Obama’s New Normal: The Drone Strikes Continue by Amy Goodman
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/26-0There has been yet another violent attack with mass casualties. This was not the act of a lone gunman, or of an armed student rampaging through a school. It was a group of families en route to a wedding that was killed. The town was called Radda—not in Colorado, not in Connecticut, but in Yemen. The weapon was not an easy-to-obtain semiautomatic weapon, but missiles fired from U.S. drones. On Thursday, Dec. 12, 17 people were killed, mostly civilians. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has consistently tracked U.S. drone attacks, recently releasing a report on the six months following President Barack Obama’s major address on drone warfare before the National Defense University (NDU) last May. In that speech, Obama promised that “before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured—the highest standard we can set.” The BIJ summarized, “Six months after President Obama laid out U.S. rules for using armed drones, a Bureau analysis shows that covert drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan have killed more people than in the six months before the speech.” In a nation that abhors the all-too-routine mass killing in our communities, why does our government consistently kill so many innocents abroad?
One significant problem with assessing the U.S. drone-warfare program is its secrecy. U.S. officials rarely comment on the program, less so about any specific attack, especially where civilian deaths occur. As Obama admitted in the speech, “There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties.” The BIJ’s estimate of the death toll from U.S. drone strikes during the past 12 years in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia is well over 4,000.
While the U.S. media shower attention on the hypothetical prospects that in the next few years, Amazon.com will deploy clever little drones to deliver your holiday orders, it is important to take a hard look at what these airborne robots are actually doing now. “Democracy Now!” correspondent Jeremy Scahill has been exposing U.S. covert warmaking for years, most recently in his book and film “Dirty Wars.” The film was just shortlisted for an Oscar for best documentary. After the Academy Award nomination was made, he told us, “I hope that people pay attention to these stories, that Americans will know what happened to the Bedouin villagers in al-Majalah, Yemen, where three dozen women and children were killed in a U.S. cruise missile strike that the White House tried to cover up.”
In his NDU address, Obama said, “We act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people.” Neither Obama nor any of his aides have explained just what kind of threat the wedding convoy presented to the American people. The government of Yemen, following local custom, made reparations to the victimized families, reportedly delivering 101 Kalashnikov rifles and a little over $100,000.
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encourage individuals to read widely among progressive sites on the internet, including DU. Doing so will give one a broader perspective from which to critique policies and issues. Pledging one's undying support to any person or cause leads down a blind alley, IMO. No one can predict the future with certainty, and circumstances may find one trying to support the unsupportable, with predictably ludicrous results.
Where Obama is concerned, the word that comes to mind when I look at him is "expediency".
Not to dredge up old news, but I will anyway, because I think it proves my point. Back when the Rev. Wright controversy erupted (most here will remember that) because of the Reverend's "God damn America" comment, taken out of context, of course, I pulled up his entire sermon on the internet and listened to it. I then actually called the church, spoke to a secretary, and expressed my support for Rev. Wright, because, in my view, I understood what he was talking about.
What he was railing against, IMO, was what Unitarian Universalists call "idolatry of the mind and spirit"; inflating some abstraction and making it worthy of absolute loyalty. I saw this most clearly some years later when, after the alleged killing of OBL, some Americans took to the streets, their faces contorted and their neck veins popping out, screaming "USA! USA!" Sickening, it was.
Obama could have made the Rev. Wright controversy a teachable moment for the American people, because, of all the things I've said about him I've never claimed that he is stupid. He could have counseled humility and a recognition of our true place in the scheme of things.
Instead, he took the path of expediency and threw the Reverend under the bus. That should have been a clue, right there.
So, here we are, today, talking about how "exceptional" we are. Talk about hubris! In reality, the American people should be on their knees before whatever god they worship, pleading for 'forgiveness of their trespasses' and their grievous sins against the peoples of the ME and Central Asia, whose only offense is to be sitting on the oil, natural gas, and precious minerals that we want for ourselves. Humanitarianism, my ass! It's all about natural resources.
I don't understand how anyone with a soul can continue to murder women, children, infants, and 17 year old boys with their whole life ahead of them. The War on Terror is a fraud (please see 'precious minerals' ibid.) And Al Qaeda is a CIA construct.
If there were a just God, she'd put a stop to all this. Not likely, though, since she's conspicuous by her absence.
So, carry on. Let's continue to support the predators, because, freedom, democracy. 
