US drone strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-yemen-strike-idUSBRE9BB10O20131212?irpc=932

by dkasper • 13 years ago

100 62 13 years ago

reuters.com

ck2• 13 years ago

Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also?

We just wiped out 15 completely innocent people? Destroying their lives and their families forever?

Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city?

Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

Difficulty level of jamming the HF uplink Predator and Global Hawk drones use?

EDIT: 5 minutes with Google:

http://uscrow.org/2013/08/05/how-to-kill-predator-drones-uav...

"Predator Drone UAVs communicate with line of sight radio in Mil C-Band 500-1000 MHz. Communication between the UAV Operator and the Predator Drone, which can be jammed with a spark-gap (the space between electrical terminals that allows for the transient discharge pass) radio. A spark-gap transmitter is a device for generating radio frequency and electromagnetic waves using a spark gap. Surprisingly, 90% of all military ops are performed using C-Band."

"If you weren’t paying attention, this means the predator drones utilize the same commercial civilian technology used to transmit television signals. Using simple commercial equipment such as Skygrabber you can jam the communications, blinding the operator and sending a signal to the UAV to return back to base or engage a holding pattern until retrieved. This entirely assumes the SSAAS system hasn’t been fully implemented highlighted in the article previously mentioned. You can read more about Skygrabber by clicking here."

The insanity of nonchalant accidental drone killings of foreign nationals has got to stop.

MrZongle23• 13 years ago

Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city?

After the events of the last year, I don't have that much trouble imagining the US government doing that in a US city.

agravier• 13 years ago

It would be better accepted. The same way as the murder of a X citizen by another X citizen would be less of a fuss than the murder of a X-ian by a Y-ian.

rayiner6• 13 years ago

Yes, no conceptual leap at all between the NSA getting U.S. communications caught up in filters targeted for foreigners and the military just blowing up people in U.S. cities.

No fucking difference at all.

joering22• 13 years ago

For now Bush does not travel by public planes, because of some places like Switzerland he [1] can be persecuted for war /torture crimes.

If US forces truly invade Iraq to bring justice and democracy, then let's hope one day Iraqiis government will succeed in building that. And send a justified drone after Bush.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/bush-switzerland-to...

MartinCron• 13 years ago

Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city?

You've just stepped into that intellectual minefield that's called "American Exceptionalism". Enjoy your stay.

pekk2• 13 years ago

"American exceptionalism" does not mean "America is an exception to rules" (whatever those rules might be)

rayiner6• 13 years ago

No, this does not have to do with "American Exceptionalism." It has to do with the much more basic concept that sovereign nations reserve the right to kill people in other sovereign nations in pursuit of their own security. The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world.

lmkg• 13 years ago

Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also?

More than that. I remember quite a few news reports of weddings in Pakistan being hit.

On the flip side, I've also heard the authenticity of those reports called into question. If a Taliban lieutenant and his posse are drone-struck, the local warlord can claim it was a peaceful civilian wedding and score some PR points.

I'm not justifying it, mind you. Commoditization of lethal force is something that scares me. I'm just pointing out the fog of war is particularly thick in that region.

Crito• 13 years ago

"On the flip side, I've also heard the authenticity of those reports called into question. If a Taliban lieutenant and his posse are drone-struck, the local warlord can claim it was a peaceful civilian wedding and score some PR points."

Either way, for some purposes it does not matter. Either the surviving community members are being lied to and told the victims were civilians, or the victims really were civilians, but in both cases they walk away with the notion that America is blowing up civilians. That is how you "make more terrorists".

If America wants to avoid getting caught in that sort of situation, they need to make it seem implausible that that they were involved. As long as America is droning 'baddies', the possibility that they are nailing some civilians too remains.

dragonwriter4• 13 years ago

Shut down all armed drones.

Before drones, we did the same thing with cruise missiles, stealth aircraft, special forces raids, etc., etc., etc.

The particular weapon isn't the issue.

andrewfong• 13 years ago

Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.

To be clear, this isn't a "drone" problem per so, so much as an "airpower" one. There have been plenty of incidents where the use of manned aircraft have resulted in similar (probably) inadvertent civilian casualties -- e.g. the AH-64 attack depicted in the "Collateral Murder" video or the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, not to mention all of the incidents during the Vietnam War and WW2.

There has historically been a trade-off between risk to military personnel and civilian casualties. Ironically, the best way of reducing that trade off probably involves more robots, albeit ones that gives the military options other than "shoot" and "let potential militant get away".

downer892• 13 years ago

Consider the idea that reducing risk to military personnel actually provokes a steep increase in the propensity to indiscriminately wipe out civilians, simply because the fear of any consequence has been mitigated.

So as you approach zero risk, the occurence of applied lethal force accelerates on a curve toward an asymptote.

kubiiii• 13 years ago

Reducing the military risk to zero while the civilian risk persists (even if it may be lower) does not appear to be fair from the (surviving) civilian POV. I am not saying that US should have its kids been killed in battlefield, but should pay the proper price for accidentally killing civilians. That means $, excuses, explanations, not total blackout on the topic.

chc• 13 years ago

Is it worse when a drone follows orders and does this than when a fighter pilot follows orders and does this?

winfred2• 13 years ago

Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also?

There is a reason for that. The locals use the US as their weapon of revenge. So if one family has an ongoing argument with another family and one of them is throwing a wedding, the other family reports it as an Al Quaida meeting.

Often these family conflicts have lasted for years already and likely more people died in the past (not by drones)

So it was a successful hit, you know, just not for the party that shot off the actual hardware.

dsuth• 13 years ago

Do you have any kind of source for that?

X4• 13 years ago

Isn't that illegal? Or is that legal, because there is officially war between American and Yemen? (serious)

I thought the legal implications of terminating people from a foreign country remotely is either an act of aggression or already war, depending on how the affected political party sees it.

So either it means:

a) America would have to pay for the losses and families.

b) Yemen and America are in war.

c) Yemen capitulated against America.

Otherwise I don't understand. :-/

(Sorry, if someone feels that this is too logical, non-emotional. I'm of course, against killing and drone attacks.)

joering22• 13 years ago

or d) Nobody is big/strong/"stupid" enough to fuck with US.. at least not officially to start a war - so US can do whatever they want.

o2sd982• 13 years ago

Does anyone keep a tally on how many civilians the US has murdered with drones?

pekk2• 13 years ago

Or bombs delivered in other ways?

msg• 13 years ago

Yes.

http://www.livingunderdrones.org/numbers/

There are no 100% solid estimates because of problems with reliable sources, but here are a couple of links to get you started.

http://natsec.newamerica.net/drones/pakistan/analysis

http://www.longwarjournal.org/multimedia/Yemen/code/Yemen-st...

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drone...

o2sd982• 13 years ago

Thanks, that was equally informative as it was depressing.

It's not exactly something that is winning the hearts and minds of people in the middle east. I guess the western powers are passed that now, and are engaged in a crusade.

MrZongle23• 13 years ago

Probably, though it'll likely take the action of another Edward Snowden for us to ever see that data.

You know, "most transparent Administration ever" and all that.

sprockincat• 13 years ago

This page shows strikes and fatalities for Pakistan only: http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ Data is from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

kelvin0• 13 years ago

So please remind me, who are the terrorists again? I keep getting confused ...

middleclick• 13 years ago

The repercussions are equally serious. What America is basically doing is creating more terrorists by harming innocent people. It's not a nice thing to see your loved ones get killed for no reason. Couple that with low levels of education, poverty, and you have more "Death to America" people who believe that jihad is the only way to salvation in an otherwise meaningless life.

pstuart• 13 years ago

A more cynical person might think that this was intentional -- to keep the pipeline full.

Istof• 13 years ago

everyone (unless proven not guilty).

fishtoaster• 13 years ago

There seems to be conflicting information:

"their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy"

"An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy"

Were they targeting the wedding car or not? One is a failure of intelligence, the other is a failure of the technology.

z0a• 13 years ago

It's a failure of intelligence either ways, I'll tell you that.

towski• 13 years ago

Or perhaps it's too smart

javajosh2• 13 years ago

I swear to christ someone has to pay for this kind of mistake, or we are just mindless thugs. We have to pay attention to correcting our mistakes, or we are tacitly endorsing them.

The problem, of course, is that there is no accountability. None. What do I do, write to my senator and say how mad I am? People write to senators saying how mad they are all the time.

And the press stands by and does nothing. They are just foreigners, its not like they were Americans.

On it's face, Obama has final responsibility for this mistake. He is the Commander in Chief of our armed forces; the drone strike policy is his; what will he say? What will he do? Ignore it? Apologize and promise to "look into it"?

I have a suggestion to align the interests of our armed forces with the interests of our nation: fine the fuck out of the group that makes the mistake. Make this incident have a material impact on next years budget. Teach decision makers that when they kill innocents, their careers are on the line. It's an embarrassment that travels all the way up the chain, all the way to the political level, but it will hurt your pocket book.

Where should the money go? The surviving families. They should be set for life. And if they radicalize and use their new wealth to arm themselves against the US? Oh well, I guess we should have thought of that before blowing whole innocent families up - and by remote control, no less. (Heck, we don't even do them the honor of putting a single American life in jeopardy to assassinate people anymore. Sheesh.)

galois17• 13 years ago

Accountability is definitely an issue but the major issue is the attitude of acting like the biggest bully in high school doing whatever the heck you want just because you happen to be bigger than the other kids. Actually its even worse because at least the high school bully doesn't go around telling off other "bullies" for their behavior

atmosx• 13 years ago

The only question that really puzzles me and probably should puzzle USA citizens is:

Why is a USA drone flying in Yemen anyway?

rayiner6• 13 years ago

Because Yemen is a failed state and a hotbed of terrorism, and the U.S. believes that it's important for geopolitical stability to keep it in check.

There's nothing puzzling about it. This is the way the world has worked for centuries, and how the U.S. has worked since its founding. The great powers intervene in small nations to put out brush fires that could upset the global status quo. It's like the history of Europe from 1500-1945.

geoka9• 13 years ago

to put out brush fires that could upset the global status quo.

I thought we had UN for that?

vfclists2• 13 years ago

It is not because Yemen is a failed state which is another bit of nonsensical terminology invented by the genocidal US policy hawks.

It is a failed state primarily because it has corrupt leadership that is willing to take bribes from the US government and their armaments companies to engage in extra judicial killings of their citizens.

amaks• 13 years ago

This will continue to be happening until a wedding or anything in US will be destroyed by the drones, by mistake. Until then, the public opinion in this country won't take these events with all seriousness.

JaggedJax• 13 years ago

This has less to do with drones or technology or intelligence or mistakes than it has to do with war. The issue is should we be at war with Al Qaeda or not.

Assuming we are at war and okay with bombing the enemy, civilians will die. That is how war works. A drone (Even one pointed at the wrong target) does a lot less damage than the traditional carpet bombing. Civilians die either way, but a lot less die with modern technology.

elwell• 13 years ago

Not good; are we creating more revenge terrorists than we are killing with these drone strikes?

lawnchair_larry• 13 years ago

Think of the number of innocents who died in 9/11.

Now think of how many people you heard around the country shortly after, talking about their desire to turn Afghanistan/Iraq into a parking lot, or similar. And everybody who was motivated to enlist, and go kick some ass.

I'm going to guess that their reactions aren't a whole lot nicer than our reactions.

US drone strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake

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