speech, interview and congressional testimony, Obama and his top aides have said that drone strikes are restricted to killing confirmed “senior operational leaders of Al-Qaeda and associated forces” plotting imminent violent attacks against the United States.

But Obama dropped that wording Thursday, making no reference at all to senior operational leaders. While saying that the United States is at war with Al-Qaeda and its associated forces, he used a variety of descriptions of potential targets, from “those who want to kill us” and “terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat” to “all potential terrorist targets.”

The previous wording also was absent from a fact sheet distributed by the White House. Targeted killings outside of “areas of active hostilities,” it said, could be used against “a senior operational leader of a terrorist organization or the forces that organization is using or intends to use to conduct terrorist attacks.

The preconditions for targeted killings set out by Obama and the fact sheet appear to correspond to the findings of a McClatchy review published in April of U.S. intelligence reports that showed the CIA killed hundreds of lower-level suspected Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal are during the height of the operations in 2010-11.