Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
A new research reveals that a secretive UK intelligence base was likely involved in the US military’s drone strike that assassinated Iran’s Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, among its other controversial targeted killings.
According to the research, it “was probable” that the targeted killing of General Soleimani – who headed the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards [IRG] – had been planned using information obtained from the Menwith Hill intelligence base, run by the UK Royal Air Force, in Yorkshire, The Guardian reported on Saturday.
The research, titled ‘Menwith Hill in 3D, Domes, Data and Drone Strikes,’ was presented at a special meeting of the Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign, which works to raise public awareness meant to make the facility accountable for its activities.
Menwith Hill, the report said, “acted as a foreign outpost of the US National Security Agency [NSA].”
The research also raised questions about whether British personnel on the site are involved in assisting deadly US drone strikes – in particular in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia.
“The involvement of the UK and Menwith Hill in an assassination that threatened to spark a war should be of great concern,” Barnaby Pace, an investigative journalist, wrote in the report in reference to General Soleimani’s assassination. “The UK government’s failure to assure the public that the base was not involved raises deep questions about the accountability for actions at the base.”
He also complained that the US and UK forces at Menwith Hill “operate beyond public scrutiny and accountability,” and that, unless there were change, “Orwellian surveillance systems and extrajudicial executions exposed in recent years will likely continue.”
“Intelligence programs at Menwith Hill have reportedly played a key role in operations to ‘eliminate’ people in Yemen, as part of a deadly drone bombing campaign that has resulted in dozens of civilian deaths in a country that neither the UK nor US has declared war with,” he added.
“Any US military activity or US security agency activity carried out at Menwith Hill [must] be carried out in such a way as to make those responsible fully accountable to the UK.”
Menwith Hill is the largest known overseas site of the NSA, with 600 US personnel and 500 British civilians on site.
The base is part of an eavesdropping network, able to collect data from hundreds of millions of emails and phone calls daily and of pinpointing phones on the ground, according to the files leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden. Information obtained can be used in “capture-kill” operations.
Late last year, a senior Iranian Judiciary official said British security services firm GS4 had been linked to General Soleimani’s assassination.
Agents of the company handed the information of General Soleimani and his entourage to the US as soon as they entered the Baghdad International Airport, outside of which the then Quds Force commander was murdered by the US drone raid, Tehran Prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr told Mizan on December 31, 2020.
General Soleimani was visiting Baghdad at the official invitation of the Iraqi government when he was assassinated, along with his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units, and their other companions.
Both commanders were highly popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for “ISIS” / “ISIL”] terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
The latest revelations have prompted calls from human rights campaigners for London to provide explanations on whether Yorkshire’s Menwith Hill base has been directly involved in the carrying out of US drone strikes.
There has been no official explanation as to why the countries, which include Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, were targeted by the ban
The flags of US, Israel, UAE and Bahrain are projected on the ramparts of Jerusalem’s Old City on 15 September 2020 in a show of support for Israeli normalisation deals (AFP)
The United Arab Emirates has stopped issuing new visas to citizens of 13 mostly Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen and Algeria.
According to Reuters, the decision was seen in a document issued by a state-owned business park, which was sent to companies operating in the park.
The document cited an immigration circular that came into effect on 18 November.
It said applications for new employment and visit visas had been suspended for nationals who are outside the UAE of the 13 countries – which also include Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Kenya, and Iraq – until further notice.
It was not clear if there were any exceptions to the ban.
The move comes in contrast to the UAE’s decision to waive visas for Israeli citizens following a controversial normalisation agreement signed in September. The agreement was perceived by Palestinian and Arab public opinion as an act of betrayal of the struggle against Israeli occupation.
The UAE’s Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.
A source briefed on the matter told Reuters the UAE had temporarily stopped issuing new visas to Afghans, Pakistanis and citizens of several other countries over security concerns.
The source did not say what those concerns were, but said the visa ban was expected to last for a short period.
Last week, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the UAE had stopped processing new visas for its citizens and those of some other countries.
It said it was seeking information from the UAE on the reason for the suspension, but that it thought it was related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Pakistani ministry and the source said those holding valid visas were not affected by the new restrictions and could enter the UAE.
The Iraqi foreign minister Mohammad Ali Al-Hakim announced that his country is going to officially demand Syria’s return to the Arab League, adding that most of the Arab countries underscored such a step.
Holding a press conference after the Arab foreign minister meeting, Al-Hakim said that all the Arab countries, except Qatar and Somalia, highlighted the importance of preserving Syria’s unity and integrity, denouncing the Turkish aggression.
“The enemy that we face is Russia, and the Patriot missiles are our response to the Iskander missiles (Russian – ed.)”
Macierewicz also thanked the deputy minister of defense Bartoszowi Kownackiemu for negotiating with the United States.
It is apparent that the Defense Minister of Poland is illiterate and doesn’t know anything about the technical characteristics of said missiles. Iskanders targeting Poland from Kaliningrad cannot be stopped by Patriot missiles.
Wild fires can potentially devastate a small rural community. That’s why it is excellent news that the Emergency Ministry and Russian Orthodox Church signed a Cooperation Agreement to work together on disaster relief, with the Church managing local teams of volunteers and the MCHS training and providing them with firefighting equipment. They will be training volunteer firefighters and nurses. The ongoing coordination of the volunteers will be done by the priests, and I would assume the local church councils.
Maybe in the near future, robots will be actively participating in firefighting.
Promobot came up with another entertaining video in which their robot “saves” a child. This is same company that released last year a video of their robot “escaping” a lab and wondering the streets.
I don't know how good they are in robot building, but they are really good at producing viral videos that everyone talks about.
News about the Church being in the middle of the countrywide efforts to fight fires and other natural and manmade disasters has been met by the predictable hysteric of the liberal media screaming something about the church being separated from the state.
It’s true, but it’s not separated from the life of the country and communities. And, it’s not like the liberals and other critics have a better idea how to organize firefighting everywhere in the country. No, they just like to report on devastating fires and floods and people in remote areas being powerless to deal with them.
Now, when the neo-liberal systemic and non-systemic opposition had failed so spectacularly, there is an ongoing effort to stirrup three virtual teams, White, Red and Blue, or fake “Christian patriots,” fake “monarchists” and fake “communists.” These are those who are going to try to destabilize the society this fall and next year spring for the presidential elections.
Some of the current and former priests like Vsevolod Chaplin, an agent provocateur, who was sacked from his position as the chairman of the Synodal Department for the Cooperation of Church and Society, makes the most outrages and bizarre statements using the name of the Church. What he says has nothing to do with Christianity and it throws some weak-minded individuals off their rockets. For example, he proposed to invite the ISIS, international anarchists, and other “freedom fighters” to relocate to Russia, in order to build a “ideal society.”
Poklonskaya, former Prosecutor General of Crimea, has also been making bizarre pro-monarchy statements; for example she just said that people who would watch an insulting neoliberal creation about Nicolai II will be banned by the Church. The Church even issued a statement saying that Poklonskaya was spreading fake news.
There are many people concerned about the agenda Natalia Poklonskaya is pushing forward, and they are looking into her background to see what’s there and why she acts this way, instead of being a productive member of the government and to do the job she is paid to do, instead of trying to destroy the country. So far, it looks like there are more questions than answers about this person, and how she came to be in Crimea from post-Maidan Kiev, and even her real identity.
Not to be outdone by Natalia Poklonskaya, whose close connections with a gang of fake Romanovs has become a true handicap of her working as an elected representative in the Duma, bishop Hilarion Alfeyev started making friendly noises towards the idea of restoration of monarchy. He, too, has been noticed as being very closed to the self-proclaimed heirs to the Russian throne.
Make no mistake, the calls for restoration of monarchy in Russia or for a “White color revolution” is an attempt to change its constitutional order and to topple its republican government, which is a criminal offense.
What’s there to be said about this idiotism if not a treason?
The Romanov’s relatives were known Hitler collaborators.
The Romanovs weren’t Russians. They were German, and Dutch.
Because they were foreigners who didn’t speak the Russian language and treated Russia as their personal colony, they were universally despised and hated by all people, including the old pre-Peter nobility. They led immoral lives and had enormous personal debts that they placed on the shoulders of the Russian people. They exchanged Russian territories like Alaska for their personal debt to the Rothschilds. They started an illegal war on Germany, in which 5.5 million Russian men perished. The list of their crimes goes on and on.
Nikolai and his family were arrested by the Mensheviks, and it was the Interim government that took the class on the Divine Law out of school programs. The country was rapidly becoming a failed state, and all they wanted to do was to prevent children from studying the Bible. And they were “the White team,” before the Red team showed up.
On March 9th 1917, the Synod issued a statement, “To the faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church about experiencing current events.” The message starts with the following: “God’s will has been done. Russia has embarked on a new life and statehood. May God bless our great Homeland with happiness and glory on its new path.”
So, it’s disingenuous for the Church employees to come out and to say that what had happened to Nikolai was a crime committed by the Russian nation. I cannot be charged with a crime committed by someone else, even if this someone else claims that they committed this crime in my name. And so no one else can’t blamed for the crime committed by the well known historical figures. This is if the crime was even committed. No one proved that it was. Right now we are all waiting for the results of the new investigation into the murder of the last tsar and his family to be completed and revealed.
The Romanovs were canonized along with their servants as saints by the Church for how they died, not how they lived.
If you want to know my opinion, the Romanovs should be charged for the crimes committed against the Russian nation, at least a court process would help us to settle the score. Maybe then, those people claiming to be the real Romanovs should be charged in the war crimes committed by this family during the WWI and their collaboration with Hitler during the WWII and made paid retribution to the Russian people whose relatives perished in this WWI and the WWII.
Let’s see how fast these wannabe monarchs/ slave holders will vanish.
President Putin said: “Thank God we are not a monarchy. Thank God Russia is a republic,”
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Another Russian programmer was kidnapped by the US on the territory of the third country and illegally transported to the US and being held for fictitious crimes.
The hunt for the Russian software engineers and abuse of those who already live in faraway lands has reached horrendous proportions.
I have wrote about programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who was nearly destroyed by his former employer Goldman Sachs, after he had designed for them the best high frequency trading algorithm.
Last year, Russia’s foreign ministry had issued a caveat emptor for all those young, talented engineers from Russia, to stay home until the dust from the falling US empire settles. But, being in a free country, they are not banned from traveling abroad. Some of them view themselves as liberals, and they don’t understand, until it’s too late, that it’s irrelevant what political views they hold, as long as they have the expertise that the US government needs. They travel to the NATO cesspools like the Baltic republics, where the laws has been effectively suspended, or they travel to CIA playgrounds like Singapore. The US kidnaps people of high value, just like Israel kidnaps Iranian physics, the Ukrainian SBU kidnaps rich individuals, and ISIS kidnaps journalists.
Yuri Martyshev has become the US latest victim. He is reportedly being held in a facility in Arlington, Virginia, where, by all accounts, other kidnapped programmers are being held. Guccifer comes to mind, also known as Marcel Lazăr. A Romanian gardener, who discovered Hillary Clinton’s illegal server installed in the basement of her house in Chappaqua, NY. He didn’t publish any of the found documents and emails. He just shared his discovery with his peers, and for that he has been jailed for years.
Knowing the modus operandus of CIA, it’s a fair game to assume that programmers snatched all over the world are being coerced and tortured into working for the US government in writing software programs. Judging by the former FBI director Comey complaining back in 2014 that they couldn’t find hackers to fire because they all smoke weed.
Considering the US state and non-state actors just steal anything of value with impunity, and considering that the Russian programmers are the best in the world, they are the high value targets. I have a sneaking suspicion that if the US won’t be able to kidnap them, it will try to kill them. So, staying home and traveling only to Russia’s allies is the best strategy for now.
Kaspersky Lab’ NoRansom will help you to get your files back
By now everyone with at least half a brain knows that the US government and its affiliates use buzzwords like “fight for democracy and freedom” as a cover up of its illegal wars against the world nations in order to pillage them off their national wealth.
It’s remarkable how they don’t even try to hide their two-tier ideology, one tier for plebs and another for themselves.
For example, this week the US government owned and funded NPR radio announces as news that a war is taking place in Yemen “between the Yemen government and the Houthi rebels.”
This being said at the same time as ghoulish Robert D. Kaplan says that for the US Yemen is “a comfortable place to have a proxy war.”
He talks about an advantage that the US had when the infrastructure of the Soviet Union, Europa and China had been dissipated during the WWII. This helped America to become the global empire.
He also talks about utter economic devastation of America today.
Despite that, he says that “America is fated to lead the world” and that “America has moral responsibility to lead.”
“America has experience in nation building that’s why it has the moral responsibility to lead.”
Based on Somalia and Bosnia
“If you declare and indentify human tights catastrophe somewhere to the American people… The American people, even trump’s people, they will feel compassionate, they will feel concern, they are not bad people, or heartless people, and that may gets the troops there to help the human rights problem. But the minute you start taking casualties, you better be able to articulate the naked national interest in a fifteen second soundbyte, or else the public will desert you in a second.”
“That’s the balance that you have to maintain. Humanitarian interests, which are the bla-blabs to get for you troops there in place, but it won’t keep them there without naked national interests.”
“Even if you don’t have an argument for robust intervention, you staffed out problems in advance. You have an assistant secretary, deputy assistant secretaries, undersecretary, who have an articulated policy response to things that could have been predicted in the first place. Even if cannot intervene in a robust satisfying way, there is always other things that you can do with your allies.”
About the Pentagon taking control over Trump’s policy at 18:00:
“This has been going on for the last twenty-five years. It’s been a gradual process of the pentagon overtaking the state department. It’s actually because in so many situation, actually carrying out policy, involved some military action or another, even if it’s non violent.
“It may not be healthy to have the military so front and center, but they is all we have got.”
The most notable expressions from the video:
At 21:00
“America lacks the ability to set complex Islamic societies to rights in the correct direction.”
“Policy elite, which doesn’t seem to learn and wanted to go into Syria in a big way. They toppled the dictator in Libya, who has given up his WMDs, who is cooperating with American and other Western intelligence services. As bad and oppressive as he was has kept the country that was never really a country together.”
About the cost associated with the foreign policy establishment has become too large, the globe has become too flabby and America being overly adventures, and America being perceived as too weak and not as effective
At 23:00 The American foreign policy establishment has become bigger and bigger because of the economic prosperity, and it had the emergence of the policy class, who all grew up wealthy, and in nice suburbs, many of them never served in the military, they didn’t have an experience of witnessing the war or cover war, And their entire careers and they economic self-interest was tied up with America projective power in a big way. And Trump has essentially saying that these people have failed us.”
About Jaksonian impulse (after Andrew Jackson)
At 24:00
“What is Jalsonian impulse dumbed down… We are not in a business of promoting democracy around the world. That’s not what we do. We are not going to set up little Americas around the world… We are not going to tell you how to live your life, but don’t tell us how to live our life. And if you humiliate us, or hurt us, we will hunt you down and kill you.”
About the North Korea at 25:00
“The North Korean hatred directed against Japan, not South Korea.”
“North Korea as a weaker economy and military will be taken over by the South Korea.”
In reality is the opposite, The North Korea has huge mineral resources, estimated to be at $10 trillion. North Korea has booming economy, while South Korea has a weak economy that is failing.
“President Obama sent very unhelpful signal when he toppled Kaddafi. because Kaddafi had given up his WMD, and we toppled him any way. That sent a signal to North Korea, don’t give up your WMDs. because that’s the only thing that is protecting this regime.”
By bombing Syria and dropping bombs in Afghanistan, we sent a signal that we relish the projection of power in a way that Obama administration did not.”
At 30:00 about having a proxy war with Iran in Yemen.
“Yemen is a safe place to have a proxy war.”
The US is concern that Iran will gain a control over the strategic chock point of the Red Sea. Especially considering that the is a Chinese military base in Djibouti on t the other side of the Red Sea very nearby.
“Yemen is impossible to rule country. It’s has never been cohesive”.
It’s monologue of a cannibal discussing other countries like a meat market.
Kaplan’s monologue is a manifestation of evil in its most horrifying, simple, completely devote of compassion to humanity, psychopathic form.
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Exclusive: Seymour Hersh Dishes on New Exposé Upending the Official Story
About Trump and Syrian Chemical Attacks (Interview)
“Relying on a high-level adviser to the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency as his source, Hersh punched holes in the official narrative of the chemical attack, reporting that the Syrian bombing had actually targeted a high-level jihadi meeting with conventional munitions and warned the U.S. government of the strike beforehand, using a deconfliction channel.”
AJC Global Forum June 2017
Bernard-Henri Lévy about the strength of the Jewish community :
“Jews have been for so long weak, shy, as we say in French “hugging the walls,” being in the shadow. And, one of the peculiarity of our times, for Jews all over the world, Europe, Israel and America, is that this behavior is finished.The strength, which we are committed to, is a political strength. is when it’s needed a military strength, but above all, it’s a spiritual, intellectual strength.”.
Bill Kristol, Editor-at-Large, The Weekly Standard, joined French author Bernard-Henri Lévy and MK Tzipi Livni for the “A Jewish Lens on Global Trends” panel at the AJC AJC Global Forum 2017, exploring the geopolitical developments shaping our world and what they mean for the Jewish community.
Power, Politics, and Putin Russia’s Role in Today’s World Order Video
During the 2016 presidential election, a new term entered the lexicon of political pundits—kompromat, incriminating material on a public figure compiled for purposes of blackmail. And that was just the beginning. From Russia’s role in Syria and Ukraine to its support for far-right nationalist parties in Europe and its alleged hack of the DNC email system, it is no wonder Russian President Vladimir Putin was dubbed “the world’s most powerful man” by Fareed Zakaria. To help us understand what Russia wants and what strategies it will employ to get it, during this AJC Global Forum 2017 session hear from three experts: Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus, NYU and Princeton; Julia Ioffe, Staff Writer, The Atlantic; and Andrew Weiss, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Moderater Jason Isaacson, AJC Associate Executive Director for Policy. Introduction by Steven Zelkowitz, AJC Executive Council.
Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism (Video)
“Remember The Jackson–Vanik (1975) sanction that were placed on the Soviet Union, according to them the SU couldn’t trade with the US on favorable conditions? Those sanctions were placed until the Soviet Union would let the Jews to go.”
“Years later, more Jews are coming to Russia, then they are leaving, but those sanctions are still in place.”
[ Remarkably, the AJC: Global Jewish Advocacy forum has been mostly about Russia. Should we take the words of Bernard-Henri Lévy as a threat? Scott]
“Thirty-eight years later, the Soviet Union no longer exists, there is visa-free travel between Russia and Israel, and daily flights connect Moscow and Tel Aviv. Many formerly Soviet Jewish émigrés have returned to Russia to work, albeit in most cases without Russian citizenship. While Jackson-Vanik remains on the books, Russia has been certified as being in compliance with that law by successive U.S. administrations every year since 1994. Thus, for almost two decades Jackson-Vanik has persisted as a relic of the Cold War era, surviving statutorily mostly due to inertia. Aside from occasional remonstrations from Moscow—which still bridles at the perceived stigmatization—Jackson-Vanik has had little material impact on the course of post–Cold War U.S.-Russia relations and, therefore, there has been no compelling reason to remove Russia from the scope of that law.”
Subscribe to Vesti News https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8M… Russian weapons in Syria demonstrate reliability and great possibilities, so it’s important to carefully analyze and use Syrian combat experience when creating new weapons. Vladimir Putin set this task at a meeting of the Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation. The President expressed his special gratitude to the developers of the Kh-101 cruise missile.
The BMPT-72 fighting vehicle is undergoing tests in Syria. It will most likely go into mass production and join the Russian Armed Forces in the near future. On June 27, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the Khmeimim Russian base, where he was shown the newest Russian BMPT-72 (aka Terminator-2) armored fighting vehicle. The vehicle was invented to protect tanks from rocket attacks in an urban environment. The Russian Ministry of Defense recently sent a single combat BMPT-72 to Syria to test the vehicle and decide its future. Details of the Terminator-2’s mission in Syria are unclear. It may participate both in guarding Khmeimim, and in battles in Syrian towns and cities…
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Russian Spetsnaz”Alpha” & ”Vympel” Vs. international terrorists
President Donald Trump signaled to the nations of the Middle East and Muslim world that he strongly backs radical Sunni Islam, mostly embodied by Saudi Arabia’s brand of Wahhabism, over the emerging moderate Shi’ism on display in Iran. Trump’s first visit to another country as president was Saudi Arabia. Trump was also the only president to make Saudi Arabia his first stop after taking office. The decision to honor Saudi Arabia with such U.S. presidential protocol was a calculated one.
Trump’s first official act after he landed in Riyadh was to ink a $300 billion arms package with Saudi Arabia. The United States agreed to supply the Saudis with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system, maritime littoral combat ships for close-in shore combat, and so-called «precision-guided munitions» responsible for so many civilian «collateral damage» deaths in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan.
Considering the Wahhabist kingdom’s past and current support for the very same radical jihadists who are committing acts of terrorism in Syria, Yemen, and other nations, it is hypocritical that Trump claimed the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are «jointly» battling against terrorism. It was as if, in the leadup to World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler and FDR proclaimed from the Reich Chancellery that he and Nazi Germany were jointly fighting against anti-Semitism.
Ironically, as Trump was praising Saudi Arabia’s «efforts» against jihadist terrorism, Iran overwhelmingly re-elected moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani ran on a platform of bestowing more freedoms on the Iranian people and opening the country to the rest of the world. A day after Trump’s anti-Iran speech in Riyadh, reformists won all 21 seats in Tehran’s municipal election. Across the board, Iranians, particularly women and minority religious groups, enjoy many more rights than do the Saudi Arabs. Whereas in Iran, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians can worship openly and even enjoy representation in parliament, across the Persian Gulf, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists are banned from constructing churches or temples and displaying religious symbols. Donald Trump’s ignorance of Middle Eastern religions is a severe and dangerous handicap for an American president.
While the Saudi princelings are free to get drunk, use drugs, and heinously abuse women behind their palace walls, standing immune to the whims of the mutawa religious police, the rank and file of Saudi Arabia live in a country governed by centuries-old laws embracing misogyny, public beheadings, and religious persecution. While women are banned from driving vehicles and movie theaters are prohibited in Saudi Arabia, across the Persian Gulf in Iran, women drive freely and Iran has a vibrant movie industry and numerous theaters as attested to by that nation’s winning of several international film awards, including Hollywood’s Oscar.
Trump waxed on about moderate Islam in the capital city of the country that gave birth to Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia has nurtured with its financing, propaganda, government-subsidized clerics, and other support jihadist groups from Morocco to Indonesia and Fiji to Trinidad. Trump had the gall and audacity to accuse Iran of funding terrorists and promoting a «craven ideology,» i.e., Shi’ism.
Trump’s speech was largely written by Stephen Miller, a right-wing strongly pro-Israel creature of Santa Monica, California and an acolyte of the Islamophobe extremist David Horowitz. Trump’s speech in Riyadh did nothing to bridge the differences between Islam and his administration and everything to do with laying down a gauntlet to not only Shi’ism but the Alawite, Zaidi, Sufi, Alevi, Ibadi, Ahmadiyya, and Ismaili sects of Islam. Trump even managed to slip the phrase «Islamic extremism» into his speech rather than the less offensive «Islamist extremism». Even though a committed Islamophobe, Miller, wrote the speech, Trump’s spokespeople in Saudi Arabia insisted that the president was merely «exhausted» from his trip and that is why he said «Islamic extremism».
Trump called for the end of the Iranian and Syrian «regimes» and the international isolation of both. Trump’s speech, if it had not been written by Miller, could have easily been written by any Saudi or Israeli government propagandist.
Trump’s previous meeting in the White House with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave American sanction to the Ankara government’s war against secular Islam as envisaged by Kemal Ataturk. In a massive psychological warfare operation, Trump, who proclaimed his hostility to «radical Islamist terrorism» prior to his trip to Saudi Arabia and embrace of Erdogan, has, instead, embraced it.
Trump told his Saudi hosts and the Wahhabi potentates from Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait who gathered in Riyadh that «the path to peace begins right here». Riyadh was also the path crossed by many of the terrorists who have attacked the United States and other nations, including on September 11, 2001. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, whose nation was called a «promoter of terrorism» by Trump in Riyadh, issued a call for Trump to discuss with his Saudi friends ways to avoid them sponsoring another September 11th-like attack.
Trump’s rhetoric against Iran, Hezbollah, the Syrian government, the Yemeni Houthis, Hamas, and, given Trump’s strong support for the Bahraini Wahhabist regime, the majority Shi’as of Bahrain, could be taken as a call to arms for continued Saudi, Bahraini, Yemeni, Libyan, Syrian, Iraqi, Emirati, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Pakistani, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Sudanese repression of non-Sunnis within their countries. Trump signaled his support for continued Bahraini repression of its Shi’as by stating that the United States and Bahrain «have a wonderful relationship together, but there has been a little strain, but there won’t be strain with this administration».
Trump, in language befitting a religious fanatic, lumped together Shi’a Iran and Lebanese Shi’a members of Hezbollah with radical Sunni Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and exhorted the Arab and Muslim leaders gathered in Riyadh to «Drive them out! Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy land. And drive them out of this Earth».
In a display of sheer hypocrisy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged $100 million to Trump’s daughter’s «Women Entrepreneurs Fund». During the presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton, Trump tweeted biting criticism of the Clinton Fund, which received from Saudi Arabia and the UAE only about 25 percent of that received by the Ivanka Fund. Trump wrote, «Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all the money from such countries!» For Trump. It was only an outrage when the Clintons accepted donations from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Yet, when Ivanka Trump received three times as much money from the same countries, Trump was effusive in his praise of them. If Ivanka Trump wanted to help women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia, she could have told old King Salman to let them drive cars first.
Trump actually referred to Iran as a «terrorist safe harbor». Trump and his speech writer Miller completely ignored the fact that it was Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati funding, military, and other support that permitted the creation of Islamic State and other jihadist «safe harbors» in Raqqa, Syria; Mosul, Iraq; Derna, Libya; and Mukalla, South Yemen. While standing before Saudi, Turkish, and Qatari officials, Trump called Syrian President Bashar al Assad a «war criminal,» ignoring the fact that the Saudis, Turks, Qataris, and their client jihadist groups committed countless war crimes in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya.
At the end of his speech, Trump slipped and called King Salman «King Solomon». Trump, whose command of Biblical history is wanting, may want to know that King Solomon was known for wisdom and fairness. There was nothing wise or fair in Trump’s speech in Riyadh.
President Donald J. Trump closed out his first hundred days in office on April 29. Not marked by any notable achievements, Trump’s first hundred days did yield an impressive and ever-lengthening list of scandals.
And war crimes. During his short time in office, Trump has racked up an impressive list of war crimes. Congratulations, Mr. President!
Where to begin? Nine days after Trump’s Inauguration, US Navy SEALs together with elite troops from the United Arab Emirates descended on the village of Yaklaa in the Yemeni governorate of Bayda. At the time, the White House said that the mission’s objective was to enter a compound controlled by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and gather intelligence by grabbing computers and cell phones. It was not until a week later that US military officials stated that the prime objective of the raid was to capture or kill AQAP emir Qassim al-Rimi.
The January 29 raid was executed with the same meticulous care President Trump brings to all facets of his administration. What was conceived as a swift there-and-gone operation descended into an hour-long firefight with AQAP, bodies everywhere, and the loss of a $70 million MV-22 Osprey aircraft.
Two deaths stand out. One was the Trump Administration’s first combat fatality: 36- year old Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens.
The second was an 8-year old American citizen, Nawar Al-Awlaki. Nawar’s father was the US-born cleric and Al-Qaeda recruiter and propagandist, Anwar Al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was assassinated in a US drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011. Shortly afterwards, Nawar’s 16-year old brother Abdulrahman was also killed by a US drone, probably inadvertently.
Thanks to the US, the Awlakis—father, son, and daughter—are together again. It’s too bad the Awlakis can’t thank the Pentagon themselves.
Civilian Fatalities
Trump has killed enormous numbers of civilians in drone strikes, attacks by manned aircraft, and ground assaults. Many of these attacks have taken place far from any battlefield, in places such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. International humanitarian law (IHL), however, restricts the use of military force to areas of “armed conflict.”[1] Jeanne Mirer, President of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and co-chair of the International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, observes that the United States is not involved in an armed conflict with Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.[2] Nor has any of these countries attacked the United States. If any of them had, that would have triggered the United States’ right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
President George W. Bush maintained that the “armed conflict” against terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda extended over the entire world. That would have allowed Bush to launch attacks anywhere he pleased. The World Is a Battlefield, the subtitle of investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s 2013 book Dirty Wars, encapsulates this notion.[3] Barack Obama and Donald Trump, have likewise believed that there are no limits to their power to project force anywhere in the world.
But even when an armed conflict does exist, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, other principles of IHL must be observed.
Under the principle of discernment, civilians are not to be deliberately targeted. (There is an exception for civilians who “directly participate in hostilities.”) Precautions must be taken to minimize civilian casualties.
The principle of proportionality prohibits using excessive force in achieving a legitimate military objective. To simplify greatly, you cannot kill one hundred innocents in order to kill one terrorist.
Large numbers of civilians have been killed in US attacks. Fourteen militants died in Trump’s January 29 raid in Yemen, but US forces also killed twenty-five civilians, including women and nine children under the age of 13—these figures from the independent Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Not killed was AQAP leader Qassim al-Rimi, the object of the raid. Al-Rimi got away, later mocking Trump on video as a “fool.”
Trump’s worst slaughter of civilians is the March 17, 2017 US airstrike on west Mosul in Iraq which killed 200+ civilians. The Iraqi government had told the residents of Mosul, then under occupation by ISIS, to remain indoors. The US knew or ought to have known west Mosul’s residents were in harm’s way.
War Crimes by Remote Control: Targeted Assassinations by Drone
President Barack Obama had launched ten times as many killer drone strikes as President George W. Bush. Donald Trump looks set to top Obama’s record.
Micah Zenko is an expert on drone strikes at the Council on Foreign Relations. In a March 2 tweet, Zenko calculated that Obama conducted a drone strike every 5.4 days; Trump has upped the rate to a drone strike every 1.6 days.
Again, apart from Iraq and Afghanistan, US drone strikes take place outside areas of armed conflict. Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, who teaches law and conflict resolution at the University of Notre Dame, writes: “[T]he law absolutely prohibits … targeted killing beyond armed conflict zones.”
There are some differences between how Obama and Trump have used drones. President Obama took most drone strikes out of the CIA’s hands. Instead, Obama left most drone strikes to the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Trump has brought the CIA back into the picture.
Obama set certain restrictions on drone strikes outside war zones, such as requiring “near certainty” that civilians will not be injured or killed. Trump’s National Security Council is considering abandoning the Obama era restrictions.
Still, Obama was not over-scrupulous in who qualified as a civilian. Any military-age male in an area where terrorists were active was presumed to be a terrorist himself. Many victims, under Obama as well as Trump, have been children: “fun-size terrorists” as some drone pilots call them. US drones have attacked weddings and funerals. “Double-tap” strikes fire on first responders hurrying to aid people wounded in a drone’s initial strike.
In a just world, Bush, Obama, and Trump would share a cell at The Hague. Obama largely escaped criticism from the liberal left for his drone strikes because, as Mike Whitney observes: “[L]iberals always sleep while their man is in office.” Whitney might have added that liberals will go back to sleep once the Republicans are out of the White House.
Escalating the Illegal US War in Syria
On April 4, a suspected sarin gas attack killed more than 70 people in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun. Who launched the attack—rebels or the Syrian government—still hasn’t been proven. Does it matter? Those 70 people are just as dead no matter who killed them. All of the belligerents in Syria have committed war crimes, including the United States. The antiwar movement holds firm to its demand that the US withdraw from Syria now.
Donald Trump, not a man plagued by doubt, was certain that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was the culprit. On April 7, 59 US Tomahawk cruise missiles pounded a government airfield in Syria while Trump was eating chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago with the President of China. Whether the US attack accomplished anything is unclear; Syrian military aircraft were taking off from the field a few days later. At nearly $1.59 million for each Tomahawk missile, Trump would have achieved the same end result if he had burned $93 million on the White House lawn.
It suddenly occurred to the American public that the US was at war in Syria. It seems to have escaped Americans’ notice that the US has been bombing ISIS in Syria since September 23, 2014 and in Iraq since August 8, 2014. According to Airwars.org, which monitors Coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, 3,530 civilians have been killed as of May 16. Also overlooked was the fact that Obama had sent Special Operations Forces to both countries to fight ISIS. So has Trump. According to Professor Marjorie Cohn, as of April 5 there were close to a thousand US Special Ops forces, Marines, and Rangers in northern Syria. The Trump Administration plans to up that number.
The Syrian government, needless to say, has refused consent to both US bombing and the presence of US troops within its borders. (In sharp contrast, Russian military forces are in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government.) US military involvement in Syria is, thus, prima facie a violation of international law. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter requires states to “refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Article 51 provides an exception for self-defense “if an armed attack occurs” (and then only “until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”). Syria has not attacked the United States. Not even the Trump Administration has claimed that the April 7 attack was made defensively. Instead, the Trump Administration said that the purpose of the US attack was to deter future uses of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. That makes the April 7 attack a reprisal. Reprisals are forbidden under international law. Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, one of the foremost authorities on the use of force under international law, quotes the 1970 UN Declaration on Friendly Relations which says: “States have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force.”
In theory, US attacks on Syria expose Obama and Trump to prosecution for “waging aggressive war,” the principal charge against the Nazis at Nuremberg. George W. Bush, of course, would face the same charge for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I say “in theory” because what court would try them? President George W. Bush “unsigned” the treaty that created the International Criminal Court. (And we thought Bush was stupid.) In the 1990s, the UN Security Council created ad hoc criminal tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The US would veto any attempt to create an ad hoc tribunal empowered to try US leaders for war crimes in Syria.
There have been no prosecutions under the federal War Crimes Act which criminalizes “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. In fact, President Barack Obama expressly ruled out prosecuting officials from the George W. Bush Administration.
Trump’s actions are by no means a sharp break with the past. War crimes are how the Pentagon rolls. Noam Chomsky has stated that if the standards of the Nuremberg Trials were applied, every American president since World War Two would have been hanged as a war criminal. Something to think about.
Notes.
[1] IHL is the branch of international law which “prescribes rules for the conduct of war.” The sources for IHL are primarily the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 together with their two Additional Protocols. The central concern of IHL is protection of civilians. Jeanne Mirer, US Policy of Targeted Killing with Drones: Unsafe at Any Speed, inDRONES AND TARGETED KILLING: LEGAL, MORAL, AND GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES (Marjorie Cohn, ed. 2015) at pages 136, 138.
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