We dream about drones, said 13-year-old Yemeni before his death in a CIA strike

[tencats]

Tuesday 10 February 2015
Mohammed Tuaiman becomes the third member of his family to be killed by what he called ‘death machines’ in the sky months after Guardian interview.
https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/world/video/2015/feb/10/father-martyred-drone-yemeni-teenager-records-life-similar-fate-cia"

A 13-year-old boy killed in Yemen last month by a CIA drone strike had told the Guardian just months earlier that he lived in constant fear of the “death machines” in the sky that had already killed his father and brother.

“I see them every day and we are scared of them,” said Mohammed Tuaiman, speaking from al-Zur village in Marib province, where he died two weeks ago.

“A lot of the kids in this area wake up from sleeping because of nightmares from them and some now have mental problems. They turned our area into hell and continuous horror, day and night, we even dream of them in our sleep.”

Much of Mohammed’s life was spent living in fear of drone strikes. In 2011 an unmanned combat drone killed his father and teenage brother as they were out herding the family’s camels.

The drone that would kill Mohammed struck on 26 January in Hareeb, about an hour from his home. The drone hit the car carrying the teenager, his brother-in-law Abdullah Khalid al-Zindani and a third man.

“I saw all the bodies completely burned, like charcoal,” Mohammed’s older brother Maqded said.

Read more here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-yemeni-teenager-mohammed-tuaiman-death-cia-strike

[nashville_brook]

1. ugh.

[WillyT]

2. And We Wonder Why They Hate Us...

[woolldog]

39. They hated us long before the drone program.

[pipoman]

3. Sounds like his family insists on staying in close proximity to terrorists...

While there have certainly been innocent hit by us drone strikes, most are done with pretty good intel I'm guessing...I don't believe the US is arbitrarily bombing Yemen. ..

[alcina]

12. And where would you suggest they go?

It seems that the definition of terrorist is quite inclusive, which would make "close proximity" a very big area. As noted by the narrator, the US would not confirm nor deny whether they believed the boy was already involved with Al-Qaeda. I get the impression that the default position is Yes, unless there is overwhelming proof to the contrary.

I can't even begin to imagine living in those circumstances, so it's impossible to say what I would do. However, I strongly suspect that it would be very difficult to pack up a family of 30(?) -- one that lacks a patriarch in a very patriarchal society -- abandon your home, your village, your support system, and blindly head toward...where again?

It's not as if the US or Yemeni governments are offering them safe passage or resettlement. The only support they have, now that the senior men of the family are dead, comes from Al-Qaeda. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The narrator even says that neither the Americans nor Yemenis have spoken to them about the drone strikes. So from their perspective, the only support they have is from AQ. I am not surprised they choose to stay there.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

15. Are you fucking kidding me? Is that what you came away with from this story?

Not that our military actions in this child's country are causing mass psychosis in the children and adults?

Not that we are waging such a lopsided war that our "soldiers" sit behind a keyboard thousands of miles away from their targets? And have 0% chance of engaging enemy fire?

How do you know this child was in close proximity to terrorists?

But what should I expect when citizens of this country (USA) have no problem with children hurt and maimed in serving "No Knock Warrants".

Edit to add: If anyone killed my loved ones, you can bet your sweet ass I would join the forces resisting the killers! If this boy was actually a part of Al-Qaeda, I could see him joining after the attack that killed his father and brother.

[ND-Dem]

42. +100. thank you.

[DeSwiss]

16. Yes, they're just being hardheaded and callous.

Someone should go give them what for.

- How about you?

[TheKentuckian]

18. The sickness and soul rot continue to spread. Not far from "Kill em all, let God sort them out"

thinking are we?

[marmar]

34. ......

[freshwest]

38. Wonder if the local governments give the USA fake locations to eliminate factions they want gone?

That is, not real targets, just internal politics. This family may have drawn the ire of another family or tribe (or whatever they have there) or another group wants their land.

I agree we are not there to arbitrarily kill anyone, the government asked us, supposedly. Obama seems unwilling to commit forces in the region, wants them to settle things out by themselves unless they ask us.

I'm betting the USA does not really know who we're dealing with in any detail, and get targets from the local governments. Those are ones who are supposed to be in the know. If they are corrupt, we may be doing their dirty work for them.

This may be why the government was overthrown, as other factions want to be in charge there. No matter what the truth is, we'll never know since we are leaving that area, AFAIK.

Diclaimer: I'm not in the military nor am I employed by the government.

[woo me with science]

40. Then doubly horrific to bomb anyway if you suspect targets are fake and civilians might be there.

Surely if YOU could figure out this devious scheme, the government should have an inkling?!

Or perhaps you are just pulling excuses out of your...hat...trying to defend the indefensible:

The Depth of Depravity in Current US Military Policy:Targeting Children and First Responders

Purposely aiming bombs at children: "It kind of opens our aperture."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021931748

The US Military Approves Bombing Children
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021930268

The most grotesque and blatantly illegal aspect of drone killing: Double Tapping
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023901827

[polly7]

4. K&R. nt.

[rhett o rick]

5. Be interesting to see if this article survives. There were two alert attempts to

shut it down when RT was used as a source.

[Maedhros]

28. Let's see if they like this link:

Another take on this situation...

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

In fact, if it were the case that this 13-year-old boy were a “member of AQAP,” is it hard to understand why? Do we need to resort to claims that some primitive, inscrutable religion is to blame, or does this, from the Guardian article, make more sense:

When the Guardian interviewed Mohammed last September, he spoke of his anger towards the US government for killing his father. “They tell us that these drones come from bases in Saudi Arabia and also from bases in the Yemeni seas and America sends them to kill terrorists, but they always kill innocent people. But we don’t know why they are killing us.

“In their eyes, we don’t deserve to live like people in the rest of the world and we don’t have feelings or emotions or cry or feel pain like all the other humans around the world.”

In 2009, the U.S. got caught using cluster bombs in Yemen in an attack that slaughtered 35 women and children. Obama then successfully demanded that the Yemeni journalist who proved that the attack was from the U.S., Abdulelah Haider Shaye, be imprisoned for years. In December, 2013, a U.S. drone strike killed 12 people as they traveled to a wedding.

[countryjake]

31. He's hit the nail on the head with that one!

Thanks, Maedhros, for sharing that article.

Let's hope we're all not accused of "thought crimes" now, for reading it and going, "Hmmm...".

I get so tired of the apathy this nation exhibits toward atrocities that are committed in our name. That boy's story, the murder of Mohammed Taeiman al Jahmi, had me in tears after watching his own video.



“the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history – if not ever.….which is officially aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us…." ~ Noam Chomsky

[tencats]

37. Again this journalist nails it.

From the link there is this.

[div class="excerpt"
There are a few observations worth making about this repugnant episode:

(1) The U.S. media just got done deluging the American public with mournful stories about the Jordanian soldier, Moaz al-Kasasbeh, making him a household name. As is often the case for victims of America’s adversaries, the victim is intensely humanized. The public learns all sorts of details about their lives, hears from their grieving family members, wallows in the tragedy of their death.

By stark contrast, I’d be willing to bet that the name “Mohammed Tuaiman al-Jahmi” is never uttered on mainstream American television. Most Americans, by design, will have no idea that their government just burned a 13-year-old boy to death and then claimed he was a Terrorist. If they do know, the boy will be kept hidden, dehumanized, nameless, without the aspirations or dreams or grieving parents on display for victims of America’s adversaries (just as Americans were swamped with stories about an Iranian-American journalist detained in Iran for two months, Roxana Saberi, while having no idea that their own government imprisoned an Al Jazeera photojournalist, Sami al-Haj, in Guantanamo for seven years without charges).

When I was in Canada last October during two violent attacks – one in northern Quebec and the other in Parliament in Ottawa – both of the soldiers killed were (understandably) the subject of endless, intense media coverage featuring their lives, their dreams and their grieving parents. But I’d bet that the Canadian public was incapable of naming even a single foreign individual killed by their own government over the last decade.

It’s worth considering the extreme propaganda impact that disparity has, the way in which the U.S. media is so eagerly complicit in sustaining ongoing American militarism and violence by disappearing victims of U.S. violence while endlessly heralding the victims of its adversaries.

(2) I have no idea whether this 13-year-old boy was “a member of al-Qaeda,” whatever that might mean for a boy that young. But neither does the New York Times, which is why it’s incredibly irresponsible for media outlets reflexively to claim that those killed by U.S. drone strikes are terrorists.

That’s especially true since the NYT itself previously reported that the Obama administration has re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” In this case, Mohammed did not even qualify for that Orwellian re-definition, yet still got called a terrorist (by both the Obama administration as well as a “member of AQAP,” both of whom are, for different reasons, motivated to make that claim). Whatever else is true, extreme skepticism is required before claiming that the victims of the latest American drone strike are terrorists, but that skepticism is virtually never included.

(3) The next time there’s a violent attack on the west by a Muslim, and journalists immediately declare that Islam is the culprit and set out to demonize those who suggest it might be “blowback,” perhaps this incident can be remembered. Does one really need to blame a radical version of religious dogma to understand why people get really angry when they hear – yet again – that the children of their nation have been extinguished – incinerated – by another American drone?

If it were American teenagers rather than Yemeni ones regularly being burned to death – on American soil rather than Yemeni soil – does it take any effort to understand why there’d be widespread calls for violence against the perpetrators in response? Consider how much American rage and violence was unleashed by a single-day attack on American soil 13 years ago.

In fact, if it were the case that this 13-year-old boy were a “member of AQAP,” is it hard to understand why? Do we need to resort to claims that some primitive, inscrutable religion is to blame, or does this, from the Guardian article, make more sense:]

Continue reading at https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

[Oilwellian]

45. I suspect the number of innocent children killed

is the reason why so many of our returning young men, commit suicide.

You may want to pare the article down to four paragraphs for copyright purposes. DU rule.

[countryjake]

46. Waiting for a kill shot a world away...

Drone Pilots, Waiting for a Kill Shot 7,000 Miles Away


A drone pilot at the base at Hancock Field, near Syracuse, working the controls during a training operation.
(Photo by Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away July 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/us/drone-pilots-waiting-for-a-kill-shot-7000-miles-away.html?_r=1

~snip~

When the call comes for him to fire a missile and kill a militant — and only, Colonel Brenton said, when the women and children are not around — the hair on the back of his neck stands up, just as it did when he used to line up targets in his F-16 fighter jet.

Afterward, just like the old days, he compartmentalizes. “I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,” he said. “I have a duty, and I execute the duty.”

Drones are not only revolutionizing American warfare but are also changing in profound ways the lives of the people who fly them.

Colonel Brenton acknowledges the peculiar new disconnect of fighting a telewar with a joystick and a throttle from his padded seat in American suburbia.

When he was deployed in Iraq, “you land and there’s no more weapons on your F-16, people have an idea of what you were just involved with.” Now he steps out of a dark room of video screens, his adrenaline still surging after squeezing the trigger, and commutes home past fast-food restaurants and convenience stores to help with homework — but always alone with what he has done.

[Ramses]

35. shutting down the truth seems to be their M.O.

As long as we follow US propaganda and close our eyes and ears all will be well. The putrid rotten corpse of American fascism is starting to stink bad, and they will do whatever they have to, to cover up the smell.

Outright lying and continuous propaganda is the name of their game, and the game is up. Too many people are beginning to realize the truth and they cant cover it up anymore.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

6. Kick.

We, the USA, need to stop this policy immediately!

[marmar]

7. Sad k/r

Ten years ago, this would have caused much wider outrage on DU.

[Maedhros]

29. Civilian deaths from U.S. attacks are simply a political tool for some.

When a President we don't like is in the White House, we are outraged at civilian casualties because that makes the President look bad.

When a person we like is in the White House, we are outraged that someone points out the civilian casualties because that makes the President look bad.

In either case, we don't really care about the civilians themselves.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. knr

[Octafish]

9. ''Death Machines in the Sky''

Poor kid never hurt the United States of America, I bet.

How long before the drones start raining down stateside?

[valerief]

10. Must be ISIS drones. They CERTAINLY couldn't be U.S. drones, cuz, you know, freedom and stuff.

[Ed Suspicious]

17. They hate us for our freedom . . .

to kill them with impunity.

[Luminous Animal]

11. What's that about burning people alive, again?

[Octafish]

14. Bugsplat

It's like a Constitutional scholar might say: "They're not even human, so don't worry about it."

[ND-Dem]

43. +100

[FairWinds]

13. Good point Luminous . .

shows the consequences of US propaganda driven hyper-nationalism that
de-humanizes anyone on the wrong side of the empire's guns.
Veterans For Peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Must be a mistake. Only Muslims burn people alive. We would never.....cuz we're civilized.

[rhett o rick]

36. I hear you. Fire bombing Dresden and Tokyo don't count. nm

[countryjake]

20. Do international laws no longer mean anything?

How is the murder of this child not a war crime? Where are the lawyers to help this family?


A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a U.S. drone on December 13, 2013 in the capital Sanaa.


Get the data: Drone wars
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/

Yemen 2002–2015
US Covert Action

Most recent strike:
February 2 2015

Confirmed drone strikes: 89-108
Total killed: 428-633
Civilians killed: 65-96
Children killed: 8
Injured: 86-215

Possible extra drone strikes: 71-87
Total killed: 307-441
Civilians killed: 26-61
Children killed: 6-9
Injured: 75-102

Other covert operations: 15-72
Total killed: 156-365
Civilians killed: 68-99
Children killed: 26-28
Injured: 15-102



The overturned car where Mohammed was killed on January 26, 2015.

Treachery.

[Fumesucker]

21. Nobel Peace bugsplats

Not like those barbarians in ISIS.

[johnnyreb]

22. I fucking object.

So I inform everyone I can about the classified 28 Pages, as they just might be a soft white underbelly to all the madness.

[bighart]

23. Wow

http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/

[Maedhros]

30. Notice the ridiculous increase in the frequency of attacks after Obama's inauguration.

This is why I don't like the President's foreign policy - it kills children.

[woo me with science]

44. [phone]

[bvar22]

24. Face it! Drone bombings ARE Weapons of Terror.

I know how I would feel if some other country were using Drones to kill MY family, neighbors, and friends.
I would go full frontal Rambo.

[bighart]

25. I don't understand why these threads about drones

seem to sink like a stone.

[countryjake]

33. Because the Drone Campaign is the gigantic elephant flying above the room.

Burning people to death, understandably, produces outrage.

[Jefferson23]

26. Who benefits..when does it end? n/t

[Octafish]

32. Terrorized Child

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death." -- Adolf Hitler

[woo me with science]

41. K&R