TRUTH ABOUT 16 YEAR OLD ABDULRAHMAN AL AWLAKI'S DEATH

I would like to call your attention to a little known fact associated with the 16-year old American Citizen killed by a drone strike in Yemen for two reasons. First, the circumstances surrounding the drone strike is a little known fact in America and in the world because the American media wanted to sensationalize the story of “Our government kills one of its own.” Not only was he one of “our own” but he was a 16 year old child—headline grabbing stuff that could make a journalistic career but only if some irresponsible journalist wrote it in a certain way and an equally irresponsible editor published it. The second reason is that the killing of this innocent boy was truly collateral damage. If our government had captured him and brought him to trial in the U.S. a jury would probably find him not guilty of terrorism, which is the tragedy of the story.

Consider the headline, “Innocent 16 year old U. S. citizen killed in collateral damage in Yemen”. The boy’s name was Abdulrahman al Awlaki, and his father was Anwar al-Awlaki. Abdulrahmon.  This story would be interesting but below the fold stuff; not earth-shaking nor worthy of follow up in the world press. However, in reality, the important information was in the truth; a drone strike occurred near the Azzan, Yemen. It targeted “Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda propagandist from North Carolina, Ibrahim al-Banna, the Egyptian media chief for al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, and a brother of Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaeda operative indicted in New York in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden” according to the president’s Press secretary (February 5, 2013 at 2:43 PM).

The death of the boy was due to collateral damage, which does not make it right but does put it in honest perspective. He was hanging out with al-Qaeda operatives for two reasons, because of his father’s associations and I assume because he was an American citizen he was especially valuable to al-Qaeda. Neither reason makes him a terrorist. I believe the media deliberately distorted the truth for poplar gain—like the Congress of the United States the public holds the media in low esteem and this kind of reporting is why.