U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes - New York Times

[PapaG]

How many flipping wars are we trying to start these days?

Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Yemen? Syria must be next. The odd part about Yemen is that we seem to be siding with the dictator instead of the rebels.

Do we have a foreign policy plan other than "bomb the shit out of them"?

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.

The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.

The recent operations come after a nearly year-long pause in American airstrikes, which were halted amid concerns that poor intelligence had led to bungled missions and civilian deaths that were undercutting the goals of the secret campaign.

...continued at link...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?_r=2

 

[maxiep]

I think it has to do more with Al Qaeda than with the Yemeni opposition.

 

[PapaG]

I think it has to do more with Al Qaeda than with the Yemeni opposition.

Al Qaeda is helping the Libyan "rebels".

 

[BrianFromWA]

Global War on Terror.

And with a couple of hundred thousand troops elsewhere occupied around the globe, having a pilot drop a $500 bomb on something seems to be a pretty good return on your "warheads-to-foreheads" buck. At considerably less risk than a lot of other operations we have going on right now.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Global War on Terror.

This.

 

[PapaG]

Global War on Terror.

And with a couple of hundred thousand troops elsewhere occupied around the globe, having a pilot drop a $500 bomb on something seems to be a pretty good return on your "warheads-to-foreheads" buck. At considerably less risk than a lot of other operations we have going on right now.

f

We're helping out AQ-funded rebels in Libya, and Muslim Brotherhood-funded rebels in Egypt.

Does the Obama Doctrine include supporting financing and military force for terrorists?

 

[BrianFromWA]

You'd have to ask him. Though I'd say that the US has had a policy of backing the, shall we say, "shady-esque" type of bedfellows for almost a century.

I was just responding to the bombing of Yemen and other places. I don't think it means (as I saw today) that we've gone from 2 wars to 4 on Obama's watch

 

[PapaG]

You'd have to ask him. Though I'd say that the US has had a policy of backing the, shall we say, "shady-esque" type of bedfellows for almost a century.

I was just responding to the bombing of Yemen and other places. I don't think it means (as I saw today) that we've gone from 2 wars to 4 on Obama's watch

Tell the families who have lost people due to US bombs in Libya and Yemen that.

If Libya was bombing targets in the US, would you consider that an act of war?

 

[BrianFromWA]

I don't think that Al-Qaeda has started a dozen wars in the last decade, if that's what you mean. And in WW2, I don't think we went to war with Morocco, then North Africa, then Italy, then France, then the NEtherlands, then Germany, then Japan, then Borneo, then the Phillippines, then China, etc...

 

[BrianFromWA]

And last time I checked (which was about 1/2 hour ago in the Watch Center), we still hadn't done anything militarily in or over Libya since the end of Operation Odyssey Dawn in March. Even if we were to right now, it'd be at the behest of the UN and NATO, not a war of aggression by the US.

 

[BrianFromWA]

You can go here (Operational Media Updates) for more info day-to-day

 

[PapaG]

And last time I checked (which was about 1/2 hour ago in the Watch Center), we still hadn't done anything militarily in or over Libya since the end of Operation Odyssey Dawn in March. Even if we were to right now, it'd be at the behest of the UN and NATO, not a war of aggression by the US.

Huh? We're funding NATO missions, and have spent ~$650 million there already.

US military operations in Libya are on course to cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Pentagon estimated, according to figures obtained by the Financial Times.

Robert Gates, the outgoing secretary of defence, said last month that the Pentagon expected to spend “somewhere in the ball park of $750m” in the 2011 fiscal year as part of efforts to protect the Libyan people.

The document, entitled the “United States Contribution to Operation Unified Protector’’, adds that US costs are running at a rate of about $2m a day or $60m a month. The memo has been circulating on Capitol Hill since last week. The DoD declined to comment on the increased costs of the operation.

The pace of spending is higher than reported by the DoD comptroller’s office in late March. In a congressional hearing, Pentagon officials said the US had spent about $550m on Libya, at a rate of about $40m a month.

If spending remains at the increased rate until the end of the recently extended Nato authorisation period, the DoD could face an extra bill of about $274m to pay for a combination of air strikes, refuelling operations and intelligence-gathering missions, putting further strain on its budget.

Continued at link

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/11d5624c-920f-11e0-b8c1-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Oo5j3Ow2

 

[PapaG]

Brian, are you really trying to separate the US from NATO, and absolve the US of any responsibility for what is going on in Libya?

I know you can't speak against the CIC, but really, I know you're not a dumb guy.

 

[BrianFromWA]

That says "US Costs". That has nothing to do with whether or not we're putting people on the ground or in the air over Libya. Which we're not, and haven't since March.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Brian, are you really trying to separate the US from NATO, and absolve the US of any responsibility for what is going on in Libya?

I know you can't speak against the CIC, but really, I know you're not a dumb guy.

Not at all, on all three counts. I'm not putting opinion into this, I'm just trying to put out some facts. Your initial post of "how many wars are we trying to start" and using Libya as the first one wasn', in my opinion, the right leap to make. The facts are that no US plane has flown over Libya, nor troop been on the ground, since the end of Odyssey Dawn in March. We're supporting NATO's effort to enforce the UN resolutions.

(My opinion is that there's probably a political reason that we've made that distinction...letting the others go in and blow stuff up while we carefully don't do anything offensively)

The "responsibility" over Libya lies with Gaddafi, and with the UN.

 

[PapaG]

That says "US Costs". That has nothing to do with whether or not we're putting people on the ground or in the air over Libya. Which we're not, and haven't since March.

WTF does that have to do with anything? We were bombing the shit out of them up until that point, and now we're providing funding to NATO, as well as launching missiles from the Mediterranean.

The US did fire on Libya, the conflict isn't over, and we're piling up more costs that we can't afford being Team America: World Police.

Also, I guess we could also say that we're not at war with Afghanistan, since it is a "NATO" mission.

 

[PapaG]

Brian, you'd better set these guys straight on how we aren't involved militarily in Libya.

Associated Press / June 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — A resolution before the US Senate pressures President Obama to seek congressional consent for continued US military involvement in Libya and requires the administration to provide a detailed justification for the decision to go to war.

Senators Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, and Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, introduced the resolution yesterday, expressing the same frustration with the commander in chief as House members who on Friday voted to rebuke Obama for not seeking authorization from Congress when he ordered airstrikes beginning March 19 against Moammar Khadafy’s forces.

The US Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war, and the 1973 War Powers Resolution requires the president to obtain congressional authorization within 60 days of the start of military operations, a deadline that passed last month.

“The issue . . . is whether a president, any president, can unilaterally begin and continue a military campaign for reasons that he alone has defined as meeting the demanding standards of a vital national security interest worthy of risking American lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers’ money,’’ Webb said. “What was the standard in this case?’’
Corker said it has been more than 80 days since the first US military action “but neither the Congress nor the American people have any clearer view of the administration’s stated mission or endgame for our military involvement in Libya.’’

While the rebels have made gains in Libya, Khadafy has maintained his grip on power, saying he will fight to the death.

Continued at link

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/a...ators_ask_obama_to_justify_us_role_in_libyan/

 

[BrianFromWA]

What it has to do with is the fact the we haven't dropped a single bomb, or missile or rock skipped across the water into Libya in months. For less than two weeks in March we complied with the UN resolution to set up and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, and then stopped all offensive action at the end of March. Even your quote above says "refueling" and "intelligence"...neither of which constitutes continued acts of war.

No, we're still in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and have been since October of 2001.

I don't know that we're providing funding to NATO. Maybe we are, I just don't know about it. But is it your contention that Gaddafi and 2M a day is what should cause us to leave NATO and break our treaty obligations after 60 years?

 

[BrianFromWA]

Brian, you'd better set these guys straight on how we aren't involved militarily in Libya.

I wish I could. I'd love to set a lot of people in Congress straight about a lot of things. But we don't get to. It's up to the citizens to rein in their leaders.

 

[PapaG]

What it has to do with is the fact the we haven't dropped a single bomb, or missile or rock skipped across the water into Libya in months. For less than two weeks in March we complied with the UN resolution to set up and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, and then stopped all offensive action at the end of March. Even your quote above says "refueling" and "intelligence"...neither of which constitutes continued acts of war.

No, we're still in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and have been since October of 2001.

I don't know that we're providing funding to NATO. Maybe we are, I just don't know about it. But is it your contention that Gaddafi and 2M a day is what should cause us to leave NATO and break our treaty obligations after 60 years?

There are still NATO airstrikes. Whether or not the US is flying does not matter one bit.

I think you're being fed some bad info, or you're wrapped up in semantics that don't really matter in the real world.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Your first sentence is your opinion, and I'm not going to argue it. What I will say is that one could say that it does matter one bit, and that's why Congress is sitting in the dark 3 months later.

My info comes from the Battle Watch Floor. It's the info we gather that goes into those briefs the admirals give the President. I'll arrogantly say that my stuff's the straight scoop, and the AP/NYT/Post gets whatever is parsed out afterwards.

 

[Ed O]

I don't know that we're providing funding to NATO. Maybe we are, I just don't know about it. But is it your contention that Gaddafi and 2M a day is what should cause us to leave NATO and break our treaty obligations after 60 years?

Isn't NATO funded by the contributions of each of its members, allocated by GDP?

I might be wrong, but that's the way it used to work. Of course, NATO used to exist because of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but it's outlived both of those things so ... who knows?

Ed O.

 

[Denny Crane]

So Obama reaches out to Muslims with warheads on foreheads. Got it.

 

[jlprk]

Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Yemen? Syria must be next.

We have other wars going, not just the ones Israel leverages us into. The US has been in Columbia since before Clinton. And had troops searching the Filipino jungles for revolutionaries for 10 years since early Little Bush.