The U.S. State Department confirmed on January 5 that the man the U.S. government once claimed was the target of the drone strike that killed American teenager Abdulrahman Awlaki in 2011 in Yemen is alive. The department announced that it has designated Ibrahim al Banna “a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224.” The U.S. is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to al Banna’s killing or capture.
Al Banna’s name was floated by anonymous U.S. officials as the target of the October 14, 2011, drone strike that killed Awlaki, a 16-year-old U.S. citizen born in Colorado. Awlaki’s family insists he was having dinner with his teenage cousin and some others in Shebwah, Yemen, when they were killed in the strike. The Obama administration has never explained why Awlaki was killed, other than anonymous officials implying he was with a terror target at the time or that it was a lethal mistake. Awlaki’s estranged father, Anwar al Awlaki, was a radical pro-al Qaeda imam whose sermons influenced and inspired many terrorists in the English speaking world. The elder Awlaki, who was also a U.S. citizen, was an enigmatic figure who supported George W. Bush’s 2000 election campaign, spoke at the Pentagon shortly after 9-11, and went on to become an important propaganda figure for the growing radical Islamist movement after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike two weeks before his son was killed.
Home video of Abdulrahman Awlaki playing with his younger siblings in the family’s courtyard in 2009. The 16-year-old U.S. citizen was killed in a drone strike on October 14, 2011, in Yemen.
The younger Awlaki, who was living with his grandparents in Sanaa, had not seen his father in years at the time of his death and has never been linked to any terrorism.
The designation of al Banna by the State Department — and the confirmation he is indeed alive — once again raises an important question of the Obama administration: Why was this 16-year-old U.S. citizen killed in a drone strike authorized by the president of the United States?
Below is an excerpt from my book “Dirty Wars” that deals with Abdulrahman’s killing and the questions around al Banna:
Nasser Awlaki [Abdulrahman’s grandfather] received a phone call from his family in Shabwah. “Some of our relatives went to the place where [Abdulrahman] was killed, and they saw the area where he was killed. And they told us he was buried with the others in one grave because they were blown up to pieces by the drone. So they could not put them in separate graves,” Nasser told me. “They put three or four of them in one grave because they were cut into pieces. The people who were there could recognize only the back of Abdulrahman’s hair. But they could not recognize his face or anything else.” As the horror was setting in that their eldest grandson had been killed just two weeks after the death of their eldest child, Nasser and [his wife] Saleha watched in disbelief as numerous news reports identified Abdulrahman as being twenty-one years old, with anonymous U.S. military officials referring to him as a “military-aged” male. Some reports intimated that he was an al Qaeda supporter and that he had been killed while meeting with Ibrahim al Banna, an Egyptian citizen described as the “media coordinator” for AQAP.
Days after the killing of Abdulrahman, the United States released a statement, as usual feigning ignorance about who was responsible for the strike, even though “unnamed officials” in the United States and Yemen had confirmed the strike to almost all media outlets that inquired. “We have seen press reports that AQAP senior official Ibrahim al Banna was killed last Friday in Yemen and that several others, including the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, were with al Banna at the time,” National Security Council spokesman Thomas Vietor told the press, in a statement that strangely cast Abdulrahman as something between an al Qaeda associate and a hapless tourist. “For over the past year, the Department of State has publicly urged U.S. citizens not to travel to Yemen and has encouraged those already in Yemen to leave because of the continuing threat of violence and the presence of terrorist organizations, including AQAP, throughout the country.”
A still from a home video of Abdulrahman Awlaki playing with his younger siblings in the family’s courtyard in 2009. The sixteen-year-old U.S. citizen was killed in a drone strike on October 14, 2011, in Yemen.
For the Awlaki family, their private pain was overwhelming. After Anwar was killed, “People flocked to our house to pay condolences and show sympathy and I was in state of complete disbelief and denial,” recalled Anwar’s sister, Abir. “They kept on coming for the next two weeks, when we were yet struck again by the murder of Anwar’s oldest son, Abdulrahman. The skinny, smiling, curly-haired boy was murdered; and for what? What was he found guilty of?” she asked. “The shock of losing Abdulrahman only fourteen days after his father was unbearable. I can’t wipe the picture of my father’s reaction upon receiving the news. It is hard — hard for a father to lose his oldest son and then his first and favorite grandchild. The entire house was traumatized and hurt by every sense of the word.”
The CIA claimed that it had not carried out the strike, asserting that the supposed target, Ibrahim Banna, was not on the agency’s hit list. That led to speculation that the strike that killed Abdulrahman and his relatives was a JSOC strike. Senior U.S. officials told the Washington Post that “the two kill lists don’t match, but offered conflicting explanations as to why.” The officials added that Abdulrahman was an “unintended casualty.” A JSOC official told me that the intended target was not killed in the strike, though he would not say who the target was. On October 20, 2011, military officials presented a closed briefing on the JSOC strike to the Senate Armed Services Committee. With the exception of the statements from anonymous U.S. officials, the United States offered no public explanation for the strike. The mystery deepened when AQAP released a statement claiming that Banna was, in fact, still alive. “These lies and allegations announced by the government … are not unusual … the government has falsely declared the death of mujahedeens many times,” the statement declared. The Awlakis began to wonder if perhaps Abdulrahman was, in fact, the target of the strike.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the handful of U.S. lawmakers who would have access to all intelligence on the strike, seemed to suggest that was the case when asked about the killing of the two Awlakis and Samir Khan. “I do know this,” he said on CNN, “the American citizens who have been killed overseas … are terrorists, and, frankly, if anyone in the world deserved to be killed, those three did deserve to be killed.”
Robert Gibbs, Obama’s former White House press secretary and a senior official in the president’s 2012 reelection campaign, was also asked about the strike that killed Abdulrahman. “It’s an American citizen that is being targeted without due process of law, without trial. And, he’s underage. He’s a minor,” reporter Sierra Adamson told Gibbs, during a press gaggle after a presidential debate where Gibbs was serving as a surrogate for Obama. Gibbs shot back: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their chil- dren. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”
The Awlakis were left only with questions about why their grandson had been killed. They wondered if somehow the US government had used Abdulrahman to find Anwar. Perhaps, as had happened with the killing of the Yemeni regime’s political opponents in the past, the United States had been fed false intelligence about Abdulrahman’s age and connections to al Qaeda. While emphasizing that they were not prone to conspiracy theories, they told me it was difficult to imagine why Abdulrahman would have been killed, especially if Banna was not there. Who, then, was the target? “It is up to the U.S. government to be sure about the kind of information they get before they make any action against anybody. So I don’t believe it was just an accident. They must have followed him,” Nasser said. “But they wanted to cover up the story, and that’s why they claimed that he was twenty-one years old, in order to justify his killing. Or maybe, as they mentioned, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He paused before adding, “I don’t think we can buy this argument.”
An anonymous US official later told the Washington Post that Abdulrahman’s killing was “an outrageous mistake … They were going after the guy sitting next to him.” But no one ever identified who that someone was. As far as the family knows, their son was sitting next to his teenage cousins, none of whom were affiliated with al Qaeda. Decisions on “targets, drones, these are made only by the highest U.S. government authorities, the CIA and all that. Why did they specifically target these guys?” Nasser demanded. “I want answers from the United States government.”
The Obama administration would fight passionately to keep those answers secret, invoking the State Secrets Privilege repeatedly — just as President Bush had done throughout his eight years in office.
Top photo: A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a U.S. drone, with text reading ” Why did you kill my family” in the capital Sanaa in December 2013.
General Hayden already explained why he was killed. America doesn’t target terrorists. America targets terrorists’ cell phones. He was carrying his dad’s cell phone when he got bombed if I remember correctly from an interview Jeremy Scahill did with the grandfather I saw once. Barack Obama had an American killed based solely on the meta-data of the cell phone that American was carrying. Oopsie daisies.
I consider drones the most coward way to kill !
On a par with land mines or poisoned water supplies.
Can you imagine how different the narrative would have gone if the victim were a 16 year old white boy assassinated by a predator drone?
Of course the drone wouldn’t have targeted a white boy. But imagine the estranged son of some white terrorist like Tim McVeigh gets killed by a drone. The government only gets away with that “military age male” nonsense because the victims are Muslims and mostly foreigners.
Since when is being male and in your 20s a crime? And it’s even worse here because the kid was 16. But his murder by the state is okay after the fact if it turns out he’s 20? Illogical and offensive.
I would highly recommend the books by this author; no matter how cynical you are about your government; what it does and who it supports and arms is below disgusting and evil. The evils the USA is doing in poor countries and the evil groups they ally with any atrocities committed rival anything done by anyone in the history of the world; no exaduration here. There is a reason whistle blowers are persecuted, the truth is to horrific for the population to know. The world is led by the world sociopaths and nowhere moreso than the USA.
The disastrous aggressions and results since 9/11 for which the U.S. Government owns responsibility are damn near uncountable. Now we’re actively helping Saudi Arabia destroy Yemen and creating a humanitarian crisis there 10X that of Gaza. Looking for any logic whatsoever in that I keep coming back to the Strait of Hormuz as the primary “national security” concern.
Empire won’t destroy Iran just because Israel wants it, yet, but it would to preserve shipping access to those east peninsula fossil fuel reserves – on which its #1 military still relies. Unfortunately Yemen, and Iran, will remain in empire’s cross-hairs until extraction / use is obsoleted, and becomes forbidden globally.
Asking empire questions and getting answers just got more difficult though, so there’s that.;^)
“Gibbs shot back: ‘I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their chil- dren. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.’”
Then what exactly was the Dem uproar about Trump’s campaign promise to kill family members of terrorists? Seems pretty bi-partisan and uncontroversial.
This murder is the major reason I wanted Obama impeached 6 years ago.
A letter to my Rep, Barbara Lee, requesting she initiate it, was ignored by her flacks, as were my two following requests; I no longer vote for her.
Obama’s Wall Street flackery and lying has brought us Donald Trump.
I will be glad to see him leave; Goldman Sachs can hire him as a well-paid propagandist and feted murderer.
But not before Donald Drumpf hires Goldman Sachs…
Classy response. Make sure you avoid the merits of the discussion, I.G. the fact that killing a US citizen is illegal without a trial and conviction.
It’s Bush’s fault, right? It’s Bush’s fault that Barack Obama authorized a hell-fire missile from a drone halfway around the world that summarily made him judge, jury and executioner for a US citizen, right?
Bottom line…that joke you call Obama broke the law. This was just one of multiple times.
What were you saying about Donald Trump you petulant troll?
Find my other posts. I’ve already spoken at length about my position on Obama’s drone strikes. It’s absolutely unacceptable. And a crime. Trump, Obama, and the Clintons are one and the same. And I’m not trolling, Drumpf is hiring Goldman Sachs.
And, yes, ’tis Bush’s fault.
quote”Gibbs shot back: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their chil- dren. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”unquote
Says one while shilling for psychopathic USG war criminal murderers. I only hope his time on this planet ends while burning alive hanging from a lamp post.
Establishment Dems and fake liberals were just so outraged about Trump’s intentions to kill the families of terrorists, but not a peep from them when Obama does it. Doing it is not what upsets them, but *talking about it* is where they draw the line. When murdering kids and bombing hospitals and weddings, you’re supposed to ramble about American values and “spreading democracy”. Like Hillary would have done, because she gets it. Will Trump get with the program?
the guardian keeps putting up puff pieces about obama’s legacy, or front page articles about the awful russian hacking of the us election, but usually doesn’t allow comments on them. comments interfere with catapulting the propaganda.
Obama gives his authorisation for droning only when the intelligence is highly accurate…otherwise he would risk an international war crimes tribunal. Or not ?
Obama assasinated these American citizens without due process. it is as simple as that. If they were white there would have been an uproar, but, alsa, people of color don’t count, american or not.
Assassinated and Collateral Dmg are two different things. Assassinated directly implied that he wanted the children specifically to be killed.
Regardless of intent, the children are just as dead.
i don’t think the us is subject to the international criminal court, even legally much less practically. the intelligence is not “highly accurate”. the last i read any male individual of military age (and i think that’s a flexible category in its own right) is suitable, if living in the wrong area.
NO, Obama signs off on what are called “signature” strikes, meaning he and the idiots asking him to drop a bomb have no clue who they are bombing they just know that the target has moved on the ground in some way that they deem suspicious like looking up then going back into the house and coming out with something in their hands. That is the way the vast majority of the victims of murders they have committed have been decided upon.
There’s no way for an empire to operate unless its officials are guaranteed protection from prosecution, even domestic, but surely international. Notice that even torturers aren’t prosecuted.
I know someone who worked in communications support at Creech, the main center for AF drone operations. He said that 90-95% of targets are clearly not “insurgents” going anything wrong, and totally lack any kind of military training. They are farmers going after a lost goat within a few miles of an insurgent camp, or random people doing their shopping or eating, and in the wrong place at the wrong time. In one case, the USAF bombed a mosque full of worshippers to get one high-value target – but he skipped services that day. Over 100 innocent people were killed.
In case anyone’ s missed it, separate services of the U.S. government, including an INTELLIGENCE agency, have KILL LISTS. Sometimes they match, sometimes they don’t, whatever. They are fully rogue, unconstrained by and outside of any democratic or judicial process, immune from prosecution for murder, even of children.
sure. relatives, nieces and nephews, seen going to the madrasa for schooling taught by a strict muslim whose friend of a friend was killed and who blame the US. So the kid son hears this from the teacher and gets on the internet and expresses pain – which expression is intercepted by NSA. Watch the kid, see who he talks to, read the expression on his face, no employment to look forward to, he’ll get older and then seek revenge on the US so what to do? Kill him now or wait until it’s too late? Kill him now and risk angering others? How about taking out the whole madrasa? Too much COLLATERAL ANGER?
i think the warfokkers have opened the gates to hell and haven’t realised it yet. It will take 100 years of zero warfare to bring the planet back to normal. How likely is that?
So THAT’S what makes it LEGAL.
Got it.
/sarcasm
American Foreign Policy
Dear Americans,
Once every 4 years you need to hire an assassin. Someone who will threaten and murder enough people abroad so that the corporations can charge higher prices which are financed by wallstreet thieves who enable those rising prices thru the issuance of credit cards and expanded debt (an higher interest rates) which make more profits resulting in cash out of circulation which gets buried in island treasure chests while the US infrastructure and economy falls apart which allows the jaredic hedge funders to use those treasure-chest profits to buy up public properties and services so the new privateers (aka pirates) can increase rates to make even more money so that real Americans losing lifestyles, comfort, affordability, buying power and productivity can be set up for the next big robbery – your social security, medicare, etc. Just trade the them away for a short term gain, long term loss.
“hire” meaning “vote for” as in elect a president.
No explanation is needed Barb re the AmericaNazi “VOTE FOR CHANGE” crap .
Well maybe for the Mona Intellectual Types ,, Huh ?
VOTING = SIEG-HEIL !!! Just ask Deborah Wasserman Schultz
“If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.” Emma Goldman
Looks like the real target was Abdulrahman Awlaki to silence the family.
related
Israel sets record for killing Palestinian kids in 2016
The more they kill, the easier it gets, the more they kill….
thanks for keeping with this story. what happened here is criminal. sadly and outrageously, it happens all the time.
awlaki the elder was a bag of worms who clearly outlived his use by 2011. research his connections to the 9/11 plot and hijackers, his connections to literally every “thwarted” terror plot post-9/11, wonder why he wasnt arrested when there was an active warrant against him and plenty of evidence to implicate him in the 9/11 plot, ask who invited him to the Pentagon in feb 2002 to speak when he should have been arrested…for more on awlaki, lensoftruths.com some of us continue to pay attention.
Tell me if I’m misunderstanding something here.
The U.S. was attacked in September 2001 by planes sent by an organization, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which holds territory in Yemen. The Yemen government(s) have been fighting them off and on for quite some time. According to https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/28/al-qaida-us-yemen-attack the Yemen government was shelling al Qaida camps in Shebwa Province in December 2011. My assumption is that the U.S., having been attacked by a Yemeni terrorist group, was eager to support the Yemeni government in their own conflict with that group, and the Yemen government wasn’t too unhappy to accept some help there.
The objection here is that, unfortunately, someone of dual Yemen-American citizenship happened to be at an al Qaida site in Yemen while the U.S. bombed it. (Anyone with a father from Yemen has Yemen citizenship, and given that he was *in* Yemen you can’t tell me that’s just a technicality!) At age 16, he is too young to be an American soldier but he sure as hell isn’t too young to be involved in some terror army, so I’m not going to assume he was a “civilian” per se, though he might have been.
The point is, you’re suggesting that every time an American plane flies over an enemy pillbox or bunker or training camp or barracks, the pilots are supposed to get a list of everyone present, see if any hold dual American citizenship, and if they do, oh noes! We have to cancel the whole operation, because we can’t kill Americans!
We’ve already been there, done that. A penny for your thoughts — decorated with an image of Abraham Lincoln. A man who knew how to target and kill Americans.
Now there is a principled position to take here, that war is wrong. Or even that this war in particular is wrong and we ought to let Al Qaida just be, and maybe they’ll be so happy with us that they’ll never fly a plane into a building again. I don’t really mean to mock too hard there – we can’t pursue a punitive war forever without a point, and there’s no real “victory” to be had here, just vengeful punishment of a miserable land for miserable things – one that is never going to be pleasant unless it changes its fundamental philosophy and faith, no matter what is done for or against it. But this notion that it is some terrible crime to “execute” an American without charge or warrant simply because he happened to be hanging out with the enemy on the battlefield when the shell landed… that is a damn straw man and I can’t believe anybody is seriously trying to line up and fight on its behalf.
“Tell me if I’m misunderstanding something here.
The U.S. was attacked in September 2001 by planes sent by an organization, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which holds territory in Yemen. ”
You are misunderstanding something.
I was thinking the same thing… this guy hasn’t a clue form the get go…
You are completely overlooking the vile statements of Reid and Gibbs…typical of fascist America.
A famous, earlier example followed the self-immoliation of a Buddist monk in Vietnam, when Madam Nhu made her “monk barbeque show” comments. She was a devout Roman Catholic, I understand. After that, the Vietnam War was SUCH a benefit…
Fortunately, Reid belongs to that group of Democrats that just pragmatically triangulated themselves completely out of relevance for the forseeable future, and their days of elitist slimeballing and incompetence are numbered.
AQAP did not exist in 2001. It did not even exist when Abu al Zarqawi established AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of ISIL) in 2004-2005.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_the_Arabian_Peninsula : “AQAP was formed in January 2009 from a merger of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi branches.[1] The Saudi group had been effectively suppressed by the Saudi government, forcing its members to seek sanctuary in Yemen.[22][23]” As people here know, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian, the bin Laden family holdings are mostly in Saudi Arabia, and the cause of the attacks — to successfully get Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia, whatever the cost of the excuse — was also Saudi Arabian. So al Qaida’s Saudi Arabian branch, the one that actually attacked us, had a home IN YEMEN at the time of that attack. This does not sound like some loosey-goosey friend of a friend kind of affiliation like most of the U.S. excuses for wars; this one seems pretty clear.
If only you and your strawman argument had a brain… Stop treating al Quaeda like SPECTRE; “al Quaeda” is now a brand (and has been since the misguided invasion of Afghanistan which itself, or the Taliban, had nothing to do at all with the perpetration of 09/11). The drone hits described in this article (this is where reading comprehension comes into play) were solely about eliminating Anwar al Awlaki, and, possibly, his son as well without due process of law guaranteed them by their status as US citizens. You don’t like al Quaeda or what they’ve done, I get it; many people around the world (self included) would agree with you. Not many people like what Dylann Roof did either, but at least he gets his fkg day in court. Will you be so enthusiastic for allegorical lynching/summary execution at the hands of your own government when you or yours are the target? Two recommendations for you; 1) Stay on point of topic, and 2) grow a basic sense of humanity and justice.
It’s me that’s misunderstanding something. Saudis piloted the planes that flew into the buildings. Agreed? Therefore ..why is the U.S. selling weapons to Saudi Arabia? Is it just for the money?
Well, as with the Yemen civil war situation, the U.S. imagines that by supporting the government they can hurt the other guys. To what degree there is really a difference, well, that’s another question. But in Saudi Arabia there isn’t any formal al Qaida held territory you can see on a map, so I think for the U.S. to pilot its own drones would be a hard sell, for obvious reasons.
The U.S. was attacked in September 2001 by planes sent by an organization, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which holds territory in Yemen.The U.S. was attacked in September 2001 by planes sent by an organization, under the planning and direction of a zertain club who needed a war to re-supply a cash flow shortage and debt crush both incapable of supporting the next resurgence of price inflation.
If you’re really an American and not a Russian (or government) troll, you are everything that is wrong with our country. As an American you have rights. Inalienable rights. Period.
Alwaki and son were denied their inalienable rights. period. Not a troll, just someone who reads American hegemony into all events since Viet Nam after I returned from there. I’m certain you have served your country, yes? Which branch I may ask?
that’s what the poster you replied to said, that awlaki and his son were denied their rights.
I joined the Army at 19 right after 9/11. But saw through the illusion before it was too late. Why is that relevant?
The rights you have in court and the rights you have in a combat situation tend to be different. I mean, if you grab a knife and start stabbing a bus full of schoolkids, do you really think the cops can’t shoot you unless they hold a trial first, and then they have to make it lethal injection? In this case we’re not talking about people being droned as an alternative to a trial, we’re talking about people in a war zone getting hit with war weapons because it’s a war.
The exceptional concern with “American citizenship” seems more morally questionable. I’d be a lot more concerned about a Canadian journalist getting hit while he’s trying to have an interview with some al Qaida figure than someone on their side who happened to get pooped out in the U.S. But even the journalist accepts that their are risks to war reporting – civilians should not be targeted, but if they hang out near enemy leaders, bad things can happen. This is the dubious doctrine of collateral damage – sometimes taken to obscene extremes, yet practically unavoidable when civilians voluntarily go into the thick of a violent conflict.
Jesus H. they don’t voluntarily go into the thick of a conflict…they live there! And the conflict surrounds…them. While kids on the other side of the planet playing arcade games send in drones.
This is a few clicks in from the Intercept story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/anwar-al-awlakis-family-speaks-out-against-his-sons-deaths/2011/10/17/gIQA8kFssL_story.html To be clear, the kid had a home in Sanaa. When his father, a big honcho in al-Qaida, was reported killed, he ran off to find him. Presumably with al Qaida, that is, in a principal al Qaida stronghold, where he had just sat down for dinner with a group of young men “barbecueing by moonlight”. It sounds to me a whole hell of a lot like he wandered into a serious al Qaida terrorist camp, and knew it, and whether or not he was trying to get answers about his terrorist dad, it means that the way I see it, the cross hairs didn’t walk on to him, he walked on to the cross hairs.
And congress declared war when? Help me out when that occurred.
In 2001. The “authorization of use of military force” has been stretched to cover a lot of crazy things all over the world, but the one thing it really _does_ apply to is AQAP. Of course, the U.S. also has a bad habit of “helping friendly governments” fight war in their countries without a declaration, but there’s no need to even open that can of worms this time.
Are you doing this on purpose?
This is easily one of the worst posts I’ve read this year, anywhere.
The biggest mistake our present dumb intelligence community made this year was to encourage Hillary supporter Feth Gullen to attempt to overthrow Erdogan, which the Russians hacked and found out, and then informed Erdogan, after which this crooked fellow escaped and arranged for a counter-coup. This has totally destroyed our chances of overthrowing the nasty Assad, and in turn the Russians are now calling all the shots in the Middle East, much to the dismay of the Saudis and the Israelis. This would have never happened had Trump been the president.
Uh, I don’t think Gulen was behind it- more like NATO and other countries. As for Clinton, she’s been a big foe of Assad and more than willing to look the other way as his forces and allies get hit by Islamists and their buddies. (To say nothing of relaying arms!) Fortunately, the coup has the good effect of getting Erdogan to switch sides in the War on Terror and target the bad guys, or at least cut supply lines. As a result, Aleppo is free, the baddies are on the run, Assad’s still in power, and Christmas was celebrated in the Aleppo Cathedral. And, Putin is looking more statesmanlike as Obama, McCain, Graham et al all have egg on their faces.
Well, try convincing Erdogan. He has suddenly changed sides and now even the Merkels of the world are avoiding him. This does not happen unless Erdogan himself has found out convincing facts that we tried to remove him while he was vacationing. Obviously, if you know about international protocols, you will never hear Erdogan accusing us directly, but you have to deduce his suspicions by his behavior. His new friendship with Putin is not accidental.
Oh, come off it. As I understand it Erdogan planned a big purge of Gulenists and some of them made a hurried last-ditch attempt to fight back before getting rounded up. The U.S. had nothing to do with this, and I doubt Gulen did either.
The only mistake we’re making is trying to keep them in NATO. I mean, do Americans really want to fight and die to keep Erdogan in power, or to keep Russian tanks out of Istanbul? Yeah, it hurts the security-minded to give up some NATO power, but there’s a lot less loss of prestige and confidence in the alliance if you do it preemptively because a member country turned fascist than if you wait until the Russians invade and then say wait, no, this isn’t really an alliance, just kidding!
Ahhh … you are not alone in this understanding and creating fake news business these days. The fact is, there was an attempted coup that would have cleaned up this Erdochap. His about-turn in international relations tells its own story.
Most of the time intelligent people have to tell lies in intelligence matters. This is an age old tradition that has been passed to us by our ancestors. The intelligence community does not abide by the Ten Commandments, so they are quite free to tell anonymous lies. That is the reason why James Clapper was not convicted even when he was scratching his head and lying about not collecting mass data of every US citizen’s communication. That’s why this article produces a lot of heat but no gravy. The Awluckies just had awful luck as a family, and worse still, they had good oratory powers to convince and radicalize the Muslim type of people even better than Obama. It is a shame that people with good oratory powers usually always misuse them to con others, and Obama immediately recognized the threat and got rid of both of them. Otherwise, they would have created more nuisance than what they have already done. In any case, it is good that Donald Trump did not have to inherit this radical Islamic nuisance.
Says one whose mother let the best part of him run down her leg after a twist with the local stray dog.
Obama in about 10 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPEOYfzEdlc&index=216&list=WL
Murderers.
That is what everyone involved in the US drone programs are, murderers.
They kill using “signatures, usually farmers going back inside for tools ro fixing tractors or farm equipment in fields or more famously reporters taking pictures with telephoto lenses. To be fair that last one was the US military “doing its job” to keep you safe from dangerous information that threatens the oligarchy’s way of life.
Murderers.
And sadly the less intelligent of our children who volunteer to help cleanse the middle east of it’s people so they can have the oil are also murderers as well.
Thanks Uncle Sam for making our children into murdering scum like you.
I agree, but they’re not the only ones. These are basically oil wars, and everyone who drives is voting for them with every drop of oil they consume. We definitely need major societal change, but individuals have to take some responsibility also.
Hey I know! Let’s all turn our attention away from the fact that an authoritarian is taking over the US to worry about a US kid who shouldn’t have been killed having been killed in Yenen and the US government mumbling to cover it up. I’m sorry. It’s a problem. The drone program is a problem. The war on terror is a problem I grant you all that. But I’m kinda busy right now. I am a monster! And I am sick and tired of the fan boys insisting that everyone is zero sum. That because I am focused elsewhere I must have undying loyalty to James clapper or whomever. I am capable of having varying views on various issues all at the same time.
An Authoritarian?
Hillary LOST the election Trix. I think you may be confused.
perspective matters.
droned, eliminated, removed, collaterally damaged, killed, i dont agree with those terms because when you are made dead without due process, it is murder.
Think the MSM will focus on this story? I doubt it. It makes our Nobel Peace Prize prez look bad.
Agreed. How pathetic it all is. It’s also very doubtful Donald Trump or his supporters will mention it, either – and not simply because Trump is merely a theatrical or pretend opposite to Obama:
Donald Trump on terrorists: ‘Take out their families’
I see you like to paint with broad, broad brush strokes.
This is so tragic, and so despicable. Thanks for following up on this story.
It’s reasonable to suppose he was killed because he might want to avenge his father someday.
Which would mean the government is similar to organized crime in this regard.
But, hey, the government pretty much is organized crime, really – it just skips out the middle-man of paying the law to keep quiet, by simply BEING the law.
Another FOOL of a president listening to faulty intelligence and denying it….
Obama repeatedly lies about this “kill.” That a father of two teenage girls would prevaricate about this particular extra-judicial execution is chilling to its core. It reveals a cold, calculating, demonic mind. Perhaps that is why he has grown a lizard-like appearance in his 8 years as Commander-in-Chief.
A “cold, calculating, demonic mind”? You mean a Politician? Well, Obama is the ultimate politician.
Hey, what, that’s unpossible, the US “intelligence agencies” and US Department of State never tell lies and never make mistakes.
If they say “we were targeting al Banna” and ass-ident-I-ly killed al Awlaki’s minor son, who are we to question that? In fact, it is borderline treasonous to doubt US government officials under any circumstances, and it is definitely treasonous to ask them to prove their anonymous assertions about anything.
Clearly Scahill has now become a Putin and Kremlin stooge, paid operative or useful idiot of one or the other, because everyone knows that James Clapper and John Brennan never lie, and neither does the US Department of State.
I mean both know exactly who in the Russian government and FSB is responsible for fucking up Hillary Clinton’s election prospects, despite the fact that that other stooge, paid operative and/or useful idiot of Putin and/or the Kremlin, Julian Assange, has unequivocally stated his “source” is neither the Russian government nor any other “state party”.
I know who I am going to believe–the American patriots Clapper and Brennan who flagrantly lied to Congress, because in bizarro world Amerika, that means they were actually telling the truth and can at all times be trusted to tell the truth, anonymously or otherwise, in all instances even when under oath under penalty of perjury. Because America is always trustworthy and never lies to start wars based on lies. Never. Never ever ever. Not Vietnam, not Iraq, not ever.
We are the shining city on the hill for all lowlier browner folks of the world to emulate for our trustworthiness, honor, integrity and charitable freedom and liberty inducing war making on their tiny little countries. Because we are also a sharing people and like to share out bombs with those less fortunate than us, and that’s because we’re mostly a Christian nation full of Christians who love to live the word of Jesus Christ in our personal lives and government.
It’s right there in the Bible Matthew 22: 36-40 “Lie and thence bomb they neighbor as thou would spy on and bomb thine own people.”
I mean what’s next, if people start doubting the anonymous gospel of Clapper, Comey and Brennan, next they’re going to start doubting the word of baby Jesus himself. And that’s no bueno and will make baby Jesus cry. No bueno no siree.
I’ll tell you what’s next, those pathetic joke asst. prof. pseudo academics at LGM are now defending Clapper as the epitome of trustworthiness despite lying under oath to Congress about the oh so small ball crime of violating the civil rights of millions of Americans. Which of course they blame on Sen. Wyden for having the temerity to send him a question in advance, watch him lie nonetheless, then give him a chance to correct his statement.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/
Those poor effing sad sack centrist hawks have zero shame about anything, sitting in their little second tier ivory towers at nowheresville colleges crying about Trumpolini and how its all Glenn’s fault, and white people, and poor white people, and misogynists and racists and Dems who don’t fall in line for the Centrist Queen of Hearts who has been oh so so so so so maligned for 30 years and how Clintonism is really just the best we can ever expect from the Democratic party boo hoo hoo hoo, and we’re on the right-wing professor watch and oh boo hoo hoo hoo.
I hope all of those outraged lawyers have sworn off using deposition statements to challenge witnesses at trial.
perhaps the rothschilds are jewish PAGANS.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/sinistersites/sinister-sites-israel-supreme-court/
i heard that the push to move the US embassy to jerusalem has to do with this building.
I wonder how loudly the liberals and establishment Dems, who have been quiet about Obama’s use of drone strikes, will howl when Trump starts authorizing them?
Outside of the actual killing via drone strikes…………..the US is clearly sending a message that they have to power, will and technology to kill at will.
I think in many of these cases, “the strike” may likely be more about sending the intended message to others, than the actual murder.
Sending the message to who though? The only people on the planet who believe the U.S. is at all hesitant/concerned about bombing or invading another country is Americans. No one else has to even pause and think about it
…………if the US did not actively reinforce the message/illusion that the US is omnipotent, then what would happen?
I think the message they hope it reaches is young foreign brown people, many now teenagers whose entire lives have been spent hearing drones and seeing random people blown up. And many may :gasp: become anti-US militants/terrorists as a result, thus continuing the cycle, and the US MIC and security state remain in fine financial health and political power.
As well as enabling the US to spread military bases/influence as far as possible, such as in Africa. Ostensibly due to terrorism, but also so as to allow US corps to gain resource access as opposed to China and such.
The US government (and its corporate partners) would be aghast and horrified if tomorrow every single terrorist/anti-US militant/Yemeni rebel/Taliban/AQ etc… were to lay down their arms and preach peace. Would be their worst nightmare.
They weren’t targeting al Banna. That’s quite obviously a cover story they improvised haphazardly. Abdulrahman was eating out with his teenage cousins. Are we to believe al Banna was coincidentally nearby 2 weeks after Anwar al-Awlaki was killed? It’s ridiculous. Abdulrahman was targeted, based on no evidence of wrongdoing, but those are their normal standards.
They must have murdered lots of other innocent people at that restaurant, but they don’t give a crap.
I honestly wouldn’t know how to define the word “terrorist” if someone asked me. Suicide bomber? Rock-thrower? Knife-wielder? Or is it any Muslim, any age, doing anything?
The way the term is used in practice, it doesn’t even have to do with violence. Anyone who meaningfully threatens the security of the elites is considered a “terrorist”. That’s why Julian Assange has been called a terrorist.
Could be the way they move (like walking outside, looking up at the sky to check the weather while there is a drone hidden up there out of sight and ten going back in for a shovel so you can do some work in the drainage ditches around your place. That is indeed one signature used.
Or perhaps standing next ot some unidentified bit of farm equipment then reaching into a tool box for some spanner to fix it, that too is a signature that has been used.
Or maybe getting sold for a few thousand US to the occupation forces by your neighbour who wants your daughter and your land, that has happened a few hundred times already.
Or maybe it’s just that today there are too many bombs in stock so someone has to die so another can be bought.
It certainly has little to do with “terrorism” any more these days, unless you are talking about what the outcome on the ground is after they’ve made that “signature strike”.
Drone pilot? Cruise missile launch controller? Drone manufacturer (and its employees)? Members of Congress who lobby for “defense” jobs in their districts? POTUS?
I believe that, in this case at least, the simplest explanation is probably the best; the oBama administration got who it was aiming for. When initially challenged by the White House Press Corps, Presidential spokesperson Robert Gibbs smugly responded:
Thanks for the informative article
Please keep pushing this story!
I am currently reading The Drone Memos by Jameel Jaffer and one of the most outrageous “legal justifications” for targeting Anwar Awlaki, and all drone targets, is the idea that they present a “continued imminent” threat to United States citizens, property and interests. An imminent threat is a person holding a loaded gun and taking aim. This cannot be continued indefinitely.
If the administration or JSOC tries to stand by their story that al Banna was the “continued imminent” threat behind this lethal strike, this sounds like the beginning of a solid legal argument for the ACLU to dispute this preposterous defense of murder.
I feel very strongly that we need to fight against the allowance of the “continued imminent” threat justification in the courts, and the possibility that the target of a strike which unintentionally murdered a teenage American has been alive for five years clearly disrupts this theory of imminence and continued imminence.
This non-international armed conflict has continued unchecked for quite long enough.
“Imminent” — now defined as happening with non-zero probability sometime between now and the heat death of the universe.
If the mainstream media still had journalists, this would be a bombshell story. Alas, we are treated to endless parroting about Russian hacks. (Ironically, this reminds me of after Francis Gary Powers was shot down.)
The murder of this youngster is among the most shameful episodes in the now-interminable episodic horror show of US targeted killings.
Thanks, Jeremy, for keeping it in focus and adding to our knowledge of the reprehensible details.
The anonymous source quoted near the end could have been clueless, but we are not asked to believe. The story told is compelling and raises serious questions about what US taxpayers continue to fund in the name of “war on terror”.
What is worrisome is that the US has turned loose a world of lawless headhunters to collect a US$5 Million bounty on the basis of questionable foreign policy – and this, in the wake of a known history of error.
The clarity and meticulous research is what we’ve come to expect from Scahill.
Probably another one engineered and carried out by Brennan, who was described as something like Obama’s priest. Such moral leaders we have — to say nothing of the lying and cover-up after the dirty deeds.