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Drone Strikes in Yemen- On Bombing Weddings and Families

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At least 15 people on the way to a wedding were killed by the United States Government in a horrific drone strike in Yemen, just two days after President Barack Obama spoke at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela and said Madiba “makes him want to be a better man.”

We call on the President to be the better man today. This needs to stop.

Imagine a wedding party, families dressed to the hilt; joy and festivities in the air, and then not even being able to find body parts to hold a funeral. 22 were injured in this ‘tragic mistake’. The worst in Yemen since the strikes began.

The group had been en route to the the village of Qaifa, the site of the wedding, when it was hit. The assault left charred bodies strewn in the road and vehicles on fire, officials told AP.

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Where is the outrage by the international community? As Mark Prsyner, an Iraq War vet and anti-war activist tweeted: photo

This isn’t the first time the US government has done this. According to TomDispatch this may be the eighth wedding party that the U.S. has bombed.  A convoy of cars is often seen as ‘terrorist activity’. There are some reports that there may have been Al Qaeda operatives in the convoy, but Yemeni journalist Shuaib M. Almosawa recalls an Aug 8 strike that killed 3 brothers and Yemeni security officials said two were from AQAP. “Later they’re 2 kids & elder bro”. And there are other instances.

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Last month a Yemeni delegation was at the U.S. Capitol for a Congressional briefing, hosted by Representatives Barbara Lee, Alan Grayson, and Jan Schakowsky. These hearings give Congress an opportunity to listen to those people who have been directly impacted by US drone strikes in Yemen- the human cost of this ‘war on terror’.

I came here to share with you my story and what happened to my family. Who are the ones responsible for the deaths of my relatives? Will anyone be held accountable for their deaths?”-Faisal bin Ali Jaber

A day after his son’s wedding, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni civil engineer, mourned the death of his brother-in-law, Salem bin Ali Jaber, an outspoken anti-extremist cleric, and his nephew, Waleed, a policeman, when they were killed without warning by a US drone strike on August 29, 2012.

As he was speaking at the hearing another drone attacked his home province of Hadramawt, killing three.

According to Wired.com, the U.S. has two separate drone campaigns underway in Yemen — one run by the CIA, the other by the military’s Joint Special Operations Command. Together, they’ve conducted 43 strikes in two years, according to a Long War Journal tally, killing 274 people. 473 people since 2009.

No one knows how many of the 274 were militants; the U.S. “counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,” the New York Times recently reported. If someone behaves like a terrorist— which is totally undefined— he could be killed extra-judicially in a “signature” strike. Amnesty International reports that a “guilty until proven innocent” approach is taken to military-age males who are killed by a strike, even if there is no specific evidence that they were directly participating in hostilities in a specific armed conflict.

[box type=”shadow” ]I will have a follow up article on what happens inside a CIA bunker and how intel is fed to drone operators shared by another anti-war veteran as well as updates from the Drone Summit 2013.[/box]

Al Qaeda of Arabian peninsula has claimed responsibility for an attack on the defense ministry in the heart of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, on Thursday, in which 52 people were killed. The increase in drone strikes is apparently a retaliation.

The drone program is ineffective according to experts and images such as the ones that will haunt Yemenis of this wedding party will overshadow the outrage of the suicide bomb and augment Yemeni anti-US sentiments. And regular Yemenis feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

More than 50 innocent civilians in our town have been killed by drones,” said Abdullah al-Kabra, an eyewitness to the drone strike.

“All those who were killed were supportive of the governments anti-terror campaign. That will surely not be the case of their tribes and families if the government does not strongly intervene,” he added.-CNN

The Yemeni delegation had gripping stories to tell about how drones have affected their families, their communities and their efforts to bring democracy to the tough terrains of Yemen. Entesar al Qadhi is a female Yemeni politician from Mareb, a prominent location for US drone strikes. She is “a leading voice in the revolution that overthrew dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.” Yesterday’s drone strike hit a city bordering her area.

“What can possibly justify terrorizing a community of 250,000 just for the purpose of killing one person? It might be the right of the U.S. to protect itself, but that doesn’t mean it can terrorize entire communities,” she conveyed the message of thousands of Yemenis to Americans. “Two members of Al Qaeda were in al Qadhi’s village, one of the most oil rich areas of Yemen.” As villagers were negotiating with the two men, “a drone killed the chief negotiator, scuttling [deliberating sinking] negotiations,” according to drone critic, Professor of Law Marjorie Cohn, as they did recently in Pakistan.

She testified that drones seem to only attack her village after Al-Qaeda members have left. The people of the area now feel that the “drones are for Al Qaeda, not against Al Qaeda,” said Al-Qadhi at the Global Drone Summit. She had a friendly warning for Americans that Yemenis may be the lab rats, as they were a poor, voice-less nation but this technology would eventually land on American shores.

The third member of the delegations was Baraa Shiban, project co-ordinator for the legal group Reprieve. He has researched civilian victims of US air strikes and is a drone critic. He says that drone attacks have a  “destabilizing effect on the Yemen government.” He and Al Qadhi serve as youth representatives in Yemen’s National Dialogue. He was detained at London’s Gatwick Airport in September under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act.  Cory Crider, who heads Reprieve’s Abuses in Counter-Terrorism team said of the incident: “if there were any doubt the UK was abusing its counter-terrorism powers to silence critics, this ends it.”

Shiban was never a terror suspect. Glenn Greenwald, an well-known journalist writes that top secret US government documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “characterize even the most basic political and legal opposition to drone attacks as part of “propaganda campaigns” from America’s “adversaries”.”

A reliable way for the US Government to know exactly how many civilians are killed is by hearing direct testimony from the families affected.

Only five Congressman attended the hearing (although staffers from other members of Congress did make it to the testimony.) They came seeking information as the drone program is classified. “It’s conducted by the CIA, which generally doesn’t acknowledge existence of this program,” said Rep. Grayson about the secrecy. “It’s like a strange and extreme police action. There’s a reluctance on the part of the administration to acknowledge that attacks are happening at all.”

Joined by Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, Robert Naiman, Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy, explained why making the drone strike transparency provisions of the Senate intelligence authorization into law, would be a significant step forward in Congressional oversight of the policy. Naiman suggested that the House Intelligence Committee should introduce legislation to force the Obama administration to disclose civilian casualties from drone attacks and that Congress explore establishing a compensation fund.

The executive director of Amnesty International-USA , Steven W Hawkins, urged the Obama administration to ditch its policy of not commenting on drone strikes. “US silence is unacceptable. Instead of hiding behind secrecy, the US needs to acknowledge and immediately commit to investigating all credible reports of potentially unlawful killings,” he said in a prepared statement.

Last May, Rep. Barbara Lee introduced the Drones Accountability Act (HR 2183) to place a moratorium on the use of drones “until all legal mechanism are in place” and to repeal the 2001 AUMF (Authorization of Military Force).

The briefing followed the Global Drone Summit that brought together people from around the world to discuss strategies to stop the proliferation of drones used for killing and spying. The conference was organized by the peace group CODEPINK, along with the Institute for Policy Studies, The Nation Magazine, Center for Constitutional Rights, and National Lawyers Guild (Georgetown Chapter).

Jaber had requested a meeting with President Obama. He went back to Yemen without a meeting, an apology or an explanation.

Be the better man President Obama.

We call on President Obama to apologize to the families  for the killing of 15 innocent civilians –– all part of a wedding convoy–– by a US drone in Yemen. And ask him to pledge to immediately put an end to these strikes that have led to the death of so many civilians.

 

Innalilihi wa inna ilayhi rajioon– the names of the dead as published in Al-Masdar:

Hussein Mohammed Saleh Al Ameri, 65
Mohammed Ali Massad Al Ameri, 30
Ali Abdullah Mohammed Al Tays, 35
Zeidan Mohammed Al Ameri, 40
Saif Abdullah Mabkhout Al Ameri, 20
Hussein Mohammed Al Tays, 20
Motlaq Hamoud Mohammed Al Taysi, 45
Saleh Abdullah Mabkhout, 30
Aaref Mohammed Al Taysi, 30
Saleh Massad Al Ameri, 42
Massad Dayfallah Al Ameri, 25

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Hena Zuberi is the Editor in Chief of Muslimmatters.org. She leads the DC office of the human rights organization, Justice For All, focusing on stopping the genocide of the Rohingya under Burma Task Force, advocacy for the Uighur people with the Save Uighur Campaign and Free Kashmir Action. She was a Staff Reporter at the Muslim Link newspaper which serves the DC Metro. Hena has worked as a television news reporter and producer for CNBC Asia and World Television News. Active in her SoCal community, Hena served as the Youth Director for the Unity Center. Using her experience with Youth, she conducts Growing Up With God workshops. hena.z@muslimmatters.org Follow her on Twitter @henazuberi.

19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. June

    December 14, 2013 at 4:37 PM

    Assalamu alaykum,
    I understand, as president, Obama is a representative of the actions of the US its peoples but there are many guilty here. I think the apology should come not from the president (or at least, not just from the president) but come from the military or CIA personnel who authorized and conducted the strikes. If they worry about a “security risk” or being targeted by revealing themselves, too bad. Maybe it’ll get them to be more careful in the future. Besides, most of the families of the people they’ve killed probably have no means and more importantly no desire to “seek revenge.” They just want restitution from the guilty party.

  2. Hassan

    December 15, 2013 at 12:30 AM

    If you are asking Obama for flowery speech/words, he can do that very good. Of course he himself has boasted that he is very good at killing. Stop wasting time on him, he is and was always an evil man. Whoever voted and encouraged to vote for him among muslims were extremely short sighted.

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  8. Jon Solis

    December 16, 2013 at 10:31 PM

    The killing of any innocent civilian is a tragedy. Whenever there is a war there are civilian casualties. So the real questions her are the following:
    1) Is the U.S. at war with al-Qaeda?
    2) If the killing of an enemy is considered an important object of a war goal, are civilian casualties an acceptable by-product. If not, what limits are there to civilian casualties that are allowed? 1, 2, 10, 100? Is the amount allowed an absolute # or is it proportionate to the goal/# of the enemy?
    3) Are innocent victims not so innocent if they are knowingly consorting with a military target (in this discussion an al-Qaeda operative)?
    4) Are civilians aiding the enemy a legitimate target? For example, if the U.S. targeted a radio station in the Iraq war, one would presume that civilians working in the station would be injured/killed.
    5) Are drone attacks, in of themselves, morally indefensible? If so, would that same argument apply to any bomb fired in a war?
    6) When one makes a decision to use a bomb/drone, how certain must one be in selecting the target – 100%, 90%, etc.?
    The article above discusses the repercussions of a drone attack gone wrong with innocent casualties and comes to the obvious conclusions that drone attacks in of themselves are immoral and should be banned. However, the implication of this argument is much more widespread. Should the US not have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It is easy to say they shouldn’t have been dropped, but I know my father would probably have been killed in the invasion of Japan if they hadn’t been used and then I wouldn’t have been born!
    Is every rocket thrown into Israel by Hamas equally immoral to the drone attacks? If so, why aren’t they equally condemned. I would suggest that the author of this article spend a significant amount of time analyzing the implications of his conclusions and how they would then apply in general to the conduct of war not just by the US but also by other countries and by groups that are unaffiliated with national governments. He may find that it is not so simple as he thinks.

    • Siraaj

      December 18, 2013 at 5:31 PM

      Unfortunately Jon, you’re missing the bigger picture. The real question is what are the objectives of these attacks and are they being achieved? I would imagine the objective is to weaken al-Qaida so that they are no longer a threat to the interests of the United States. So are they weaker?

      http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/this-yemeni-man-loves-america-hates-al-qaeda-and-says-drone-strikes-make-them-stronger/275248/

      On the contrary, they’ve strengthened rather than weakened due to the drone strikes.

      In reality, the US military drone strikes are a double failure – they are killing innocent civilians and strengthening rather than weakening their target.

      As to your questions, from what you yourself know, there is no number of civilian casualties that is worth anything when it stands in the way of the interests of the US government. The rules it will seek to apply on others during warfare are trampled at convenience.

      I can guarantee you that if 50 – 100 al-Qaida operatives took over a public location within the US with civilians everywhere, drones would not be sent in. A great deal more care would be taken to minimize civilians casualties – if you can do that for one group of civilians, then you should be willing to do it for others – American civilians are no more valuable than that of anyone else in the world.

      Siraaj

    • greentea

      December 20, 2013 at 1:54 PM

      1) Is the U.S. at war with al-Qaeda?
      Yes. The US is at war with Al-Qaeda. The US is at “War on Drugs” too. I don’t see it killing drug addicts or families of drug addicts or traffickers to achieve it’s goals.

      2) If the killing of an enemy is considered an important object of a war goal, are civilian casualties an acceptable by-product. If not, what limits are there to civilian casualties that are allowed? 1, 2, 10, 100? Is the amount allowed an absolute # or is it proportionate to the goal/# of the enemy?

      Killing the enemy is not an objective of War. Destroying enemies “ability” to fight is an objective. By-product or collateral damage is simply a euphemism used by those who want to insulate themselves from feeling otherwise morally outrage. This is why Americans are looking like a bunch of delusional war-mongering idiots. American milliatry sanitize killing innocent people by dehumanizing people or obfuscate issues with nonsense labels so they can sustain uninvited murderous colonial objectives.

      3) Are innocent victims not so innocent if they are knowingly consorting with a military target (in this discussion an al-Qaeda operative)?

      There you go again. “Consorting”. In this particular case, and many other similar festive cases, it’s amazing stretch of imagination to think of any evidence of victims consorting with assumed Qaeda operative.

      6) When one makes a decision to use a bomb/drone, how certain must one be in selecting the target – 100%, 90%, etc.?

      Decision should be based on proof beyond reasonable doubt.

  9. John Smith

    December 17, 2013 at 3:41 PM

    Obama is a mass-murderer and war criminal, the most dangerous terrorist on the planet. This despicable excuse for a human being should be on trial for war crimes. He is in charge overall, because the military answer to him, and follow his orders.

  10. Riz Khan

    December 18, 2013 at 12:02 PM

    Where are the so called champions of human rights?

  11. Riz Khan

    December 19, 2013 at 12:40 PM

    Brother! why so much hate. If a dog byte you; would you byte back. Criticizing America for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but at the same time urging Iran to make atomic bomb and drop it on America and killing millions of innocent people.The world is already burning in the fire of hatred and adding more flames would make the fire bigger and fiercer. Islam does not allow to make and use such a destructive weapon as nuclear bomb. Any further world war would wipe the earth of humanity. Why should muslims be a key player in the event of such a destruction.

    Our best way to fight is to be positive and give the dawah to non-muslims and save as many human beings as possible from the hell fire.

    • Sayantan Dasgupta

      March 15, 2014 at 12:48 AM

      I am not reallly a supporter of Iran’s N-bomb, but what I understand that Iran is building nuclear bomb not to drop it in USA, but to use it as a protection in case US try to invade them. Iran has nothing to carry them bomb to USA anyways.

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  15. Imran

    April 17, 2015 at 6:26 PM

    Wow
    This site is completely mum on the Yemen issue.
    I guess we know who’s writing the paychecks.
    Total hypocrisy.

    • Aly Balagamwala

      April 20, 2015 at 9:23 AM

      Dear Imran

      We do not solicit articles from our authors rather they hand in their submissions. This is an important current affairs topic and we would love for you to submit an article. If it meets our submission criteria we will publish it. Please submit at http://muslimmatters.org/submissions/. JazakAllahu Khairin.

      Aly

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