News Analysis: US airstrikes counterproductive in Yemen, Iraq
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E-mail Xinhua, August 13, 2014
The United States has recently approved limited airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq at a time when the al-Qaida in Yemen is continuing to prove its capability to hit back through seizing towns and carrying out deadly operations despite the drone strikes.
Yemeni observers said U.S. war interventions in the region have failed or rather have turned to be counterproductive as violence is still engulfing Yemen and Iraq.
Abdul Salam Muhammad, head of ABAAD center for strategic studies, said the United States does not want to help the governments in Iraq and Yemen and airstrikes either by jet fighters or drones aimed to keep its influence and protect U.S. investments in the two countries.
Persistent violence in Iraq and the dominance of IS remains a direct result of the U.S. policies in this country which led the 2003 invasion on false grounds, he said, while adding that the problem of the U.S. drones is not only restricted to killing innocents but also violating Yemen's airspace.
"One of the most important effects of the drones is that the United States does not sincerely help countries where it sends its drones but focuses on possible dangers threatening its own security," Muhammad said.
"In other words, Yemen has violent groups threatening its stability and interests like al-Qaida or maybe more than Al-Qaida does; we don't see the U.S. use of its drones to target such groups though," Muhammad said.
Nabil Albukiri, head of the Arab center of political studies and development and specialist on Islamic groups, said what the United States is doing in Iraq at the moment is part of its strategy to serve and support some political groups in the country.
"The United States continues to intervene militarily in the region in a way that convinces all that the United States is in a strategic struggle with other world powers not helping Iraqis. The point is that the United States is seeking to prolong instability of the region with the aim to exploit the war on terror issue to achieve political gains," Albukiri said.
AIRSTRIKES IN YEMEN, IRAQ
The United States depends on airstrikes to beat violent groups in the region because airstrikes cost less than direct engagement in wars and leave less impact than those caused by invasion, as the United States seems to have sheltered to drones as an alternative strategy of support after it realized the failure and huge losses and impacts of wars, experts in Yemen said.
Najeeb Ghalab, a politics professor at Sanaa University, said the recent U.S. decision to target the IS in Iraq with warplanes was pathetic and, like Yemen, Iraq will not be victorious with U.S. airstrikes because the United States is playing contradictory roles in the two countries.
"The United States led the invasion on Iraq in 2003. Did the invasion help Iraq as we hear that tens of innocents are killed in bombings every day," Ghalab said, adding that "IS is stronger than the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula (AQAP) and that means those who could not do something to small and weak groups can't do something to the largest and most dangerous ones."
However, the international community urged the United States to take actions in Iraq because it has discovered that the 2003 invasion has not helped Iraqis.
"As if the United States wants to correct its mistakes," Ghalab said, adding that "the true ends of U.S. military interventions in the region remain very complicated though."
In this context, international organizations, including the Britain-based Reprieve, said the Yemeni government has demonstrated their willing to cooperate on the global U.S.-led war on terror paving the way for the United States to do what it sees to be suitable to serve its national security.
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE INVOLVEMENT
Reprieve said the U.S. drone strikes have become counterproductive after they killed many civilians.
Katie Taylor, Reprieve's coordinator on Yemen's project, said there were at least 189 U.S. drone strikes in Yemen during the period from 2009 to 2014, while pointing out that it is difficult to get the accurate statistics of drone strikes and casualties because of the complete lack of transparency in the operations.
"U.S. drone strikes in Yemen killed a total of between 1,073 and 1,533 people during the same period. Reprieve has collated public source data on civilian casualties for 53 out of the total 189 recorded strikes during December 2009 to present. These 53 drone strikes killed between 313 and 492 people, of which between 118 and 323 were civilians," Taylor added.
However, local media in Yemen reported that during 2009 to 2014, about 200 civilians were killed in U.S. drones strikes targeting al-Qaida militants.
Cori Crider, a U.S. lawyer who heads Reprieve's Abuses in Counter-Terrorism team, said the drone strikes undermine the national security of both Yemen and the United States. "That is because every strike that kills an innocent, like the innocents killed in the Rada'a and Khashamir strikes last August and September, increases sympathy in Yemen for al-Qaida," Crider said.
The human rights groups in Yemen repeatedly accused the United States of breaking international law and perhaps committing war crimes by killing civilians in missile and drone strikes that were intended to hit militants.
"When it comes to Yemen, the drones remain a normal policy as Yemen continues to depend largely (if not completely) on other countries to make decisions on key issues especially during the transition period," Albukiri said.
So is the Iraqi government, which faces military aggression from IS, growing militia and divided political parties. Endi
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