Yemeni moms tell kids, "go to sleep or I will call the drones" [View all]

[Enrique]

according to this witness at the drone hearings.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/yemen-drone-strikes-senate-hearing

A week ago, activist Farea Al-Muslimi was live-tweeting the aftermath of a drone attack on his childhood village of Wessab in Yemen. Monday, he was testifying before a Senate subcommittee on the legality and impact of the Obama administration's targeted killing program. It was the first time Congress has heard from a witness with anything close to first-hand experience with being on the receiving end of a drone strike.

"Women used to say [to kids] go to sleep or I will call your father," Al Muslimi said. "Now they say go to sleep, or I will call the planes."

Last week's strike killed Hameed Al-Radmi, described by the US government as an Al Qaeda leader, and four suspected militants. But Al-Muslimi told the Senate that Al-Radmi had recently met with Yemeni government officials, and could easily have been captured, rather than killed in a strike that alienated everyone in the village.

"[A]ll they have is the psychological fear and terror that now occupies their souls," Al-Muslimi said of the residents of Wessab. "They fear that their home or a neighbor's home could be bombed at any time by a U.S. drone." President Obama received some backup from an unlikely source—Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has spent the last week criticizing the Obama administration for handling the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in civilian court. Graham said although he would prefer to capture terror suspects, Yemeni officials couldn't be trusted to apprehend them. "The world we live in is where if you share this closely held information you're going to end up tipping off somebody," Graham told Al-Muslimi.