Twelve years “war on terror” terrorizing nationals; foreigners get out says Afghan activist

Afghanistan

People's uprising can end foreign wars against world peoples

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

W

ar on Afghanistan COMMANDED, LED: October 7, 2001-October 7, 2013: United States President Barack Obama; United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron; Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. Preceded by: United States President George W. Bush; United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair; United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Iraq

U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel the al-Qaeda [now the U.S. reportedly allies with al-Qaeda against the government of Syria] network which was supporting the Taliban in its war with the Afghan Northern Alliance [the U.S. previously also allied with the Northern Alliance].

The Taliban [allegedly] recommended that bin Laden leave the country… but declined to extradite him without evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

T

he United States refused to negotiate and launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ against the people of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The U.S. aggression was joined by the United Kingdom and later by Germany and other western allies in attacking the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in conjunction with the Northern Alliance.

“The War in Afghanistan (2001–present) refers,” in the phrasing of a Wikipedia article on this subject, “to the intervention by NATO and allied forces in the Afghan political struggle, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to dismantle the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and to remove from power the Taliban government, which at the time controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan and hosted al-Qaeda leadership.”

A

Civilians in crossfire
Afghanistan 

fghan activist, survivor of numerous attempts on her life, former member of the Afghanistan parliament, Malalai Joya, author of A woman among warlords: the extraordinary story of an afghan who dared to raise her voice appeared last Thursday  in interview with Democracy Now leading into the twelfth year of the United States’ invasion and occupation of Afghanistan ─ and even longer its collusion with oppressive factions (warlords, drug lords, terrorists, fundamentalists, corrupt politicians) arrayed against the independent rise and advancement of the Afghan people and their institutions. This is some of what Malalai Joya said.

Afghan women

War has wrought the worst

U.S.
against
its own people

The presence of tens of thousands troops is “like hell for millions of Afghans,” Malalai Joya said. “Women are still the most and the prime victims” suffering “rape, domestic violence, acid attacks, burnings of the girls’ schools.” And violence continues to rise, she said.

Together with the horror of foreign troops is the “Taliban in different provinces doing public executions [of women], without at least bringing them to [Afghanistan’s] fundamentalist or mafia court,” she said. “They [Taliban] control Afghanistan day by day [and] are getting more powerful.” Foreign troops “double our miseries and the sorrows of our people. 

Unfortunately… imperialism and fundamentalism have joined hands to lead the world toward barbarism.

“That’s why we want the withdrawal of [foreign] troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible,” she said. Withdrawing foreign troops will lessen the power of terrorists. “If they leave at least the warlords and the Taliban, these terrorists, will not become even more powerful,” making it for them “easier to eliminate the democratic people of Afghanistan and increase the suffering or killing of innocent people who survive or remain in the country.…”

Character of, call to Americans

Clearly evident in U.S. character today, Joya says, is two-facedness. One face is “the dirty imperialist government.” Another is “the great people … who stand up against the wrong policies of their government, the war crimes and warmongers.”

The latter “lives in the hearts of millions of democratic justice-loving people around the world ─ especially oppressed people of the world. They are the heroes for my people,” she said. And Afghanistan needs Americans’ support against the “negative role of the occupiers” and against the “brutalities and barbarism of fundamentalists who are puppets of the United States.”

The Afghan activist called for “the support and solidarity of justice-loving people of the United States to join their hands with us. We need to be united and continue our struggle against the warmongers,” she said. Whether concerning Iran or Iraq, Palestine, Libya or Syria, “we should fight against the warmongers.”

Looking toward the future, the “great source of hope,” Malalai Joya sees, are “justice-loving people around the world, and especially in the United States,” engaged in “glorious uprisings against warmongers and economic crises.”

 

GLOBAL TERROR 12 years on 

2013

  

September 18 U.S. in Syria

“U.S. President Barack Obama has waives provision of federal law that bans supply of ‘lethal aid’ to terrorist groups in order to arm ‘selected’ members of the opposition in Syria.”

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/18/324737/obama-waives-ban-on-arming-terrorists/

October 3 U.S. in Afghanistan

Bombs account for most of the estimated 1,319 Afghan civilians killed in the first half of 2013 says new United Nations report. Afghan military officials say bombs are responsible for about 50 percent of the casualties among the country’s security forces. Twelve years after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, part of Washington’s so-called war on terror, the country continues to grapple with rampant violence. According to the United Nations, civilian deaths in Afghanistan jumped 16 percent in the first eight months of 2013, while in some eastern provinces there was a 54 percent hike in civilian casualties in the same period compared with last year. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/03/327423/taliban-kill-afghan-mayor-in-helmand/

October 4 U.S. in Yemen

The United States has come under fire repeatedly for breaching nations’ sovereignty. Protests of drone attacks continue in Yemen; people have held many demonstrations to condemn the violation of their national sovereignty.

 

Yemenis took to the streets of a northern town on Friday to denounce the United States and Israel for interfering in the country. The protesters held a mass rally in Sa’ada against interference by Washington and Tel Aviv in the country’s internal affairs. Protesters again expressed anger over assassination drone attacks by the United States inside the country. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/04/327615/yemenis-denounce-us-israel-meddling/

October 5 U.S. in Afghanistan

At least 3,385 U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan have lost their lives since the 2001 invasion -- which was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/05/327763/rockets-hit-us-base-in-afghanistan/

 

October 5 U.S. in Somalia

“Foreign special forces” in Somalia have carried out a pre-dawn attack against an al-Shabab base in a town in the south of the country. The attack was carried out against ‘high-profile’ targets in the town of Barawe in the early hours of Saturday, officials said. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/05/327668/foreign-forces-attack-alshabab-base/

 

October 6 U.S. in Somalia and Libya

Supporting U.S. Special Forces attacks on sovereign nations and peoples of Somalia and Libya, the U.S. Secretary of State essentially said we kill them to bring them to justice. “We will continue to try and bring people to justice in the appropriate way with hopes that ultimately these kinds of activities against everybody in the world will stop,” he said. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/06/327871/kerry-defends-africa-military-operations

October 6 U.S. in Libya

The government of Libya strongly condemned the military operation by the U.S. Special Forces on its soil, describing the aggression as “an act of kidnapping.”

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/06/327921/libya-blasts-us-raid-in-tripoli/

 

October 6 U. S. in Pakistan

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in the bombings and other militant attacks since 2001 when Pakistan entered an alliance with the United States in the U.S. “global war on terror.”

Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping across the country.  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/06/327917/pakistan-govt-urged-to-curb-taliban/

  

Sources and notes

U.S. War in Afghanistan: October 7, 2001 – present,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)

“‘Imperialism and Fundamentalism Have Joined Hands’: Malalai Joya on 12 Years of U.S.-Led Afghan War,” October 3, 2013,  http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/3/imperialism_fundamentalism_have_joined_hands_malalai

Leading into the 12th anniversary of what has become the longest war in U.S. history; while the United States reportedly plans to pull out the bulk of its 57,000 troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the United States is seeking to sign an accord [as they did in Iraq] to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan for an indefinite future.

Recent news reports from Press TV, http://www.presstv.ir/

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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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Sustaining misery criminals “cleanse” the “uncivilized”: U.S. officialdom channeling Churchill

Proponent of chemical weapons
(gassing people)
Britain's Winston Churchill

Eugene Weekly’s Ted Taylor’s “Experts on chemical weapons”

Editing, bracketed comment, ending commentary by 

Carolyn Bennett

The first country that was alleged to have “used chemical weapons in the Middle East,” Taylor writes, “was Great Britain in 1920, as part of its efforts to put down a rebellion by Iraqi tribesmen when British forces seized the country following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.” Britain’s Secretary of State for War and Air Winston Churchill is reported to have said:

‘I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. 

‘I am strongly in favor of using poisonous gas against uncivilized tribes.’

[A fair question is: Who is/was actually uncivilized, Iraqis or Churchill?]

Syria blocked by United States

Iraq

In 2007, when Syria had a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, Taylor continues his experts’ reporting, its leaders introduced a draft resolution to create a weapons of mass destruction zone for the entire Middle East (the measure would have included addressing Egypt’s chemical weapons and Israel’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons). The United States blocked this move. 

Treaty nations fail treaty promise

Syria

Nations who are parties to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) agreed but failed to destroy all their chemical weapons by May 2012. Most of these nations ─ including the United States of America ─ failed to meet either the initial 2007 deadline or the 2012 extension deadline, which means that the United States and other nations are not in compliance with their responsibility and promise to destroy all their chemical weapons. There is also uncertainty as to whether all nations have declared their possession of chemical weapons and thus the accuracy or inaccuracy of the number of existing stocks in the world. 

“Had the 189 nations who are members of the OPCW complied with the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention’s required destruction of chemical weapons,” Taylor writes, “there would be far fewer of these weapons available for transfer and use.

So when U.S. President Barack Obama says his government “knows” Syrian President Bashar al- Assad has chemical weapons, “Assad could be saying the same thing” about the United States.

U.S. war on Iraqis

Breaking law on pretext of lawbreaking

“

It is hard to see how [the United States’] breaking solemn undertakings to most of the countries of the world by neglecting treaties and principles of international law” agreed to by the United States “will either bolster U.S. ‘credibility’ or enhance respect for international law,” Taylor quotes a paper by the Western States Legal Foundation.

“International law provides no exception for the ad hoc use of force by states in cases involving actual or possible use of prohibited weapons by states with which they are not at war. 

Standing alone, allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government do not provide a legal basis for military action by any non-party to the conflict.

“Unilateral punitive strikes justified as a defense of the global norm against chemical weapons are unlikely to protect Syrians or others against use of chemical weapons and other attacks. …” Such strikes, however, “could lead to a significant increase in the level of violence throughout the region.”

U.S. war on Vietnamese

I

n my view, a view which is not only mine, the United States of America plays out the same predictably deadly pattern, over and over again.

Through entrenched and, by definition, corrupt government officials and their paymasters, their profit and nonprofit co-conspirators, they execute the same historic pattern: create a problem (conflict, war, factionalism, misery); then, on some dire-sounding trumped-up charge or pretext, propose to solve that problem by more violence.

Real problems of relations among people and within regions, conflict, disease, hunger, human rights, and the basics of living are of course never solved. This is a deliberate consequence, as the co-conspirators, government officials and their “partners” and paymasters, continue to enrich themselves, propagandizing their “solutions” on the backs of the world’s peoples. Global misery, endless misery ─ as with circular arguments and self-fulfilling prophesies ─ is created and sustained by dark(sinister) knights of the realm.

Sources and notes 

“Experts speak out on chem weapons,” Ted Taylor’s blog, September 4, 2013, http://www.eugeneweekly.com/blog/experts-speak-out-chem-weapons

EXPERTS quoted by Taylor

From the Institute for Public Accuracy, Eryl Nassruns the Anthrax Vaccine blog

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco

Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation

Journalist Ted Taylor is editor-in-chief at Eugene Weekly

“The Rush to Bomb Syria: Undermining International Law and Risking Wider War,” by Western States Legal Foundation, Executive Director Jacqueline Cabasso

Jacqueline Cabasso appeared last night on The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays, for September 4, 2013 - 6:00 p.m., http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/94985

See also: Western States Foundation at http://www.wslfweb.org/aboutwslf.htm#brd

_______________________________________________

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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IMAGINE giving peace a chance, world living as one: Lennon

Lennon 1969

Maybe not the only “Dreamers"

Excerpt, re-reporting [bracketed inserts], brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

IMAGINE…

Imagine there’s no Heaven /  It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us only sky / Imagine all the people / Living for today

Imagine there’re no countries /  It isn’t hard to do /Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too

Imagine all the people / Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you'll join us / And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can

"Imagine"
album cover

No need for greed or hunger / A [society] of [humankind]

Imagine all the people /  Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer /  But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us /  And the world will live as one [Lennon]

PEACE

“All we’re saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism

Ragism, Tagism / This-ism, that-ism / Ism ism ism

John Lennon
Yoko Ono
1980

All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about ministers, sinisters / Banisters and canisters, bishops and fishops / Rabbis and pop eyes, bye-bye, bye byes

All we are saying, is give peace a chance

                       

Everybody’s talking about revolution / Evolution, masturbation, flagellation / Regulation, integrations, meditations / United Nations, congratulations

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about John and Yoko / Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy Smothers / Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor / Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg / Hare Krishna, Hare Hare Krishna

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

 All we are saying is give peace a chance [Lennon]

Apt as Washington’s War on Syria echoes

Lennon 1964

Washington’s War on Vietnam

Wars on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan: Years of Moments of Madness

E

nglish musician, singer-songwriter John Winston Lennon MBE, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (b. October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, moved to New York City in 1971 – d. December 8, 1980 in New York City, USA), gained worldwide fame as a founding member of the singing group, the Beatles. The anti-war movement adopted some of his songs as anti-war anthems.

Lennon’s father, Alfred Lennon, was a merchant seaman; his mother, Julia Lennon (née Stanley), bought her son his first guitar (1956), an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic.

Lennon established his first band, the Quarrymen, in September 1956 when he was 15 years old. At the band’s second performance, Lennon met Paul McCartney and from the Quarrymen evolved the Beatles. He released the songs "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" in 1969 and 1971. His final, award-winning album was Double Fantasy. 

Richard Nixon (left)
Resigned his presidency
August 8, 1974
J. Edgar Hoover (right)
notoriously entrenched
FBI Director 1924-1972

Today yesterday

U.S. hunt-and-destroy mission against peace, antiwar, nonviolence 

The FBI in the early 1970s conducted clandestine surveillance of musician, singer-songwriter John Lennon 

After the impact of “Give Peace a Chance” (and “Happy Xmas, War is Over”), lyrics strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, Richard Nixon, already under fire for high crimes against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States, determined that John Lennon’s anti-war activities could hamper his (Nixon's) re-election; and further politicizing the laws of the United States, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that ‘deportation would be a strategic counter-measure’ against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings against the artist, arguing that a 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made Lennon ineligible for admission to the United States. 

March 23, 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the United States within 60 days (Yoko Ono, his wife, was granted permanent residence).

April 1, 1973, Lennon and Ono held a press conference at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia: a place with ‘no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people’. Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the United States.

Soon after the press conference, Nixon’s involvement in a political scandal (Watergate) came to light. In June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, D.C.; 14 months later, U.S. President Nixon resigned from office. His successor, President Gerald Ford, showed no interest in persecuting Lennon. The deportation order was overturned in 1975.

October 8, 1975, a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating ‘... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds.’

The following year, Lennon’s U.S. immigration status was resolved and he received his Green Card, certifying his permanent residency.

January 1977 Lennon and Yoko Ono attended the Inaugural Ball when President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated.

October 8, 1980, early in the evening John Lennon autographed a copy of Double Fantasy (a 1980 album released by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono) for Mark David Chapman. Around 10:50 p.m. that night, as Lennon and Ono were returning to their New York apartment in the Dakota and entering the building, the same Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon four times in the back. At 11:07 p.m., Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at nearby Roosevelt Hospital. 

Double Fantasy won “Album of the Year” in the 1981 24th Annual Grammy Awards.

Sources and notes

“IMAGINE” (Lennon’s most famous post-Beatles track, 1971)

John Lennon - Imagine Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Imagine; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon, http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/#VTAsZJshrR7wGQ1w.99

To the religionists Lennon reportedly explains: “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion, but without this ‘my God is bigger than your God’ thing—then it can be true”: the world can be as one, the world can be in peace

“GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” (recorded in 1969 during Lennon and Ono’s second Bed-In for Peace)

John Lennon - Give Peace a Chance Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Miscellaneous; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/remember-love-b-side-to-give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#6YI5wJV6pzyh2DDP.99

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#MdAgmO8oalu1SW5s.99

http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

  

Hare Krishna (note)

The Hare Krishna mantra appears in a number of famous songs, notably those sung by The Beatles (in the lyrics of George Harrison and John Lennon), and has been at the number 1 spot in the UK singles charts on more than one occasion within songs such as Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Hare Krishnas became confused with the hippie subculture, an erroneous association as the ideals of the groups are quite different.

The mantra was popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu roughly around 1500 CE when he began his mission to spread this mantra publicly to ‘every town and village’ in the world, travelling throughout India, and especially within the areas of Bengal and Odisha.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra) 

Yesterday today 

Reiteration of Madness

There is no such thing as limited warfare. 

It is endless in the heat of it and long after some politician claims its official end. 

Ask the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and any country where the U.S. has landed or sent its bombs and weapons, chemical and not, remote or from the air, sea or ground, by proxies or by whatever means.

Russia Today (RT)

“[U.S. President Barack] Obama reportedly considering two-day strike on Syria: White House officials say the United States may launch a limited military strike on Syria as early as this Thursday (August 29, 2013) as the intelligence community prepares to release a report justifying action and allies are rallied.” http://rt.com/usa/

“UK gathers warplanes, military hardware in Cyprus base near Syria – report: ‘Warplanes and military transporters’ have reportedly been moved to Britain’s Akrotiri Airbase in Cyprus in the latest sign of the allied forces’ preparations for a military strike on Syria amid bellicose rhetoric against the Syrian government.” http://rt.com/news/

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

PressTV

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

“U.S. begins war on Syria as early as Thursday, officials say: Senior American officials say the United States has planned to launch missile strikes against Syria ‘as early as Thursday’ in order to punish Damascus over the alleged use of chemical weapons.”  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/27/320762/us-war-on-syria-as-early-as-thursday/

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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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High crime, cover-up, silencing journalists 2009 cont’ ─ If you’re not outraged, you’ve caved

U.S. attacks Yemen

U.S. foreign relations with Yemen exemplify an endemic character of violence committed daily against peoples of the world. 
Editing, end comment by
Carolyn Bennett

 

44th U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama’s Yemen 2009 cont'

Jeremy Scahill’s documentary “Dirty Wars”

Today on Democracy Now

Voices of witnesses, survivors Yemen

Yemenis protest
repressive
U.S.-allied Regime

Yemeni mother [translated]: … 6:00 a.m., (the children) were sleeping and I was making bread. 

When the missiles exploded, I lost consciousness.  

I didn’t know what happened to my children, my daughter, my husband. 

They all died.
 Only I survived, along with this old man and my daughter.

Yemenis protest U.S. attacks

Yemeni daughter [translated]: Missiles attacked me and my brother Ibrahim and my mother.

Their hands were cut.

Yemeni Witness Muqbal Al-Kazemi [translated]: People saw the smoke and felt the earth shake.  They had never seen anything like it. 

Yemen's children
die or
become enemies 

I ran to the area [and] found scattered bodies and injured women and children.
 Forty-six people were killed, including five pregnant women.

 If they kill innocent children and call them al-Qaeda, then we are all al-Qaeda.

 If children are terrorists, then we are all terrorists.

  

Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye reporting

After the 2009 al-Majalah bombing, Abdulelah Haider Shaye reported that the site of the bombing was littered with remnants of U.S. Tomahawk missile and cluster munitions. This contradicted claims by the government of Yemen that the bombing had been their own.

But the fact of U.S. responsibility for the 2009 bombing of Yemen and not the Yemeni air force, as reported by Shaye, though shrouded by U.S. Pentagon officials, was later confirmed by:

Maya Nasser
Syrian journalist
Killed in Syria 2012

Amnesty International, The Telegraph newspaper, and a release of secret materials by WikiLeaks.

Abdulelah Haider Shaye also reported that the bombing attack left 21 children and 14 women dead

U.S. pressures Yemeni regime: 

silence messenger Abdulelah Haider Shaye

In January 2011, the Yemeni government arrested Shaye and after 34 days of detention the government convicted and delivered a five-year prison sentence on ‘terrorism-related charges.’ Rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Federation of Journalists called the process “a sham.”

Yemeni tribal leaders and the public were outraged and Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh prepared to release Abdulelah Haider Shaye from prison; but U.S. President Barack Obama on February 2, 2011, called Yemen’s president, raised ‘concern’ about Shaye's imminent release; and the Yemeni regime kept the journalist in prison.

J

ournalist Jeremy Scahill has reported sources in Yemen saying Saleh rescinded his pardon of Abdulelah Haider Shaye primarily because of the call from President Obama.

Yemen’s counter-terrorism funding from the United States may have motivated Saleh’s cooperation, Scahill suggested.

On July 23, 2013, Shaye was released from prison but remained under house arrest and was prohibited from reporting, writing, practicing his profession.

Yemeni Journalist
Abdulelah Haider Shaye
reporting in Yemen and elsewhere

  

Abdulelah Haider Shaye

Abdulelah Haider Shaye (or Abd al-Ilah Haydar Al-Sha’i) is a prominent Yemeni journalist well known for his reporting of the December 17, 2009 al-Majalah bombing in Yemen; his interviews with al-Qaeda leaders (His relation through marriage with radical Islamic cleric Abdul Majeed al-Zindani is said to have helped the journalist gain interview access to Al Qaeda leaders, including the late Yemeni-American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki); and his arrest and imprisonment in 2011 for practicing journalism. 

A

ppearing today on the Democracy Now program, Jeremy Scahill issues a scathing appraisal of the U.S. President that should trouble all Americans. Democracy Now host Amy Goodman asked Scahill to comment on the White House response [‘we are concerned and disappointed by the early release of Abd-Ilah-Shai, who was sentenced by a Yemeni court to five years in prison for his involvement with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’] to Yemen’s release of the journalist.

“The White House is saying,” Scahill responded, “that they are disappointed and concerned that a Yemeni journalist has been released from a Yemeni prison.

“The White House is citing the conviction in a kangaroo court” that Abdulelah Haider Shaye “supposedly was a supporter of al-Qaeda ─

…a court that was condemned by every major international media freedom organization, every major international human rights organization as a total sham trial;

…where Shaye was kept in a cage during the course of his prosecution; and

…a court where he was convicted on trumped-up charges.

Imprisoned for
practicing journalismAbdulelah Haider Shaye 

What “Mister Constitutional-Law-Professor President” is saying, Scahill contends, is that “this Yemeni court ─ condemned by every international human rights organization in the world ─ is somehow legitimate.”

Journalist targeted to maintain cover-up of U.S. bombing (massacre, illegal war) 

Scahill reports that Abdulelah Haider Shaye “was put in prison because ─ 

He had the audacity to expose a U.S. cruise missile attack that killed three dozen women and children. 

British journalist
Marie Colvin
killed in Syria 2012

And the United States had tried to cover up (this attack). 

They (U.S.) had the Yemeni government take responsibility for the 

strikes. 

The U.S. role was not initially owned. 

They (U.S.) said that they had blown up an al-Qaeda training camp. 

The reality was that women and children were killed.

Abdulelah Haider Shaye had gone to the scene and taken photographs of what were “clearly U.S. cruise missile parts with ‘General Dynamics’ on them (‘Made in the United States’ on them); WikiLeaks cables showed that General David Petraeus, who at the time was the CENTCOM commander, had conspired with the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh for the United States to begin bombing Yemen in the form of  (drone strikes and cruise missile strikes) and to have the Yemeni government publicly to take responsibility for the attack.

“When Abdulelah Haider Shaye exposed this (the truth from the ground) and it became clear to the world that the Obama administration (in 2009) was starting to bomb Yemen ─

On right
Journalist
Abdulelah Haider Shaye

… Shaye was abducted by Yemen’s U.S.-backed political security forces; 

…imprisoned and beaten; and

…threatened that, if he continued to report on the U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen, he would be returned to prison

But Shaye “went straight from his beating onto the airwaves of Al Jazeera and said, ‘I was just abducted by Yemen security forces, and they threatened me.’”

Some months later, Shaye becomes the victim of a night raid; he is “snatched and disappeared for 30 days.”

He is then “brought into a court ─ specifically set up to prosecute journalists who had committed crimes against the U.S.-backed dictatorship” ─ and the court sentences Shaye to five years in prison.

Journalist
Imprisoned, tortured
Guantanamo Bay

ECHOES: 2005 U.S. military shoots Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena near Baghdad’s (Iraq) international airport; 2001, 2002-2008 arrested in Pakistan, detained, mistreated at U.S. Bagram air base (Afghanistan), tortured in U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison is Sudan born-Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj.

Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya
killed in Russia

Italian journalist
Giuliana Sgrena
shot in Iraq

Secrecy legalized, hard news gathering criminalized

S

cahill said when he has asked the White House and the U.S. State Department “for a shred of evidence that Abdulelah Haider Shaye was guilty of anything other than journalism, critical journalism, they (don’t) provide it; they just say what they often do: ‘State secrets. Trust us.’”

In Abdulelah Haider Shaye’s critical interviews notably his interview with Anwar al-Awlaki, Scahill said, this journalist “asked more critical questions of figures within the al-Qaeda organization in Yemen than (are asked by) a single member of the U.S. ‘Caviar Correspondents Association’ ─   those jokers who sit in the front row and pretend to play journalists on television.” 

The current White House, Scahill concludes, is “not on the side of press freedom around the world [but] “on the side of locking up journalists who have the audacity to actually be journalists.”

T

he potential and promises courageously whispered in America's history ─  the 1776 Declaration, the 1787 Constitution, Lincoln’s 1863 at Gettysburg, Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 UN Human Rights Declaration ─ are utterly failed in a disintegrated America.

 To move forward for the public good ─ which is what we must do ─ is not an easy challenge. It requires retaking a legacy squandered, rebuilding institutions destroyed. This is a tough challenge I am not sure Americans are focused enough or care enough to even consider. 

 

Sources and notes

Abdulelah Haider Shaye bio at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulelah_Haider_Shaye

 Democracy Now today: “Yemeni Reporter Who Exposed U.S. Drone Strike Freed from Prison after Jailing at Obama’s Request,” Thursday, July 25, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/25/yemeni_reporter_who_exposed_us_drone

 

“Dirty Wars” documentary: “Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the heart of America’s covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond,” http://dirtywars.org/the-film

http://dirtywars.org/

“Did the U.S. military target Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena in Iraq?” (By Peter Symonds,” March 7, 2005, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/03/iraq-07m.html

“Sami al-Haj: ‘I lived inside Guantánamo as a journalist’ ─ Al-Jazeera's Sami al-Haj, the only journalist to have been detained in Guantánamo, talks about media coverage of the issue and how his life has changed, July 17, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/17/sami-al-haj-al-jazeera-guantanamo-bay-journalist

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