- Previous articles discussed America's permanent war agenda,
culture of violence, imperial lawlessness, daily atrocities, blood-drenched
history, glorification of killing in the name of peace, and support for
the world's worst despots, as well as contempt for democratic values, rule
of law principles, and human and civil rights abroad and at home.
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- Obama continues the odious tradition, governing repressively
while waging global imperial wars, brazenly claiming humanitarian intentions
he doesn't give a damn about, never did, and won't tolerate.
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- Americans foot the bill and pay the price. Global millions
suffer. Earlier articles addressed America's wars against Iraq, Afghanistan
and Pakistan, as well as proxy ones in Africa, Asia, Central and South
America, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working households.
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- Part I of this article discussed Obama's Libya terror
bombing, support for the despotic Bahraini monarchy, and alliance with
Israel's slow motion genocide against millions of Palestinian civilians
- brutalizing, killing, and immiserating them for decades, spurning peace
and independence for occupation, repression and violence.
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- Washington provides financial aid, weapons, munitions,
and political support, Obama more generously than any of his predecessors,
showing his contempt for Palestinian liberation, moral values, and rule
of law justice.
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- This article considers prospects for more war, notably
in the Middle East against Yemen, Syria, and perhaps Iran, possibly escalating
into general war that could, in fact, spin out of control with nuclear
weapons introduced openly for the first time since WW II.
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- At stake literally is humanity and/or a fit world to
live in - militarized, repressed, terrorized, and impoverished except for
the privileged few running it their way, a prospect too dire to imagine
but possible unless committed grassroots pressure stops it.
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- Obama's War on Yemen
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- Since taking office, Obama made Yemen a new front in
America's "war on terror" despite promising diplomacy, not conflict,
if elected. As a candidate, in fact, he said:
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- "The President does not have power under the Constitution
to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not
involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
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- In office, however, he:
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- -- chose war over peace;
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- -- expanded it in North Africa, the Middle East, and
Central Asia;
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- -- reinvented a new "Cold War" with Russia,
encircling it with US bases, encroaching to its borders, planning to deploy
Aegis class warships nearby and offensive anti-ballistic missiles, anti-satellite
interceptors, and nuclear weapons provocatively;
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- -- militarized Latin and Central America, and escalates
an arms race in Asia, targeting China by planning to double America's regional
military presence provocatively;
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- -- replaced the democratically elected Honduran president
with a fascist regime;
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- -- engineered Duvalierist Michel Martelly's election
as Haiti's new president; and
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- -- plans greater war for total dominance, no matter the
consequences and human toll, including a once secret, now open one on Yemen.
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- What's at stake? At most, Yemen has four billion proved
barrels of oil reserves and modest amounts of natural gas, hardly a reason
for war. More important is its strategic location near the Horn of Africa
on Saudi Arabia's southern border, the Red Sea, its Bab el- Mandeb strait
(a key chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea through which three million
barrels of oil pass daily), and the Gulf of Aden connection to the Indian
Ocean.
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- As a result, at Washington's behest, Saudi forces began
bombing and deploying tanks against Yemen in early November 2009. Hundreds
were killed or wounded, many thousands displaced. In addition, a rebel
group called the Young Believers said US jets struck Yemen's northwest
Sa'ada Province multiple times, and Britain's Daily Telegraph reported
US Special Forces covertly training its army.
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- In January 2010, the Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed
Pentagon official saying a significant Special Forces increase was planned,
explaining it "will be a much more robust effort pretty much across
the board."
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- On June 8, 2011, New York Times writer Mark Mazzetti
headlined, "US Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes,"
saying:
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- The Obama administration "intensified (America's)
covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to
strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according
to American officials."
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- A coordinated Pentagon Joint Special Operations Command/CIA
team is in charge, operating from a Sana command post. In congressional
testimony, in fact, CIA Director Leon Panetta (tapped to replace Defense
Secretary Gates in weeks) confirmed Washington's support for Saleh's dictatorship,
saying:
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- "We are continuing to work with those individuals
in (his) government to try to go after AQAP (Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula).
And we are continuing to receive cooperation from them."
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- Earlier, Washington increased Yemen's military aid from
$4.6 million in FY 2006 to $67 million in FY 2009, $190 million or more
in FY 2010, and around $250 million in FY 2011. According to the Congressional
Research Service, the Obama administration requested another $115.6 million
for FY 2012, a fluid number given the popular uprising for new governance
showing no signs of waning.
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- President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in fact, is receiving medical
treatment in Saudi Arabia, seriously hurt by a bomb blast at his compound.
Earlier, State Department officials urged him to accept a Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) agreement to relinquish power to a transitional government
headed by his vice president. Yemen's opposition parties accepted it. He
rejected it, and so do mass protest leaders, one of them, Tawakkol Karman,
saying:
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- "We would like to announce that the JMP (the six
joint meeting opposition parties) is part of the regime that we are seeking
to remove. In any new government, if the JMP is part of it, our revolution
will continue."
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- He and others want a clean sweep, a new government, and
Saleh and his cronies held accountable for their crimes. Washington wants
a regime it controls with or without him, like what's in place in Egypt
and Tunisia after their despots were ousted. Everything changed but stayed
the same, why months or years more struggle remain for an Arab Spring to
bloom. Washington, of course, wants it quashed, and very much is involved
doing it.
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- Yemenis perhaps have been most resilient, protesting
en masse since January against unemployment, deep poverty, corruption,
repression, and the 33-year despotic regime they want ousted. Hundreds
have been killed trying, many others hurt, but they won't quit, rallying
daily without letup, now faced with US drone and jet aircraft attacks,
showing Washington is more threatening than Saleh.
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- Targeting Syria
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- Syrian uprisings began in mid-March. America's pack journalism
wrongfully claimed security forces killed unarmed protesters, ignoring
anti-government militants shooting at both sides, blaming President Assad
for the carnage.
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- Obama condemned the violence, accusing him of seeking
Iranian help to brutalize his people. WikiLeaks cables, however, revealed
secret State Department funding for opposition groups and related projects,
including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) beaming anti-government
programming into the country.
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- Financing began after the Bush administration cut ties
with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic Damascus cable said:
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- "A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming
that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria,
may prove productive."
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- In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to
"accelerate the work of reformers in Syria," meaning Western
backed regime change elements.
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- Covert CIA operatives are also involved, as well as the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute
(IRI), supporting anti-democratic opposition groups throughout the region,
including in Libya, Lebanon, Iran and Syria despite NED claiming "dedicat(ion)
to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world....in
more than 90 countries."
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- In addition, Israel, Lebanon's anti-Syrian March 14 alliance,
and the Saudi monarchy are involved. Last March, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el,
in fact, discussed a plan to oust Assad, saying it allegedly "was
formulated in 2008 by....Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman,"
a veteran US regional diplomat, currently Assistant Secretary of State
for Near Eastern Affairs.
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- Using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people,
and media efforts, they've destabilized the country for months, instigating
violence and stoking ethnic tensions either to depose Assad's regime or
intimidate it to terminate relations with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. The
strategy is to isolate regimes Washington and Israel oppose, then weaken
and/or oust them separately or in combination.
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- On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK,
French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning
Syrian violence.
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- On June 10, the Voice of Russia (VOR, now broadcasting
from Washington) reported that Russia and China blocked a second anti-Syrian
resolution along with South Africa, India and Brazil, fearing passage will
mean more regional war.
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- Commenting, historian Vladimir Akhmedov said:
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- "What arouses concern is that this resolution...declares
(the) illegitimacy of the (Assad) regime....mak(ing) it possible for other
countries to doubt (it) base(d) on this document."
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- VOR said no further Security Council consultations date
was set, though introducing a third resolution is likely, continuing US-led
pressure on Assad. According to Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander
Lukashevich, however:
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- "Russia is against any UN resolution on Syria as
the situation in the country is not threatening the global security. The
Russian president has repeatedly said Russia opposes any UN Security Council
(measure) since the situation (there poses no) threat to international
peace and security."
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- Lukashevich also expressed alarm about the proliferation
of anti-regime militants, saying they'll only escalate violence and prevent
a peaceful resolution, adding:
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- "Any Security Council resolution criticizing Syria
means indirect support (for armed militants), contradict(ing) the role
of the Security Council."
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- Targeting Syria and Iran
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- Neither country poses a nuclear or other regional threat.
Yet Washington and other Western powers manipulated IAEA chief Yukiya Amano
to claim otherwise, AFP on June 6 saying:
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- He "turned up the heat" on both countries,
falsely accusing them of "illicit nuclear activit(ies)" in two
late May reports, regurgitating Washington/Israel lies, no matter how distorted
or false.
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- Specifically, he said Iran keeps stockpiling "low-enriched
uranium, in defiance of multiple UN sanctions, and refus(ed) to answer
allegations of possible military dimensions of its contested nuclear program."
In fact, Tehran complies fully with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
provisions unlike Israel, America, India and Pakistan - all of them nuclear
outlaws, yet Amano is complicitly silent.
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- He also accused Syria of "building an undeclared
atomic reactor at a remote desert site and has not allowed UN inspectors
access to locations, data or individuals who could help clear up the allegation."
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- In fact, no evidence corroborates his accusations. In
September 2007, US intelligence sources said North Korean No-Dong missiles
were at the site Israel bombed, either in Musalmiya or further south near
Hama. Israel was informed yet spuriously claimed a nuclear facility was
struck, an act of war warranting retaliation and UN Security Counsel sanctions.
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- As a result, demanding inspectors admitted now is unjustifiable
harassment. Send them where they're needed - to America and Israel, both
engaged in illicit programs needing to be exposed and shut down.
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- On June 6, New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh headlined
"Iran and the Bomb," asking:
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- "Is Iran actively trying to develop nuclear weapons?"
Bush and Obama officials say so despite "highly classified intelligence
assessments" refuting accusations of Iran's "military capacities
and intentions."
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- In fact, the most recent National Intelligence Estimates
(NIEs) affirm "no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort
to build the bomb since 2003." It's nuclear program is commercial.
IAEA inspectors found no illicit weapons development.
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- Israel also calls Iran an existential threat. Yet most
of its nonproliferation experts say it has no nuclear weapons program.
As IAEA head for 12 years, Mohamed ElBaradei recently said:
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- "I don't believe Iran is a clear and present danger.
All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran."
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- On June 9, London Guardian writer Richard Dalton headlined,
"Iran is not in breach of international law," saying:
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- Iran doesn't threaten peace. "In principle....nothing
in international law or in the non-proliferation treaty forbids uranium
enrichment." Every country with commercial reactors does it "without
being accused of 'threatening the peace.' " Some, like Israel, do
it secretly without accusation or threats of sanctions or harsher measures.
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- Unfortunately, the IAEA is an industry and political
tool, manipulated to act outside its mandate, serving the wrong interests
for the wrong reasons. As a result, it threatens world safety by letting
America and Israel operate belligerently while cracking down unjustly on
other nations endangering no one.
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- At risk is more war, perhaps a general one involving
Russia, China, and other major powers globally engaged in the unthinkable,
a possible nuclear confrontation endangering humanity. The time to stop
it is now. Afterwards is too late.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
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- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
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