http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opini ... inion&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?ref=opinion&_r=0)
Taken from NYTimes
QuoteSANA, Yemen — I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died.
The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.
I visited the site later, once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments. Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces. They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead.
Nearly two years later, I still have no answers. The United States government has refused to explain why Abdulrahman was killed. It was not until May of this year that the Obama administration, in a supposed effort to be more transparent, publicly acknowledged what the world already knew — that it was responsible for his death.
The attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., said only that Abdulrahman was not "specifically targeted," raising more questions than he answered.
My grandson was killed by his own government. The Obama administration must answer for its actions and be held accountable. On Friday, I will petition a federal court in Washington to require the government to do just that.
Abdulrahman was born in Denver. He lived in America until he was 7, then came to live with me in Yemen. He was a typical teenager — he watched "The Simpsons," listened to Snoop Dogg, read "Harry Potter" and had a Facebook page with many friends. He had a mop of curly hair, glasses like me and a wide, goofy smile.
In 2010, the Obama administration put Abdulrahman's father, my son Anwar, on C.I.A. and Pentagon "kill lists" of suspected terrorists targeted for death. A drone took his life on Sept. 30, 2011.
The government repeatedly made accusations of terrorism against Anwar — who was also an American citizen — but never charged him with a crime. No court ever reviewed the government's claims nor was any evidence of criminal wrongdoing ever presented to a court. He did not deserve to be deprived of his constitutional rights as an American citizen and killed.
Early one morning in September 2011, Abdulrahman set out from our home in Sana by himself. He went to look for his father, whom he hadn't seen for years. He left a note for his mother explaining that he missed his father and wanted to find him, and asking her to forgive him for leaving without permission.
A couple of days after Abdulrahman left, we were relieved to receive word that he was safe and with cousins in southern Yemen, where our family is from. Days later, his father was targeted and killed by American drones in a northern province, hundreds of miles away. After Anwar died, Abdulrahman called us and said he was going to return home.
That was the last time I heard his voice. He was killed just two weeks after his father.
A country that believes it does not even need to answer for killing its own is not the America I once knew. From 1966 to 1977, I fulfilled a childhood dream and studied in the United States as a Fulbright scholar, earning my doctorate and then working as a researcher and assistant professor at universities in New Mexico, Nebraska and Minnesota.
I have fond memories of those years. When I first came to the United States as a student, my host family took me camping by the ocean and on road trips to places like Yosemite, Disneyland and New York — and it was wonderful.
After returning to Yemen, I used my American education and skills to help my country, serving as Yemen's minister of agriculture and fisheries and establishing one of the country's leading institutions of higher learning, Ibb University. Abdulrahman used to tell me he wanted to follow in my footsteps and go back to America to study. I can't bear to think of those conversations now.
After Anwar was put on the government's list, but before he was killed, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights represented me in a lawsuit challenging the government's claim that it could kill anyone it deemed an enemy of the state.
The court dismissed the case, saying that I did not have standing to sue on my son's behalf and that the government's targeted killing program was outside the court's jurisdiction anyway.
After the deaths of Abdulrahman and Anwar, I filed another lawsuit, seeking answers and accountability. The government has argued once again that its targeted killing program is beyond the reach of the courts. I find it hard to believe that this can be legal in a constitutional democracy based on a system of checks and balances.
The government has killed a 16-year-old American boy. Shouldn't it at least have to explain why?
A pretty strong piece by the father and grandfather of two American citizens killed by drone strikes... one never formally charged with a crime and the other a victim of collateral damage.
Out of all the things the American government does wrong, I think the drone program might be amongst the most immoral and most destructive to American safety. We have killed thousands of civilians, including Americans, and the "terrorists" we have killed are often never confirmed... they are simply assumed terrorists and executed along with their friends and families.
The United States government is no less of a terrorist organization than Al Qaeda or Hezbollah... we just have enough money and clout to pretend it is holier-than-they when we do it.
Here is the status of his petition to the U.S. gov't for answers, if you are interested...
http://www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings (http://www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings)
Such is war. There is not and never will be anything moral about war. The planners and strategists of war have almost always been beyond the reach of courts unless it is prosecuting the losers. It's tragic and immoral, but also nothing new.
No, the US is not at war with Yemen. Such is not war. Such is an extra-judicial killing, a murder.
Lots of countries were never at war when we bombed the shit out of them. Korea, Vietnam, just to drop a name or two..
I think with what is happening war has a different meaning now, however, it is still political as always, and shows the mass insanity of mankind that support them. :cry: Solitary
...so what are you, us, or anyone gonna do about it?
"Kill all the lawyers!" :shock: I don't think there is anything that can be done about. It's been going on for thousands of years and has not changed because of fear, ignorance, and people having power over others to do their bidding. :cry: Solitary
In previous wars, our soldiers faced their soldiers on the battlefield and had at each other. In this war, unknown people not in uniform attack us, so we kill people not in uniform. If they want us to only kill their uniformed soldiers, let them put their soldiers in uniform. (In previous wars, attacking a soldier if you weren't in the uniform of the enemy brought the death sentence. In Nam it was quite often carried out with no trial - when you were seen you were shot.)
This is how my uncle, an army interrogator who served in Afghanistan, saw the whole ordeal (paraphrasing):
"The Islamist extremists want a conflict between Islam and the West. They use the methods they use precisely because they know we have to respond, and that this will have to involve bombing civilians. They want the Muslim world to hate us, because they want all infidels to die. It doesn't matter if moderate Muslims speak out, because their status as Muslims can be used to legitimize the extremist position. If worst comes to worst, they just lynch the moderates and carry on. They don't care about who dies. All they care about is getting their war."
Basically, they're not going to "get into uniform," because making us attack un-uniformed targets is the whole point. The Islamist extremists want conflict, not peace.
We could start by stopping our support for deeply unpopular dictatorships that harbour fundamentalist nutcases, or at least make our business dealings with them contingent upon their 'government' acting towards weeding out the leaders of these groups. Easier said than done, I know, because money talks and bullshit walks. There are no simple answers, but any journey towards a solution has to start somewhere, otherwise we have no right to complain. Our countries continue to act the big playground bully with scant regard for the consequences.
Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"We could start by stopping our support for deeply unpopular dictatorships that harbour fundamentalist nutcases, or at least make our business dealings with them contingent upon their 'government' acting towards weeding out the leaders of these groups. Easier said than done, I know, because money talks and bullshit walks. There are no simple answers, but any journey towards a solution has to start somewhere, otherwise we have no right to complain. Our countries continue to act the big playground bully with scant regard for the consequences.
I'm not saying there aren't better things we could be doing, but several posters were making it sound like we were doing drone strikes for shits and giggles.
Not shits and giggles, no... just a completely misguided policy.
And the problem is we intentionally are killing civilians when we don't have to. There is a difference between killing even suspected terrorists and people who look like the might possibly, remotely be somehow maybe be related to some unconfirmed terrorist organization who happens to be in the middle of a crowd of civilians, and then after killing them still not bothering to find out if they were terrorist or just an unlucky chump.
I would have less problem with it (still find it deeply immoral) if we at least made sure our targets were likely terrorists, but we don't even do that. And then we don't allow the families of civilians to prove their deceased's innocence, the fact that they were collateral or even admit it was us who killed them (because you know, every country has drones flying over Pakistan, Yemen...)
^^^ yes indeed.
And imagine the shitstorm in the USA if other countries started to pick off its people with drones....
It seems pretty obvious to me that the drone operators had no idea Abdulrhaman was there. They were targeting someone else and he got caught in the blast, along with apparently a shitload of other people.
But that's hardly a justification. If anything it is a condemnation. First of all they failed to properly identify everyone who would be there. That is just the latest in a long string of intelligence failures. Second, they failed to care that uninvolved people would be killed which is the latest in a long string of humanity failures.
I now feel the Obama administration is every last ounce the failure that the Bush administration was. I am ashamed to say that it was actually the disregard for the rights of American citizens that finally turned the tide for me. Before that, it was very easy to believe that stories like this one were nothing more than one side of unconfirmed events. A year ago I would have believed that this poor grandfather simply didn't know his grandson as well as he thought he did, and the hit was likely legitimate. Now, after seeing how little regard the current administration holds even for its own citizens it is much easier for me to believe that they simply didn't give a damn who died in the attack. And if they didn't give a damn here, chances are they didn't give a damn this whole fucking time. That makes Obama a mass murderer in my eyes.
If Obama were anyone else he would be executed for what he has done. No amount of security is worth this.
Quote from: "Nonsensei"First of all they failed to properly identify everyone who would be there. That is just the latest in a long string of intelligence failures. Second, they failed to care that uninvolved people would be killed which is the latest in a long string of humanity failures.
So we can only attack terrorists on a one-on-one basis? If the terrorist is sitting in a cafe with innocent people he's immune to attack? Or we have to take him out with a small caliber pistol?
When your enemy chooses to dress like civilians, and always be surrounded by civilians, he has to expect civilian deaths - and accept responsibility for them. The alternative is for us to roll over and play dead. This is no longer conventional war, it's a new breed of war, in which civilians will die - probably in larger numbers than combatants. We didn't choose to fight this way, it was thrust upon us, so we fight or we don't, but we can't fight by only attacking individual enemy personnel. If that's our only answer, we might as well save American lives by disbanding the armed forces and staying home.
Quote from: "Nonsensei"A year ago I would have believed that this poor grandfather simply didn't know his grandson as well as he thought he did, and the hit was likely legitimate.
That would seem to actually be the case. This guy was not exactly a boy scout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)
Quote from: "Hydra009"Quote from: "Nonsensei"A year ago I would have believed that this poor grandfather simply didn't know his grandson as well as he thought he did, and the hit was likely legitimate.
That would seem to actually be the case. This guy was not exactly a boy scout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)
That was the son, not grandson.
#-o
*wonders if there was an American-born terrorist convention in Yemen*
"Anwar Al-Awlaki and Egyptian-born Gihan Mohsen Baker had an American son, born on September 13, 1995, in Denver, named Abdulrahman Anwar Al-Awlaki.[249] Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed at the age of 16 in an American drone strike on October 14, 2011, in Yemen, along with alleged al-Qaeda members two weeks after the death of his father.[250] Nine other people were killed in the same CIA-led attack. Among the dead was a 17-year-old cousin of Abdulrahman.[251] Family members have said that he was on his way to a barbecue.[252] According to U.S. officials the killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a mistake; the actual target was an Egyptian, Ibrahim al-Banna."
Ah, okay, so they were after Ibrahim al-Banna (//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Muhammad_Salih_al-Banna) (another not-Boy Scout linked to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was lieutenant of sorts to Osama bin Laden) and Abdulrahan al-Awlaki was an unintended victim in that attack.
Is that correct?
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "Nonsensei"First of all they failed to properly identify everyone who would be there. That is just the latest in a long string of intelligence failures. Second, they failed to care that uninvolved people would be killed which is the latest in a long string of humanity failures.
So we can only attack terrorists on a one-on-one basis? If the terrorist is sitting in a cafe with innocent people he's immune to attack? Or we have to take him out with a small caliber pistol?
When your enemy chooses to dress like civilians, and always be surrounded by civilians, he has to expect civilian deaths - and accept responsibility for them. The alternative is for us to roll over and play dead. This is no longer conventional war, it's a new breed of war, in which civilians will die - probably in larger numbers than combatants. We didn't choose to fight this way, it was thrust upon us, so we fight or we don't, but we can't fight by only attacking individual enemy personnel. If that's our only answer, we might as well save American lives by disbanding the armed forces and staying home.
Our enemy doesn't give a shit about civilian deaths, and isnt interested in accepting responsibility for them. Nor should he accept responsibility for them. In the end, the United States is the one pulling the trigger. One hundred percent of the responsibility for the deaths of ttoally uninvolved civilians rests on the shoulders of the Federal government.
Using a mother fucking Buick to kill a fly and not really caring how many people we run over while we are doing it.
What kind of fucked up rationalizing is that? "Well our enemies exist, therefore we are justified in killing hundreds of innocent people to get to them and all those deaths are their fault. If only they didn't exist then it wouldn't be necessary"
No FUCK that. How about you find another fucking way? How about if your drone strike is going to kill a dozen other people you DONT DO IT and wait for a better opportunity? The only way you decide to go ahead with the option that kills a dozen people, including a citizen of your own country, is if you genuinely don't assign even the slightest value to human life other than your own. You have to be capable of looking at human beings as tools to be manipulated for your own goals, not as things deserving of respect and having intrinsic value.
How much bat shit insane stuff are we willing to let the federal government get away with under the utter farce of keeping us safe?
I'd like to point out that the soldiers serving under George Washington were considered terrorists by the British and by our citizens who sided with the British. They refused to fight the British in open combat, preferring instead to use gorilla tactics. They did it for the obvious reason that they couldn't hope to win using conventional tactics. If they had lost, they'd have been written off in history as terrorists.
I used to think that we were all proud fact that we lived in a land that prized the rule of law. I have since been disabused of that thought. I've heard the killing of this young man discussed on radio talk shows. I've heard people call in and say that he was "obviously being raised to be a radicalized Muslim terrorist" and as such got what he deserved. Never mind the fact that he hadn't seen his father in years.
I don't recall the administration saying anything about who the target was that day. It would help if they did.
Quote from: "Nonsensei"Quote from: "Colanth"When your enemy chooses to dress like civilians, and always be surrounded by civilians, he has to expect civilian deaths - and accept responsibility for them.
Our enemy doesn't give a shit about civilian deaths, and isnt interested in accepting responsibility for them. Nor should he accept responsibility for them.
Think about what that means.
It means that we CAN NOT fight this war. It means that we have to sit back and allow those who would fight us to do whatever they want or accept total responsibility for THEIR decision to put civilian lives in jeopardy.
As I said, either we accept that - due to THEIR decision to fight the war the way they choose to - there are going to be civilian casualties, and we can't do anything to prevent them, or we bring our troops home and declare defeat, now and forever. It's a binary situation - fight or don't fight the war you're given. Fighting a different war, one we'd prefer to fight, isn't on the menu. If it were, we'd be fighting it.
Quote from: "Eric1958"I don't recall the administration saying anything about who the target was that day. It would help if they did.
It would certainly help the target to know that he was being targeted.