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What kind of Logic is this: Justifying the killing of civilians and children?

Posted by: on: August 19, 2014

What kind of Logic is this: Justifying the killing of civilians and children?

The Dangerous Logic Used to Justify Killing Civilians

A supporter of Israel’s campaign in Gaza evades a longstanding taboo, using logic uncomfortably close to what’s employed by Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists.
After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden argued that Al Qaeda was perfectly justified in killing all those people inside the World Trade Center because they weren’t really civilians–they were complicit in U.S. might and misdeeds.
Didn’t their taxes fund America’s CIA assassinations and war planes?
As every American understood perfectly well at the time, the attack that day would not have been justified even if all office workers in the Twin Towers had voted for a president and supported a military that perpetrated grave sins in the Middle East.
Or even, indeed, if they were all subletting spare bedrooms to U.S. soldiers.
 published this JULY 23, 2014,

Reuters

Killing civilians is wrong, no matter how often those who do it insist that the humans they killed weren’t really innocent.

Everyone understands this truth when the civilians being killed are one’s countrymen or allies–but forget it quickly when the civilians are citizens of a country one is fighting or rooting against in war, even though the civilizational taboo against killing civilians becomes no less important.

The latest to succumb to this seductive illogic, to insist that slain civilians weren’t really civilians, is New York University’s Thane Rosenbaum, who writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Gazans sheltered terrorists and their weapons in their homes, right beside ottoman sofas and dirty diapers. When Israel warned them of impending attacks, the inhabitants defiantly refused to leave.

On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations.

At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.

For purposes of this article, let’s set aside all the adults killed in Gaza, just for the sake of argument.

The dead Palestinian children are evidence enough that “real civilians” are being slaughtered.

In the above passage, the author focuses on the dirty diapers rather than the baby that produced them.

Elsewhere, he acknowledges the revolting number of kids killed in this conflict, and then adds, as if it’s concession enough, “Surely there are civilians who have been killed in this conflict who have taken every step to distance themselves from this fast-moving war zone, and children whose parents are not card-carrying Hamas loyalists. These are the true innocents of Gaza.”

In fact, even a toddler whose father is a card-carrying Hamas loyalist is an innocent, by virtue of being a young child!

It is a moral failure not to acknowledge at least that.

And the failure is worth dwelling on because wide embrace of Rosenbaum’s logic would be a setback for a world where civilians have legal protection in war, however often it is violated.

As Daniel Larison explains:

Rosenbaum’s argument is extremely similar to the justifications that terrorist groups use when they target civilians in their own attacks. It is based on the false assumption that there are no real innocents or bystanders in a given country because of their previous political support for a government and its policies, which supposedly makes it permissible to strike non-military targets.

It is very important to reject this logic no matter where it comes from or whose cause in a conflict it is being used to advance, because this is the logic that has been used to justify countless atrocities down through the years.

Just so.

No matter one’s position on Israel, Palestine, or the current conflict, the fact that innocent civilians exist on both sides, that they ought to be protected from death and dismemberment, and that they’re presently dying in large numbers ought not be denied.

Lest there be any confusion about what sorts of attacks I am condemning, consider any bygone instance of a Palestinian suicide bomber blowing up a restaurant or discotheque–or the lobbing rockets into residential neighborhoods inside Israel–as well as Israeli attacks like one that the New York Times just reported on:

When the strike leveled a four-story house in the southern Gaza Strip the night before, it also killed 25 members of 4 family households—including 19 children—gathered to break the daily Ramadan fast together.

Relatives said it also killed a guest of the family, identified by an Israeli human rights group as a member of the Hamas military wing, ostensibly Israel’s target.

The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed families in their homes, during an offensive that Israel says is meant to stop militant rocket fire that targets its civilians and destroy Hamas’s tunnel network.

The Palestinian deaths—75% of them civilians, according to a United Nations count—have prompted a wave of international outrage, and are raising questions about Israel’s stated dedication to protecting civilians.

Killing 19 children in order to get one Hamas fighter is horrific.

Says Larison, alluding to such attacks:

It may please Hamas to make use of these victims’ deaths for their own purposes, but that doesn’t absolve the Israeli government of its responsibility for causing those deaths.

If Hamas benefits politically from these civilian deaths, and it seems likely that they do, it would seem obvious that Israel should not want to cause any more, and yet at each step over the last few weeks Israel’s government has responded with tactics that are guaranteed to continue killing many more non-combatants for as long as this operation continues.

Israel’s experience as a terrorist target suggests that watching foreigners kill children in one’s midst does not break a people’s desire to fight—it strengthens it.

The spike in civilian deaths we’re witnessing appears to be a moral and strategic failure.

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs.

He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

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“Oh God! Here We Go Again” in Iraq. And the 7 who should STFU about Iraq

Posted by: on: June 17, 2014

“Oh God! Here We Go Again” in Iraq

We marvel at the Big Brass Ones on some people who feel the need to offer their opinions about how the U.S. should conduct itself with regards to recent rise of extremist elements in the country and the loss of two of its major cities to al Qaeda.

David Ferguson published this June 13, 2014

The seven people who need to STFU about Iraq right now

These people seem to believe that their previous dire wrongness on everything about the topic of Iraq shouldn’t preclude them from opining about our nation’s current course of action, goodness no.

judymiller

Mika Brzeznski 

1. Andrew Sullivan, who has devoted any number of column inches lately to slamming the NeoCons and the war “they” advocated for. In a post today — the elegantly titled “The Neocons Get A War Chubby” — Sullivan roundly mocked and scolded re-interventionists, warning the country not to “sink the U.S. right back into the Iraqi quicksand.”

 

Sullivan has long-since disavowed the infamous 2001 column in which he said war critics might collude with al Qaeda to try and take down the U.S. from within, but it tends to linger on in the memory, much as forgotten sushi leftovers will leave behind their distinctive odeur to linger in that drawer in your refrigerator.

“The middle part of the country — the great red zone that voted for Bush — is clearly ready for war,” Sullivan wrote in the U.K.’s Sunday Times. “The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead — and may well mount a fifth column.”

We’ve got your “fifth column” right here, Andy. It’s in our pants.

2. Judith Miller, the Bush administration’s “humiliated and discredited shill” on WMDs was once thankfully banished to writing a household hints column for the West Egg Pennysaver — or something.

Nonetheless, on Friday, the reporter known as “the most infamous example of the press’s failure in the run-up to that war” was unflushably bobbing up on Fox News to discuss the media’s portrayal of Iraq as Irony let herself into the garage and started the car without opening the garage door and waited quietly for the end.

3. Thomas Friedman, the hot air specialist who rhapsodized in May of 2003 that American military might had rightly told the Iraqi people to “suck on this.”

When the Iraqis declined his offer and the occupation spiraled completely out of control, Friedman insisted over and over that the situation would stabilize in just 6 more months.

To commemorate this very special failure as a pundit and prognosticator, lefty wags created the Friedman Unit, a six month span of time in which nothing ever happens.

4. The New York Times seems to have conveniently forgotten how sad and diminished the Gray Lady looked locked out on the Bush administration’s porch in her bloomers, poor old thing.

Today, columnist Tyler Cowen lamented that the economy is suffering because we don’t have any major wars planned after forces come home from Afghanistan at the end of the year.  Peace, the libertarian fretted, is bad for business.

Funny they should endorse war as an economic engine right as Iraq appears to be shitting its bed and playing with matches in a fireworks store. I mean, what are the odds?

5. The whole of the so-called Juicebox Mafia. The lines of that particular claque have expanded and contracted to include Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias and a passel of other Beltway post-teens who were so excited they got to sit at the big kids’ table they forgot that they didn’t know jack shit about foreign policy and endorsed a war of choice in one of the most volatile regions of the world, wheeee! What could go wrong? We’re smart! And cute!

A big, preemptive “Shut it!” goes out to Peter Beinart who, in January, 2003, joined the National Review‘s Jonah Goldberg in a CNN panel discussion in which the two giggled and leered over accusations that U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter was a child molester because of allegations that he had communicated over the Internet with a 16-year-old girl.

“I think that he didn’t have any credibility to begin with,” said Beinart of Ritter. “I mean, this is the guy who never really explained, as Jonah said, why he flipped 180 degrees and became a Saddam mouthpiece. So for me it’s irrelevant. I never listened to what he had to say on Iraq to begin with.”

“He’s now just basically joined Pete Townsend on the Magic School Bus,” Beinart continued. “Pete Townsend of the WHO has also been implicated in child porn and things of that nature. But as everybody said, Ritter’s credibility, just on the basics of Iraq, was completely shot and now there’s even less reason to listen to him.”

Scott Ritter’s alleged crime? Pointing out that Saddam Hussein didn’t have any WMDs and that a U.S. invasion was a bad idea.

6. Ari Fleischer, one of the most pugnacious, pugilistic, and sometimes breathtakingly condescending White House press secretaries in history.

Fleischer functioned as a lying administration’s able mouthpiece both here and in the combat zone and served the unlikely function in life of making fellow Bush administration shill Dan Senor seem almost non-slimy.

Fleischer piped up on Twitter Friday morning to simultaneously absolve the Bush administration of blame and passive aggressively accuse the Obama administration of squandering gains made by his own masters. Trouble is, he got the year wrong.

“Regardless of what anyone thinks about going into Iraq in 2002,” he tweeted — apparently forgetting that the first bombing raids began in March of 2003, “it’s a tragedy that the successes of the 2007 surge have been lost & abandoned.”

Bush administration folks are still around, apparently, to remind us in the reality-based community that facts is HARD and stuff.

7. John McCain, you angry, corn-teethed fossil.

You’ve never met a foreign conflict that didn’t require MOAR U.S. TROOPS, have you? At least you’re consistent, after a fashion. Oh, who are we kidding, you’re not consistent at all about anything that might score you some political points and get you on TV!

Things didn’t go super well for you on Morning Joe on Friday, though, did they? Impeccably-coiffed refrigerator magnet Mika Brzeznski actually woke up from her boredom-induced coma and called you out right to your face, didn’t she, old man?

“What about going [into Iraq] in the first place, and what about churning the hate, and what about taking the Sunnis out of leadership positions in 2003, what about the fact that there might have been some parts of this that were on the previous administration that might be litigated as well?” Brzezinski said.

Then she went on to ask the question everyone in the country should be asking, why does anyone listen to you anyway? If we’d taken your advice, she said, we’d be knee-deep in Syria right now.

“So we’re going to be in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then we’re also going into Syria, in your estimate?” she asked. “I mean, I’m just wondering how long can we do this? How long can we do this? How long can you ask this of American troops and think it’s okay?”

She’s right, John. You’re like a jumped-up rich boy with no real capital of his own who’s bellied up to the blackjack table blowing every single penny of his wife’s money just to catch that fleeting winner’s high.

Oh, no, wait, that’s exactly what you really are, isn’t it?

Or, as TBogg so eloquently observed, “Hush you guys. The guy who thought Sarah Palin would make a good vice-president is explaining to us what we should do in Iraq.”

 Steal this story … LEGALLY
David Ferguson
David Ferguson
David Ferguson is an editor at Raw Story. He was previously writer and radio producer in Athens, Georgia, hosting two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and blogging at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.

 

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“Action Alerts” analysis from US Political Scientists: All wrong?

Posted by: on: January 30, 2013

“Action Alerts” analysis, all wrong, from Political Scientists?

It’s an open secret: in terms of accurate political predictions (the field’s benchmark for what counts as science), Political Scientists have failed spectacularly and wasted colossal amounts of time and money.

The most obvious example may be political scientists’ insistence, during the cold war, that the Soviet Union would persist as a nuclear threat to the United States.

In 1993, in the journal International Security, for example, the cold war historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote that the demise of the Soviet Union was “of such importance that no approach to the study of international relations claiming both foresight and competence should have failed to see it coming.  And None actually did so.”

Careers were made, prizes awarded and millions of research dollars distributed to international relations experts, even though Nancy Reagan’s astrologer may have had superior forecasting skills.

Political scientists are defensive these days: in May, the House passed an amendment to a bill eliminating National Science Foundation grants for political scientists.

Soon the Senate may vote on similar legislation. Political Scientists, especially those who have received N.S.F. grants, will loathe JACQUELINE STEVENS for saying this:  just this once she is sympathetic with the anti-intellectual Republicans behind this amendment. Why?

The bill incited a national conversation about a subject that has troubled her for decades: the government — disproportionately — supports research that is amenable to statistical analyses and models, even though everyone knows the clean equations mask messy realities that contrived data sets and assumptions don’t, and can’t, capture.

JACQUELINE STEVENS Published on June 23, 2012 in the NYT Sunday Review “Political Scientists Are Lousy Forecasters”

DESPERATE “Action Alerts” land in my in-box. They’re from the American Political Science Association and colleagues, many of whom fear grave “threats” to our discipline.

As a defense, they’ve supplied “talking points” we can use to tell Congressional representatives that political science is a “critical part of our national science agenda.”

Katia Fouquet
Political prognosticators fare just as poorly on domestic politics.

In a peer-reviewed journal, the political scientist Morris P. Fiorina wrote that “we seem to have settled into a persistent pattern of divided government” — of Republican presidents and Democratic Congresses.

Professor Fiorina’s ideas, which synced nicely with the conventional wisdom at the time, appeared in an article in 1992 — just before the Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidential victory and the Republican 1994 takeover of the House.

Alas, little has changed.

Did any prominent N.S.F.-financed researchers predict that an organization like Al Qaeda would change global and domestic politics for at least a generation? Nope.

Or that the Arab Spring would overthrow leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia? No, again.

What about proposals for research into questions that might favor Democratic politics and that political scientists seeking N.S.F. financing do not ask — perhaps, one colleague suggests, because N.S.F. program officers discourage them?

Why are my colleagues kowtowing to Congress for research money that comes with ideological strings attached?

The political scientist Ted Hopf wrote in a 1993 article that experts failed to anticipate the Soviet Union’s collapse largely because the military establishment played such a big role in setting the government’s financing priorities.

“Directed by this logic of the cold war, research dollars flowed from private foundations, government agencies and military individual bureaucracies.”

Now, nearly 20 years later, the A.P.S.A. Web site trumpets my colleagues’ collaboration with the government, “most notably in the area of defense,” as a reason to retain political science N.S.F. financing.

Many of today’s peer-reviewed studies offer trivial confirmations of the obvious and policy documents filled with egregious, dangerous errors.

My colleagues now point to research by the political scientists and N.S.F. grant recipients James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin that claims that civil wars result from weak states, and are not caused by ethnic grievances.

Numerous scholars have, however, convincingly criticized Professors Fearon and Laitin’s work.

In 2011 Lars-Erik Cederman, Nils B. Weidmann and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch wrote in the American Political Science Review that “rejecting ‘messy’ factors, like grievances and inequalities,” which are hard to quantify, “may lead to more elegant models that can be more easily tested, but the fact remains that some of the most intractable and damaging conflict processes in the contemporary world, including Sudan and the former Yugoslavia, are largely about political and economic injustice,” an observation that policy makers could glean from a subscription to this newspaper and that nonetheless is more astute than the insights offered by Professors Fearon and Laitin.

Note: Can any grievances and inequalities be remedied under weak government? Obviously not. Strong central government with a strong force to back its legitimacy can reform, if it set its mind to change a political condition. A weak government is unable to change anything in a statu quo….

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Making sense of tragedy at Sandy Hook (Newtown, Connecticut)? Or time for action and taking the high-ground?

Posted by: on: December 17, 2012

Making sense of tragedy at Sandy Hook? Or time for action and taking the high-ground?

Are you trying to make sense of 20 children and 8 adults dead?

How sadly relevant.</p><br /><br /> <p>Good Night Progressives.--Dave.

I’m reading:

1. “How many of these tragic events will it take before access to fire arms becomes controlled? It’s infuriating!”

2. The acceptance of violence every day is the problem. The acceptance of calling our civilizations civilized when we kill, beat and hate each other….

3. That there are victims of violence, but it’s not as shocking as a school!

4. We accept a culture of violence on television of bare-knuckle brawls and Hollywood wars and wars on terror.

5. We know that people are being killed every day, but we don’t know them, until they die of a disease or tragedy. As much as I am for acquiring a gun, being at least as hard as getting a driver’s license, gun laws are not going to fix this culture of violence.

6. Being able to shoot, without much restrictions, more than 150 bullets, with no need to recharge, and to shoot in a classroom… Does this has anything to do with legitimate rights to protecting “my home”, to self-defense…? Carrying 3 guns and a machine gun….

7. There is no making sense of the tragedy at Sandy Hook or other past, present, and future tragedies.

8. Reasons help but they don’t make sense of something. It helps to say the gunman was on drugs or crazy, but only a little.

9. At one point, Job says, “Though He (God) slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job wasn’t making sense of things. He was responding.

10. I remember recorded phone messages from the past 9/11 tragedy. Their voices whispered, “I love you.” Today, people in Sandy Hook gather together, all bewildered and broken hearted, some angry, but most importantly, loving each other.

11. Tomorrow’s tragedy waits. It doesn’t make sense to me, but I know it’s there.

12. At best, we’ll find reasons that might explain but won’t satisfy. The same thing is happening across the globe in places like China or Africa. And what about tsunamis, fires, earth quakes, and …

13. Leading with love also means preparing for and preventing tragedies, making things better…

14. Leaders who love, express:

  1. Compassion toward the broken.
  2. Correction toward the confused.
  3. Confrontation toward the belligerent making things better.

President Obama is good at delivering “compassion speeches”: He never missed to send his empathy to the bereaved families, on scores of these similar mass slaughtering…

Obama is good talking and expressing compassion… What did Obama delivered in matter of correct message toward the confused? In matter of confronting the belligerent in making things better?

Obama has been totally busy assassinating “al Qaeda” potential leaders with repeated double-tap drone attacks, waiting for rescuers to approach before sending a second and a third missile… And the US public opinion has nothing to qualify these tactics as “terrorist” activities that kills civilians (95% of the casualties) in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen…

Share this if you agree

Let’s listen to Morgan Freeman‘s take on what happened yesterday :

“You want to know why? This may sound cynical.

It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine?

Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way.

Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then CNN post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening.
 
Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Why?
 
Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim.
 
You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem.
 

You can help by turning off the news.”

Do you think if the administration claimed that this tragedy was State sanctioned that the US people would make such a fuss?

Killing innocent children in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and now Syria are US State sanctioned… Is that’s why the US public opinion is so deathly silent about atrocities done in their name?

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“An entire century for Nothing”: Nothing to show for in the Middle-East?

Posted by: on: October 6, 2012

An entire century for Nothing: Nothing to show for in the Middle-East

Since 1918, after WWI, and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of its territories, the Arab people developed high hopes for independence…Only to be subjugated by the western colonial mandated powers of France and England.

France and England had decided to split the Arab territories among them in 1916, way before the war ended in 1918,  France was to be mandated over Syria and Lebanon, and England over Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. England was governing Egypt since 1988.

France dispatched troops, commanded by General Gouraud, to militarily crush in 1920 the first Syrian independent State under Faisal of Hijaz.  Syria defense minister Yussof Al Azmeh knew full well the imbalance between the two forces, but he decided to take a stand: “The worst shame is not to even try to confront aggression…”

Worse, England promised a Jewish State in Palestine in 1917, a document that the new Communist Bolshevik revolution divulged to the world. The US, the Soviet Union, France and England voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into two States: Jewish and Palestinians. Though the Palestinians represented 60% of the total population living in Palestine, they were offered only 40% of the land.  An unfair partition that they refused.

Israel imported weapons from the Soviet Union via Czechoslovakia and defeated the haphazard Arab armies in 1948. The armistice was to resolve and find a “definitive solution” to the Palestinian case.

After Israel was voted in as a Sate by the UN in 1948, Israel resumed the war and committed genocides to pressure the Palestinians to vacate their villages and conquered more lands.  Up to this date, 2012, Israel is still proceeding to transfer all Palestinians from all Palestine.

The 50 and 60’s witnessed a series of military coup d’etat in Syria and Iraq.

After Nasser of Egypt managed to nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, he was viewed as the sole legitimate leader of the Arab States. Governments of Arab States flocked to Egypt to demand unity with Egypt under Abdel Nasser in order to stop the rapid successions of unstable rules, and have a legitimate President, by popular demand.  Nasser could unsettle any government by just taking the radio airwaves and dictating his wishes…

The north Yemeni government, visiting Nasser for discussion, was put in prison under the pretense that the Prime Minister Mohsen Al Aini was a Baathist. Nasser would not deal with political parties, within or outside in the Arab World.

After Nasser, the Arab States were ruled by dictators and absolute monarchs for many decades, such as Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Qadhafi, Bourguiba of Tunisia, Algeria of Boumedyen, and Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Jordan absolute monarchies…

If you read the documents and Arab newspapers in the 20 and 30’s you realize how the Arab People and their intelligentsia were far literate, had comprehensive knowledge, read a lot and were far more aware of the dangers…than our current generation. There were plenty of political parties and they did discuss issues very extensively.

A century later, the discussions are rare, replaced by banners, posters, short sentences, slogans, no ideas developed and commented…

Each one of the successive 5 generations vowed that:

“This generation will be different from the older obsolete generation. This generation will see to it that true independence from foreign powers and true self-autonomy will be accomplished. This generation will defeat Israel and return the Palestinian refugees in their State back to Palestine. This generation will establish democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of gathering…This generation will set the feet of Arabs on the Moon and compete technologically with the western nations…”

Every generation got more and more impatient, more edgy, more humiliated, and more inclined for military resolution to their problems…This time around, the war will settle the entire problem, once for all, only to be defeated in no time, and another round of military coup to replace the previous lousy one…

Every generation experienced worse kinds of indignities, subjugation  repressions, humiliation, and getting poorer and poorer, standard of living diminishing by generation, as the birth rate exploded, and the destitute searching for a loaf of bread before going to bed…

An entire century has gone in flame, a total waste, people in abject indignities, totally disoriented…

If the US thinks that the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers is an unfathomable terror, it must rethink its foreign policies in the Middle-East: A retribution for a buckled century is tearing at the heart and mind of the Arab people.

It had crossed the mind of Israel to attack the Twin Towers even in the 70’s, if the US failed to totally support their policies.  The idea of attacking the Twin Towers by commercial airplanes was not new. And the idea was disseminated to many groups, and the underground of World Trade Center was bombing in 1998.

The total impunity that Israel enjoys from its continuous apartheid system, and constantly covered by the US in the last 6 decades, is not a small matter to ignore and blame terrorism on radical obscurantist Moslems…

The Arab Spring uprising was targeting the little people around the world since the traditional western media refused to cover the real story in the Arab World, and preferred to wallow and sink deeper in the same frame of mind, of doubting the potential of the “Arabs” for progress, development, mass peaceful democratic movements…

Unless the international community demonstrates justice and fairness in dealing with the Arab people, “terror” attacks by radical jihadists will resume unabated  regardless of many times military drones are dispatched to decimate Al Qaeda leaders.

Note: Jean Lacouture in “A century for nothing” recounts his meeting with General Giap, the leader who defeated both the French and US forces in Viet Nam. Asking his opinion on the 9/11 attacks, Giap reflected for a while and said: “Interesting. The US is indeed vulnerable. Never crossed my mind…”

Attacking inside US territory never crossed the mind of Giap for good reasons: The people in North Viet Nam were united under one resistance national movement, had a homogeneous culture, they enjoyed the backing of another superpower the Soviet Unions, and they have already defeated the French armies, and were confident to beat the US invasion…

General Giap had all the necessary connections from many groups who high-jacked planes and conducted “terrorist attacks”, and the US of the 70’s was wide open to all immigrants and very lenient and welcoming...Giap could have transferred violent activities to inside the US, but it never crossed his mind…for good reasons.

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How current “modern” Islam radicalized into negative and oppressive precepts?

Posted by: on: October 4, 2012

How current “modern” Islam radicalized into negative and oppressive precepts?

I’ll discuss three radical trends: The Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt, the Wahhabi Islam brand in the Arabic Peninsula, and the Ben Laden (Al Qaeda) for international jihadists.

1. In 1929, Egypt was relatively the most modern State in the Arab World. The Al Azhar religious university was guided by an enlightened sheikh Abdel Razeq.  Author Taha Hussein had published a very controversial book on poetry during Jahiliya period (before Islam in the Arabic Peninsula), and the Egyptian court refused to ban it.

During that period, the monarchs Fouad and Farouk and their entourage went overboard emulating the western life-style and flaunting blatantly their unacceptable behaviors to the little people.

Hassan al Banna (founder of the Brotherhood in 1929) jumped at the occasion of life-styles that obfuscated the common people and blamed the modern interpretation of Islamic teachings as a cover to the to the ill-behavior of the ruling classes.

Consequently, a return to Chariaa and fundamental “bedouin” Islam: tribal ancient customs and rules were prescribed in order to overcome the current degenerate conditions that will weaken the Moslem spirit for Jihad against the infidels…

The presence of colonial Britain in Egypt was mainly opportunistic catalysts for every time the British governor harshly confronted street demonstrations and uprisings…

Colonial western life-style was added as a practical dimension to the reactions of the Brotherhood members. The Brotherhood was implicitly regarded anti-colonial and, as a logical result, a de facto national movement…

2. The Wahhabi brand of Islam.  This sect was initiated by Abd el Wahhab in the Najd region in the Arabic peninsula in the early 19th century, during the Ottoman Empire. This Hanafi sect was quickly supported by the emirs in Najd, particularly the Saud tribe, and is currently classified as the fourth admitted sect in Sunni Islam.

Mainly, the Wahhabi movement was opposed to the Ottoman Empire, which didn’t really administered directly the Arabic Peninsula, and was funded and supported with arms by the British Empire, which had plans to occupy strategic ports in Aden (Yemen) and the Arabic/Persian Gulf.

Mind you that Islam of the Ottoman Empire was pretty loose and accommodating since the foundation of the Empire, and the Chariaa was observed with wide latitude  All that the Sultan wanted was the title of Calif of all the Moslems.

It happened that in the early 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was wide open to western culture and life-style and some Constitutional reforms were underway, called “Tanzimat” (Regulations)

The British got wary of reforms starting in the Ottoman Empire, and worked on minorities to destabilize the already shaky and declining Ottoman Empire. And how best to rally the tribes around in the peninsula if not by adopting opposite theological and radical religious positions against the Calif?

And quick to a drastic shift to the “fundamentals” of Islam, as the Protestants acted against the Catholic Church in the 15th century. What are these fundamentals? Abolishing and destroying all icons, pictures of Imams and Holy men, prohibiting pilgrimage to Imam sites wide dispersed in all Islamic world, as substitute to the expensive pilgrimage to Mecca…And back to Bedouin customs, traditions, setting more constraints on women…: The modus operandi to rooting the movement within the dominant tribes.

The Ottoman Sultan kept harassing his Viceroy in Egypt, Muhammad Ali, to send an expeditionary military force to wipe out the spreading of the Wahhabi uprising.  Finally, Ali dispatched his young 19-year old second son who entered Mecca and liberated it from the Wahhabis after many difficulties. The elder son Ibrahim Pasha carried out an extensive campaign for years and managed to enter and destroy the main City-State of the Wahhabi inside the deep desert.

And for two decades, the Wahhabi movement subsided, until the Egyptian forces had to return home. The British resumed their funding and support for the Wahhabi movement and eventually conquered all of the Peninsula in 1923.

Since Sadat of Egypt acceded to power in 1970, the Saudi Arabia absolute monarchy had been building mosques all over Egypt and hiring clerics of Wahhabi  inclination, re-publishing their own Coran and distributing it for free…

3. The Ben Laden phenomena of international jihadist movement. Ben laden kept swinging between the Moslem Brotherhood and the Wahhabi sect, driven by the political opportunities opened to him and which captured his attention. Ben laden had no fundamental theological doctrine or dogma and with no definite long-term purpose for his movement.

In the early 1980, he was a CIA agent and was dispatched by Saudi Arabia to usurp the nascent movement of Arab Jihadist flocking to the city of Peshawar (Pakistan) to be trained and sent to fight the Soviet communists in Afghanistan. The CIA wanted to be in control of the “resistance movement” against the Soviet…

After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, no Arabic State wanted these fighters to return home. These jihadists were relocated to created Hot Spots around the world. The CIA took charge of that bounty of cheap recruits who are zealot and already trained and dispatched them to “containment regions” under the Soviet dominion…It was still the Cold War era.

To make a long story short, (extensively developed in a previous article) the US became an ideal target for the Al Qaeda movement which resulted in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the reactions in conducting frequent drone attacks killing potential Al Qaeda “leaders”…

Note 1: The US has got to understand that the Arab peoples feel that an entire century was wasted, for nothing, and worse than going back to point one in 1918, where the Arab people hoped and demanded independence, and the colonial mandated powers replaced the Ottoman and created the Zionist state of Israel. More on that in a follow-up article.

Note 2: How to win war on terrorism https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/how-can-i-win-the-war-on-%E2%80%9Cterrorism%E2%80%9D-part-two/

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Chilling anger in Yemen: And the “Muhammad Film” reaping more coverage…

Posted by: on: September 18, 2012

Chilling anger in Yemen: And the “Muhammad Film” reaping more coverage…

And very few have seen the film yet. I didn’t even see the trail on Youtube, and I think millions of Moslems didn’t either, and might never see it. And the producer Sam B. is in hiding, somewhere in California?

And it doesn’t mean that because the film is not seen that it is not outrageous, and totally political in nature. Even Sam said that the film was political…And why right now on the “anniversary” of 9/11?

So far, the US embassies in the Moslem World are the direct targets, and might extend to Israel embassies wherever they are established in the Islamic World: In any case, it is getting obvious that Israel has funded the film (500 Jews contributed their money) and the director is Israeli, and the actors have at least Israeli passports…One of the actors is a new convert to Christianity and the son of a Hamas leader…

Hezbollah uncovered a long series of demonstrations this week in almost every large town in Lebanon. Starting Monday afternoon in Dahieh, Wednesday in Tyr (Sour), Thursday in Bint Jbeil, Friday in Baalbek, Saturday in Hermel…and expecting more demonstrations next week as the program is fine tuned…

Adam Baron, a freelance journalist based in Sanaa, published on September 15, 2012:

SANAA, YEMEN—As a mob of angry demonstrators descended on the heavily guarded United States Embassy in Sanaa, many observers seemed stunned into disbelief: The breach of the Embassy itself was unthinkable.

And the sheer anger displayed by the demonstrators, even according to many Yemenis, was chilling. But even if a video regarded as blasphemous prompted Thursday’s events, the factors at play involve much more than a movie.

Ostensibly, what sparked the siege on the US Embassy were statements by a number of religious leaders—amplified by social media and word of mouth—who condemned the film and called for protests.
 
While many in politically contentious Sanaa seemed eager to tie the protests to a prominent figure or faction, the truth was far less simple. Most of those taking part in the demonstrations lacked any obvious signs of religiosity: rather than bearded men or tribesmen in traditional garb, the bulk of those at the embassy were young men in western clothes, united, if anything, by their rage.

Vowing to sacrifice themselves for the honor of the Prophet Mohamed, they marched towards the embassy, and upon arriving at the walls surrounding the compound, apparently had little difficulty overwhelming the troops guarding the building.

Scaling walls, they moved to break glass, set cars alight and loot whatever they could, leaving graffiti expressions of “God is Great” and “Death to America” as testaments to their sentiments prior to being pushed out by Yemeni security forces about an hour later.

As word spread of the siege, few were surprised that protests against the video had occurred.  The logistics of the attack on the embassy compound left many Yemenis incredulous.  Among the most secure buildings in the capital, the American Embassy bears greater resemblance to a fortress than the sumptuous diplomatic residences of less volatile capitals.

In the context of Yemen’s contentious political scene, it was hard to believe that the breach of the embassy merely represented a security failure.

Although current president Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who formally replaced former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in accordance with an internationally backed power transfer agreement this February, Saleh is still a major player behind the scenes, as his relatives control key branches of the Yemeni Armed Forces.

Most of the troops guarding the embassy hailed from the Central Security Forces, a branch of the Yemeni military led by Yahya Mohamed Saleh, a nephew of former president Saleh. And in the wake of Thursday’s events, local observers expressed suspicions that the former president had a hand in the attack, or at least allowed it to happen.

“It’s nearly impossible to imagine that the Embassy could be breached with such ease,” said one Yemeni analyst, commenting the evening after the demonstration. “It’s not hard to suspect that something beyond incompetence was involved.”

But while tensions within Yemen’s divided military may have played a contributing role in allowing for the embassy breach itself, the origins of the anti-American rage displayed by demonstrators lie elsewhere.

Thursday’s events were not solely a response to the controversial film, which few Yemenis—including those taking part in the demonstrations—have seen. Rather, the film struck a nerve in Yemen because of long-simmering resentment of American policy.

Specifically, Yemenis resent what they characterize as the United States’ persistent meddling in Yemen’s internal affairs.  Even as government forces cracked down on peaceful anti-government demonstrations last year, the United States appeared reluctant to drop support for Saleh, who American officials viewed as a key ally in the battle against Yemen’s local Al Qaeda franchise.

Faced with the choice between siding with the Yemeni people and siding with the corrupt government, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to topple what they believe to be the US chose for Saleh oligarchical system.

Since Saleh ceded power, resentment over the United States’ past alliance with the former president has lingered.

Even today, many powerful opponents of Saleh claim that the United States still has not done enough to force the former president’s allies from power.

One opposition politician, while condemning the siege, commented that the CSF’s failure to protect the embassy was ironic payback for the United States’ hesitation to make a full break with the Saleh family.  After all, CSF commander Yahya Saleh was once a favored US commander.

At the same time, factions outside of Yemen’s political establishment have said that American reliance on traditional elites has contributed to their marginalization.

Beyond political issues, many Yemenis have expressed deep resentment over the ongoing American drone campaigns against local Al Qaeda (AQAP) figures. While the Yemeni government has permitted the strikes, many Yemenis see drone attacks as an infringement of the nation’s sovereignty and a violation of the rule of law, and they bristle at the way civilian casualties are brushed off as “collateral damages.”

Some Yemeni politicians and tribal leaders have long quietly argued that the drone strikes have led to a hardening of anti-American sentiment in Yemen. The recent deaths last week of 10 Yemeni civilians in an apparent US drone strike further inflamed popular anger over the drones.

“Today is your day, oh Ambassador,” shouted the youthful crowd as it triumphantly ran through embassy property, mentioning Ambassador Gerald Feierstein by name.

Feierstein is largely praised by policy makers in Washington and he has held his post since September 2010. Feierstein is viewed in Yemen as a deeply controversial figure and profiled as Yemen’s “new dictator” by a prominent Yemeni journalist. 

Feierstein has come to personify unpopular American policies. The United States may have moved past its previous relationship with Saleh, providing important backing for his successor, but few Yemenis have forgotten that Feierstein himself stood by Saleh’s side, and a number of the ambassador’s apparent gaffes continue to resonate—most infamously, his characterization of the “Life March,” a 155-mile protest march undertaken by unarmed demonstrators in December, as an effort to “generate chaos.”

Activists charged that Feierstein’s statement effectively gave government forces a green light to launch a deadly crackdown on the march that left nine dead.

Ali al-Kamaly, a Yemeni youth activist, said: “The American administration has to rethink its foreign policy as the world has changed. The ambassador chose to oppose the aspirations of the Yemeni people during the life march last year. The movie was just the drop that inundated the beaker…peoples’ beliefs, rights and lives are the true redline.”

Note: So far, president Obama has executed Bush Jr foreign policies in the Middle-East, as if he was mind-reading what Bush Jr. might have decided…and making a policy to decapitate the “leaders” of Al Qaeda using drone attacks…Why?

Obama wants to prove to the US citizens that whoever is elected president will invariably follow the Middle-East foreign policies, even if the counsellors and political analysts in the CIA and State department have demonstrated to be incompetent and totally biased against Arabs and Moslems…

Note 2: I keep wondering: Why most US ambassadors in the Middle-East have to have a Jewish last name?

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What’s happening in Yemen? Civil war not over yet? Previous oligarchy still in power?

Posted by: on: September 4, 2012

What’s happening in Yemen? Civil war not over yet? Previous oligarchy still in power?

The latest news from Al Qaeda claim that its fighters in Yemen have relocated to Syria to fight the regime there…If Al Qaeda organization is so flexible and agile, who is moving them around to the various “fresh” hot spots, before the previous hellish spot has not regain peace and tranquility? Who is still financing Al Qaeda and the radical extremist Sunnis?

The ousted dictator Abdullah Saleh is back in Yemen and running the political scene: He is saying that Qatar is exacerbating the conditions in Yemen by infusing millions of dollars to particular military groups…

Another news: The US weapon market share is two-third the world total of $85 billion!

Stephanie Brancaforte  from Avaaz.org posted:

Former Yemeni dictator Saleh  Add your voice for peace and security in Yemen,and we’ll deliver the message to German Chancellor Angela Merkel!

Sign the petition

In recent weeks, gunmen loyal to Yemen’s former dictator Abdullah Saleh have taken over the Defense and Interior Ministries, sowing panic in the capital and threatening to drag the country into a civil war which could spillover into neighbors Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Yemenis are worried that another civil war could erupt any day, after pro-Saleh gunmen took the Interior and Defense Ministries by force, killing guards and sending a chilling signal to other pro-democracy politicians.

Saleh and his cronies have already shown that they prefer to hand over parts of Yemen to Al Qaeda affiliates, who have been bombing buildings and kidnapping innocent Yemenis and a Saudi diplomat.

Such intimidation will continue unless Saleh’s clan is removed from politics once and for all.

The international community, particularly the USA, has been all but silent as the Yemeni people suffered. It’s time for decisive action from the European Union to save the situation and stop the bloodshed.

The best way to uproot Saleh’s crushing control is to strip away his financial might by imposing sanctions and freezing his assets.  Much of Saleh’s stolen cash is in Germany. If German Chancellor Angela Merkel leads a freeze on his assets, it could accelerate the end of his reign of terror.  Let’s make sure the EU takes this crucial next step to pull Yemen back from civil war.

Germany is a major donor for Yemen and also hosts the former dictator’s stolen assets, and can lead the EU in raising the financial stakes for Saleh and his murderous allies. Now the tension has come to a head, with the old guard seeing this as its last chance to seize power by the gun before democracy takes root.

If enough of us demand action, we can build tremendous pressure on German Chancellor Merkel to lead the charge and freeze the stolen assets — add your name to help pull Yemen back from the brink!

Avaaz members successfully petitioned to freeze both Qaddafi and Mubarak’s assets — let’s do it again for the Yemeni people. Add your voice, and this petition will be delivered straight to Chancellor Merkel when we reach 10,000 signatures:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/freeze_salehs_assets/?bFAfecb&v=17423

With determination we are standing with people across the region in their struggles for freedom and dignity.

Stephanie, Wissam, Luis, Ricken, Bissan, Ian and the rest of the Avaaz team

More Information:

Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh Loyalists Encircle Defense Ministry
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/yemen-ali-abdullah-saleh_n_1765503.html

Saleh blocks key reforms needed in a ‘new’ Yemen
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/saleh-blocks-key-reforms-needed-in-a-new-yemen

Yemenis protest against Saleh’s allies
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2012-08/04/c_131760992.htm

Time to freeze Saleh’s assets
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/10/time_to_freeze_saleh_s_assets

UN envoy urges rapid Yemen power transfer
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iVw3HueQ5eaEgd3SLlvrXBySenHQ?docId=CNG.8b133ba066aa9037d241ecc82c2f5a00.91

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Yemen National Crisis: We have no water, no electricity, no food…

Posted by: on: October 6, 2011

Yemen National Crisis: We have no water, no electricity, no food…

I edited a published piece from Sanaa, Yemen on October 1, 2011.

“I don’t know why Anwar al-Awlaki was important,. The US says he is a terrorist from Al Qaeda,” said Belal Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s old city. “But maybe this will create a problem for us Yemenis (US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was assassinated by a US drone in Yemen), because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally strike back later and at larger scale. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another country. We Have Bigger Problems Than Al Qaeda”

Many Yemenis had not even heard that Awlaki had been killed, even by Friday night. And most had only a faint sense of why the United States considered him a highly significant target. If anything, Yemenis thought his death would only increase their woes.

Walid Seneb is sitting on a street curb with three friends on Friday night. Walid  was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death. and he said: “We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us. But right now, there are worse problems than Al Qaeda. Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything administrated by the government has stopped.”

Eight months of anti-government protests tore the Yemen’s government apart. The armed forces are divided between those loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and those who follow a rebel military commander. Conflict between the two sides turned into urban warfare in Sana two weeks ago, with over 100 people being killed.  There are fears of the breaking out of a large-scale civil war.  The debilitating economic crisis has absorbed Yemenis daily concerns and worries: They lack the attention span to devote to the death of a man who was most known for reaching out to the English-speaking world of Muslim extremists.

Nadwa al-Dawsari, who works for a nonprofit organization in Sana, said: “Awlaki’s life or death doesn’t matter for Yemenis. It is not a priority for us. Not many Yemenis know who Awlaki was anyway. It doesn’t matter how many Al Qaeda members are killed as long as the underlying causes that makes extremism thrive are resolved.”

Yemenis in the opposition suspect that the Saleh family provided information to the United States on Awlaki’s whereabouts to gain political favor.  Saleh’s family controls the security apparatus responsible for counter-terrorism activities. (As if terrorist and counter-terrorist activities have not converged to be simply similar in terrorism mentality and consequences)

Is the Obama administration working diplomatically to find a way to ease President Saleh out from office? Many doubt this alternative and the US intentions. Nader al-Qershi, a youth organizer at Sana’s large antigovernment demonstration, said: “Now Saleh is going to tell the people that he can kill al Qaeda, and who can kill them except Ali Abdullah Saleh? Saleh administration has a lot of intelligence pieces on the members of Al Qaeda.”

It was widely assumed in Yemen that Saleh’s government must have been aware of Mr. Awlaki’s whereabouts l, but was reluctant to hand over that information to the Americans or kill Mr. Awlaki, because he is from a powerful tribe in southern Yemen that might seek retribution if he was killed.

“Saleh wanted to show the world that he is a hero against Al Qaeda,” said Hussein Mohammed, who runs a small hotel in Sana’s old city. Mohammed, like many people here, did not think that Mr. Awlaki’s death would alter the political dynamic in their country. He said it was not al Qaeda, but the struggle among Yemen’s political elites that poses the greatest risk to the country’s future.

Tribesmen loyal to Saleh’s main political rival, Hamid al-Ahmar, have engaged in almost daily street warfare with the government’s security forces in a northern district of Sana over the past few weeks. The sound of artillery fire echoing through the capital has become commonplace.

“They struck Anwar al-Awlaki, why don’t the Americans strike Ali Abdullah Saleh and Hamid al-Ahmar?” Mohammed asked.

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Updates on Yemen: What may change after President Saleh?

Posted by: on: June 8, 2011

Updates on Yemen: What may change after President Saleh?

President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been grievously injured and underwent surgery in Saudi Arabia.  The Presidential Palace was shelled by the troops allied to the tribal leader of Al Ahmar.  Many high ranking officials died.  The US is claiming that the serious injuries of “Preisdent” Saleh were due to a planted bomb in the Palace. 

I read pieces of information by the Lebanese journalist Amine Kamourieh that Saudi monarchy has been paying monthly stipend to 7,000 tribal and clan leaders in Yemen, for over 40 years.

The tribal leader Cheick Sanan Abu Luhoum devulged these information in his diary.  In the 60’s Egyptian troops of Gamal Abdel Nasser were in South Yemen fighting the religious Imam in Sanaa, who was supported by the Saudi monarchy.  The Republican Yemenite tribal leaders met in Saudi Arabia for negotiation:  They didn’t want to lose the monthly stipends, but had to insist on a Republican State in Yemen.  They got what they wanted.

The Yemenite tribe of Hashed was in charge of distributing the stipends to the other leaders and their clans.  For example, no President in Yemen can be elected without the explicit approval of the Saudi monarchy.

The interesting story is that the Republican Yemeni tribal leaders in the 60’s had a single condition to receiving the monthly stipend:  That Saudi Arabia forgets to have a religious leader or Imam ruling Yemen.  Most other Saudi constraints would be negotiable.  That is how Yemen survived as a “Republic” and south and north Yemen States got united in the mid 80’s under the leadership of President Saleh.

President Saleh committed the unforgivable blunder and ultimate political mistake of militarily attacking the most powerful tribe (in this case the Al Ahmar tribal leader) that distributed the stipends to the other tribal leaders.

It is not probable that President Saleh is to return to Yemen, but what kind of transitional government can Yemen expect?  What may change after President Saleh?

The way money are distributed, if the youth movement for change in Yemen is not able to generate liquidity from sources of States (other than Saudi Arabia) to bribe the tribal leaders to siding with a true Republican regime, the trend would be to continue as it functioned for 30 years.  Mainly, the next president will be from the Tribe of Hashed and the same entourage of oligarchy maintained in place.

President Saleh tried in the last two weeks to ignite a civil war: He delivered the city of Zanzibar in south Yemen to Al Qaeda followers, and committed massacres in the city of Taez.  One think is obvious:  The people in South Yemen will demand a self-autonomous governance with substantial budget allocated, while the tribal leaders in North Yemen will continue to receive their monthly stipend from Saudi Arabia.  The transition government has the task of not driving Yemen to another Somalia-type anarchy:  Mind you that Yemen is the closest to the pirates of Somalia, blackmailing cargo ship on the high sea.

Can the more than 4-month mass uprising in Yemen, which harvested so many people and injured thousands, allow the same political game to be replayed? The upheaval has reached every city and town.

The people do not care was this President wishes or wants. Today, the people have said: “Enough is enough”.  Ministers and ambassadors are resigning in protests.

On November 6, 2009, I published a post “There is a devastating civil war in Yemen: Is it of any concern to the UN?”.

The UN did it again!  Civil wars in non oil-producing Arab States are left to run its natural steam until the State is bankrupt and ready to be picked up at salvage price. The UN tends to get busy for years in collateral world problems when civil wars strike Arab States.

Occasionally, the UN demonstrates lukewarm attempts for a resolution in oil-producing States as long as it is under control.  Lebanon experienced 17 years of civil war.  Morocco still has a civil war in south Sahara for three decades.  Sudan has been suffering of a rampant civil war for four decades.  Algeria is experiencing a resurgence of a devastating civil war that started in 1990 because Europe refused to accept a democratically elected Islamic majority in the parliament.  Iraq was totally neglected while Saddam Hussein was decimating the Shiaas and Kurds in Iraq for three decades.

Even after the US coalition forced the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, the UN instituted an embargo that killed 2 million Iraqi babies for lack of milk and needed medicines.  Somalia never got out of its miseries for four decades so far.  Mauritania is rope jumping from one military coup to another. The other Arab States are in constant low-level civil wars overshadowed by dictators, one party, oligarchic, and absolute monarchic regimes.

A week ago, a few trucks were allowed to cross Saudi borders carrying tents and necessary medicines to stem generalized diseases where hundred thousands of Yemeni refugees huddled in refugee camps on the high plateau of North-West Yemen, by the borders with Saudi Arabia, which closed its borders and chased out any “infiltration” of refugees.

The most disheartening feeling is that you don’t see field reporting of this civil war by the western media.  The written accounts are from second-hand sources and decades old. They abridge the problem by stating it is a tribal matter. They feel comfortable blaming Iran; and you wonder: “how this land-locked region in North-West Yemen can be supplied by Iran?”  Blaming Iran for every social uprising in the Gulf States needs to be clarified.

The western media is easily convinced that Al Qaeda moved from Saudi Arabia and was ordered to infiltrate the Somali refugee camps in South Yemen.  Question: How Sunni Moslem Al Qaeda members got to be located in a region of North West Yemen with Shiaa Yazdi population?   Is that question totally irrelevant?

The population of North-West Yemen forms the third of the total; the “citizens” are of the Yezdi Shiia sect that agrees to seven Imams and not 12 as in Iran; the Yazdi sect does not care that much about the coming of a “hidden” Mahdi to unite and save Islam.  The western media want you to believe that this war, which effectively started in 2004, is a power succession problem to prevent the son of current President Abdallah Saleh from inheriting the power. Actually Saleh’s son is the head of the Presidential Guard which has been recently involved in the war after the regular army failed to bring a clear-cut victory in this “civil war”.

Yemen was a backward States even in the 60′s.  South Yemen had a Marxist regime backed by the Egyptian troops of Jamal Abdel Nasser; it was against North Yemen ruled by an ancient Yazdi Imam; a hereditary regime labeled the “Royalists” and backed by Saudi Arabia.

After the Soviet Union disintegrated, Yemen unified in 1990.  Since then, South Yemen and North West Yemen were deprived of the central State financial and economic distribution of wealth.  President Saleh could present the image of a “progressist” leader as long as Yemen was out of the screen and nobody cared about this bankrupt State.

Yemen is on the verge of being divided into three separate autonomous States, the South, North West, and Sanaa the Capital.  The problems in the Horn of Africa have migrated its endemic instability into Yemen: refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan have been flocking into the southern shores of Yemen.  Heavy influx of contraband products are keeping the people of these two regions precariously afloat.

The deal between Hillary Clinton and Israel foreign affairs Levny to patrol the Indian Ocean was not just meant for Gaza, but mainly to supporting President Saleh for his 2009 military campaign against the rebels in North Yemen by monitoring contraband arms shipments.

Saudi Arabia, during the duo power brokers of Prince Sultan and Neyef (respectively Ministers of Defense and the Interior) did their best to destabilize Yemen on account of fighting the spread of the Shiaa sect in the Arabic Peninsula. Yemen has no natural resources to count on and the population is addicted to “Qat” that they chew on, at lunch time for hours.

Yemen was the most prosperous region in the Arabic Peninsula for millennia; land caravans started from Taez and then passed by Maareb from which town the caravans split to either Mecca (then to Aqaba and Syria) or took the direction to Persia and Iraq.  All kinds of perfume, seasoning, and textile landed by sea from India and South East Asia; incense was produced from a special tree grown in Yemen and Hadramout.

The British colonial Empire didn’t care about this region; all that it wanted to secure were sea ports for commerce and to defend the entrances of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to Egypt.

The UN is inheriting the same lax attitude of the British Empire; as long as the US bases are secured in this region then the hell with the people. Qatar arranged for reconciliation in 2007 and Saudi Arabia interfered to fail it.  The disseminated propaganda is of “Archaic tribes fighting one another wearing daggers as symbol of manhood are all that there is in Yemen”.

Saudi Arabia is involved in this war and using its airforce to stem the “rebel hawthees”; it blocked the satellites in the Arab world that cover this civil war.  Is CNN willing to come to the rescue for the world communities to get coverage of the mass massacres going on in this poor country?

This post sounds so current in its content that I cannot but wonder:  Have the western nations understood anything about the current “Arab” mass upheavals?  Is Libya to be implicitly redivided among the previous colonial powers?  Are the absolute monarchs in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and the Arab Gulf States to retain their powers?  Hell no; not this time around.  Enough indignity and humiliation!

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