First U.S. Drone Strikes Under Trump
World Can't Wait | January 24, 2017
Obama's policy of unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations continues.
"The reliability of the determinations on who was slain in any given strike has been in substantial doubt during the Saudi war in Yemen," posts Jason Ditz at antiwar.com, "as most of the US special forces who had been spotting targets were withdrawn in the lead-up to the war, and it's not clear how they get intelligence on who they're aiming at."
There is no better time to stop the crimes of your government.
The Yemen strikes did not require Trump's signature; then-President Obama assigned authority to four-star commander of U.S. Central Command General Joseph Votel (left). But it does confirm the new president's determination to ensure that the United States remains the most dominant military power in the world. "Trust me, a lot of good things are going to happen if I get in [elected]," Trump said in a campaign rally with Sarah Palin, "but let's just sort of leave it the way it is."
In a January 4, 2016 interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Trump came out against direct U.S. intervention in the Yemen war unless the U.S. stood to benefit financially from its support, establishing profit as the bottom line for policy decisions. Press Secretary Sean Spicer thinks the President is "very keen on making sure that we maximize our use of natural resources to America's benefit," including the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.
It is unclear which Americans would benefit from Trump's imperial policy, commented Cody Permenter at grist.org. What is clear is that President Eisenhower's caution of the emergence of a self-perpetuating "military-industrial complex" has become today's reality. "The profit to be made by the private sector in the production of armaments was growing out of proportion to the economy and he warned that this gives incentive to provoke conflict," notes American peace activist Brian Terrell. "Since that time, the profitability has grown along with corporate influence on the electoral process and corporate control over the media...
"Instead of manufacturing weapons in order to wage war, the U.S. is now waging war in order to manufacture more weapons. The reality that U.S. drone strikes are a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda is good news for war profiteers, even as it is alarming to anyone who is interested in the security of the U.S. and the peace and stability of the counties where they are occurring."
Brian Terrell brings his West Coast Speaking Tour to San Francisco January 28th:
SF War Memorial Veterans Building, Room 202
401 Van Ness Boulevard, across from City Hall
12:00pm Meet & Greet and Refreshments
12:30pm Presentation
MI: Toby Blomé,
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