On Dec 17th 2009, an alleged Al Qaeda training camp in Yemen was hit by cruise missiles. 41 people were killed, including 14 women and 21 children, and 14 people alleged to be Al Qaeda fighters. Another strike hit a Yemeni village a week later. Amnesty International had photos showing US cluster munitions and Tomahawks (including the one shown here), but the Pentagon wouldn't comment. The Yemeni government released a statement taking credit for the strikes.Cables now show that those strikes were actually ordered by General Petraeus, Head of Central Command at the time. The President of Yemen told him that "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," during a meeting in early January 2010. The Deputy Prime Minister bragged that he "lied" to the Yemeni parliament, telling them that Yemen's military deployed the bombs. Reports are surfacing that US teams were also on targeted killing operations inside Yemen.
Did I miss when the States went to war with Yemen? That sounds like the sort of thing I would have noticed.
How about when the States went to war with the more than 75 other countries that the Cables say the military is conducting special combat operations in? When was the public disclosure that they were conducting drone strikes in Pakistan, headed by the real-life equivalents of G.I. Joes? And what about the outright denial from US politicians and military that any of this has been happening --a tactic that they stalwartly stuck to for the greater part of the last year?
How many times are they going to put their foot in it before something happens to hold them accountable?
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