{"id":14726,"date":"2012-04-17T09:03:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T17:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=14726"},"modified":"2012-04-17T09:10:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T17:10:01","slug":"aclu-files-foia-for-obamas-mass-murder-missile-strike-in-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/17\/aclu-files-foia-for-obamas-mass-murder-missile-strike-in-yemen\/","title":{"rendered":"ACLU Files FOIA for Obama&#8217;s Mass Murder Missile Strike in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/blog\/national-security\/seeking-truth-about-us-targeted-killing-strike-killed-dozens-women-and\">ACLU&#8217;s Blog of Rights<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Today the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/files\/assets\/al-majalah_missile_foia.pdf\">filed a Freedom of Information Act request<\/a>\u00a0seeking information about a horrific U.S. missile strike that killed dozens of civilians in Yemen.<\/p>\n<p>This was the Obama administration&#8217;s first known missile strike in Yemen, carried out with one or more cruise missiles launched from an American warship or submarine on December 17, 2009. The U.S. military reportedly used\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/news-and-updates\/yemen-images-missile-and-cluster-munitions-point-us-role-fatal-attack-2010-06-04\">cluster bombs<\/a>, killing at least 41 people in the remote mountain village of al-Majalah in Yemen&#8217;s Abyan province. The government was purportedly targeting &#8220;militants,&#8221; but those killed include at least 21 children and 14 women. Entire families were wiped out. It is the worst reported loss of civilian life from a U.S. targeted killing strike in Yemen to date.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;The U.S. asserts the right to use lethal force against suspected terrorists\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/blog\/national-security\/targeted-killing-drone-strikes-secret-or-not-government-wants-it-both-ways\">anywhere in the world<\/a>, a claim that is legally questionable and deeply controversial, not least because killings far from any battlefield increase the risk that innocent civilians will die. Government officials repeatedly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/31\/world\/middleeast\/civilian-deaths-due-to-drones-are-few-obama-says.html?_r=2\">minimize<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/blog\/national-security\/civilian-deaths-cia-drone-strikes-zero-or-dozens\">deny<\/a>\u00a0civilian deaths caused by the targeted killing program, but increasing reports of civilian casualties caused by strikes in Yemen,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebureauinvestigates.com\/category\/projects\/drones\/\">Pakistan<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2011\/apr\/10\/world\/la-fg-afghanistan-drone-20110410\">elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0raise serious questions about whether the government is violating international and domestic law by failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and by using lethal force away from active battlefields.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Uk-40vkDnGw\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t9kdx6GQAo8\">the full video here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From ACLU&#8217;s Blog of Rights: Today the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights\u00a0filed a Freedom of Information Act request\u00a0seeking information about a horrific U.S. missile strike that killed dozens of civilians in Yemen. This was the Obama administration&#8217;s first known missile strike in Yemen, carried out with one or more cruise missiles launched from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_social_image_id":0,"_social_image_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","_social_image_id":false,"subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14728,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726\/revisions\/14728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14726"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}