This Is What It Looks Like When A U.S. President Orders a Strike in a Muslim Country

 Eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awlaqi is said to have bled to death over a two-hour period (source).

by Gaius Publius

"The 11-year-old was woken by the commotion outside and went to see what was going on. ... He asked them ‘Who are you?’ but the [U.S. soldiers] shot him. He was the first killed."

—Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab, describing his son's death

When you murder people in Yemen, you murder Muslims.

—Yours truly

There's a lot of noise being made about the "anti-terrorist" strike in Yemen ordered by President Trump, and a lot of noise should be made about it.

But behind the partisan jabbings is a brutal fact — people are being murdered in these "strikes." And another brutal fact — both political parties have normalized these ... well, they must be called what they are ... war crimes.

From a report on the Trump-ordered raid (do read; it's excellent), I want to tease out just this detail (h/t Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, via email):

Nine young children killed: The full details of botched US raid in Yemen

[...] It was a moonless night and the calm in Yakla was punctured only by the familiar sound of drones buzzing overhead.

In the middle of the night US special forces flew from the aircraft carrier USS Makin Island in Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and landed a few kilometres from the village. ...

“The operation began when the soldiers landed next to the graveyard which lies about 2km away from our town, north of Yakla”, Sheikh Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab said. The soldiers then proceeded on foot, flanked by military dogs, in the direction of the village. Villagers say there were about 50 soldiers.

An 11-year-old is the first hit

His son Ahmed was the first casualty. According to al Dahab the 11-year-old was woken by the commotion outside and went to see what was going on. “When my son Ahmed saw them, he couldn’t tell that they were soldiers because it was dark,” he said. “He asked them ‘Who are you?’ but the men shot him. He was the first killed. No one thought that marines would descend on our homes to kill us, kill our children and kill our women.” [...]

This happens under all U.S. presidents who order such actions. More:

SEAL Team 6 attacked the home of 65-year-old Abdallah Mabkhout al Ameri, surrounding it and opened fire indiscriminately, Abdelilah al Dahab and other witnesses claimed. “When people heard the gunshots and missiles, local men rushed out of their homes to find out what was going on,” he said.

Three witnesses said the commandos shot at everyone who left their homes. In these lawless parts of Yemen every home has a Kalashnikov and the residents reached for their guns “to defend their homes and their honour,” Abdelilah al Dahab said.

The villagers say 38-year-old mother of seven, Fatim Saleh al Ameri was fatally shot by special operators while trying to flee with her two-year-old son Mohammed. “We pulled him out from his mother’s lap. He was covered in her blood,” said 11-year-old Basil Ahmed Abad al­ Zouba, whose 17-year-old brother was killed. “The operation began when the soldiers landed next to the graveyard which lies about 2km away from our town, north of Yakla”, Sheikh Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab said. The soldiers then proceeded on foot, flanked by military dogs, in the direction of the village. Villagers say there were about 50 soldiers.

I don't want to continue this, but there's plenty more at the link.

War Crimes

Yes, they killed some "terrorists" ... maybe ... including an 80-year-old man, though what "terrorism" means in Yemen is fully in doubt. It's actually a three-way civil war, as the article makes clear, and we may just be doing the Saudi nationalist king's dirty work.

As they article makes clear, actions like these are sparking more revenge than thanksgiving. Will those who take that revenge also be called "terrorists"? This is a global game of Hattfields versus McCoys. Were they "terrorists" too? (And which are we, the Hatfields, or the McCoys?) 

But these are also war crimes. In the last century, the U.S. hung people for commiting them. In this century, what Bush initiated Obama normalized by behavior and legalized — made "lawful" — by statute. Now Trump and his foreign policy advisors have a free hand to treat anyone in the world any way they want. War crimes are a bipartisan op in this country.

And a racist one as well. If the child at the top of this piece were — I hate to say it — Caucasian, would it have stopped these Democrats (do click; do memorize the list) from putting the CIA in the hands of Mike Pompeo and his known-torturer Deputy Director?

When you murder people in Yemen, you murder Muslims. These raids, these murders, are not just on Trump. They're on every Democrat who enabled him. How much of the globalized "war on terror" is just globalized racism? Will it hurt the "Democratic Party brand" to collaborate with it?

I hope Democrats are prepared with answers to those questions. I'm certain, as Trump takes us down, they will be asked.

Scheduling note: My comments here appear regularly on Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Thursday if Monday is a holiday.

GP