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Yemen, Yemen Everywhere
Whether you've been forced to listen to Pat Buchanan (again) promote the suspension of rule of law, watched as the media machine chewed noisily on Joe Lieberman's latest pitch for preemptive war, or felt assuredly unassured by our President's promise
to fight terrorism 'wherever it is', one thing ought to be certain by
now: The US 'War on Terror' is neither at its beginning, its middle,
and certainly not at its end.
As the tired - and disproven - arguments get pulled out of the
cupboard, let us acknowledge Yemen and the Yemenis, who know as much
about a Nigerian bomber as most Americans know of the Arabian
Peninsula. It's possible that the US public would benefit from a
deeper understanding of Yemen's violent civil war, its endemic water crisis, its long history of food, fuel and economic crises, and the overall extreme level of poverty that makes it one of the least developed countries on the planet.
Perhaps if the US public had a more comprehensive view of Yemen, it would not be so cavalier to name it the next front in our misguided, endless war on a tactic and an ideology.
Then again, there's nothing to suggest a better understanding of
Afghanistan would have quelched the American thirst for revenge in the
aftermath of September 11, 2001. We are lucky this young Nigerian criminal
was so incompetent with his explosives. We are less fortunate that our
nation's ability to respond to terrorism has not developed beyond full body scans and the rhetoric of military strikes on a faltering state. New terrorist, new country; same tired, deadly mindset.



21 Comments so far
Show AllObamas promise to fight terrorism" wherever it is" has to be one of the most egregious lies I have ever heard, because if he really meant it he would start with him and his own government; the #1 terrorist in the world!
Amen, Paul! The US government is the most dangerous terrorist organization/organized crime syndicate in the world. There is no other country or terrorist group in the world that poses a greater danger to world peace than the USA and, sadly, most Americans are blind to this obvious fact.
"and, sadly, most Americans are blind to this obvious fact."
Is "most" an exaggeration, today, by any chance? If not, then what size of a majority does this "most" represent?
Most Americans want the US out of Afghanistan, but most, though I think the report was for a smaller majority than the former one, support the troop surge. The latter is very unfortunate and tragic, as well as DUMB, to say the least or best of what it can or may be, really; but most, and I think it is a larger marjority, wanting the war ended is good, even if the reasons each of the persons in this majority has is not ideal, some of them possibly or probably wanting the war ended only for tax or cost reasons, instead of the war being criminal from start to ... whenever it ends. Anyway, which of the two majorities are you referring to?
But Dennis Kucinich says Obama is a "good man" and it's just that members of the White House administration and of the military officer ranks, top ones, run the show, leaving Obama unable to do anything about this, except to "go with the flow" (latter not quoted from Kucinich, being my wording). Huh? I don't believe Kucinich and he's a very wearisome character with his unfortunately inflexible loyalty to the Dem. Party of which the leadership is rogue and which voters never seem to wake up to vote for real and good change(s).
Obama is a "good man"? I don't think so. He occasionally says things that seem nice or good, but never lives up to his words. And I thought that early into the campaigns last year for the 2008 presidential elections Kucinich said that Obama "speaks out of both sides of his mouth", but, as always, once the party nominates a candidate, then Kucinich [folds] back to his nearly unforgivable loyalty to the party while claiming that his goal is to reform the party; in some future lifetime, I guess.
Wicked people do sometimes employ good words or words of good in order to do what? To deceive. Is this Obama's reason for occasionally saying good things and never living up to them; and worse, doing the very opposite from them? Well, I guess it's either because he's intellectually unstable, or he deliberately lies, and I don't think that he doesn't lie about important things.
In any case, I certainly do not agree that he's a "good man" and Kucinich earns demerit points for this. The rest of what he said in the interview with Russia Today last week was okay, but there nevertheless was another serious flaw. He can't bring himself to realise or to acknowledge that the war at least possibly was criminal to begin with. He still treats Al Qaeda as responsible for the 9-11 attacks, and Bush et al initially said that Osama bin Ladin was of top responsibility or guilt, but OBL's never been officially or formally charged for these attacks; and Kucinich refuses to carefully think about this and much more. Not only does he earn demerit points, he makes himself other than a credible critical thinker.
A person who "speaks out of both sides of his mouth" generally is someone who can NOT be trusted and that is not descriptive of a "good man" or person!
When Dennis Kucinich said Obama was " a good man" he must have meant Obama is a good con man! Because it looks like Dennis has bought into his con.
Maybe, BUT Dennis Kucinich said early last year that Obama "speaks out of both sides of his mouth" and surely doesn't forget having said this; unless he had said it about John Kerry in the 2004 race. I am pretty sure he said it about Obama though, for it stunned me, not much, but a little, that Kucinich then totally switched to totally supporting Obama once he was nominated for the final leg of the presidential race, as Kucinich [always] does, inflexibly loyal to the Dem. Party as he has steadfastly proven and has pledged to be. Kucinich made a similar switch in 2004, but am pretty sure his inferred that Obama speaks hypocritically, which he clearly does.
So, I'm not prepared to agree that Kucinich has been conned.
Absolutamente correcto... From the liar/ war criminal in chief : "those who would slaughter innocent women and children"... war IS terrorism with a big budget ! The good newz... fascist amerikas burden of blood will/ is bringing the empire down !
tioche, Mexico
Al Qaeda in Miami claimed responsibilty for the attack.
Gee we already bombed Miami the day before.
We are really great at pre-emptiveness.
Gee is that a valid legal defense now for murder?
You know how we jump up and down on the zionists when the burst into a home and murder all the men.
The USA does its murder from Las Vegas Nevada and doesn't even know who and how many they murdered.
"[Yemen's] endemic water crisis, its long history of food, fuel and economic crises, and the overall extreme level of poverty that makes it one of the least developed countries on the planet."
Perfect! Another "hopeless bum" in the gutter for the US and its Droogs to bomb.
- The US 'War on Terror' is neither at its beginning, its middle, and certainly not at its end -
Once again I suggest that we use our words and not those of the MIC.
The 'War on Terror' is DAFT. This insane 'pre-emptive' 'counter-terrorism' will continue until the mechanism that propels it is disabled.
Public Law 107-40 is to blame, and continuing to ignore that obvious fact does not help our cause.
Your argument is a waste of time. It's not likely to ever be of benefit, and there's nothing really wrong with calling it the "War on Terror" when what is meant is what the government calls it. We can alternatively write W[of]T and GW[of]T.
Many people have very well explained that the government is lying about this being a war [on] terror and it's probably better to let people use WoT and GWoT, with the government's meaning, and then explain why it's all a LIE, than it is to complain about people using the government's wording. The important thing is communicating that it's all a lie and to provide a fitting explanation.
View videos with Mike Prysner of March Forward!, one of the two co-founders, f.e., and maybe also read some articles by him and the other co-founder, if they have written and posted any, which I suppose they would have done. The videos with Mike Prysner, however, really suffice in order to be able to hear an excellent statement. Like he says, it's not foreigners who are our enemies, for our enemies are [domestic] and they run and corrupt the government of the USA; as well as ally governments.
The still haven't even charged Osama bin Ladin for the 9-11 attacks, we can always add; while specifying to check the FBI website's Top Wanted list, where we find OBL, but NOT for 9-11 or anything since. If he's not charged, and he isn't, then we have a government that can't even officially or formally charge the man who was referred to as "mastermind" and head of the Al Qaeda that supposedly committed or was responsible for the 9-11 attacks, then this should help people understand that the government's based on bs and is highly suspect in its claims. They blame him and still, after over eight years, haven't charged him for what they blame him for. If people don't find this awfully suspect on the part of the government, then they're either awfully dumb, or they refuse to not live as awfully ignorant, arrogant, hypocritical people.
An FBI agent or officer told a questioning journalist that the reason that OBL hasn't been charged is because the FBI is not the authority for placing charges, the DoJ or Supreme Court is, and it has not ruled that OBL is guilty for the 9-11 attacks.
That is only one of the many enough things that can and should be said when explaining that the government's usage of WoT and GWoT is based on LIES and deceit.
Here is a picture of the new US Airport Security Screening in action.
http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,1210664_4,00.jpg
The guy in orange is hiding a .50 cal M2.....
When 15 Saudis succeeded in blowing up planes (according to the state-approved story, at least), the U.S. responded by razing Iraq.
Following this logic, it makes perfect sense to attack Yemen on behalf of a failed Nigerian criminal.
"USania has ALWAYS been at war with Yemen!"
Emmanuel Goldstien - Underpants Bomber
I think Obama is related to George Bush. Neither of them will admit it. I can understand that.
The power of a foreign war to unite all classes and make the poor stand in line to get screwed yet again has lost about 90% of it's potency.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Obama is related to both George Bush and Dick Cheney.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545460,BSX-News-wotreea09.article
Terrorism? You definitely don't want to miss reading this following piece.
"Obama's Bioweapons Program"
by Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling blog,
Dec 19, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16617
EXCERPT:
The Obama administration's recent declaration on bioweapons would simply be another run-of-the-mill example of our "change" president's duplicity were it not such an unmitigated disaster.
Recapitulating sinister Cold War practices that informed American ruling class consensus when it came to secretly toying with nature's most deadly pathogens, (a) because they could, (b) because it was, and is, highly profitable and (c) because they got with it, the profound failure by the administration to rein-in out-of-control corporate grifters, militarists and scientists thirsting after an endless flow of taxpayer dollars, have put us all on a potential glide path towards the abyss.
Since the roll-out of the Obama product-line January 21, on issues ranging from war and peace to economic justice and from civil liberties to healthcare, the "change" team exhibit the same callous disregard for disarmament proposals that characterized their Bushist predecessors in the Oval Office.
Nowhere is this reality so transparently delineated than by the administration's continuing efforts to derail plans to revitalize the moribund Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), rejecting binding verification protocols that would finally give the 1972 treaty teeth.
END OF EXCERPT
The rest of the article is a serious explanation of what's really going on with respect to U.S. bioweapons R&D, and it's very frigthening, but something all citizens really need to know about; including citizens who don't vote.
The "War on Terror" is a fairy story.
As such, it will begin or end when the narrator finds those gestures convenient.
Would we write of Hitler's invasion of Poland that "The struggle against Judaism has escalated?"
The _primary_ reason we invaded Afghanistan was because George Bush needed to become a "war president" in order to"save" his failing administration. Karl Rove made the decision.
The leader of the Taliban had offered to turn bin Laden over to the United States, and the reason Bush rejected the offer was because Rove decided Bush needed to invade, instead.
Bush probably would have lost in 2004 if he hadn't invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Before 9/11,his administration was well on its way to the bottom.
And if the antics of Pat Buchanan, Joe Lieberman, Peter Hoekstra, and other GOP pundits aren't depressing enough for you, get a load of today's major news analysis story about the underwear bomb plot in the Wall Street Journal.
The connection here is not just tying the would-be bomber to Yemen and a radical imam who had been in communication with the US soldier accused in the Fort Hood shootings. That's bad enough. Today, the spin in the Journal adds into the mix that Al Qaeda's franchise in Yemen includes many ex-Guantanamo detainees who were released in 2007 by the Bush administration, and unsuccessfully deprogrammed away from their insidious terrorist leanings by a high profile Saudi reentry program.
All of these linkages - from the Nigerian wannabe bomber to Obama's recent air strikes in Yemen to the Fort Hood massacre to the dangers of relaxing the mass detention/torture of Muslim detainees epitomized by the prison at Guantanamo - all of these dots exist, and are connected together, by anonymous national security experts, unnamed official sources speaking to the Journal about highly classified information only upon deep background. The script thus is neatly tailored, right down to its focus of ultimate political accountability upon Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama - those wimpy, soft on terrorism Democrats who are failing before our very eyes to keep America safe by naively abandoning the steadfast principles of the Bush/Cheney era.
Don't be surprized if in an upcoming news cycle there are calls to go well beyond the hysteria of Joe Lieberman.
If Iraq was yesterday's war, if Afghanistan is today's war, and Yemen is tomorrow's war, then real men want to march on to Lagos. There's oil in Nigeria, you know.
Bill from Saginaw