On this day in 2011, an Obama-ordered drone strike killed 16 year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, his teenage cousin, and 5 other civilians as they were eating at an outdoor cafe in Southern Yemen.
Abdulrahman’s grandfather, described him as “a typical teenager — he watched “The Simpsons,” listened to Snoop Dogg, read “Harry Potter” and had a Facebook page with many friends. He had a mop of curly hair, glasses like me and a wide, goofy smile.”
His grandfather said, “I visited the site once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments.Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces.They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead.”
Abdulrahman’s grandfather discussing his life and his murder by US drone.
The US government has offered no explanation for why it targeted a Abdulrahman in a drone assassination, and lawsuits brought by his grandfather, like other lawsuits over drone deaths, have been dismissed.
Data has shown drone strikes often kill many more people than are targeted and the criteria to be put on the “kill list” is secret, arbitrary and often relies on flawed intelligence.
See —> theguardian.com/us-news/2014/n…
And here—> democracynow.org/2015/10/16/dro…

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More from @Americas_Crimes

8 Oct
On this day in 1967, the socialist revolutionary Ché Guevara was captured by U.S.-trained Bolivian soldiers in a C.I.A. operation. The following day the soldiers executed him, cut his hands off, looted his personal items as trophies and dumped his body in an unmarked grave.
The US government maintained for decades that the order to kill Che came from Bolivian leadership, but US gov documents released through FOIA show that the order for the kill operation came directly from the White House.
The US government was obsessed with assassinating Che. The US believed that his death would ensure that the example of the Cuban revolution would not inspire other revolutionary Socialist movements across the world.
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6 Oct
This week in 1976, CIA-funded, anti-Castro terrorists, bombed the civilian airliner Cubana de Aviación Flight 455, killing all 73 people aboard, including all 24 members of 1975 Cuban national fencing team, many of whom were just teenagers.
On October 6, 1976, two bombs exploded on the flight 455 headed from Barbados to Jamaica just 11 minutes after take-off. The bomb was disguised as Colgate toothpaste in a suitcase. nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2…
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3 Oct
On this day in 2015, the US Air Force committed a serious war crime by "repeatedly and precisely" attacking a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 patients and medical staff and injuring over 30 more.
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“The bombs hit & then we heard the plane circle round,” said Heman Nagarathnam, MSF head of programs in North Afghanistan. "There was a pause then more bombs hit. This happened again & again. When I made it out from the office, the main hospital building was engulfed in flames."
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23 Sep
On this day in 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran (after getting approval from the US) launching one of 20th century's most deadly wars, killing over 1 million people and injuring over 100,000 with U.S.-supplied chemical weapons.
In 2015, the legendary journalist Robert Parry found secret congressional documents referring to Jimmy Carter’s “Green Light” for Saddam’s invasion.
consortiumnews.com/2015/05/11/sad…
As early as 1982, just 2 years into the war, the US began providing major intelligence and weapons sales after it became clear Saddam would lose the war without major U.S. assistance.
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12 Sep
On this day in 1980, a right-wing military junta, trained by the US and led by General Kenan Evran, took power in a coup in Turkey, resulting in the arrests of 650,000, thousands more sentenced to death and hundreds tortured & killed.
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Thousands of teachers were fired, hundreds of journalists were fired and attacked, newspapers were closed, hundreds of films were banned and books were burned. The junta unleashed a wave of repression against working class and left-wing opponents of the regime.
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10 Sep
On Sept 11 1973, a CIA-backed coup overthrew Chile's democratic socialist president Salvador Allende & worked to install Gen. Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, who killed thousands, tortured tens of thousands & imprisoned over 130,000.
Upon Salvador Allende’s election victory in 1970, the CIA immediately began working to destabilize his government, viewing it as being too close to communists. The CIA spread propaganda through the press, facilitated economic destabilization and organized labor strikes/protests.
The US even provided the coup plotters within the military the missiles that they used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.
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