The US government isn’t the only government trying to conceal the use of drone warfare which has expanded during the Obama Administration. The Washington Post reports of a drone strike in Radda, Yemen that killed 11 of the 14 people in the truck that was hit. The Post reported, “The Yemeni government initially said that those killed were al-Qaeda militants and that its Soviet-era jets had carried out the Sept. 2 [2012] attack.”
Jason Ditz of Antiwar.com reported, this “wasn’t the first time Yemen sought to cover for the US in a massacre, and it likely won’t be the last. But while the US has avoided blame in the international media, at least sometimes, there is little doubt in the minds of drone victims that the attacks are US policy.”
The federal government has even tried to cover-up these attacks. The New York Times sued for disclosure and on January 2, a federal judge rejected their bid to force the US government to disclose more information about its drone war.
The Obama Administration made Yemen a front in the “war on terror” and ramped up attacks after the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death. In fact, Yemen is only one of at least six countries in which drone warfare has been used as part of the endless war which began under the Bush Administration.
Estimates report approximately 2,000 people killed by drone strikes in Pakistan, approximately 1,000 in Yemen and untold numbers of people have been killed by drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.
Most of the people killed in these attacks are civilians who posed no threat to the American government. However, the continued presence of American military around the world is actually creating enemies! Nasser Mabkhoot Mohammed al-Sabooly, the truck’s driver said, “If we are ignored and neglected, I would try to take my revenge. I would even hijack an army pickup, drive it back to my village and hold the soldiers in it hostages. I would fight along al-Qaeda’s side against whoever was behind this attack.” And Abdul Rahman Berman of Yemen’s National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms warns that the drone policy is a losing proposition, noting that “if the Americans kill 10, al-Qaeda will recruit 100.”