Tag Archive: Yemen


US House defence bill blocks Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo Bay prison

Filed under: bureaucracy, Fraud, Government, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Lack Of Transparency, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Special Interests, Terror Plots / Suspects, Unethical, War on terror — 1 Comment
June 17, 2013

Republican-controlled chamber also limits president’s attempt to reduce nuclear weapons in version at odds with Senate bill

Detention center at Guantanamo Bay

The House voted down – by 249 to 174 – an amendment to close the naval detention centre by 31 December 2014. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a sweeping, $638bn defence bill that would block President Barack Obama from closing the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, and limit his efforts to reduce nuclear weapons.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted 315-108 for the legislation – which also authorises money for aircraft, weapons, ships, personnel and the war in Afghanistan. It must be reconciled with a Senate version before heading to the president’s desk.

Despite last-minute lobbying by Obama counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, the House soundly rejected Obama’s repeated pleas to shutter Guantánamo. In recent weeks, the president implored Congress to close the facility in Cuba, citing its prohibitive costs and its role as a recruiting tool for extremists.

A hunger strike by more than 100 of the 166 prisoners protesting against their conditions and indefinite confinement has prompted the fresh calls for closure. Obama is pushing to transfer approved detainees – there are 86 – to their home countries and lift a ban on transfers to Yemen. Fifty-six of the 86 are from Yemen.

 

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A Desperate Situation at Guantánamo: Over 130 Prisoners on Hunger Strike, Dozens Being Force Fed

Filed under: Blow back, Complacency / Apathy, Depravity, Fraud, Government Overreach, History, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Military Maneuvers, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Special Interests, War on terror, Wars and Rumors of War — Leave a comment
May 1, 2013

democracynow democracynow

Published on Apr 29, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – The U.S. military has acknowledged for the first time the number of prisoners on hunger strike at the military prison has topped 100. About a fifth of the hunger strikers are now being forced fed. Lawyers for the prisoners say more than 130 men are taking part in the hunger strike, which began in February. One of the hunger strikers is a Yemeni man named Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel. In a letter published in the New York Times, he wrote: “Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made. I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.” We speak to attorney Carlos Warner who represents 11 prisoners at Guantánamo. He spoke to one of them on Friday. “Unfortunately, they are held because the president has no political will to end Guantánamo,” Warner says. “The president has the authority to transfer individuals if he believes that it’s in the interest of the United States. He doesn’t have the political will to do so because 166 men in Guantánamo don’t have much pull in the United States. But the average American on the street does not understand that half of these men, 86 of the men, are cleared for release.”

 

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Bomber involved in plot to attack US-bound jet was working as an informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA

Filed under: Black Ops, Corruption, Excessive Use Of Force, False Flag, Fraud, Freedom of Information, Government Overreach, Harassment, History, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Irrational Fear, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Main Stream Media Manipulations/Lies, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Surveillance, Terror Plots / Suspects, Unethical, War Crimes, War on terror, World News — 8 Comments
April 1, 2013

Hmmmm,  very  interesting development and  of  course  I  had  not hear d  a peep from the MSM.  Or  was  it  just   that  I  missed it ?

It  makes  you   wonder  how  they  will explain  this.  Was  it t e  US that  planned a  false  flag to  justify  all the  killing  an  warmongering. 

Was  it  Saudi Arabia again involved  in a terror  plot  against the  US?

Were  they  working  together   to  create  a false  flag  to  facilitate  the erosion of  our Rights  and the destruction of the  Constitution?

Rahm  Emmanuel  said  ” Never  let a  good  crisis  go to waste”.  I  supose  if  one  does  not  occur  on its  own  then  in their  twisted  minds  it is  perfectly  acceptable to  create one…….Reminds  me  of  another false  flag  that  led to  all these illegal  wars.  Lies ,  murder, genocide all  under the  guise  of  defense  of our  Nation,   A  War  on Terror   that  is being  perpetrated  by the  real  Terrorists and  the  subjugation and  destruction  of this Nation.

I hope everyone is paying  attention, because  if things  continue the  way  they  are  that  final  exam is  going to  be a  doozie!!

~Desert Rose~

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 24-year-old who tried to blow up a plane using an underwear bomb on Christmas Eve, 2009, entered a plea of guilty today in Federal Court a day after testimony began at his trial began. The underwear bomber, who has been linked to Al Qaeda, was unapologetic for his actions.
View PhotoAssociated Press/ABC News, File – FILE – This undated 2009 file image obtained and provided by ABC News shows underpants with the explosive used on a failed plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas
ABC News from a video produced by al Qaeda, accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in his training class fire weapons at a desert camp in Yemen

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Underwear bomber’ was working for the CIA

Yemeni soldiers search a car

‘Underwear bomber’ involved in a plot to attack jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with the CIA, it has emerged. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

A would-be “underwear bomber” involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.

The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.

The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.

It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso.

But the news that the individual at the heart of the bomb plot was in fact an informer for US intelligence is likely to raise just as many questions as it answers.

Citing US and Yemeni officials, Associated Press reported that the unnamed informant was working under cover for the Saudis and the CIA when he was given the bomb, which was of a new non-metallic type aimed at getting past airport security.

The informant then turned the device over to his handlers and has left Yemen, the officials told the news agency. The LA Times, which first broke the news that the plot had been a “sting operation”, said that the bomb plan had also provided the intelligence leads that allowed the strike on Quso.

Earlier John Brennan, Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser and a former CIA official, told ABC’s Good Morning America that authorities are “confident that neither the device nor the intended user of this device pose a threat to us”.

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White House Changing Story on Anwar al-Awlaki? A Debate on NYT’s Inside Account of ’11 Drone Strike

Filed under: Assassination / Assassination Attempt, Black Ops, Corruption, Depravity, Excessive Use Of Force, Fraud, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, History, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Murder, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Psy - Ops, Rule Of Law, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Terror Plots / Suspects, The American Constitution, Unethical, Unmanned Drones, War Crimes, War on terror, World News — Leave a comment
March 11, 2013

Guests

Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times. Along with Mark Mazzetti and Charlie Savage, he recently co-wrote a front-page article for the Times called “How a U.S. Citizen Came to Be in America’s Cross Hairs.”

Jesselyn Radack, National Security & Human Rights director at the Government Accountability Project. She is former ethics adviser to the United States Department of Justice.

The New York Times’ front-page account of the U.S. assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki has drawn criticism from critics of the Obama administration’s targeted killings overseas. In a joint statement, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights called the story “the latest in a series of one-sided, selective disclosures that prevent meaningful public debate and legal or even political accountability for the government’s killing program.” We discuss the article and the White House assassination program with two guests: Scott Shane, national security reporter at The New York Times, and Jesselyn Radack, National Security & Human Rights director at the Government Accountability Project and former legal ethics adviser at the Justice Department. [includes rush transcript]

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re looking at the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, and his son two weeks later. This was in September of 2011, Anwar Awlaki’s targeted killing by a U.S. drone in Yemen, and his son, Abdulrahman. Both were born in the United States. His son, 16 years old, was born in Denver. Anwar al-Awlaki’s father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, spoke recently about the U.S. killing of his 16-year-old grandson by this drone strike in Yemen, October 14th, 2011. The attack came as the Denver-born teenager, Abdulrahman, was eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant with his teenage cousin. He was killed just weeks after his father was assassinated.

NASSER AL-AULAQI: I want Americans to know about my grandson, that he was very nice boy. He was very caring boy for his family, for his mother, for his brothers. He was born in August 1995 in the state of Colorado, city of Denver. He was raised in America, when he was a child until he was seven years old. And I never thought that one day this boy, this nice boy, will be killed by his own government.

AMY GOODMAN: That was a video prepared by the ACLU of the grandfather of Anwar—of Abdulrahman and the father of Anwar al-Awlaki. His name is Nasser al-Aulaqi. Scott Shane, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights issued a statement in response to your article. The statement read in part, quote, “In anonymous assertions to The New York Times, current and former Obama administration officials seek to justify the killings of three U.S. citizens even as the administration fights hard to prevent any transparency or accountability for those killings in court. This is the latest in a series of one-sided, selective disclosures that prevent meaningful public debate and legal or even political accountability for the government’s killing program, including its use against citizens. Government officials have made serious allegations against Anwar al-Aulaqi, but allegations are not evidence, and the whole point of the Constitution’s due process clause is that a court must distinguish between the two. If the government has evidence that Al-Aulaqi posed an imminent threat at the time it killed him, it should present that evidence to a court,” unquote. Scott Shane, you’re the co-author of this front-page Sunday Times piece, “A U.S. Citizen … in America’s Cross Hairs.” Can you respond?

SCOTT SHANE: Sure. Well, I mean, I should say that we at The New York Times, we’re reporters: We’re all for transparency. And one thing that that statement from the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights failed to mention was that The New York Times also has sued the government to try to get the legal opinions justifying Anwar al-Awlaki’s death, but also all the targeting, all the legal opinions on targeted killings. We’ve lost at the district court level, and that case is now on appeal, but we would like obviously much greater transparency. And part of the reason we do a lot of reporting and put a long story in the paper like that is to shed as much light as we can on the circumstances of his death.

I think—you know, I mean, people can certainly read the ACLU press release and draw their own conclusion, but, you know, in essence, our article was saying that while there was a lengthy process of sort of legal study and debate inside the administration before they decided or justified the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, they had in fact decided they couldn’t kill, could not target—that is, Samir Khan, because he was a propagandist and not an actual plotter. But he was killed anyway. And some people in the administration, I think, you know, found that that sort of cast a shadow on the long legal discussion about who you could kill and who you couldn’t kill, because they had killed both of them. And I think, you know, I can say that I—that, in general, across the government, the death of the 16-year-old, who, again, was not, as far as anyone knows, associated with terrorism, is seen as a disastrous mistake. And certainly the article pointed that out.

So, you know, I think that press release is a little, perhaps, imaginative in suggesting that the story was defending the administration. In actual fact, the White House wouldn’t talk to us either on or off the record, and we got the information that we could, you know, where we could get it. You know, as the story says, it raises questions about the claims of the administration that this targeted killing program has been precise and very careful in who it targets and who it kills.

AMY GOODMAN: Jesselyn Radack, I want to bring you into the conversation, National Security & Human Rights director at the Government Accountability Project, former ethics adviser to the U.S. Department of Justice under President Bush. Your response to the article and the justifications by the Obama administration for the targeted killings?

JESSELYN RADACK: My response to the article was that it was very much like the June article The New York Times did about the kill list. And The New York Times, here again, gives a platform to the government to justify why it killed three U.S. citizens without charge, counsel or judicial review.

And while Scott just talked about how the article is committed to transparency and neutrality, the article actually picks up a storyline only recently floated by the government, that Awlaki was operational rather than a mere propagandist. That storyline, that narrative from the government, only came out after the white paper was released. Yet, The New York Times works hard to make the case that he had somehow evolved from being a propagandist to being operational. And that’s important because the operational factor is what makes him eligible for a drone strike.

Unfortunately, the other thing that makes him eligible is being an imminent threat, which The New York Times did not seem to go into detail about. So I feel like The New York Times has been carrying the government’s water in picking up its argument and, again, trying to make the case ex post facto that it was OK to kill Awlaki because he was somehow operational, even though Brennan, in Brennan’s own speech, said that to be eligible for droning you would have to be a senior operational leader of al-Qaeda, that you would have to bring a specific skill, and that it would have to be based on evidence, not mere allegations.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Shane?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, actually, it’s not the case that the information that Anwar al-Awlaki had become so-called operational, an operational terrorist, came out only in recent months, after the—in recent weeks, after the white paper was leaked. We reported that, along with most of the rest of the news media back in early 2010, when he was in fact put on the kill list, we were told. And that was because of the eyewitness testimony of Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up the plane over Detroit. You know, the case that Anwar al-Awlaki was in favor of killing large numbers of American civilians, you know, I have to say, was pretty strong. He said it himself many times in speeches and lectures and messages on the Internet. You know, he didn’t hide his approval for the Fort Hood shootings. He actually spoke of his helping train Abdulmutallab to attack the airliner. So it wasn’t—you know, his intentions were not mysterious or hidden behind the classification that has, you know, sort of obscured a lot of this.

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The Death of Adnan Latif a Guantánamo Bay prison detainee,

Filed under: bureaucracy, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, History, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Special Interests, Terror Plots / Suspects, Unethical, War Crimes, War on terror, Wars and Rumors of War, World News — Leave a comment
February 8, 2013

Death of a Prisoner: The filmmaker Laura Poitras follows the tragic return home to Yemen of a Guantánamo Bay prison detainee, Adnan Latif.

 

Watch Video Here

By LAURA POITRAS

When President Obama pledged to close the Guantánamo Bay prison on his first day in office as president in 2009, I believed the country had shifted direction. I was wrong. Four years later, President Obama has not only institutionalized Guantánamo and all the horrors it symbolizes, but he has initiated new extrajudicial programs, like the president’s secret kill list.

In September 2012 I read the news that another prisoner at Guantánamo had died, and I knew I had probably met his family. I traveled to Yemen in 2007 with the idea of making a film about a Guantánamo prisoner. I went there with the Guantánamo lawyer David Remes. He met with families and delivered the news of their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands. I had hoped to film the journey of someone being released from Guantánamo and returning home. Five years later, I find myself making that film, but under tragic circumstances.

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Terminator Obama-2013: The Rise of Domestic Killer Drones

Filed under: Child Abuse, Collateral Damage, Complacency / Apathy, Excessive Use Of Force, Government, Government Overreach, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Military Maneuvers, Murder, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Rule Of Law, Unmanned Drones, War Crimes, War on terror, Wars and Rumors of War, Weaponry / Armament, World News — Leave a comment
February 1, 2013

Richard Sawyer
Sott.net
Thu, 31 Jan 2013 05:51 CST

Acclimatization: Cover of upcoming Time Magazine

In absolute disregard for both the US Constitution and international law, US drones are currently killing civilians, including women and children1, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Uganda and the Philippines. Thousands have been killed, and tens of thousands more terrorized, by fleets of remote-controlled ‘drone’ aircraft.2

For those living in these drone-infested regions, the reality they experience on a daily basis is horrifying. In the dark future envisaged in the science fiction Terminator movies, human decisions are removed from strategic operations once an artificial intelligence (AI) called ‘Skynet’ takes control. In real life we have the conscienceless Military-Industrial Complex – run by humanoids in the CIA, Pentagon, British Ministry of Defence, US and UK Government administrations and weapons manufacturers – working together to develop a war machine that has removed all semblance of humanity from combat operations. In the movies we’re invited to excuse Skynet’s creators because it is no longer under their control. In real life, terminator drones are programmed to ‘double-tap’ their targets, a euphemism for deliberately targeting rescuers attempting to drag victims from rubble in the aftermath of the initial drone strike. The predictable result, is that for every “terrorist” killed in Pakistan 49 civilians are murdered also .

10,000 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) aka drones are said to be currently in service around the globe, “protecting Western civilization from terrorists”. A thousand of these are armed and most of them are American-operated. It is reported they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11 (and that’s just the ‘official estimates’). While military personnel cuts have shrunk the sizes of standing armies, ‘theaters of operations’ have expanded. In the US, the ‘FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012′, has seen the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and other agencies work towards the total integration of commercial drones into US airspace. Ethical and privacy concerns are simply swept aside while the proliferation of drone technology is driven by the greed of powerful defense contractors.

Obama Loves Death-Dealing Drones

drone assassination

The assassination of 16-year old US citizen Abdulrahman Al-awlaki

Michael Boyle, who was on Obama’s counter-terrorism group in the run-up to his election in 2008, writes that Obama abandoned his pledge to restore respect for the rule of law following the Bush administration. What we have now instead is a commander-in-chief with a secret kill list who thinks it’s OK to just terminate anyone he suspects ‘might be a terrorist’.

He said Obama “has been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor… while President Bush issued a call to arms to defend ‘civilisation’ against the threat of terrorism, President Obama has waged his war on terror in the shadows, using drone strikes, special operations and sophisticated surveillance to fight a brutal covert war against al-Qaida and other Islamist networks.”

Drones have enabled the Obama administration to continue Bush’s war on terror more cheaply and in a more publicly palatable manner. By changing the rhetoric and strategy, and assisted by a silent and obedient media, Obama’s drone war gets little public attention. Earlier this year the White House won a court case to keep its reasons for drone killings of Americans secret. The case referred to the 2011 drone assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan and al-Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki – all US nationals.

Economist John Aziz said Obama’s lack of transparency regarding drones makes him a member of ‘Drone Club‘; the first rule of Drone Club being that you don’t talk about it. Obama claims that the drone strikes are conducted on a very rigorous basis:

1. “It has to be a target that is authorized by our laws.”

2. “It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.”

3. “It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”

4. “We’ve got to make sure that in whatever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties.

5. “That while there is a legal justification for us to try and stop [American citizens] from carrying out plots … they are subject to the protections of the Constitution and due process.”

And yet, as Wired notes:

At least two of those five points appear to be half-truths at best. In both Yemen and Pakistan, the CIA is allowed to launch a strike based on the target’s “signature” – that is, whether he appears to look and act like a terrorist. As senior U.S. officials have repeatedly confirmed, intelligence analysts don’t even have to know the target’s name, let alone whether he’s planning to attack the U.S. In some cases, merely being a military-aged male at the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to justify your death.

When asked by journalist Ben Swann whether his sanctioning of extra-judicial killing (killing without trial or due process) is legal, Obama brushed his question aside by deferring to ‘national security’:

Rise of the Domestic Drones

Drone NYPD

© NYPD

Back in the US, at least ten law enforcement agencies already have drones for surveillance purposes. Soon the largest local law enforcement agency, the NYPD, will be added to that list. Drones have already been approved by courts for assisting in arrests of citizens on US soil. The FAA has received at least 60 applications for drone deployment in the US and this month alone approved 348 drones for domestic use, mostly for monitoring illegal immigration along the Mexican border, but drones will soon be used to monitor cities nationwide.

Commercial drones are being developed for a wide-range of applications. They can be fitted with a number of remote sensors such as electromagnetic spectrum, biological, gamma ray and chemical sensors. Applications include telecommunications, weather forecasting, maritime monitoring and construction. Using GPS, drones can be used for the transportation of food, medicines and equipment. Aerial surveillance is a major area for use in policing, journalism, security, photography and movie-making. Other applications include search and rescue, oil and mineral exploration, researching inaccessible areas and environmental support. (See this infographic for more details).

Congress has mandated that US airspace be fully opened to drones by September 2015. The FAA said its “chief mission is to ensure the safety and efficiency of the [national air space], as well as people and property on the ground.” The agency “recognizes that there are privacy concerns”, but acknowledged that it does not require drone operators to follow any privacy guidelines.

In the UK, defense firms, police forces and fire services have permission to fly small drones. Organisations seeking approval include the BBC, the National Grid, universities and video golf marketing that provides fly-over videos of golf courses. UAVs are also being considered to monitor crowded events in Britain, such as concerts and festivals, as soon as the aerial units become cost-effective. In addition, the European Commission has allocated 260 million pounds ($412 million) for the ‘Eurosur’ project, which also includes a surveillance plan to patrol the Mediterranean coast with UAVs.

Killer Drone Technology

Since the first killer-drone strike in Afghanistan in 2002, there has been a rapid increase in drone technology developments and the number of drones in operation. The most popular is the Predator MQ-1 equipped with Hellfire missiles. With a cruising speed of 85 miles per hour, the 360 Predators currently deployed have a range of 770 miles each and can stay airbourne for 24 hours at altitudes of 25,000 feet. Each drone costs $4 million to build, millions more to operate and in total the Predator program has cost at least $2.38 billion. Drone operations are conducted from an estimated sixty bases around the world.

Taranis drone

© The Mail Online
Revolutionary: Taranis, Britain’s latest pilotless combat aircraft, will make is maiden flight in the next few weeks

The UK is also actively pursuing ways of making drones as lethal as possible. The world’s largest arms manufacturer BAE systems has developed a ‘superdrone’ named Taranis for the British MoD. Equipped with a customized Rolls-Royce jet engine rather than a propeller, Taranis can deliver deadly payloads, missiles that can be launched with or without human intervention, and will be able to fly from British bases at high speed to attack targets in theaters worldwide, beginning in Mali next month.

The Pentagon also wants more autonomous drones powered by jet-engines with longer ranges that can be run without human intervention. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman is reportedly developing nuclear-powered drones capable of carrying more missiles or surveillance equipment and flying over more remote regions of the world for months at a time.

The U.S. Army, together with Boeing, is deploying three new unmanned “Hummingbird” in Afghanistan. With “vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system” (VTOL-UAS), they spy from an altitude of 20,000 feet and are able to scan 25 square miles of ground surface at a time.

The ‘upward falling payload’ (UFP) program is a DARPA project to construct deep sea bases in ‘contested’ areas, from which UAVs would be launched to the surface when needed for “strategic humanitarian intervention.”

 

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DAMASCUS: With the growing presence of radical Islamists affiliated with al-Qaida in Syria, fear and apprehension have crept up among moderate Syrians, sending chills down their spines about the vague and uncertain future of their country.

Filed under: Collateral Damage, Costs of War, Military Maneuvers, National Sovereignty, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, War on terror, Wars and Rumors of War, World News — Leave a comment
December 18, 2012
al qaeda

Watching what happened in Iraq over the past 10 years, what is going on in Yemen now and on top of that the footage that emerges on a daily basis from places in Syria that witness a thick presence of al-Qaida fighters, Syrians started to mutter about what indeed happened and how did they get this far?DAMASCUS: With the growing presence of radical Islamists affiliated with al-Qaida in Syria, fear and apprehension have crept up among moderate Syrians, sending chills down their spines about the vague and uncertain future of their country.

As the crisis in the country is nearing entering its third [calendar] year, its complications and repercussions are also growing larger; especially now that the armed rebels’ ranks are overwhelmed with radicals from the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaida terror network in Iraq.

Even the international community, which has for a long time blamed the Syrian administration for the bulk of the violence in Syria, has now admitted the threats from al-Qaida-linked groups in Syria. The U. S. branded the al-Nusra Front last week as a terror network, after the group has claimed responsibility for almost all explosions that rocked the government and army forces’ installations over the past year.

Watching what happened in Iraq over the past 10 years, what is going on in Yemen now and on top of that the footage that emerges on a daily basis from places in Syria that witness a thick presence of al-Qaida fighters, Syrians started to mutter about what indeed happened and how did they get this far?

Some people repeat the government’s line that a big foreign-backed conspiracy has been plotted against Syria since a long time ago, with the aim to destroy Syria as a country in favor of the Zionist entity next door; while others who oppose the administration say that the government’s harsh crackdown on opposition activists and freedom advocates has plunged the country into this swamp and drawn in radical fighters who claim that they have come to Syria to wage jihad against the “infidel” administration of President Bashar al-Assad and to protect their fellow Sunni people.

 

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Lisa Guliani : “We all felt so entitled to the world’s gifts of kindness, empathy, compassion, assistance, moral support, etc. after 9/11. We took and took. Did we ever bother to say thank you? “

Filed under: Blow back, Coexistence, Community, Complacency / Apathy, crime, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Depravity, Excessive Use Of Force, Fundamental Rights, Global Community, Goodwill, Government Overreach, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Humanity, Hypocrisy, Irrational Violence, Loot and Pillage, Murder, Power Struggle, War on terror — Leave a comment
November 9, 2012

As the World Bleeds

Lisa Guliani
Sott.net

Do you remember, after September 11, 2001, the outpouring of grief, empathy, compassion, sorrow, sympathy and moral support from all nations and people of the world for the American people, who had just been ‘attacked’?

Do you remember the kindness expressed to the people of America during that awful time?

The world opened its heart to us and its arms and held us in our grief.

And here we are, 11 years later, and how do Americans repay that great kindness that was shown to us years ago?

Americans, in turn, repay the world’s love and kindness by supporting the mass murder of many of those who embraced us in the hour of our grief.

Americans repay the world’s empathy for our suffering with a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the suffering NOW of those who empathized with us THEN.

Americans repay the world’s solicitous attention, tender wishes and generosity by funding terrorists, turning a blind eye to the faces of slaughtered children, and a deaf ear to the cries of refugees.

Americans repay the world’s compassion by ignoring the monumental crisis that exists in nations around this world, a crisis our own government created in the first place, with the blessing of its citizen ‘voters’.

Americans repay the world’s care and concern for our safety and well-being here by pretending no drone strikes are happening elsewhere, or by spewing complete bullshit to justify murder, such as this crap some nitwit at work said to me today, “sometimes we have to kill people, because it’s necessary.”

Excuse me?? Sometimes it’s necessary to kill innocent people?? What kind of garbage is this? Sometimes we HAVE to kill innocent people? Do people even think at all anymore about anything or anyone other than themselves? But it’s not surprising, especially when you consider the psychopathic hatred that is spewed by the mainstream media.

Listen to longtime Washington, D.C. and New York journalist and columnist and political columnist for Time magazine, Joe Klein, to understand the level of debate in the USA on the value of children’s lives:

Klein (and most of the mainstream media and the US government) want us to be a party to the murder of children by claiming that, “the bottom line is, whose 4-year-old gets killed?” This is ‘morality’ in the USA. If you don’t support the dismemberment of a child in Afghanistan, then you are putting your own child’s life in danger.

The parents of those 4 year old children were in our corner after 9/11. Now we repay them by killing their children (and them).

They were strangers to us, and this didn’t seem to matter back then – the world saw our grief and our need, and the people of the world reached out their hands to us. And it is those same human beings who reached out to us back then, that Americans are oblivious to today, as the majority of U.S. citizenry never seems to have the inclination nor the capacity to ever think about ‘those people over there’.

We all felt so entitled to the world’s gifts of kindness, empathy, compassion, assistance, moral support, etc. after 9/11.

We took and took.

Did we ever bother to say thank you?

That, I can’t seem to recall.

Hours after Obama was ‘re-elected’ as the presidential hood ornament on the rusted Cadillac, he celebrated his ‘victory’ over Psychopath Romney by ordering a drone strike over Yemen, which killed several people. To date, drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 3,300 people. The vast majority were “non-combatants” i.e. civilians, many of them were women and children.

So the psychopath in the White House celebrates winning the election by killing people who didn’t deserve to die.

In every American name, with American money.

Is this how we say thank you to the people of this world who were there for us in our hour of need – by killing them?

 

Read Full Article Here

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Their childhood torn asunder: The horror of child brides captured in these sad images

Filed under: Child Sexual Abuse, Depravity, Rape, Signs Of The Times, World News — Leave a comment
October 12, 2012

Signs Of The Times

 World News – Depravity :  Child Sexual Abuse – Rape

The terrifying world of child brides: Devastating images show girls young enough to be in pre-school who are married off to older men   

By Snejana Farberov

 

At age 11, Ghulam was married off to 40-year-old Jaiz in a rural Afghan village, making her only one of more than 10 million young girls who are being forced to wed men old enough to be their fathers or grandfather every year.

In an effort to start a global conversation about the devastating effects of early marriages, which are currently practiced in more than 50 developing countries, the United Nations designated October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child this year.

To mark the occasion and draw attention to the problem of child brides, photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair teamed up with National Geographic to create  a series of heart-breaking photos depicting girls as young as five years old being married off to middle-aged men in countries like India, Yemen and Ethiopia.

 

Disturbing: Faiz, 40 (left), and Ghulam (right), 11, sit in her home prior to their wedding in the rural Damarda Village, Afghanistan on September 11, 2005Disturbing: Faiz, 40 (left), and Ghulam (right), 11, sit in her home prior to their wedding in the rural Damarda Village, Afghanistan on September 11, 2005

 

Minors: Tahani (front), 8, is seen with her husband Majed, 27, and her former classmate Ghada (rear), 8, and her husband outside their home in Hajjah, YemenMinors: Tahani (front), 8, is seen with her husband Majed, 27, and her former classmate Ghada (rear), 8, and her husband outside their home in Hajjah, Yemen

 

Sarita, 15-years-old, is seen covered in tears and sweat before she is sent to her new home with her new groom in Rajasthan, India
Sumeena Shreshta Balami, 15, leaves her home to meet her groom, Prakash Balami, 16, in Kagati Village, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Voiceless: Sumeena Shreshta Balami, right, 15, leaves her home to meet her groom, Prakash Balami, 16, in Kagati Village in Nepal, while Sarita, left, 15, is seen covered in tears and sweat before she is sent to her new home in Rajasthan, India

 

Vulnerable: Young girls sit inside a home outside of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, in 2010Vulnerable: Young girls sit inside a home outside of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, in 2010

Although child marriage is against the law in many countries, and international treaties forbid the practice, it is estimates that about 51 million girls below age 18 are currently married, often under the cover of darkness and in secret. In Afghanistan alone, it is believed that approximately 57 per cent of girls wed before the legal age of 16.

Various factors drive parents of child brides to marry off their daughters, from the community’s pressure to confirm to age-old cultural customs to economic considerations. In poor, developing nations, it is not uncommon for families to settle debts by offering their daughters as payment.

Beside India, where girls are usually wed to boys who are only a couple of years their senior, the husbands may be decades older than their prepubescent betrothed. It is not uncommon for men to kidnap girls and rape them first before trying the knot.

Opulent: Priest Addisu Abebe, 23, and his new bride Destaye Amare, 11, are married in a traditional Ethiopian Orthodox wedding in the rural areas outside the city of Gondar, Ethiopia Opulent: Priest Addisu Abebe, 23, and his new bride Destaye Amare, 11, are married in a traditional Ethiopian Orthodox wedding in the rural areas outside the city of Gondar, Ethiopia

 

Shocking: Portrait of Said, 55, and Roshan, 8, on the day of their engagement, AfghanistanShocking: Portrait of Said, 55, and Roshan, 8, on the day of their engagement, Afghanistan

 

Child mothers: Asia, a 14-year-old mother, washes her new baby girl at home in Hajjah while her two-year-old daughter playsChild mothers: Asia, a 14-year-old mother, washes her new baby girl at home in Hajjah while her two-year-old daughter plays

Since 2003, Sinclair has been traveling to remote corners of the world in countries like Nepal and Yemen to document weddings of child brides and their transformation into young mothers in the hope of giving them a voice and raising awareness of the problem.

Experts agree that early marriage denies the girls education and robs them of their childhood because most young wives, burdened by grownup responsibilities, do not get a chance to interact with their peers or carry on friendships outside the household.

Ghulam, the 11-year-old bride from Afghanistan who was married off in 2005, was forced to drop out of school, giving up on her dream of becoming a teacher one day. Parents often remove their daughters from school even before they are engaged to limit their interactions with boys.

In many cases, the girls are lorded over by their husbands and in-laws, leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence as well as physical, sexual and verbal abuse.

Underage wives who are lucky enough to escape from their husbands end up living in poverty, or worse. Some girls turn to prostitution to earn a meager income and enter brothels, where they are subjected to horrific abuse.

Seven month pregnant Debritu, 14, escaped from her husband after months of abuse
Nujood Ali was ten when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen

Fearless: Nujood Ali, right, was ten when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen, while, Debritu, right, 14, escaped from her husband while seven month pregnant

 

Gruesome: Police woman Malalai Kakar (back right) arrests Janan, 35, after he tried to kill his 15-year-old wife Jamila for angering him by fleeing her home to stay with her mother following years of abuse Gruesome: Police woman Malalai Kakar (back right) arrests Janan, 35, after he tried to kill his 15-year-old wife Jamila for angering him by fleeing her home to stay with her mother following years of abuse

 

Rock bottom: A young prostitute named China sits stunned after being beat up by a man visiting Kabele Five in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia Rock bottom: A young prostitute named China sits stunned after being beat up by a man visiting Kabele Five in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Most girls who enter early marriages are expected to get pregnant right away, which often leads to tragedy for both the mothers, who are still children themselves, and their babies.

Adolescent wives are more likely to have obstructed labor because their bodies have not fully developed yet. Statistics show that pregnancy death for child brides is double that of women in the 20s, according to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

One doctor based in the Yemeni capital Sanaa listed some of the medical consequences of forcing girls into sex and childbirth before they are physically mature – ripped vaginal walls and internal ruptures called fistulas which can lead to life-long incontinence.

Girls are often too young to understand the concept of reproduction. The doctor said: ‘The nurses start by asking, “Do you know what’s happening?” “Do you understand that this is a baby that has been growing inside of you?”‘

Unless international organizations take steps to reverse the troubling trend, it is estimated that over the next decade, 100 million more girls—or about 25,000 girls a day—will marry before they turn 18.

To learn more about the campaign to end the practice of early marriages, go to Too Young To Wed.

Tradition: Ghulam, 11, says a prayer with male family members to cement her engagement to Faiz, 40Tradition: Ghulam, 11, says a prayer with male family members to cement her engagement to Faiz, 40

 

New family: Maya, 8, and Kishore, 13, pose for a wedding photo inside their new home the day after the Hindu holy day of Akshaya Tritiya, or Akha Teej, in Rajasthan, India New family: Maya, 8, and Kishore, 13, pose for a wedding photo inside their new home the day after the Hindu holy day of Akshaya Tritiya, or Akha Teej, in Rajasthan, India

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While the West calls for humanitarian Intervention In Syria. Atrocities continue in Yemen amid an ongoing Food Crisis that no one seems to want to address.

Filed under: bureaucracy, Corruption, Fiscal irresponsibility, Food Shortage, Fundamental Rights, Global Community, Government, Government Overreach, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Hypocrisy, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Psy - Ops, Security, Wars and Rumors of War — Leave a comment
August 23, 2012

Politics, Legislation and Economy News

Humanitarian  Hypocrisy

Yemen’s Food Crisis: 10 Million Starving

Omar Mashjari
Huffington Post
With the world’s media attention focused on Yemen’s fight against Al-Qaeda, you would probably be forgiven for not knowing that Yemenis are facing the worst hunger crisis since records began. The term ‘food insecurity’ is increasingly being associated with the once self-sufficient but improvised Yemen. In fact over 44% of Yemen’s population will face a lack of food to eat this year aloneand the UN says that 5m Yemenis are considered “extremely food insecure”. The causes of this crisis range from a lack of political stability caused the 2011 revolution, failure to control and plan on behalf of the Yemeni government and the inability of donors states such as the US to view Yemen beyond the ‘terrorism goggles’.As it currently stands there are no two ways about it, Yemen is no longer on the brink of a catastrophic food crisis, but rather is now in the midst of a food catastrophe. Oxfam last September warned that Yemen was at breaking point, today one can freely admit that Yemen has broke. For example in al Hodeidah and Hajjah, one in three children are malnourished, which is double the standard emergency level. While the UN estimates that 267, 000 Yemeni children are facing life threatening levels of malnutrition. Yemen’s food crisis presents a number of challenges to Yemenis across the political, economical and social spectrum. The previously already poor are on the verge of death, the once slim middle class are finding it hard to pay for life necessities, whilst the rich and often elite, find it much easier to spend their wealth.But it is children who bear the brunt of Yemen’s food price escalation, as mothers are reportedly taking their children out of school to beg on the streets.

But Yemen’s food crisis does not only represent a threat to Yemenis, but much more importantly it represents a threat to various actors in the region and the wider world, ranging from neighbouring oil-rich, but moral-poor Saudi Arabia to the ever-more self-interested United States. This is because Yemenis across the country but particularly in the South have lost faith and trust in their government; beyond this they are no desperate for any support from anyone willing to help them. When the central government is unable to provide for its people, help reduce inflation and meet the most basic of security, extremist organisations such as Ansar al-Sharia are monopolising on the dire economic reality by providing the most basic of needs including food and in turn gain their trust. Although practicality dictates that these extremist operations are some-what limited to the more lawless areas of Yemen, the fact remains that central government seem unable, unwilling and incapable of forming a comprehensive response to the immediate food catastrophe.

The situation is compounded by the hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced People in the southern part of Aden and Abyan as a result of the war against Al-Qaeda. Not to mention that at the same time, tens of thousands of refugees from the Horn of Africa are arriving on Yemen’s shores. The UN Envoy to Yemen, Jamal Ben Omar said that Yemen’s situation is complicated on many levels; as each day passes the complications continue to violently combine to the detriment of Yemen’s most hungry.

Putting the seriousness of the matter into context, 10 million people visited London this summer for the 2012 Olympics, the same amount are expected to starve this year in Yemen. Aside from the people’s desperation potentially leading to extremism, the humanitarian consequences of such a catastrophe would be unprecedented in the Arab region. Hence the imperative of response mounted by international community. For example, the UK have announced they will provide £28m to towards combating the crisis but this still this falls short of the £90m promised they promised. Additionally the EU has committed an additional €5m but this remains insufficient. Although significant funds totaling $4bn were pledged at the Friends of Yemen meeting in May, these pledges urgently need to materalise and turned into tangible humanitarian aid to keep people alive, as people cannot survive on promises. The UN says it needs $591 million in aid to meet current needs but has it has received less than half that amount. Whilst the next Friends of Yemen conference has been delayed till the end of the day, donors must respond now before the crisis further deepens.

Yemen’s diaspora community has also been active in helping to alleviate the crisis. So far the British-Yemeni community has successfully sent 40 tones of food; clothing and medicine to help people displaced from Abyan and has raised over £250,000 for Islamic Relief’s Yemen appeal. Further to this, the newly minted Yemen Relief and Development Forum, a UK-based umbrella charity, has also launched a campaign to raise money for food relief but its effectiveness is limited due to the proper lack of media coverage. Oxfam who, last month issued a joint appeal with Islamic Relief to raise $38m for the emergency relief of 5m people, has even admitted that Yemen’s plight is not emotionally appealing enough for people to give money. Joy Singhal, the manager of Oxfam’s humanitarian response in Yemen said that “It is not a crisis like the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti. Yemen is one of two or three Arab states in the Middle East considered to be a middle-income area because it isn’t in the media”.

With the lack of media attention, the international community and aid agencies have no choice but to increase their efforts in combating Yemen’s food crisis, whilst ensuring that they do not fall into the trap of viewing Yemen within the security spectrum. Yemen’s new ‘unity’ government is currently weak; overall international support is lacking, whilst figures from the past such as Ali Abdullah Saleh continue to stand in the shadows, any policy which places terrorism and security concerns over the dire humanitarian situation would not only be a catastrophe for the starving Yemeni people, but a catastrophe for the security interests of the international community.

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