Living Under Drones

[DeSwiss]

3. I understand completely.

- I can't get this kid's face out of my mind. And I'm glad of that, because it reminds me that I haven't yet lost my humanity.....

[font size=3]U.S. airstrike that killed American teen in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions[/font]



Washington Post | By Craig Whitlock | Published: October 22, 2011

One week after a U.S. military airstrike killed a 16-year-old American citizen in Yemen, no one in the Obama administration, Pentagon or Congress has taken responsibility for his death, or even publicly acknowledged that it happened.

The absence of official accountability for the demise of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a Denver native and the son of an al-Qaeda member, deepens the legal and ethical murkiness of the Obama administration’s campaign to kill alleged enemies of the state outside of traditional war zones.

Unlike the secretive U.S. airstrikes that have killed hundreds of foreigners in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, this case involved an American teenager. He was killed by the U.S. military in a country with which Washington is not at war.

Officials throughout the U.S. government, however, have refused to answer questions for the record about how or why Awlaki was killed Oct. 14 in a remote part of Yemen, along with eight other people.

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''Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.''

~Martin Luther King Jr.