Long line of abuses: U.S hostilities in Persia as Middle East, Africa, et.al

Destabilize, demonize, depose, destroy

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

Mohammad Mosaddegh

Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq, also spelled Masaddiq or  Mossadegh (born June 16, 1882, died March 5, 1967) was an author, administrator, lawyer, prominent parliamentarian who in 1951 became the prime minister of Iran. The democratically elected (1951 to 1953) Prime Minister of Iran's government was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by the British MI6 and the United States CIA.

Mosaddeq’s administration introduced a wide range of progressive social and political reforms such as social security, rent control, and land reforms. His government’s most notable policy was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC / AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).

On August 19, 1953, Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup organized and carried out by the United States CIA at the request of Britain’s MI6 which chose Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Mosaddegh.

The coup is commonly referred to as ‘Operation Ajax’, after its CIA cryptonym; but in Iran it is called the Mordad 28, 1332, coup consistent with its date on the Iranian calendar.

Prime Minister Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years then put under house arrest until his death.

T

he British/U.S. coup reinstalled and supported the increasingly brutal regime of the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of the Pahlavi Dynasty) until its collapse in 1979.

Majlis of Iran
(legislature, parliament)

Marking the 60th anniversary of the overthrow, Iran’s lawmakers said in a statement released by the Human Rights Bloc of the Majlis: “Today everyone knows that cutting the hands of oil-thirsty superpowers [off Iran’s oil resources] prompted these so-called advocates of democracy and freedom to topple the Iranian people’s lawful government.”

The lawmakers today characterized the 1953 U.S./Britain coup against the government of then-Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq as ‘shameful and inhumane’.

Long line of abuse: U.S. foreign relations paradigm in violence

Linking actions 60 years on, the Iranian lawmakers cited the United States and Britain’s current interference in the internal affairs of Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Afghanistan and their support of the Israeli regime and concluded that “Washington and London are the same old imperialists even if they have changed their approaches.”

Sources and notes

“Iran’s lawmakers denounce 1953 UK-, US-led coup,” August 19, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/19/319459/mps-rap-1953-us-ukled-coup-in-iran/

Also in today’s news: “CIA admits role in 1953 Iran coup against democratically-elected Mosadeq,” August 19, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/19/319439/cia-admits-us-role-in-iran-1953-coup/

 

F

or the first time, after 60 years, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has published a document admitting its role in the 1953 coup. The document published on a U.S. National Security Archive website said:

‘As an act of U.S. foreign policy, the military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front Cabinet was carried out under CIA direction’.

Reza Shah Pahlavi (Persian: Rezā Ŝāh Pahlawi‎, born Rezā Khan on March 15, 1878, died July 26, 1944) was the Shah of the Imperial State of Persia beginning in December 15, 1925. In 1925, Reza Shah ousted Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and founded the Pahlavi dynasty. He was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on September 16, 1941.

Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979)

Reza Shah Pahlavi, army officer (Persian: Rezā Ŝāh Pahlawi‎, also spelled Riza Shah Pahlevi, original name Reza Khan, parentage: son of Abbas Ali); title: Alahazrat, Homayoun, Shahanshah, Sardar Sepah; birth/death 1878–1944; held office: Shah of the Imperial State of Persia December 15, 1925-September 16, 1941 (after deposing Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and establishing the Pahlavi dynasty); end reign: Ousted 1941 (Soviet Union and Great Britain feared the shah “would cooperate with Nazi Germany to rid himself of their tutelage” so they “occupied Iran and forced Reza Shah into exile.” Mohammad Reza then replaced his father on the throne (September 16, 1941)

 

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi; Switzerland-educated; parentage: son of Reza Shah Pahlavi; (pro-Western foreign policy) Shah of Iran; title: Alahazrat, Homayoun, Shahanshah, Ariamehr, Bozorg Arteshtaran, Khodaygan; birth/death 1919 Tehran –1980 Cairo; held office: September 16, 1941- February 11, 1979; end reign: ousted 1979 during the Islamic Revolution.

Mohammad Mosaddegh v

Pahlavi Dynasty, U.S. /UK hegemony

Mosaddeq took his doctor of law degree at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, returned to Iran in 1914, and was appointed governor-general of Fārs province. He remained in the government following the rise to power of Reza Khan in 1921 and served as minister of finance then briefly minister of foreign affairs. In 1923, Mosaddeq was elected to the Majlis (parliament) but in 1925 when Reza Khan was elected shah (as Reza Shah Pahlavi), Mosaddeq opposed the move and was compelled to retire to private life; but he reentered public service in 1944, following Reza Shah’s forced abdication in 1941. Mosaddeq was again elected to the Majlis and in March 1951 the Majlis passed his oil-nationalization act. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi appointed him premier.

Mohammad Mosaddegh (Mosaddeq), the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, had his government overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by secret agencies British MI6 and the United States CIA in August of 1953. Their coup reinstalled and supported the increasingly brutal regime of the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) until its collapse in 1979.

Majlis or Mejlis (parliament, legislature, council, assembly)

Iran’s Majlis (Press TV file photo)

The Majlis refers to a legislature and is used in the name of legislative councils or assemblies in some of the states where Islamic culture dominates.

Majlis (or Mejlis; Arabic: مجلس‎, pl. مجالس Majālis) is an Arabic term meaning ‘a place of sitting’, used in the context of ‘council’, to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups: administrative, social or religious in countries with linguistic or cultural connections to Islamic countries. It shares its root with the verb meaning ‘to sit’.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majlis

Encyclopedic sources Wikipedia and Britannica

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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This man’s 21st century Cold War: continuous aggression, human suffering

Yemenis protest
U.S.drones,  meddling

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if another nation invaded your country?

Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

Yemen across the Gulf of Aden from Africa’s horn (Djibouti)

 Breaching national sovereignty, murdering civilians

U.S. drone launch

Yemenis tell Press TV today that the United States’ “deadly drones have hit everywhere in Yemen” and that all Yemenis are united in fact that this aggression violates their “basic rights.”

A

sking the rhetorical question: “who would accept foreign intervention in his own land,” the Yemeni tells Press TV that the people of Yemen “strongly reject U.S. intervention” in their land.

We regard the use of U.S. assassination drones as an intervention, which has killed innocent people.

This is a violation of our independence and beliefs.

The continued use of these drones will only fuel more anger.

Somalis attacked by
U.S. drones

News stories have regularly reported that the U.S. government ─ claiming to be targeting “terrorists” ─ has been sending assassination drones against several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia; and that these attacks have caused the deaths of large numbers of civilians.

Pakistanis protest
U.S. drones

However, in flagrant disregard of the United Nations’ sharp criticism of the U.S. terror drone attacks, its targeted killings, on ground of international law ─ and despite the slaughter of civilians, human displacement and interminable trauma, despite sovereign and domestic protests ─ the United States has persisted in this aggression and its Central Intelligence Agency is reportedly planning expansion of its covert drone attacks in Yemen.

Deepening U.S. aggression farther north: Syria

Reports today from Syria reveal the Obama Government’s Secretary State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the name of the United States, “has launched an aggressive campaign to re-establish a new Syrian opposition force.” The Secretary of Aggression has reportedly rejected “existing opposition leaders as ‘a bunch of out-of-touch exiles’ that should be replaced by a group representing active insurgents.”

During yesterday’s official visit to Croatia, the secretary is reported saying ─ 

‘We’ve made it clear that the SNC (Syrian National Council) can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition…. That opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard.’

The secretary’s belligerent and crassly undiplomatic declaration makes clear the United States' breach of Syria’s sovereignty, “fueling the anti-Syria insurgency aimed at removing the pro-resistance government of President Bashar Al-Assad.”

I

t would be fair to say that this man’s government is loose on the world, and is undermining both U.S. domestic and international law.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF ANOTHER NATION INVADED YOUR COUNTRY?

Opposition from within UNSC

UN Security Council

At least one nation within the five-permanent member UN Security Council has consistently opposed the United States’ violent descent to Cold War aggression.

Speaking to the press after a Wednesday meeting in Paris with France’s foreign minister, Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said what makes sense to any sane person:

Assad’s fate should be decided by the Syrian people.

Africa crossing Gulf of Aden, Red Sea
Syria
Middle East

Reported at Press TV, Lavrov sad, “If the position of our partners remains the departure of this leader whom they do not like, the bloodbath will continue …

“It is like daydreaming to speculate: to the effect that if the [Syrian] government is overthrown everything will fall into place.”

If this is somebody’s priority, he said, the “bloodshed will continue.”

Urging western states and Turkey to negotiate with the Syrian president, Foreign Minister Lavrov reiterated the fact that there is no military solution to the problem in and around Syria and encouraged pursuing a political solution to the Syrian conflict.

Cold War moves, counter moves

Loose on the world
Africa to Russian Federation

The U.S. military reportedly “has clandestinely transformed a remote former French military outpost in Djibouti named Camp Lemonnier into ‘the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone.’  Nearly 3,200 U.S. soldiers, civilians and contractors are currently assigned to the military camp ─

‘[w]here they train foreign militaries, gather intelligence and dole out humanitarian aid across East Africa as part of a campaign to prevent extremists from taking root.’

Lemonnier is said to have “emerged as a hub for conventional aircraft” that last year deployed “a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets” ─ planes that “fly faster and carry more munitions than Predators.”

Russia again answers provocation.

Press TV reports, “Russia may deploy two reconnaissance aircraft to a French base in Djibouti where the United States is reportedly leading its secret drone war in the region.”

Soviet Cold War
 Ilyushin Il-38

Y

esterday, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said his country has asked France to host two reconnaissance planes (Ilyushin Il-38), joining French planes at France’s air base in Djibouti (Horn of Africa across the Gulf of Aden from South Central Asia). The Russian plane, Ilyushin Il-38, can fly at a maximum speed of 650 km/h with service ceiling of 10,000 meters.

Wikipedia note: The Il-38, first flown in 1967, is an adaption of the four-engine turboprop Ilyushin Il-18 for use as a maritime patrol aircraft for the Soviet Navy and meets a requirement to counter American ballistic missile submarines. On December 7, 2010, two Russian Navy Il-38s appeared over the Japan Sea near the Noto peninsula, interrupting a combined U.S.-Japan Navy drill. The exercises were canceled because of concern that Il-38s might be carrying out surveillance missions on U.S./Japan naval activities.

Russia says the intended deployment of this plane is for anti-piracy purposes. The United States, among other countries, Press TV reports, conducts “anti-piracy operations in Djibouti, a close front against piracy in the region based in neighboring Somalia.”

Sources and notes

“Angry Yemeni civilians call on US to stop drone attacks,” November 1, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/01/269919/us-drone-strikes-anger-yemeni-civilians/

“U.S. plans to establish new Syrian opposition force in Qatar meeting,” November 1, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/01/269906/us-plans-new-syrian-opposition-force/

“West call for Assad departure daydreaming: Russia,” October 31, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/31/269799/call-for-assad-ouster-daydreaming-russia/

Photo caption:

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (L) attends a news conference with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius at the French foreign ministry, Paris, Wednesday, Oct. 31 2012.

“Russia may deploy reconnaissance aircraft to French base in Djibouti,” October 31, 2012

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/31/269809/russia-may-send-aircraft-to-djibouti-base/

Ilyushin Il-38

The Ilyushin Il-38 (NATO reporting name: May) is a maritime patrol aircraft and anti-submarine warfare aircraft designed in the Soviet Union.  The Il-38 was operated by units in the Soviet Northern, Pacific and Baltic fleets.

Role: anti-submarine warfare and Maritime patrol aircraft

Design group: Ilyushin

First flight: 1967

Primary users: Soviet Naval Aviation;  Russian Naval Aviation; Indian Navy

Number built: 58

Developed from: Ilyushin Il-18

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-38

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Cold War with vengeance: U.S. Dem-Repubs pledge allegiance to cont'd violence across Asia, Africa

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice,” I’ve had this quote on my desk for years. No matter how you slice it or angle it, what you heard last night is not demonstrative of choice. 

Choice is not given; you must make it. Re-reporting and comment by Carolyn Bennett 

I

f you stand long enough with these entrenched men, you will turn this country back to yesteryear, lose any ground achieved as a civilized people in a civilized world where every human being is protected under the rule of law and in adherence to declarations of human rights. 

If we continue sending the same ilk to Washington ─ if we refuse to imagine above this fray, outside this box, beyond this ideology ─ then America (this America) will do no more than regress and regress and regress into an abyss of worsening mendacity and barbarity. 

Hoodwinked

An RT story observes, and rightly so, that the Democratic-Republican Party “monopoly is failing the American people.” The hoodwinking perpetrated by these parties is indeed “a joke” played on the American electorate. Aided and abetted by mass media, these heavies block choice as an Israeli blockade on peoples of the Gaza Strip; and only ordinary Americans can break the hold.

It is true, as this article puts it, that the political process in the United States is a “corporate-owned sweepstakes with less credibility than a beauty pageant.” And to raise the standard, the American people must engage, uproot this rotten entrenchment, and demand a substantively changed ethos, desperately needed new voices and new ideas. Clean house in Washington.

 

Foreign policy is domestic policy.

 

F

ormer Senator Mike Gravel responded to last night’s televised event of a couple of cosmetic characters’ wink-and-nod performance on foreign policy. This is some of what Gravel told Press TV about the Obama-Romney (Dem-Repub.) callous, cowardly, pernicious and careless model of U.S. foreign relations and how it inevitably intertwines with U.S. domestic conditions.

Former Senator
Mike Gravel

Cold War with a vengeance

“I think their foreign policies are very close,” Gravel said.

Barack Obama: admits the United States has been “indirectly” supplying insurgents in Syria.

Mitt Romney: says we should give them more “supplies.”

Gravel says, “This is waging war through an agency, which is how we started the war in Libya. Now we are doing this [in] Syria and look at all the deaths that have occurred.

“There is as much blood on our hands as there is on [President Bashar al-] Assad’s government.” Sustained by his allies Iran and Russia, Gravel said, President Assad “is trying to maintain himself in power. And we (the United States of America) are trying to bring about a new person in power.”

 

Based on what the Republican and Democratic candidates said last night, Mike Gravel concluded that there is “no change in policy … toward Iran and toward Israel’s control of American foreign policy.” 

We are, he said, “almost back at the Cold War where the United States is waging proxy wars [and] other people are dying.”

Aided and abetted by mass media

The head of the international affairs committee of the Russian Federation legislature (the State Duma), Alexei Pushkov, also commented recently on the carelessly violent pattern in U.S. foreign relations and the press’s collusion with it.  

Iraq to Libya to Syria ─ When the United States “was attempting to justify the war in Iraq, ‘the entire U.S. media claimed the country had nuclear weapons,’ a claim that turned out to be blatantly false [and] today a similar situation is unraveling with regard to Syria:

‘The Americans are taking an absolutely one-sided position and

[t]heir media act as if they were the ideological arm of U.S. foreign policy.’

Reporting on Libya, the U.S. media alleged President Muammar al Qaddafi “was guilty of murdering 6,000 Libyan citizens, ‘but the bodies were never found and the theme was forgotten,’” Pushkov said.

The singular “‘voice of U.S. media is startling’” and demonstrative of a blind allegiance to “‘the policy of national authorities.’”

U.S. war left in
Iraq

Hit and run U.S. hostilities: 

Iraq to Libya

Anti- U.S.
Libya

International dispatches in recent days from Libya have been reporting post-U.S.-invasion atrocities against “innocent civilians” ─ this latest conflict reportedly provoked by the death of Omran Shaaban, a “rebel from Misrata credited with capturing” President Qaddafi. Shaaban reportedly died on September 25 after “two months’ detention in Bani Walid.” Reports from the  town have indicated that innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire of increasing “fighting between pro-government forces and Qaddafi loyalists.”

So today the Russian Federation offered at the United Nations a statement expressing concern about the significant escalation of violence in and around Bani Walid and calling on Libyan authorities “to take urgent steps to resolve the conflict by peaceful means and to preserve the rights of all Libyan citizens.”

United Nations
 Bushwhacked by
USA

The United States then blocked the draft statement, which the Russian envoy found strange indeed. Vitaly Churkin said:

Blocking a draft statement that called to solve the country’s political problems without violence is very strange.

This is a case when it is difficult to explain the U.S. delegation’s actions in rational terms.

W

hat can change U.S. foreign relations of war, its violence against sovereign peoples? Gravel continued.

I know of no change “that could come about in the United States to change our whole attitude of imperialism,” he said, other than bankruptcy ─ where, of course, “the country it is slowly going.”

During the Republican-Democratic Party candidates’ foreign policy performance, Gravel said, “There was some truth in what Obama said:

[w]e cannot be strong in the world if we’re not strong at home economically; and we are not strong economically.

“We waste our economic capability on foreign wars and foreign policies” that do nothing other than kill a lot of people; and we stand above them [and tell them] we can dictate the kind of government they will have.”

Egypt-Libya-Syria

“We are trying to dictate that in Syria, in Libya, and in other countries,” Gravel said.

“We dictated that in Egypt: through our military and through the billions of dollars the United States gives annually to Egypt’s military, we forced [President Hosni] Mubarak out.” It is a pattern employed by the United States government “around the world” including “indirectly” in Syria.

Rights due to Human beings as 

Human beings

Speaking recently on the sidelines of a parliamentary hearing on human rights in America, Alexei Pushkov pointedly observed that the United States itself must “honor human rights before trying to lecture other countries on these principles.”

Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
1947

I

’d say that targeted assassinations, wars of aggression, provocation and destabilization of countries and factions, displacement of peoples, torture and detention without charge, trial or counsel, violations of the peace ─ all of these known to have been committed and are still being ordered and committed by U.S. government officials and agents ─ all of these fall within the category of lawlessness and abuse of human rights. 

Those who order and or commit these acts must be brought to account before an impartial court of justice and those who promise to commit or suggest that they intend or might commit such acts must be barred from or voted out of public office ─ especially the entrenched, no matter who they are or what their pedigree or lineage.

Sources and notes

“Romney vs. Obama: Where’s the Choice?”  October 4, 2012, http://rt.com/politics/columns/bridge-too/us-presidential-debates-romney-obama/

“Cold war climate pursued by U.S. in Syria at cost of their own economy,” October 23, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/23/268353/obama-romney-debate-promoted-waging-war/

“U.S. media: Ideological arm of American foreign policy – Russia,” October 22, 2012, http://rt.com/politics/us-russia-media-human-rights-violations-956/

“U.S. blocks Russia’s draft statement in UN on peaceful resolution of Bani Walid violence.” October 23, 2012, http://rt.com/news/us-russia-libya-statement-068/

Mike Gravel

A former U.S. presidential candidate (2008) and a former U.S. Senator (1969-1981), Maurice Robert (Mike) Gravel (b. May 13, 1930) is prominently known for his release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official study that revealed the lies and manipulations of successive U.S. administrations that misled the country into the Vietnam War. After the New York Times published portions of the leaked study, the Nixon administration moved to block any further publication of information and to punish any newspaper publisher who revealed the contents. Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Gravel (a junior senator at the time) argued that his constituents had a right to know the truth behind the war and proceeded to read into the senate record 4,100 pages of the 7,000-page document. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Senator Gravel did not have the right and responsibility to share official documents with his constituents. Gravel then published The Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, Beacon Press (1971). What followed was the court case Gravel v. U.S. and the handing down of a landmark Supreme Court decision (No. 71-1017-1026) pertaining to the Speech and Debate Clause (Article 1, Section 6) of the United States Constitution.

Mike Gravel has been characterized as “a passionate advocate of direct democracy and the National Initiative.” During the 2007-2008 presidential campaign, Gravel ran on these ideas.

The former lawmaker served in the Alaska House of Representatives (1963-66), and as Speaker (1965-66). He then represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate (1969-81) where he served on the Finance, Interior, and Environmental and Public Works committees, chairing the Energy, Water Resources, Buildings and Grounds, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees. In 1971, Gravel waged a successful solo filibuster for five months that forced the Nixon administration to cut a deal, effectively ending the draft in the United States. He was founder and president of The Democracy Foundation, Philadelphia II, and Direct Democracy, nonprofit corporations dedicated to the establishment of direct democracy in the United States, through the enactment of the National Initiative for Democracy by American voters.  Senator Gravel is author of Jobs and More Jobs, and Citizen Power. He lectures and writes about governance, foreign affairs, economics, Social Security, tax reform, energy, environmental issues and democracy.

Senator Gravel served in the U.S. Army (1951-54) and as special adjutant in the Communication Intelligence Services and as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps. His academic credentials are in economics (B.S., Columbia University) and in law and public affairs (four honorary degrees). Mike Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, of French Canadian immigrants. http://www.mikegravel.us/bio

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Remembering U.S./NATO’s slaughter of "friend" and "foe"

U.S. allied with despots and killers

Armed against world’s peoples

By Carolyn Bennett (re-reporting, editing)

The United States is allied with autocratic leaders of Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel.

The United States by occupation, sanctions and or bombs (remote, air, ground, and/or sea) is allied against peoples of Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Palestine, Iraq… and the numbers keep rising.

Worldwide war-made and exacerbated crisis

The United Nations refugee agency said this week that major new conflicts and unresolved conflicts around the world are putting great strain on humanitarian resources.

More than 800,000 people already in 2011 had crossed borders in search of refuge. That amounted to “an average of more than 2,000 refugees every day.” Opening the annual meeting of UNHCR’s Executive Committee in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said the numbers were “higher than at any time in the last decade.”

B

ut despite human suffering, despite the flooding of women, men and children across borders throughout the Middle East and East Africa (and beyond), the U.S. (NATO) slaughter and its impact at home and every place its military might lands is callously unending.

At home (soldiers and society suffer)

Veterans today on the Pacifica Network’s Democracy Now program said the notion that “Johnny comes home” from deployment in war and commits suicide because he cannot balance a checkbook or cope in a relationship is far from the whole story of veteran suicide now at epidemic levels. “People get on a path,” retired sergeant Georg-Andras Pogány said, “a path that continuously deteriorates their mental state”; and at some point, “they are so compromised because of the emotional pain that they are suffering that they see no other way out than to take their own lives.”

We as a nation, he said, “must ask ourselves ‘what is the cost’ … a cost not just in bombs and bullets; but in the psychological costs: the human scars from war and the psychological injuries borne by those who survive.”

Afghan War veteran Graham Clumpner took the issue of harm from home to the world and back. “The violence that we are participating in, whether actively or passively,” he said, is “being done to people of color from other nations and we never talk about those people.”

He acknowledged that while he can return home from war and go to the Veterans Administration for healthcare and remove himself from the source of trauma, “People in Afghanistan and Iraq and all of these other countries where we’re dropping drones — or having drone strikes, they cannot remove themselves from the source of their trauma. They do not have a Veterans Administration. In a lot of cases they don’t have access to basic healthcare. We lose sight of having that conversation every time we sit down and talk about this. It is very important that we acknowledge this is larger than just an American problem.”

Bagram Air Base

one of the largest U.S. military bases 

in Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN

More than a decade of war against them, hundreds of thousands of foreign troops on their soil, and Afghans are too traumatized to leave their homes.

Political analyst Fazel Ghani Haqmal says in a Press TV news article, “Eleven years of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and ‘a large number of our innocent people have been killed by them. They (The United States and NATO) cannot bring peace and security to us.’”

But the killing continues. Yesterday, 15 people died in a U.S. airstrike on Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province. At the time of the report, Press TV said this airstrike was the second in a 24-hour period.  The day before four people had died in a U.S.-led airstrike in eastern Afghanistan.

“Since last week, more than 20 other people have been killed in similar attacks in Wardak, Helmand, Kunar and Herat.”

Reported August 25, 2012, “Two NATO airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan killed at least 12 people.”  In the southern province of Kandahar, six civilians died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

Though NATO officials continue to claim their airstrikes target only “militants,” civilians are being killed by these attacks.

Pakistan's
civillian dead

PAKISTAN

October 1

Pakistani tribal regions have been the constant target of U.S. terror drones, the remote controlled weapons, costing the lives of civilians wherever they land or deposit their lethal materiel.

This week began with the U.S.-led forces’ killing of at least three Pakistani civilians near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In an earlier incident, three more Pakistanis lost their lives when another U.S. assassination drone hit the Khaider Khel area of Mir Ali district 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan tribal region.

There were also reports that NATO forces arrested ten Pakistani citizens in the border areas.

  

Background

UNITED STATES NATO

The United States is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the world’s largest military alliance comprised of 28 nations: Canada and much of Europe inclusive of the United Kingdom, the nation with the alliance’s second largest military.

Starting in 1989, the United States also created a major non-NATO ally status (MNNA) for five nations. The number of U.S.–designated non-NATO allies began increasing in the late 1990s and today the list includes 14 nations.

Major non-NATO ally (MNNA) is a designation given by the United States government to countries excluded from NATO membership that have “strategic military and economic partnerships or alliances with United States Armed Forces.”

Countries designated (i.e., countries designated as a matter of caprice, expedience or convenience) major non-NATO allies of the United States (in order of their appointment)

Named by former U.S. President George H. W. Bush

Australia (1989)

Egypt (1989)

Israel (1989)

Japan (1989)

South Korea (1989)

Named by former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton (orig. name: William Jefferson Blythe III) 

Jordan (1996)

New Zealand (1997)

Argentina (1998)

Named by former U.S. President George W. Bush

Bahrain (2002)

Philippines (2003)

Thailand (2003)

Kuwait (2004)

Morocco (2004)

Pakistan (2004)

Named by U.S. President Barack Obama

Afghanistan (2012)

Yemenis protest
United States

YEMEN

October 4

A U.S. assassination drone strike in the southern Yemeni province of Shabawa left five people dead. News accounts report witnesses saying the drone fired four missiles at two vehicles traveling in the town of Saeed on Thursday.

“The United States uses assassination drones for combat and espionage in several countries including Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

(U.S. allied with)

TURKEY

(U.S. allied against)

Syria

October 5

Amid the destabilization in the Middle East, U.S. ally Turkey is committing aggression against Syria. “The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that his country is ‘not far from war’ with Syria amid intensified tensions fueled by fresh cross-border attacks.”

The country’s leader made his remarks as “the Turkish military continued pounding targets inside Syria for the third day.”

BAHRAIN

October 5

Since February of last year Bahrainis have been protesting their oppressive government. Scores of people have been killed, hundreds more injured in the regime crackdown on protesters. News reports have repeatedly told stories of opposition leaders and human rights activists being given long jail terms as part of the government’s crackdown.

Bahraini funeral

Nevertheless, today, after attending a memorial service held in the capital suburb of Jadhafs for a young anti-regime activist who had died in custody, hundreds of Bahrainis again took to the streets and tried to march toward the site of the demolished Pearl Square.

The Bahraini government is a regime, backed by Saudi Arabia, at war with its people; it is a nation that is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Witnesses told reporters that today’s demonstrators were met with regime forces armed with and firing tear gas, water cannons, sound bombs and buckshot.

JORDAN

October 5

Like Bahrainis, the people of Jordan have been demonstrating since early last year for freedom and voice in governance: a parliamentary system where the prime minister is elected by popular vote instead of by a monarch. Demonstrators have demanded that in place of the current electoral law allowance of 17 seats in parliament (or 12 percent), party lists be granted 50 percent of seats in the House of Representatives.

Today following King Abdullah II's dissolution of the parliament, Jordanians in the tens of thousands took to the streets of the capital, Amman, calling for a new electoral law, an elected government, effective measures against corruption, an independent judiciary and an end to the security services’ interference in political life. 

In this “‘Friday to Rescue the Nation’ rally,” protesters chanted, “‘we demand constitutional reforms before the people revolt. The people want to reform the regime’ [and] Listen, Abdullah, our demands are legitimate.’”

 

ALLIES LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS…?

30,000 Somali children suffer and have died from famine, says the Global Enrichment Foundation, but that does not stop the United States from bombing these people back to antiquity.

U.S. drone attacks Somali capital

AFRICA HORN: SOMALIA

October 5

Thirteen people died Monday when a U.S. assassination drone hit Kismayo, a strategically important port city on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast.

Press TV correspondents reported that shortly after the strike, al-Shabab fighters carried out a surprise attack on Somali forces in the outskirts of Kismayo and a number of high-ranking military officers died, dozens were wounded in the attack.

September 30 ─ A U.S.-led drone strike killed at least four and injured at least twelve people in southwestern Somalia.

September 7 ─ U.S. assassination drones killed eight and wounded 21 in southern Somalia.

August 29 ─ U.S. drone attack killed 26 and injured dozens in Somalia.

IRAN

October 3, 2012

U.S. Sanctions warfare

U.S. dismisses diplomatic, political solution

Anti-American protests
Iran

This week, a representative of the U.S. executive government bragged (as the U.S. president has done about killing) that ─

The [Iranian] currency is plummeting and firms all over the world are refusing to do business with Iranian companies.

These are the most punishing sanctions we have ever been able to amass as an international community

  

The “‘most punishing sanctions ever’ is saying something,” Finian Cunningham writes in a Press TV column, “given that the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq between 1990 and 2003 were reckoned to have caused over one million children to die from preventable causes.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran, Finian Cunningham said, “is facing economic warfare from the United States and its European allies … in financial terms, equivalent to attacking the country with a weapon of mass destruction” and the disruption and hardship being inflicted on the Iranian people “is criminal and unspeakably callous.”

Their suffering is unquestionably “the direct result of conscious decisions being made in Washington, London and Brussels” ─ decisions based on “specious and malicious claims about the Iran’s legally entitled civilian nuclear development.

“The sanctions are unwarranted, criminal acts of war and crimes against humanity.”

Democracy Now headlines today, “Report: U.S. Has Dismissed Iran’s Plan to End Nuclear Standoff ─ Reports have emerged Iran has been attempting to gather support for a plan to end its stalemate with the United States and its allies over the country’s alleged nuclear program. Iranian officials have outlined a nine-step plan whereby Iran would end work at one of two uranium enrichment sites in exchange for the easing of sanctions that are devastating its economy. U.S. officials however have dismissed the plans as untenable. Protests have erupted this week in Iran amidst a worsening financial crisis that saw the collapse of its currency.”

Sources and notes

“Global crises severely straining humanitarian resources, warns UN refugee chief,” October 1, 2012, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43154&Cr=refugees&Cr1=

Home (U.S. soldiers’ pain of war)

“On Afghan War 11th Anniversary, Vets Confront Mental Health Crisis, Soldier Suicides and Violence,” October 5, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/5/on_afghan_war_11th_anniversary_vets

“On Afghan War 11th Anniversary, Vets Confront Mental Health Crisis, Soldier Suicides and Violence: Veterans on Democracy Now from Colorado Sprig, Colorado, October 5, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/5/on_afghan_war_11th_anniversary_vets#transcript

Guests:  Afghanistan War veteran and Colorado regional organizer for Iraq Veterans against the War, Graham Clumpner; retired U.S. Army sergeant first class and independent veterans’ advocate and investigator, Georg-Andreas Pogany; investigative reporter and author of ‘Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home’, Dave Philipps

Afghanistan

“Afghan civilians pay real price of U.S. war,” October 4, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/04/264938/afghan-civilians-real-victims-of-us-war/

 “U.S. forces kills 15 Afghans in Kandahar airstrike,” October 4, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/04/264933/usled-airstrike-kills-15-in-afghanistan/

“Two NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan kill 12 people, “August 25, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/25/257994/12-militants-killed-in-afghanistan/

Pakistan/Afghanistan

“U.S.-led forces kill 3 Pakistani civilians on Afghan border,” October 1, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/01/264487/usled-forces-kill-3-pakistani-civilians/

RESISTANCE AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN October 5

“Two NATO supply trucks torched in southwest Pakistan,” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05/265061/nato-supply-trucks-torched-in-pakistan/

PAKISTAN: Pakistani Politician Vows to Proceed with Anti-Drone March ─ Pakistani political leader Imran Khan has vowed to move forward with a peace march this weekend aimed at highlighting the impact of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Activists from Britain and the United States, including CODEPINK leader Medea Benjamin, are joining the march from Islamabad to South Waziristan despite concerns over security  (Democracy Now Headlines, Friday, October 5, 2012)

“8 rockets hit US Bagram air base in Afghanistan,” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05/265060/8-rockets-hit-us-air-base-in-afghanistan/

Yemen

“U.S. assassination drone kills 5 in Yemen,” October 4, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/04/264915/us-assassination-drone-kills-5-in-yemen/

Turkey and Syria

“Turkey not far from war with Syria: Erdogan,” October 5, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05/265152/turkey-not-far-from-war-with-syria/

Bahrain

The Global Enrichment Foundation, http://www.globalenrichmentfoundation.com/aboutGlobalEnrichmentFoundation/Team/index.php

“Bahraini forces clash with anti-regime protesters in Manama,” October 5, 2012,  

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05/265150/bahraini-forces-attack-manama-protest/

Jordan

“Jordanians hold largest demonstration in years to demand reforms,” October 5, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05/265144/jordanians-rally-to-demand-reforms/

Somalia

“U.S. terror drone kills 13 al-Shabab fighters in Somalia,” October 5, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/01/264431/us-terror-drone-kills-13-in-s-somalia/

“U.S. assassination drone strike kills 4 in southwestern Somalia,” September 30, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/30/264309/us-drone-attack-kills-4-in-somalia/

“U.S. assassination drones kill 8, wounds 21 in southern Somalia,” September 7, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/07/260369/us-terror-drone-kills-8-in-somalia/

“U.S. drone attack kills 26, injures dozens in Somalia,” August 29, 2012,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/29/258829/us-terror-drone-kills-26-in-somalia/

Iran

“U.S., allies wage economic war on Iran,” October 3, 2012,

 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/03/264778/west-economic-war-on-iran-doomed-to-fail/

Democracy Now headlines, October 5, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/5/headlines

Finian Cunningham

Finian Cunningham specializes in Middle East and East Africa issues has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.  

He was based in Bahrain and witnessed the political upheavals in the Persian Gulf kingdom during 2011 as well as the subsequent Saudi-led brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted many human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. Finian Cunningham has given several American radio interviews as well as TV interviews on Press TV and Russia Today and many of his recent articles appear on the renowned Canadian-based news website Globalresearch.

For many years, he worked as an editor and writer for such publications as The Mirror, Irish Times and the Independent. Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is now based in East Africa where is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring. His interests include capitalism, imperialism and war, socialism, justice and peace, agriculture and trade policy, ecological impact, science and technology, and human rights. (Press TV profile)

Context

LEADERS OF THE MIDDLE EAST:

Portraits of Authoritarianism (Pierre Tristam-Ask dot com and Wikipedia notes)

“From Pakistan to Northwest Africa, and with a few exceptions along the way (in Lebanon, in Israel), people of the Middle East are ruled by three varieties of leaders, all of them men:

Authoritarian men (in most countries);

Men creeping toward the standard authoritarian model of Middle East rule (Iraq); or

Men with more proclivities for corruption than authority (Pakistan, Afghanistan). And with rare and at times questionable exceptions, none of the leaders enjoy the legitimacy of having been chosen by their people.

Gaza: Government City (from 1994); Head of Municipality: Rafiq Tawfiq al-Makki

Gaza Strip: The Gaza Governorate governed by Mohammed Qadoura: one of 16 Governorates of the Palestinian National Authority located in the north central Gaza Strip which is administered by the Palestinian National Authority aside from its border with Israel, airspace and maritime territory. All of its seats were won by Hamas members in the 2006 parliamentary elections. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the district's population was 505,700 in 2006; the governorate consists of one city, three towns and a number of refugee camps.

Palestine: Khaled Mashaal, Plaestinian Political Leader of Hamas

Since the assassination of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004, Khaled Mashal, also transcribed Khaled Mashaal, Khaled Meshaal and Khalid Mish’al has been the main leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas. In addition, Mashal heads the Syrian branch of the political bureau of Hamas.

Palestine - Palestinian National Authority: Government Semi-presidential (elections not held since 2006) President Mahmoud Abbas; Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Jordan: Government Constitutional monarchy: King Abdullah II; Prime Minister Fayez al- Tarawneh

Syria: Government: Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic: President Bashar al-Assad; Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi

Lebanon: President Michel Suleiman

Iran: Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iraq: Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki

Turkey: Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Kuwait: Government: Unitary, hereditary and constitutional monarchy: 

Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah; Prime Minister Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah

Pakistan: President Asif Ali Zardari

Afghanistan: President Hamid Karzai

Qatar: Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani

United Arab Emirates (UAE): Government Federation of seven emirates with one advisory body (Federal National Council): President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Vice President and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Saudi Arabia: Absolute monarchy: The government of Saudi Arabia is led by the monarch, King Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, who acceded to the throne in 2005. No political parties or national elections are permitted.

Bahrain: Constitutional monarchy: King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa; Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa; Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa

Yemen: President Ali Abdullah Saleh

Egypt: President Hosni Mubarak (UPDATE: Government Semi-presidential republic: President Mohamed Morsi; Vice President Mahmoud Mekki; Prime Minister Hesham Qandil)

Morocco King Mohammed VI

Libya: Muammar al Qaddafi (UPDATE: Government Provisional parliamentary republic; President Mohamed el-Magariaf; Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib; Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Abushagur)

Tunisia: President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (UPDATE:  Government Unitary semi-presidential republic: President Moncef Marzouki; Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali)

Somalia: Government Federal parliamentary republic: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud; Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali

http://middleeast.about.com/od/middleeast101/ig/Mideast-leaders-in-Photos/; Middle East, South Central Asia, East Africa, http://en.wikipedia.org/

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