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Twitter pushed the Pentagon’s Middle East war propaganda, and both will likely get away with it

By Daniel Kovalik | RT | December 26, 2022

Information continues to roll out about how Twitter knowingly became a conduit for US propaganda efforts abroad that only serve to produce more violence and chaos. Sadly, this news has seemingly been greeted with a collective yawn by both the US corporate press and the American public.

A recent article by The Intercept details how Twitter facilitated efforts by US Central Command, or CENTCOM, a division of the US Defense Department, to spread propaganda, particularly in and about the Middle East using fake accounts posing as private individuals in the region. These accounts were given special treatment by Twitter, which accorded them the same privileges as ‘blue-checked’ verified accounts, which, as The Intercept article describes, “would have bestowed a number of advantages, such as invulnerability to algorithmic bots that flag accounts for spam or abuse, as well as other strikes that lead to decreased visibility or suspension.” And, of course, this was being done at a time when Twitter was deleting hundreds of accounts it viewed as associated with the Russian government and designating other such accounts as “Russian-state affiliated media” even when, as in the case of some of my friends, such as Fiorella Isabel, these accounts were of private individuals writing in their own, personal capacity.

One example of an account given “priority service” by Twitter was @yemencurrent (now deleted), which, among other things, “had emphasized that U.S. drone strikes were ‘accurate’ and killed terrorists, not civilians, and promoted the U.S. and Saudi-backed assault on Houthi rebels in that country.” Such a whitewashing of the US-Saudi war on Yemen – a war barely covered in the US press and therefore barely known to most Americans – is especially infuriating given that that war has been marked by the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure on a colossal scale and by the US government’s willful failure to even properly account for civilian casualties.

The US’ own Government Accountability Office has, in a restricted-access document reported upon by the New York Times in June, concluded that, since the war began in 2015, “[t]he State Department and the Defense Department have failed to assess civilian casualties caused by a Saudi-led coalition in the catastrophic war in Yemen and the use of American-made weapons in the killings . . . .” The NYT also reported that earlier, “in August 2020, the State Department inspector general issued a report that said the department had failed to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths.” The result has been an estimated 150,000+ deaths, including nearly 15,000 civilians, and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in history.

And yet, Twitter aided and abetted CENTCOM’s misinformation campaign through fake accounts claiming that civilians were somehow not being harmed by US-manufactured weapons – claims that deceive American taxpayers about the war they are bankrolling, and which are designed to prime the government pumps for more aid to this unholy conflict that President Biden had promised to stop funding.

According to The Intercept article, other fake CENTCOM accounts given priority by Twitter “focused on promoting U.S.-supported militias in Syria and anti-Iran messages in Iraq.” Again, few Americans are aware that many of these militia groups the US has backed in Syria, while claiming to be “moderate rebels,” have themselves carried out terrible atrocities against civilians in that country. Fake Twitter accounts promoting such militia groups only further obfuscate this subject.

As for the “anti-Iran messages in Iraq” and elsewhere, The Intercept explains that, as reported earlier by the Stanford Internet Observatory, some of the fake Twitter accounts falsely “accuse Iran of ‘threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,’ while others promoted allegations that Iran was harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees.” Such propaganda has a dual purpose: to gin up tensions and conflict between nations in the Middle East and to manufacture consent in the US for potential armed conflict between the US itself and Iran.

In other words, Twitter has been aiding and abetting the US Defense Department in war propaganda, an act that was established to be a crime in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials. If we had a fair and working system of international law, Twitter and Defense Department officials involved in such offenses would indeed be investigated. However, we do not have such a system. Therefore, it is up to the American people to act, having learned of such misconduct by their government and by the social media companies they so rely upon to hold them accountable. It is also up to Americans to finally realize that, when it comes to matters of war and peace, they are being lied to constantly, and they must withhold their consent for the wars that our government undertakes with the help of traditional and social media alike.

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.

December 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter promoted Pentagon propaganda to whitewash occupation, war crimes in West Asia

The Cradle | December 21, 2022

Twitter has reportedly collaborated with the Pentagon for at least five years to wage a secret “PsyOps campaign” across West Asia, in a scheme to sway public opinion in favor of Washington’s military interests in the region.

According to an investigation of Twitter’s archives, emails, and internal tools by The Intercept, the social media giant created a special “whitelist,” exempting accounts run by US Central Command (CENTCOM) from spam and abuse flags, granting them greater visibility on the platform.

According to the findings of investigative journalist Lee Fang, the Pentagon used this network of bots and US government-generated news portals to shape the discourse regarding the wars in Yemen and Syria, as well as the continued presence of US occupation troops across the region.

In particular, Fang revealed that much of the Pentagon’s covert social media ops focused on promoting the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Washington has recently boosted its military presence in the war-torn country, reportedly in a bid to control its natural resources like they do in Syria.

The investigation of the internal Twitter documents also shows that the PsyOps campaign promoted narratives that specifically demonized Russia, China, and Iran.

PsyOps – the military jargon for psychological operations – is defined as targeting foreign adversaries “to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.”

Twitter reportedly introduced the “whitelist” in 2017 after US military officials asked the company to improve the visibility of 52 Arab language accounts used to “amplify certain messages.”

And while Twitter executives claimed for years that the platform did not allow deceptive state-backed influence operations, the social media company was aware of the Pentagon’s propaganda campaign and tolerated the accounts’ presence until at least May 2022.

Over the same period of time, Twitter suspended or outright banned accounts that reported on Israeli war crimes in Palestine, as well as many that were linked to the governments of Iran, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela.

The revelations come as part of the so-called “Twitter files” release, which compiles internal company documents provided for journalists following the purchase of the company by billionaire Elon Musk.

The bombshell report comes at a time when the US army and its proxy militias are accused of illegally occupying vast regions of Syria and Yemen, looting oil from both war-torn countries, just over a year after their brutal occupation of Afghanistan ended.

Just last week, the White House succeeded in stopping the senate from voting on a legislation that would have severely restricted their operations in Yemen.

On top of this, last month, the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice issued a report detailing how the Pentagon has been allowed to covertly deploy troops and wage secret wars over the past two decades in dozens of countries across the globe.

Despite the damning revelations, in the coming days, US President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law the biggest annual defense budget in history, allowing the Pentagon to continue spending trillions of dollars despite being the only branch of the US government to have never passed a financial audit.

December 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Saudi Coalition forced to release detained Yemeni fuel ships

By Yusef Mawry – Press TV – December 25, 2022

Sana’a – Fuel prices have slightly dropped in Yemen after the release of two Yemeni fuel ships that were detained by the Saudi-led coalition earlier this week in the Red Sea.

The Yemeni army issued a stern warning to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that if the ships were not released soon, military action would follow.

Yemeni bus and motorbike drivers in the capital Sana’a who make a living from public transportation welcomed the lowering of fuel prices. They say this is going to help them cope with the fuel price hike caused by the blockade.

Yemeni political experts say the release of the fuel ships by the Saudi-led coalition isn’t enough, as Yemen will continue to struggle until Saudi Arabia and its allies completely lift the blockade and end their illegal involvement in Yemen.

Despite falling oil prices, tensions are rising on all active battlefronts in Yemen for what could soon be a resumption of war if a political solution is not reached soon, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue their militarization of strategic Yemeni Islands in the Red and Arabian sea.

The release of fuel ships detained by the Saudi-led coalition marks a big victory for the Yemeni government based in Sana’a and the people living in the areas controlled by Ansarullah. This also indicates that Saudi Arabia and the UAE simply cannot afford to have their oil industries targeted by Yemeni missiles and that’s why they decided to go with a safer option by releasing the fuel vessels.

December 25, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

US playing ‘dangerous game’ in Yemen, insists on aggression: Ansarullah

Press TV – December 14, 2022

Yemen’s popular resistance Ansarullah movement has warned against the United States’ military presence in the country, saying Washington is playing a “dangerous game” as it insists on pursuing a policy of aggression while impeding the national peace process.

Ali al-Qahoum, a member of Ansarullah’s Political Bureau, made the remarks during an exclusive interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network on Tuesday night.

“The presence of US troops in the Bab al-Mandab and off the coast of Yemen poses a serious threat to maritime navigation,” he said, adding that it further proves Washington’s aggressive policy against the impoverished country.

He went on to say that Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade against Yemen over the past eight years has been fully coordinated by the US, noting that “Riyadh is nothing but a tool in the hands of Washington to execute its policy of aggression with the participation of Israel, the UK and France.”

The Ansarullah official further noted that “the US and UK’s tendencies to keep the conflict ongoing and impose more embargo on Yemen, demand the utmost national responsibility of enhancing steadfastness.”

“If the Americans insist on aggression and blockade, the response will be in a way that achieves the required effect and sufficient pressure on the aggressor, whoever it may be,” he added.

Al-Qahoum further stated that our message to the Saudi-led coalition is that “elusiveness, gaining time, changing tools, and all the aspects of aggression and conspiracies are unacceptable.”

“We tell the aggressor countries not to rely on time and not to count on the deceptiveness of the United Nations and the US envoys as the overall equation is changing and the reality is different,” he added.

He further pointed out that “the only guarantor for the return of the ceasefire is that the demands of the Yemeni people and their rights be respected, which will open the prospects for peace, and there is no way to achieve this through deception.”

The UN-brokered truce between the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen first came into effect in April and has been extended twice since.

In mid-October Yemeni Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf said there would be no talks about the extension of the six-month truce which expired on October 2 unless the nation’s legitimate demands were fully met.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015. The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Washington and London have been providing the coalition with direct arms, logistical, and political support, including through outfitting it with precision-guided ammunition that the Saudi-led forces have been using amply against Yemen’s civilian population.

December 14, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Washington obstructs peace in Yemen as it profits from war: Ansarallah

The Cradle | December 8, 2022

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, accused the US of obstructing the path for a comprehensive peace process in Yemen, calling the western nation “the root of the problem.”

“[Ceasefire talks] are stalled because of the US, who are the root of the problem, as it benefits from the war and only wants a peace deal that benefits their interests, this type of peace means surrender to us,” Al-Houthi said during a televised speech on 7 December.

“The Americans, the Israelis, the British, and their regional puppets want Yemen to be occupied and submissive to them … The enemies want to set up their bases anywhere in Yemen, control its infrastructure and make the political field subject to their interests, to the extent that they choose who can be president or prime minister,” the resistance leader went on to add.

In April of this year, Riyadh strong-armed ousted Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to give up his powers to an unelected, Saudi-appointed presidential council, led by Rashad al-Alimi, who Ansarallah leaders christened “the man of America.”

During Wednesday’s speech, Al-Houthi also accused the US-backed coalition – headed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – of plundering Yemen’s oil and gas resources in order to keep Yemenis living in misery, while “hundreds of billions go to US and European companies.”

Last year, Yemen’s Oil and Minerals Ministry estimated that the country’s oil and gas sector has lost around $45.5 billion in revenue since the start of the Saudi-led war. According to officials in Sanaa, the kingdom deprives Yemen of at least 75 percent of the state budget revenues.

Over the past year, a large number of Saudi and Emirati oil tankers have made their way to Yemeni ports in the provinces of Shabwa and Hadhramaut in order to seize millions of dollars worth of the country’s oil.

The Saudi-led coalition not only plunders Yemen’s oil and gas from the occupied regions – in coordination with US and French troops – but also often seizes UN-approved fuel shipments headed for the Ansarallah-controlled port of Hodeidah.

Moreover, thanks to the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the UAE, Tel Aviv has been deploying troops to the Arab world’s poorest nation.

“They do not want an army that protects the independence and sovereignty of Yemen, they only want groups of fighters under the command of Emirati and Saudi officers, who themselves are under the command of American, British, and Israeli officers,” Al-Houthi said about the increased presence of hegemonic powers in Yemen.

“We cannot accept for Yemen to be occupied, or for the Americans, British, Emiratis, and Saudis to come and set up bases wherever they want,” the resistance leader stressed, before adding that Yemen’s enemies want the country to join the group of Arab nations who have normalized ties with Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people and of several of Yemen’s allies in West Asia.

“Iran did not attack us. Rather, it declared solidarity with our people, a position distinct from all other countries … [The enemies] want us to be hostile to Hezbollah, which took a most honorable position with us. They want us to be hostile to the free people of Iraq who have done nothing against us,” Al-Houthi declared.

He went on to highlight that Sanaa will not be hostile to any Islamic country “for the sake of America and Israel … We are not like the Saudis, Emiratis, and Al-Khalifa in Bahrain, we do not receive directives from America.”

Al-Houthi finished his speech by hinting at the military response of Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces against any escalation, saying that “any next round of fighting will be greater than all previous ones.”

December 8, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

American “human rights” against the people of Yemen

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 07.12.2022

As US officials travel the world lecturing everyone on human rights, that same world has accused Washington of being the number one human rights violator. Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen, instigated and widely supported by the West and the United States in particular, is a prime example of this.

On March 25, 2015, the then Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, under pressure from the American ruling circles, declared war on Yemen. This was done specifically from the American capital, Washington. He said that the military action would be “aimed at protecting the people of Yemen,” adding that “the operation will be limited in nature.”

The alleged “limited in nature” war has already turned into eight years of almost daily aerial bombardments in the provinces of the Saudi kingdom’s southern neighbor. Prior to the war, Yemeni officials argued that Riyadh controlled nearly every sector of Yemeni society, from the economy to culture, and that the time had come for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. This war still brings innumerable hardships and misfortunes to the Yemenis, from which the “democratic” United States shamelessly capitalizes.

The list of US support for the Saudi war in Yemen is so long that senior Yemeni officials say it was America that started the war against their country, using the Saudis and other Gulf kingdoms as its “proxies.” Human rights organizations accuse other Western countries of complicity in what they call war crimes against the defenseless Yemeni people. But the same “democratic” United States remains conspicuously silent about this, forbidding not only its own, but also the Western media to write about this massacre in negative terms.

In March 2015, a Bacchanalia of American politicians, economists and financiers emerged, who all together and individually simply pitted Riyadh against Yemen. Even the American media did not hide this interest in unleashing another war on the Arabian Peninsula. First, there were huge orders from the Saudis for the purchase of a wide variety of weapons, and the American military-industrial complex was loaded to capacity, with work conducted in three shifts. It is quite natural that the prices for these weapons were very high, and the Saudis did not even discuss them, buying weapons in bulk for a future war. Second, having got stuck in this difficult war against the fraternal Yemeni people, Riyadh could not take any independent steps on the world stage, obediently trailing in the wake of Washington’s policy. And besides, the Washington administration was pleased that the Yemenis had been “taught a lesson” by the Saudis, avenging the unsuccessful drone war against Yemen that the Pentagon had unleashed and pursued for a whole decade.

When war broke out in Yemen, the US Department of Defense immediately provided hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition. Among the many other types of support the US provided to the Saudis during the war was intelligence products to be targeted by US-made Saudi warplanes. The Pentagon has also provided military advice and logistical support, such as air-to-air refueling of military aircraft, while Washington said it had authorized US contractors to service Saudi military aircraft.

But the war did not go quite as America had planned.  Washington simply did not expect the brave resistance of the Yemeni people and their staunch support for the popular revolution led by the Houthi movement (officially called Ansar Allah). The Pentagon had to urgently intervene in hostilities, supplying not only modern weapons, but also air defense systems. And yet, the Yemenis delivered several sensitive strikes against Saudi forces, including successfully shelling an oil field and refinery on Saudi territory. These actions led to a surge in oil prices and sowed panic among the ruling circles in Saudi Arabia.

But the war has created an extremely difficult situation for civilians living in the poorest country in Western Asia. Especially for Yemeni children who are suffering from untold humanitarian conditions. Hundreds of thousands of people have died during the hostilities, due to American-made bombs. Saudi pilots, trained in the US and the UK, using American aircraft at the prompting of American military intelligence dropped American bombs on Yemeni houses, schools, hospitals, funeral parlors and foreign humanitarian organizations, forcing them to withdraw staff from the country.

Here is what the Yemeni monitoring group, Entesaf Organization for Women and Child Rights, recently published (compared to data from other groups and institutions, these are very conservative numbers):

– 8,116 children have been killed and wounded since the beginning of the US-Saudi war;

– 5,559 Yemeni children have become disabled as a result of hostilities since the beginning of the war;

– 632,000 children in Yemen are suffering from acute malnutrition that threatens their lives with death during the current year;

– 2,400,000 children do not attend school, forming a generation that has completely lost education.

Entesaf has documented that the number of Yemeni people with disabilities has increased from three million before the start of the US-backed war to 4.5 million today. This highlights the consequences of Yemen’s total blockade (in addition to the war being waged on it), which has placed its airspace, sea and land under unprecedented blockade by the West.

The organization also drew attention to the increase in child labor in Yemen due to the aggression and total blockade, pointing out that 1.4 million child laborers are deprived of their most basic rights, and that about 34.3% of child laborers are between the ages of 5 and 17. These new occurrences of child labor during the war are four times the rate of child labor than before the start of the war in Yemen.

In the healthcare sector, it is reported that public and private hospitals across the country are facing the threat of closure due to the blockade and detention by the US and Saudi Arabia of ships with petroleum derivatives.

Entesaf holds the coalition led by the US and Saudi Arabia responsible for all crimes and violations against civilians, especially children, in the last eight years of the war, calling on the international community, global organizations, human rights and humanitarian organizations to be held accountable for violations and heinous massacres that occurred against civilians. The organization also called on the international community to take effective and positive action to end the aggression and blockade against the civilian population and form an independent international commission to investigate all crimes committed against the Yemeni people and to bring to justice all those found complicit.

In August 2018, munitions experts reported that the bomb fired by Saudi warplanes that killed dozens of Yemeni children on a school bus was a 500-pound (227 kg) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of America’s largest arms manufacturers. Photos of the shrapnel taken immediately after the attack were sent to CNN, and a cameraman working for the company filmed the shrapnel footage. Munitions experts confirmed that the numbers on it identified Lockheed Martin as its manufacturer and that this particular MK 82 was a Paveway, which is a laser-guided bomb.

The CNN report said some of the bodies were so mutilated that identification was impossible, leaving behind scraps of school textbooks, mangled metal and one backpack. Of the 51 people who died in the attack, 40 were children. Another 79 people were injured, 56 of them also children.

Among the tens of thousands of Saudi airstrikes, another one was documented by CNN – a market strike by a US-supplied MK 84 precision bomb that killed 97 Yemenis. The bomb was very similar to the one that targeted a funeral parlor in October 2016, killing hundreds and injuring innumerable others.

These are just a few of the tens of thousands of similar attacks using American weapons to intimidate the Yemeni people into submission. However, the country’s armed forces, women and children have shown unprecedented resilience in their struggle.

Also during the war in Yemen, Washington’s complete disregard for human rights and its attempts to deprive children of their right to life was demonstrated. This applies not only to Yemen, but to US wars around the world that have resulted in unprecedented suffering for children, from Cuba and Vietnam to Western Asia and beyond. And it is the same United States that claims to be the flag-bearer of human rights and uses this pretext for its own political agenda in attacking numerous other countries.

December 7, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Yemen and KSA inch forward with ceasefire talks despite ‘deliberate obstruction’ by US

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Hani Mohammed
The Cradle | November 12, 2022

Talks between Yemeni and Saudi delegations in Oman have continued “uninterrupted” since the end of the UN-brokered ceasefire on 2 October, according to sources in the know that spoke with Lebanese daily Al Akhbar.

The report claims the Saudi delegation has shown “remarkable flexibility” in several of the outstanding issues, most notably offering to secure funding for the payment of state employees’ salaries.

They have also shown openness to lift road blockades and to allow flights from Sanaa International Airport to reach more destinations than the two currently allowed: Jordan and Egypt.

Nonetheless, issues still remain, as Riyadh reportedly wants to publicly label these measures as “helping the brothers in Yemen,” not as compensation for seven years of war.

Yemeni officials allegedly shot down this idea, as it would misrepresent Riyadh’s role in ravaging Yemen and pushing it to the brink of famine. Moreover, they have also rejected an offer for the head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, to lead an official delegation to the Saudi capital.

Earlier this month, The Washington Institute published a report based on a visit to the kingdom by Executive Director Robert Satloff and David Schenker, in which they assert that “Saudi Arabia clearly wants out of the [Yemen] conflict today.”

However, the behind-the-scenes progress to achieve this goal comes despite increased efforts by the Saudi-led coalition, Israel, the US, and the UK to consolidate their military presence in southern Yemen and on the country’s islands.

Earlier this week, Mashat warned that the US role in the ceasefire talks “is malicious and dangerous.”

“The armistice negotiations had previously reached a level of good understanding, but the US envoy, Tim Linderking, deliberately sabotaged them during his most recent tour of the region,” the head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council said on 7 November.

“The US is trying to impede any sincere efforts to achieve sustainable peace in Yemen,” Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance group warned in a statement earlier this month.

According to the sources who spoke with Al Akhbar, the growing rift between Washington and Riyadh has spilled over onto their cooperation in Yemen, as the US now favors “interim solutions” rather than a comprehensive end to the war in order to maintain a “playing card” to use against Saudi leaders.

November 12, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon exploits post 9/11 laws to wage ‘secret wars’ worldwide: Report

The Cradle | November 9, 2022

A report released last week by the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice details how the US Department of Defense (DoD) has been allowed to covertly deploy troops and wage secret wars over the past two decades in dozens of countries across the globe.

Among the nations in West Asia affected by these so-called ‘security cooperation authorities’ are Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen; however, they also include many African and Latin American nations.

Known as ‘security cooperation authorities,’ they were passed by the US Congress in the years following the 11 September attacks, and are a continuation of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a piece of legislation that has been stretched by four successive governments.

According to the report, the AUMF covers “a broad assortment of terrorist groups, the full list of which the executive branch long withheld from Congress and still withholds from the public.”

Following in this tradition, the ‘security cooperation authorities’ being abused by the Pentagon are Section 333 and Section 127e of Title 10 of the United States Code (USC).

Section 333 authorizes the US army to “train and equip foreign forces anywhere in the world,” while Section 127e authorizes the Pentagon to “provide support to foreign forces, paramilitaries, and private individuals who are in turn supporting US counterterrorism operations,” with a spending limit of $100,000,000 per fiscal year.

However, thanks to the vague definition of ‘support’ and ‘training’ in the text of these laws, both Section 333 and Section 127e programs have been abused to target “adversarial” groups under a strained interpretation of constitutional self-defense; they have also allowed the US army to develop and control proxy forces that fight on behalf of – and sometimes alongside – their own.

As a result of this, in dozens of countries, these programs have been used as a springboard for hostilities, with the Pentagon often declining to inform Congress or the US public about their secret operations under the reasoning that the incidents are “too minor to trigger statutory reporting requirements.”

“Researchers and reporters uncovered Section 127e programs not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen,” the report highlights.

Researchers also point out that defense authorities “have given little indication of how [they] interpret Section 333 and 127e.”

Even more concerning, and ignoring the damage caused by these ‘anti-terror’ laws, the US Congress recently expanded the Pentagon’s security cooperation authorities, particularly with Section 1202 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Section 1202 allows the US army to allow “irregular warfare operations” against “rogue states” like Iran or North Korea, or “near-peers,” like Russia and China.

The report comes at a time when the US army and its proxy militias are accused of illegally occupying vast regions of Syria and Yemen, looting oil from the war-torn countries, just over a year after their brutal occupation of Afghanistan ended. Moreover, a former US official on Tuesday revealed that anti-Iran militias are being armed in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), where both the CIA and the Mossad are known to operate.

November 11, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

US, UK preparing for fresh escalation in Yemen: Ansarullah

Ali al-Qahoum, a member of the Yemeni popular resistance Ansarullah movement’s Political Bureau (Courtesy of al-Mayadeen)
Press TV – November 6, 2022

Yemen’s popular resistance Ansarullah movement warns about the United States and the UK’s fresh malicious intentions in the war-ravaged country.

Ali al-Qahoum, a member of Ansarullah’s Political Bureau, raised the alarm during an exclusive interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network on Sunday.

There is “a direct US military presence in Yemen, and an influx of US forces, specifically in Hadhramaut,” he said, referring to Yemen’s biggest province, which spans from the country’s center towards its eastern areas.

“There is also an influx of British forces into al-Mahrah,” he added, referring to Yemen’s second-largest province that neighbors Hadharamaut to the east.

The US and the UK were preparing for a fresh round of escalation in Yemen, he further warned without elaborating.

The Western countries have been contributing heavily and unabatedly to a war of aggression that a Saudi Arabia-led coalition has been waging against Yemen since 2015.

The coalition has been seeking, unsuccessfully though, to restore Yemen’s power to the country’s former Western- and Riyadh-aligned officials. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Washington and London have been providing the coalition with direct arms, logistical, and political support, including through outfitting it with precision-guided ammunitions that the Saudi-led forces have been using amply against Yemen’s civilian population.

Al-Qahoum said new US and British military delegations had arrived in Yemen earlier this week.

Reporting on Wednesday, Yemen Press Agency cited informed local sources as saying that Hadhramaut’s Provincial Governor, Mabkhout bin Madi, had held a face-to-face meeting with the US delegation in his office.

The Ansarullah official, however, asserted that despite the Western states’ apparent preparations for a new flare-up in Yemen, “the Yemenis are ready to defend their dignity and every inch of their country.”

“Ansarullah has military capabilities that preserve Yemen’s sovereignty and independence,” he added.

November 7, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Yemeni army carries out ‘warning’ operation against Greek tanker

The Cradle | October 22, 2022

Yemen’s Armed Forces announced on 21 October they carried out a “warning” drone strike on Al-Dabba port of Hadhramaut in order to prevent a Greek tanker, the Nissos Kea, from looting oil from the facility.

This was the first attack carried out by Yemen’s forces since the expiration of the UN-brokered truce agreement on 2 October.

The country’s official military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said in a statement that “the oil ship violated the decision issued by the competent authorities to ban the transportation and export of Yemen’s sovereign oil derivatives.”

“The warning message came after addressing the authorities of that ship, and informing them of the decision based on Yemeni laws … The ship was dealt with through cautionary measures, through which we were keen to preserve the safety of its crew and the security of Yemen’s infrastructure,” Saree added.

According to Hadhramaut’s governor in the Saudi-backed Presidential Council, Mabkhout ibn Madi, the ship was meant to arrive at Al-Dabba port a week ago, but remained stationed outside of Yemeni waters due to threats issued against the Greek Ministry of Transport.

“Greece transmitted these threats to us, and to the Ministry of Oil,” Ibn Madi said. Following the ship’s entry into Al-Dabba port, however, its crew ignored the warning issued earlier this month by Yemen’s Supreme Economic Committee and proceeded to attempt an oil looting operation.

According to exclusive sources, the drone strike targeted the area between the Greek ship and the port buoy, sending a “clear military message,” but not compromising the safety of the tanker’s crew, as planned. This is not the first time a Greek vessel is involved in the looting of Yemen’s natural resources.

“The American envoy has been communicating for two weeks with mediators in Sanaa to allow the tanker to ship oil from Al-Dabba port,” the sources added.

As Washington and its allies face a severe energy crisis of their own making, the US is in desperate need of immediate sources of energy, a likely reason that its envoy pressured Sanaa to allow the Greek tanker to make off with the oil. As a result of this energy crisis, US forces have stepped up their oil looting operations in Syria.

The Yemeni operation comes as a renewal of the several warnings issued by the Armed Forces and the Ansarallah resistance movement against the international oil companies operating in the country, and against the Saudi-led coalition, who have consistently plundered Yemen’s oil.

The Saudi-backed government, however, has claimed to have intercepted the operation.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Saudi-led coalition seizes new emergency fuel ship headed for Yemen

The Cradle | October 21, 2022

On 21 October, the Saudi-led coalition seized the oil tanker ‘Lady Sarah,’ preventing it from reaching Yemen’s port of Hodeidah despite its previous inspection in Djibouti and having permits from the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNIVM).

Yemeni officials revealed that three ships are currently detained by the coalition. Since the beginning of 2021, the Saudi-led coalition has impounded at least 13 ships near the Yemeni coast.

The official spokesperson for the Yemeni Petroleum Company (YPC), Issam Al-Mutawakel, said that Sanaa holds the UN partially responsible for the humanitarian and economic consequences of the coalition’s actions.

Just one week ago, delegations from Yemen and Saudi Arabia visited each other’s capitals to discuss a prisoner exchange deal, marking the first time a Saudi delegation arrived in Sanaa since the Ansarallah resistance group took control of the city in 2014 and ended the reign of the Saudi-backed president.

A delegation representing Ansarallah also visited Riyadh and toured the prisons that are holding Yemeni fighters.

“Our technical team was tasked with validating the names and condition of our prisoners ahead of a possible exchange deal,” said Abdul Qadir al-Murtada, head of the prisoners’ committee in Yemen’s National Salvation Government.

Murtada added that the Saudi delegation visited for a similar purpose and toured Sanaa’s prisons, meeting the Saudi army’s prisoners of war.

“We do not accept a situation where Yemeni people are caught between war and peace,” Yemeni Foreign Minister, Hisham Sharaf, said during a meeting with a UN representative on 11 October.

Oman has reportedly been making progress in mediating the dispute between Yemen and Saudi-led coalition to restart the UN-sponsored truce that expired earlier this month.

Citing well-informed sources in Sanaa, Arabic media reports say Omani officials have made inroads in settling several issues, particularly relating to the opening of Sanaa airport and the lifting of restrictions imposed on the port of Hodeidah. 

However, issues remain over Sanaa’s demand that the country’s oil revenues be used to pay the salaries of state workers and the army. In this regard, the Saudi-appointed government in Aden has reportedly agreed to pay the pensions of military retirees exclusively, along with the salaries of all civil servants.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The geopolitical consequences of the OPEC+ agreement

By Hazem Ayyad | MEMO | October 7, 2022

Amir Hossein Zamani Nia, Iran’s OPEC governor, announced when he left a meeting with representatives of the 13 member states of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their ten allies – known as OPEC+ – the decision to reduce oil production by two million barrels per day for November.

The initial reactions to the large production cut were hysteria. One American journalist asked the Saudi Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, if he was worried about the American reaction to the production cut. He sarcastically told her to enjoy the sun in Vienna; a clear indication of the difficulties that Europeans will face next winter.

The American reactions to the decision of the OPEC+ countries were quick and distinct. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre commented on the decision by saying it was clear that the OPEC+ alliance was “aligning with Russia” and was making a “short-sighted decision” to reduce oil production at the height of the conflict in Ukraine.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan noted that US President Joe Biden was feeling “disappointed” with the decision of the OPEC+ alliance to reduce its oil production.

The reactions confirm President Biden’s failure to manage the sanctions against Russia and the dismantling of the OPEC+ alliance, whose decisions ruined the ambitions of the US administration, the US Treasury, and the Federal Reserve to fight inflation and reduce interest rates.

The OPEC+ alliance has once again proven its strength and the unity of its countries, which include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia. Despite the disparity, competition and conflict between its countries, the OPEC+ agreement exceeded the limits of technical performance confirmed by UAE Energy Minister, Suhail Al Mazrouei, when his country announced it was joining the efforts to reduce production. Its geopolitical reach extended from the Gulf and Yemen to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

The agreement that included regional opponents such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and international sponsors such as Russia, stressed the geopolitical dimensions as it coincided with a meeting held by the Russian President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, on Wednesday evening with the Emirati Ambassador to Moscow, Mohammed Ahmed Al-Jaber, to discuss the situation in Yemen and the Gulf region after the expiry of the deadline for the truce agreement in Yemen on 2 October.

This meeting came at the request of the Emirati ambassador and coincided with threats made by a member of the Political Bureau of the Houthi movement, Muhammad Al-Bakhiti. He said: “We have the ability and the courage to strike the Saudi and Emirati oil facilities if our demands are not met.”

The meeting with the Emirati ambassador coincided with a press conference held by the US special envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, during which he discussed his country’s position on renewing the truce in Yemen between the countries of the Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Houthi group. The US official held the Houthis responsible for hindering the reaching of an agreement without providing practical solutions for resuming the truce or dealing with Houthi threats.

These actions and movements confirm the connection between the regional files and their connection to the international mediations led by both America and Russia in Yemeni. Saudi Arabia and the UAE view the OPEC+ agreement as a trump card and a comprehensive framework that allows activating mediations and truces in Yemen, with the positive and consensual atmosphere it provides, which the Biden administration was unable to provide. This is despite its frequent talk about security cooperation in the Red Sea and the Gulf and naval and air manoeuvres, but it quickly turned into a political and economic framework that serves Israel and its interests more than it serves the interests of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

OPEC+ has shifted from a technical framework to an emerging economic and geopolitical framework; fuelled by the Ukrainian war and Russian demands. The tense American reactions deepened the Arab Gulf states’ mistrust of the American partner, which repeatedly failed to deal with the Yemeni and Iranian file. It also failed to deal with the economic requirements of the Gulf states and their political and cultural specificity, which put them in conflict with the powers of the region and threatened their political and religious legitimacy.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Arabi21 on 6 October 2022.

October 7, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | 1 Comment

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