Drones in yemen.
According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration will step up U.S. bombing of Yemen:
The CIA is expected to begin operating armed drone aircraft over Yemen, expanding the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in a country where counter-terrorism efforts have been disrupted by political chaos, U.S. officials said.The plan to move CIA-operated Predator and other unmanned aircraft into the region reflects a decision by President Obama that the al-Qaeda threat in Yemen has grown so serious that patrols by U.S. military drones are not enough.
Remember when people were complaining that President Obama wouldn't say we were in a war?
I suspect this will soon be the template in Somalia too, and possibly elsewhere: the U.S. will basically patrol lawless or semi-lawless states with unmanned, armed drones searching for terrorists and, occasionally, bombing them. It's preferable to occupying these countries but it does raise an obvious concern about the potential for collateral damage to spur more terrorism than the drone strikes are ostensibly curbing.
