Obama Admin. Escalates Drone War in Yemen

The Obama administration has dramatically escalated its secret drone war in Yemen, already exploiting Yemen’s fragile new client state.

There have been 26 reported incidents of drone strikes in Yemen since May, but the pace appears to be accelerating with nine attacks so far this year and at least five this month.

Yemenis voted last month in a referendum on a U.S.-backed transition deal to formally depose former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and elect his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, who was the only name on the ballot. The deal granted Saleh total immunity for the crimes he committed while on Washington’s dole and despite the sham, single-candidate “election,” the U.S. praised it as democracy.

The Obama administration, eager to restart its modus operandi of bribing and propping up a brutal Yemeni dictatorship in exchange for allowing U.S. missiles to pepper the country, almost immediately restarted military aid.

The majority of the drone attacks are being carried out by the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Command from the nearby base in Dijbouti, although American officials refuse to confirm any details about the secret war.

The Obama administration has been launching drone strikes and killing many innocent people and fueling support for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, all while supporting dictatorship in Yemen. Media reports typically repeat government sources saying only terrorists were killed, but civilians have been revealed as victims of these strikes many times in the past.