An American Teenager in Yemen: Paying for the Sins of His Father?

[The Northerner]

A wave of CIA drone strikes targeting al-Qaeda figures in Yemen is stoking widespread anger here that U.S. policy is cruel and misguided, prioritizing counterterrorism over a genuine solution to the country's raging political crisis.

Politics have never been a concern to Sam al-Homiganyi and his fellow teenagers. This month, though, they were shocked by the sudden death of a friend and are struggling to understand why.

Fighting back tears, his gaze fixed downward, Homiganyi, a lean-looking 15 year-old from the outskirts of Sana'a, told TIME, "He was my best friend; we played football together everyday." Another of his friends spoke up, gesturing to the gloomy group of jean-clad boys around him: "He was the same as us. He liked swimming, playing computer games, watching movies... you know, normal stuff." (See photos of Yemen on the brink.)

The dead friend was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old born in Denver, Colorado, the third American killed in as many weeks by suspected CIA drone strikes in Yemen. His father, the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, also an American citizen, was killed earlier this month, along with alleged al-Qaeda propagandist Samir Khan, who was from New York. When Abdul Rahman's death was first reported in the western press, his age was given as 21 by local Yemeni officials. Afterwards, however, the Awlaki family put out a copy of Abdulrahman's birth certificate.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097899,00.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. Related - WP: U.S. airstrike that killed American teen in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2169772">WP: U.S. airstrike that killed American teen in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions

One week after a U.S. military airstrike killed a 16-year-old American citizen in Yemen, no one in the Obama administration, Pentagon or Congress has taken responsibility for his death, or even publicly acknowledged that it happened.

The absence of official accountability for the demise of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a Denver native and the son of an al-Qaeda member, deepens the legal and ethical murkiness of the Obama administration’s campaign to kill alleged enemies of the state outside of traditional war zones.

Unlike the secretive U.S. airstrikes that have killed hundreds of foreigners in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, this case involved an American teenager. He was killed by the U.S. military in a country with which Washington is not at war.

Officials throughout the U.S. government, however, have refused to answer questions for the record about how or why Awlaki was killed Oct. 14 in a remote part of Yemen, along with eight other people.

PB