Obama Bombs Yemen Hours After Winning Reelection

[sailingaway]

http://antiwar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/p091812ps-0756.jpg


On Wednesday morning, as many Americans sifted through the voter data and exit poll numbers of President Barack Obama’s reelection the night before, the Twitter feeds of close watchers of Yemen lit up with reports of another sort of presidential event: an apparent U.S. drone strike had killed several individuals in that country.

There was no way of being certain if the strike was indeed American, or for that matter if it was a drone strike at all, although it had all the markings of one.

“All signs (after dark, suspicions of locals, target) point to Sanhan strike being a US drone,” Yemen-based freelance journalist Adam Baron wrote on Twitter.

Several other analysts concurred.

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. If it were a American strike, of course, it would have to have been authorized by Obama.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/11/07/obama-bombs-yemen-hours-after-winning-reelection/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AWCBlog+%28Antiwar.com+Blog%2 9

[Cody1]

What a horrible, disgusting, maniacal, shit excuse for a human being.

[paulbot24]

I don't even want to know what he has in store with his Executive Order pen between December 25th and January 1st this year.

[acptulsa]

Is everyone surprised?



Is anyone surprised..?

[QueenB4Liberty]

This is about to get bad.

[nano1895]

I wonder if BO's daughters know about this. I imagine they do since they appear to be regular internet savvy teenagers. I'd hate to be in their shoes.

[torchbearer]

:mad::mad::mad: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cody1]

I wonder if BO's daughters know about this. I imagine they do since they appear to be regular internet savvy teenagers. I'd hate to be in their shoes.

That is pretty interesting. I've given my dad a piece of my mind many times over the years although we haven't fist fought--there have been a couple close calls. I can only image what I would say to him if he were president.

[tangent4ronpaul]

U.S. drone strike kills 3 al-Qaida militants near Yemeni capital
(1 hour ago)

http://www.nzweek.com/world/u-s-drone-strike-kills-3-al-qaida-militants-near-yemeni-capital-22572/

SANAA, Nov. 7 — A U.S. drone strike targeted a group of al-Qaida militants on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Wednesday night, killing at least three terrorists, government officials said.

“Three terrorists, including local al-Qaida commander Adnan al- Qathi who is wanted for bombing the U.S. embassy in Sanaa in late 2008, were confirmed killed Wednesday night in a Yemeni-U.S. joint airstrike operation which targeted the militants’ vehicle near Sayyan village outside the capital Sanaa,” a local security official told Xinhua by phone. He declined to provide further details.

An official from Al-Daylami Air Force Base in Sanaa confirmed the airstrike on Wednesday night in a remote area about 40 km southeast of Sanaa, but said “the raid was not carried out by any Yemeni warplane.”

A Sanaa-based expert of Islamic group affairs, Abdulrazzak al- Jamal, told Xinhua that “local al-Qaida operative Adnan al-Qathi was killed along with two of his bodyguards, Rabiee Lahib and Radwan al-Hashidi, by a missile fired from a U.S. unmanned plane late on Wednesday.”

“The drone was seen roving on the Sayyan area during the past three days according to several residents I talked with them upon the airstrike,” al-Jamal said. “I spoke to a member of al-Qadhi’s family who confirmed his death along with two of his bodyguards,” al-Jamal added.

The fresh airstrike was the fifth air raid by the U.S. drones on the Yemen-based al-Qaida targets in less than a month, in which 23 members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), including the group’s senior commander Adel al-Abab, were confirmed killed.

The United States has escalated its drone strikes since Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took office in February, as part of the anti-terror cooperation to help crush the resurgent militants who had taken advantage of Yemen’s political upheaval last year.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Yemen's President Embraces US Drones

http://www.voanews.com/content/yemens-president-embraces-us-drones/1538305.html

November 02, 2012
Following the protests of Yemen’s Arab Spring, its Gulf neighbors brokered a deal to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh after 33 years in the presidential palace. Saleh was replaced in February by Abd-Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, his vice president of the past 13 years.

Mr. Hadi’s task is formidable. He needs to rebuild the central government, unite the nation's fractious tribes, lead a project to rewrite the constitution, hold new national elections and kick-start the country's economy. He’s been at it for eight months and he has about 16 months left to finish the job before holding a new national election.

Since Hadi took office in February, he has surprised many of his skeptics with a few bold security moves. Even so, he is still far from rescuing Yemen from political and economic failure.

Whether or not he succeeds, Yemen can boast one distinction among its neighbors: it has gotten rid of its dictator through negotiations and avoided the months of the bloodshed experienced by Libya and Syria.
But what makes me optimistic is that it is one of the only countries in the world that has embarked on a negotiated solution to its problems
Leslie Campbell, National Democratic Institute

Even in the best of times, Yemen has been a troubled nation, one with political and tribal divisions that is loosely held together by patronage. Its government has been known for nepotism and corruption and is threatened by secessionist movements and a forbidding terrain where terrorists have found safe havens.

“It’s very easy to be pessimistic about Yemen because it is a country beset by many problems,” says Leslie Campbell, the Middle East and North Africa regional director for the National Democratic Institute. “But what makes me optimistic is that it is one of the only countries in the world that has embarked on a negotiated solution to its problems.”

Hadi moves to secure Yemen

And Hadi has addressed two major security issues. The first was to restructure the military and to remove Saleh’s eldest son, Ahmed, as commander of the Republican Guard and its special forces. The effort ended in a stalemate when Ahmed’s officers threatened a public protest.

“He (Hadi) had been fairly successful but he hasn’t taken the major step that everybody knows he has to take,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University and author of book, “The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia,” to be published soon.

Hadi also chose to partner with the United States to defeat Ansar al-Shariah, the Yemeni version of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and embraced the U.S. anti-terrorism effort that combined Yemeni ground assaults with U.S. Aerial drone attacks.

“With U.S. air support and missile strikes, they pushed al Qaida out,” Johnsen said.

The U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, told a VOA reporter recently “… Al Qaida was able to control territory, when they established what they called 'Islamic emirates' in some of the major population centers in the south and in Zinjibar and Jaar.

"They seemed to be on the move,” Feierstein said. “The momentum was with them and it was very difficult for the government to push back.” But now, Feierstein said, al-Qaida remains a threat, but is no longer able to control territory in Yemen.

Hadi’s domestic political risk

In his public enthusiasm for the U.S. military strikes, Hadi has taken responsibility for some of the more than 35 aerial assassination missions carried out by Predator and Reaper drones. Johnsen argues, however, that the drones may eventually present a risk for Hadi, Yemen and the U.S. government.

“… The drone strikes are dependent upon intelligence on the ground,” Johnsen said, “and that intelligence is far from perfect, which means that the drone strikes sometimes kill the wrong people.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Counterterrorism Czar: Yemen Drone War is "Model" for Expansion
(34,000 gvmt drones are planned to be flying over America in a few years. "Expansion" - Rrrriiiiiggghhhttt!)
Sunday, 04 November 2012 18:00

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/13505-counterterrorism-czar-yemen-drone-war-is-model-for-expansion

In a recent Washington Post article covering the drone war, White House counterterrorism “czar” John Brennan (pictured) was quoted as saying, “There are aspects of the Yemen program that I think are a true model of what I think the U.S. counterterrorism community should be doing” to fight the spread of al-Qaeda in Northern Africa.

Before turning to the expansion of the death-by-drone program in North Africa, one should consider the case against Brennan's claim of success for the policy in the Yemeni theatre.

First, as we have reported, President Obama began ordering drone strikes in the Arab nation in 2009. Since that initial attack, Long War Journal reports that “the CIA and the US military's Joint Special Operations Command are known to have conducted at least 50 air and missile strikes inside Yemen.”

Given Brennan’s praise of the prosecution of the drone war in Yemen, one would imagine that al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) forces in Yemen have been eliminated or at least significantly weakened as a result of the U.S. drone attacks.

Not so much.

As Gregory Johnsen writes in BigThink.com:

Estimates of the group's size vary widely. But both US and Yemeni officials estimates in December 2009 suggested that AQAP was around 200-300, while today official US estimates range from 1,000 to several thousand. Yemenis who are close to AQAP suggest that the group has as many as 6,000 fighters.

But even taking the most conservative official estimate of AQAP's current strength, which happens to be Brennan's: the group still went from 200-300 fighters in 2009 to 1,000 today.

This should not be surprising in light of recent reports that the drone campaign in Yemen is serving better to recruit al-Qaeda than defeat them.

Since the inauguration of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the number of sorties sent to Yemen has spiked.

Although U.S. officials typically do not comment on this or any other drone strike in Yemen or elsewhere, Hadi isn’t quite so close-mouthed about the arrangement between the two “allies.”

In a statement made to the Washington Post in an interview published September 29, President Hadi said he “personally approves every U.S. drone strike in his country.”

Hadi’s praise for the Predators continued during a speech delivered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "They [drones] pinpoint the target and have zero margin of error, if you know what target you're aiming at," Hadi said, according to the New York Times.

As the Washington Post rightly posits, it is likely this personal interest in promoting President Obama’s drone war that has influenced U.S. officials to consider Hadi “one of the United States’ staunchest counterterrorism allies.”

Beyond the effect the winnowing of the president's kill list is having on domestic politics in Yemen, there is a larger threat to security from blowback.

Blowback is defined as violent counter-attacks carried out as revenge for covert operations.

After a drone attack killed 13 Yemenis by “mistake” in September, relatives of those killed in the strike spoke with the clarity and carelessness that comes from the mixture of mourning with rage.

"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 CNN reports as being “near the scene of the strike.”

Then there was this from “an activist” who lives near the site of the September 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."

Perhaps an increase in militancy isn’t a relevant consideration. There are some who argue that the goal of the drone war is not to reduce AQAP’s strength, but to increase the safety of the United States.

The problem with that premise is that there is no way to tell who is a “militant” and who isn’t.

Besides, when did militancy become a crime? If it is a crime, where is it defined? How can anyone know if he is guilty of militancy if such a crime is not defined? Could one hypothetically be a militant without knowing it, given that the crime is nowhere defined? Incidentally, it is this very vagueness that dilates the grey area and makes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) such a fearsome weapon in the arsenal of the seemingly all-powerful president.

Knowing what we know, then, about AQAP growth in Yemen since the initiation of the drone war there, can we expect the future of al-Qaeda to follow this “model” trajectory in North Africa now that we will soon be sending sortie after sortie into and out of Somalia?

The Washington Post is reporting that CIA officials are leaning on President Obama to green light the expansion of the intelligence agency’s fleet of drones. The increasing militarization of the CIA has accelerated its “decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force” according to a government official quoted in the Post article.

CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus (a member of the internationalist Council on Foreign Relations) claims that a beefed up drone presence would help his agents keep up with the “threats in North Africa.”

It’s not like North Africa hasn’t seen its share of drone sorties. On July 24, the Washington Post published an article describing the congestion of the skies over Somalia caused by drone traffic. The situation is so bad, says the Post, that there is a “danger to air traffic” in the area.

An additional problem posed by the proliferation of the unmanned aircraft above the east African nation is that their presence might be evidence of a violation of a 1992 United Nations Security Council arms embargo still in effect.

The article in the Post cites a UN report in which officials of the international body recount several instances where collisions between drones and commercial aircraft or objects on the ground were “narrowly averted.” One such incident involved a drone and a passenger plane flying above Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

According to the report, there have been 64 unauthorized drone deployments, fighter jet missions, or attack helicopter flights recorded in Somalia since June 2011. At least 10 of the documented flights involved drones.

While the U.S. military keeps mum about its use of drones around the world, it is known that drones are deployed and launched from American military bases in Djibouti, the Seychelles, and Ethiopia. In fact, in a statement released in June, the Obama administration admitted that it “is engaged in a robust range of operations to target Al-Qaeda and associated forces, including in Somalia.”

In 2011, the military acknowledged that as part of that operation a drone strike was launched against two suspected leaders of al-Shabaab, an alleged al-Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia. Again, the use of these drones and the firing of missiles at militants seemingly violates the 1992 embargo, as drones carrying Hellfire missiles are inarguably deployed for uses that are “exclusively military,” in direct contravention of the terms of the embargo.

Despite the official gag order, the truth about the turning of North Africa into the latest theatre in the never-ending War on Terror is percolating up through a report in the Washington Post.

On October 25, Craig Whitlock wrote:

Around the clock, about 16 times a day, drones take off or land at a U.S. military base here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

And:

Camp Lemonnier, a sun-baked Third World outpost established by the French Foreign Legion, began as a temporary staging ground for U.S. Marines looking for a foothold in the region a decade ago. Over the past two years, the U.S. military has clandestinely transformed it into the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone, a model for fighting a new generation of terrorist groups.

Reading the past as prologue to the future, soon al-Qaeda will not need a recruitment program; the Predators will do it for them — in North Africa as they are doing in Yemen and in Pakistan.

[paulbot24]

“… The drone strikes are dependent upon intelligence on the ground,” Johnsen said, “and that intelligence is far from perfect, which means that the drone strikes sometimes kill the wrong people."

Another way to put it would be "Foreign policy is dependent on intelligence, which we don't have, which means our policies that recklessly target and kill people are not intelligent."

[NoOneButPaul]

I was never scared of Obama until I listened to his victory speech last night...

If you really listened to what he was saying it was absolutely terrifying and for the briefest of moments I understood why the GOP wanted us to support Romney so badly.

[itshappening]

everyone he kills is "al Qeda", good spin for the media. even though many kids and innocents die in drone strikes the media reports label them militants etc. sickening.

[paulbot24]

everyone he kills is "al Qeda", good spin for the media. even though many kids and innocents die in drone strikes the media reports label them militants etc. sickening.

I wasn't aware the media even reported that innocents die in the strikes. That's what I get for taking my television apart and not being able to put it back together.....5 years ago.....

[Brian4Liberty]

How fitting. Obama can say that the election was a mandate for killing people.


The drone war violates both domestic and international law, and the Obama administration’s vehement disdain for transparency in government is the only thing keeping it from public and legal scrutiny. Beyond the law, it’s terrorism.

That sums it up.

[tangent4ronpaul]

"Estimates of the group's size vary widely. But both US and Yemeni officials estimates in December 2009 suggested that AQAP was around 200-300, while today official US estimates range from 1,000 to several thousand. Yemenis who are close to AQAP suggest that the group has as many as 6,000 fighters."

Drones - what an AWESOME recruiting tool! :rolleyes:

-t

[alucard13mmfmj]

well. that was quick lol/.

[Philhelm]

I was never scared of Obama until I listened to his victory speech last night...

If you really listened to what he was saying it was absolutely terrifying and for the briefest of moments I understood why the GOP wanted us to support Romney so badly.

What did he say? I couldn't stomache watching it last night.

[GunnyFreedom]

What did he say? I couldn't stomache watching it last night.

this. why he leave us in suspense like that? :p

[sailingaway]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qdLanN6sEaI/UFh7OuAw1AI/AAAAAAAAEWI/YVv5Xj_FCkU/w497-h373/worstpublicrelationsagentever.jpg

[FrancisMarion]

Thanks for posting those articles, read all of them.

The article about Hadi in Yemen, makes you wonder. He says he approves every strike and is considered an counter-"terrorism" ally. This would leave me to believe that he is probably a necessary part of the chain of intelligence. It is not absurd, in my mind, that he could very well be using the drones to quash not terrorists, but dissidents or any others who oppose him. Lesson here, step out of line, and well you get the picture.


In 2011, the military acknowledged that as part of that operation a drone strike was launched against two suspected leaders of al-Shabaab, an alleged al-Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia

This is just super scary folks. I do not trust when sects and factions are described as AQ. Furthermore, when the party in question is a suspected, alleged affiliate and is still killed with no iota of judicial process it makes me question what kind of Dark Age we are slipping into.

[Pericles]

Is everyone surprised?



Is anyone surprised..?

That didn't take long.

[awake]

Second term: watch the the inner psycho emerge. He has nothing left to loose.

[GunnyFreedom]

Is everyone surprised?



Is anyone surprised..?

nope


That didn't take long.

nope


Second term: watch the the inner psycho emerge. He has nothing left to loose.

yep

[Sola_Fide]

Hope and change baby

[paulbot24]

Hopefully Biden will slip and tell us when Obama is eating a power-up and "evolving" into something even more sinister.

[RickyJ]

One CIA faction fighting the another CIA faction. There had to be some pay back over the Benghazi affair.

[JohnM]

Yemen's President Embraces US Drones

http://www.voanews.com/content/yemens-president-embraces-us-drones/1538305.html


In his public enthusiasm for the U.S. military strikes, Hadi has taken responsibility for some of the more than 35 aerial assassination missions carried out by Predator and Reaper drones.

I think what is interesting is that Voice of America, which is an agency of the Federal Government, unashamedly and openly refers to drone attacks as assassination missions.

And yet almost nobody in the USA (or in liberal, progressive Europe for that matter) is concerned that assassination is openly being used as an instrument of government policy.

Not very long ago, every liberal and every progressive and everyone who had any concern for the rule of law would have been completely horrified.

Or am I wrong?

[twomp]

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRFWg_80dy-8MfShit30YtLDFTDNq_VQHTN1a0QF5yutL27cBN6
Hope and change baby

[GunnyFreedom]

I think what is interesting is that Voice of America, which is an agency of the Federal Government, unashamedly and openly refers to drone attacks as assassination missions.

And yet almost nobody in the USA (or in liberal, progressive Europe for that matter) is concerned that assassination is openly being used as an instrument of government policy.

Not very long ago, every liberal and every progressive and everyone who had any concern for the rule of law would have been completely horrified.

Or am I wrong?

not wrong. Orwellian. Swap paradigms on a dime. Eastasia. Eurasia. Eastasia. blargh. :(

[brandon]

Sounds like they only killed known terrorists and it was with cooperation of the government. Does that make it a little better?

[Travlyr]

Sounds like they only killed known terrorists and it was with cooperation of the government. Does that make it a little better?

No. Killing people is not a proper role of government. Government's job is to protect the life of their citizens.

[JohnM]

Sounds like they only killed known terrorists and it was with cooperation of the government. Does that make it a little better?

I'm not sure if you are being ironic. I'm hoping that you are.

But just in case you are not . . . it makes it sound better. But it doesn't make it any better.

What is a "known terrorist"? Someone who has committed murder? Someone who has assassinated someone? Someone who has committed another offense? Someone who has co-operated with someone who has committed an offense? Someone who sympathizes with people who have committed offenses?

And how are they known? Have they been convicted in a court of law, or does everyone just "know" that they are guilty?

And as for the cooperation of the Yemeni government . . . . Ahhh - you are being ironic, aren't you?

[papitosabe]

I don't even want to know what he has in store with his Executive Order pen between December 25th and January 1st this year.

He'll do something on Dec 21st, when all the channels cover all they hype and history about the Mayans and the end of the world. Thats when he'll sign HR658, imo.

[juleswin]

Sounds like they only killed known terrorists and it was with cooperation of the government. Does that make it a little better?

Probably some nobody fighting for freedom, a local patriot who wants nothing more than drive out the invaders and live in freedom. Wasn't George Washington considered a terrorist (whatever term they used back them) by the British? So I guess it would have been ok to drone bomb his ass back them and it would be ok. God know how many innocent British children he made fatherless.