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Two Awlaki Teenage Relatives Killed in Yemen Attack: Family
SANAA - Two relatives of an assassinated U.S.-born militant cleric who were killed in an air strike last week in southern Yemen were teenagers out for dinner with friends when they were hit, their family said in a statement on Tuesday.
President Obama speaks about the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric linked to al-Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, during remarks at Fort Myer in Virginia. Yemeni officials said on Saturday about 24 people, including a teenage son and a brother of Anwar al-Awlaki, were killed in an air strike on an al Qaeda hideout near the town of Azzan in the southern Shabwa province.(Kevin Lamarque / Reuters) Yemeni officials said on Saturday about 24 people, including a son and a brother of Anwar al-Awlaki, were killed in an air strike on an al Qaeda hideout near the town of Azzan in the southern Shabwa province.
"Abdel-Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki was born in the U.S. city of Denver, Colorado on 26, August 1995, and thus he is not 21 or 27-years-old, but just 16," the statement said.
It added the second member of the Awlaki family killed was Ahmed Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki, 17.
It said Abdel-Rahman, who had been living in the Yemeni capital Sanaa since he returned from the United States in 2002, had gone to look for his father nearly a week before the cleric was killed on September 30.
"He left his mother a letter saying he was traveling to Shabwa to look for his father in Shabwa, his ancestral home," the statement said.
Abdel-Rahman stayed in Shabwa for two weeks after his father's death, when the family asked him to return home.
"But God wanted otherwise. On the night of October 14, he left with some friends for dinner under the moon light when an American missile landed, killing Abdel-Rahman and his friends, including our relative Ahmed Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki, 17," it added.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric linked to al Qaeda, was killed by a CIA drone along with several of his comrades. Eloquent in English and Arabic, he encouraged attacks on the United States and was seen as a man who could draw in more al Qaeda recruits from Western countries.
Awlaki was implicated in a botched attempt by al Qaeda's Arabian Peninsula wing (AQAP) to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in 2009 and had contacts with an American army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a U.S. military base the same year.
(Reporting by Mohammed Sudam; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Sophie Hares)
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73 Comments so far
Show AllNo words to describe this atrocity within the atrocity of the official policy of assassination.
2 of my greatest heroes are men of color: MLK and Gandhi. I had such hopes for Obama, and wept for the promise he inspired. Now I am ashamed to have voted for this man.
Two words describe it best: war crimes.
Here's a thought experiment for Oilbomber: imagine that your daughters get killed in an air strike on you! I suppose such a thought never even crosses your mind.
Didn't Oilybomber kill Moammar Gaddafi's infant grandchildren (still in diapers) in an attempt to assassinate him? I don't know how many international treaties we violate on a daily basis, but I would venture to say that it is all of them.
Oikos -- Well said!
Obama's forces probably tracked Awlaki's son to find his dad, so then they had to kill his son and brother to cover the killings.
Any other theories?
Here is a theory: Awlaki was a CIA agent trained by Mossad to foster the presence of the fictitious Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and take responsibility for a bunch of hair brained, dumb assed attacks that could never work to keep America in trepidation of them "Muslim terrorists" and the fictitious drone attack was staged to remove him from theatre (with family members) now that the playing field in Sana'a is becoming more uncertain for the US, its CIA and the local thugs in tow.
Not much different than for Bin Laden, I imagine.
I guess that is a theory, but do you really believe that?
A theory requires facts; all that's offered is conjecture which renders it a hypothesis.
What do you know for a fact? And how do you know it is a fact?
Do you "believe" for a fact that that Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and his body dumped off a ship? What evidence do you have.
These present assassinations are reported by the MSM without any eye witness corroboration. They are regurgitating CIA or DoS press releases. And if you want to "believe" that the Yemeni government does not lie or fabricate stories, when it's told to. Go ahead.
I suppose 9-11 was 19 guys with box cutters, four planes and Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan or are the facts of physics, chemistry, and the many lies compounded in the 9-11 commission not enough to convince you that you are very often being hoodwinked by your government?
Did you here the one about a used car salesman, a Mexican narco snitch, and an Iranian spook walk into a bar. What is this, says the ex-CIA barman, some kind of a joke? (Tony Karon - http://globalspin.blogs.time.com)
Gee, testy aren't we. I know for a fact that what you wrote is conjecture.
No, I don't think its testy. What I'm trying to do is get some people to think laterally, not always taking things they are told by the MSM as facts. Not that what passes for fact through the bawls of the MSM in terms of what is "Al Qaeda" and what is linked, inspired and related is purely conjecture too.
Personally I have no doubt that Al Qaeda is invented and sustained by the CIA, and the Al Qaeda in Iraq, or in Maghreb, or in the Arabian peninsula or where ever are set up as flag poles to see who salutes. These are like lights in the night they gather a number of dazed moths that they can use for "made to fail" terror attacks all to keep the global war on terror alive. Or in the case of Iraq, to recruit suicide bombers in order to maintain instability keep the war going and emphasis the need for continued US occupation in one form or another. Different MOAs for different places.
Al Qaeda is a fictional sham of flexible dimensions, a franchise invented and distributed by the CIA, making little or no sense to most Muslims and meant primarily for western consumption.
That Bin Laden was on the CIA pay role is well documented, as well that he was visited by CIA just weeks before 9-11 in an American Hospital in Dubai while getting dialysis treatment. The evidence that 9-11 required "insider" coordination and post event cover-up is overwhelming. Playing two ends to the middle with false flag attacks and terrorism has been a hall-mark of US and Israeli covert action to gain imperial hegemony since way back in the late 60s and in terms of Israel, before.
On the background of Anwar Al-Awlaki and the "conjecture" that he too was a CIA operative:
http://www.therightperspective.org/2010/10/20/is-al-queda-leader-cia-plant/
and here is an old analysis pretty close to mine by Nikos Retsos:
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/retsos_nikos/nikos_retsos/16011259/anwar-al-awlaki-terrorist-or-a-cia-%E2%80%9Croach-motel%E2%80%9D-keeper/
Again we have someone who seems to have to die repeatedly, which must at least make you wonder if he's really dead this time?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/67035425/Anwar-Al-Awlaki-Terrorist-Or-Pentagon-CIA-Employee-Same-Thing
When someone doesn't even know the definition of "theory", cannot tell fact from conjecture, and confuses what they believe "personally" with the objective and verifiable, we are indeed entering a new, internet-facilitatied, dark age.
Perhaps Al-Quaeda is a whole cloth creation of the CIA, instead of the far simpler explanation that al Quaeda was a fully natural and expected outgrowth of the Arab people's anger toward the US and Israel - with earlier CIA support when their enemy was the "godless Soviets". But. you need to present _evidence_ of this. Get it?
"Al Qaeda was created by the CIA, in their offices in Washington D.C., According to Richard Clark in his most recent book. It was created for Saudi Arabia to bankroll Osama bin Laden, through the House of Saud, 'in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union during the 1980's and Riyadh and Washington together contributed an estimated $3.5 billion to the mujahideen'."
http://www.rense.com/general61/myths.htm
Yes, one should get ones definitions right (before one gets pedantic):
A conjecture is a proposition that is unproven but is thought to be true and has not been disproven, - [Wiki]
Theory - set of ideas formulated to explain something; opinion; supposition; statement of the principals of a subject. - [Oxford concise dictionary]
I think perhaps it is you that is confusing theory with "scientific theory" which is a whole other ball of wax as relater to "facts".
The essence of my argument is that we are not dealing with facts in any case. We are dealing with unsubstantiated reports by dubious sources with criminal backgrounds and intentions. And that is what is dragging us into info-wars dark ages, I'm afraid.
The many evidences of skulduggery are there in spades, although the proof of which American alphabet soup department paid which piper is obviously well enough hidden by design, but it is up to the thinking individual to connect the dots, as they say.
As in the question of definition of terms a little research on the matter would do you no harm. Perhaps you would not then try to purvey simplistic regurgitation of propaganda. Or then again perhaps that is what you want to do in any case.
Anyone, Anywhere, Any time
Where did the money for the missile come from?
Anyone, anytime, anywhere includes all of us.
If by all of us you mean us American Citizens, I see your point and I would agree IF we lived in a democracy. We don't. Where is the candidate in the upcoming elections who promises to cease all drone attacks, or even promises not to invade any more countries unless this country is attacked first?
Oh we pay for the drones all right. The gang of 400 who have seized power have a prison-for-profit cell waiting for any citizen who refuses to help pay. As the situation stands a tiny group of very rich sociopaths kill indiscriminately with the money they have gained by extortion.
Socialism is supposed to be such a dirty word, but wouldn't it be better to use the money that is stolen for health care, education, food, than for drones?
Thanks for getting it.
Greed is behind this malevolence.
Tax revolt is a partial cure.
OWS is a chance to end the crime of capitalism.
Living small is the key.
Most in the u.s. fear a shrinkage of lifestyle.
Oikos nails it: Our Overlords may live to regret their drone assassinations. Others have, or soon will have, drones. And they for sure have hit lists.
As Noam Chomsky stated recently on Democracy Now!, stories like this will receive little analysis and sympathy from the corporate media of the United States because the son and brother of Anwar al-Awlaki are considered to be non-people by the meainstream media.
Their way of thinking is: Americans are worthy of sympathy and compassion because they are people whereas innocent civilians overseas and Palestinians should be looked upon as being un-people.
Erroll, writers/reporters friendly to CD should immediately seek out survivors of these assassinations and submit stories about their reactions. Just the facts, of course, about their emotions (that's entirely missing from the Reuters report). This could be announced as a policy for CD, designed to provide perspective on the news. Eventually even "mainstream" newshounds will start come to CD every time operations like the Awlaki assassinations occur.
Make that only "some" Americans are worthy of sympathy and compassion. There are plenty of poor and "their own fault" unemployed, fill in your favorite 99% group, who aren't considered people. But, your point is spot on as to the immoral exceptionalism that is practiced by this country.
And what of the 27 American children set ablaze at the Koresh Compound. Non people. Evil within the american power elite does not discriminate.
And Ruby Ridge, Ludlow, Chicago stockyards, Kent State, Jackson, etc, etc, etc.
MOVE. We took out much of a city block, destroying dozens of houses, in the process. Killed a lot of kids too.
Barack Obama is a cold blooded murderer.
Exactly and that is why he shall NEVER EVER get my vote. He's had blood on his hands for so long that it's thick and falling off in chunks -- but that's ok because he gets a fresh dose of blood on them daily to replace that. Oikos said it right -- would he FEEL anything if this happened to his 2 daughters if someone was after him? Or is killing something that just happens to "other people"? Sickening and pathetic. I'm glad this country is on its way down if just to take its power away over the world.
Only after the collapse of the fascist amerkan empire can world Peace happen ! Thankfully, the fall of the empire IS well underway. The suffering the killing machine military causes is the demise of the oppressors !
It's just sad that those of us who never believed in "aggressive wars" which the Nuremberg Trials prohibited will also have to "fall" with the empire.
Hopeful concept : many paths[ Mayan, Hopi, Hindu,} say; during the coming changes, seek the "high ground". The people of the empire, all have that option; some will seek it, others ....?
"High ground" is of course a metaphora- the high ground. IS within. buen viaje...
tio zapata, Mexico
Has "collateral" assasination of civilians become the new norm worldwide?
The Big Blowback from the Bankster War Economy is just starting.
“A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.”
― John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
Their drones can find us as well and we don't have mountains to hide behind. All they have to do is follow our emails....I have no doubt there is an american hit list and every social and peace activist is on it. Who do you think all the prisons built over the past 30 years are for?
bluegrass, this reminds me of the fact that people fearing drones next will avoid wide open deserts like Yemen and Afghanistan. Look for al Qaeda to start inhabiting thick, cloud-covered rain forests. What will our computer geek assassins do about that?
Also, it's often forgotten that the locations in which the 9/11 terrorists trained and prepared weren't Afghanistan and Pakistan, but Europe and the U.S. So why doesn't the U.S. focus anti-terrorism efforts on those areas?
I'd suggest Manhattan, but hasn't the USA bombed itself enough already?
Manhattan? Wall Street perhaps, but the real terrorists are in Washington.
Reuters sez: "Awlaki was implicated in a botched attempt ... to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in 2009 and had contacts with an American army psychiatrist who killed 13 people ..."
***
"was implicated" ... "had contacts with" ...
So, are these new euphemisms for "was convicted in a court of law"?
24 killed to get one guy. Wasn't there supposed to be moral outrage against Manssor Arbabsiar due to his stated willingness to harm innocents to get at his intended target?
.
This administration has reached dizzying heights of hyper-hypocrisy.
American foreign policy has always been fascist to support the corportocracy, dating way back to the Coup D" Etat that installed the U.S. puppet, the Shah of Iran in 1953. But the U.S. government was able hoodwink most of the American sheeple back then with the canard that we were fighting communism. The subterfuge of American foreign policy is becoming more and more difficult to hide from vast numbers of Americans as this latest extraordinary and very evil murders of teenage American citizens in Yemen prove.
No human being should ever work for these assassination weapon makers.
But Iran! That used car salesman! They support terrorism! They are building Nuclear weapons! Who cares about kids in Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan that get killed by US Bombs and assassination? The US Government will feel "bad" about it if that will help but they really do not count do they?
I still recall an old line I read from Western Novels as a kid that spoke to that "Rugged Individualism" of the Western Pioneer. "he killed himself twelve men , not counting Mexicans and Injuns". Needless to say the 12 killed all "deserved it" The Injuns and Mexicans, who really cared. They are immaterial.
Psychopaths as heroes..
Exactly, USAns are sick, sick, Sick!
An Australian girlfriend referred to the USA (way back in the 1980's) as "the land of 'It's your own fault'".
"Do as I say, not as I do": motto of this neo-Bush administration.
When Al Qaeda or the Taliban kill dozens of bystanders and other innocent individuals (particularly children), Nationalist Propaganda Radio never fails to mention such, always emphasizing killed children, but did it even mention the nearly two dozen people who were savagely murdered by the U.S. along with Al Awlaki (who has never been indicted for anything, let alone be proven guilty of any crime), let alone the two teenagers?
Massive hypocrisy and double standards run deep in our elites and their political and media servants.
Isn't it about time for some foreign govments to issue arrest warrants for the big O? Please hurry, we are such an embarrassment.
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country."
Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
And:
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels,
MiniProp for Hitler’s Third Reich
1897-1945
Lets start calling him "killer O" it will make him feel like a bad ass.
It bears repeating:
This is appalling, abominable, horrific. And yet it is anything but new.
Consider one of the earliest exercises in "kinetic military action", when the Amerikan Imperium was just teething and taking its first
tottering steps:
Comments on the Moro Massacre by Mark Twain (March 12, 1906)*
_______________
It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or
mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. [...]
The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended
with a complete victory for the American arms.... The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred
Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes
only fifteen lost their lives.
General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered
that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight
years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.
_______________
Go and read it in its entirety, if you can stand it-- if only to read the closing comments, beginning with:
"They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children -- merely children."
Fortunately, our heads of state can keep their composure and their sense of humor about such vicissitudes of Empire.
Just consider one well-received performance: our bonnie president Obama at a podium at the 2010 Beltway debauch called the "White House Correspondents Dinner", joking that the "Jonas Brothers" boy band was apparently in the audience, and that Obama's daughters were infatuated with them.
Obama's comic premise was a self-deprecating reference to himself as an overprotective father. Let's go to the transcript:
"The Jonas Brothers are here. (Applause.) They're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But, boys, don't get any ideas. (Laughter.)
I have two words for you -- predator drones. (Laughter.) You will never see it coming. (Laughter.) You think I'm joking.
(Laughter.)"
The sycophantic crowd went wild.Like virtually all of the supposed humor employed at such affairs, Obama’s joke was directed to Washington “insiders,” government officials, politicians of both parties, and members of the media elite itself-- all of whom would know what he was talking about and could generally be expected to find nothing amiss in his remarks.Presumably Obama's wisecracks weren't tested with focus groups including Afghan or Pakistani or Libyan or Yemeni nationals. That sort weren't invited to the dinner, after all.
_______________
* http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/cr/moro.htm
I'll not read it again. All the feelings came back reading the excerpts, visions of ruined bodies, grieving family and friends, the victors' celebration. It's hard even to type, my eyes wonder downward to the side, heart sinks, bewildered at the coldness, the abject cruelty, my mind searches for a way to stop it from ever happening again. Best I can do is refuse them any authority, refuse to pay the blood stained taxes, refuse to stop trying. Later, my friend, I'm done for this day.