Continued Drones Over Yemen?

With the U.S., U.K. and France pulling out of Yemen, what is the U.S.'s continued authorization for drone strikes in Yemen? If Yemen has no government, how does the U.S. have authorization from the government for drone strikes? 

It is generally accepted that the drone strikes in Yemen are part of the CIA operated drone strikes rather than the military led ones (both are controversial). On March 25, 2010, Harold Koh, State Department Legal Advisor, stated that "it is the considered view of this Administration . . . that U.S. targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war." (1) This is based upon the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). That AUMF is not the one that Obama has recently asked to be repealed. 

As of Friday Feb 6, 2015,  the site The Long War Journal showed the following graph charting drone strikes in Yemen, charting 110 strikes since 2002.

The U.S. claims that they have the support of the Yemni government to help achieve their goal of eliminating Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. However, with the recent change in power/coup, who has given them that authorization?

On Jan 22, the Houthis seized control of the presidential palace and placed the President under house arrest. The President and his Cabinet soon tendered their resignations. While the negotiation is on going, both sides have walked out on different parts. The government that resigned is stating that the Houthis are threatening them with force if they do not agree to their specific plan to re-form the government. The U.S. is continuing to use drone strikes in this power vacuum.

How is this applicable to the U.S.? 

Well, as the U.S.'s current legal justification rests upon the consent of the now defunct government, is it business as usual until they are notified otherwise? How will they notify the U.S. if they no longer want the strikes to continue, if there are no U.S. personnel in the country? 

CNN is reporting that the Houthis took all U.S. Embassy vehicles parked at the airport and wouldn't let departing marines take their weapons. However, in the next non sensational paragraph, they state "a senior U.S. military official told CNN the Marines disabled their weapons and gave them to a Yemeni security detail, which had escorted them to the airport, because the Marines were flying commercial." 

Further in the CNN article, they state that U.S. officials had not yet engaged in talks with the Houthis as of last month. It is often difficult for the U.S. to "engage in talks" with opposition parties. The government often has problems with the U.S. talking with the "enemy" since the U.S. has a history of "regime change" in many of these countries.

As I wrote this article, The Washington Post published an article about the closure of the U.S. Embassy effecting the CIA operatives in the country (who often are stationed at U.S. Embassies and under diplomatic cover). Further, "a former senior U.S. official said that the embassy had served as the primary base in Yemen for U.S. intelligence operations." 

So not only is the lack of clear legal authority an issue, this closure will now effect the targeting of militants. 

Future of Cooperation?

While one member of the Houhis' political bureau has called U.S. drone strikes as a violation of Yemeni sovereignty, the Houthis do NOT like AQAP. In fact, they might hate AQAP than they dislike the U.S. This could work in the U.S.'s favor as eliminating a possible political threat to their new "all inclusive government" would coincide with the U.S.'s goal of eliminating AQAP. 

However, until a new government is formed, and an official statement released or communicated to the proper U.S. authorities, these questions will remained unanswered. 

For more interactive information, I suggest you head over to International Security to take a look at when and where strikes occurs as well as who was targeted or killed.

Sources not linked above are listed here: (1) Milena Sterio, "The United States' Use of Drones in the War on Terror: The (Il)legality of Targeted Killings Under International Law," Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, vol 45, 2012, p 199

This Guy's On To Something

Maajid Nawaz. You've probably never heard of him. I hadn't until Sunday night when Lesley Stahl of the good outstanding CBS news program 60 Minutes interviewed him and asked him about The Narrative, an ideology that since 9/11 has spread particularly among Western Muslims and says the United States has declared war against Islam. In the interview, Nawaz says subscribers to The Narrative believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were waged because the US hates Muslims, US foreign policy around the world is purposely, directly counter to Muslim interests, and the Muslim faith is in a fight to the death against annihilation by the West, with the US leading the charge against it. If you have been looking for a unified source of Islamic extremist ideology, this may very well be the closest thing to it.

Something even more interesting about The Narrative is its constituents. Many are born in Western countries, speak English, are well-off, and highly educated. Links between Major Nidal Malik Hasan, perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting last November, and The Narrative have been proposed; the same with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber.

Maajid Nawaz has particular authority to speak on the subject because he was once a true believer himself. A former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a pan-Islamist political movement that is "firmly anti-Western and deeply committed to The Narrative," according to the interview, Nawaz was recruited while attending the University of London (Adbulmutallab attended the University of London as well) and eventually arrested in Egypt for promoting Islamic extremism. And here is where the story takes an interesting twist:

During his trial, Nawaz remained defiant. He would walk in and out of court shouting out radical slogans. After he was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years, he was locked up with the assassins of Anwar Sadat and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Boy, if you weren't radicalized up until then, you certainly would've been then," Stahl remarked.

"Well, the interesting thing with these guys is that, in the 20 or so years since they've been imprisoned, they'd gone through a process where they had abandoned their jihadist views," he said.

"They did?" Stahl asked.

"Yeah. And my initial reaction was, 'Oh, my God, you've sold out.' And so, I approached them with an idea to try and actually convince them they were wrong," Nawaz said.

Nawaz believed he could "re re-convert" them. "And what ended up happening was through the discussion process, I began doubting the strength of my own convictions," he explained.

They were able to persuade him that today's radical ideology is closer to fascism than true Islam. So after four years in prison, he returned to England in 2006 and soon left HT...

He decided he wanted to make amends for the 13 years he had spent as a radical, so now he devotes himself to rebutting the very narrative he once passionately promoted.

"Frankly, Lesley, I think it's 'the' key factor in solving the problem we're experiencing in the world at the moment," he said. "Countering The Narrative is the core of the solution, making this narrative as unfashionable as Communism has become today."

Fascinating. The rest of the interview walks through Nawaz's campaign against The Narrative. He debates Islamic leaders on BBC news channels, holds discussions with students in his native Pakistan, and, at every turn, speaks against the ideology to which he once devoted his life. Absolutely fascinating. The whole interview is here; it is well worth the 15 minutes it takes to watch it, especially the rest of it after the above quoted section.

After watching the interview, I couldn't help but compare Nawaz to the Apostle Paul (once persecutor of Christians turned evangelist and writer of over half of the Bible's New Testament). Could Maajid Nawaz be Islam's modern-day Paul (in terms of Islamic extremism and the West)? Maybe. Personally, I think this guy's on to something.

Policy Recommendation: If the US is ever going to effectively secure itself against Islamic extremism, everyone in charge of our national security should be required to sit down and watch this interview. That would be Step One. Hopefully after that, Step Two would be in the right direction.