Criminal law, International, Politics, Society

Of Drones, Double-Taps, and Dresden

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

 I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.

~John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Ch. III, (kudos to Bron)

Bodies of Dead Civilians In Dresden Following Allied Air Raids

On the night of February 13th, 773 RAF Avro Lancaster bombers swept in low and fast on the Saxony railway town of Dresden. It was early 1945, The Third Reich was collapsing and some 600,000 people had taken refuge in the city to avoid the Allied onslaught. The presumed target was the military complex on the outskirts of town known as the Albertstadt. Dresden, itself, was riddled with military garrisons intermingled among the civilian population. In two waves, the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000 lbs of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000 pounds bombs on the city center, all with little to no resistance. The entire city was ablaze. RAF crews reported smoke rising to a height of 15,000 ft. Fires were seen 500 miles away from the target.

The next day, February 14, 1945, as Dresden was trying to  cope with  the crisis, 450 U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress long-range bombers assigned to the 1st Bombardment Division of the United States VIII Bomber Command arrived at 1230 local time.  Guided by the fires, they discharged 771 tons of bombs.

The results on the ground were horrific with an estimated 25,000 killed. Survivor Lothar Metzger recalled:

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.

I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them.

Some estimates bring the number of those killed to 100,000. Nazi propagandists took the figure to 200,000. RAF recon noted that ” 23 percent of the industrial buildings, and 56 percent of the non-industrial buildings, not counting residential buildings, had been seriously damaged. Around 78,000 dwellings had been completely destroyed; 27,700 were uninhabitable, and 64,500 damaged, but readily repairable.”

The raid, ordered by Churchill, rendered such a blow to Western psyche that he distanced himself from the raid saying, “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so-called ‘area-bombing’ of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies… We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy’s war effort.”  Of mention, is no sense of the human cost to the enemy of the raid. Th emphasis seems to be purely egocentric: What kind of country will we have when this is all over?

However British  Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris was not so circumspect:

“Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.”

“War is hell” seems to claim the Air Marshall, and strategic concerns take precedence over humanitarian ones in a war zone. Is he right, or are both he and Churchill “war criminals” to quote some of the more animated commentary on the blog? Neither were prosecuted or charged with war crimes for the Dresden raid.

Which brings us to David Drumm’s fine posting yesterday about a claim of double-tapping Drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere in support of the war against the terrorists. The evidence published by the 18-month-old Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) claims that 6 instances of double-tapping have occurred with rescuers being targeted with second strikes. A review of 5 of those sources (ABC’s article was not easily retrievable) reveals that one arguably involved an attack on civilians, one was unclear on the status of the rescuers, and three reported second attacks on militants and extremists.

In response to my query on this point, David correctly pointed out that the Obama Administration does consider fighting age men in the strike zone “militants.” That fact was disclosed in a long New York Times article:

It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

But does six instances of secondary attacks obscured by the fog of war prove that the US has a policy of targeting innocent rescuers? Can it even be said that we are indifferent to the humanitarian concerns of rescuers even as we attack our enemies on their home turf?

From a legal perspective, targeting killing of persons who present an imminent threat to a country is permissible.  Obama himself has insisted on such evidence before authorizing  the strikes though there are trade-offs, according to the New York Times. The CIA’s man in the White House, John Brennan, a crusty Irishman who has spoken in defense of civil liberties and to close Guantanamo but who has faced withering criticism for his role in post 9/11 interrogations, explains Obama’s analysis:

The purpose of these actions is to mitigate threats to U.S. persons’ lives. It is the option of last recourse. So the president, and I think all of us here, don’t like the fact that people have to die. And so he wants to make sure that we go through a rigorous checklist: The infeasibility of capture, the certainty of the intelligence base, the imminence of the threat, all of these things.

Assassination of persons is generally regarded as murder although, by executive order, the US President may order the killing of foreign leaders who represent an imminent threat to the US.

Former U.S. District Judge (S.D. NY) Abraham Sofaer explains the difference:

When people call a targeted killing an “assassination,” they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States…. U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests…. But killings in self-defense are no more “assassinations” in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition.

Likewise, Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser US Department of State, defends the use of drones as ” part of “responsibility of US to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks.”

But what then about rescuers killed trying to aid militants?

Georgetown Law Professor Gary Solis, author The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War, and no friend of the US drone policy concedes that “Legal guilt does not always accompany innocent death.” In an example, published by Harper’s Magazine, Solis comments on a US helicopter attack on civilians rendering aid to combatants. “Can a van picking up wounded victims be fired upon? If the helicopter personnel reasonably associated the unmarked van with the presumed enemy personnel, yes. An “enemy” vehicle without red cross, red crescent, or white flag receives no special protection, even if wounded personnel are on board.”

Thus, even critics of the drone program conclude that trying to render humanitarian aid to injured militants affords no protection unless they are clearly visible as such. There is nothing in any of the articles cited by the BIJ indicating that rescuers were so denominated.

What then to make of the double-tap policy and the humanitarian toll. I see no proof that US drone masters are “targeting civilians.” Targeting implies intention and given the Administration’s definition of militants in a strike area it is unlikely that there is the intention to harm civilians rescuers where proof of such status exists. The Administration argues that its definition is based on its decade long experience with al-Qaeda. One certainly can argue with the definition of “militant” given its breadth, but does this definition make us any more culpable that acknowledged WWII heroes Winston Churchill or Air Chief Marshall Harris in arguing that our prime responsibility in war is to deny the enemy the ability to wage war against us even as civilians are maimed or killed?

What do you think?

Sources: linked throughout

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

313 thoughts on “Of Drones, Double-Taps, and Dresden”

  1. GOP/Dem rhetorical convergence
    A Democratic columnist channels Bush, Rove and Palin to malign Obama’s critics as Terrorist-lovers
    BY GLENN GREENWALD
    June 15, 2012
    http://www.salon.com/2012/06/15/gopdem_rhetorical_convergence/singleton/

    Excerpt:
    In 2005, Karl Rove sparked widespread outrage by accusing liberal critics of President Bush’s Terrorism programs of sympathizing with and wanting to coddle The Terrorists:

    Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

    In response, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s spokesman called on Bush to “immediately repudiate Karl Rove’s offensive and outrageous comments.” Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer fumed: “When I heard his remarks, it turned my stomach,” while his Democratic colleague Frank Lautenberg said that Bush “can only have one reaction, and that is to ask Rove to get out of his office.” Leading Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry signed a letter denouncing Rove and demanding that he resign or be fired for his remarks.

    Yesterday, Gene Lyons, the long-time Democrat and syndicated columnist, wrote a column defending Obama’s Terrorism policies — he’s merely doing what “what any bloody-minded pragmatist would” — and denounced what he called “the feebleness of [Obama’s] critics” (citing me as the left’s example). Here’s how Lyons, in the first paragraph, characterizes the position of Obama’s critics:

    [A]nybody who thought Barack Obama was going to deal with terrorists by sending flowers and proposing group therapy is certainly naive enough to work for the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

    So if you oppose Obama’s secret, lawless, civilian-killing militarism in numerous Muslim countries (as everyone from the ACLU to virtually the entire non-U.S. world does), then it means that you want to lavish The Terrorists with flowers and therapy: so sayeth Democratic Party loyalists. That’s lifted from Rove almost verbatim, except that Rove’s comment was more accurate and less incendiary. Rove at least acknowledged that liberals want to use legal process to punish Terrorists (“prepare indictments”), whereas Lyons ignores that entirely and substitutes it with the vile insinuation that critics of Obama’s actions actually love The Terrorists and thus want to send them flowers.

    The way in which many Democratic partisans have adopted the lowliest and most repellent GOP demonizing rhetoric is almost as striking as the way in which they’ve embraced many of their defining policies. And this comes from the top. Recall how Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager, Stephanie Cutter, on MSNBC in February, mocked Mitt Romney for saying he’d first consult with lawyers to know whether he had the legal power to start a war against Iran without Congressional approval. “That does not make a Commander-in-Chief, somebody who has to check with his lawyers,” said Cutter.

  2. Malisha 1, June 14, 2012 at 12:28 am

    “In re: Needing to not get “ad hominem” with Nazi sympathizers.”

    1. “ad hominen” means attacking the speaker rather than the facts that the speaker presents.
    Gene, who purports to educate and caution readers to arm themselves against propaganda by analyzing writing/speech critically, himself falls into the trap of attacking the speaker rather than the facts/argument. To be fair — Gene did offer up a word salad purporting to review facts surrounding American vs German use of propaganda in the wars in Europe & zionist involvement in them (here — Gene H. 1, May 21, 2012 at 1:27 pm and here — Gene H. 1, May 23, 2012 at 11:23 pm ) ; TBTCS has not yet posted the critique of that word salad. Similarly, Malisha prepared a hash of history and served it up several times, here — (Malisha 1, May 22, 2012 at 8:41 pm), here — Malisha 1, May 23, 2012 at 10:01 am ), here — (Malisha 1, May 23, 2012 at 2:33 pm), here (Malisha 1, May 23, 2012 at 4:11 pm) and most notably/egregiously here (Malisha 1, May 26, 2012 at 12:31 am ) committing, in addition to ad hominem at least one other of Gene’s favorite sins — cherry picking (among other offenses against the demands of logic & truth-revealing argument). That menu of hash, too, has not been digested and/or regurgitated and analyzed for its toxic elements, as it should be but, really, who wants to have to deal with puked up hash?

    Malisha wrote: “A discussion that needs to be had, in my opinion.”

    2. The first things that need to be defined are the distinctions between fact, argument, and opinion. Gene, author of the “Propagana” article, was given the benefit of the doubt in having failed in the very first installment of that magnum opus to cover all those basss; and to be fair, inasmuch as Malisha claims/boasts he/she is an autodidact, one must remain aware of the warning that attaches to all autodidacts: “A fool is his own disciple.”

    But still, an attackad hominem is not a legitimate rejoinder to an argument; an opinion in itself is not an argument; opinions are not necessarily facts, and facts are either true or false, supported by evidence and logic, or not. When a fact is true, the rational person accepts them as true.

    Malisha wrote: “Free speech means you can say what you want — it doesn’t mean that everybody who objects to what you are saying has to pretend to have respect for your ideas, your words, or you. The fact that you get to say any crap you like doesn’t mean that your choice to say something any sane person would naturally oppose and even feel repulsed by cannot be met with people freely expressing their opinions not only of your speech but of you, as a person who would choose to use such speech among them. They don’t have to pretend you’re respectable just because they respect your First Amendment rights.”

    3. Several interesting points Malisha raises here:
    -Does free speech give one the right to disseminate lies and untruths, or is speech “free” only to the degree that it is not intended to deceive or mislead? The classic example is, Is one “free” to shout Fire in a crowded theatre?

    -Does freedom of speech require that that speech be respected? In most examples and texts on argument and rhetoric, it is demonstrated that the rational person accepts arguments that are factually based on sound evidence and logically valid.

    -Does rationality require that true and logical statements be accepted and false and illogical — among them propagandized and emotionalized claims — be rejected?

    -And finally, in a form of government dependent upon an informed electorate, how important is it that the people have access to and know how to rationally evaluate information for its truth value?

    Malisha continues: Just so, a criminal on trial who actually HAS committed the crimes with which he is charged has every right to use the full measure of law to defend himself. His right to defend himself by every means available to him does not imply that the jury must agree with him in his defense; nor does it mean that absent his own approval, the judge cannot sentence him. He can have his defense. Those who find it inadequate can say so.”

    4. In the American system of law, a “criminal on trial” and the witnesses for and against him, are all called upon to swear that they will tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

    Malisha concludes: “When you put yourself in a position to be disrespected by people who can think straight and are not filled with hysterical psychobabbling vitriol, several of them are likely to direct a few streams of words right back at you, and if that is unpleasant for you, as we say, boo hoo.”

    Nothing in any of Malisha’s “opinions” and rejoinders indicates that he/she has rationally evaluated the truth value of the information. Rather, Malisha stated forthrightly,

    “I don’t care how many pages ANYONE wrote, or writes, at any time at all, if it’s in support of an idiotic pseudo-idea that has been used by murderers to not only justify their criminal behavior but to foist off onto their victims the blame for it.”

    Notice carefully that Malisha absolutely rejected the possibility of evaluating the material for its objective truth value, preferring instead to measure it against Malisha’s underlying prejudices and pre-assumptions; the material was rejected BEFORE assessing its truth value, on the basis that it did not conform to Malisha’s preconceived narrative.

    Gene closed his Propaganda essay with these words of advice:

    “Always question the message and the messenger as well as any who may have sent the messenger. Practice reading with emotional detachment and a critical eye to not only what is said, but how it is said and by whom.
    Keep in mind that propaganda is a tool. It is inherently neutral. The good or evil is found in the intent of the speaker and their desired actions and/or reactions on your part.
    What is your first line of defense against propaganda? You are. And that is my unhidden message to you: Wake up. Civilization calls. The world is what we make it.”

    Malisha — and Gene, and Mike and others — applied these cautions ONLY to “messages and messengers” that are outside their comfort zone.

    Ask any crook how he can most readily get away with his crime; he will tell you, By blending in. By making myself acceptable and invisible in my surroundings. Propagandists work in a similar fashion: they reinforce their audience’s preconceptions; they massage your comfort zone, and they do so precisely to protect themselves from being “questioned” about whether their “intentions are good or evil.”

    TBTCS has NOT disguised his intentions and has certainly not dressed in camouflage to try to ‘blend in.’ TBTCS has been bold as brass, presenting facts and quotes; making claims, citing sources.

    None of those fact patterns has been successfully refuted.

  3. @Elaine M. Thanks, I was going to mention this from NYT but you had already posted it – good eye.

    “Certainly, there may be short-term military gains from killing militant leaders in these strikes, but they are minuscule compared with the long-term damage the drone program is causing. A new generation of leaders is spontaneously emerging in furious retaliation to attacks on their territories and tribes… Overlooking the real drivers of extremism and focusing solely on tackling their security symptoms with brutal force will make the situation worse. ”

    Many here have commented on this short sighted policy. It is one thing to be ready to do what ever is necessary. It is quite another to be so obtuse that you undermine your own efforts and sow the seeds for your own defeat.

  4. http://www.salon.com/2012/06/14/al_qaedas_best_friend/singleton/

    THURSDAY, JUN 14, 2012

    Al Qaeda’s best friend

    An amazing Op-Ed in the NYT by a 23-year-old Yemeni explains that U.S. attacks are strengthening the Terrorists

    BY GLENN GREENWALD

    A destroyed vehicle belonging to al Qaeda-linked militants in Abyan, Yemen. (Credit: Reuters)
    (updated below)

    The New York Times has an extraordinary Op-Ed this morning by Ibrahim Mothana, a 23-year-old democracy activist and Al Qaeda opponent in Yemen. The headline is “How Drones Help Al Qaeda,” and it explains in compelling detail how the principal U.S. tactic ostensibly devoted to fighting Al Qaeda in his country — repeated drone attacks — is having exactly the opposite effect. Even though I’m going to excerpt some of it to discuss it, I really urge everyone to read all of it. He begins this way:

    “DEAR OBAMA, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,” a Yemeni lawyer warned on Twitter last month. President Obama should keep this message in mind before ordering more drone strikes like Wednesday’s, which local officials say killed 27 people, or the May 15 strike that killed at least eight Yemeni civilians.

    Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

    Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. Indeed, the drone program is leading to the Talibanization of vast tribal areas and the radicalization of people who could otherwise be America’s allies in the fight against terrorism in Yemen.

    This is not a new phenomenon, as he notes. Indeed, the first Obama-ordered airstrike on his country — one that took place less than two months after the President received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize — included cluster bombs and was nothing short of horrific:

    The first known drone strike in Yemen to be authorized by Mr. Obama, in late 2009, left 14 women and 21 children dead in the southern town of al-Majala, according to a parliamentary report. Only one of the dozens killed was identified as having strong Qaeda connections.

    The outcome is as predictable and stark as it is tragic for that country (and potentially for the U.S.):

    Certainly, there may be short-term military gains from killing militant leaders in these strikes, but they are minuscule compared with the long-term damage the drone program is causing. A new generation of leaders is spontaneously emerging in furious retaliation to attacks on their territories and tribes.

    What’s most amazing about this is that U.S. government officials — and the sham industry known as “Terrorism experts” which exist to justify their actions — now point to AQAP as the greatest security threat to America (to justify themselves, they need to point to some Grave Threat now that bin Laden is dead). And yet the greatest source of strength for AQAP is precisely the actions of those same officials, ones which the “Terrorism expert” industry overwhelmingly supports:

    And the situation is quite likely to get worse now that Washington has broadened its rules of engagement to allow so-called signature strikes, when surveillance data suggest a terrorist leader may be nearby but the identities of all others targeted is not known. Such loose rules risk redefining “militants” as any military-age males seen in a strike zone. . . .

    This is why A.Q.A.P. is much stronger in Yemen today than it was a few years ago. In 2009, A.Q.A.P. had only a few hundred members and controlled no territory; today it has, along with Ansar al-Sharia, at least 1,000 members and controls substantial amounts of territory.

    He ends by expressing his despair over the widespread approval in the U.S. for these Al-Qaeda-strengthening, civilian-killing attacks in his country (even as the rest of the world overwhelmingly objects), and he identifies exactly the right culprit:

    Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen — including the assassination of three American citizens in September 2011, including a 16-year-old. During George W. Bush’s presidency, the rage would have been tremendous. But today there is little outcry, even though what is happening is in many ways an escalation of Mr. Bush’s policies.

    Defenders of human rights must speak out. America’s counterterrorism policy here is not only making Yemen less safe by strengthening support for A.Q.A.P., but it could also ultimately endanger the United States and the entire world.

    Mainstream American progressivism has really disgraced itself with the behavior that Mothana laments in that passage. What’s most amazing to me about this discussion is how it is simultaneously (a) so obvious (apparently, when you bomb people and constantly kill civilians, you make them want to attack you back: who knew?) and yet (b) so impervious to evidence and reason. It doesn’t matter how much proof you supply that this is true, that U.S. militarism and interference in the Muslim world is largely responsible for the very Terrorism problem that is invoked to justify them. It makes little difference.

    You can show people the statements of accused Terrorists about why they are willing to sacrifice their lives to harm Americans and the evidence of what radicalized them, and how they almost unanimously cite the desire to avenge U.S.-caused civilian deaths. You can show them studies commissioned by the U.S. Pentagon which document the same thing. You can show them statements from the U.S. Government itself explaining that the 9/11 attackers were motivated by a desire to avenge U.S. aggression and deter further interference in the Muslim world. You can show them the in-depth reporting from American journalists who travel to these countries (or are held hostage there) and then emphatically warn that it is U.S. attacks which are fueling anti-American Terrorism. You can show them experts in these countries who devote their lives to studying them who issue the same warnings. And you can show them the pleas from the people who live in these countries — such as Ibrahim Mothana — who are distraught and angry that the U.S. is emboldening Al Qaeda in their country with its ongoing attacks and killing of civilians.

    But this mountain of empirical evidence doesn’t matter. Americans (especially media figures) have been so inculcated with a childish morality narrative which is pleasing and self-affirming to believe — The Terrorists attack us because they are bad and we are good — that it’s just inconceivable that it is actually the U.S. itself which is enabling these plots and has long been galvanizing the very anti-American animus that fuels them. That, combined with rank partisan opportunism (these are Obama’s drones), has rendered this causal truth nothing short of taboo.

    Whenever one points this causal connection — as I’ve done the last two days — one is immediately smeared with the same trite decade-old Rovian insults used to impugn critics of American aggression and militarism in the War on Terror (Andrew Sullivan has hauled them all out in the last couple days: you don’t care about 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 and 9/11; you want Osama bin Laden to be on the loose killing Americans, etc. etc. (apparently, wanting bin Laden treated like Nazi war criminals — arrested, tried and then punished if convicted — is tantamount to advocating for his freedom)). The constant assumption in American political discourse is that there are so very many people in the world eager to attack the U.S. — The Terrorists — but the question of why this is so is simply never asked (actually, I ask that question often, but aside from patent propagandistic pap (they hate us for our Freedom) it’s rarely answered).

    In response to my argument over the last two days that ongoing U.S. aggression is making a Terrorist attack more rather than less likely, Sullivan rhetorically asked: “is he not living on the same planet I am?” Actually, I’m not: I’m living on the same planet as most of the people on Earth, who share these views and reject Sullivan’s; I’m living on the same planet as Ibrahim Mothana, who sees these truths in his daily life; I’m living on the same planet as the mountain of empirical evidence that explains why there are so many people eager to bring violence to the U.S. (as opposed to, say, Peru, or South Africa, or Finland, or Brazil, or Japan, or Portugal, or China).

    I know it’s difficult for someone to realize this when they believe that what appears on CNN and MSNBC represents the full range of mainstream political ideas on the planet, but cheering for American violence and affirming its imperial prerogatives to attack anyone it wants isn’t the norm in the world. That mindset is a small, heinous aberration. Read Ibrahim Mothana’s Op-Ed today to understand why that is.

    UPDATE: Related to this, also worth watching is Jon Stewart’s five-minute commentary last night on Obama’s kill list, his re-definition of “civilian,” and the war on leaks: video follows (via link, above)

  5. How Drones Help Al Qaeda
    By IBRAHIM MOTHANA
    Published: June 13, 2012
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=1

    Excerpt:
    “DEAR OBAMA, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,” a Yemeni lawyer warned on Twitter last month. President Obama should keep this message in mind before ordering more drone strikes like Wednesday’s, which local officials say killed 27 people, or the May 15 strike that killed at least eight Yemeni civilians.

    Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

    Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. Indeed, the drone program is leading to the Talibanization of vast tribal areas and the radicalization of people who could otherwise be America’s allies in the fight against terrorism in Yemen.

    The first known drone strike in Yemen to be authorized by Mr. Obama, in late 2009, left 14 women and 21 children dead in the southern town of al-Majala, according to a parliamentary report. Only one of the dozens killed was identified as having strong Qaeda connections.

    Misleading intelligence has also led to disastrous strikes with major political and economic consequences. An American drone strike in May 2010 killed Jabir al-Shabwani, a prominent sheik and the deputy governor of Marib Province. The strike had dire repercussions for Yemen’s economy. The slain sheik’s tribe attacked the country’s main pipeline in revenge. With 70 percent of the country’s budget dependent on oil exports, Yemen lost over $1 billion. This strike also erased years of progress and trust-building with tribes who considered it a betrayal given their role in fighting Al Qaeda in their areas.

    Yemeni tribes are generally quite pragmatic and are by no means a default option for radical religious groups seeking a safe haven. However, the increasing civilian toll of drone strikes is turning the apathy of tribal factions into anger.

    The strikes have created an opportunity for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Ansar al-Sharia to recruit fighters from tribes who have suffered casualties, especially in Yemen’s south, where mounting grievances since the 1994 civil war have driven a strong secessionist movement.

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