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UN suspected of smuggling CIA agents into Yemen

thewallwillfall | November 2, 2015

[This is a translation of an article that recently appeared in Al Akhbar.]

Ansar Allah detain two Americans on Espionage Charges

Two Americans have been under surveillance who have regularly visited the site that is the current temporary residence of the UN team. The UN are based in the Sheraton Hotel in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.

This hotel had been used previously by the US diplomatic mission until it’s evacuation from Sanaa early 2015. The U.S. Diplomatic Mission allowed the UN to work from these premises temporarily until it could be considered safe for the Mission to return to Yemen once the hostilities had ceased.

The UN does not pay anything for the use of the facility and is not responsible for the maintenance of the premises that belong to the US Foreign Affairs Ministry but events over the last two weeks reveal that perhaps the UN repays Washington in more ways than one for the use of these premises.

The UN mission in Yemen operates with a very small staff, probably less than a hundred, consisting of Yemeni nationals, non Yemeni Arab nationals and foreign nationals.

These UN staff members travel between Yemen and Djibouti on UN-chartered private planes. Djibouti is now the only gateway to the world for Yemenis who are under an internationally supported blockade.

The two Americans who were under surveillance were transported using UN vehicles despite the fact that UN law prohibits the use of their vehicles for the transportation of any non-UN staff regardless of the situation, in order to maintain its neutral status.

On the evening of the 20th of October, a private UN plane arrived in Sanaa, from Djibouti. On board were two American citizens, Mark McAllister and John Hamen, who were ostensibly working for a maintenance company, Al Rafideen, contracted by the US Mission to provide services to their now vacated offices in the Sheraton Hotel, Sanaa.

At this point, Yemen National Security moved in and arrested the two men, taking them to an unknown location.

Attempts were made by the chief of staff of the UN mission in Sanaa to intervene and secure the release of the two Americans. The UN engaged in direct talks with the Yemeni government and Ansar Allah. The response from the Yemeni side was curt and to the point stating that this was not within the UN’s jurisdiction and the UN has nothing to do with the two men in question.

The UN official confirmed to the local government and AnsarAllah that the two men were working for a company now contracted by the UN and had been invited to Sanaa by the UN to maintain premises [that they do not pay for and where the UN is not responsible for maintenance – edit]. Unsurprisingly all UN efforts to secure the release of McAllister and Hamen have been unsuccessful.

The UN  was then informed that one of the two men was recognised as a “security agent” who had been working with the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Sanaa prior to their departure. The UN was informed by the relevant local Yemeni authorities that the UN’s involvement with any foreign intelligence is in direct violation of its fundamental principles and lawful activities in Yemen. This puts the UN in a very precarious and embarrassing position in Yemen.

Al-Akhbar asked the official spokesman on behalf of the UN Secretary General whether UN staff members were facing any hardships in Yemen:

“Yes, we face hardships due to the security situation and we are unable to distribute relief aid to Yemenis as we would be able to under normal circumstances.”

Responding to the question of whether or not the UN is in communication with the Saudi-led coalition, the UN official stated:

“As in the case of every war-torn area, the UN maintains communication with all factions involved in the conflict to guarantee UN convoy security.”  

Al-Akhbar also asked the UN official why the UN had allowed two non UN operatives, now in Yemeni & AnsarAllah custody, to travel to Yemen in a UN privately chartered plane. This contravenes all internationally agreed upon protocols that strictly prohibit the use of UN transportation for non UN staff. The seriousness of the situation is intensified by the fact that Yemen authorities have accused both men of being Washington intelligence agents.

The UN official responded cautiously, stating that he is aware of the two men whom he believes to be UN contractors.  He is aware of their situation but has no update on the incident. He added that the UN would not have transported any such operatives into or out of Yemen without using the proper channels of communication. He reiterated the official line that the two men are likely to be service contractors brought in to carry out maintenance on the adopted UN premises. [edit: despite the UN not being responsible for the premises]

The incident is highly sensitive. It does not only involve McAllister and Hamen, still in custody, but raises the uncomfortable question, what role is the UN playing in Yemen and for that matter, in other war torn countries in the region?

Yemeni citizens working for the UN have expressed their frustration at not being allowed to implement solutions to the dire humanitarian situation in their country, and have complained of having their movements and activities closely surveyed.

Yemeni security have informed the UN directly that this particular case violates the sovereignty of their country and its security.  

A local security official informed the UN in Yemen that such actions will have serious repercussions upon their activities within Yemen. Initial investigations into the two Washington assets in custody have shown that both men are linked to activities suspected to be espionage and investigations have exposed one of the men as a Washington intelligence agent who had already worked with Yemeni agents and who was well known to Yemen’s security officials.

The second man is an officer in the US Marines who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

The naturally concerned Yemeni authorities have informed the UN that the UN has no jurisdiction over these two men and should not interfere in Yemen’s security matters.  

As a consequence, all UN vehicles are being carefully and systematically inspected in the capital Sanaa. UN drivers are being checked and all passenger passports demanded for verification. This is now routine both at the airport and on the streets of Sanaa.

The matter was further complicated when a shot was fired at a UN vehicle and the bullet penetrated the car on October 22, 2015 while it was travelling towards Sanaa airport. No casualties were reported but its quite possible that this was a warning shot across UN bows.

What is certain however, is that both Ansar Allah and the General People’s Congress party in Yemen are highly displeased with UN Peace Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh’s recent role in siding with the Saudi-led coalition and disregarding all the points agreed upon in the Muscat talks.

Both parties are also understandably enraged by Washington’s role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition’s aggression on Yemen that is devastating the country. Washington has provided direct support to the Saudi coalition by supplying weapons, intelligence information, air surveillance and logistic support for air strikes. This support has been widely documented in the media.

Yemeni officials in Sanaa are on high alert regarding any intelligence network that could provide support to the Saudi-led coalition air strikes that have predominantly targeted civilians. This, despite continuous UN communications with the Saudi coalition’s operations room in the Saudi capital Al-Riyadh informing them of the co-ordinates of the UN location and areas of work.

Riyadh however, does not seem to be overly concerned with that information as was clearly seen when the Saudis directly targeted and bombed the UN Development Project in Aden. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressed criticism of Riyadh’s disregard and called for an investigation into the strikes but to date no such investigation has been initiated.

Riyadh came under criticism again for the disregard it showed by directly bombing the World Food Programmes’s storage facility, and several hospitals operating under international organizations directly affiliated with the UN.

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Reaping the Fruits of the War on Terror in Yemen

By Michael Horton | CounterPunch | November 3, 2015

Yemen was an early victim of the US led war on terror. The first targeted assassination by a US drone occurred there in November 2002. Yemen’s mountains and deserts were where the US developed and tested its flawed drone-centric counter-terrorism strategy. A combination of indifference, faulty intelligence, and incompetence has led to the deaths of hundreds of Yemeni civilians.

As tragic as these deaths are, they pale in comparison with the death and destruction unleashed by the current war in Yemen, a war that US foreign and counter-terrorism policies are partially responsible for.

As in most parts of the world where the US has waged its war on terror, the supposed targets—terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—are the primary beneficiaries.

These organizations exploit and feed off the chaotic and divisive environments that arise from short-sighted and uninformed “whack a mole” counter-terrorism strategies. Such an outcome is perfectly acceptable to the thriving military-industrial complex that drives and profits from US foreign policy.

Yemen is one of the countries where the disastrous consequences of the war on terror are most evident and potentially most consequential. Yemen’s strategic location across from the Bab al-Mandeb—a critical shipping corridor—and its long border with Saudi Arabia ensure that the chaos that has engulfed the country will not be easily contained.

The war has already spread across Saudi Arabia’s southern border where Houthi forces and elements of the Yemeni Army have repeatedly attacked military targets deep within Saudi territory. The same forces have reportedly launched anti-ship missiles—which the Yemeni Armed Forces have in their inventory—at ships belonging to the Saudi Navy.

Much of southern Yemen, which includes areas that Saudi Arabia and its allies claim to have “liberated,” is being infiltrated by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State. Parts of Aden—Yemen’s major port city—are now under the control of AQAP and allied bands of militant Salafis who are enforcing their version of Sharia law on the once cosmopolitan and relatively liberal city.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government—most of whose members remain in their villas in Saudi Arabia—has been unable to assert its authority in the liberated areas. As one of the better organized forces in the country, AQAP is filling the void. This is undoubtedly being facilitated by Saudi Arabia and its allies who view AQAP and militant Salafis as useful proxies. Just as they view groups like al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria as allies in their war against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

So how have US foreign policy and its counter-terrorism strategies contributed to the chaos that has engulfed Yemen?

In the wake of September 11th, then Yemeni President Saleh—a wily political survivor—recognized that the US’ war on terror was going to be a gift to corrupt governments like his. Saleh promised to be an ally in what he knew would be a war without end against organizations that are easily manipulated by intelligence services.

Thanks to the generosity of US tax payers, weapons and US Special Forces trainers poured into Yemen. There was little effective oversight of how the weapons and newly trained soldiers would be used. Rather than targeting al-Qaeda—an organization that the security services of Saleh’s government had already thoroughly penetrated—Saleh used his US supplied and trained special and counter-terrorism forces against his real enemies: namely the Houthis and those in south Yemen who opposed Saleh’s corrupt northerner dominated government.

In exchange for weapons and training, Saleh also agreed to let US drones hunt down and kill Yemeni citizens. It mattered little to him that the strikes strengthened AQAP. AQAP benefited from the cycles of revenge that resulted from the deaths of what were most often civilians. The drone strikes also weakened and de-legitimized tribal authority, one of the few constraints on the growth of AQAP and Saleh’s corrupt government.

US policies in Yemen—which were narrowly focused on killing the “bad guys” in the parlance of George W. Bush—altered the balance of power and helped set in motion the country’s rapid descent into chaos. With support from the US, Saleh was emboldened and rather than falling back on negotiations and patronage, which are long-established traditions in Yemen, he pursued his enemies. However, he and his forces were not powerful enough to prevail. Saleh, who is a student of Yemeni history, forgot that there are few periods when one man or a government has exercised control over the entirety of the country.

Rather than being defeated, Yemen’s Houthi rebels fought back and in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” in Yemen, they took over a large part of northwest Yemen. In the south, southern separatists, who were routinely imprisoned and disappeared by the security services and “counter-terrorism” forces, were further radicalized. Now, in southern Yemen, the flag of a unified Yemen is nowhere to be seen. It has been replaced by the flag of the formerly independent south Yemen and the black flags of al-Qaeda.

The US has spent billions of dollars—the actual amount is unknown—on its war on terror in Yemen. It is worth contemplating what the political situation in Yemen would look like if even a fraction of that money had been spent on programs that tackled the real issues that drive instability in Yemen like water shortages, government corruption, a lack of schools and medical facilities, and food insecurity. And what if this aid had been linked to meaningful reform within government institutions?

While it is of course unlikely that Yemen would be a bastion of stability and transparent government, it is just as unlikely that the country would be mired in a brutal civil war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Unfortunately, US policy makers have learned nothing from fourteen years of trillion dollar failures in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Rather than rethinking its policies in Yemen and pushing for a negotiated end to hostilities, the US is aiding and enabling Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the war in Yemen. This war has killed thousands, impoverished millions, and effectively ceded control of large parts of Yemen to AQAP and other militant Salafi organizations.

The US’ war on terror in Yemen has done nothing but increase instability, embolden terrorist organizations, and ensure years—likely decades—of healthy profits for the companies that make up the military-industrial complex. These companies—not the American or Yemeni people—are reaping the fruits of a war without end.

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Efforts to find political solution for Yemen failed: Houthis

Press TV – October 31, 2015

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says efforts to convene UN-backed peace talks to find a political solution to the ongoing crisis in the Arab country have failed.

“All understandings for a political solution leading to the cessation of aggression have failed,” Houthi spokesman Saleh al-Samad wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

Last week, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he was hoping to begin separate preliminary talks with the Houthis and the government of Yemen’s fugitive President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, expecting formal negotiations between the two sides “in the coming weeks.”

The UN envoy wants the talks to focus on the main parts of UN Resolution 2216 — the withdrawal of Ansarullah fighters from the areas under their control, the release of prisoners, the improvement of humanitarian situation, and the resumption of political dialogue.

In early October, Houthi leaders announced that they would accept the UN-brokered peace plan, which also requires adherence to Resolution 2216, if other parties to the conflict also commit to the initiative.

In his Facebook post, Samad also called on the Houthis to resist the Saudi aggression against their country.

“We should be patient and move with strength and courage in the face of aggression, to fortify our country against domination,” he wrote, adding, “We must redouble our efforts and exert ourselves to the utmost, ensuring the sacrifices made by our people over the past months do not go to waste.”

Previous attempt to hold peace talks in Yemen failed in June as loyalists to Hadi backed away from the negotiations insisting that Ansarullah fighters and their army allies first withdraw.

Saudi Arabia began its deadly military aggression against Yemen – without a UN mandate – on March 26. The strikes are meant to undermine the Ansarullah movement and restore power to Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

At least 7,000 people have lost their lives in the Saudi strikes, and a total of nearly 14,000 people have been injured so far.

On Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told a press conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh that the attacks may end soon, noting the acceptance of Resolution 2216 by the Houthis and affiliated groups.

The Ansarullah fighters took control of Sana’a in September 2014 and are currently in control of large parts of the country. The revolutionaries said Hadi’s government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

Hadi, along with the cabinet of former Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, stepped down in January.

On February 21, Hadi escaped house arrest in Sana’a and fled to his hometown Aden, where he withdrew his resignation and highlighted his intention to resume duties. He later fled the port city to Saudi Arabia.

October 31, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia hits hospital run by Doctors without Borders in Yemen

Press TV – October 27, 2015

Doctors without Borders (MSF) says a hospital run by the international medical group in Yemen has been hit by Saudi airstrikes.

“MSF facility in Saada [sic] Yemen was hit by several airstrikes last night with patients and staff inside the facility,” the group said in a tweet on Tuesday.

MSF spokeswoman Malak Shaher separately said that there were “no casualties” in the attacks.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s state news agency Saba quoted the Heedan hospital director as saying that several people were injured in Saudi attacks on the hospital – which is also located in Sa’ada – last night.

“The air raids resulted in the destruction of the entire hospital with all that was inside – devices and medical supplies – and the moderate wounding of several people,” Doctor Ali Mughli said.

It was not immediately clear, however, whether the Heedan hospital was the one operated by the MSF and targeted by Saudi warplanes.

The Saudi military has been engaged in heavy strikes against Yemen since late March. The strikes are supposedly meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch Saudi ally.

About 7,000 people have lost their lives in the Saudi airstrikes, and a total of nearly 14,000 people have been injured since March 26.

It is the second time this month that an MSF facility has been hit in a conflict zone.

Earlier, on October 3, an MSF hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz was bombed by US forces, killing about 30 people.

Officials at the humanitarian organization have blamed the United States, calling for “independent investigation” into the incident, which the US says occurred as a result of a “mistake” made “within the US chain of command.”

October 27, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Yemen’s Houthis conditionally agree to UN-brokered peace plan

Press TV – October 8, 2015

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement has expressed conditional support for a UN-brokered peace plan put forward in talks previously held in Oman.

The Ansarullah movement will agree to the seven-point peace plan, which also requires adherence to UN Resolution 2216, if other parties to the conflict also commit to the initiative, Yemen’s Saba Net news agency quoted Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam as saying on Wednesday.

The resolution, which was adopted in April, calls for the withdrawal of Ansarullah fighters from the areas under their control and for them to lay down arms.

Abdulsalam also called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council to back Yemen’s peace process.

Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, has not yet commented on Houthi’s new position. He had earlier ruled out engaging in talks with the Houthis before they accept the UN resolution.

Yemen’s General People’s Congress (GPC), the party of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has also accepted the peace plan.

Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in September 2014 and are currently in control of large parts of the Arab country. The revolutionaries said the government of Hadi was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

Hadi, along with the cabinet of the former Yemeni prime minister, Khaled Bahah, stepped down in January.

On February 21, he escaped house arrest in Sana’a and fled to his hometown Aden, where he withdrew his resignation and highlighted his intention to resume duties. He later fled the port city to Saudi Arabia.

Unhappy with the advances of the Ansarullah fighters, who are backed by army forces and Popular Committees, Saudi Arabia began a deadly military aggression against Yemen – without a UN mandate – on March 26. The strikes are meant to undermine the Ansarullah movement and restore power to Hadi.

About 6,400 people have reportedly lost their lives in the conflict in Yemen, according to reports.

In a Thursday interview with Press TV’s website, Siraj Davis, a Jordan-based freelance journalist and human rights activist, hailed the UN-proposed peace plan because it envisions a political process whereby the Houthis are given a role in the decision-making process in the country.

“What I like about the peace plan is the fact that they (Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies) do agree to make the Houthis a political party, which is extremely important,” Davis said.

He added, however, that the fugitive officials of the former Yemeni government, which have set preconditions for peace talks, are not sincere in their claims about reaching a peace deal.

“I believe that all sides need to just come to agreement, recognize what is on the ground… that Houthis control practically the majority of everything,” Davis said.

October 8, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Obama Boots Syrian Peace Chance

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | October 6, 2015

President Barack Obama is turning his back on possibly the last best chance to resolve the bloody Syrian war because he fears a backlash from Official Washington’s powerful coalition of neoconservatives and “liberal interventionists” along with their foreign fellow-travelers: Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf sheikdoms.

The route toward peace would be to collaborate with Russia and Iran to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to accept a power-sharing unity government that would fairly represent Syria’s major religious and ethnic groups – Christians, Alawites, Shiites and moderate Sunnis – along with a commitment for free, internationally monitored elections once adequate security is restored.

But for such an arrangement to work, Obama also would have to crack down aggressively on U.S. regional “allies” to ensure that they stopped funding, supplying and otherwise assisting the Sunni extremist forces including Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State (or ISIS). Obama would have to confront the Sunni “allies” – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – as well as Israel.

His pressure would have to include stern action aimed at the global finances of the Gulf states – i.e., seizing their assets as punishment for their continuing support for terrorism – as well as similar sanctions against Turkey, possibly ousting it from NATO if it balked, and a withdrawal of political and financial support for Israel if it continued helping Nusra fighters and viewing Al Qaeda as the “lesser evil” in Syria. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and Israel.”]

Obama also would have to make it clear to Syria’s “moderate” Sunni politicians whom the U.S. government has been subsidizing for the past several years that they must sit down with Assad’s representatives and work out a unity government or the American largess would end.

This combination of strong international pressure on the Sunni terror infrastructure and strong-arming internal players in Syria into a unity government could isolate the Sunni extremists from Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and thus minimize the need for military strikes whether carried out by Russia (against both Al Qaeda and ISIS) or the U.S. coalition (focusing on ISIS).

And, the arrival of Russian military support for the Assad government – as well as the increased backing from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – represented the moment when the prospect for peace was brightest, whatever one thinks of those various players. However, instead of working with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, President Obama chose to bend to the pressures of Official Washington.

Appeasing the Warmongers

Thinking he had stretched the tolerance of neocons and liberal hawks as far as he could by pushing through the nuclear deal with Iran, Obama fell in line behind their propagandistic denunciations of Assad and Putin. Obama’s administration joined in promoting the new favorite “group think” of Washington – that Putin had promised to only bomb the Islamic State and then reneged by attacking “moderate” rebels and their more powerful ally, Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

Conveniently, this storyline doesn’t cite the wording of Putin’s supposed “promise” although some articles do mention him vowing to attack “terrorist” groups, which the mainstream U.S. news media has interpreted as the Islamic State only. But this odd framing accepts the breathtaking premise that Al Qaeda is no longer a terrorist organization – apparently rehabilitated by the fact that Israel has been helping Al Qaeda’s affiliate, the Nusra Front, along the Golan Heights and prefers it to Assad’s continued rule. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Should US Ally with Al Qaeda in Syria?”]

Among the many purveyors of this “Putin lied” narrative is Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who on Tuesday repeated the canard that Putin had “promised” to strike only the Islamic State and then broke that promise. For good measure, Cohen added that the Russians had “invaded” Syria although they were formally invited by the recognized government of Syria.

“Yes, the Russians did invade,” Cohen wrote. “They sent war planes, mechanized units and even troops into Syria. They have begun bombing missions, apparently hitting insurgents seeking to topple Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and not only, as Russian President Vladimir Putin promised, Islamic State units. Putin – surprise! – lied.”

Normally in journalism, before we accuse someone of lying, we show what they actually said and contrast it with the facts. But Official Washington has long since moved Putin into the free-fire zone of demonization. Anything can be said about him, whether based in reality or not, and anyone who objects to this “group think” is called a “Putin bootlicker” or a “Putin apologist.”

Thus, any reality-based skepticism is ruled out of the frame of debate. Such was the way that the United States plunged blindly into the Iraq War in 2003 when Saddam Hussein was the demonized figure and the Europeans who warned President George W. Bush not to invade were laughed at as “Euro-weenies.” American skeptics were “Saddam apologists.”

Inside-Out ‘Logic’

Cohen is back at it again in his Tuesday column, which – on the Internet – has the curious title “The High Cost of Avoiding War in Syria.” Cohen throws around the word “invasion” where Russia is involved – even when there was no “invasion” – but he advocates an actual U.S. invasion with cavalier hypocrisy.

Cohen slams Obama for not having established “a no-fly zone” in Syria earlier, which would have involved the United States bombing and destroying Syria’s air force, a clear act of aggression and an obvious boon to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Cohen also says he was for “arming the rebels,” another violation of international law which – when tried by Obama to appease the drumbeat from Cohen and his ilk – led to many U.S.-trained and U.S.-armed rebels taking their equipment and skills to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Yet, Cohen — on the prized opinion real estate of The Washington Post’s op-ed page and in his nationally syndicated column — unapologetically encourages an illegal invasion of another country while condemning Russia for doing the same except that Russia was following international law by working with the sovereign government of Syria and therefore has not “invaded” Syria.

We also are supposed to forget that Cohen’s ideas would benefit Sunni jihadists, such as the Al Qaeda-dominated “Army of Conquest” which could use the “no-fly zones” to mount a victorious offensive to capture Damascus and create a humanitarian crisis even worse than now.

Possibly with ISIS chopping off the heads of “infidels” – Christians, Alawites, Shiites, etc. – and with Al Qaeda having a new home in the center of the Middle East to plot terror strikes on the West, Cohen’s plan might necessitate a major U.S. military intervention that would get even more people killed and deal the final death blow to the American Republic.

In evaluating Cohen’s lame-brained double-think, it is worth remembering that he was one of the many U.S. opinion leaders who cheered on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deceptive Iraq War speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. Waving “we-love-Colin” pompoms alongside all his esteemed colleagues, Cohen laughed at anyone who still doubted that Saddam Hussein possessed hidden WMD stockpiles.

“The evidence he [Powell] presented to the United Nations – some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail – had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them,” Cohen wrote. “Only a fool – or possibly a Frenchman – could conclude otherwise.”

Ha-ha, did you get that clever line – “Only a fool – or possibly a Frenchman” – pretty funny except that by heaping ridicule on those of us who doubted Powell’s evidence, Cohen contributed to the deaths of some 4,500 U.S. soldiers, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the cost to U.S. taxpayers of more than $1 trillion, and chaos now spreading across not just the Middle East but into Europe.

In a normal place where there was some modicum of accountability, you would have expected Cohen to be banished to Storage Room B with his red stapler or worse. But no, Cohen is back running with the same juvenile in-crowd, behaving just as stupidly and just as recklessly as he has many times in the past.

Obama Intimidated

But the larger problem is that President Obama appears intimidated by this collection of know-it-alls who preen across the editorial pages of The Washington Post and The New York Times or who hold down prestigious “fellowships” at the Brookings Institution or other big-name think tanks or who self-identify as “human rights activists” advocating “humanitarian” wars.

Arguably, Obama has always had an outsized regard for people with establishment credentials. It is, after all, how he rose through the ranks as first an extremely bright academic and later a talented orator and politician. Without family connections or personal wealth, he needed the approval of various influential individuals. If he offended them in some way, he risked being pigeonholed as “an angry black man.”

Indeed, the comedy duo Key & Peele developed a series of funny skits with Jordan Peele playing the always proper and controlled Obama and Keegan-Michael Key as “anger translator Luther.” Obama even invited “Luther” to translate Obama’s speech to the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner, except that by the end of that talk Obama was expressing his own anger and Luther peeled away.

The problem in the real world is that Obama remains cowed by the Important People of Washington – represented in that oh-so-important crowd at the dinner – and bows to their misguided thinking.

Obama also is facing a beefed-up lobbying operation for Saudi Arabia to go along with the always formidable Israel Lobby. The Intercept reported that in September the Saudi kingdom added to its large stable of thoroughbred influence-peddlers by signing “Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world [and] the  Podesta Group … a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.”

Indeed, the repressive Saudi kingdom may need some special P.R. help as it prepares to behead Ali Mohammed al-Nimr whose body would then be attached to a cross or otherwise displayed in a crucifixion that would leave his corpse to rot for several days as a warning to others. Al-Nimr is a Shiite who at the age of 17 in 2012 participated in a pro-democracy demonstration that was viewed as an affront to the monarchy.

The Saudis also have been waging a ruthless air war against impoverished Yemen, attacking Houthis who stem from a branch of Shia Islam which Saudi Sunni Wahhabism considers apostasy. The Saudi bombing campaign, which recently killed some 131 celebrants at a wedding inside Yemen, gets intelligence and logistical support from the Obama administration even though the slaughter of Houthis has benefited their Yemeni rivals, “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” who have gained ground behind the Saudi air offensive.

Diverting Attention

Yet, the Saudis’ P.R. battalions – along with the Israel Lobby – have kept Official Washington’s focus in other directions. Indeed, there are now so many false or dubious narratives dis-informing the capital’s “group think” that U.S. decisions are driven more by mythology than facts.

Obama could begin the process of restoring sanity to Washington by declassifying U.S. intelligence analyses on several key issues. For instance, Obama could release what’s now known about the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus.

After that attack, there was a rush to judgment at the State Department and within the mainstream U.S. news media to blame that atrocity on Assad’s forces, although I’m told that CIA analysts have since moved away from that view and now agree that the attack was likely a provocation designed to draw the U.S. military into the war on the side of the Sunni jihadists. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.”]

Though Obama and other officials have dropped the sarin accusations from their public speeches – harping instead on “barrel bombs” as if those homemade weapons are some uniquely evil device – Obama has refused to retract the sarin allegations which helped shape the hyper-hostile “conventional wisdom” against Assad.

Similarly, Obama has withheld U.S. intelligence information about the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, letting stand hasty accusations blaming Putin. Obama appears infatuated by the trendy concept of “strategic communications” or “Stratcom,” which blends psy-ops, propaganda and P.R. into one noxious brew to poison public opinion about one’s “enemy.”

With the recent Russian military intervention in Syria, Obama had the chance to correct the record on the sarin-gas attack and the MH-17 shoot-down but instead continued the “Stratcom” both in his United Nations speech and his news conference last Friday with more hyperbolic attacks against Assad and Putin. In doing so, Obama apparently bowed to the desired rhetoric of hardliners like U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and the editorial-page masters of The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Obama may have hoped his harsh language would appease the neocons and their liberal-hawk pals, but the tough-guy rhetoric has only opened him up to new attacks over the disparity between his words and deeds. As the clueless columnist Richard Cohen wrote, “A no-fly zone needs to be established. It is not too late to do something. By doing so little, the United States has allowed others to do so much.” [Emphasis in original.]

In other words, Cohen appears to want the U.S. military to shoot down Russian planes over Syria, even though the Russians have been invited by the recognized government to be there and the U.S. has not. The minor complication of possible human extinction from a nuclear war apparently is of little consequence when compared to the street cred that one gets from such manly talk.

For Official Washington – and apparently Obama – the peace option is regarded as unacceptable, i.e., working with Russia and Iran to achieve a power-sharing unity government in Damascus (with the promise of elections as soon as possible) along with the United States demanding from its regional “allies” a complete shutdown of assistance to the Islamic State, Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and all other Sunni jihadists.

That option would require Obama and the neocon/liberal-hawk cowboys to get down off their high horses, admit they have been tossing their lasso in the wrong direction – and compromise.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

October 7, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama moves to dismiss case of Yemeni whose innocent relatives were killed in US drone strike

Reprieve – October 2, 2015

The US government has asked a D.C. court to dismiss the case of a Yemeni man whose family members were killed by a US drone strike, on the basis that he has no legal ‘standing’ to bring a case against them.

Earlier this year, Mr bin Ali Jaber filed a lawsuit against President Obama, seeking a declaration from a federal court in Washington, D.C., that the 2012 strike was unlawful and his innocent relatives were wrongfully killed. The Obama administration yesterday filed a motion asking the court to dismiss Mr bin Ali Jaber’s case entirely. They argued that Mr Jaber has no standing – i.e. that he has no legal right to bring his case in the US – and that whether a US drone killed his relatives is a ‘political question’ that no court should review.

However, in November 2013 Mr bin Ali Jaber travelled to Washington, D.C. where he had meetings with White House and NSC officials about his relative’s deaths. No US official suggested then that Mr. Jaber, who is the appointed representative of the Jaber family estates, lacked authority to speak for the family.

Faisal lost his nephew Waleed and his brother-in-law Salem in a US drone attack in the village of Khashamir on August 29 2012. Waleed was a local policeman, and Salem was an imam who was known for speaking out against al-Qaeda in his sermons – including on the Friday before he was killed. After the strike and Faisal’s travels to the US, Faisal’s relatives were given a plastic bag containing $100,000 in sequentially-marked US dollar bills as a condolence payment, but the US has never admitted responsibility for the killings.

Mr bin Ali Jaber had previously written to the White House offering to settle the case on one condition – that he receive a public apology from the US. He did so in the footsteps of President Obama’s apology, earlier this year, to the families of Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein, an Italian and an American citizen who were killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in January. It marked the first known US acknowledgement of responsibility for civilian deaths under the drone programme.

In a letter to President Obama, Cori Crider – Mr bin Ali Jaber’s lawyer at human rights organization Reprieve – writes: “I write today to make a formal offer of settlement. In consideration for dropping this lawsuit, Mr. Jaber asks for nothing more than what you gave the families of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto: an apology and an explanation as to why a strike that killed two innocent civilians was authorized.”

Covert strikes by the CIA in Yemen and Pakistan are believed to have killed hundreds of civilians, but the US has never formally admitted responsibility beyond the deaths of Mr Lo Porto and Mr Weinstein.

Cori Crider, attorney for Faisal bin Ali Jaber and a director at international human rights charity Reprieve, said: “Once again we see the yawning gulf between this President’s rhetoric on drones and the reality. President Obama once said innocent drone deaths would haunt him as long as he lives – so why, then, does sorry seem to be the hardest word? It is insulting to my client to be told he has no right to represent his family’s estate, when White House officials certainly thought he was worthy of meetings in Washington. The US is now trying its level best to block Faisal’s quest for justice by kicking him out of the courts. There is no good reason that the President stood up in front of the world with the Lo Porto and Weinstein families to say sorry for the US’ tragic mistake, but can’t do so for a Yemeni man. The hypocrisy of the Administration’s stance sends a harmful message, telling the entire Muslim world that its lives have no value to the United States.”

October 2, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia sinks UN war crimes probe in Yemen, Washington stays silent

RT | October 2, 2015

cojdewdueaafpzaThe Netherlands dropped their bid to establish an independent UN-led probe into alleged war crimes in Yemen, yielding to an alternative resolution proposed by Saudi Arabia, which stands accused of causing most of the civilian deaths in the conflict.

The Saudis are leading a coalition of countries, whcih since late March has been using their military to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen in an attempt to put ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back into power. According to UN numbers published on Tuesday, at least 2,355 civilians have been killed during the six months of the conflict. The majority of them died in Saudi attacks.

The latest of alleged atrocities in the Yemen war is an apparent Saudi airstrike that killed 131 guests at a wedding party. The Saudis, who have air superiority in Yemeni airspace, denied any involvement.

According to Amnesty International, many civilian killings in Yemen can be considered war crimes. In September, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an independent, international inquiry into alleged war crimes in the country. The Netherlands submitted a draft resolution to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) shortly after, which among other things called for UN experts to be sent to Yemen to investigate allegations of crimes committed by all parties involved. The proposal was backed by a number of European countries.

The document was opposed by Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, all members of the council, as well as the Yemeni government in exile. The Saudis allegedly won their place at the council through a secret deal with the British government, according to the cables exposed by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

The Saudis proposed an alternative resolution that doesn’t provide for an independent international inquiry and instead calls on the UN to support a probe led by the Hadi government. Human rights groups objected to the Saudi draft resolution, saying it would put a belligerent party in charge of the probe and would ultimately leave Saudi crimes obscured.

While the Saudis kept pushing for their draft resolution to be passed, the US kept mostly silent on the debate, and didn’t voice support for the Dutch proposal. Last week, American UN envoy Samantha Power released an ambiguously worded statement on the issue, which said Washington was “following the ongoing discussions in Geneva closely.”

“We do believe the Human Rights Council and OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights] have an important role to play regarding the humanitarian situation, and look forward to working with our colleagues in Geneva,” Powers said.

The US helps its Arab ally Saudi Arabia in the Yemen bombing campaign with logistics and targeting. America is also the biggest provider of weapons for Saudi’s armed forces.

On Wednesday, the Netherlands announced they were dropping their draft resolution, leaving the Saudi document the only contestant for UN endorsement. Washington’s de facto opposition to the document played a significant role in its eventual demise, according to Vice News.

“It was terrible, the US was silent for a very long time,” Nicolas Agostini, Geneva representative for the International Federation For Human Rights, told Vice News. “The Dutch should have had public support from key partners including the US throughout the process.

“By the second week of negotiations, it became clear they wouldn’t get that kind of support. [America’s] very late public expression of support for the Dutch text, and emphasis on the need to reach consensus, de facto benefited the Saudis.”

October 2, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Aid for Syria crisis victims still not enough: UN

Press TV – September 20, 2015

The United Nations says despite a surge in the international community’s humanitarian aid to help those affected by the conflict in Syria, the sum hardly keeps up with the rising needs of the afflicted people.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien made the remark on Saturday while on a tour of the Zaatari camp, which is Jordan’s largest facility for Syrian refugees.

When asked about the aid shortage, O’Brien said that “need has risen so much that even though we are securing record amounts of funding, record amounts of political will and support, nonetheless the (funding) gap has widened,” because of protracted conflicts in the region, such as those in Syria, South Sudan and Yemen.

Meanwhile, Hovig Etyemezian, the director of the UN-run Zaatari refugee camp, said the international community “hasn’t woken up yet to the need to assist Jordan” to address the refugee crisis.

For 2015, aid agencies requested over USD 7.4 billion, both for refugees and those internally displaced by the crisis in Syria. However, the agencies have received only USD 2.8 billion so far, according the UN refugee agency.

Refugee aid programs in host countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq were reportedly just 41 percent funded as of September.

Germany’s donation

In a separate development on Sunday, German Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Muller announced that Berlin would donate USD 22.6 million to the World Food Program (WFP) to supply Syrian refugees with food.

“This means that around 500,000 Syrian refugees in the region can be supplied with food for three months,” Muller told the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

In late July, the WFP slashed by half its food assistance for Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon due to a funding crisis.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has reportedly claimed more than 240,000 lives up until now.

September 20, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi air raids kill dozens of Yemeni civilians amid humanitarian crisis

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RT | September 20, 2015

The latest Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have left dozens of civilians dead and nearly 160 injured at a time that sees medical facilities struggling to provide even the most basic services. The country is suffering from a shortage of vital supplies due to the ongoing blockade.

The coalition air raids against Houthi forces in Sanaa overnight on Friday killed at least 40 civilians and injured at least another 130 people, Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported.

One strike leveled an apartment building in the center of the city killing a family of nine, while another strike killed a man who had been searching for his family in the rubble, AP reported. The coalition has even managed to attack Yemen’s interior ministry in the capital, launching about 10 strikes at the building as well as at a police camp and a military building close to it.

The airstrikes also hit the residence of Oman’s ambassador in Sanaa.

“Oman received with deep regret yesterday’s news targeting the ambassador’s home in Sanaa, which is a clear violation of international charters and norms that emphasize the inviolability of diplomatic premises,” the foreign affairs ministry’s statement said.

A further 38 civilians were killed by the airstrikes in the northern province of Saada while another 27 were left wounded, according to a DPA-interviewed official.

Meanwhile civilians suffering violence on the ground and the wrath of the Saudi-led aerial campaign continue to face humanitarian crises, with fuel and vital medical supplies running out. The health ministry issued a statement saying that it is overwhelmed by the amount of wounded as it lacks basic medicines necessary for treating the injured. The plea call also said that medical facilities lack fuel to operate ambulances and hospital equipment, SABA reports.

“At the moment we only have enough fuel in the north and centre of the country for the next six weeks,” Mark Kaye, the acting director of advocacy for Save the Children in Yemen, told The Independent. As well as no electricity for households and petrol for vehicles “that means no fuel for hospitals, who rely on generators for their work.”

The official UN death toll figures illustrate that almost 4,900 people have been killed since Saudi forces began their bombardment of Yemen late March. The UN aid chief has called the scale of human suffering “almost incomprehensible.”

READ MORE: UN condemns ‘virtual silence’ on civilian casualties in Yemeni conflict

September 20, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Obama’s Legacy Will Not Be One of Peace

By Chad Nelson | c4ss | September 11, 2015

The Financial Times recently reported that Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama has conducted ten times more drone strikes than his predecessor George W. Bush. As far as we can tell, that number is somewhere in the ballpark of 500 strikes and spans a wide array of countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. We can’t know for sure exactly how many drone attacks have taken place, who is conducting them, how many people have been killed by them, or how many other countries have been victim.

It’s important to Obama that the extent of his drone wars remain secret. His peaceful veneer would quickly disintegrate if we had an accurate Obama-death-toll. Drone wars have been kept so secret, in fact, that Obama’s former Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, revealed that he was instructed not to acknowledge or discuss their existence. A handful of investigative journalist groups like The Long War Journal have been left conducting important but difficult guess work about Obama’s drone wars, as if putting together a large puzzle one small piece at a time.

All the while, the American public is left clueless as to the activities being conducted in their name. Obama proclaims that “a decade of war is over,” while behind the scenes he expands the scope of the War on Terror. As a result of our being kept largely ignorant of our government’s actions, we are all the more astounded when the consequences of such wars come to fruition.

The phenomenon of blowback results from the American government’s actions abroad which cause tremendous resentment within local populations. When retaliation for these actions arrives at our shores or against Americans abroad, as it inevitably does, the American public is shocked and appalled, wondering what could possibly prompt such heinous actions. Hungry for answers, Americans are then fed simple explanations by politicians, such as, “they hate our way of life,” or “their religion commands them to commit such acts.” Never are we provided the context in which such reprisals occur. And because so many Americans willingly accept the state’s spoon-fed version of events, they largely tolerate a domestic police and surveillance state that is said to keep them safe from such “terrorists.”

Tribal areas of Afghanistan surveyed about the psychological effects of drones reveal a people living in terror, unable to sleep, with children often kept home from school for fear they’ll be targeted. Though generally out of sight, drones can constantly be heard buzzing overhead, creating a persistent state of fear. Despite our being told of the precision of drone strikes, subject populations have described massive civilian casualties and widespread destruction of property.

Consequently, large swaths of these foreign populations living under drones view the United States in a negative light. One Pew Research Center study found that three quarters of Pakistanis now view Americans as the enemy. One would expect similar numbers from the many other countries across the Middle East and Africa in which America now conducts drone strikes. Blowback is not limited to those directly terrorized by drones either. General Stanley McChrystal stated “resentment created by [drones] … is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects of one.”

Though it’s shrouded in secrecy, this new form of American warfare will be Obama’s legacy. The “sanitization” of war offered by drones (introduced on a grand scale by Obama) all but ensures America will never again be without foreign conflict at the hands of crazed politicians. As drone technology continues to improve, the rest of the world will be more at risk of attack by the American war machine, and Americans less safe as a result. As Obama’s time in the White House winds down, let’s remember that he escalated the War on Terror. He’s offered his successors the safety of precedent to fall back on and opened new frontiers for American military demolition. Barack Obama had the opportunity to curtail America’s destructiveness around the world, and instead, he amplified it.

September 14, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Benign State Violence vs. Barbaric Terrorism

By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | September 12, 2015

Seven months ago, UK Prime Minister David Cameron lamented the “sickening murder” of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kaseasbeh by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). President Barack Obama also decried the “viciousness and barbarity” of the act. In his home country, al-Kaseasbeh was remembered as a “hero” and a “martyr” by government officials. Obama even declared his murder demonstrated ISIS’s “bankrupt” ideology. The killing was seen by the Western coalition and allied Arab monarchies fighting ISIS as a symbol of the evilness of their enemies, and by contrast the righteousness of their own cause.

The act that precipitated such a strong outpouring was the purported execution of the 26-year-old al-Kaseasbeh. He was burned alive inside a cage after several months in captivity. As part of ISIS’s propaganda campaign, they posted the video on Youtube. The authenticity of the video has since been questioned, but there is no doubt that regardless of the method used, he was indeed killed.

Al-Kaseasbeh was not an innocent civilian. In fact, he was a pilot in the Royal Jordanian Air Force who was bombing territory controlled by ISIS in an F-16 fighter jet. That is to say, he was an active combatant in military hostilities. His combatant status would be equivalent to an ISIS pilot (if they had an Air Force) apprehended after bombing New York City or London. Though it was reported in the British newspaper The Telegraph that al-Kaseasbeh was “kidnapped,” a military combatant engaged in armed conflict on the battlefield cannot be kidnapped. He was captured.

According to the Geneva Conventions, Prisoners of War enjoy protected status that guarantees their humane treatment and eventual release at the end of hostilities. “POWs cannot be prosecuted for taking a direct part in hostilities. Their detention is not a form of punishment, but only aims to prevent further participation in the conflict. They must be released and repatriated without delay after the end of hostilities,” writes the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ISIS would have no legal grounds to kill al-Kaseasbeh, but it was cynical and sanctimonious for the Western coalition to react with such outrage when he was killed. Those same countries have embraced and celebrated summary assassinations and executions on a scale far more massive than anything ISIS could ever be capable of.

Several weeks ago, Cameron ordered the assassination of two British citizens in Syria alleged to be ISIS militants.

“The strike against British citizen Reyaad Khan, the ‘target of the strike,’ was committed without approval from Parliament. British citizen Ruhul Amin, who was killed in the strike, was deemed an ‘associate’ worthy of death,” writes Kevin Gosztola in Shadowproof.

The British government has not declared war on Syria and has not released any legal justification for its actions. Naturally, any legal documentation they did produce would be merely psuedo-legal cover that would never withstand real judicial scrutiny.

Cameron’s actions in ordering the murder of his own citizens follows the well-treaded path of Obama, whose large-scale drone program in as many as seven countries (none of which the US Congress has declared war on) have killed more than 2,500 people in six years. The President has quipped that he is “really good at killing people.”

By any measure, the drone assassination program has been wildly reckless and ineffective. One study determined that missile strikes from unmanned drones, launched by remote-control jockeys in air-controlled trailers in the American desert, kill 28 unknown people for every intended target. In Pakistan, a study revealed that only 4% of those killed have been identified as members of al Qaeda.

Among the victims have been 12 people on their way to a wedding in Yemen, and a 13-year-old boy who said that he lived in constant fear of “death machines” that had already killed his father and brother before taking his own life.

“A lot of the kids in this area wake up from sleeping because of nightmares from then and some now have mental problems. They turned our area into hell and continuous horror, day and night, we even dream of them in our sleep,” the now-deceased boy, Mohammed Tuaiman, told The Guardian.

Before Cameron did so, Obama also targeted citizens of his own country for assassination without trial. The most well known case is of Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a drone strike in 2011. The government claimed he was operationally active in al-Qaeda, but this was never tested in court.

“It is likely the real reason Anwar al-Awlaki was killed is that he was seen as a radicalizer whose ideological activities were capable of driving Western Muslims to terrorist violence,” writes Arun Kundnani in The Muslims Are Coming!.

In other words, the Obama administration decided his speech was not protected by the 1st amendment to the US Constitution, and rather than being obligated to test this theory in court they unilaterally claimed the right to assassinate him, the way King John of England would have been able to order the execution of one of his subjects before signing the Magna Carta 800 years ago.

Three weeks later, al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son was killed in a drone strike. An Obama adviser justified the strike by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”

Writing on his blog, former British security services officer Craig Murray claims that in light of the decision 20 years ago by the European Court of Human Rights that targeted assassinations when an attack was no imminent were illegal, the British government cannot claim its drone strike in Syria “is anything other than murder.”

“For the government to claim the right to kill British people through sci-fi execution, based on highly unreliable secret intelligence and a secret declaration of legality, is so shocking I find it difficult to believe it is happening even as I type the words. Are we so cowed as to accept this?” Murray writes.

So what makes ISIS’s killing supposedly morally outrageous compared to the US and British drone strikes?

Was ISIS’s killing less morally justified? Al-Kaseasbeh was a combatant who had been dropping bombs on the people who eventually killed him. That much is beyond dispute. The US and UK kill people through drone strikes merely for being suspected militants who might one day seek to attack those countries.

Were ISIS’s methods less humane? Certainly burning a human being alive is sadistic and cruel. But is it any less so to incinerate a human being by a Hellfire missile? Former drone operator Brandon Bryant told NBC News that he saw his victim “running forward, he’s missing his right leg… And I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot.” Is a drone strike less cruel because the operator is thousands of miles away from the bloodshed and watching on a screen rather than in person?

Were ISIS’s actions terrorism while the US/UK actions were not? As the late Mohammed Tuaiman attested, he and his neighbors were terrified by the omnipresence of the “death machines” that could at any second of the day blow him to pieces without warning or the possibility of escape. Were the people in ISIS controlled territory as terrorized as Tuaiman by the burning of the Jordanian pilot, who was specifically targeted because he had been caught after bombing the same people who now held him captive? Surely they were not more terrorized, though perhaps they might have been equally so.

It would by hypocritical to justify one form of extrajudicial killing while demonizing another. Yet that is exactly what happens when one form of violence is undertaken by a state and another is not. The New York Times is indicative of broader public opinion when it decries the “fanatical vision” of ISIS that has “shocked and terrified the peoples of Iraq and Syria,” while accepting Obama’s rationalizations of deaths via drone strikes as collateral damage, maintaining only that he should “provide a fuller accounting” to enable an “informed debate.”

The apologies for state violence enable the shredding of the rule of law as a method of accountability for those in power, while other states take advantage of technical advances to proliferate their own sci-fi violence against their own citizens and others.

“Pakistan is the latest member of a growing technological club of nations: those who have successfully weaponized drones,” writes Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian. “In addition to the US, UK and Israel, a recent New America Foundation report highlighted credible accounts that Iran, South Africa, France, China and Somalia possess armed drones, as do the terrorist groups [sic] Hamas and Hezbollah. Russia says it is working on its own model.”

One day in the not too distant future, the skies across the world may be full of drones from every country dispensing justice from Miami to Mumbai via Hellfire Missiles, relegating the rule of law and its method of trial by jury to the ash heap of history. And it will not be because of terrorist groups like ISIS that governments and the media are so forceful to condemn, but because of governments themselves and their lapdogs in the media who refuse to apply the same standards in judging violence to states that have their own Air Forces.

September 13, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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