There is no dispute whatsoever about airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Bush launched wars in the first two countries and drone strikes in Pakistan have been in the news for a long time, with or without official acknowledgment. Airstrikes in those places continued under Obama. Somalia falls largely in the same category as Pakistan. The New York Times, BBC News and other news organizations reported airstrikes as early as 2007 against people linked to the al-Qaida network. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit news service based at City University London, maintains a running list of U.S. military actions in a number of countries, including Somalia and Yemen. The bureau annotates each incident with links to press reports. By its tally, American drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Somalia occurred under both Bush and Obama. The same pattern holds in Yemen. BBC News and Time magazine reported a CIA-directed drone attack in Yemen in 2002. This would increase Bush’s total to five countries, rather than the four Lizza cited. Lizza said he left Yemen off of Bush’s list because it was a one-off strike, rather than a more sustained bombing campaign. Probably deserves an asterisk. The air attacks on Libya that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 under Obama are well documented. In March 2011, the United States and British warships fired over 100 cruise missiles to destroy Libyan air defenses. And, of course, there’s now Syria. We might stop there but it is possible that the Philippines should be added to the rosters for both presidents. The New York Times cites three current and former intelligence officials as saying that drones fired Hellfire missiles at a suspected militant camp in the Philippines in 2006. And Akbar Ahmed, a professor at the American University School of International Service, wrote on the Brookings Institution website that a similar attack took place in 2012. If these reports are accurate, the totals for Bush and Obama would rise by one. The final, maximum number would be Bush 6: Obama 8.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:40:58 +0000
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