I posted about this issue yesterday. It received little attention.
Drones in Yemen: "it's like being in a state of waiting endlessly for execution."
Last year, Ibrahim Mothana, a Yemeni writer and activis wrote and Op-Ed for the NY Times about the devastation of Obama's drone policy in his country. Ibrahim wanted to testify in front of Congress last week in front of the Committee that held a hearing about the legality of said policy. He couldn't make it but prepared opening remarks that he sent to Glenn Greenwald. The Committee has stated that they will enter those remarks into the Congressional Record.
I wish I could post those remarks in full here on DU because they are powerful and heartbreaking. I urge every to go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/01/ibrahim-mothana-yemen-drones-obama to read them in full.
The Impact on Yemen and its People of the US Targeted Killing Policy
In the past few years, I have visited and worked in areas of Yemen that are the forefront of what the United States views as a global conflict against Al-Qaeda and associated forces. I have witnessed how the US use of armed drones and botched air strikes against alleged militant targets has increased anti-American sentiment in my country, prompting some Yemenis to join violent militant groups, motivated more by a desire for revenge than by ideological beliefs.
We Yemenis got our first experience with targeted killings under the Obama administration on December 17, 2009, with a cruise missile strike in al-Majala, a hamlet in a remote area of southern Yemen. This attack killed 44 people including 21 women and 14 children, according to Yemeni and international rights groups including Amnesty International. The lethal impact of that strike on innocents lasted long after it took place. On August 9, 2010, two locals were killed and 15 were injured from an explosion of one remaining cluster bomb from that strike.
After that tragic event in 2009, both Yemeni and US officials continued a policy of denial that ultimately damaged the credibility and legitimacy of the Yemeni government. According to a leaked US diplomatic cable, in a meeting on January 2, 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi joked about how he had just "lied" by telling the Yemeni parliament the bombs in the al-Majala attack were dropped by the Yemenis, and then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh made a promise to General Petreaus, then the then head of US central command, saying: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours." Such collusion added insult to injury to Yemenis.
Animosity has been heightened by the US use of so-called "signature strikes" that target military-age males and groups by secret, remote analysis of lifestyle patterns. In Yemen, we fear that the signature strike approach allows the Obama administration to falsely claim that civilian casualties are non-existent. In the eye of a signature strike, it could be that someone innocent like me is seen as a militant until proven otherwise. How can a dead person prove his innocence? For the many labeled as militants when they are killed, it's difficult to verify if they really were active members of groups like AQAP, let alone whether they deserved to die.
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