BEFORE AFTER
Tag: Yemen
US Approves 11 Billion Dollar Deal to Sell Combat Ships to Brutal Dictatorship
Guest Post by Sarah Lazare
Deal defies global call for arms embargo over mounting evidence of the Saudi dictatorship’s war crimes in Yemen.
(COMMONDREAMS) Defying the international call for an arms embargo over war crimes concerns, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced Tuesday it has approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell combat ships to Saudi Arabia, which has been waging a military assault against Yemen for more than six months.
“The selling of arms in the middle of a war will obviously send the message that the Saudis can do whatever they want and get away with it,” Farea Al-Muslimi, Beirut-based Yemeni writer and visiting scholar with Carnegie Middle East Center, told Common Dreams.
The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the DoD, announced Tuesday that is has rubber-stamped the export of four “Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) Ships and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $11.25 billion” to Saudi Arabia.
“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security goals of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional partner, which has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the U.S. agency stated.
Continue reading “US Approves 11 Billion Dollar Deal to Sell Combat Ships to Brutal Dictatorship”
38 Dead After Saudi Arabia, Head of UN Human Rights Panel, Bombs Wedding in Yemen
Guest Post by
Nothing screams out human rights like bombing women and children at a wedding party.
Saudi Arabia sure is on a roll. Having just been rewarded with the head position on a UN’s human rights panel for its unmatched capacity for barbarism and civil rights abuse, the Saudis can now add another massacre to its long list of war crimes.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels mistakenly struck a wedding party on Monday, killing at least 38 people, Yemeni security officials said.
The strikes hit the celebration in al-Wahga, a village near the strategic Strait of Bab al-Mandab, said the officials, who remain neutral in the conflict that has splintered Yemen.
At least 40 people were wounded in the two airstrikes, they said. The strikes, a senior government official said, were “a mistake.” Many of the victims were women and children, according to several villagers.
Yemen has been embroiled in fighting that pits the rebels, known as Houthis, and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against the Saudi-backed and internationally recognized government as well as southern separatists, local militias and Sunni extremists. The U.S.-backed coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the rebels and their allies since March.
The conflict in Yemen has killed at least 2,100 civilians so far, according to U.N. figures.
Continue reading “38 Dead After Saudi Arabia, Head of UN Human Rights Panel, Bombs Wedding in Yemen”
YEMEN IS UNDER CONTROL
Thousands of people took to the streets of Sanaa, Friday, to protest against Saudi intervention in Yemen and the Saudi-led airstrikes that have seen hundreds killed and thousands left injured in recent months. Protesters held rifles and flags and chanted slogans against Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United State and Israel.
U.S. MIDDLE EAST POLICY
U.S. Middle East Policy – Create havoc, chaos, hate, death, war, and catastrophic human suffering, all in the name of democracy, oil, and arms dealers. Mission Accomplished.
Pictorial Essay: YEMEN
I did one of these on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. I think Yemen deserves one, dontchya think?
The Saudi’s are bombing the piss out of Yemen … with Amerikan-made warplanes, bombs, and artillery. Don’t think for one goddamned minute that this “war” (one sided slaughter) would be executed unless the USA!USA!USA! demanded it, and approved it. If you’re a taxpayer you’re helping fund it … not voluntarily, not approvingly … but you think that matters to the people below? So solly.
Take the poorest country in the region, and destroy it. Why? Does it really matter anymore? I’m positive no new terrorists are being created.
There’s a Yemeni family here in New Jersey, about 37.52 miles from where I live. We have our eye on them. From what I hear, they are now scared shitless … and behaving themselves. See? Amerika is SAFE!! God, I love the smell of Yemeni smoking bodies in the morning.
And, yes, the county is being destroyed. It is a large country — just a bit smaller than Texas — but it only has 7 cities with a population greater than 100,000, and only one greater that 1 million, the capital Sana’a at 2.5 million. Those cities are being destroyed. From official reports;
“Civilian infrastructure has been destroyed, damaged and disrupted as a result of the fighting, including at least five hospitals, 15 schools and educational institutions [Yes! It is very very important to destroy skools! Fuck ’em!!], the three main national airports, bridges, factories and mosques. Reports have also been received of damage to local markets, power stations, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure. Yemenis have always suffered from a lack in basic services such as electricity cuts and water shortages, but the war causing consecutive days of electricity outage has intensified their suffering and put the lives of patients at hospitals at risk.”
Read all about here; — ‘WE WALK AROUND DEATH” … tweets from Yemen! … thank God for Algore and the internet.
We have a neocon asshole (Mark) in the other Yemen thread who says the only solution for these people is genocide. He should just love these pics!! Warning: some are quite gory. What? You want a nice and clean genocide?
Without any further commentary (is any really needed?), here ya go.
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Why Is Yemen Our War?
Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
For a month now, the Saudi air force has been bombing Yemen to reverse a takeover of that nation of 25 million by Houthi rebels, and reinstall a president who fled his country and is residing in Riyadh.
The Saudis have hit airfields, armor and arms depots, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Nearly 1,000 dead, 3,500 wounded and tens of thousands homeless. The poorest nation in the Arab world is near collapse. Dependent upon imported food, Yemen faces malnutrition and starvation.
And the United States has been an accomplice in the Saudi bombing of Yemen.
Why? Why is Yemen’s civil war America’s war?
What did the Houthis ever do to us?
While they bear us no love, their Houthi rebellion was an uprising against a pair of autocrats who had been imposed upon them, and against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Houthis’ main enemy, AQAP, is America’s worst enemy.
Why are we then making ourselves de facto allies of al-Qaida?
For while the Saudis have been bombing the Houthis, easing the pressure on al-Qaida, AQAP effected a prison break of 270 inmates, including scores of terrorists, and seized the port of Mukalla.
The Saudis claim the Houthi rebellion is part of an Iranian Shiite scheme to overrun and dominate the Sunni Middle East.
What Exactly Is So Bad about the Houthi Rebels?
Yemen’s Houthi rebels defy years of war and repression
Holding up “Death to America” signs and pictures of their fallen leader, an eager throng of Houthi rebels and their supporters gathered in the war-torn northern Yemeni city of Saada earlier this month for a funeral nine years in the making.
Just hours before the ceremony was set to begin, no-one had been told precisely where it would be held.
Despite being forced to hang around in the whipping dust, fidgety funeral-goers seemed understanding of the extra security.
They had, after all, come to bury Hussein Badr al-Dine al-Houthi, the charismatic founder of a group that has variously been a target for al-Qaeda, neighbouring tribesmen, and the central government.
When word came at 08:00, Houthi forces sprang into action. In less than three hours they funnelled hundreds of thousands of citizens, politicians and media past security checkpoints to a barren plot of land on the outskirts of the provincial capital.
An atmosphere somewhere between state funeral and political rally pervaded the crowd, which was flanked by 6m (20ft) tall portraits of the “martyred leader”.
Continue reading “What Exactly Is So Bad about the Houthi Rebels?”
WAR AGAINST IRAN HAS BEGUN
This attack on Yemen by Saudi Arabia/United States is part of a larger plan to create a conflict with Iran. Again, the U.S. has actually armed the rebels in Yemen, just as we armed ISIS in our failed effort to oust Assad. This begins to explain why Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have continued to pump oil and fill our storage facilities to the brim at low prices. The price of oil has already jumped 10% in the last two days as fears of Iran/Yemen blocking oil flow from the Gulf.
It seems clearer every day that the U.S. promotes chaos in the Middle East to make sure no one country gets too powerful. We attacked Tikrit yesterday to help our “allies” from Iraq defeat the ISIS terrorists who we armed to fight our enemy in Syria. Hysterically, it is Iranian armed forces who have been helping Iraq fight ISIS, but Iran is our enemy. Right?
Is it all clear now?
And the average ignorant American doesn’t even know we are militarily engaged in the Middle East, but they are fully supportive of defeating whatever existential threat our government creates this week. I wonder how many Americans could find Yemen on a world map.
Guess who is really happy? The American arms dealer corporations. More “political contributions” (bribes) to the Congress critters coming.
US “Loses” $500 Million In Weapons Given To Yemen, Now In Al-Qaeda Hands
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 14:59 -0400
Nobody could have possibly foreseen that yet another US foreign diplomacy “success story” would turn out to be an epic disaster. Well, nobody, except for those who accurately predict that every US intervention abroad is now a staggering fiasco (for everyone involved except the US military-industrial complex of course). As for Yemen, the outcome was clear long ago:
- Yemen’s US-Backed Government & President Resign
- Obama’s “Partners” In Yemen Overthrown As Presidential Palace Falls To Local Militiamen
- Deserted US Embassy In Yemen Immediately Seized By Armed Rebels
- The Coup Is Complete: US Embassy In Yemen Shutting Down, Ambassador To Leave By Wednesday
And, naturally, after noting that “the employees said that more than 20 vehicles were taken by the fighters after the Americans departed from Sanaa’s airport” we asked how long until we have a “tabulation of losses to US taxpayers, just like the great Islamic State ‘robbery’ of hundreds of millions in US military equipment in Iraq?” That, of course, was another epic US intervention success story.
Anyway, thanks to WaPo we have an answer: according to Jeff Bezos’ recent media acquisition, “the Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen.”
Obviously, “can’t account for” means “has lost.” But while the US does not know where nearly half a billion in weapons can be found, it is more than informed who is the current owner: there are “fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.”
And just like that, America’s now laughable, pathetic foreign policy has not only resulted in another US-supported administration to be exiled or worse, but is has directly armed the adversary. And to think it was only 6 months ago when the Teleprompter in Chief was praising the “Yemen success story.” From Obama’s Statement on ISIL as of September 10, 2014:
Now, it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL. And any time we take military action, there are risks involved –- especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions. But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.
Some may find it odd then, that 6 months later this “strategy” has been flipped on its head, and the Obama administration is taking out its partners (in Yemen), while supporting the terrorists who threaten us.
But almost everyone will say this was obvious from day one.
Here is what else was obvious:
Continue reading “US “Loses” $500 Million In Weapons Given To Yemen, Now In Al-Qaeda Hands”
FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART TWO
In Part One of this article I laid the groundwork of the Fourth Turning generational theory. I refuted President Obama’s claim that the shadow of crisis has passed. The shadow grows ever larger and will engulf the world in darkness in the coming years. The Crisis will be fueled by the worsening debt, civic decay and global disorder. I will address these issues in this article.
Debt, Civic Decay & Global Disorder
The core elements propelling this Crisis – debt, civic decay, and global disorder – were obvious over a decade before the financial meltdown catalyst sparked this ongoing two decade long Crisis. With the following issues unresolved, the shadow of this crisis has only grown larger and more ominous:
Debt
- The national debt has risen by $7 trillion (64%) to $18.1 trillion since 2009 and continues to accelerate by $2.3 billion per day, on track to surpass $20 trillion before Obama leaves office and $25 trillion by 2019.
- The national debt as a percentage of GDP is currently 103% (it would be 106% if the BEA hadn’t decided to positively “adjust” GDP up by $500 billion last year). It is on course to reach 120% by 2019. Rogoff and Reinhart have documented the fact countries that surpass 90% experience economic turmoil, decline, and ultimately currency collapse and debt default.
- Despite the housing collapse and hundreds of billions in mortgage, credit card, auto, and corporate debt being written off, dumped on the backs of taxpayers and hidden on the Federal Reserve balance sheet, total credit market debt has reached a new high of $58 trillion.
- Harvard professor Laurence Kotlikoff has been a lone voice telling the truth about the true level of unfunded promises hidden in the CBO numbers. The unfunded social welfare liabilities in excess of $200 trillion for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare are nothing but a massive future tax increase on younger and unborn generations. Kotlikoff explains what would be required to pay these obligations:
“To honor these obligations we could (a) raise all federal taxes, immediately and permanently, by 57%, (b) cut all federal spending, apart from interest on the debt, by 37%, immediately and permanently, or (c) do some combination of (a) and (b).”
The level of taxation and/or Federal Reserve created inflation necessary to honor these politician promises is too large to be considered feasible. Therefore, these promises, made to get corrupt political hacks elected to public office, will be defaulted upon.
Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART TWO”
The Failed ‘Yemen Model’
But just a week ago, the government in Yemen fell to a Shiite militia movement thought to be friendly to Iran. The US embassy in Yemen’s capitol was forced to evacuate personnel and shut down operations.
If Yemen is any kind of model, it is a model of how badly US interventionism has failed.
In 2011 the US turned against Yemen’s long-time dictator, Saleh, and supported a coup that resulted in another, even more US-friendly leader taking over in a “color revolution.” The new leader, Hadi, took over in 2012 and soon became a strong supporter of the US drone program in his country against al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.
But last week Hadi was forced to flee from office in the coup. The media reports that the US has lost some of its intelligence capability in Yemen, which is making it more difficult to continue the drone strikes. Nevertheless, the White House said last week that its drone program would continue as before, despite the disintegration of the Yemeni government.
And the drone strikes have continued. Last Monday, in the first US strike after the coup, a 12 year old boy was killed in what is sickeningly called “collateral damage.” Two alleged “al-Qaeda militants” were also killed. On Saturday yet another drone strike killed three more suspected militants.
The US government has killed at least dozens of civilian non-combatants in Yemen, but even those it counts as “militants” may actually be civilians. That is because the Obama administration counts any military-aged male in the area around a drone attack as a combatant.
WHERE’S THE OBAMA PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE THIS LATEST MILITARY FAILURE?
We droned some folks.
We got some hostage folks killed.
We are the USA.
Did we bury the body of Sommers at sea?
US Hostage Held By al Qaeda Killed In Botched Special Ops Rescue Attempt
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/06/2014 09:48 -0500
Overnight, two hostages including an American photojournalist, 33-year-old Luke Sommers, who was held for more than a year by al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, as well as a South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, were killed in a botched rescue attempt by US special operations forces. This was the second rescue attempt in as many weeks. According to the WSJ, Luke Somers, 33 years old, was killed by militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday. Several members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, were also killed in the raid.
South African teacher Pierre Korkie was also killed in the raid, according to a charity that had been trying to help negotiate his release.
The ill-advised raid had been ordered by President Barack Obama because “there were compelling reasons to believe Mr. Somers’ life was in imminent danger” according to outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who will be all the more eager to leave the Pentagon after this latest failure which will conclude an administrative career of one debacle after another.
“Both Mr. Somers and a second non-U.S. citizen hostage were murdered by the AQAP terrorists during the course of the operation,” Mr. Hagel said in a statement.
A U.S. official said Mr. Somers was shot by militants as the raid unfolded and wasn’t killed in crossfire. It wasn’t immediately clear where Mr. Somers’s remains were.
The raid took place after AQAP had warned that they would kill Mr. Somers if U.S. forces attempted another “foolish” rescue attempt, in a video statement released Thursday. In the video, an AQAP commander threatened to kill Mr. Somers by the end of the week if their unspecified demands weren’t met.
AQAP was true to its word: Somers was indeed killed after US forces attempted another “foolish” rescue attempt. At least al Qaeda gives out fair warnings.
According to CBS News, the raid was carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs who flew into Yemen on a V-22 Osprey aircraft and hiked to the location where Somers was being held.
CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports that a Defense Department official said Somers was apparently shot by his captors during the raid. Something must have alerted Somers’ captors of the raid, giving them enough time to shoot Somers and Korkie, D’Agata reports.
When the SEALs reached Somers he was alive but had been badly wounded and died of his wounds by the time he reached a U.S. Navy ship, D’Agata reports. There were no U.S. military casualties, D’Agata reports.
Some background on the killed hostage:
Somers was kidnapped in September 2013 as he left a supermarket in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, said Fakhri al-Arashi, chief editor of the National Yemen, where Somers worked as a copy editor and a freelance photographer during the 2011 uprising in Yemen.
Somers, who was born in Britain, earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing while attending Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2004 through 2007. “He really wanted to understand the world,” said Shawn Gillen, an English professor and chairman of Beloit College’s journalism program who had Gillen as a student.
Fuad Al Kadas, who called Somers one of his best friends, said Somers spent time in Egypt before finding work in Yemen. Somers started teaching English at a Yemen school but quickly established himself as a one of the few foreign photographers in the country, he said.
“He is a great man with a kind heart who really loves the Yemeni people and the country,” Al Kadas wrote in an email from Yemen. He said he last saw Somers the day before he was kidnapped.
“He was so dedicated in trying to help change Yemen’s future, to do good things for the people that he didn’t leave the country his entire time here,” Al Kadas wrote.
This was the second attempt to rescue Somers: In a statement Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby acknowledged for the first time that a mysterious U.S. raid last month had sought to rescue Somers but that he turned out not to be at the site. The U.S. considers Yemen’s al Qaeda branch to be the world’s most dangerous arm of the group as it has been linked to several failed attacks on the U.S. homeland.
Kirby did not elaborate on the joint U.S-Yemeni operation to free Somers, saying details remained classified. However, officials have said the raid targeted a remote al Qaeda safe haven in a desert region near the Saudi border. Eight captives – including Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian – were freed. Somers, a Briton and four others had been moved days earlier.
More:
Lucy Somers, the photojournalist’s sister, told The Associated Press that she and her father learned of her 33-year-old brother’s death from FBI agents at 12 a.m. EST Saturday.
“We ask that all of Luke’s family members be allowed to mourn in peace,” Lucy Somers said from London.
Yemen’s national security chief, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Ahmadi, said the militants planned to kill Luke Somers on Saturday.
“Al Qaeda promised to conduct the execution (of Somers) today so there was an attempt to save them but unfortunately they shot the hostage before or during the attack,” al-Ahmadi said at a conference in Manama, Bahrain. “He was freed but unfortunately he was dead.”
The news of the failed rescue comes after a suspected U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed nine alleged al Qaeda militants early Saturday, a Yemeni security official told the AP before news of Somers’ death. The drone struck at dawn in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province, hitting a suspected militant hideout, the official said. The official did not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists.
Needless to say, the strikes are despised by many in Yemen due to civilian casualties, legitimizing for many the attacks on American interests.
It was not clear as of this writing how many innocent Yemeni people were killed in the latest US strike in Yemen, but what is clear is that in a world in which operators of remote-control fighter jets kill thousands of innocent people half way around the globe with absolute impunity, tragic incidents such as this one will certainly continue.
Yemen Drone War Is Making More Terrorists, Not A Safer America
by Ron Paul
Earlier this month, CIA-operated drones killed as many as 55 people in Yemen in several separate strikes. Although it was claimed that those killed were “militants,” according to press reports at least three civilians were killed and at least five others wounded. That makes at least 92 US drone attacks against Yemen during the Obama administration, which have killed nearly 1,000 people including many civilians.
The latest strikes seem to contradict President Obama’s revised guidelines for targeted killings, which he announced last May. At the time he claimed that drones would only be used against those who posed a “continuing and imminent threat to the American people,” that there must be a “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,” and that safeguards to prevent civilian casualties were at “the highest standard we can set.”
None of these criteria seem to have been met. In fact, the threshold in Yemen is considerably lower than the president claims. In 2012 President Obama approved “signature strikes” in Yemen, a criteria for attack that is not based on actual or suspected wrongdoing, but rather on a vague set of behaviors that are said to be shared by militants.
This means that the individuals killed in the most recent drone attacks were not necessarily terrorists or even terrorist suspects. They were not proven to have committed any crime, nor were they proven to have been members of al-Qaeda or any terrorist organization. Yet they were nevertheless targeted for attack, and the sovereignty of Yemen was violated in the process.
Some may claim that we need to kill suspected terrorists overseas so that we can be safer at home. But do the drone attacks in places like Yemen really make us safer? Or are they actually counter-productive? One thing we do know is that one of the strongest recruiting tools for al-Qaeda is the US being over there using drones against people or occupying Muslim countries.
How can we get rid of all the people who may seek to do us harm if our drone and occupation policies continually create even more al-Qaeda members? Are we not just creating an endless supply of tomorrow’s terrorists with our foolish policies today? What example does it set for the rest of the world if the US acts as if it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere, based simply on that individual’s behavior?
We should keep all of this in mind when the US administration lectures world leaders about how they should act in the 21st century. Recently, the US administration admonished Russian president Vladimir Putin for his supposed interference in the affairs of Ukraine, saying that violating the sovereignty of another country is not the 21st century way of conducting international relations. I agree that sovereignty must be respected. But what about the US doing the same thing in places like Yemen? What about the hundreds and even thousands killed by US drones not because they were found guilty of a crime, but because they were exhibiting “behaviors” that led a CIA drone operator safely hidden in New Mexico or somewhere to pull the trigger and end their lives?
What about a president who regularly meets in secret with his advisors to determine who is to be placed on a “kill list” and who refuses to even discuss the criteria for placement on that list? Is this considered acceptable 21st century behavior?
The Obama Administration needs to rein in the CIA and its drone attacks overseas. They make a mockery of American values and they may well make us less safe.