The new face of American serial killers: drone operators

From:  SOOT.NET

COMMENT - There is a chain of causality when someone is killed or maimed by drones we, as Americans, pay for.  The first step is the campaign to get the war started for the benefit of the relatively small number of multinationals and banks who so vastly profit.  

Reference John Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman," on this first step.  

Second Step: If the proposed victim country can't pay the usurious interest on loans made them, refusing to turn over their natural resources, specialized hit men of the violent variety come in.  

The third step was documented by Major General Smedley Butler in his book, "War is a Racket." 

The article below is about the 21st Century variation on this theme, remote war.  The overhead is less at a time when even multinationals can see there is an end to our ability to kill America's youth, forced into the military because of the death of opportunities at home.  

Today, most people understand these wars for what they are.  This profoundly clear commentary on the subject, related to Vietnam, appeared on EdHat, an online website for Santa Barbara, where Green Hills Software in located.  The original entry is about a woman driving a Mercedes parking in a handicapped spot.  The commentary which followed went deeper.  

NATURE BOY	2013-04-29 06:17 PM
That's Levi. He's the coolest. A double-amputee with a custom made 3-wheel hot-rod that is customized to fit his needs. He rides it with his little dog on the back! Whenever i see him while i'm on my old Vespa, we always wave. Vietnam veteran, i believe. The LAST guy whose spot you want to park in! He earned that spot by fighting for our country. Oh i wish i could've been there!
COMMENT 403163P	2013-04-29 06:18 PM
Looks like she was maybe a nursing aide for an elderly person, who probably owned the card and the car? Not an excuse; just and observation.
NATURE BOY	2013-04-29 06:21 PM
163P, how does it look like that? I know you're not defending her crime, but what makes you think that?
CHILI_CON_ARTCARNE	2013-04-29 06:25 PM
Yes!
COMMENT 403163P	2013-04-29 06:25 PM
Small point of history, but we were not fighting for our country in Vietnam. We were fighting to keep a corrupt gang of South Vietnamese military lords in power. We had no national interest to protect in Viet-man. Draft had ended with that war, and not everyone is in combat, when they later chose to enlist in the military. Huge drug problems among our military personnel was a consequence of that engagement in South East Asia with its proximity to the Golden Triangle of the global drug traffic. It was one of our most strategic national blunders; exceeded only by Iraq, when we should have known better.
NATURE BOY 2013-04-29 06:32 PM Not to get into either semantics or a debate on geo-politics of the 1960s, but, "Fighting for his country": 1. He was fighting. 2. It was "for his country" in the way that his country either asked him to do it or made him do it.

At each point in the chain of causality people make decisions about what they, personally, will do.  Using the information available, we each choose.  When we are lied to, by policy and for profit, we often make decisions which later impact us profoundly and, in the case below, kill others.  

Those supplying every part of the drones are accountable and had far better information about the capacity for killing than those enlisted to pull the trigger.  

Vic Pittman
Salem-News.com
Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:31 CDT

Brandon Bryant, 27, from Missoula, Montana, spent six years in the Air Force operating Predator drones from inside a dark container. But, after following orders to shoot and kill a child in Afghanistan, he knew he couldn't keep doing what he was doing and quit the military.

"I saw men, women and children die during that time. I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn't kill anyone at all." - Former US drone operator Brandon Bryant

A little after 10:00 p.m., and a serial killer is getting ready to make his move. He has watched and waited for this moment for some time.

He watches his victim get out of a cab and dig in his pockets for money. Two of his children run out to the porch to greet their daddy. The killer presses a button and watches as the victim, the taxi driver and the two children are vaporized. Other people in the house, the man's wife, parents and three other children are badly injured and burnt by the high explosive.

The house next door partially collapses, killing an elderly woman and injuring her grandson. But this is just the beginning.

Neighbors and emergency personnel arrive and begin trying to help the victims. There is chaos...children screaming, people wailing and the cries of the burnt and injured. Several people are trapped under rubble.

When enough people have gathered, the killer presses the button again. Fifteen seconds later, all those at the scene are vaporized or blown to shreds. The killer high-fives his partner. In two hours he will be off work! They are planning on driving in to Las Vegas, have some cocktails maybe pick up some girls.

On the other side of the world, at the crime scene, the misery, grief and suffering is just beginning. The gathering and grouping of body parts, the burials, the amputations and lifetime medical traumas, the traumatized children, the destroyed lives. But tonight in Vegas, it is party party party for this 22-year old serial killer from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, some 7550 miles away from the carnage. The biggest threat he will face tonight is a hangover tomorrow.

He is a drone "pilot". He and his kind have redefined the words "coward", "terrorist", and "sociopath". He is the new face of American warfare. He is a government trained and equipped serial killer. But unlike Ted Bundy or John Gacy, he does not have to worry about getting caught. It is his job.

One thing that the drone terrorism/assassination program has revealed to the world is how racist we Americans are. American life is precious... when Americans die we expect the entire world to weep at our feet along with us. Three Americans die in a senseless act of violence and murder at the Boston Marathon, and the entire country grieves and the president makes heartfelt speeches. Where were all the speeches and expressions of grief when the US bombed the school in Chenagai, Afghanistan? Didn't hear about that senseless act of violence and murder? Of course not.

This is from the UK newspaper The Tribune. 

"It is one of the worst incidents of the entire drones campaign, yet one of the least reported.

A CIA strike on a madrassa or religious school in 2006 killed up to 69 children, among 80 civilians.

The attack was on a religious seminary in Chenegai, in Bajaur Agency.CIA drones attacked on October 30, flattening much of the school. Their target was reportedly the headmaster, a known militant. But dozens of children were also killed, the youngest aged seven."
(see here)

Wow. So the CI next decides that the teacher of this school needs to be killed. They do not kill him on his way to school, or when he is alone. They wait until he is at the school full of children, THEN they send the missiles. They PURPOSELY wait until they can kill dozens of children too. Could Satan himself top this act of pure evil? If there is aHell, there is a special place for the murdering, drug running, child killers known as the CIA. Hitler's SS were Cub Scouts in comparison.

When the CIA decided that they wanted to kill a 16-year old American kid named Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, they waited until he was in a Yemeni restaurant with two of his teenaged friends. A drone operator fired the missiles and not only the intended victim, but eight other people died.

This is from Wikipedia:

"Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old American citizen who was killed while eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant in an airstrike by an armed C.I.A. drone in Yemen on October 14, 2011. The attack also killed two of his teenaged friends and five other people in the restaurant, which was reduced to rubble. He had no connection to terrorism and was searching for his father Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by an airstrike by an armed C.I.A. drone two weeks prior to the death of his son."

Dr. Mona Kazim Shah with a drone strike victim

By the way, Obama approved that strike, according to the New York Times. Tough guy. A real leader. Child killer.

Would that ever happen in the US?

Say if a non-government sanctioned serial killer like Jeffery Dahmler was in a Burger King, would the police or FBI blow up the entire restaurant and kill everyone else inside to get him ? If a really bad guy...robber, rapist, murderer was found to be in his house some night with his wife and four small children, would the police blow up the entire house and everyone in it to get the bad guy? Would the CIA bomb a school full of children in Colorado (where the 16 year old was from) to kill ONE teacher? No, because we value AMERICAN life.

Our damned military and the ghouls who give them their orders are rapidly changing for the worst, how we are perceived in the world. We are murderous, racist thugs, killers of children, bombers of weddings and funerals. The "logic" given for bombing weddings and funerals is that there might be someone attending that they want to take out. So, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president and the serial killers he employs just kill as many people as possible.

If they were at the wedding of someone who might be related to someone possibly involved with trying to get the foreign invaders out of their country, well they were probably "terrorists", and the children would probably grow up to be terrorists, so kill em all.

This is racism at it's most extreme. We can kill them like mice because they are not like us. We lie, invade, destroy, kill and then we call THEM "savages". WE are the most brutal, arrogant and sociopath society this earth has ever seen. We criticize the Jews for calling themselves the Chosen Ones, yet we act as if we are the only people on the planet that matter.

"Well", you might be thinking, "this rant does not apply to me. I am not in the military, I am not an 'aviation warfare specialist' as the joystick/drone operators in their 'flight suits' are called. I don't like this crap any more than the author of this piece...."

My question then would be "What are you doing about it?"

Have you called your congressmen and senators and told them that you will only support those politicians who sincerely and repeatedly call for an end to the drone murder program?

About the only thing I feel that I can do about it at this time is try to raise awareness. Anyone can do that in their everyday conversations with others. Letters to the editor are good. Do something or know that by your silence you are aiding and abetting evil in it's purest form. Even a "Drones are Evil" bumper sticker would be a start.

You would probably be surprised and maybe encouraged by how many others would comment on it. I believe that there should be a drone operator website where these punks are "outed". We need a drone operator list with names, pictures and addresses... I want to know if my neighbor, my child's friend's father, or the newly hired town cop is or was a murdering serial killer.

If so, they need to be treated like any other murderers.

They need to know even a bit of the terror that they inflict on others. They need to worry every single day, like the way Afghan and Pakistani parents worry, many now not sending their chidren to school because of the American/NATO habit of bombing schools, picnics and any gathering of people.

Can you imagine being afraid to throw a wedding for your child because a bored 22-year old "aviation warfare specialist" on the other side of the world may decide that it could be a terrorist get together and blow it up? That is the reality of life for many people in the world today, especially in Northern Pakistan.

And do you think that this killer drone business will not come to our shores?

Do you think that the same people who plan, approve and carry out strikes on weddings and houses full of children, who blow up an entire restaurant and everyone in it to kill a 16 year old American kid..do you think that these people would hesitate to do the same thing here if they felt a need to?

They kill children but are too nice to do it here?? "They wouldn't do that to us....that's crazy talk!" Remember Waco? There were children there. Twenty-eight of them.

Sooner or later we are going to see a scenario like this...in the United States. A citizen shoots down a surveillance drone flying over his property. The government responds with an armed drone and blows the citizen to shreds. No risk to "law enforcement", call the guy a terror suspect and classify the information so that no one can look any further into it.

The message will be sent to the other uppity citizens that if you mess with us, you will die...today.

And consider this the next time you hear of a "terrorist" bomb, a suicide bombing or a car bomb going off somewhere. The giant V-2 rockets that Germany deployed during WWII were invisible to the naked eye when they hit. These rockets were 46 feet long, nearly 6 feet in diameter, and had a 12 foot wingspan. They were the size of, and looked like, the finned rockets in old science fiction movies.

Hellfire missiles, which US drones use, are less than five feet long, seven inches in diameter, and have a 13" wingspan. By my rough calculations, nearly three hundred Hellfires could fit into a V-2, yet these giants were invisible when they hit. How much more so the Hellfires?

And by the way, do you know how many car bombs had been set off in Iraq before the American/British invasion? Zero.

Even with all the "sectarian strife" that we were told we must invade to prevent. Look it up..not one recorded car bombing incident until the Americans and Brits got there. Coincidence? I think not.

So if a drone fires a missile at a car in a crowded market and it explodes, it becomes a "car bomb"? In Gaza, shops, houses and cars blow up routinely and it is usually attributed by the Israelis to a bomb blowing up prematurely. You can only use that so many times however, before people start to question things.

I am afraid that we are to the point however, where they do not care about our impressions of their actions as long as we are "shock and awed" enough to fear resisting. Everything the government does, it does gradually...like frogs in a cooking pot, we adjust to each little infringement, each loss of freedom, each "sacrifice" that we are asked (ordered) to endure "for the good of the country".

One day we wake up and realize that we have become slaves to a cartel of profiteers that do not give a damn about us or The United States or the world. We are their tools, their pawns to be used and disposed of as they see fit. They use one group of us to wipe out another group of us, but we are all their pawns... Americans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, whatever.

We are being distracted and manipulated by "nationalism" - by people who have no allegiance to any country. Their loyalty is to power and wealth. They believe that they should rule the world.

When I was growing up, in the movies, cartoons and comic books, the people who wanted to "rule the world" were ALWAYS the bad guys....remember? How did that change? It didn't... wanting to dominate the world remains the wet dream of the most evil amongst us.

The real war going on is a class war. But it is very narrow class indeed which does the ruling..maybe the top 3%. They use fear, nationalism, "patriotism", religion, race, sexual preferences... anything they can to get us to fight each other, but what we always have is one group of poor bastards killing another group of the same so that evil people who have nothing but disdain for all of us can continue to grow in power and wealth.

We average Americans are too nice. We think that our "leaders" are nice also. We cannot imagine lying to the whole world to create a war for profit, or bombing a restaurant full of people to kill a 16-year old kid but they can and have. We cannot imagine torturing people to death, but they can and do. We could not imagine that they would kill 2200 of us on 9-11 to get a war going, but even the government appointed 9-11 commission members do not believe the official story that they say they were railroaded into endorsing. Polls show that a majority of the world does not buy it either.

So, do I think that even massive public pressure would change things, that the US military and the CIA would stop using and promise not to use killer drones anymore, or if they did make such a promise it would be kept? Not for a second. They are here to stay. I think that the only thing we can do is make it as difficult as possible for them. Make them go to a little more effort to cover their tracks. Harass drone-promoting politicians... make them worry. Send a letter to General Atomics, the ghouls that build these Predator drones.

Here is their address:

General Atomics
PO Box 85608
San Diego, California 92186-5608

If you think that their products are shitty, maybe the best way to express that is to send them some......shit! Got a dog? Maybe a cat? There you are... you are just a stamp and an envelope away.

We have generated a lot of well-justified hatred. If Americans were digging through rubble of weddings, restaurants and schools looking for their victims of Chinese drone strikes, I think it is safe to say that we would hate the Chinese.

I would try to figure out a way to fight back if I could. Wouldn't you?

And if Chinese drones were killing Europeans or Japanese in their houses, their restaurants, I would boycott all things Chinese. Despite all our wealth and WMDs, we are just 5% of the world's population. How long can we spit in the faces of the other 95% and not receive serious repercussions?

We use force to resolve differences, but we are an especially warlike society. The rest of the world will simply ignore us, reject us, and starve us out. Remember the fall of the South African apartheid government? That regime lasted a decade longer than it would have only because of loans from AMERICAN banks. The rest of the world had closed it's doors on the racist regime.

No one likes murderous bullies, except it seems, other murderous bullies. Things are going to change. I am surprised that it hasn't happened already. We are raised to think that the whole world admires us and wants to be like us. That may have been the case in the past, but we have become so brutal, hypocritical and arrogant that those days are over. The beautiful young maiden that the world embraced last night has been revealed to be an ugly, syphilitic old whore with bloodstained hands in the morning light.

The honeymoon is ending quickly...

We need to realize that an American boycott could very well happen. Sadly, only then will a huge number of us realize that we have been on the wrong side of history. Many of us will dig in with the "right or wrong, it's us against them" mentality. But most of us, I believe, are good, decent people who wish no harm to anyone. We just want to live our lives the best we can and hopefully raise our children in a happy and peaceful world. And most of us realize that all around the world everyone else is, with very few exceptions, the same.

For most of us our only sin is our silence.

That is how history will judge us.

People want to feel proud of themselves, of their country, of their military. We resist realizations that shatter that perception. It is tough to realize that at this point in time, we are indeed "the bad guys", and we should be ashamed for allowing this world-threatening cancer to grow in our name. But we are continually bombarded with lies and misinformation by a "government" that we were raised to trust and believe in.

What will our overlords do when they realize that we see through their lies, and their time is up? What will they do when our servicemen and women start refusing orders en mass? And how many innocents have to die before that point is reached? THAT is up to us.

"If there be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." - Thomas Paine

__________________________________ Vic Pittman is a freelance writer from Scotts Mills, Oregon who resides in Mexico today. He is the holder of no literary awards, journalistic awards or college degrees. He has at one time or another been a honor student, inmate, biker, Christian, pothead, father, radical, pacifist, anarchist, artist, heavy metal guitarist, model citizen, lawbreaker, business owner, illegal marijuana grower, and volunteer for various causes. He is proud to be a "common man" and be among those striving to make this world a better place if at all possible. He was fortunate enough to have been raised by awesome parents who instilled what he feels to be essential values and encouraged him to feel a kinship with not just family or Oregonians or Americans or whites, but every person on Earth, and to act accordingly. He and his wife Glenda currently live in Nayarit Mexico. You can write to Vic at this address: tropicats08@hotmail.com

Psychopaths’ Brain Patterns Lack Means for Empathy, Reveals Neuroimaging Study

From:  Medical Daily 

Author: Ashik Siddique

 COMMENT - Situational psychopaths are those who are influenced by the disordered around them, especially those in positions of authority, who manipulate and so change their behavior in relation to acting on human compassion and empathy.  

Which are you, if you are on Green Hills Software's Management Team?

New functional brain scan research on psychopathy reveals strikingly distinct patterns of activation among psychopathic prisoners in response to seeing other people in painful situations, suggesting a neural basis for their lack of empathy.

A lack of empathy is a signature trait of psychopaths— fascinating in fiction, inexplicable in reality. Now, a new study on psychopathic prisoners reveals strikingly different brain patterns that may limit their ability to emotionally respond to other people’s pain.

“This is the first time that neural processes associated with empathic processing have been directly examined in individuals with psychopathy, especially in response to the perception of other people in pain or distress,” said lead researcher Jean Decety, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, in a news release.

While previous studies have found differences between the brain structure of psychopathic convicts and controls, this is the first to observe neural differences in how they respond to distressing situations.

Empathy is a basic and evolutionarily ancient instinct, wrote Decety’s team in the study, and sensitivity to the pain of others is one of the earliest forms of it to develop in young children. The neural circuit of empathy is believed to involve connections among outer regions of the brain like the insula, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), as well as inner regions like the brainstem, amygdala, and hypothalamus.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder in which people have a “callous disregard for others,” according to researchers, as well as high impulsivity and aggression. It is estimated to be present in about 1 percent of Americans, and up to 30 percent of the United States prison population.

While not all people with such qualities are menaces to society, psychopaths are more likely to have committed serious crimes like rape, assault, and murder, and to commit repeat offenses. Perhaps not incidentally, some of them may also make excellent business executives.

Previous neuroimaging research on psychopaths has indicated reduced volumein some of these brain regions, as well as weakened connections among them, though it is unclear how such deficits develop. Psychopathic behavior is unlikely to be modified with existing cognitive-behavioral therapies, and the possibility that the disorder stems from intractable differences in brain structure is discouraging for researchers who hope to treat it.

In the hopes of eventually learning enough to develop effective psychological interventions, Decety’s team decided to investigate the patterns of brain activity involved in psychopaths’ responses to the distress of others.

Their findings, published online today in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, bring researchers slightly closer to accomplishing that goal.

80 incarcerated men aged 18 to 50 volunteered for the study, all prisoners in a medium-security correctional facility who were assessed for psychopathy levels with clinical diagnostic measures.

Read More: Here

Yemeni man brings the horror of drone strikes home to US Senate

From: The Independent

COMMENT - While it is very amusing to consider the slightly comic side of their personalities displayed by the officers of Green Hills Software, Inc., as they cover up for the nasty habits and felonious acts of their 'team mates,' when these are taken in context with the ugliness of death and dismemberment which funds their posh life-styles. 

Below is the story of a man who has lived through the reality of drone strikes in his own life.  He does not ask, or demand, what is actually right, that these strikes end and reparations be paid for the harm already done.  But anyone with a conscience could not fail to be moved by his words. 

Instead of first experiencing America through a school or a hospital, most people in Wessab first experienced America through the terror of a drone strike. What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America

Just six days after a US drone bombed his village, killing five militants in the process, a 23-year-old Yemeni writer named Farea Al-Muslimi travelled to Washington D.C. to tell the US Senate about the impact the strikes are having in his country.

In a powerful testimony to the assembled senators on Tuesday, excerpts of which are printed below, Mr Al-Muslimi said that rather than fighting terrorism, US drone strikes in his country were fuelling it. He told the committee that he owed much to America, having first visited as an exchange student during his school years, and later won a scholarship to study for a semester at a US college. But he came with a simple request: that the US stop bombing his country.

“My name is Farea Al-Muslimi. I am from Wessab, a remote mountain village in Yemen, about nine hours’ drive from my country’s capital, Sana’a. Most of the world has never heard of Wessab. But just six days ago, my village was struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor farmers. The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic bombings in Boston last week tore your hearts and also mine.

I am here today to talk about the human costs and consequences of targeted killing by the United States in Yemen.

Background

My family lives off the fruit, vegetables, and livestock we raise on our farms. We raise cows, goats, sheep, and hens. My father has been a farmer all his life. His income rarely exceeds $200 per month. He learned to read late in life, but my mother never did.

I have 12 living siblings. I should actually have 19, but we lost seven of my brothers and sisters. Some passed away in delivery due to a lack of quality medical services in our village. Others passed away when they were still young for the same reasons.

My life changed forever in the 9th grade when I was awarded a scholarship from the US State Department. The scholarship gave me an opportunity to study English for one year at Amideast, the American English Center in Yemen. This scholarship gave me new opportunities and allowed me to see the world beyond my village for the first time. I was later awarded a State Department scholarship to the Youth and Exchange Study program, which aims to build peace and understanding between the American people and people in Muslim countries.

That scholarship allowed me to spend a year living with an American family and attending an American high school. The year I spent at Rosamond High School in Rosamond, California was one of the richest and best years of my life.

The most exceptional experience was coming to know someone who ended up being like a father and is my best friend in the United States. He was a member of the US Air Force. Most of my year was spent with him and his family. He came to the mosque with me and I went to church with him. He taught me about his experiences in America and I taught him about my life in Yemen. We developed an amazing friendship that overcame our very different backgrounds.

A drone strike in my village

Today, I am a writer, speaker, and freelance journalist. One of the most rewarding experiences I have had has been working as a “fixer” for international journalists in Yemen and Beirut. Most of my work with international journalists has been in the southern provinces of Abyan, Aden, Al-dhalea and Lahj – three of the areas where the United States has focused its so-called “war on terror.”

Just six days ago, this so-called war came straight to my village. As I was thinking about my testimony and preparing to travel to the United States to participate in this hearing, I learned that a missile from a US drone had struck the village where I was raised.

For almost all of the people in Wessab, I’m the only person with any connection to the United States. They called and texted me that night with questions that I could not answer: Why was the United States terrifying them with these drones? Why was the United States trying to kill a person with a missile when everyone knows where he is and he could have been easily arrested?

My village is beautiful, but it is very poor and in a remote part of Yemen. In the past, most of Wessab’s villagers knew little about the United States. My stories about my experiences in America, my American friends, and the American values that I saw for myself helped the villagers I talked to understand the America that I know and love. Now, however, when they think of America they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads ready to fire missiles at any time.

Instead of first experiencing America through a school or a hospital, most people in Wessab first experienced America through the terror of a drone strike. What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America.

Visiting the victims

In my work with foreign journalists, I have visited many areas struck by drones or warplanes that residents believe were dispatched as part of the targeted killing program conducted by the United States. I have traveled most frequently to Abyan, an area in southern Yemen, which had been seized in early 2011 by Ansar Al-Sharia, a group aligned with AQAP.

In Abyan and other places in Yemen, I visited many locations where local residents were suffering from the consequences of targeted killing operations. I have met with relatives of people who were killed by drone strikes as well as numerous eyewitnesses. They have told me how these air strikes have changed their lives for the worse.

In early March 2013, I was working with Newsweek in Abyan when I met the mother of a boy named Muneer Muhammed. Muneer, an 18 year old boy, transported goods for shops via his donkey in the local souk of Ja’ar town. He had recently been engaged and was preparing for his wedding. Muneer was at work when a missile hit and killed him in May 2012. She told me, in tears, that if she ever meets the individual who shot the missile, she will “crunch him into pieces” in her mouth.

The people with whom we spoke in Abyan told us that Muneer was not a member of AQAP. But that has not stopped AQAP from trying to use his death to recruit supporters to their cause.

Days after Abyan was freed from AQAP control in June 2012, I met a fisherman named Ali Al-Amodi in a hospital in Aden. The day before, his house in Shaqra, on the sea side of Abyan, was targeted by a US air strike. Al-Amodi told me that he stood helplessly as his 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter died in his arms on the way to the hospital.  Al-Amodi had no links with AQAP. He and other locals said that his house was targeted by mistake. In that same strike, four other children and one woman were killed. Witnesses said none were militants.

Later in June 2012, I visited Al-Makhzan, a town outside of Ja’ar, where a drone strike targeting Nader Al-Shadadi took place. Al-Shadadi is identified by the Yemeni government as a terrorist and a leader of Ansar Al-Shariah. He has been targeted at least three times in different places, but the strikes have missed him every time. This time, it targeted his aunt’s house. Neighbors say he was not there, and his aunt’s only son was killed. There is no evidence that the son was affiliated with AQAP.

I know that some policy makers in the United States and Yemen claim that AQAP does not use drone strikes as a tool to recruit more people to their cause. This is incorrect. The case of the Toaiman family in Mareb, as reported by NPR based on a trip in which I participated, is one specific example. The Toaiman’s oldest son joined AQAP hoping to avenge the death of his father, an innocent civilian killed by a drone strike in October 2011. The son has 28 brothers waiting to do so as well. One of his youngest brothers, a 9 year old, carries a picture of a plane in his pocket. The boy openly states that he wants revenge and identifies his father’s killer as “America.”

Stop targeted killings 

I don’t know if there is anyone on Earth who feels more thankful to America than me. In my heart I know that I can only repay the opportunities, friendship, warmth, and exposure your country provided me by being their ambassador to Yemenis for the rest of my life, just as I was an ambassador for Yemenis in America. I strongly believe that I have helped improved America’s image, perhaps in ways that an official ambassador or other diplomat cannot. 

I have to say that the drone strikes and the targeted killing program have made my passion and mission in support of America almost impossible in Yemen. In some areas of Yemen, the anger against America that results from the strikes makes it dangerous for me to even acknowledge having visited America, much less testify how much my life changed thanks to the State Department scholarships. It’s sometimes too dangerous to even admit that I have American friends.

Late last year, I was with an American colleague from an international media outlet on a tour of Abyan. Suddenly, locals started to become paranoid. They were moving erratically and frantically pointing toward the sky. Based on their past experiences with drone strikes, they told us that the thing hovering above us – out of sight and making a strange humming noise – was an American drone. My heart sank. I was helpless. It was the first time that I had earnestly feared for my life, or for an American friend’s life in Yemen. I was standing there at the mercy of a drone.

I also couldn’t help but think that the operator of this drone just might be my American friend with whom I had the warmest and deepest friendship in America. My mind was racing and my heart was torn. I was torn between the great country that I know and love and the drone above my head that could not differentiate between me and some AQAP militant. It was one of the most divisive and difficult feelings I have ever encountered.

As someone who has lived and worked on this issue very closely, I cannot help but feel that the American and Yemen governments are losing the war against AQAP. Even when drone strikes target and kill the right people, it is at the expense of creating the many strategic problems I have discussed today. Every tactical success is at the expense of creating more strategic problems. I do, however, believe that things can still be fixed. If the United States wants to win the battle against AQAP in Yemen, I strongly suggest that it consider taking the following steps:

* Stop all the targeted killing strikes.

* Announce the names of those already on the “kill list,” so that innocent civilians can stay out of harm’s way.

* Issue an official apology to the families of all civilians killed or injured by targeted killing strikes.

* Compensate the families of innocent civilians killed or injured by strikes conducted or authorized by the United States.

* In every village where there has been a targeted killing, build a school or hospital so that the villagers’ only experience with America will not be the death and destruction caused by an American missile.

Thank you very much.