The United States’ bloody messes in Yemen

[unhappycamper]

http://yementimes.com/en/1748/opinion/3379/The-United-States%E2%80%99-bloody-messes-in-Yemen.htm

The United States’ bloody messes in Yemen
Published on 21 January 2014 in Opinion
Washingtonpost.com Hooria Mashhour (author)

Dec. 12 was supposed to be a day of celebration for the al-Ameri family. A young bride traveled to her wedding with her relatives in Al-Beida’a province, Yemen. But in a few dark seconds their celebrations were eviscerated. A U.S. drone fired at the wedding procession, destroying five vehicles and most of their occupants. Not even the bride’s car, ornately decorated in flowers for the occasion, was spared from the carnage. Senior Yemeni officials later admitted that the strike was a “mistake”.

Some mistake: Though the bride survived, the strike is said to have killed at least 14 civilians and injured 22 others, over a third of them seriously. This marks the largest death toll by a drone strike in Yemen since the drone war’s inception. It is also the largest death toll by U.S. strike since December 2009, when a U.S. cruise missile killed 41 civilians in Al-Majala, including 14 women and 21 children.

In the wake of the killing, a wave of outrage has swept the country. The Yemeni government rushed to meet community elders, seeking to negotiate a quiet settlement for the killing of the bride’s loved ones. But the bereaved villagers rejected the overtures and instead demanded that Yemen’s president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, stop U.S. drones before they would sit at any negotiating table.

On its side, rather than forthrightly address its role in these grim events, the U.S. government has issued no admission of responsibility, nor any apology. It has left the Yemeni government to clean up another bloody mess.




unhappycamper comment: IIRC the mysterious agency droning Yemenis moved everything further out into the Yemeni desert last year.