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Yemen: A very British war

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | January 11, 2016

Britain is at the heart of a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions unfolding in the Yemen.

At least 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi bombing campaign against Yemen began in March 2015, including over 630 children. There has been a massive escalation in human rights violations to a level of around 43 per day and up to ten children per day are being killed, according to UNICEF. Seventy-three percent of child casualties are the direct result of airstrikes, say the UN.

Civilian targets have been hit again and again. Within days of the commencement of airstrikes, a refugee camp was bombed, killing 40 and maiming over 200, and in October a Medicins San Frontier [Doctors Without Borders] hospital was hit. Schools, markets, grain warehouses, ports and a ceramics factory have all been hit. Needless to say, all of these are war crimes under international law – as is the entire bombing campaign, lacking, as it does, any UN mandate.

Beyond their immediate victims, the airstrikes and accompanying blockade – a horrendous crime against a population which imports 90 percent of its basic needs – are creating a tragedy of epic proportions. In August 2015, Oxfam warned that around 13 million people were struggling to find enough to eat, the highest number of people living in hunger it had ever recorded. “Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years,” the head of the International Red Cross commented in October. The following month, the UN reported that 14 million now lacked access to healthcare and 80 percent of the country’s 21 million population are dependent on humanitarian aid. “We estimate that over 19 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation; over 14 million people are food insecure, including 7.6 million who are severely food insecure; and nearly 320,000 children are acutely malnourished,” the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator told reporters in November. He estimated that around 2.5 million have been made refugees by the war. In December, the UN warned that the country was on the brink of famine, with millions at risk of starvation.

Statements from British government ministers are crafted to give the impression of sympathy for the victims of this war, and opprobrium for those responsible. “We should be clear” said Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in September 2014, “the use of violence to make political gains, and the pointless loss of life it entails, are completely unacceptable. Not only does the recent violence damage Yemen’s political transition process, it could fuel new tensions and strengthen the hand of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – threatening the security of all of us…Those who threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, or violate human rights, need to pay the price for their actions.”

Indeed. So presumably, one might have thought, when the Saudis began their massive escalation of the war six months after Hammond made this statement, the British government must have been outraged?

Not quite. The day after the Saudis began ‘Operation Decisive Storm’, David Cameron phoned the Saudi king personally to emphasize “the UK’s firm political support for the Saudi action in Yemen.”

Over the months that followed, Britain, a long-term arms dealer to the Saudi monarchy, stepped up its delivery of war materiel to achieve the dubious honor of beating the US to become its number one weapons supplier. Over a hundred new arms export licenses have been granted by the British government since the bombing began, and over the first six months of 2015 alone, Britain sold more than £1.75 billion worth of weapons to the Saudis – more than triple Cameron’s usual, already obscene, bi-annual average. The vast majority of this equipment seems to be for combat aircraft and air-delivered missiles, including more than 1000 bombs, and British-made jets now make up over half the Saudi air force. As the Independent has noted, “British supplied planes and British made missiles have been part of near-daily raids in Yemen carried out by [the] nine-country, Saudi Arabian led coalition.”

Charities and campaign groups are unanimous in their view that, without a shadow of a doubt, British patronage has greatly facilitated the carnage in the Yemen. “The [British] government is fuelling the conflict that is causing unbearable human suffering. It is time the government stopped supporting this war,” said chief executive of Oxfam GB, Mark Goldring. The director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, said: “The UK has fuelled this appalling conflict through reckless arms sales which break its own laws and the global arms trade treaty it once championed…. legal opinion confirms our long-held view that the continued sale of arms from the UK to Saudi Arabia is illegal, immoral and indefensible.”

For Edward Santiago, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen, the UK’s “reluctance to publicly condemn the human cost of conflict in Yemen gives the impression that diplomatic relations and arms sales trump the lives of Yemen’s children,” whilst Andrew Smith from Campaign Against the Arms Trade, has written that “UK fighter jets and UK bombs have been central to the humanitarian catastrophe that is being unleashed on the people of Yemen.” Leading lawyers including Philippe Sands have argued that Britain is in clear breach of international law for selling weapons which it knows are being used to commit war crimes.

Now it has emerged that it is not only British weapons being used in this war, but British personnel as well. According to Sky News, six British military advisors are embedded with the Saudi air force to help with targeting. In addition, there are 94 members of the UK armed forces serving abroad “carrying out duties for unknown forces, believed to be the Saudi led coalition,” according to The Week – although the government refuses to state exactly where they are.

Indeed, even British airstrikes in Syria may have been motivated in part by a desire to prop up the flagging war effort in Yemen. Questioning of Philip Hammond in parliament recently led him to admit that there had been a “decrease in air sorties by Arab allies” in Syria since Britain’s entry into the air campaign there due to the “challenges” of the Yemen conflict.

For Scottish Nationalist MP Stephen Gethins this suggests that, by stepping up bombing in Syria, Western countries were effectively “cutting them [Arab states] a bit of slack to allow them to focus on the Yemen conflict,” especially needed given that support for the Yemen campaign has been flagging from states such as Jordan, Morocco and Egypt. It is particularly ironic that British MPs’ supposed commitment to destroying ISIS in Syria is actually facilitating a war in Yemen in which ISIS is the direct beneficiary.

Finally, it is worth considering British support for the Saudi bid for membership of the UN Human Rights Council. The Council’s reports can be highly influential; indeed, it was this Council’s damning (and, we now know, fraudulent) condemnation of Gaddafi that provided the ‘humanitarian’ pretext for the 2011 NATO war against the Libyan Jamahiriya. And the Yemeni government’s recent expulsion of the UN Human Rights envoy shows just how sensitive the prosecutors of the Yemeni war are to criticism. It would, therefore, be particularly useful for those unleashing hell on Yemen to have the UN Council stacked with supporters in order to dampen any criticism from this quarter.

Britain, then, is the major external force facilitating the Saudi-fronted war against the people of Yemen. Britain, like the Saudis, is keen to isolate Iran and sees destroying the Houthis as a key means of achieving this. At the same time, Britain seems perfectly happy to see Al-Qaeda and ISIS take over from the Houthi rebels they are bombing – presumably regarding a new base for terrorist destabilization operations across the region as an outcome serving British interests.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onward examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and ‘austerity’. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

January 13, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Terrorist Under Every Bed

Media hypes the terrorism panic

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 12, 2016

I have written frequently on how the terrorist threat is routinely hyped to serve a number of special interests in the United States and elsewhere in the world. In many countries, including most recently Saudi Arabia and Turkey, anyone who is a critic of the existing government is routinely labeled a “terrorist” as that justifies taking harsh and often extralegal steps to confront him or her. In reality, the likelihood of being killed by a terrorist almost anywhere but an active war zone is miniscule. In the U.S. it is so small as to be statistically insignificant but the public has been led to believe that heavily armed Islamic militants are lurking around every corner.

The vast majority of mass shootings in the United States are, in fact, carried out by white males who are at least nominally Christian in upbringing. Some of the incidents are subsequently described as domestic terrorism but most are labeled only as crimes and are treated routinely through the criminal justice system. Muslim attackers plausibly linked to terrorist groups, who dominate the media driven frenzy, have killed fewer than 45 Americans since September 12, 2001, slightly more than 3 a year, a toll that would hardly seem to justify the enormous expense and surrendering of civil liberties that have been part and parcel of the “global war on terror.”

Those of us who bother to monitor the groups that comprise part of the vast “terrorism business” are aware that the whole process runs on a number of essentially symbiotic relationships. The FBI needs to make terrorism arrests, so it uses paid informants to encourage otherwise harmless young men to embrace violence. Federal prosecutors who require terrorism convictions to pad their resumes call in phony expert witnesses like Evan Kohlmann who will basically support arguments that someone is a terrorist derived from internet based analysis that many would consider highly questionable.

The big money, however, goes to the think tanks and foundations, which are all politically aligned in one fashion or another and which are adept at providing seeming intellectual rigor to justify every point of view while keeping the taxpayer provided cash flowing. The foundations and think tanks thereby actually do considerable damage to the country by continuing wars that do not have to be fought and by wasting national resources that could certainly be put to better use.

I recently noted a couple of articles that hype the terror threat on behalf of well-funded groups that are in the terror business. One op-ed piece by Matthew Levitt entitled “Fighting terrorism takes more than drones” actually is largely sensible about legislation to fund anti-terrorism efforts at local levels worldwide until it goes off on a tangent, describing how it is necessary to “raise awareness about Iran’s and Hezbollah’s broad ranges of terrorist and criminal activities around the world” then adding that “Hezbollah is poised to get an infusion of money from Iran.” The reader might well note that Hezbollah and Iran are themselves on the front line fighting IS and the assertion regarding the omnipresence of their own terrorist activity is somewhat difficult to support, unless one is thinking about the spurious claims that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been making. Which is perhaps precisely the point as Levitt heads the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) creation. It is a major component of the Israel Lobby.

Another talking head who regularly appears in the Washington Post is Marc Thiessen. His December 21st piece is entitled “U.S. lets in four times as many suspected terrorists as it keeps out.” The claim is based on State Department statistics indicating that since 9/11 2,231 foreigners were denied U.S. visas based on suspected terrorism related issues while 9,500 more had visas issued but later revoked after issuance due to possible terrorist links or activities. When asked how many of the suspected terrorists who have revoked visas might still be in the United States, a State Department spokesman replied “I don’t know.”

Thiessen sees the revoked visa issue as an indication that the screening system does not work which is certainly arguable, but his rant is inevitably conflating a number of issues that are not necessarily linked while also assuming a worst case scenario as a result. He speculates that there must be many more “terrorists” who gamed the system successfully and did not have their visas revoked at all. He cites Tashfeen Malik, the distaff half of the San Bernardino shooters, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 2009 underwear bomber. Neither had a visa revoked before they undertook a terrorist act. Which means they beat the system and there are certainly others who have done likewise.

Marc Thiessen indeed has a point when he observes that there must be some genuine terrorists who have obtained visas to travel to the United States. Screening potential visitors from the third world and war zones means having to deal with a lack of reliable documentation coupled with numerous desperate individuals prepared to lie to get a visa. That’s why you rely on a skilled and frequently skeptical American Embassy visa officer to make the call if there is any doubt about credentials. The Thiessen alternative would apparently be to ban all travelers who fit certain profiles that he would no doubt be able to provide, i.e. all Muslims. He advocates in his article stopping the entry of all Syrian refugees, for example, because they cannot be properly assessed, which inevitably punishes the legitimate refugees who can be vetted.

Thiessen’s complaining lacks context. First of all, the number of revoked visas is relatively small when spread out over fifteen years. There are a lot of good reasons why a visa status might be changed and one should bear in mind that a state department officer will always err on the side of caution, revoking a visa if there is even a miniscule possibility that someone might have been radicalized. Without further information on what actually constitutes a “possible terrorist connection” it is impossible to determine what kind of threat actually exists, if any, but Thiessen is willing to take a plunge anyway. And it might be noted that even a legitimate U.S. government concern about one’s politics perhaps derived from comments on social media does not necessarily make one a terrorist. It should be reassuring to Thiessen rather than alarming to learn that the State Department is reviewing travel status even after visas are issued.

And Thiessen plays the threat card, implying that many of the visa holders might still be in the United States without providing any evidence that that is the case. Some might never have made the trip and one has to suspect that the vast majority of those who did visit are long since gone, having done absolutely nothing in the interim.

Indeed, Thiessen could just as easily have asked how many holders of revoked visas have committed terrorist acts or crimes in the United States since 9/11, but he avoids that question for obvious reasons. The answer is none and the FBI has no evidence to suggest that there are revoked visa holders currently in place in terrorist cells planning mayhem. One would think that if the point of terrorism is to do something that creates fear then the revoked passport holders have essentially failed in their mission unless someone reads Thiessen and believes what he is saying.

And oh yes, Thiessen works for the reliably neocon American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which is largely funded by defense contractors who have a vested interest in spending the taxpayers’ money to “keep Americans safe.” Back under the Bush administration Dick Cheney used to go to AEI when he had something important to say, trusting that the audience there would be his kind of people. They were his kind then and they still are.

And Thiessen continues to carry water for his old team. He was the principal speechwriter for George W. Bush and his first book, endorsed by Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, was entitled Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. The book has been heavily criticized for numerous errors of fact and also due to its advocacy of torture “as lawful and morally just” but the reader of the op-ed in the Post would not know any of that. It’s how bad ideas circulate through the media and are given credibility, a mechanism that the “war on terror” fraudsters understand all too well.

January 12, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Madaya hunger reports aim to demonize government: Syria

Press TV – January 12, 2016

Syria’s ambassador to the UN says media reports of starving civilians in the southwestern town of Madaya have been fabricated in an attempt to defame the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“Actually, there was no starvation in Madaya,” Bashar Ja’afari told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, where the UN Security Council met to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

Jaafari said journalists from the Qatari-owned al-Jazeera broadcaster and the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV network are “mainly responsible for fabricating these allegations and lies.”

He said false information about starvation deaths in the Syrian town are aimed at “demonizing” Damascus and “torpedoing” peace negotiations due in the Swiss city of Geneva on January 25.

The Syrian diplomat also said aid delivered to Madaya in October had been looted by terrorist groups and sold to civilians at high prices.

“The Syrian government is not and will not exert any policy of starvation on its own people,” he said, adding the “terrorists are stealing humanitarian assistance.”

On Monday, a convoy of 44 trucks loaded with food, baby formula, blankets and other supplies entered Madaya. An equivalent amount of aid would also arrive in two other besieged towns of Foua and Kefraya.

The Syrian government recently agreed to facilitate the flow of relief aid into Madaya, which has been the scene of fierce clashes between pro-government forces and Takfiri elements.

Locals told the Lebanese al-Manar TV on Sunday that terrorist groups had stored aid packages for Madaya and sold it to the locals at inflated prices.

According to the UN, up to 4.5 million people live in hard-to-reach areas of Syria which has witnessed a deadly conflict fueled by foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists since March 2011.

Over 260,000 people have reportedly lost their lives while millions of others have been forced to flee their homes due to the violence.

January 12, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US behind Yemen war continuation: Ansarullah

Press TV – January 11, 2016

The Houthi Ansarullah movement in Yemen says the United States is the real force behind the continuation of Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, as Riyadh has no discretion of its own over the matter.

Spokesman for the Ansarullah Movement, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said on Sunday that it is Washington that prevents Riyadh from stopping its military aggression against Yemen.

He said the ambassador to the US of the former Yemeni government – Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak – and a US envoy were behind the failure of recent talks in Switzerland that were aimed at ending the conflict in Yemen.

On December 15, an Ansarullah delegation and Hadi’s representatives began UN-brokered peace talks in Switzerland with the aim of reaching a solution to the country’s conflict.

A truce came into force in Yemen as the six-day talks opened but it was repeatedly violated by the Saudi side and Hadi loyalists.

Abdulsalam further said world nations believe that peace is possible in Yemen only if Saudi Arabia halts its aggression on the country. The kingdom began the war on Yemen in late March 2015 in a bid to undermine the Ansarullah movement and bring Hadi back to power.

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured so far. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure.

The United Nations (UN)’s special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has said peace talks are due to restart this month in a bid to end the conflict. He suggested Geneva as a location for the talks.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s sale of arms to Saudi Arabia violates international law – lawyers

RT – January 11, 2016

The British government has been accused of violating international law by enabling the export of British-made arms to Saudi Arabia, which may have been used to kill civilians.

In the face of mounting evidence that Saudi forces are breaching international law in Yemen, law firm Leigh Day has challenged the government’s export of missiles and other arms to the Gulf state.

A letter issued by the firm to the government on Sunday highlights global organizations that have branded Saudi airstrikes in Yemen illegal. Among these are the European Parliament (EP) and an array of prominent human rights groups that have been monitoring Saudi Arabia’s attacks on Yemen.

Leigh Day’s 19-page letter, which was sent to the government on behalf of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), condemns the targeting of civilians and non-combatants in Yemen, as well as the targeting of facilities vital for sustaining basic humanitarian needs. It also criticizes the disproportionate number of civilian casualties in Yemen and an overall failure to ensure unnecessary harm to civilians is avoided.

The letter says Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes have destroyed culturally significant property in Yemen, and condemns a Saudi naval blockade, which is halting the flow of essential food and medicine into the crisis-ridden state.

Despite the gravity of these allegations, the British government has refused to suspend military licenses governing arms’ exports to the Gulf state. It has also failed to call for an inquiry into whether Saudi Arabia has violated international law.

Leigh Day called on the government to confirm whether or not it accepts there is concrete evidence that Saudi Arabia’s conduct in Yemen has breached international law. It also urged the government to verify if Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) Sajid Javid will suspend Britain’s sale of arms to Saudi Arabia until a full review of their legality is carried out.

Leigh Day also urged Javid not to authorize further export licenses for Saudi Arabia until the inquiry is completed.

The law firm asked for a full response to its letter within two weeks. Failure to do this would spark legal proceedings against the government, forcing it to explain in the high court what steps it has undertaken to ensure British arms are not being used in violation of international law.

A BIS spokesperson confirmed the department’s receipt of the letter, but told the Guardian it would not comment on the matter because of “ongoing legal action.”

Leigh Day human rights lawyer Rosa Curling said the government has a legal duty to ensure arms and technological equipment exported from Britain are used in accordance with international law.

“Given the widespread and credible evidence that the Saudi authorities are breaching their international obligations in Yemen, we can see no credible basis upon which the UK government can lawfully continue to export arms to them,” she said.

“We hope our client’s letter will cause the government to reconsider its position and suspend all licenses with immediate effect pending a proper investigation into the issue.”

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) warns that British weapons are central to the military campaign that has “killed thousands of people, destroyed vital infrastructure and inflamed tensions in the region.”

“The UK has been complicit in the destruction by continuing to support airstrikes and provide arms, despite strong and increasing evidence that war crimes are being committed,” he said.

“These arms sales should never have been approved in the first place. The Saudi regime has an appalling human rights record and always has done.”

Leigh Day’s legal maneuver highlights Britain’s lucrative arms trade with Saudi Arabia. Almost £6 billion worth of British arms have been licensed to the Gulf state since Prime Minister David Cameron took office in 2010.

There was pressure to suspend the UK’s military exports to Saudi Arabia in July 2015, but the government flatly refused. Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood told parliament at the time the government had seen no credible evidence indicating the Saudi-led coalition had acted illegally.

By contrast, Amnesty International warned of the coalition’s disgraceful disregard for civilian lives. The UN also expressed similar concern.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia’s policies adopted under Israel’s influence: Iran official

Press TV – January 11, 2016

The policies adopted by Riyadh are under the influence of Israel, which seeks to see tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a senior Iranian military official says, amid strained relations between the two Muslim countries.

“Al Saud policies are influenced by the Zionist regime (Israel); and this regime is more inclined than the United States toward dragging the region to insecurity, unrest and chaos,” Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said on Monday.

He said that Tel Aviv’s impact on Saudi policies should be examined, adding that Riyadh’s actions have led to the massacre of the people in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, describing the killings as the “Zionists’ policy.”

The regime in Riyadh began its military aggression against Yemen in late March 2015. The campaign was meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 injured since the beginning of the Saudi strikes.

Al Saudi is also widely believed to be one of the main sponsors of Takfiri terrorist groups operating in Syria and Iraq.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian general expressed hope that Muslims in regional countries would be “alert,” since “Israel is seeking to create tension” between Iran and Saudi Arabia and benefits from insecurity in the region.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been strained in recent days following the Saudi execution of top opposition cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, which was announced on January 2.

Nimr’s execution was widely censured by Muslims and human rights activists around the globe as well as different governments.

Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran on January 3 following demonstrations held in front of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad by angry protesters censuring the killing of Nimr. Some people mounted the walls of the consulate in Mashhad while incendiary devices were hurled at the embassy in Tehran. Almost 60 people were detained over the transgression.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Well-Armed, Well-Funded: Iraqi Leader Reveals Daesh’s Deep Pockets

Sputnik – 11.01.2016

Sheikh Akram Al-Kaabi, the leader of Hezbollah al-Nujaba, a major Iraqi Shiite resistance movement fighting Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) in the region, has revealed that the jihadist group receives lavish amounts of money from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and modern weaponry from 120 countries around the world, according to the Iranian news agency FARS.

“Saudi Arabia and Qatar are extensively supporting the Takfiri (Daesh and radical Islamist) terrorists financially but surely victory belongs to the resistance groups,” the agency quoted Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi as saying at a meeting with Iranian Shiite cleric Ayatollah Alavi Gorgani in the Iranian city of Qom (also known as Ghom) on Saturday night.

“In the Syria war, 120 countries throughout the world are supplying the terrorists with state-of-the-art equipment and weapons,” added the Iraqi leader.

He voiced concern about the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged towns of Kafria and Foua’a regions in Idlib province, and said sending aid to these two towns is difficult due to the presence of terrorist groups.

Kaabi said that the Takfiri terrorists are still attacking the two Shiite-populated towns and despite the resistance forces’ operations to break the siege of the two towns, they are still under the militants’ control.

Similar concerns have been earlier voiced by Leader of the Lebanese Orthodox Party Masarik Roderick Khoury, who named Turkey as the main sponsor of terrorist groups in Syria.

“Turkey is the first and main power which funds and supplies weapons to terrorist groups. We believe the fight against terrorism should begin with pressuring Turkey. Now Turkey is the main sponsor of terrorism in the region,” Khoury said at a press conference in Moscow in December.

“The name of the real leader of the terrorists is Tayyip Erdogan [Turkish President]. The others like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [Daesh/ISIL leader] and al-Qaeda are just his servants. Al-Nusra Front also carries out orders from Turkey,” he then pointed out.

The Lebanese politician said there was real exidence to the allegations: after the city of Kassab, near Latakia, was liberated from terrorists Turkish ambulance vehicles, clothes and weapons were found there.

Khoury also added that when the terrorists take Syrian or Lebanese hostages they only can be released after negotiations with Turkey.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen: A US-Orchestrated Holocaust

By Stephen Lendman | Peoples Voice | January 9, 2016

Millions of lives are at risk from violence, starvation, lack of vital medical care, and overall deprivation.

A new UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) report downplayed the ongoing catastrophe, shamelessly undercounting civilian casualties since conflict began last March.

It’s likely in the tens of thousands from Saudi terror-bombing heavily populated areas and absence of vital essentials to life.

Claiming it’s only 2,800, another 5,200 wounded mocks the unbearable suffering of millions of Yemenis, victims of US imperialism.

The world community remains largely indifferent, ignoring an entire population at risk. Millions may perish before conflict ends. Nothing is being done to prevent it.

Fighting shows no signs of abating. Obama’s orchestrated war complicit with Riyadh is another high crime on his rap sheet, major media scoundrels giving it short shrift.

Famine stalks Yemen, around 20 million at risk, children, the ill and elderly most vulnerable. War without mercy continues.

Secure sources of food, potable water, fuel, electricity and medical care are absent or in too short supply in most of the country – impossible conditions to survive for many.

Malnutrition is rampant, near-starvation commonplace. So are preventable diseases claiming unknown numbers of lives for lack of treatment. Body counts exclude nonviolent deaths.

A phantom mid-December ceasefire ended in the new year. Saudis escalated terror-bombing US selected targets, including densely populated residential areas, hospitals, refugee camps, vital infrastructure and other non-military sites.

A blockade remains in force, preventing vital to life essentials from getting to people in need in amounts enough to matter.

Washington and Riyadh want war, not peace. Ceasefire was more illusion than reality – Houthis irresponsibly blamed for imperial crimes. Yemenis continue suffering horrifically.

Their country is being systematically ravaged and destroyed – increasingly looking like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

US imperialism bears full responsibility, destroying life on earth one country at a time, making things unbearable for survivors.

Last September, a largely Saudi-drafted (US/UK supported) UN Human Rights Council resolution on Yemen excluded an independent international war crimes investigation, whitewashing imperial high crimes.

It authorized only UN provided technical assistance to a Yemeni inquiry headed by illegitimate president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi – US-installed in a 2012 election with no opposing candidates.

Yemen remains a black hole of endless violence and instability, no relief in sight for its suffering millions.

-###-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III“.

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Protesters slam Pakistan’s role in Saudi-led coalition

Press TV – January 9, 2016

Pakistanis have taken to the streets in Islamabad to express their anger at the government’s decision to join a Saudi-led coalition allegedly set up to counter terrorism.

Protesters presented a memorandum to the Pakistani Foreign Office, calling on Islamabad to withdraw from the Saudi-led alliance.

The demonstrators said Islamabad had agreed to join the Saudi-led coalition for money.

“Neither the Pakistan army nor the nation is for rent, we will oppose any attempts to sell the army to the House of Saud for a few billion riyals,” Gul-e-Zahra, a senior activist, said in an address to the rally.

Last December, Saudi Arabia said it had formed an alliance of 34 countries to combat terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

The kingdom has long been accused of supporting terror groups operating against the Damascus government.

Meanwhile, some of the key countries in the coalition have said they were surprised by inclusion in the group without their knowledge.

At the time when the coalition was announced, Pakistan reacted cautiously and said it needed further details before deciding the extent of its participation.

In a U-turn following the two-day visit by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Islamabad said Thursday it would join the Saudi-led coalition.

“Pakistan welcomes Saudi Arabia’s initiative and supports all such regional and international efforts to counter terrorism and extremism,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement.

Pakistanis are also angry at the Saudi regime’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

On Friday, people staged a demonstration, chanting slogans against Saudi Arabia. They had staged another demonstration a day earlier to protest Saudi foreign minister’s arrival in Islamabad.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

UK Foreign Secretary refuses to condemn Saudi mass execution

Reprieve | January 8, 2015

The UK Foreign Secretary has claimed that 47 people executed by the Saudi authorities on Saturday, including four protestors, were “convicted terrorists”, and has refused to condemn the Saudi government’s actions.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Philip Hammond was invited to condemn the executions, but replied “let’s be clear that these people were convicted terrorists”. He added that the UK has made its opposition to the death penalty “well known” to the Saudi government, as well as other countries such as Iran, but that he believed the UK could only be effective in individual cases.

Mr Hammond’s comments come after Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, gave an interview in which he labelled those killed as terrorists, and claimed that their trials had been fair. It has also emerged that the Saudi authorities this week sent a memo to all British MPs, attempting to justify Saturday’s mass execution.

Contrary to those claims, the 47 prisoners included at least four people who were arrested in relation to political protests: activist Sheikh Nimr and young men Ali al-Ribh, Mohammad Shioukh and Mohammad Suweimal. Ali was 18 when he was arrested, reportedly by police entering his school. All four protestors were convicted in secretive trials in the country’s Specialized Criminal Court, with defence lawyers often denied access to the courtroom and their clients. In at least one of the cases, the court relied on a ‘confession’ extracted through torture as evidence.

Three juveniles still awaiting execution in relation to protests – Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, who are assisted by human rights organization Reprieve – were also sentenced to death in the SCC, after being tortured into signing statements. All three remain in solitary confinement, and could be executed at any time. Mr Hammond said that the UK had been lobbying the Saudi authorities regularly for “assurances” that the death penalty would not be carried out in their cases.

Recent research by Reprieve has found that, of those facing execution in Saudi Arabia in 2015, the vast majority – 72 per cent – were convicted of non-lethal offenses such as political protest or drug-related crimes, while torture and forced ‘confessions’ were frequently reported. Reprieve has also established that the Saudi authorities executed at least 158 people in 2015 – a marked increase on the previous year.

Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “While Philip Hammond’s efforts to prevent the execution of Ali al Nimr and other juveniles are welcome, it appears he is alarmingly misinformed about the mass executions. Far from being ‘terrorists’, at least four of those killed were arrested after protests calling for reform – and were convicted in shockingly unfair trials. The Saudi government is clearly using the death penalty, alongside torture and secret courts, to punish political dissent. By refusing to condemn these executions and parroting the Saudis’ propaganda, labelling those killed as ‘terrorists’, Mr Hammond is coming dangerously close to condoning Saudi Arabia’s approach.”

January 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi leadership defends execution of protestors

Reprieve – January 7, 2015

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince has used his first major interview since taking office to defend the country’s recent mass execution, claiming that human rights are ‘important’ to his government.

Speaking to the Economist, Mohammed bin Salman – the son of King Salman, and the country’s Defence Minister – sought to justify the execution on Saturday of 47 prisoners, saying they were “sentenced in a court of law.” Those killed included Sheikh Nimr, a prominent critic of the government, and three young political protestors – all four of whom were sentenced to death on charges that included shouting slogans and organizing protests.

Prince Mohammed also claimed, incorrectly, that those executed had had fair trials, saying they “had the right to hire an attorney and they had attorneys present throughout each layer of the proceedings.” He went on to say that “the court doors were also open for any media people and journalists, and all the proceedings and the judicial texts were made public.”

In fact, the protestors’ trials in the secretive Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) took place in largely closed hearings. Lawyers barred from attending hearings and from meeting their clients to take proper instructions, while police investigations were kept secret. The court also relied heavily on ‘confessions’ extracted under torture, in breach of international and Saudi law. Human rights organization Reprieve – which is assisting three juveniles who were sentenced to death in the SCC after attending protests – has repeatedly raised concerns about these trial conditions.

Prince Mohammed also said that Saudi Arabia would “always take criticism from our friends. If we are wrong, we need to hear that we are wrong.” He added that: “We have our values […] It is important to us to have our freedom of expression; it is important to us to have human rights.” He also claimed that “any regime that did not represent its people collapsed in the Arab Spring”– the period that saw widespread protests, and arrests of protestors, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

Research by Reprieve in 2015 found that, of those facing execution in Saudi Arabia, the vast majority – 72 per cent – were convicted of non-lethal offenses such as political protest or drug-related crimes, while torture and forced ‘confessions’ were frequently reported. Reprieve has also established that the Saudi authorities executed at least 158 people in 2015 – a marked increase on the previous year.

Among those currently facing execution in Saudi Arabia are the three juveniles – Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher – all of whom were sentenced to death in the SCC for attending protests, after being tortured into signing statements.

Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “Mohammed bin Salman says he wants to hear when the Saudi government is wrong. Well, it’s safe to say that he is dead wrong on this occasion. Contrary to his claims, we know that Sheikh Nimr and three protestors killed on Saturday – as well as the three juveniles now awaiting execution – had catastrophically unfair trials, where the authorities relied on torture and forced ‘confessions’. The defence lawyers were excluded from attending hearings, or even meeting their clients. If the Saudi government wants to endear itself to the international community, it could start by halting its plans to execute juveniles and others who dare to express dissent.”

January 7, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia top buyer of UK arms in 5 years: Report

Press TV – January 7, 2016

The UK has licensed the sales of over eight billion dollars of military hardware to Saudi Arabia since British Prime Minister David Cameron took office in May 2010.

According to the latest figures released by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) NGO, since Cameron was elected almost six years ago, Britain has also sold arms to 24 of the 27 states on its own list of “countries of humanitarian concern,” The Independent reported on Wednesday.

Apart from Riyadh’s ongoing purchase of the 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets, which are worth over six billion dollars at completion, major licenses worth over two billion dollars including Hawk fighter jets, bombs, guns and tear gas were sold to Saudi Arabia during the said period.

Based on the figures released by CAAT, the Saudis have access to twice the number of British-made warplanes than the Royal Air force has.

CAAT spokesperson Andrew Smith noted that the amount of arms sales to countries on the list, especially Saudi Arabia, shows that “human rights are playing second fiddle to company profits.”

He went on to say that the income from arms sales “is being put over the rights of people being executed and tortured. It’s completely inconsistent to condemn these regimes while signing off on billion-pound arms deals.”

“Two-thirds of UK arms exports go to the Middle East, and that’s unlikely to change. We know that Saudi Arabia is arming a number of groups in and around Syria, but we’ve no idea what weapons are being sent there. Once a weapon enters a war zone there’s no such thing as arms control,” Smith added.

Cameron has been under pressure to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia which faces massive criticism from the international community for launching an unabated war against impoverished Yemen, its growing number of beheading and other forms of execution, cracking down on political dissidents and the most recent atrocity of the mass execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other people.

In October last year, during an interview with the UK’s Channel 4, Cameron suggested that London’s “relationship” with the Saudi Arabia supersedes its human rights record.

January 7, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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