It doesn't take many incidents like this to wipe out any benefits from any number of pretty speeches.
At least 34 people died last week, when Yemeni forces hit suspected al-Qaeda targets in the southern governorate of Abyan and in Ahrab, a district northeast of the Yemeni capital Sana'a. Western and Yemeni media outlets reported that the United States provided Yemen with key intelligence and firepower to carry out the strikes, but to what extent is unclear. Yemeni state media reported that President Obama phoned Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to congratulate him on a job well done, and ABC News said that U.S. cruise missiles had been used.
But regardless of who did what, a primary target in the attacks -- Qasim al-Raymi, the al-Qaeda leader who is believed to be behind a 2007 bombing in central Yemen that killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis -- is still at large. And reports of a U.S. role, and mass civilian casualties at the sites of the attacks, have sparked a public outcry and added to anti-American sentiments across the country. "They missed that individual," says Johnsen of the targeted al-Qaeda chief. "And at the same time, they ended up killing a number of women and children in the strike on Abyan. So now you have something where there are all these pictures of dead infants and mangled children that are underlined with the caption 'Made in the USA' on all the jihadi forums. Something like this does much more to extend al-Qaeda."
Obama may have retired the War on Terror™ brand but, like his predecessor, he still seems to think that the way to make Muslims like America is to kill more of them.
H/t Glenn Greenwald.
I do not understand why more Canadians and Americans are not outraged - HORRIFIED - at this tactic of destroying entire villages - including women and children - on the off-chance that they might contain an "evil-doer". Would people think it was okay for our police forces to blow up the apartment block next door because they had a tip (subsequently often found to be unsubstantiated) that a an alleged murderer was taking shelter there?
But of course it's not our fault. It's Al-Queda or the Taliban or the Palestinians who are to blame for using citizens as human shields. And anyway, it's just collateral damage. It's not like it is our friends and neighbors who are being murdered ...
Agh.
I think it's difficult for Obama to argue that he's fighting terrorism when he's committing it. And I really don't know what else to call the murder of civilians for no other reason than that they're in the general area where some bad guy was suspected of being. The number of unmanned drone attacks on Pakistani territory with the attendant death of civilians has increased significantly since Obama became president.
A lot of people were hoping that we might see from Obama -- for a change -- something like mental toughness, the moral and intellectual strength that saw guys like FDR and Churchill and WLMK through WWII.
But it's just not there in these kids who are pretending to run the world right now. They are Disney products. They think that toughness means bang-bang-shoot-shoot. Obama is overcompensating for not being Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett or even Stanley McChrystal, and God knows McChrystal is probably overcompensating too.
Our pickle here is not so different at the moment, though. There just aren't people in public life with the mental toughness we need. I don't know why, but we are curiously bereft at the moment.
This should not surprise us: that the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day was born of the Yemeni attacks. The Americans continue to sow dragon's teeth in the middle east.
Also not surprising is Obama's vow to “use every element of our national power to disrupt, dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks on the U.S. homeland.”
The Predator missile strikes will continue, and this time without the cat's paw of the Yemeni government.
Steve Clemons: The Yemen Brief: Expanding Scope of US Military Engagement Exactly What Bin Laden Wants
Gwynne Dyer in his book "Ignorant Armies", written shortly before the start of the latest Iraq war, says pretty much the same thing. Here's what Amazon has to say about the book (which is around here somewhere dammit):
Note that many of Mr. Dyer's predictions - including the global recession - have indeed come to pass. But Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to cure the magical thinking of the Americans. Myself, I don't think that is possible. Manifest Destiny is too deeply ingrained.