Rise “from challenge to greatness” America’s duty ─ Jimmy Carter

Old Glory

“Challenges of a Superpower”

Excerpt, editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

Former President Jimmy Carter spoke to a California audience early this year. These are some of his thoughts.

“America is now the world’s unchallenged superpower in many ways. And I would say that this is a time of assessing what America is and what the future of our country should be.

It is “the American heritage that in times of challenge we have habitually or historically risen to greatness. And we realize that, in a democracy like ours, change from challenge to greatness is a matter of responsibility for individual citizens.”

What are the goals of a great nation? “They’re the same as the goals of a great person.

Former First Lady
Rosalynn Carter
Former U.S. President
Jimmy Carter

“They are the goals that have been established most clearly in religions that we might adopt as our own — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and so forth. And they are all the same. There’s really no incompatibility between a desire, on the part of a human being, to be a superb human being in the eyes of whatever God he or she worships; than it is for a nation to say,

‘I want to be a superb nation; I want to be a genuine superpower in all the meanings of the word.’

“What are those characteristics?

 … A commitment to peace, a commitment to justice, a commitment to freedom or democracy, a commitment to human rights, to protecting the environment that we’ve inherited, to sharing wealth with others. I think those are the hallmarks of a superpower.

As Carter assessed the state of America in the present moment, he also made clear his personal allegiance, one to which I also subscribe : 

Conversations with
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter

“I’m not criticizing my country, which I think is the best nation on earth, and I’m very proud to have served,” he said.

But I’m pointing out that in this time of assessment, I’d say particularly for … children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren … for students and for other young people, we need at least to look at what the possibilities are for improving. 

This is some of Carter’s assessment.

 

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Violence, Absence of Peace: Since World War II, we [the United States] have been almost constantly at war —

…in Korea and then Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Libya, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Iraq, Afghanistan.

I don’t know about the future. Iran, Syria, Mali? You get the point.

O

ur country is now looked upon as the foremost war-like nation on earth. And there is almost a complete dearth now of a commitment of America to negotiate differences with others. It is not just Democrats or Republicans or a particular president. It is a consciousness or attitude of Americans like you and me.

W

e need to be working for peace for others as well as ourselves.… The Middle East is a typical example where there is a need for peace.

 

Assessment dark; language, dialogue, talking imperative 

Palestine and U.S.: My own belief … is that [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu for the first time has decided on a one-state solution.

Under his administration, Israel has been madly building settlements in East Jerusalem and also in the West Bank — nobody wants Gaza, and this means that it’s becoming decreasingly likely that you could have a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. I’m very discouraged about that, and the only thing that can be done about it is for the United States to play a major role. 

If President Obama will go back to the two premises that he had earlier — no more Israeli settlements in Palestine and the 1967 borders would prevail between the two, modified to accommodate the large settlement that’s right outside of Jerusalem — then that would be the best solution.

Syria

I think the Arab world will accept this. On two or three occasions already, every Arab country, in fact, every Muslim country, even including Iran, has agreed that is a premise they will accept and that they will recognize Israel equal to all the Arab countries with trade, commerce, and diplomatic relations. But so far that has not been possible. And I don’t think the Israelis are going to do it unless the United States plays a very strong role.

…[Now] is the first time since Israel has been a nation that the United States has … zero influence, either in Jerusalem or among the Palestinians. And I’m very grieved about that….

Iran

Iran and U.S.(nuclear issue) : There was an earlier deal worked out between Brazil and Turkey and Iran that said that they could go up to 20 percent, and Iran agreed to let the international inspectors come in.

So far, the United States has never offered Iran to lift all the economic sanctions if they would agree on limiting their nuclear capabilities at 20 percent and letting the IAEA come in and inspect them.

But even if Iran should develop — this is the worst case and I hope it doesn’t happen — if they should develop two or three nuclear weapons, then they know that if they should challenge Israel, for instance, with one of their nuclear weapons, Israel has, I don’t know, 200 nuclear weapons of a very advanced nature. We [the U. S.] have 5,000, and I’m not sure that the Iranians are suicidal enough to want to have their own country wiped off the map by challenging Israel.

North Korea

North Korea and U.S.: My own preference is that we negotiate with Iran and with North Korea as well; we have not been willing even to talk to North Korea for a number of years.

There’s been not a single day of talks with North Korea since President [Barack] Obama has been in office. I’ve been there twice since then.

What they want is to have a peace treaty with the United States. So far, we just have a cease fire between the United States and North Korea, left over from the end of the Korean War 60 years ago.

So there’s a lot of parallelism between them (North Korea and Iran). I don’t believe either one of those countries is going to be suicidal enough to use nuclear weapons. I hope we can prevent their nuclear weapon capability by good faith talks with both countries.

China

China and the U.S.: When I travel around the world now — my wife and I have been to more than 140 countries —you see that the Chinese are very influential, all over Africa, all over Latin America, and I think are forming contracts for political and economic benefit. I think in the future, China wants to stay peaceful.

The Chinese have not been at war since 1979. So they’re worried about U.S. attitude. But, I think that the best way for us to compete with China and win, if we want to have a victor or a loser, is for us to adhere to the principles that I mentioned earlier of peace and justice and democracy and freedom and environment, and that sort of thing. That’s what I think we should do to compete with them successfully.

There’s no way that China is going to ever threaten the United States militarily; and I don’t think they’re ever going to threaten the United States politically either, unless they change and make the democracy that exists in their little villages prevail in their big cities and counties and provinces.

Domestic Assessment

HUMAN RIGHTS USA

U.S. diplomat
Eleanor Roosevelt
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
1948

America was a nation with the foremost commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was passed with Eleanor Roosevelt’s leadership when the United Nations was first formed [1948]. And for much of the time during the interim period, we’ve been the champion of human rights.

That is no longer the case.

Look up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on your computer; you’ll find there are 30 paragraphs.

And our staff at The Carter Center has determined that we [the United States] are now violating 10 of those 30 paragraphs.

We have now disavowed the application of the Geneva controls on treatment of prisoners at war.

 

And …there has been a lot of altercation back and forth lately about the use of drones to assassinate Americans living in foreign countries, or not excluding [drone use] within the United States.

Afghanistan

Iraq

9/11’s illegal “law”: Guantanamo: … Half of [the people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay] have never been tried at all and never have been accused of a crime.

All of them now are faced with the prospect of serving the rest of their lives in prison.

Our president [U.S. President Barack Obama] has announced that we [the United States]

…have the right to send people to prison for life without a trial, without legal counsel, and without any specific charge against them.

U.S. Prison
Guantanamo Bay

This policy toward human rights is generally accepted now, particularly since 9/11; whereas, before then, the restraints on treatment of prisoners and commitments to human rights were very firm and unequivocal in the United States.

Death: We [the United States] are the only industrialized nation on earth that still has a death penalty.

In fact, 90 percent of all the executions in the world are in four countries — Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, and the United States.

…Almost all of the [U.S.] prison population …, or a large proportion of them, are poor or minorities, or have mental illnesses. … The largest mental institution in the United States is a prison in Los Angeles, California.

…. We [The Carter Center] are very much against the death penalty [and against drones] as a matter of principle. I would like to see the death penalty eliminated. As a matter of fact, when I was governor and president, nobody was executed because the Supreme Court at that time had put a hold on all capital punishment impositions. … My own belief is that the threat of the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime.

 

JUSTICE (equity) USA

“‘The Greatest Challenge the World [including the United States] Faces in the New Millennium’ [is] the growing chasm between rich people and poor people.

Since … 1980, the income for the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled; and income for the top 100th of a percent has quintupled, because of our political system permitting the more powerful people, the richer people, to benefit from tax laws and so forth.

EDUCATION USA

High school graduation rates in America stopped climbing last year [2012] for the first time since 1890; the cost of tuition in either public or private institutions has increased from 4 percent of average income to 10 percent of family income; and the number of Americans living in poverty has increased 31 percent in just the last five years [2008-2013].

DEMOCRACY USA

 

When I ran for office, first of all as a peanut farmer and a governor, against the incumbent, [U.S. President] Gerald Ford … the amount of money we raised for the general election was zero.

When I ran four years later against … Ronald Reagan, we raised zero. We just used a $2 per person check-off.

Now there’s a massive infusion of money into the primary and general election system, unrestricted by the stupid decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. And most of that money is spent on negative commercials to destroy the reputation of opponents.

NATION DIVIDED USA

And that has fragmented or divided Americans into red and blue states and also has divided candidates against one another, so that when they finally get to Washington, there’s no compatibility detectable now between Democratic and Republican senators or members of Congress, or between a House of Representatives that is Republican and a Democratic president.

And the blame is both ways; it’s not just one way.

ENVIRONMENT USA

…Up until … George Bush, Sr. [President George H. W. Bush], America was in the forefront of nations on earth promoting a good environment and dealing with global warming.

We are now one of the laggard countries. The Europeans and many others are moving ahead of us.

Sources and notes

“Challenges of a Superpower” (PDF): Speech by Jimmy Carter to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, California, February 24, 2013, http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/editorials-speeches/carter-speech-022413-challenges-of-a-superpower.pdf

http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/editorials-speeches/carter-speech-022413-challenges-of-a-superpower.pdf

THE CARTER CENTER

Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former U.S. President Jimmy (James Earl) Carter formed The Carter Center after his tenure in the U.S. presidency. The Carter Center now has programs in 73 countries — 35 of them in Africa. “We try to go to countries that promote peace, where the United States is somewhat or totally alienated from them,” Carter said in that February speech.

“The Carter Center — we go to Cuba regularly. We go to North Korea regularly. We have fulltime offices in Jerusalem and Ramallah and also in Gaza City. And we deal with both sides within the Palestinian community, as well as with Israel, and with Jordan, and with Egypt, and with Lebanon, and even with Syria now, where we deal with both sides in the terrible ongoing civil war.

“We see the adverse impact of 60 years of economic embargo as [the United States strives] to destroy the economy of the people of Cuba, who are already suffering under dictatorship….

The same thing is true in North Korea, where I go into the countryside and see the starving children, where the World Health Organization and the United Nations World Food Program measure the upper arms of 10-year-old children that are just about as big around as a golf ball. And we [the United States] have a punitive embargo against them, also having lasted now for 60 years.

“But we try to change that. The Carter Center tries to promote freedom and democracy when countries are facing challenges in their governments.”

The Carter Center works with human rights organizations all over the world, Carter says. “We work with Amnesty International, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the whole gamut of them.

“Every year we have what we call a Human Rights Defenders Conference, where we bring in human rights defenders or human rights heroes to The Carter Center to consider a key issue. …

“The Carter Center confronts —drones, the death penalty, women’s rights, and so forth.”

The Carter Center, One Copenhill, 453 Freedom Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30307

In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center is guided by a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering. It seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health.

Five principles guide The Carter Center

·         Action and results: based on careful research and analysis, it is prepared to take timely action on important and pressing issues

·         Not to duplicate the effective efforts of others

·         Addressing difficult problems and recognizing the possibility of failure as an acceptable risk

·         Nonpartisan, acting as a neutral in dispute resolution activities

·         Belief that people can improve their lives when provided with the necessary skills, knowledge, and access to resources

·         Collaborative with other organizations, public or private, in carrying out its mission

http://www.cartercenter.org/about/index.html

First Lady Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter (née Eleanor Rosalynn Smith, born August 18, 1927, Plains, Georgia, United States): American first lady (1977–1981), the wife of Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, and mental health advocate; one of the most politically astute and active of all American first ladies.

After leaving the White House in 1981 Rosalynn Carter directed considerable energy to the same causes that had long interested her: she continued her efforts to improve mental health care and to promote other projects that, as she said, would result in ‘good for others.’

Among these projects was Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that helped people to build their own homes. Mrs. Carter also wrote several books, including First Lady from Plains (1984), which was widely praised as giving the greatest insight into her husband’s administration. Jimmy Carter sometimes pointed out that his wife's first name was Eleanor and that she had been as valuable a working partner to him as had Eleanor Roosevelt to her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32nd U.S. President, 1933-1945). Rosalynn Carter’s popularity among Americans was consistently high compared with that of other first ladies.

President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter (full name: James Earl Carter, Jr., born October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia, United States): 39th president of the United States (1977–1981), served as the nation’s chief executive during a time of serious problems at home and abroad.

After leaving office Carter embarked on a career of diplomacy and advocacy and in 2002 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

He also became a prolific author, writing on a variety of topics. Two books on the Middle East were Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) and We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work (2009). His interview with Syria's Forward Magazine, published in January 2009, marked the first time that a former or current U.S. president had been interviewed by a Syrian media outlet. Carter also authored The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War (2003) and a collection of poetry.

Britannica bio notes on Carters

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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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Probing Western charade masking cont’ing attempts to raze independent nations

 Cowardly conspirators France, UK, U.S. vs. peoples of Middle East

Editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

Another False flag

The U.S., UK, and French governments have not explained why it matters whether people in the wars initiated by the West are killed by explosives made of depleted uranium or with chemical agents or any other weapon. [Paul Craig Roberts]

  

But the Syrian government, “knowing that it is not responsible for the chemical weapons incident,” has agreed for UN inspectors to come in and determine the substance used and the method of delivery.

“However, Washington has declared that it is ‘too late’ for UN inspectors and that Washington accepts the self-serving claim of the al Qaeda affiliated ‘rebels’ that the Syrian government attacked civilians with chemical weapons.”

In announcing the forthcoming attack on Syria (for Thursday), “Washington has once again preempted any hope of peaceful settlement, destroyed any incentive for the ‘rebels’ to participate in the peace talks with the Syrian government.”

In an article posted today at Press TV economist and columnist Paul Craig Roberts ponders the “real agenda” of the West.

“It was obvious from the beginning,” he says, “that [U.S. President] Obama was setting up the Syrian government for attack.”

 

After demonization came the “red line” then repeated unsubstantiated charges; and “the final step in the frame-up was to orchestrate a chemical incident and blame the Syrian government.”

But why, he asks?

“Clearly,” he says, “the U.S., UK, and French governments ─ which have continuously displayed their support for dictatorial regimes that serve their purposes ─ are not the least disturbed by dictatorships.

“They brand {Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-] Assad a dictator as a means of demonizing him for the ill-informed Western masses. 

“But Washington, UK, and France support any number of dictatorial regimes ─ such as the ones in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia; now Egypt’s military dictatorship that is ruthlessly killing Egyptians without any Western government speaking of invading Egypt for ‘killing its own people.’”

No, “the forthcoming Western attack on Syria has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing ‘freedom and democracy’ to Syria ─ any more than freedom and democracy were the reasons for attacking Iraq and Libya.” And “freedom and democracy” are still nonexistent in Iraq and Libya. The Western attack on Syria is also unrelated to human rights or justice or any of the high- sounding cause routinely used by the West to “cloak its criminality.”

Bashar al- Jaafari 

Western-made Syrian and chemical weapons’ crisis

Today from Syria's government

Ambassador Ja’afari is quoted saying, “The West and Turkey ‘have enabled terrorist groups to create a laboratory for chemical weapons on Turkish territory with materials provided by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar... and to bring these chemical weapons to Syria for use’.

The Syrian government, the ambassador said, “has been subject to false accusations. …” Many facts prove the government’s “innocence” and that “armed groups have used chemical weapons in order to bring about military intervention and aggression against Syria.”

Bashar al- Jaafari 

Syria’s insightful and learned Bashar al- Jaafari is Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations. He is a politician born April 14, 1956, in Damascus, who took his academic credentials at universities of Sceaux, Paris and of Sharif Hedayatuallah.

Bashar al- Jaafari began his political career with Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1980) and was the Third Secretary at the Syrian Embassy in Paris (between 1983 and 1988). Ja’afari achieved the professional level of Counselor during the years of 1991-1994 while serving at the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Headquarters in New York. He served again at the Syrian Embassy in France at the level of Minister Counselor (1997-1998) and from 1998-2002, he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary and Chargé d'Affaires at the Syrian Embassy in Indonesia. In 2002, he was assigned Director of the Department of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Damascus, Syria and held the position until 2004. Ja’afari was then sworn in as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Office in Geneva.  In 2006, he was sworn in as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Miqdad

Faisal al-Miqdad was quoted in the press today saying that he had previously presented UN chemical weapons inspectors with evidence proving that ‘armed terrorist groups’ were behind deadly chemical attacks near Damascus last week. The foreign minister said, according to Reuters, that “terrorist groups are the ones” using chemical weapons “with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France …” 

He said “these chemical weapons will soon be used by the same groups against the people of Europe.”

Weapons of Mass Destruction USA (brief)

Chemical

After World War I, the U.S. was party to the Washington Arms Conference Treaty of 1922 which would have banned chemical weapons but failed because it was rejected by France. The U.S. continued to stockpile chemical weapons, eventually exceeding 30,000 tons of material.

 

The U.S. had participated in the formulations of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which banned chemical warfare among other things.

However, the United States never joined the article that prohibits chemical weapons.

Nuclear 

Currently, the United States nuclear arsenal is deployed in three areas:

Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs;

Sea-based, nuclear submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs; and

Air-based nuclear weapons of the U.S. Air Force's heavy bomber group

The exact number of nuclear weapons possessed by the United States is difficult to determine. Different treaties and organizations have different criteria for reporting nuclear weapons, especially those held in reserve, and those being dismantled or rebuilt:

As of 1999, the U.S. was said to have 12,000 nuclear weapons of all types stockpiled.

In its Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) declaration for 2003, the U.S. listed 5,968 deployed warheads as defined by START rules.

For 2007, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists listed the U.S. with about 5,400 total nuclear warheads: around 3,575 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads; and about 1,260 additional warheads held in the inactive stockpile. Other warheads are in some step of the disassembly process.

The exact number as of September 30, 2009, was 5,113 warheads, according to a U.S. fact sheet released May 3, 2010.

U.S. territory-born journalist sees acts of failure, cowardice

Voice of Russia journalist John Robles writes, “The plan to strike Syria is not only one of cowardice and an admission of utter and complete failure by the United States on the diplomatic front but it is also illegal without a United Nations resolution and an imminent threat to the United States of America itself.

“It is obviously cowardly because launching missiles while fearfully hiding behind a shield where there is no threat to [the U.S.] is not something that an honorable soldier on a battlefield would do.

“It is the tactic of a coward.

“This tactic, however, is necessary for [President] Obama because when the massive loss of American lives begins, the American people will rise up and no longer support all of the callous unthinking military adventures…, what some view as the illogical funding of Al-Qaeda and terrorists to carry out the dirty work.

“What will happen [also] when these terrorist elements … realize that they have been disposable pawns for the United States, that they have been killing their own brothers and mothers and sisters?”

John Robles concludes,”The United States is missing a very important opportunity in Syria …: a chance to rebuild its reputation and become a respected, intelligent and grown up member and leader of the world community by simply promoting a peaceful resolution…

The world is truly tired of U.S. bombs and bellicose rhetoric and the actions of an arrogant one-world-power wantonly bashing and bullying  
its way across the globe.

“My thoughts,” he said, “are with the Syrian people and my hope is that someone, somewhere, with the power to stop this madness will listen.

“How about it, President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, maybe it is time to use diplomacy and work for peace, and to finally put the weapons down?

“You have a Nobel Peace Prize, after all; or does that mean nothing?”

Sources and notes

“Syria: Another Western war crime in making” (Paul Craig Roberts), August 28, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/28/320914/syria-another-western-war-crime-in-making/

Originally posted at www.paulcraigroberts.org

Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate who was once employed as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and was noted as a co-founder of Reaganomics. Roberts is also a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He has testified before congressional committees on issues of economic policy.

Bashar Jaafari bio, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_Jaafari

“Syria rejects allegations of using banned arms ─ Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari,” August 28, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/28/320896/syria-rejects-allegations-of-using-cw/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

“U.S, UK, France helped militants use chemical weapons: Syrian official,” August 28, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/28/320942/west-helped-militants-use-cw/

“U.S., Syria, Syria-U.S. relations, attack, Evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria, Syrian conflict, World” (John Robles), http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_08_28/Attack-on-Syria-may-cause-massive-damage-to-the-US-1204/

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_08_28/Attack-on-Syria-may-cause-massive-damage-to-the-US-1204/

John Robles

John Anthony Robles II is a journalist and presenter on the Voice of Russia, the Russian government’s international radio broadcasting service; and presenter with the famous English Language program “Moscow Mailbag.”

John Robles was born April 10, 1966, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory; and attended Pennsylvania State University where he took an undergraduate course in Soviet Studies and majored in the Russian Language. For thirteen years, he taught at the BKC-Ih School for Foreign Languages in Moscow, Russia.

Living in Moscow in March 2007, John Robles applied U.S. Embassy to have his U.S. passport renewed and his passport was revoked; after his passport was revoked he was granted political asylum in Russia. He is currently the only U.S. citizen granted political asylum in Russia.

John Robles, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robles

False flag

False flag or black flag describes covert military or paramilitary operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities, groups or nations than those who actually planned and executed them.

Operations carried during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, may by extension be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

RELATED:

Global Research: America’s Battle Cry: Lines and Lies The Obama Regime’s Military Dogma Rejects Diplomatic Opportunities Evidence: Syria Gas Attack Work of U.S. Allies The Drums of War are Beating: Killing Civilians to Protect Civilians in Syria Pretext to Wage War on Syria: Another False Flag Operation, History repeating itself US Claims Against Syria: Fabrications Spun Up from the West’s own dubious Intelligence Agencies

Arab League As An Anti-Arab Weapon (By Elena Pustovoitova, Global Research, February 24, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/arab-league-as-an-anti-arab-weapon/29478)

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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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“Terror of fire from the skies” ─ Survivor writes to U.S. and Yemen presidents

Yemenis protest
U. S. hostilities
drone attacks
breach of sovereignty
killing innocents

Neither “bothers to distinguish friend from foe” … innocents killed, potential allies lost

Excerpt, minor edit, formatting by 

Carolyn Bennett

Yemeni engineer Faisal bin Ali Jaber in August of last year lost his nephew and brother-in-law when a U.S. drone attacked Hadhramout Governorate in Yemen. This year before a meeting between U.S. and Yemeni presidents, Jaber wrote a letter addressed to U.S. President Barack Obama and Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The London-based legal charity Reprieve released Faisal bin Ali Jaber’s letter.

Yemen land
under
U.S. drone attack

U.S-backed entrenched regime

Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is a Yemeni major general and politician who has been the President of Yemen since February 27, 2012, when he was formally inaugurated following the resignation of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the 2012 presidential election process held on February 21, 2012, Hadi was the sole candidate, his candidacy having been backed by both the ruling party and the parliamentary opposition.

Before assuming this position, Hadi had been the country’s vice president (1994-2012); and while former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was undergoing medical treatment in Saudi Arabia (between June 4 and September 23, 2011) for an alleged injury sustained in an attack on the presidential palace during the Yemeni uprising, Hadi was acting president, a position he held a second time on November 23 after Saleh, ‘in return for immunity from prosecution,’ moved into a non-active role pending the presidential election.

Politician and soldier Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is a career military officer with a rank of major general. In 1994, he had become Yemen’s vice president after Ali Salim Al-Beidh resigned and lost the 1994 civil war. President Ali Abdullah Saleh on October 3, 1994, appointed Hadi vice president.  Before this appointment Hadi had been Yemen’s minister of defense.

U.S. global hostility

Faisal bin Ali Jaber’s letter

Dear President Obama and 

President Hadi:

My name is Faisal bin Ali Jaber. I am a Yemeni engineer from Hadramout, employed by Yemen’s equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency. I am writing today because I read in the news that you will be meeting in the White House on Thursday, August 1, to discuss the ‘counter-terrorism partnership’ between the U.S. and Yemen.

My family has personally experienced this partnership. A year ago this August, a drone strike in my ancestral village killed my brother-in-law, Salem bin Ali Jaber, and my twenty-one-year-old nephew, Waleed.

Yemen President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi
United States President Barack Hussein Obama

President Obama: you said in a recent speech that the United States is ‘at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first.’  This war against al-Qa’ida, you added, ‘is a just war - a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.’

President Hadi: on a trip to the United States last September, you claimed that ‘every operation [in Yemen], before taking place, (had) permission from the President.’ You also asserted that ‘the drone technologically is more advanced than the human brain’.

Why then did you both send drones last August to attack my innocent brother-in-law and nephew? 

Members of Our family are not your enemy.

In fact, the people you killed had strongly and publicly opposed al-Qa’ida.

Salem [Jaber’s brother-in-law] was an Imam.  The Friday before his death, he gave a guest sermon in the Khashamir mosque denouncing al-Qa’ida’s hateful ideology. It was not the first of these sermons, but regrettably, it was his last.

In months of grieving, my family have received no acknowledgement or apology from the U.S. or Yemen.

We’ve struggled to square our tragedy with the words in your speeches.

A people under endless 

Attack by foreigners

How was this ‘self-defense’?

My family worried that militants would target Salem for his sermons. We never anticipated his death would come from above at the hands of the United States.

In his death you lost a potential ally ─ in fact, because word of the killing spread immediately through the region, I fear you have lost thousands [of potential allies].

How was this ‘in last resort’? 

Our town was no battlefield.  We had no warning ─ our local police were never asked to make any arrest. Before the strike cut short his life, my young cousin Waleed was a policeman.

How was this ‘proportionate’?

U.S. drones on Yemen

The strike devastated our community.  The day before the strike, Khashamir buzzed with celebrations for my eldest son’s wedding. Our wedding videos show Salem and young Waleed in a crowd of dancing revelers joining the celebration. Traditionally, this revelry would have gone on for days ─ but for the attack. Afterwards, it was days before I could persuade my eldest daughter to leave the house; such was her terror of fire from the skies.

The strike left a stark lesson in its wake ─ not just in my village; but across Hadramout and wider Yemen.

The lesson, I am afraid, is that neither the current U.S. nor Yemeni administration bothers to distinguish friend from foe.  In speech after speech after the attack, community leaders stood and said: if Salem was not safe, none of us are.

Unrepentant cavalier killing of innocents

Careless loss of potential allies

Your silence in the face of these injustices only makes matters worse. If the strike was a mistake, the family ─ like all wrongly bereaved families of this secret air war ─ deserve a formal apology.

To this day I wish no vengeance against the United States or Yemeni governments. But not everyone in Yemen feels the same.

Every dead innocent swells the ranks of those you are fighting.

Yemenis protest
U.S. drone attacks

All Yemen has begun to take notice of drones ─ and they object. Only this month, Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference, a quasi-Constitutional Convention which I understand

the U.S. underwrites, almost unanimously voted to prohibit the unregulated use of drones in our country.

With respect, you cannot continue to behave as if innocent deaths like those in my family are irrelevant.  If the Yemeni and American Presidents refuse to engage with overwhelming popular sentiment in Yemen, you will defeat your own counter-terrorism aims.

Thank you for your consideration.  I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply.

Yours Sincerely,

Faisal bin Ali Jaber

Sana’a, Yemen

END OF

Faisal bin Ali Jaber’s

LETTER

Sources and notes

“LETTER FORM YEMEN: Must-Read: Letter From Yemen” (50855.jpeg) “This letter was written to President Obama and the President of Yemen by a man who lost innocent family members in a U.S. drone strike aimed at Al-Qaeda militants. The day the letter was released there was another strike on Hadhramout, with its wadis, crops of wheat, millet, coffee, date palm and coconut groves and herds of sheep and goats.

“The letter was released to coincide with the meeting between President Obama and President Hadi at the White House at which the U.S. president spoke of the visit reinforcing: ‘the strong partnership and cooperation that’s developed between the United States and the government of Yemen’ and thanking President Hadi and his government for the strong cooperation that they’ve offered when it comes to ‘counterterrorism.’

[Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Pravda Ru translation note: ‘give license for the U.S. to execute, without Judge or jury, people like Mr. Jaber’s relatives, on Obama’s signature’.]

http://www.reprieve.org.uk

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/01/remarks-president-obama-and-president-hadi-yemen-after-bilateral-meeting

http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-are-we-at-war-in-yemen/5345692

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Copyright © 1999-2013, «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

August 16, 2013, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/16-08-2013/125405-letter_yemen-0/

[Wadi (Arabic: وادي‎ wādī; also: Vadi) is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.

[wa·di (wah-dee): noun, plural wa·dis. (in Arabia, Syria, northern Africa, etc.): (a) the channel of a watercourse that is dry except during periods of rainfall; (b) such a stream or watercourse itself; (c) a valley.]

Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi bio, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_Rabbuh_Mansur_al-Hadi 

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