Groundhog Foreign Policy

[Content Note: Drones; war.]

I feel like I am living in the movie Groundhog Day, except instead of watching Bill Murray step off the curb into an icy puddle over and over, I'm reading the same horrible fucking stories about the US' horrible fucking foreign policy with the same horrible fucking justifications.

During the Bush administration, so many strikes on alleged insurgents were justified by reports that we'd taken out "Al Qaeda's second in command" that it became a tragic punchline. Late-night chat show hosts would talk about having killed another #2 in their monologues; websites compiled lists of all the #2s we'd killed; The Onion reported: "Eighty Percent Of Al-Qaeda No. 2s Now Dead."

It wasn't funny; it was absurd. And when George W. Bush left office, we expected a new chapter. We expected something more—we were promised something more.

But that hasn't happened.

This morning:

A pair of suspected U.S. drone strikes killed four al Qaeda militants in Yemen as the United States maintained a heightened security alert in the country and urged all Americans to leave immediately.

Security sources told CNN about the strikes but didn't offer additional details. A Yemeni official said four drone strikes have been carried out in the past 10 days.

None of those killed on Tuesday were among the 25 names on the country's most-wanted list, security officials said.

It is unclear whether the strikes were related to the added security alert in the country after U.S. officials intercepted a message from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to operatives in Yemen telling them to "do something." The message was sent to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group's Yemeni affiliate. U.S. intelligence believes al-Wuhayshi has recently been appointed the overall terror organization's No. 2 leader.

Here we go again.


Maybe don't stay the course.