Posted on 11/07/2002 7:37:59 PM PST by DWPittelli
Zap! Pow! The bad guys are dead. And they never knew what hit them. Living his presidency like Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, George Bush etched another notch in his gun butt this week, blowing away six "terrorists" in Yemen's desert. Their car was incinerated by a Hellfire missile, fired by a CIA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone. Dealing out death via remote-controlled flying robots could be the spooks' salvation after the September 11 and Afghan intelligence flops. It makes the agency look useful. It is quick and bodybag-free. It is new wave hi-tech, a 21st century equivalent of James Bond's Aston Martin. And the hit had full authority, right from the top, judging by Mr Bush's comments. The president is keen on hunting down America's foes, on the ugly old premise that the only good Injun is a dead Injun. For redskin, read al-Qaida. It is part, he says, of his anti-terrorist war-without-end. All the world's a battlefield for Mr Bush. The United States of America, 001: licensed to kill.
Zap! Ping! Even as the bullets ricochet, it should be said there are some problems with this approach to international peacekeeping. For a start, it is illegal. The Yemen attack violates basic rules of sovereignty. It is an act of war where no war has been declared. It killed people, some of whom who may have been criminals, but who will never now face trial. It assassinated men who may have been planning attacks. But who can tell? It is, at best, irresponsible extra-judicial killing, at worst a premeditated, cold-blooded murder of civilians. And it is also, and this is no mere afterthought, morally unsustainable. Those who authorised this act have some serious ethical as well as legal questions to answer. That there is no prospect at all that they will, and no insistence by Britain or others that they do so, only renders ever more appalling the moral pit which gapes and beckons.
Zap! Crunch! So where next for the drones of death? What about Georgia or Turkey, where shady Chechens lurk? Russia would approve. Lebanon, Iran, or Gaza, as rehearsed by Israel's gunships? Or Finsbury Park perhaps? How would that feel? Stateless, gangster terrorism is a fearsome scourge. But state-sponsored terrorism is a greater evil, for it is waged by those who should know better, who are duty-bound to address causes not mere symptoms, who may claim to act in the people's name. As Alexander Herzen said in another age of struggle: "We are not the doctors. We are the disease."
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Washington Post
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Published Nov. 6, 2002
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YEME06
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The U.S. Predator missile that killed six suspected Al-Qaida terrorists traveling Sunday in Yemen was fired with the cooperation and approval of that country's leadership, U.S. sources said Tuesday.
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Yemeni officials have said that their intelligence agents were communicating to U.S. intelligence the movements of Abu Ali al-Harithi, the top Al-Qaida operative who was the prime target in the attack. Officially, the government of Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleb in Sana'a has only announced it is investigating the cause of the explosion that killed the terrorists.
In the wake of the attack, however, Saleb had a message read over national television that asked those who had joined Bin Laden's network to come forward to avoid what happened to Al-Harithi. "We call on everyone from among our countrymen who have been entangled in membership of the Al-Qaida organization to repent . . . and renounce all means of violence," the statement said.
Perhaps.
This guy just dosen't have any appreciation for good engineering practices. Yemen is only a testbed site. A live test demo, if you will. A few more field tests for calibration purposes and we'll be ready for wider operational deployment of these bad boys.
I would be very afraid if I lived in the third world thinking law can be bought and protection is a handful of cash.
So many targets.....It's like being on a death row sentence and not knowing when it's coming. All the corrupt third world dictators in the world cannot help you.
Saddam Huessein, his sons, his Generals and his top toadies know where next.
Unless these people live 24/7 in bunkers like the "Mole People" and don't visit their troops or be seen by their people; they will be driving down a deserted road one moment and the next moment be picking out swatches for the mansions in paradise.
That said, yes, we should maximize the use of these devices in the Middle East. I just hope our "pilots" are better protected than Kobar Towers.
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