Ok, I think a brief summary of the Al-Alwaki's son hanging out with terrorists discussion is in order
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzzer99
Not sure how this BBQ thing keeps coming up other than some family members claim on wiki. Here's Time's take:
It sucks that a kid got killed, but when you are running around with terrorists that the US and Yemeni govt is trying to kill for weeks those things can happen.
Here suzzer quotes a Time article citing an unnamed us official who triumphantly went to the press to proclaim that AQ press secretary Ibrahim Al-Banna was killed in the strike.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clemensol
Some of us are a little hesitant to take unnamed US officials at their word *gasp* *shock* *horror*. I mean, what do you expect to come out of the CIA after something like this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzzer99
Well I would assume there can be some fact-checking into whether al-Banna was also killed. We know Al-Alwaki's son left home to go looking for him, so there's no reason to be surprised if he's in the same company as a high-value target.
I do a quick google search:
Quote:
Originally Posted by clemensol
hahaha, apparently Yemen's Interior Ministry has yet to go about fact checking. From earlier this week. Whoops:
If our brave unnamed officials want to make up a story about the 16 year old hanging around a Super Scary Terrorist, they could at least make sure the SST is actually dead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzzer99
hmmm, so is he dead or not? I agree it's kind of ridiculous that the website you linked is the only one that seems to be reporting on this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clemensol
He definitely looks alive to me. The spelling in both names is different, but how many Ibrahim Al-banna's from Egypt who are high ranking members of AQ in Yemen can there be? Plus, AQ denied he was killed in the strike at the time.
Suzzer refuses to believe:
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzzer99
So the Yemeni govt was definitely lying then but definitely telling the truth now?
And now, a new
report gives us some closure on the Al-Bann'a dead or alive issue:
By not widely reported, they mean that this is the first disclosure from a serious news organization that Al-Bann'a is alive, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE YEMENI GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED HE WAS ALIVE MONTHS AGO. I've been emailing journalists to try to get some coverage of this, but apparently no one cares enough about the death of a 16 year old to do a ****ing google search to check if the government version of events is remotely believable. Keep in mind, that when Al-Bann'a was "killed" it was deemed a serious enough story to warrant widespread media coverage. But now that he's alive and the only people apparent victims of the strike were some teenagers, we get absolute silence.
The whole article is worth the read, and, suzzer, hopefully we've learned our lesson about trusting super serious journalists who quote unnamed US sources on the casualties in drone strikes.
Last edited by clemensol; 04-14-2012 at 02:25 PM.