{"id":1945,"date":"2013-08-12T12:56:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T18:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1945"},"modified":"2013-08-12T12:56:54","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T18:56:54","slug":"u-s-drones-kill-more-than-30-in-yemen-school-targeted-in-one-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/u-s-drones-kill-more-than-30-in-yemen-school-targeted-in-one-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Drones Kill More Than 30 in Yemen; School Targeted in One Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0\u00a0Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.<\/a>, The New American
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In fewer than two weeks, Hellfire missiles launched by U.S. drones have killed at least 31 people in Yemen. At least 14 of the victims were believed by President Obama\u00a0\u2014 the launcher-in-chief\u00a0\u2014 to be al-Qaeda militants.<\/p>\n

On the heels of reports of the\u00a0foiling of a plot<\/a>\u00a0purportedly hatched by the Yemeni-based branch of the alleged terrorist organization, the president has accelerated the frequency and ferocity of the drone strikes in the small Arab nation.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press reports<\/a>\u00a0that on August 7, \u201cA suspected U.S. drone strike killed seven alleged Al Qaeda militants Wednesday in southern Yemen\u201d according to security officials quoted by the AP.<\/p>\n

Later that same day,\u00a0CNN reported t<\/a>hat \u201cin central Yemen’s Mareb province, eight people were killed in an early morning drone strike, including four with links to al Qaeda,\u201d again quoting Yemeni security officials.<\/p>\n

Then, for the third day in a row, the United States sent drones to summarily execute targets in Hadramout province, an area of Yemen identified by the Obama administration as \u201ca bastion of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP).<\/p>\n

According to the establishment party line, the purpose of the drone strikes is to prevent any further terrorist attacks on the United States or her allies and to eliminate the vestiges of al-Qaeda. There are those in Yemen, however, who see a paradoxical outcome.<\/p>\n

In a hearing before the Senate in April, Yemeni journalist Farea al-Muslimi testified, \u201cThe US thinks it understands Yemen but the drones have been one of the most effective tools for AQAP to succeed in Yemen. A big part of al-Qaeda power at the moment is convincing Yemenis that they are in a war with America, (that) America is attacking the sovereignty of Yemen and this government is non-legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yalda Hakim, reporting for the BBC<\/a>\u00a0from Zinjibar in southern Yemen, echoes al-Muslimi\u2019s criticism, asking, \u201cAre U.S. drones creating more enemies than they kill?\u201d According to locals interviewed by Hakim, the answer is yes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drones are killing our people, killing our children, and destroying our homes,\u201d one man said, as he sat among the sheared rebar and crumbled concrete that was once his village. \u201cThe drones don\u2019t differentiate between people,\u201d he added, \u201cthey just kill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another man who spoke to Hakim related that he and two children \u201clive in constant fear of drone strikes.\u201d And, according to his story, it\u2019s not without good reason.<\/p>\n

After he picked up his daughter from school to take her to a doctor\u2019s appointment, Hellfire missiles fired from U.S. drones destroyed the clinic. He grabbed his daughter and ran back to the school to take cover. Before he got there, though, the school was obliterated by a second missile. His daughter was struck in the back of the head by debris and she bled to death in his arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did my daughter ever do to them?\u201d he cried. \u201cShe was eight years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

That innocent little girl died in her father’s arms despite promises by President Obama to scale back the use of drones and to confine their use to known terrorists and their associates.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a policy speech delivered in May<\/a>, the president assured citizens that drones would be used more discriminately only to \u201cdismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But given the apparent disregard for venue or victim, how many other parents have buried their babies after the drones returned to their secret bases?<\/p>\n

How many of the actual \u201ctargets\u201d were themselves innocent or at least had no demonstrable ties to terrorist organizations? This question will never be known with certainty because the president alone serves as judge, jury, and executioner \u2014 and does not believe he is obliged to provide evidence to the American people.<\/p>\n

And what of the fomenting of hate for the United States?<\/p>\n

Facts reveal that the prosecution of the drone war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and North Africa is\u00a0creating more enemies than it is destroying<\/a>. Al-Qaeda couldn\u2019t cook up a more effective recruitment program than the U.S. drone war that is allegedly aimed at eliminating the \u201cterrorist\u201d organization.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a Christmas Eve 2012\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0report<\/a>, anonymous officials of the government of the United States admitted that the brutal mass murder of 12 innocent civilians (three of whom were children) was carried out by \u201ca Defense Department aircraft, either a drone or a fixed-wing airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. The U.S.-dependent Yemeni regime remarked that the drone-delivered deaths were the result of an “accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

What isn\u2019t an accident is the targeting by Yemenis, Pakistanis, and others weary of constant bombings of Americans and those perceived to be aiding them. It is a deadly development known as blowback.<\/p>\n

“You want us to stay quiet while our wives and brothers are being killed for no reason. This attack is the real terrorism,” said Mansoor al-Maweri, whom\u00a0CNN reports<\/a>\u00a0as being \u201cnear the scene of the strike\u201d that \u201caccidentally\u201d killed 15 innocent men, women, and children in Yemen in September.<\/p>\n

Then there was this from \u201can activist\u201d who lives near the site of the massacre: “I would not be surprised if a hundred tribesmen joined the lines of al-Qaeda as a result of the latest drone mistake,” said Nasr Abdullah. “This part of Yemen takes revenge very seriously.”<\/p>\n

Reuters explains<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cWestern diplomats in Sanaa say al Qaeda is a threat to Yemen and the rest of the world.\u201d An argument can be made that a bigger threat to the world is the United States\u2019 daily drone attacks that destroy our own dedication to the rule of law and serve as an effective recruiting tool for those seeking revenge for the killing.<\/p>\n

The former CIA Pakistan station chief agrees. Speaking of the rapid expansion of the drone war in Yemen,\u00a0Robert Grenier told theGuardian<\/em>\u00a0(U.K.)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

That brings you to a place where young men, who are typically armed, are in the same area and may hold these militants in a certain form of high regard. If you strike them indiscriminately you are running the risk of creating a terrific amount of popular anger. They have tribes and clans and large families. Now all of a sudden you have a big problem…. I am very concerned about the creation of a larger terrorist safe haven in Yemen.<\/p>\n

We have gone a long way down the road of creating a situation where we are making more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield. We are already there with regard to Pakistan and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

For President Obama and those pulling the triggers on the joysticks guiding the missiles toward their human targets, \u201csuspected militant\u201d means (presumably) \u201call military-age males in a strike zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those of us more concerned with the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sanctity of human life than the president, \u201csuspected militant\u201d means nothing other than a person not charged with any crime, not afforded even the most perfunctory due process protections, but summarily executed upon order of the president anyway. What, then, are the practices or principles that separate the president from those he orders assassinated in the name of safety?<\/p>\n

And the death doesn\u2019t stop.\u00a0Reuters reports\u00a0<\/a>that \u201cYemeni authorities issued a statement early on Tuesday listing 25 “most wanted terrorists” it said were planning to carry out attacks in the country during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday which started Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0\u00a0Joe Wolverton, II, J.D., The New American click here for original article In fewer than two weeks, Hellfire missiles launched by U.S. drones have killed at least 31 people in Yemen. At least 14 of the victims were believed by President Obama\u00a0\u2014 the launcher-in-chief\u00a0\u2014 to be al-Qaeda militants. On the heels of reports of the\u00a0foiling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/3.si_.jpg?fit=219%2C388&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1946,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945\/revisions\/1946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}