Drone Strikes Do Fuel Blowback in Yemen
by <
http://original.antiwar.com/author/nick-sibilla/> Nick Sibilla, July
14, 2012
Slate columnist
<
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/06/barack_
obama_s_kill_list_for_deciding_when_to_launch_drone_attacks_against_terroris
ts_is_alarming_to_some_people_.html> Fred Kaplan recently attempted to
defend President Obama's increasing reliance on drones. While he partially
concedes that drones could be "morally iffy," Kaplan argues that this "kill
list" of extrajudicial assassination could be "
<
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/06/barack_
obama_s_kill_list_for_deciding_when_to_launch_drone_attacks_against_terroris
ts_is_alarming_to_some_people_.2.html> assuring":
"Not only are people-trained, authorized personnel-very much in control of
what the drones do; in the most sensitive cases, the ultimate decision is
made, in a very deliberate fashion, by the president of the United States."
Clearly, Kaplan has completely disregarded one of the most
<
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=7838#.T-FU5rWXS8A> disturbing
revelations from a May
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaed
a.html?pagewanted=7&_r=3> New York Times
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaed
a.html?pagewanted=7&_r=3> piece: "Today, the Defense Department can target
suspects in Yemen whose names they do not know." Increasingly, Yemenis and
Pakistanis are victims of
<
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/19/cia-wants-to-use-ignature-strike
s-against-terror-suspects-in-yemen/> signature strikes. These attacks target
groups of people with traits that are shared by "terrorists" or "militants."
Violent, aggressive traits like
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaed
a.html?pagewanted=7&_r=3> loading fertilizer onto a truck or doing jumping
jacks.
For this reason, Marcy Wheeler has attacked the "kill list" as a
<
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/05/31/the-kill-list-is-a-shiny-object/>
"shiny object"
".because it propagates the myth that everyone we're killing is a known
terrorist.The reference to and focus on a Kill List hides precisely the most
controversial use of drones outside of Afghanistan: the targeting of
patterns, not people."
No wonder
<
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/13/u_s_drones_deeply_unpopular_around_the_worl
d/singleton/> American drones are highly unpopular around the world.
Later in his piece, Kaplan cites a New America Foundation study that asserts
96% of all those killed by drones or air strikes in Yemen were "militants."
But as The New York Times
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaed
a.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2> reported earlier this month, the Obama
administration, "in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as
combatants." In other words, thanks to sinister accounting, the Obama
administration has eliminated the divide between "guilty" and "innocent
bystander." This would also explain why the official civilian casualty count
has been
<
http://www.propublica.org/special/how-obama-drone-death-claims-stack-up#1>
incredibly low. So the true militant and civilian death tolls are unknown.
Finally, Kaplan raises many crucial questions about American involvement in
Yemen:
"Are they having an effect on the war against al-Qaeda? Does killing the No.
2 in Yemen degrade the organization, or does it just mean the ascension of
an equally competent No. 3? Have the killings to date triggered a backlash?
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=
1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss> Ibrahim Mothana, co-founder of the Watan party,
writes in an op-ed in today's New York Times, "Drones strikes are causing
more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants." Is this
true? I don't know, but it's a question worth investigating."
But just three paragraphs later, Kaplan himself
<
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/06/barack_
obama_s_kill_list_for_deciding_when_to_launch_drone_attacks_against_terroris
ts_is_alarming_to_some_people_.2.html> writes:
"Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates out of Yemen, is now seen
as the center of the most dangerous operations, the locus of several
attempted attacks against the United States. AQAP's ranks are said to have
swelled to more than 1,000 fighters (up from 200 to 300 just three years
ago), and they control significant parts of southern Yemen."
So under the Obama administration, AQAP has drastically increased its
membership. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has drastically increased
its drone strikes: since 2009, it has launched 28 drone strikes and 13 air
strikes in Yemen. (By comparison, George W. Bush only ordered one drone
strike during all eight years of his presidency.) More dramatically,
according to the same New America Foundation paper cited by Kaplan,
<
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2012/obama_ramps_up_covert_
war_in_yemen_68427> 99% of all Yemenis killed by American drones or air
strikes occurred during the Obama administration.
Could these trends be related?
Yes.
Appearing on Up with Chris Hayes, Jeremy Scahill, a national security
correspondent at The Nation, argues that these strikes motivate people
<
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up-with-chris-hayes/47658356#47658315> "to hate
the United States:"
"The most dangerous thing I think the US is doing (besides murdering
innocent people in many cases) is giving people in Yemen or Somalia or
Pakistan a non-ideological reason to hate the United States. To want to
fight the United States. Non-ideological reasons, meaning a personal
vendetta, is much more powerful than 'We hate your McDonald's. We hate your
freedom. We hate your Christianity.' That's real to them."
Or as a Yemeni lawyer
<
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/statuses/200930818816880640> tweeted in May,
"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."
Furthermore, a May 2012 Washington Post article
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-bree
d-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_story_1.html>
declared, "In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for
al-Qaeda." That article meticulously detailed how resentment, outrage, and
vengeance towards U.S. drones legitimize AQAP. While this concept of
<
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=7976#more-7976> blowback is
controversial in the United States, it's increasingly becoming the
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-bree
d-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_story_2.html>
consensus in Yemen, shared by politicians, human rights activists, and
victims' families:
"Every time the American attacks increase, they increase the rage of the
Yemeni people, especially in al-Qaeda-controlled areas. The drones are
killing al-Qaeda leaders, but they are also turning them into heroes.
"These attacks are making people say, 'We believe now that al-Qaeda is on
the right side,'
"There is more hostility against America because the attacks have not
stopped al-Qaeda, but rather they have expanded, and the tribes feel this is
a violation of the country's sovereignty.There is a psychological acceptance
of al-Qaeda because of the U.S. strikes.
"The Americans are targeting the sons of the Awlak. I would fight even the
devil to exact revenge for my nephew."
In addition, American drone strikes completely ignore the delicate
complexity of
<
http://www.thenation.com/article/166265/washingtons-war-yemen-backfires>
Yemeni politics. According to
<
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/yemen-drones-and-the-imperial-presidency/>
Malou Innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, "Rather than
encourage the Yemeni government to respond to southern demands for greater
local autonomy, Washington's tactics are helping the U.S.-backed Yemeni
government repress Southern separatists."
Yet there has been push back against blowback. Writing in Foreign Affairs,
Christopher Swift, a fellow at the University of Virginia Law School's
Center for National Security Law, argues that drone blowback is a "
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137760/christopher-swift/the-drone-b
lowback-fallacy?page=show> fallacy." Swift recently traveled to Yemen and
interviewed 40 different politicians, tribal leaders, and clerics about
their views towards drones. Instead of revenge, Swift argues that poverty
motivates people to join or sympathize with AQAP. He quotes an
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137760/christopher-swift/the-drone-b
lowback-fallacy?page=show> Islamist parliamentarian:
"The driving issue is development. Some districts are so poor that joining
al-Qaeda represents the best of several bad options."
However, Yemen's economy has been stagnant. According to the
<
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ym.html>
CIA World Factbook, in 2009, the same year AQAP was first created, Yemen's
GDP per capita was $2,500. In 2011, it was $2,500. The Yemeni economy has
not dramatically deteriorated since the inception of AQAP. But what has
changed dramatically over the past few years is the number of Yemenis killed
by American aircraft. As I mentioned earlier,
<
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2012/obama_ramps_up_covert_
war_in_yemen_68427> 99% of all Yemenis killed by American drones or air
strikes occurred during the Obama administration.
In addition, there could very well be an ideological divide between
leadership and other elites and the low-level recruits who join AQAP.
Furthermore, writing at
<
http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/07/02/is-drone-blowback-really-a-fallacy/>
Antiwar.com, John Glaser notes that
<
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=7976> Anwar al-Awlaki, Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "Underwear Bomber," and Faisal Shahzad,
the so-called Times Square Bomber, all state that their plots were "in
retaliation" for the US killing innocent civilians.
In order to prevail over AQAP in the long-run, the
<
http://www.cfr.org/yemen/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula-aqap/p9369> Council on
Foreign Relations quotes Ali Soufan's recommendation: "You have to counter
the [al-Qaeda] narrative, the ideology," and prevent them "from becoming
part of opposition society." But by needlessly killing innocent civilians,
the Obama administration sows discord, thereby unwittingly strengthening
al-Qaeda as an opposition force.
Furthermore, AQAP is a relatively young organization, first formed in
<
http://www.cfr.org/yemen/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula-aqap/p9369> January
2009. So escalating U.S. involvement against an al-Qaeda affiliate is
precisely what these terrorists want. As Osama bin Laden
<
http://articles.cnn.com/2004-11-01/world/binladen.tape_1_al-jazeera-qaeda-b
in?_s=PM:WORLD> himself explained in October 2004:
"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of
bankruptcy.All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest
point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order
to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and
political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some
benefits for their private corporations."
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Sat Jul 14 2012 - 06:35:04 EDT
