(Reuters) – The U.S. government formally acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that it had killed four Americans, including militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who died in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.
Attorney General Eric Holder named the dead U.S. citizens in a letter to members of Congress a day before President Barack Obama is expected to promise more transparency on national security issues in a speech on counterterrorism.
A White House official said Obama would lay out in his speech why the use of drones is “necessary, legal and just.”
His speech would coincide with the signing of new presidential policy guidance setting out standards for U.S. drone strikes, the official said.
Categories: Americas
What is the big fuss about? FOUR Americans?
@Rafiq A. Tschannen; What a coincidence! That’s exactly the same response most Americans have when reading about the daily internecine killings throughout the Islamic world. Another Sunni mosque blown up by the Shi’ites? (or vice versa) Ho hum…
Robert Adams, the point is when Sunnis and Shiites kill each other they don’t kill thousands of Americans at the same time. Mr. Tschannen meant that of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of insignificant ‘foreigners’ murdered via the drones, what is the big deal about just 4 Americans’ lives?
He is wrong, of course. Americans and British etc have feelings which can get hurt; while obviously Afghanis and Pakistanis etc don’t. They don’t have mothers or wives who mourn them. They don’t have children that need them. Therefore those aliens’ lives are worthless…is that not a correct rephrasing of your comment, Mr. Adams?
by the way… the Americans killed were ‘only’ Muslims … and therefore do not count much more than normal Yemenis or Pakistanis.
@Fowzia Shah; That was not my meaning at all. Certainly the innocent Muslims that are killed by other Muslims for merely sectarian reasons are victims of outright murder and I do feel for their families. The point I was making is that Americans have become inured to this slaughter. More so when the concept of ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ is crammed down our throats on a daily basis. How can the two be reconciled? They can’t. How can that concept be accepted as valid when Muslims are so intolerant of each other? Do not the Amadis here bemoan their status in the supposedly tolerant Muslim world? Muslims don’t want to talk about this murderous schism and resent it when it is presented to them. By the way, I was not a supporter of the Iraq War and think the US should have left Afghanistan long ago.
Thanks Mr. Adams for your clarification. My impression is that the so-called ‘sectarian conflict’ between Shiahs and Sunnis is to 95% not ‘sectarian’ at all. In Iraq and Syria it is a power-play. Saudi Arabia would like to be THE leader of Muslims and Iran will not ‘obey’. There was no sectarian conflict in Iraq until the Americans practiced their ‘divide and rule’ tactic. Sunnis were in power and now Shiahs are in power. It is all about power. No discussion is taking place on religious differences. “We will not fight with you if you agree to this and that religious interpretation”. Never. – One of my staff who had been kidnapped in Iraq by some Sunnis told me his story: “You Shiah bast…rd. If you want to see your family again tell them to come up with 25000$. He told them that he is a Sunni ‘brother’. OK, so they said “Dear Sunni brother, please tell your family to give a donation of 25000$ to our cause, if they want to see you again”. That is the amount of religious discussions that are taking place.