To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to President Zuma and members of the government; to heads of state and government, past and present; distinguished guests – it is a singular honor to be with you today, to celebrate a life unlike any other. To the people of South Africa – people of every race and walk of life – the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us. His struggle was your struggle. His triumph was your triumph. Your dignity and hope found expression in his life, and your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy.
It is hard to eulogise any man – to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person – their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul. How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.
Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by elders of his Thembu tribe – Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century. Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement – a movement that at its start held little prospect of success. Like King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed, and the moral necessity of racial justice. He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. Emerging from prison, without force of arms, he would – like Lincoln – hold his country together when it threatened to break apart. Like America's founding fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations - a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power.
Given the sweep of his life, and the adoration that he so rightly earned, it is tempting then to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men. But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait. Instead, he insisted on sharing with us his doubts and fears; his miscalculations along with his victories. "I'm not a saint," he said, "unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying."
It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection – because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried - that we loved him so. He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood – a son and husband, a father and a friend. That is why we learned so much from him; that is why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness; persistence and faith. He tells us what’s possible not just in the pages of dusty history books, but in our own lives as well.
Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals. Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, "a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness" from his father. Certainly he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, "a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments … a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people."
But like other early giants of the ANC – the Sisulus and Tambos – Madiba disciplined his anger; and channelled his desire to fight into organisation, and platforms, and strategies for action, so men and women could stand-up for their dignity. Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price. "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination," he said at his 1964 trial. "I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Mandela taught us the power of action, but also ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those you agree with, but those who you don’t. He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet. He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and passion, but also his training as an advocate. He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement. And he learned the language and customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depended upon his.
Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough; no matter how right, they must be chiseled into laws and institutions. He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history. On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of conditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that, "prisoners cannot enter into contracts." But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal. And because he was not only a leader of a movement, but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy; true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.
Finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa – Ubuntu – that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us. We can never know how much of this was innate in him, or how much of it was shaped and burnished in a dark, solitary cell. But we remember the gestures, large and small – introducing his jailors as honoured guests at his inauguration; taking the pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV and Aids – that revealed the depth of his empathy and understanding. He not only embodied Ubuntu; he taught millions to find that truth within themselves. It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well; to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion, generosity and truth. He changed laws, but also hearts.
For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe – Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate his heroic life. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or circumstance, we must ask: how well have I applied his lessons in my own life?
It is a question I ask myself – as a man and as a president. We know that like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took the sacrifice of countless people – known and unknown – to see the dawn of a new day. Michelle and I are the beneficiaries of that struggle. But in America and South Africa, and countries around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not done. The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality and universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important. For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger, and disease; run-down schools, and few prospects for the future. Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs; and are still persecuted for what they look like, or how they worship, or who they love.
We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.
The questions we face today – how to promote equality and justice; to uphold freedom and human rights; to end conflict and sectarian war – do not have easy answers. But there were no easy answers in front of that child in Qunu. Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done. South Africa shows us that is true. South Africa shows us we can change. We can choose to live in a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes. We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.
We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. But let me say to the young people of Africa, and young people around the world – you can make his life’s work your own. Over thirty years ago, while still a student, I learned of Mandela and the struggles in this land. It stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities – to others, and to myself – and set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be better. He speaks to what is best inside us. After this great liberator is laid to rest; when we have returned to our cities and villages, and rejoined our daily routines, let us search then for his strength – for his largeness of spirit – somewhere inside ourselves. And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, or our best laid plans seem beyond our reach – think of Madiba, and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of a cell:
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
What a great soul it was. We will miss him deeply. May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela. May God bless the people of South Africa.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Romney and Afghanistan
The Washington Post notes that “Mitt Romney became the first Republican since 1952 to accept his party’s nomination without mentioning war.” According to the Post, “neither Romney nor his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, had anything to say about terrorism or war while on their party’s biggest stage.”
It’s true that Romney didn’t specifically mention Afghanistan (or Iraq) in his speech at the Republican National Convention, but he did discuss several national security issues. Romney said that Obama’s “trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater risk.”
And he strongly criticized Obama for dealing poorly with the Iranian nuclear threat, which he said makes “every American less secure today.” Most memorable, Romney said of Obama: “In his first TV interview as President, he said we should talk to Iran. We’re still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Washington Post article and similar press coverage folds neatly into an attack from the Obama campaign, which used a web video to say that “at a time when 84,000 American men and women are fighting for their country in Afghanistan,” Romney’s acceptance speech included “not a single mention of how, or when, to bring them home safely.”
Whatever the significance of Afghanistan going unmentioned in Romney and Ryan’s acceptance speeches, it is not a topic Romney has avoided on the campaign trail. As Romney spokesman Ryan Williams pointed out: “The day before his convention speech, Governor Romney traveled to the American Legion national convention – an invitation the President declined – because Gov. Romney views any opportunity to stand with those who have served as a privilege. In contrast, President Obama has failed in his duty as Commander in Chief to win the home front. Unlike any wartime president in memory, he has failed to consistently and forthrightly speak about the war in Afghanistan to the American people. The Obama campaign’s attack on Governor Romney today is another attempt to politicize the war in Afghanistan, a war in which President Obama has dangerously based his decisions on political calculations, endangering our mission.”
The American Legion gave Romney a very warm reception at its convention in Indianapolis, and some members grumbled openly about President Obama expecting them to settle for a videotaped message while Romney attended in person. “I have to take into consideration that at least [Romney] bothered to come and talk to 10,000 veterans when Obama didn’t have the time,” the Indianapolis Star quotes one Legion member saying.
The Star reports Romney received a standing ovation from the assembled veterans. They were particularly pleased that Romney spoke about increasing employment opportunities for returning veterans, blocking budget cuts to the military, reforming the VA, and opposing Obama’s plans to increase premiums for the Tricare program for veterans’ health care. Obama’s good friends at the AFL-CIO sent a squad of activists to protest outside the American Legion event.
And the Romney people are correct to note that Obama isn’t exactly rushing to the microphones to talk about Afghanistan these days, either. He’s had very little to say about the rising tide of “green on blue” attacks, in which Afghan troops suddenly turn their guns on the American soldiers who had been training them. When Obama does address the subject, he offers nothing but the kind of vague platitudes his campaign is needling Romney over.
For example, he told an August 21 press conference he was “deeply concerned about this, from top to bottom” and, after noting that the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces means “our troops are in much closer contact with Afghan troops on an ongoing basis,” Obama helpfully explained that “part of what we’ve got to do is make sure that this model works, but it doesn’t make our guys more vulnerable.”
That sounds great, but green-on-blue attacks have risen 10 percent in the past two years. Three more NATO soldiers were just gunned down last week. The model does not appear to be working. Does that sound like something President Obama should be boasting about at his convention? How about the ongoing investigation of dangerous national security leaks, which appear to have emanated from the White House for political purposes?
Mitt Romney has consistently made two strong criticisms of Obama’s Afghanistan policy: he thinks it was a mistake to set an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal far in advance, and let the enemy know about it; and he thinks Obama’s haste to get a withdrawal under way has left our troops, and the unsteady government they fought to secure, exposed to unacceptable risks. Obama and his media allies expose their own deep insecurity about the President’s record in the War on Terror, and Obama’s nearly hysterical insistence that the death of Osama bin Laden insulates him from all foreign policy criticism, by piling on Romney because he didn’t throw a few lines about Afghanistan into his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. This is a topic more properly addressed in debate between the two candidates, and there is every reason to believe it will be.
Source: Human Events
It’s true that Romney didn’t specifically mention Afghanistan (or Iraq) in his speech at the Republican National Convention, but he did discuss several national security issues. Romney said that Obama’s “trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater risk.”
And he strongly criticized Obama for dealing poorly with the Iranian nuclear threat, which he said makes “every American less secure today.” Most memorable, Romney said of Obama: “In his first TV interview as President, he said we should talk to Iran. We’re still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Washington Post article and similar press coverage folds neatly into an attack from the Obama campaign, which used a web video to say that “at a time when 84,000 American men and women are fighting for their country in Afghanistan,” Romney’s acceptance speech included “not a single mention of how, or when, to bring them home safely.”
Whatever the significance of Afghanistan going unmentioned in Romney and Ryan’s acceptance speeches, it is not a topic Romney has avoided on the campaign trail. As Romney spokesman Ryan Williams pointed out: “The day before his convention speech, Governor Romney traveled to the American Legion national convention – an invitation the President declined – because Gov. Romney views any opportunity to stand with those who have served as a privilege. In contrast, President Obama has failed in his duty as Commander in Chief to win the home front. Unlike any wartime president in memory, he has failed to consistently and forthrightly speak about the war in Afghanistan to the American people. The Obama campaign’s attack on Governor Romney today is another attempt to politicize the war in Afghanistan, a war in which President Obama has dangerously based his decisions on political calculations, endangering our mission.”
The American Legion gave Romney a very warm reception at its convention in Indianapolis, and some members grumbled openly about President Obama expecting them to settle for a videotaped message while Romney attended in person. “I have to take into consideration that at least [Romney] bothered to come and talk to 10,000 veterans when Obama didn’t have the time,” the Indianapolis Star quotes one Legion member saying.
The Star reports Romney received a standing ovation from the assembled veterans. They were particularly pleased that Romney spoke about increasing employment opportunities for returning veterans, blocking budget cuts to the military, reforming the VA, and opposing Obama’s plans to increase premiums for the Tricare program for veterans’ health care. Obama’s good friends at the AFL-CIO sent a squad of activists to protest outside the American Legion event.
And the Romney people are correct to note that Obama isn’t exactly rushing to the microphones to talk about Afghanistan these days, either. He’s had very little to say about the rising tide of “green on blue” attacks, in which Afghan troops suddenly turn their guns on the American soldiers who had been training them. When Obama does address the subject, he offers nothing but the kind of vague platitudes his campaign is needling Romney over.
For example, he told an August 21 press conference he was “deeply concerned about this, from top to bottom” and, after noting that the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces means “our troops are in much closer contact with Afghan troops on an ongoing basis,” Obama helpfully explained that “part of what we’ve got to do is make sure that this model works, but it doesn’t make our guys more vulnerable.”
That sounds great, but green-on-blue attacks have risen 10 percent in the past two years. Three more NATO soldiers were just gunned down last week. The model does not appear to be working. Does that sound like something President Obama should be boasting about at his convention? How about the ongoing investigation of dangerous national security leaks, which appear to have emanated from the White House for political purposes?
Mitt Romney has consistently made two strong criticisms of Obama’s Afghanistan policy: he thinks it was a mistake to set an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal far in advance, and let the enemy know about it; and he thinks Obama’s haste to get a withdrawal under way has left our troops, and the unsteady government they fought to secure, exposed to unacceptable risks. Obama and his media allies expose their own deep insecurity about the President’s record in the War on Terror, and Obama’s nearly hysterical insistence that the death of Osama bin Laden insulates him from all foreign policy criticism, by piling on Romney because he didn’t throw a few lines about Afghanistan into his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. This is a topic more properly addressed in debate between the two candidates, and there is every reason to believe it will be.
Source: Human Events
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Obama threatens to invade Syria
Yesterday US and NATO officials discussed plans for a US military invasion of Syria to bring down Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, after US President Barack Obama announced that the US was contemplating a direct attack on Syria at a press conference Monday night.
A delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Beth Jones discussed US military plans with Turkey. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Defense Department and US intelligence officials met their Turkish counterparts “to share operational pictures, to talk about the effectiveness of what we’re doing now, and about what more we can do.”
Senior US officials said that contingency plans for US intervention in Syria include scenarios requiring tens of thousands of American troops.
At a press conference at the White House Monday, Obama declared: “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed in violence on his own people. The international community has sent a clear message that rather than drag his country into civil war he should move in the direction of a political transition. But at this point, the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”
Obama said that he would order “military engagement” if chemical or biological weapons are moved or used in Syria. He said that Syria’s alleged stockpile of chemical weapons “concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”
Obama added that the US “have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region, that that’s a red line for us, and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons.”
The cynicism with which Obama is seeking to justify the next US imperialist aggression in the Middle East is staggering. The main groups in Syria who could seize chemical weapons from Syrian government stockpiles are Al Qaeda forces promoted by the US and its allies as shock troops against Assad. (See also: “Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda”)
Having armed Al Qaeda-linked groups and sent them into Syria to carry out bombings and assassinations, the US and its allies now plan to justify their invasion of Syria by citing the need to protect the world’s population from Al Qaeda’s terrorist atrocities!
The Obama administration advances its arguments today with total disregard for the fact that they clash with the lies used until now to justify its support for Sunni anti-Assad “rebels.”
For months it maintained the pretense that it would not directly attack Syria, and that the Syrian regime’s statements that it was fighting US-backed terrorists were “propaganda.” Now, the White House is admitting that terrorist groups play a major role in the anti-Assad forces, and citing this as a pretext for war.
By proceeding in this fashion, the Obama administration demonstrates its complete contempt for the American electorate, which voted him into office in 2008 in large part based on hopes he would stop the US military aggressions against countries in the Middle East. Today, as during the 2003 invasion of Syria’s neighbor, Iraq, Washington is preparing to invade a country based on cynical lies about weapons of mass destruction.
A US invasion of Syria would be a crime of historic proportions, like the war in Iraq—a country whose population is only slightly larger than Syria’s. This war led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and allied soldiers. Iraq became a battleground for US occupation forces, as well as Sunni and Shiite death squads that carried out sectarian bombings and massacres.
A US invasion would threaten similar carnage inside Syria, which is already being torn apart by sectarian fighting in which Washington is working with right-wing regimes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to back Sunni Islamist forces against Syria’s Alawite regime. However, the far greater tensions in a region already destabilized by a decade of US and Israeli wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya now threaten to spread the violence over the entire Middle East.
Sectarian bloodshed provoked by the intensifying US intervention in the region is already spilling over into Syria’s neighbors. On Tuesday four people were killed and more than 60 wounded in firefights between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Alawites in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Tensions in Lebanon have been growing for months, with Western-backed forces seeking to provoke the Lebanese government which is led by the Shiite organization Hizbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran.
A US war against Syria would be the next step in an ongoing campaign by US imperialism to deepen its hegemony over the energy-rich and geo-strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
The Syrian regime responded to US threats with warnings and proposals for negotiations. Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil described Obama’s statements about chemical weapons as a pretext for Western intervention in Syria. “The West is looking for an excuse for direct intervention. If this excuse does not work, it will look for another excuse.” He warned that an attack on Syria would turn the conflict into a regional war, saying: “Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders.”
Jamil announced that the Syrian regime is willing to talk with the opposition to work out a transition, however. He even declared that Assad’s presidency is negotiable, stating: “We are ready to discuss Assad’s resignation—but not as precondition.”
Obama’s war threats against Syria are also deepening tensions with Russia and China, who have already vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions backed by the US and its Western and Arab allies aiming to give a pseudo-legal fig leaf for US aggression against Syria.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at a meeting in Moscow with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who also met Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on Monday. Lavrov said that both Russia and China base their diplomatic cooperation on “the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the U.N. Charter, and not to allow their violation.”
Lavrov said that only the Security Council has the authority to approve the use of external force against Syria, warning against imposing “democracy by bombs.” Russian officials have reportedly stated that they hope to avoid a repetition of the attack on Libya last year. Moscow abstained from the Security Council vote on Libya, and a resolution was passed which was subsequently used by NATO to justify its bombing of the country.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
A delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Beth Jones discussed US military plans with Turkey. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Defense Department and US intelligence officials met their Turkish counterparts “to share operational pictures, to talk about the effectiveness of what we’re doing now, and about what more we can do.”
Senior US officials said that contingency plans for US intervention in Syria include scenarios requiring tens of thousands of American troops.
At a press conference at the White House Monday, Obama declared: “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed in violence on his own people. The international community has sent a clear message that rather than drag his country into civil war he should move in the direction of a political transition. But at this point, the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”
Obama said that he would order “military engagement” if chemical or biological weapons are moved or used in Syria. He said that Syria’s alleged stockpile of chemical weapons “concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”
Obama added that the US “have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region, that that’s a red line for us, and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons.”
The cynicism with which Obama is seeking to justify the next US imperialist aggression in the Middle East is staggering. The main groups in Syria who could seize chemical weapons from Syrian government stockpiles are Al Qaeda forces promoted by the US and its allies as shock troops against Assad. (See also: “Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda”)
Having armed Al Qaeda-linked groups and sent them into Syria to carry out bombings and assassinations, the US and its allies now plan to justify their invasion of Syria by citing the need to protect the world’s population from Al Qaeda’s terrorist atrocities!
The Obama administration advances its arguments today with total disregard for the fact that they clash with the lies used until now to justify its support for Sunni anti-Assad “rebels.”
For months it maintained the pretense that it would not directly attack Syria, and that the Syrian regime’s statements that it was fighting US-backed terrorists were “propaganda.” Now, the White House is admitting that terrorist groups play a major role in the anti-Assad forces, and citing this as a pretext for war.
By proceeding in this fashion, the Obama administration demonstrates its complete contempt for the American electorate, which voted him into office in 2008 in large part based on hopes he would stop the US military aggressions against countries in the Middle East. Today, as during the 2003 invasion of Syria’s neighbor, Iraq, Washington is preparing to invade a country based on cynical lies about weapons of mass destruction.
A US invasion of Syria would be a crime of historic proportions, like the war in Iraq—a country whose population is only slightly larger than Syria’s. This war led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and allied soldiers. Iraq became a battleground for US occupation forces, as well as Sunni and Shiite death squads that carried out sectarian bombings and massacres.
A US invasion would threaten similar carnage inside Syria, which is already being torn apart by sectarian fighting in which Washington is working with right-wing regimes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to back Sunni Islamist forces against Syria’s Alawite regime. However, the far greater tensions in a region already destabilized by a decade of US and Israeli wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya now threaten to spread the violence over the entire Middle East.
Sectarian bloodshed provoked by the intensifying US intervention in the region is already spilling over into Syria’s neighbors. On Tuesday four people were killed and more than 60 wounded in firefights between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Alawites in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Tensions in Lebanon have been growing for months, with Western-backed forces seeking to provoke the Lebanese government which is led by the Shiite organization Hizbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran.
A US war against Syria would be the next step in an ongoing campaign by US imperialism to deepen its hegemony over the energy-rich and geo-strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
The Syrian regime responded to US threats with warnings and proposals for negotiations. Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil described Obama’s statements about chemical weapons as a pretext for Western intervention in Syria. “The West is looking for an excuse for direct intervention. If this excuse does not work, it will look for another excuse.” He warned that an attack on Syria would turn the conflict into a regional war, saying: “Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders.”
Jamil announced that the Syrian regime is willing to talk with the opposition to work out a transition, however. He even declared that Assad’s presidency is negotiable, stating: “We are ready to discuss Assad’s resignation—but not as precondition.”
Obama’s war threats against Syria are also deepening tensions with Russia and China, who have already vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions backed by the US and its Western and Arab allies aiming to give a pseudo-legal fig leaf for US aggression against Syria.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at a meeting in Moscow with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who also met Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on Monday. Lavrov said that both Russia and China base their diplomatic cooperation on “the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the U.N. Charter, and not to allow their violation.”
Lavrov said that only the Security Council has the authority to approve the use of external force against Syria, warning against imposing “democracy by bombs.” Russian officials have reportedly stated that they hope to avoid a repetition of the attack on Libya last year. Moscow abstained from the Security Council vote on Libya, and a resolution was passed which was subsequently used by NATO to justify its bombing of the country.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Assange said to be hiding in Britain
An international manhunt is under way for WikiLeaks supremo Julian Assange, who is believed to be hiding in Britain. Interpol issued a “red notice” for the internet whistleblower who is wanted for questioning by police in Sweden after two women accused him of rape and sexual molestation. The 39-year-old Australian was added to the worldwide wanted list amid growing fury in Washington at the mass release of more than 250 000 classified US communiques.
Mark Stephens, Assange’s British-based lawyer, has questioned the timing of Interpol’s warrant, saying his client was being persecuted. But On Wednesday Scotland Yard launched a probe into the fugitive’s whereabouts after it was claimed he was holed up in a secret location in Britain. If he is held in the UK, he could face proceedings to extradite him to Sweden.
Assange lives a rootless life, has hardly any possessions and uses his Australian passport to stay with friends in various countries. Prosecutors in Sweden want to question Assange over alleged attacks on two women during a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture to the Social Democratic Party in August. He is accused of attacking one woman in Stockholm and then sexually assaulting another woman in the town of Enkoping, about 60km from the capital, three days later.
Stephens said his client had repeatedly offered to meet Swedish investigators either at the Swedish embassy in London or a UK police station. “The allegations against him are false and without basis,” he added. “In 28 years of practice I have never come across a prosecutor, whether in the third world or even in a totalitarian regime, where there has been such casual disregard by a prosecutor for their obligations. “Given that Sweden is a civilised country I am reluctantly forced to conclude that this is a persecution and not a prosecution.” He highlighted the fact that the Interpol alert was issued just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables.
An adviser to Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper has suggested Assange could be assassinated. Professor Tom Flanagan said Barack Obama should “put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something” to rid the world of the Australian. Although he later rowed back from the remarks, it shows the growing anger in North America. Former US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Bradley Manning, the US army private thought to be behind the leak, should be executed. Manning is in military detention.
In other news, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hit out at a “slanderous” leaked cable that described him as Batman and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as the comic book hero’s sidekick Robin. Putin - widely believed to be the real power broker in the Kremlin - took exception to America’s portrayal of him as being the one in the political tandem who called the shots. Speaking to CNN host Larry King last night, Putin said the caped crusader portrayal was “aimed to slander one of us”. It is the most high-profile condemnation of the leaks. The combative Russian leader hit back after one secret US document released by Wikileaks described him as an “alpha-dog” and another said Russia was a “virtual mafia state”. He said US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was “deeply misled” in saying, according to the cables, that “Russian democracy has disappeared”.
Source: IoL
Mark Stephens, Assange’s British-based lawyer, has questioned the timing of Interpol’s warrant, saying his client was being persecuted. But On Wednesday Scotland Yard launched a probe into the fugitive’s whereabouts after it was claimed he was holed up in a secret location in Britain. If he is held in the UK, he could face proceedings to extradite him to Sweden.
Assange lives a rootless life, has hardly any possessions and uses his Australian passport to stay with friends in various countries. Prosecutors in Sweden want to question Assange over alleged attacks on two women during a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture to the Social Democratic Party in August. He is accused of attacking one woman in Stockholm and then sexually assaulting another woman in the town of Enkoping, about 60km from the capital, three days later.
Stephens said his client had repeatedly offered to meet Swedish investigators either at the Swedish embassy in London or a UK police station. “The allegations against him are false and without basis,” he added. “In 28 years of practice I have never come across a prosecutor, whether in the third world or even in a totalitarian regime, where there has been such casual disregard by a prosecutor for their obligations. “Given that Sweden is a civilised country I am reluctantly forced to conclude that this is a persecution and not a prosecution.” He highlighted the fact that the Interpol alert was issued just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables.
An adviser to Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper has suggested Assange could be assassinated. Professor Tom Flanagan said Barack Obama should “put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something” to rid the world of the Australian. Although he later rowed back from the remarks, it shows the growing anger in North America. Former US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Bradley Manning, the US army private thought to be behind the leak, should be executed. Manning is in military detention.
In other news, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hit out at a “slanderous” leaked cable that described him as Batman and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as the comic book hero’s sidekick Robin. Putin - widely believed to be the real power broker in the Kremlin - took exception to America’s portrayal of him as being the one in the political tandem who called the shots. Speaking to CNN host Larry King last night, Putin said the caped crusader portrayal was “aimed to slander one of us”. It is the most high-profile condemnation of the leaks. The combative Russian leader hit back after one secret US document released by Wikileaks described him as an “alpha-dog” and another said Russia was a “virtual mafia state”. He said US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was “deeply misled” in saying, according to the cables, that “Russian democracy has disappeared”.
Source: IoL
Thursday, August 5, 2010
White House Party for Africa Leaves Out Leaders
Many of Africa’s leaders have spent part of their summer shuttling between capitals, congratulating one another on 50 years of independence. One capital they will not be visiting together is Washington.
President Obama convened a forum this week to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of 17 African nations, but he did not invite a single African leader to help him do so. Was this, as the African news media and independent commentators see it, an expression of distaste for abusive rulers? Was it an extension of Mr. Obama’s own conviction — already enunciated — that bad government is at the heart of the continent’s woes and that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”?
The State Department denies such an intent behind the forum, noting that American officials meet with African leaders in other settings. Nonetheless, commentators on the continent and in the West note a sharp contrast between this week’s event in Washington and the summer’s other major 50th anniversary observance in a Western capital: Paris.
At a celebration on July 14, Bastille Day in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy was flanked by the leaders of Cameroon and Burkina Faso, Paul Biya and Blaise Compaore, who have been sharply criticized on human rights and governance, while 11 other African heads of state, some with equally dubious records, joined him on the reviewing stand.
There, they surveyed a parade of uniformed troops from African armies, some of which had taken part in large-scale abuses over the previous decade. The Senegalese press, for one, was roundly critical of the event. Not only did it dress down the African leaders for heeding the call of the ex-colonial ruler (the irony of celebrating African independence in the seat of a former colonial power was lost on few observers), but it also criticized Mr. Sarkozy for hosting presidents who mistreat their citizens.
Unlike the French president, Mr. Obama stands no risk of being photographed in the company of rulers accused of flouting democracy and human rights. By contrast, he summoned 115 under-35s from civil society, journalism and business to a “President’s Forum With Young African Leaders” this week to help him in “looking forward,” as a State Department official put it. “We’ve got to look for the next generation of leaders,” said Bruce Wharton, deputy assistant secretary for public diplomacy.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama bluntly addressed issues of corruption and press freedom in speaking to the group at the White House, saying that “sometimes the older leaders get into old habits, and those old habits are hard to break.” When asked about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Mr. Obama told the young people at the forum, “I’ll be honest with you — I’m heartbroken when I see what’s happened in Zimbabwe. I think Mugabe is an example of a leader who came in as a liberation fighter and — I’m just going to be very blunt — I do not see him serving his people well. And the abuses, the human rights abuses, the violence that’s been perpetrated against opposition leaders I think is terrible.”
African news organizations read the president’s forum as having more to do with the current generation of leaders than with those he invited, seeing it as a rebuke to the older generation. “50th Anniversary of African Independences: Barack Obama snubs the African dictators,” read a headline in the Cameroonian newspaper Le Messager. Mr. Obama is giving a “kick in the nose to African leaders, whom he seems to be royally snubbing,” said the Fasozine of Burkina Faso.
Here in Senegal, the newspaper Walfadjri ran a headline saying, “Obama snubs Wade and company and unrolls the red carpet for civil society,” referring to President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. So desirable is the association with Mr. Obama that Mr. Wade’s government once put a notice on the front page of a local newspaper saying merely that the Senegalese president had spoken with the American president on the telephone, without divulging the conversation’s contents. “The American president is extremely sensitive on the subject of democracy,” said another Senegalese paper, Kotch. “Proof: he’s going to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of African nations without inviting a single head of state.”
Mr. Obama has made an overt pitch for the more widespread diffusion of democracy on the continent before, a gesture often recalled in the African media. In a speech to the Ghanaian Parliament in July 2009, the president said it was a “fundamental truth” that “development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long.” Mr. Obama added that it was up to Africans themselves to add this “ingredient.”
Mr. Obama’s choice has been met with frosty silence, mostly, in African presidential palaces. But it clearly has the potential to sting. Governments lacking internal legitimacy on the continent often derive their credibility from international recognition, from going to conferences, and being met and greeted by other heads of state, as scholars are increasingly pointing out. “International recognition endows African state actors with a domestic power of command,” wrote Pierre Englebert, a professor of politics at Pomona College, in his recent book “Africa: Unity, Sovereignty & Sorrow.”
The absence of presidents and their retinues at the Washington gathering is thus seen as no accident. “By refusing to invite them, and welcoming them in Washington, Obama is clearly telling them, ‘If you want to engage with us, you have to behave,’ ” said Mamadou Diouf, director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. “It’s a way of questioning the choice made by Sarkozy.” Other analysts agreed. “You take one look at Sarkozy and his buddies, that’s not the picture Obama wants to convey,” said J. Stephen Morrison, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
A French Foreign Ministry official rejected the widespread criticism of Mr. Sarkozy, calling it “a sterile polemic.” “The two initiatives are complementary,” the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said of the two approaches taken by Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Obama. “A country can’t be reduced just to its leaders and civil society. For a democracy to function, you need both.”
As for the general populace, though, Mr. Obama’s choice has been “saluted by African public opinion,” said a Senegalese opposition leader, Abdoulaye Bathily, “because the emerging forces are not to be found in the leadership, but in the civil society movement.” Mr. Bathily added: “The leaders have failed the African people.”
Source: New York Times
President Obama convened a forum this week to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of 17 African nations, but he did not invite a single African leader to help him do so. Was this, as the African news media and independent commentators see it, an expression of distaste for abusive rulers? Was it an extension of Mr. Obama’s own conviction — already enunciated — that bad government is at the heart of the continent’s woes and that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”?
The State Department denies such an intent behind the forum, noting that American officials meet with African leaders in other settings. Nonetheless, commentators on the continent and in the West note a sharp contrast between this week’s event in Washington and the summer’s other major 50th anniversary observance in a Western capital: Paris.
At a celebration on July 14, Bastille Day in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy was flanked by the leaders of Cameroon and Burkina Faso, Paul Biya and Blaise Compaore, who have been sharply criticized on human rights and governance, while 11 other African heads of state, some with equally dubious records, joined him on the reviewing stand.
There, they surveyed a parade of uniformed troops from African armies, some of which had taken part in large-scale abuses over the previous decade. The Senegalese press, for one, was roundly critical of the event. Not only did it dress down the African leaders for heeding the call of the ex-colonial ruler (the irony of celebrating African independence in the seat of a former colonial power was lost on few observers), but it also criticized Mr. Sarkozy for hosting presidents who mistreat their citizens.
Unlike the French president, Mr. Obama stands no risk of being photographed in the company of rulers accused of flouting democracy and human rights. By contrast, he summoned 115 under-35s from civil society, journalism and business to a “President’s Forum With Young African Leaders” this week to help him in “looking forward,” as a State Department official put it. “We’ve got to look for the next generation of leaders,” said Bruce Wharton, deputy assistant secretary for public diplomacy.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama bluntly addressed issues of corruption and press freedom in speaking to the group at the White House, saying that “sometimes the older leaders get into old habits, and those old habits are hard to break.” When asked about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Mr. Obama told the young people at the forum, “I’ll be honest with you — I’m heartbroken when I see what’s happened in Zimbabwe. I think Mugabe is an example of a leader who came in as a liberation fighter and — I’m just going to be very blunt — I do not see him serving his people well. And the abuses, the human rights abuses, the violence that’s been perpetrated against opposition leaders I think is terrible.”
African news organizations read the president’s forum as having more to do with the current generation of leaders than with those he invited, seeing it as a rebuke to the older generation. “50th Anniversary of African Independences: Barack Obama snubs the African dictators,” read a headline in the Cameroonian newspaper Le Messager. Mr. Obama is giving a “kick in the nose to African leaders, whom he seems to be royally snubbing,” said the Fasozine of Burkina Faso.
Here in Senegal, the newspaper Walfadjri ran a headline saying, “Obama snubs Wade and company and unrolls the red carpet for civil society,” referring to President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. So desirable is the association with Mr. Obama that Mr. Wade’s government once put a notice on the front page of a local newspaper saying merely that the Senegalese president had spoken with the American president on the telephone, without divulging the conversation’s contents. “The American president is extremely sensitive on the subject of democracy,” said another Senegalese paper, Kotch. “Proof: he’s going to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of African nations without inviting a single head of state.”
Mr. Obama has made an overt pitch for the more widespread diffusion of democracy on the continent before, a gesture often recalled in the African media. In a speech to the Ghanaian Parliament in July 2009, the president said it was a “fundamental truth” that “development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long.” Mr. Obama added that it was up to Africans themselves to add this “ingredient.”
Mr. Obama’s choice has been met with frosty silence, mostly, in African presidential palaces. But it clearly has the potential to sting. Governments lacking internal legitimacy on the continent often derive their credibility from international recognition, from going to conferences, and being met and greeted by other heads of state, as scholars are increasingly pointing out. “International recognition endows African state actors with a domestic power of command,” wrote Pierre Englebert, a professor of politics at Pomona College, in his recent book “Africa: Unity, Sovereignty & Sorrow.”
The absence of presidents and their retinues at the Washington gathering is thus seen as no accident. “By refusing to invite them, and welcoming them in Washington, Obama is clearly telling them, ‘If you want to engage with us, you have to behave,’ ” said Mamadou Diouf, director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. “It’s a way of questioning the choice made by Sarkozy.” Other analysts agreed. “You take one look at Sarkozy and his buddies, that’s not the picture Obama wants to convey,” said J. Stephen Morrison, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
A French Foreign Ministry official rejected the widespread criticism of Mr. Sarkozy, calling it “a sterile polemic.” “The two initiatives are complementary,” the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said of the two approaches taken by Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Obama. “A country can’t be reduced just to its leaders and civil society. For a democracy to function, you need both.”
As for the general populace, though, Mr. Obama’s choice has been “saluted by African public opinion,” said a Senegalese opposition leader, Abdoulaye Bathily, “because the emerging forces are not to be found in the leadership, but in the civil society movement.” Mr. Bathily added: “The leaders have failed the African people.”
Source: New York Times
Monday, January 25, 2010
Bin Laden warns US of more attacks
Osama bin Laden has warned Barack Obama, the US president, that there will be further attacks on the United States unless he takes steps to resolve the Palestinian situation.
In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera on Sunday, the al-Qaeda chief, praised the Nigerian accused of a failed attempt to blow up an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day. "The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you," Bin Laden said. "America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly. "Therefore, with God's will, our attacks on you will continue as long as you continue to support Israel," bin Laden said. "If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."
The Obama administration said intelligence analysts had not confirmed that the al-Qaeda leader's voice was on the tape. But it quickly dismissed its significance. David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, told CNN's State of the Union programme that "assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughters of innocents that we've heard before". "And the irony is that he's killed more Muslims than people from any other religion - he's a murderer," Axelrod added.
Phil Rees, the author of Dining with Terrorists, told Al Jazeera: "Bin Laden has a great sense of timing; it's a complete poke in the eye to President Obama at a time when Obama is domestically suffering. "The reference to Palestine is possibly the most interesting part of this because he almost now becomes the al-Qaeda leader that speaks about Palestine."What you've now got in Gaza is bin Laden looking at the situation where there's a peace process which is going nowhere, and in an ironic way, Hamas is at the frontline of the battle with al-Qaeda there."
Azzam Tamimi, a political analyst and the author of Hamas the Unwritten Chapters, said that bin Laden was simply using the Palestinian issue in an attempt to mobilise Muslims against the US. "I would say that al-Qaeda has not been able to set foot in many places in the Muslim world despite its rhetoric," he told Al Jazeera. "In Palestine they failed miserably and that is why I understand this message as a return to the older strategy of waging war against America and the world order in the skies. "It is very difficult to compete with an organisation like Hamas in Palestine."
Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians were focused on ending the Israeli occupation. "All Arabs and Muslims support our cause. [But] the Palestinian position is clear, the resistance is against the occupation, the Israeli army who is occupying and killing our people," he said. "Everyone knows that the policies of the US have created huge problems in the region. At this moment, we know who our enemy is - the Israeli occupation."Imtiaz Gul, the chairman of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, questioned whether the tape was genuine."I think the validity of this tape should be subjected to scrutiny because we haven't heard from Mr Bin Laden for quite some time."
In the attempted attack on Christmas Day, Abdulmutallab, who is now in US police custody, allegedly tried to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 made its final descent to Detroit. He had boarded the flight in Amsterdam, but purchased his tickets in Ghana on December 16. Passengers on the flight were able to overpower the would-be bomber as he attempted to ignite the explosive's fuse. After being taken into custody, Abdulmutallab told police he had been directed by al-Qaeda and had obtained his explosive device in Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the organisation's affiliate in Yemen, has said it armed Abdulmutallab, describing the attempted attack as revenge for the US role in a Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda. Obama has criticised his own intelligence agencies for failing to piece together information about the suspect which should have stopped him boarding the flight.
Source: Al Jazeera
In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera on Sunday, the al-Qaeda chief, praised the Nigerian accused of a failed attempt to blow up an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day. "The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you," Bin Laden said. "America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly. "Therefore, with God's will, our attacks on you will continue as long as you continue to support Israel," bin Laden said. "If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."
The Obama administration said intelligence analysts had not confirmed that the al-Qaeda leader's voice was on the tape. But it quickly dismissed its significance. David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, told CNN's State of the Union programme that "assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughters of innocents that we've heard before". "And the irony is that he's killed more Muslims than people from any other religion - he's a murderer," Axelrod added.
Phil Rees, the author of Dining with Terrorists, told Al Jazeera: "Bin Laden has a great sense of timing; it's a complete poke in the eye to President Obama at a time when Obama is domestically suffering. "The reference to Palestine is possibly the most interesting part of this because he almost now becomes the al-Qaeda leader that speaks about Palestine."What you've now got in Gaza is bin Laden looking at the situation where there's a peace process which is going nowhere, and in an ironic way, Hamas is at the frontline of the battle with al-Qaeda there."
Azzam Tamimi, a political analyst and the author of Hamas the Unwritten Chapters, said that bin Laden was simply using the Palestinian issue in an attempt to mobilise Muslims against the US. "I would say that al-Qaeda has not been able to set foot in many places in the Muslim world despite its rhetoric," he told Al Jazeera. "In Palestine they failed miserably and that is why I understand this message as a return to the older strategy of waging war against America and the world order in the skies. "It is very difficult to compete with an organisation like Hamas in Palestine."
Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians were focused on ending the Israeli occupation. "All Arabs and Muslims support our cause. [But] the Palestinian position is clear, the resistance is against the occupation, the Israeli army who is occupying and killing our people," he said. "Everyone knows that the policies of the US have created huge problems in the region. At this moment, we know who our enemy is - the Israeli occupation."Imtiaz Gul, the chairman of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, questioned whether the tape was genuine."I think the validity of this tape should be subjected to scrutiny because we haven't heard from Mr Bin Laden for quite some time."
In the attempted attack on Christmas Day, Abdulmutallab, who is now in US police custody, allegedly tried to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 made its final descent to Detroit. He had boarded the flight in Amsterdam, but purchased his tickets in Ghana on December 16. Passengers on the flight were able to overpower the would-be bomber as he attempted to ignite the explosive's fuse. After being taken into custody, Abdulmutallab told police he had been directed by al-Qaeda and had obtained his explosive device in Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the organisation's affiliate in Yemen, has said it armed Abdulmutallab, describing the attempted attack as revenge for the US role in a Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda. Obama has criticised his own intelligence agencies for failing to piece together information about the suspect which should have stopped him boarding the flight.
Source: Al Jazeera
Monday, January 4, 2010
Yemen instability poses a 'global threat'
Instability in Yemen is a global as well as regional threat, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She said the Yemeni government had to take measures to restore stability or risk losing Western support. The US embassy, closed after threats from a regional al-Qaeda offshoot, would reopen when "conditions permit". The UK and France have also shut their embassies.
Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to blow up the aircraft just before it was due to land at Detroit airport on 25 December. A number of countries have tightened security or suspended some operations at their embassies. US President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the Christmas Day incident. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week said it was behind the alleged plot to bomb the plane.
From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government. Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions. Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random. The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.
The suspect had apparently been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and his father had notified US officials of his extremist views. A preliminary investigation found that the state department complied with procedures about potential threats, but officials now had to decide whether those procedures themselves were appropriate, Mrs Clinton said. Threats in Yemen to US interests pre-dated the current holiday season, she said, reiterating advice to US citizens there to be vigilant.Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said: "We see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region."
The Yemeni government has a tribal rebellion and a secessionist movement to deal with, and has regarded al-Qaeda as a lesser priority, a BBC correspondent in Yemen says. "It's time for the international community to make it clear to Yemen that there are expectations and conditions on our continuing support for the government so that they can take actions which will have a better chance to provide that peace and stability to the people of Yemen and the region," Mrs Clinton said.
The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which an American was killed. The attack was blamed on AQAP. Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.
Source: BBC
Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to blow up the aircraft just before it was due to land at Detroit airport on 25 December. A number of countries have tightened security or suspended some operations at their embassies. US President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the Christmas Day incident. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week said it was behind the alleged plot to bomb the plane.
From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government. Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions. Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random. The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.
The suspect had apparently been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and his father had notified US officials of his extremist views. A preliminary investigation found that the state department complied with procedures about potential threats, but officials now had to decide whether those procedures themselves were appropriate, Mrs Clinton said. Threats in Yemen to US interests pre-dated the current holiday season, she said, reiterating advice to US citizens there to be vigilant.Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said: "We see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region."
The Yemeni government has a tribal rebellion and a secessionist movement to deal with, and has regarded al-Qaeda as a lesser priority, a BBC correspondent in Yemen says. "It's time for the international community to make it clear to Yemen that there are expectations and conditions on our continuing support for the government so that they can take actions which will have a better chance to provide that peace and stability to the people of Yemen and the region," Mrs Clinton said.
The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which an American was killed. The attack was blamed on AQAP. Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.
Source: BBC
Friday, January 23, 2009
Ex-Gitmo Detainee Joins Al-Qaida in Yemen
A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaeda branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network. The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.
The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home. The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372. "He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.
Documents released by the U.S. Defense Department show that al-Shihri was released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in November 2007 and transferred to his homeland. The documents confirmed his prisoner number was 372. Saudi Arabian authorities wouldn't immediately comment on the statement. A Yemeni counterterrorism official would only say that Saudi Arabia had asked Yemen to turn over a number of wanted Saudi suspects who fled the kingdom last year for Yemen, and a man with the same name was among those wanted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press and would not provide more details.
Yemen is a U.S. ally in the fight against terror, but it also has been the site of numerous high-profile, al-Qaida-linked attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors. Yemen's government struggles to maintain order. Many areas of the California-size country are beyond government control and Islamic extremism is strong. Nearly 100 Yemeni detainees remain at Guantanamo, making up the biggest group of prisoners.
Al-Shihri's case highlights the complexity of Obama's decision to shut down the detention center within a year despite the absence of rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners in some countries, including Yemen. The Pentagon also has said more former ex-detainees appear to be returning to the fight against the U.S. after their release. Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said the reports about al-Shihri should not slow the Obama administration's determination to quickly close the prison. "What it tells me is that President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully. But there is really no justification and there was no justification for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore of America so it was outside the reach of U.S. law," she told CBS's "The Early Show."
But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics." Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."
The militant Web statement said al-Shihri's identity was revealed during a recent interview with a Yemeni journalist. That journalist, Abdelela Shayie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that 35-year-old Saudi man had joined the kingdom's rehabilitation program after his release and got married before leaving for Yemen. Shayie said al-Shihri told him that several other former Guantanamo detainees had also come to Yemen to join al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is an umbrella group of various cells. Its current leader is Yemen's most wanted fugitive Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, who was among 23 al-Qaida figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006.
Since the prison break, al-Qaida managed to regroup. It set up training camps, has attracted hundreds of young men and launched dozens of bloody attacks against Westerners, government institutions and oil facilities. Most recently, gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in September, killing 17 people, including six militants. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the Defense Department, al-Shihri was stopped at a Pakistani border crossing in December 2001 with injuries from an airstrike and recuperated at a hospital. Within days of his release, he became one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo. Al-Shihri allegedly traveled to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, provided money to other fighters and trained in urban warfare at a camp north of Kabul, according to a summary of the evidence against him from U.S. military review panels at Guantanamo. He also was accused of meeting extremists in Iran and briefing them on how to enter Afghanistan, according to the documents.
Al-Shihri, however, said he traveled to Iran to buy carpets. He said he felt bin Laden had no business representing Islam, denied any links to terrorism and expressed interest in rejoining his family.
Source: abc
The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home. The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372. "He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.
Documents released by the U.S. Defense Department show that al-Shihri was released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in November 2007 and transferred to his homeland. The documents confirmed his prisoner number was 372. Saudi Arabian authorities wouldn't immediately comment on the statement. A Yemeni counterterrorism official would only say that Saudi Arabia had asked Yemen to turn over a number of wanted Saudi suspects who fled the kingdom last year for Yemen, and a man with the same name was among those wanted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press and would not provide more details.
Yemen is a U.S. ally in the fight against terror, but it also has been the site of numerous high-profile, al-Qaida-linked attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors. Yemen's government struggles to maintain order. Many areas of the California-size country are beyond government control and Islamic extremism is strong. Nearly 100 Yemeni detainees remain at Guantanamo, making up the biggest group of prisoners.
Al-Shihri's case highlights the complexity of Obama's decision to shut down the detention center within a year despite the absence of rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners in some countries, including Yemen. The Pentagon also has said more former ex-detainees appear to be returning to the fight against the U.S. after their release. Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said the reports about al-Shihri should not slow the Obama administration's determination to quickly close the prison. "What it tells me is that President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully. But there is really no justification and there was no justification for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore of America so it was outside the reach of U.S. law," she told CBS's "The Early Show."
But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics." Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."
The militant Web statement said al-Shihri's identity was revealed during a recent interview with a Yemeni journalist. That journalist, Abdelela Shayie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that 35-year-old Saudi man had joined the kingdom's rehabilitation program after his release and got married before leaving for Yemen. Shayie said al-Shihri told him that several other former Guantanamo detainees had also come to Yemen to join al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is an umbrella group of various cells. Its current leader is Yemen's most wanted fugitive Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, who was among 23 al-Qaida figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006.
Since the prison break, al-Qaida managed to regroup. It set up training camps, has attracted hundreds of young men and launched dozens of bloody attacks against Westerners, government institutions and oil facilities. Most recently, gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in September, killing 17 people, including six militants. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the Defense Department, al-Shihri was stopped at a Pakistani border crossing in December 2001 with injuries from an airstrike and recuperated at a hospital. Within days of his release, he became one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo. Al-Shihri allegedly traveled to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, provided money to other fighters and trained in urban warfare at a camp north of Kabul, according to a summary of the evidence against him from U.S. military review panels at Guantanamo. He also was accused of meeting extremists in Iran and briefing them on how to enter Afghanistan, according to the documents.
Al-Shihri, however, said he traveled to Iran to buy carpets. He said he felt bin Laden had no business representing Islam, denied any links to terrorism and expressed interest in rejoining his family.
Source: abc
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