 |
| Egyptian protest |
“Why don’t they like us?”
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
“What is happening in
Syria is a heart-rending tragedy but one positive thing to emerge from the
suffering is the glaring truth for the world to see: who exactly constitutes
the ‘axis of evil.’ An American president’s words are coming back to haunt in a
way that he never imagined. What the world is witnessing in Syria is the
American axis of evil.
“This truth is
obliging us to look back at past decades and to recognize the ultimate source
of violence, conflict and wars down through modern history. This truth is
compelling us to look at the present with eyes opened as to why poverty, social
decay and misery sit alongside unaccountable elite wealth, power and
warmongering. The axis of U.S.-led powers that serve a global elite are
ransacking their own societies and any other that stands in their way of
dominance. This truth can set us free.”
—Finian Cunningham—
 |
| Egyptian protest |
EGYPT (U.S. allied with previous authoritarian, Mubarak)
Egyptians to Clinton—“Get out Hillary”
Wire reports during the Clinton visit says, “Clinton got a
taste of democracy in action when protesters demonstrated outside her five star
hotel. Most of the demonstrators were reportedly backers of the old regime of
former President Hosni Mubarak, a long-time U.S. who was ally toppled by
popular protests last year.
Protesters chanted “Get out Hillary” and carried signs
reading “America, Support Liberty Not Theocracy” and “Egypt Majority is not
Islamist.”
Hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators have held protests in
Cairo against the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The
protesters gathered outside the presidential palace on Saturday as Clinton met with
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi “to discuss Egypt’s transition to democracy
and plans to provide economic assistance to the country.” (Reuters)
Egyptian soldiers and tanks were positioned outside the U.S.
Embassy, which has been the scene of anti-U.S. protests since the popular
uprising that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. This most recent demonstration
was reportedly organized by Shabab Maspero, a group of Coptic Christian youth
activists.
The United States is in a somewhat delicate position in
Egypt, having for three decades strongly supported Mubarak, who worked to
repress and to marginalize the Muslim Brotherhood, including at times
imprisoning the now-president Morsi.
 |
| Saudi Arabia protest |
SAUDI ARABIA (U.S. allied with authoritarian)
Protests against the Riyadh regime have increased in number
over the past few days in several towns despite the violent crackdown by the
security forces.
Since February 2011, protesters have held demonstrations on
an almost regular basis in Saudi Arabia, mainly in the Qatif region and
Awamiyah in Eastern Province. They have called for the release of all political
prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, and an end to widespread
discrimination.
After the November 2011 killing of five protesters and
injuring many others by Saudi security forces in Eastern Province, demonstrations
have turned into protests against the (U.S-allied) Al Saud regime.
In the past few days, despite the violent crackdown by the
security forces, protests increased against the Riyadh regime in several towns.
On July 13, Saudi security forces in the town of Awamiyah killed an 18-year-old
protester during a demonstration held near a police station in support of
Sheikh Nemr. At least 10 female protesters have also been arrested in the city
of Buraydah, about 380 kilometers northwest of the capital. Demonstrators have condemned
the brutal police crackdown and demand the release of prominent Shia cleric
Sheikh Nemr al-Nemr, who was attacked, injured and arrested on July 8.
Iraqis/Saudis (U.S. allied with authoritarian and occupying)
Iraqi protesters have held a demonstration in the central
province of Babil following the disappearance of 55 Iraqi pilgrims in Saudi
Arabia. The demonstrators yesterday demanded to know the whereabouts of their
fellow countrymen who went missing while on Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia a
couple days ago.
Iraq/Kurds/Turkey/Black Gold: Oil (U.S. (U.S. allied and
occupying)
In a statement issued today by a representative of the Iraq government
“‘Turkey must stop the unauthorized export of oil through its land. Exporting
oil from the Kurdistan region to Turkey is illegal.’”
 |
Middle East
East Africa |
The Iraqi government and the Kurdish region have been
engaged in a dispute over oil exports in the past few months. The government representative says the
situation risks damaging economic relations.
In earlier stories Press TV reported that “ExxonMobil and
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had angered Iraq’s central authorities
by signing a large-scale contract in November 2011 without the approval of the
Oil Ministry in Baghdad.” Then “Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said the
government had received a letter on March 5 from ExxonMobil stating that the
corporation had frozen its deal with the country’s semi-autonomous KRG.
“ExxonMobil is already producing an estimated 370,000
barrels of oil per day from the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, under a
service contract negotiated with Baghdad.”
ISRAEL (U.S.-principal Middle East ally)
Activists say that last year’s rallies involving hundreds of
thousands of people marching and setting up protest camps across the Occupied
Territories, protesting high costs of living and social inequalities and
calling for the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu
have failed to change the situation.
Now “an Israeli protester has set himself on fire during a
demonstration in Tel Aviv, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is
accountable for the poor condition of people.”
 |
| Bahrain protest |
BAHRAIN (U.S. allied with authoritarian)
Home of U.S. Fifth Fleet
Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since
mid-February 2011. Initially they called for implementation of political
reforms and establishment of a constitutional monarchy. Later, following the dictator’s
brutal crackdown on peaceful protests, the demonstrators expanded their demands
to outright removal of the ruling Al Khalifa family.
Scores of people have been killed and many others injured in
the Saudi-backed campaign of suppression. Bahrainis hold King Hamad bin Isa Al
Khalifa responsible for the deaths and arrests.
A Saturday news update reported, “Bahraini security forces on
Saturday attacked the homes of anti-government protesters in the northern town
of Bilad al-Qadim as the crackdown on demonstrations continued.
Also on Saturday, reports said, “Young people took to the
streets in several villages near Manama and blocked roads [and] the Bahraini
regime deported American filmmaker Jen Marlowe following the shooting of a
documentary on the violent crackdown on anti-regime protesters.”
PALESTINE (U.S. allied against)
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in
the Middle East: Palestinians uprooted by force of arms, faced immense
difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys
of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next,
Representing the Palestinian people, the Chairman of the
Palestinian National Council (PNA) today condemned the Israeli regime’s
propaganda against Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program. He lashed out at
arrogant powers for keeping silent on the nuclear arsenals of Israel and noted
that the United States and Israel have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the ‘option’
of a military strike based on the allegation that Iran’s nuclear energy program
may include a covert military aspect.
According to news reports, Chairman Salim Zanoun’s message
to Iran’s Majlis (parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said, “The Palestinian
people express their solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran in its attempt
to achieve peaceful nuclear energy.” Further, that he was ready “to expand
joint cooperation with Iran’s Majlis to adopt necessary measures toward countering
the criminal acts of the Israeli regime.”
 |
| Pakistan protest |
PAKISTAN (U.S. bombed U.S. ally)
In a demonstration organized by Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s
most powerful Islamic political party, thousands of Pakistanis took to the
streets on Sunday in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan’s south (on the coast of the Arabian Sea immediately northwest of the Indus River Delta), to voice their
opposition to Islamabad’s decision to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.
Last week, more than 50,000 Pakistanis held a ‘Long March’
protest from the eastern city of Lahore to the capital. At the end of that
march, demonstrators reportedly gathered outside the Pakistani parliament and
chanted, among other things, ‘Death to the USA.’
 |
Karachi, Pakistan
Indus River
Arabian Sea |
In Sunday’s demonstration, protesters called on Islamabad to
immediately close passageways used for the transfer of supplies to the U.S.-led
forces deployed in Afghanistan. Jamaat-e-Islami’s president (ameer), Syed Munawar
Hasan, told Press TV that Pakistan must revisit its foreign policy. He said, “Our
foreign policy should be [an] independent foreign policy; … we should look
after our own priorities, not the American priorities.”
From October 2001 to November 2011, Pakistan was used as the
main stopover for the supplies headed for the U.S.-led forces occupying
Afghanistan. Pakistan blocked the passageways in protest of November 2011 U.S.-led
airstrikes on two checkpoints in the country’s northwest that left 24 Pakistani
soldiers dead. On July 4, 2012, Islamabad agreed to reopen the crossings after
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “sorry for the losses suffered by
the Pakistani military.”
Sunday’s protesters shouted “Stop NATO supplies” and carried
a banner reading “Restoration of NATO supply is license to kill Muslims!”
 |
| Yemen protest |
YEMEN (U.S. allied with authoritarian)
In massive demonstrations in the capital Sana’a and the
northern city of Sa’ada on Friday, protesters chanted slogans against the
United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia and demanded that Washington halt the
drone attacks in southern Yemen.
The U.S. military has used assassination drones in Somalia,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
Press TV reports that these thousands of Yemeni demonstrators
called for “the expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Gerald M. Feierstein, the
resignation of Yemen’s government, and an end to United States and Israeli
interference in their country’s internal affairs.”
APROPOS
With great irony or just downright mendacity, a UK-concocted
report is apparently claiming that Bahrain’s human rights situation improved in
the period of April to June 2012. An analysis called the report, purportedly on
human rights in 28 Middle Eastern and North African countries, released by the
British Foreign Office “the last example of the British government’s political
play with international concepts and norms” in the face of what any news reader
knows: that Bahrainis’ peaceful protests to achieve the most basic social and
human rights have been harshly put down by the Saudi-backed Al Khalifa regime;
and by extension, the United States of America.
 |
Asia
East Africa |
How could I omit a place where what
goes for news reporting is hearsay based on this, that or the other vested
interest, private vendetta or personal agenda?
Author and media commentator and Middle East and East Africa
specialist Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs. He
was based in Bahrain and witnessed the political upheavals here and the subsequent
Saudi-led brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests. Cunningham was
expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he
highlighted many human rights violations by the Western-backed regime.
In a July 10 article, Finian Cunningham contextualizes…
SYRIA (U.S. allied against)
 |
Middle East Asia
Africa |
“The people of the world should be very thankful to Syria.
For in this agonizing time, the conflict-torn country is revealing an important
truth. From the bloodshed, ravages and mayhem that the Syrian people are
enduring, the world is empowered to see with crystal clarity a crucial fact —
the fact of who and what is the real cause of violence.
“This real cause of violence is not just afflicting Syria,
but [it rages] right across the globe.
“Forget about oft-repeated Western admonishments against
Islamic extremists, rogue states, corrupt regimes, authoritarian superpowers as
being ‘the enemy’ of freedom-loving people.
“It is the American government and its allies who are the real ‘axis of evil’ confronting the world.
 |
Middle East
Russian Federation |
“… What is the position of the United States and its allies?
Rejecting any internal Syrian solution, Washington, London,
Paris and their allies Turkey and the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies have vowed
to increase financial and material support for the armed groups that have waged
a campaign of terrorist subversion over the past 16 months.
“The U.S.-led axis insists that Syrian President Bashar Al
Assad must go immediately at their say-so. Speaking like a Mafia moll, U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton said that Russia and China will be made to ‘pay a
price’ for their (reasonable) position. Clinton then made the sinister warning
that Assad’s ‘days are numbered’ and that if a political transition does not
occur on American terms then the Syrian people face ‘a catastrophic assault
that would be very dangerous not only to Syria, but to the region.’
“That is the mindset and language of a fascist rogue state.
What is happening in Syria is a heart-rending tragedy but
one positive thing to emerge from the suffering is the glaring truth for the
world to see: who exactly constitutes the ‘axis of evil.’ An American
president’s words are coming back to haunt in a way that he never imagined. What
the world is witnessing in Syria is the American axis of evil.
This truth is obliging us to look back at past decades and
to recognize the ultimate source of violence, conflict and wars down through
modern history. This truth is compelling us to look at the present with eyes
opened as to why poverty, social decay and misery sit alongside unaccountable
elite wealth, power and warmongering. The axis of U.S.-led powers that serve a
global elite are ransacking their own societies and any other that stands in
their way of dominance. This truth can set us free.
Sources and notes
EGYPT
“Clinton greeted with protests in Cairo ‘Get out Hillary’
chanted supporters of the Mubarak regime,” (Reuters published Sunday, July 15,
2012), http://www.emirates247.com/news/region/clinton-greeted-with-protests-in-cairo-2012-07-15-1.467214
Press TV
Hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators have held protests in
Cairo against the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The
protesters gathered outside the presidential palace on Saturday as Clinton sat
down with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to discuss Egypt’s transition to
democracy and plans to provide economic assistance to the country, Reuters
reported,
July 15, 2012, http://presstv.com/detail/2012/07/15/250966/egyptians-hold-demos-over-clinton-visit/
Image
Press TV Egyptian riot police stand guard as demonstrators
protest against the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outside the
US embassy in Cairo on July 14, 2012-PRESS TV
SAUDI ARABIA
“Islamic Awakening set off countdown for Al Saud fall: Iran
MP,” July 15, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/251067/countdown-begun-for-al-saud-fall/
Saudi protesters continue anti-regime demos despite police
brutality, July 15, 2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/251041/saudis-continue-antiregime-demos/
“Iraqi protesters hold demo for missing pilgrims in Saudi
Arabia,” July 14, 2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/14/250867/iraqis-hold-demo-for-missing-pilgrims/
IRAQ
“Iraqi oil export from Kurdistan to Turkey illegal: Baghdad’
July 15, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/251061/iraqi-oil-export-to-turkey-illegal/
“ExxonMobil freezes Iraqi Kurdistan contract,” March 17,
2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/03/17/232067/exxonmobil-kurdistan-contract/
IRAQ/ TURKEY
Related:
“Turkish FM censures demonstration outside consulate in Iraq
—Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has criticized a recent demonstration by
Iraqis outside the Turkish consulate in the southeastern city of Basra. Protesters
were reportedly demanding “the Turkish government hand over fugitive Vice
President Tariq al-Hashemi to Baghdad.” Protesters also criticized Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his position on this issue.” May 20, 2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/05/20/242152/turkey-demonstration-consulate-basra-iraq/
BAHRAIN
“Bahraini forces raid protesters’ homes, July 15, 2012, news
update,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/250994/bahraini-forces-raid-protesters-homes/
Related: “Bahrain
expels American filmmaker —The Bahraini regime has deported American filmmaker
Jen Marlowe following the shooting of a documentary on the violent crackdown on
anti-regime protesters,” July 15, 2012,
ISRAEL
“Israeli man sets himself on fire in Tel Aviv during protest”,
July 15, 2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/250980/israeli-selfimmolates-in-tel-aviv/
PALESTINE
“PNA slams Israeli propaganda against Iran's nuclear energy
program,” July 15, 2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/251033/palestine-censures-israel-antiiran-bids/
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2012/07/protests-against-clintons-visit-to.html
PAKISTAN
“Pakistanis protest NATO supplies reflow,” July 15, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/15/251108/pakistanis-protest-nato-supplies-reflow/
YEMEN
“Yemenis hold anti-govt. demos in Sana’a and Sa’ada,” July
14, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/14/250791/antigovt-demos-held-in-sanaa-and-saada/
“Human rights report proves UK hypocrisy— The 2011-2012
Human Rights and Democracy Report highlighted the political and social
situation in some countries such as Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, occupied Palestinian
territories, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen,” July 12, 2012,
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/07/12/250584/uk-human-rights-report/
SYRIA
“Syrian conflict exposes America’s Axis of Evil,” July 10,
2012,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/10/250252/syrian-conflict-exposes-americas-axis-of-evil/
Finian Cunningham continued
Originally from Belfast, Ireland, Finian Cunningham has been
an editor and writer for The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where is
writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring. Many of his recent articles have appeared on
the Canadian-based news website Globalresearch. His interests include
capitalism, imperialism and war, socialism, justice and peace, agriculture and
trade policy, ecological impact, science and technology, and human rights. He
is also a musician and songwriter.
Cunningham took his academic credentials at Cambridge.
Maps Worldatlas
Photos: Press TV
______________________________________
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
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______________________________________
Pejoratives of convenience
The U.S. violation of human rights, Hosseini said, is
indicative of “Washington’s disregard for the principle” of human rights. “The issue
of human rights,” he countered, “is not consistent with the performance of
Western countries”; and claims made in reports such as the U.S. Country Reports
on Terrorism “are only used as a tool to put pressure on the world countries.”
