US Drone Strike in Yemen Kills 17 at Wedding Party

[Gerowen]

SANA, Yemen -- Anger over the American drone campaign against militants in Yemen swelled Friday with word that most of those killed in a strike a day earlier were civilians in a wedding party.

The death toll reached 17 overnight, hospital officials in central Bayda province said Friday. Five of those killed were suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda, but the remainder were unconnected with the militancy, Yemeni security officials said.

More and source

[Rohdekill]

Well, then maybe people should get smart and not associate or be around the five terrorists in the first place.  They all can't be innocent.  Nobody just invites five terroists that they've never met to a wedding.

[timster]

All I see here is colateral damage.

 

I doubt this would be news if it happened somewhere that wasn't a wedding.

[Torolol]

there must some chemistry going on between wedding and drones, as this stuff keep happening over and over ...

[LaP]

All I see here is colateral damage.

 

I doubt this would be news if it happened somewhere that wasn't a wedding.

This would definately be news if this sort of "colateral damage" would happen in USA. In fact this would be the only news for like 2 weeks.

Calling this "colateral damage", providing it's true of course, is really heartless and low.

[McKay]

Well, then maybe people should get smart and not associate or be around the five terrorists in the first place.  They all can't be innocent.  Nobody just invites five terroists that they've never met to a wedding.

 

Do you know what all of your friends get up to at all times? When you attend a Wedding do you know every single person and their guests? Even my best friend I see 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at work could have a double life as a terrorist for all I know. Even at my own parents wedding, I only knew half the "family" that turned up, had no clue who their +1's were. 

[MindTrickz]

Well, then maybe people should get smart and not associate or be around the five terrorists in the first place.  They all can't be innocent.  Nobody just invites five terroists that they've never met to a wedding.

 

So America murders half a dozen innocent people and that is what you have to say? Never-mind that those 5 SUSPECTS are just that suspects and that no evidence has been brought forth proving their guilt.

[FlintyV]

Well, then maybe people should get smart and not associate or be around the five terrorists in the first place.  They all can't be innocent.  Nobody just invites five terroists that they've never met to a wedding.

 

Reap what you sow as the idiom goes and the US will likely be in for a lot of trouble in the future. It's only turning more people to seek revenge and pushing more people to terrorist groups. 

[macrosslover]

So America murders half a dozen innocent people and that is what you have to say? Never-mind that those 5 SUSPECTS are just that suspects and that no evidence has been brought forth proving their guilt.

I'm sure there's evidence but I doubt any of us mere mortals will ever see it.  I find it uncanny that these five "suspects" were all at the same event, birds of a feather...just saying.  I support the right of our security service i.e. paramilitary unit CIA to unilaterally strike at potential targets as their burden of proof should be much lower than ours.  They can't afford to allow an attack to happen or you might end up having something like Benghazi happen again.  They should be able to act more quickly than normal legal processes.  HOWEVER  that doesn't mean I support the killing of innocent people to accomplish that goal and while I'm sure they would have preferred all of them to be traveling in one vehicle I can't begin to understand what made them strike the wedding as opposed to waiting.

[Gerowen]

Reap what you sow as the idiom goes and the US will likely be in for a lot of trouble in the future. It's only turning more people to seek revenge and pushing more people to terrorist groups. 

Agreed.

 

Dick Cheney said, "Our friends (In the Middle East) no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us."

He said this in light of the Snowden leaks when interviewed and asked about this administration's handling of Middle East politics.

 

England already has radical Muslims harassing people in the streets for violating Sharia law, and they even cut the head off a soldier walking down the streets of London.  I think the U.S. will eventually, if it doesn't already, have its fair share of "active" radical Muslim groups.

[MindTrickz]

I'm sure there's evidence but I doubt any of us mere mortals will ever see it.  I find it uncanny that these five "suspects" were all at the same event, birds of a feather...just saying.  I support the right of our security service i.e. paramilitary unit CIA to unilaterally strike at potential targets as their burden of proof should be much lower than ours.  They can't afford to allow an attack to happen or you might end up having something like Benghazi happen again.  They should be able to act more quickly than normal legal processes.  HOWEVER  that doesn't mean I support the killing of innocent people to accomplish that goal and while I'm sure they would have preferred all of them to be traveling in one vehicle I can't begin to understand what made them strike the wedding as opposed to waiting.

 

It's almost as if American lives are more important than Yemani lives. The number of innocent people killed by drones is reaching the thousands, yet America launched two full scale wars because of a few thousand dead American.

[MindTrickz]

Agreed.

 

Dick Cheney said, "Our friends (In the Middle East) no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us."

He said this in light of the Snowden leaks when interviewed and asked about this administration's handling of Middle East politics.

 

England already has radical Muslims harassing people in the streets for violating Sharia law, and they even cut the head off a soldier walking down the streets of London.  I think the U.S. will eventually, if it doesn't already, have its fair share of "active" radical Muslim groups.

 

I love how you are grouping non-related issues and trying to pass them off as one. Very smooth

 

Anyway, Dick Cheney is a war-monger. What he is referring to in that comment is the latest US and Iran nuclear deal,  and when he says  our friends in the middle east he is refereeing to Israel. He and the Israeli right-wing government want a war with Iran.

[Gerowen]

I love how you are grouping non-related issues and trying to pass them off as one. Very smooth

 

Anyway, Dick Cheney is a war-monger. What he is referring to in that comment is the latest US and Iran nuclear deal,  and when he says  our friends in the middle east he is refereeing to Israel. He and the Israeli right-wing government want a war with Iran.

I'm not trying to bring other issues in, I just think his statement holds a lot of truth beyond the context in which it was made.

[Brian Miller]

Wait, didn't we kill Ben Ladin?  Why are we still fighting invisible enemys?  Are we trying to create enemys for the future?

[McKay]

Wait, didn't we kill Ben Ladin?  Why are we still fighting invisible enemys?  Are we trying to create enemys for the future?

 

Bin Laden may be dead but the Taliban aren't, I'm not sure about the US Objective but the UK's objective in Afghanistan was to set up a stable Government to govern the area, so it doesn't become a breeding ground/safe haven for terrorism. Now we've set up the Afghan Government, the Afghan National Army and build an Officer Training Academy, the British are preparing to pull out in the coming years with the promise of financing their Government.

[Torolol]

Wait, didn't we kill Ben Ladin?  Why are we still fighting invisible enemys?  Are we trying to create enemys for the future?

thats because the real enemies are not based on leadership, but they're motivated by ideological/religious values.

The correct way to wage this 'war' is to actively scrutinizes and discredits and criticizes the religious & ideological values that make them commit such 'terrorist actions',

just killing those who commit the actions without ever trying to criticizing their motivations wont make any situation better.

 

But alas, the Political Correctness atmosphere will shuns any criticizing activity.

[WAQT]

A graph showing US drones strikes in Pakistan, and the number of civilians hit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2013/mar/25/drone-attacks-pakistan-visualised

 

What the US fails to understand is that the Afghans / Pathans have a rock mentality. Its like this, If a person, a family, a country kills one of my family members than I have to spend my lifetime avenging his death, even if that means that I die, of course if I do, there will be someone that will avenge my death, and so on. And its not just 1 person that stands up from a family. Like someone said above, the US is doing more harm than good, its just creating more enemies.

 

The best option would have been to conquer, and then spend a few billion on education, and job creation. This is how Afganistan looked like pre 1980's, the only way it can return to that is through education and jobs creation.

 

 

but the UK's objective in Afghanistan was to set up a stable Government to govern the area, so it doesn't become a breeding ground/safe haven for terrorism.

... It still is, with more than half of Afghanistan out of control.

[McKay]

... It still is, with more than half of Afghanistan out of control.

 

The difference is we're now handing them the tools to do complete the job themselves. 

[WAQT]

The difference is we're now handing them the tools to do complete the job themselves. 

I am not sure that is working, or will work.

 

Heck, the Pakistani army is a 100 times more advanced than the Afghan army, they still can not control the talibans. We have had more than 10,000 civilians killed at the hands of taliban since 9/11 and there is still no sign of it stopping.

 

Like I said, providing education and jobs will lure most Afghans to start living a peaceful life, with most earning less than half a dollar a day, jobs will help a lot. If half of the money that the US spent bombing Afghanistan was spent on this, we would have started seeing a change already. That is the only way I see a prosperous Afghanistan.

 

Fighting is in the Afghan blood, leave them poor, unfed, and with an enemy to resist, they will keep fighting, no matter how screwed up the cause be.