[Peace-discuss] FRIEDERSDORF: This Yemeni Loves America, Hates al-Qaeda, Says Drone Strikes Make Them Stronger

Wed Apr 24 23:38:20 UTC 2013

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/the-testimony-on-drone-strikes-that-might-change-minds/275248/

This Yemeni Man Loves America, Hates al-Qaeda, and Says Drone Strikes Make
Them Stronger
Farea al-Muslimi, a 22-year-old, described the time a Hellfire missile hit
his home village in testimony before a U.S. Senate committee.
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF <http://www.theatlantic.com/conor-friedersdorf/>**APR 24
2013, 6:00 AM ET**
  More
[image: drone in effigy full.jpg]
Angry Yemeni protesters burn a drone effigy. (Reuters)

A drone strike killed five people last week in the remote Yemeni village of
Wessab. Locals are still scared. Many knew at least one of the men who was
killed. But they didn't know that he was suspected of having ties to
al-Qaeda. If they'd known, they would've helped to arrest him, or forced
him to leave their village, or at least kept their distance lest they be
killed or maimed. It terrifies them that they didn't even know he was a
target. What if they'd been standing next to him?
What if their children had been standing next to him?
Americans wouldn't normally hear about how poor Yemeni villagers reacted to
a drone strike. But Wessab is the home village of Farea al-Muslimi, a
22-year-old democracy activist who is among the most pro-American voices in
Yemen. "I don't know if there is anyone on earth that feels more thankful
to America than me," he said Tuesday in testimony before a Senate
committee. "In my heart, I know I can only repay the opportunities,
friendship, warmth, and exposure your country provided me by being their
ambassadors to Yemenis for the rest of my life."
He is just the sort of cultural ambassador the U.S. is eager to recruit. "I
strongly believe that I have helped improve America's image, perhaps in
ways that an official ambassador or other diplomats cannot," he explained.
"I have access to ordinary Yemenis. For me, helping the people of my
country understand and know the America that I have experienced is a
passion, not a career."
But his efforts are being undermined -- and we're the culprits. In
emotional testimony, he stated that the Obama Administration's drone
strikes in Yemen "have made my passion and mission in support of America
almost impossible" and done more to empower al-Qaeda on the Arabian
Peninsula than to weaken it. This is his story and his vital advice, drawn
from his prepared remarks.
****

The remote mountain village of Wessab is nine hours' drive from Yemen's
capital. Farea al-Muslimi was raised there on a farm, where his family
lived off fruit, vegetables, and livestock. He would have 19 siblings but
for the fact that seven died as a result of inadequate medical care.
His life changed forever in 9th grade.
Thanks to a scholarship from the U.S. State Department, he was able to
study for a year at the American English Center in Yemen, his first
opportunity to see the world beyond his small village. He was subsequently
given a scholarship through a State Department exchange program meant to
improve understanding between Americans and Yemenis. He calls the year he
spent at Rosamond High School in Rosamond, California, one of the richest
and best of his life.
"I made exceptional friends with my American classmates and had the most
interesting and enriching experience one could imagine. I filled my days
spending time with American friends, learning about American culture,
visiting churches almost every Sunday, learning about Christianity for the
first time in my life, managing the school's basketball team, walking the
Relay for Life, and even participating in a trick or treat at Halloween. In
school, I won the Academic Excellence award in my U.S. History class, even
ahead of my American classmates," he stated. "The most exceptional
experience was coming to know someone who ended up being like a father and
is my best friend in the United States. He was a member of the U.S. Air
Force. Most of my year was spent with him and his family. He came to the
mosque with me and I went to church with him. he taught me about his
experiences in America and I taught him about my life in Yemen. We
developed an amazing friendship that overcame our very different
backgrounds."
A final State Department scholarship funded his college education at the
American University of Beirut, where he recently graduated with a degree in
public policy. He now works as a democracy activist and a freelance
journalist, often helping Western journalists to report in his country.
That work has afforded him the opportunity to interview people in the three
regions where the Obama Administration has focused its quasi-secret
targeted-killing operation in Yemen.
The insights gleaned from his reporting are themselves valuable.
"I have met with dozens of civilians who were injured during drone strikes
and other air attacks," al-Muslimi states. "I have met with relatives of
people who were killed as well as numerous eyewitnesses. They have told me
how these air strikes have changed their lives for the worst." On one
occasion, he met a man who described how "he stood helplessly as his
4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter died in his arms on the way to the
hospital." The man's house was targeted by mistake. He reported on another
strike that killed 40 civilians and spoke to a 12-year-old boy who cried
while describing being afraid of the drones buzzing overhead every night.
In al-Muslimi's estimation, "the killing of innocent civilians by U.S.
missiles in Yemen is helping to destabilize my country and create an
environment from which AQAP benefits." They use innocents killed by drone
strikes as a recruiting tool and rely on the impression drones create that
America is at war with all Yemenis. One little boy, whose father was killed
in a drone strike, carries a picture of a plane in his pocket and says he
wants revenge against his father's killer, "America." Drone strikes "are
the face of America to many Yemenis," he reports. "If America is providing
economic, social and humanitarian assistance to Yemen, the vast majority of
the Yemeni people know nothing about it. Everyone in Yemen, however, knows
about America and its drones."
In some places, hatred of the drone strikes is so strong that al-Muslimi
feels it is dangerous to even acknowledge having visited the U.S., never
mind having American friends and acquaintances.
As powerful as all his reporting is, however, what struck me most about his
testimony was his description of what happened when drone strikes touched
his own life. He was having dinner with a group of American friends last
week when his phone started to buzz with text messages. "For almost all of
the people in Wessab, I'm the only person with any connection to the United
States. They called and texted me that night with questions I could not
answer: Why was the United States terrifying them with these drones? Why
was the United States trying to kill a person with a missile when everyone
knows where he is and he could have been easily arrested?"
Despite all his reporting, he never imagined his own village, which doesn't
even register on Google Maps, could be the site of an American drone
strike. "In the past, most of Wessab's villagers knew little about the
United States," he said. "My stories about my experiences in America, my
American friends, and the American values that I saw for myself helped the
villagers I talked to understand the America that I know and love. Now,
however, when they think of America they think of the terror they feel from
the drones that hover over their heads ready to fire missiles at any time.
I personally don't even know if it is safe for me to go back to Wessab
because I am someone who people in my village associate with America and
its values." What American policymakers need to understand, he added, is
that "Wessab first experienced America through the terror of a drone
strike. What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one
drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and
growing hatred of America."
He is understandably conflicted.
"I hate AQAP. I don't support their ideology. I don't like the way they
have distorted my religion. And I despise their methods," he said. But "I
fear that these air strikes undermine the United States' effort to defeat
AQAP and win the hearts and minds of the Yemeni people." Look, America, at
how the drone campaign has affected one of the most pro-America Yemenis
that there is, a young man who lived among us, passionately hates al Qaeda
and owes every opportunity he's had to America.
As he put it:

Late last year, I was with an American colleague from an international
media outlet on a tour of Abyan. Suddenly, locals started to become
paranoid. They were moving erratically and frantically pointing toward the
sky. Based on their past experience with drone strikes, they told us that
the thing hovering above us -- out of sight and making a strange humming
noise -- was an American drone. My heart sank. I was helpless. It was the
first time that I had earnestly feared for my life, or for an American
friend's life in Yemen. I was standing there at the mercy of a drone.

I also couldn't help but think that the operator of this drone just might
be my American friend with whom I had the warmest and deepest friendship in
America. My mind was racing and my heart was torn. I was torn between the
great country I know and love and the drone above my head that could not
differentiate between me and some AQAP militant. I was one of the most
divisive and difficult feelings I have ever encountered. That feeling,
multiplied by the highest number mathematicians have, gripped me when my
village was droned just days ago. It was the worst feeling I have ever had.
I was devastated for days because I knew that the bombing in my village by
the United States would empower militants. Even worse, I know it will make
people like Al-Radmi look like a hero, while I look like someone who has
betrayed his country by supporting America.

This is some of the most powerful testimony on drones ever uttered in the
halls of the U.S. Congress. An informed Yemeni observer, eager for good
relations between our countries *and* the defeat of al-Qaeda, is insisting,
based on his personal experiences and professional judgment, that the Obama
Administration's drone war is doing more to empower al-Qaeda than to defeat
it.
Do supporters of our current policy have a response?

-- 

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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