40 New Enemies Created With Each New Drone Attack
Nabeel Khoury, a former State Department official says each time we kill suspected terrorists with drone attacks we create 40-60 new enemies
“Drone strikes take out a few bad guys to be sure, but they also kill a large number of innocent civilians. Given Yemen’s tribal structure, the U.S. generates roughly forty to sixty new enemies for every AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] operative killed by drones,” Khoury wrote in an article for the Cairo Review.
Khoury, who now works as a fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says drones cannot substitute for coherent foreign policy in Yemen. The current approach by the Obama administration towards the Middle Eastern country “reflects ambivalence, uncertainty and conflicting goals,” he wrote.
