A drone strike in Wessab, Yemen on April 18 was discussed at a Senate hearing on April 23 by Farea Al-Muslimi, a man who grew up in the Yemeni village. Now a journalist and activist, he was educated in the United States thanks to a State Department scholarship and the hospitality of an American family in California.In his testimony to the Senate (Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights), he reported "For almost all of the people in Wessab, Im the only person with any connection to the United States. They called and texted me that night with questions that I could not answer: Why was the United States terrifying them with these drones? Why was the United States trying to kill a person with a missile when everyone knows where he is and he could have been easily arrested?" Transcript of his testimony.He asks all the questions the Obama Administration, the CIA, etc., don't want to address about arresting people instead of killing them, about collateral damage, and about creating more terrorists through anger over the drones. Will the subcommittee with such an august title press the questions? HT: Juan Cole

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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