The Guardian reported on February 6: CIA Using Saudi Base for Drone Assassinations in Yemen Disclosure comes as architect of programme, John Brennan, prepares for Senate confirmation hearing to become CIA director.
Chuck Carlson comments:
A few Senators are set to ask John Brennan questions, but not enough I fear. This story in the Guardian of London raises questions to which there can be no answer but, “Up here we do whatever we want.”
It seems drone attacks have killed at least three American citizens who happen to have Arab names, at least one American child. Neither of the targeted men was indicted or charged with any crime in the USA. To make matters worse, the targets were in Yemen, a country where the USA has diplomatic relations, and it appears no effort was made to capture them through diplomatic ties before bombing, nor did the USA have permission to bomb Yemen, so the drone attacks were just another act of war on a sovereign country. Now that we have drones there are no rules, only secret “white papers” written to cover the guilt of those like Brennan.
John Brennan had authority over the torture programs in Guantanamo, and in some fifty other countries who tortured for the USA by proxy. Surprisingly, even Sweden was in on the torture exchange program answering to John Brennan. It is easy to see why WikiLeaks Julian Assange does not want to be extradited to Sweden.
From the Guardian of London:
The CIA is secretly using an airbase in Saudi Arabia to conduct its controversial drone assassination campaign in neighboring Yemen, according to reports in the US media.
Neither the Saudi government nor the country’s media have responded to the reports revealing that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011 and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaida commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the unnamed base…Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaida in Yemen. Evidence of Saudi involvement risks complicating its relationship with the government in Sana’a and with Yemeni tribal leaders who control large parts of the country…Disclosure of the Saudi co-operation comes the day before the architect of the drone programme, John Brennan, appears before the US Senate for a confirmation hearing to become the CIA director.
Read the whole Guardian story here.
CEC returns with a post script
A little research reveals how far the CIA will go to cover up its atrocities, and this story gets only worse the more we learn. Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaqi (16) (born in Colorado) did not even live with his father and was, in fact, killed in separate drone raids on an outdoor restaurant in Yemen two weeks after his father Anwar was droned. At first the CIA pretended the son was 21, and suggested he was a terrorist too, but it changed its story then the Grandfather released the youth’s birth certificate. Six bodies in the restaurant were pieced together, one according to the CIA, was its target, an Egyptian alleged Al-Qaeda journalist. The other four victims were unnamed locals. The Helfire missile the drone launched did not leave enough whole body parts to return Abdulrahman to his mother and Grandfather and his parts were buried in a mass grave with the others.
John Brennan has demonstrated that he thinks he should hold power of life and death over anyone he chooses to target. Torture and assassination without legal authority are now common in The land of the free and the home of the brave, where we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life…
It is unlikely that John Brennan, already a war criminal by any reasonable measure, will be seriously challenged by more than a few of those sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. Tell someone, how about your church…it could be you next with a drone outside your window. Who would Jesus Bomb? – cec