WASHINGTON — For years, the American military has sought to distance itself from a brutal civil war in Yemen, where Saudi-led forces are battling rebels who pose no direct threat to the United States, but late last year, a team of about a dozen Green Berets arrived on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen, in a continuing escalation of America’s secret wars.
With virtually no public discussion or debate, the Army commandos are helping locate and destroy caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that Houthi rebels in Yemen are using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.
Details of the Green Beret operation, which has not been previously disclosed, were provided to The New York Times by United States officials and European diplomats.
They appear to contradict Pentagon statements that American military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is limited to aircraft refueling, logistics and general intelligence sharing.
Oh, the Pentagon lied to us again. SOP.
There is no indication that the American commandos have crossed into Yemen as part of the secretive mission, but sending American ground forces to the border is a marked escalation of Western assistance to target Houthi fighters who are deep in Yemen.
Beyond its years as a base for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has been convulsed by civil strife since 2014, when the Shiite Muslim rebels from the country’s north stormed the capital, Sana. The Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, ousted the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the Americans’ main counterterrorism partner in Yemen.
In 2015, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia began bombing the Houthis, who have responded by firing missiles into the kingdom. Yet there is no evidence that the Houthis directly threaten the United States; they are an unsophisticated militant group with no operations outside Yemen and have not been classified by the American government as a terrorist group.
About those missiles, the videos appear to show the kingdom being "yet another country overstating the capability of the missile defense system, a tradition dating back to the 1991 Gulf War."
So LYING is now a TRADITION when it comes to WAR PROFITEERING, according to the NYT!
That explains all the coverage before and since dating back centuries!
The Green Berets, the Army’s Special Forces, deployed to the border in December, weeks after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen sailed close to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudi military said it intercepted the missile over the city’s international airport — a claim that was cast in doubt by an analysis of photos and videos of the strike, but it was enough for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to renew a longstanding request that the United States send troops to help the kingdom combat the Houthi threat.
A half-dozen officials — from the United States military, the Trump administration, and European and Arab nations — said the American commandos are training Saudi ground troops to secure their border. They also are working closely with American intelligence analysts in Najran, a city in southern Saudi Arabia that has been repeatedly attacked with rockets, to help locate Houthi missile sites within Yemen.
Along the porous border, the Americans are working with surveillance planes that can gather electronic signals to track the Houthi weapons and their launch sites, according to the officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the mission publicly.
During a meeting on Capitol Hill in March, senators pressed Pentagon officials about the military’s role in the Saudi-led conflict, demanding to know whether American troops were at risk of entering into hostilities against the Houthis.
Pentagon officials told the senators what had already been said publicly: that American forces stationed in Saudi Arabia only advised within the kingdom’s borders and were focused mostly on border defense.
“We are authorized to help the Saudis defend their border,” Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of United States Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 13. “We are doing that through intelligence sharing, through logistics support and through military advice that we provide to them.”
On April 17, Robert S. Karem, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States had about 50 military personnel in Saudi Arabia, “largely helping on the ballistic missile threat.”
The Green Berets have stepped in to deal with an increasingly difficult problem for the Saudi military. Their presence is the latest example of the expanding relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia under President Trump and Prince Mohammed.
Mr. Trump’s first overseas trip after taking office was to Riyadh, nearly one year ago. By contrast, President Barack Obama regularly criticized Saudi Arabia for civilian casualties inflicted by its bombing campaign in Yemen, and blocked arms sales to the kingdom.
DID HE?
That is certainly not what I remember from his eight years in office!
Must have been after he poured over the drone kill lists brought to him by Brennan before he told him who to go bomb.
In March, as Prince Mohammed met with Mr. Trump and top national security officials in Washington, the State Department approved the sale of an estimated $670 million in anti-tank missiles in an arms package that also included spare parts for American-made tanks and helicopters that Saudi Arabia previously purchased.
“Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they’re going to give the United States some of that wealth hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
He called Prince Mohammed “more than the crown prince now” and displayed a poster featuring military aircraft worth $12.5 billion that the United States had agreed to sell to Saudi Arabia.
Officials said American support for the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels, a campaign that includes the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt, was initially outlined in a 2015 document known as the Rice memo, named after Susan E. Rice, who was then Mr. Obama’s national security adviser.
That's why it was one of Obama's wars, along with Syria and Libya. He owns them.
The memo detailed military assistance and was intended to keep the United States out of offensive operations against the Houthis, focusing instead on helping the Saudis secure their border.
?????
Under the Trump administration, the scope of those guidelines appears to have grown — as evidenced by the addition of American surveillance planes and the Green Beret team.....
Yeah, remember the raid?
--more--"
Related: US forces quietly open covert front in Yemen
That was when?
Also see:
Suspected US airstrike kills 4 Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen
The battle for the port of Hodeida must be going badly because the Globe has been silent on it for over a month as the Saudis plod on in Yemen.
Mysterious Attack on Saudi Oil Tanker
Related: Yemen is the Future of War
"Future wars may depend as much on algorithms as on ammunition, report says" by Christian Davenport Washington Post December 03, 2017
WASHINGTON — As it seeks to develop the technologies of the next war amid a technological arms race with China, the Defense Department has steadily increased spending in three key areas: artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, according to a recent report.
Investment in those areas increased to $7.4 billion last year, up from $5.6 billion five years ago, according to Govini, a data science and analytics firm, and it appears likely to grow as the armed services look to transform how they train, plan, and fight.
‘‘Rapid advances in artificial intelligence — and the vastly improved autonomous systems and operations they will enable — are pointing toward new and more novel warfighting applications involving human-machine collaboration and combat teaming,’’ Robert Work, the former deputy secretary of defense, wrote in an introduction to the report. ‘‘These new applications will be the primary drivers of an emerging military-technical revolution.’’
The United States ‘‘can either lead the coming revolution, or fall victim to it,’’ he added.
In an interview, Work, who serves on Govini’s board, said the advancements in technology are transforming war just as the advent of the rifle, telegraph, and railroad did generations ago. Much of the current work is being driven by companies with large presences in the Washington area, including Leidos, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, CACI, and SAIC, according to the report.
Service members are using virtual reality to simulate battle conditions in training. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been investing in better computing power designed to handle vast amounts of data, including quantum computing and what’s known as neuromorphic engineering, helping to develop incredibly complex computing systems designed to mimic biological systems.
There are signs that AI and human-machine collaboration are already making their way into American weaponry and its intelligence apparatus. The Pentagon is working toward using drones as the wingmen of fighter jets and ships, which can probe into enemy territory on their own. The Marine Corps has been testing cargo helicopters that can fly autonomously and that would allow Marines, using a tablet, to ‘‘easily request supplies even to austere or dangerous environments,’’ according to the Office of Naval Research.
The stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, with 8 million lines of code, is called a ‘‘flying computer’’ that is as much a sensor in the skies as it is a fighter jet, officials say. As an example, officials point to how F-35s communicate with one another on their own. If one jet in a sortie detects an enemy fighter on its radar that is out of the range of the other F-35s along with it, that information is automatically relayed to the other jets.
Another example is Project Maven, a computing system being designed to sift through the massive troves of data and video captured by surveillance and then alert human analysts of patterns or when there is abnormal or suspicious activity.
The technology in robotics is fast improving, as well. In 2015, when DARPA sponsored a challenge to test how robots could navigate certain obstacles, many of the semiautonomous machines tumbled and fell, crashing in sometimes comical fashion. But last month, Boston Dynamics released a stunning video that showed a humanoid robot doing a back flip off a raised platform and landing on its feet, but despite those advancements, the Pentagon and others are worried that the United States is not moving fast enough.
‘‘The bad news is our competitors aren’t standing still,’’ Work said.
China, in particular, has been investing heavily in AI, defense analysts say.
‘‘China intends to seize the initiative to become the ‘premier global AI innovation center’ by 2030, potentially surpassing the United States in the process,’’ according to a recent report by the Center for a New American Security.
That should serve as a call-to-arms ‘‘Sputnik moment,’’ Work said. ‘‘I personally believe that a national challenge like this has to be met with a national response,’’ he said.
For the past several years, the Pentagon has been wooing Silicon Valley firms that have driven much of the innovation, but have traditionally been loath to work within the Pentagon’s plodding and cumbersome bureaucracy.
In September, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan wrote in a memo that he was ‘‘directing aggressive steps to establish a culture of experimentation, adaptation and risk-taking to ensure we are employing emerging technologies to meet our warfighters’ needs and to increase speed and agility technology development and procurement.’’
He also signed a directive to accelerate the development of cloud computing for the Pentagon, which he said ‘‘is critical to maintaining our military’s technological advantage.’’
--more--"
If I find any more twists and turns (I thought those were rare) the last three months I will update below.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
What I was expecting to see in the Globe, but didn't find:
Dozens of victims in reported Saudi-led coalition bombing of Yemen
Dozens killed in Saudi-led strikes on Yemen's Hodeidah
At least 55 Yemenis killed in Saudi strikes on hospital, fishing harbor
In Yemen Saudi Bombs Kill 55 in Hodeidah Hospital
US-Backed Saudi Airstrike on Family With Nine Children
Children main victims of Saudi war on Yemen
Did you see where I had to go to see it?
Thankfully, they are again talking peace. Israel must want that oil (if it wasn't going there, he wouldn't have reacted that way!)
As promised yesterday, I scoured the months worth of papers and all I could find in addition to what has been posted above was this one small item:
Children main victims of Saudi war on Yemen
Did you see where I had to go to see it?
Thankfully, they are again talking peace. Israel must want that oil (if it wasn't going there, he wouldn't have reacted that way!)
As promised yesterday, I scoured the months worth of papers and all I could find in addition to what has been posted above was this one small item:
"In Yemen, 46 detainees released from UAE-controlled prison" Associated press July 04, 2018
CAIRO— Their mothers and sisters cried with joy and women from the neighborhood ululated as 46 Yemeni detainees walked free on Tuesday after months or years spent in detention in one of several prisons controlled by the United Arab Emirates in southern Yemen.
It was the third batch of prisoners released after the Associated Press revealed that hundreds of Yemenis swept up in antiterror raids by Emirati-backed forces have been subjected to torture and sexual abuse aimed at brutalizing the detainees and extracting ‘‘confessions’’ as part of a US-backed antiterror campaign.
The pre$$ was not wanting to remember that much with that sanitized account.
Images posted on social media show the freed men grinning and flashing V signs for victory as their loved ones and neighbors hugged and kissed them in the southern port city of Aden.
The saga of the detainees from the Beir Ahmed prison is linked to the brutal civil war that has roiled the Arab world’s poorest country, where a Saudi-led coalition, of which the UAE is a leading member, is at war with Iran-aligned rebels known as Houthis, who control the capital.
Prosecutor Mohammed Ali Saleh confirmed the release of the 46 on Tuesday without elaborating, while the detainees gave the media a list with their names. Among them was 23-year-old Saddam al-Azazi, held since June of last year. His mother said that she fainted when she heard the news, and that her daughters had to carry her to see him.
Other prisoners despaired at not being included among those released, with one trying to kill himself by taking pills, according to witnesses. Prison officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Why would he try and kill himself?
--more--"
If an American were treated that way, would it be alarming?
You may not want to remember this, but.....
FLASHBACK:
"Yemen to investigate alleged rights abuses by UAE, US" by Ahmed Al-Haj Associated Press June 24, 2017
SANA, Yemen — Yemen’s government on Saturday ordered the creation of a committee to investigate allegations of human rights violations, following reports that US military interrogators worked with forces from the United Arab Emirates who are accused of torturing detainees in Yemen.
The order, issued by Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid bin Daghr, said the investigation would focus on areas liberated by government forces from Shi’ite rebels known as the Houthis and their allies.
The six-member committee will be chaired by Justice Minister Jamal Mohamed Omar and include representatives from the Human Rights Ministry, security agencies, and the prosecution. It will immediately start work and have 15 days to conclude its investigation and report back to bin Daghr.
An Associated Press investigation detailed a network of secret prisons across southern Yemen where hundreds are detained in the hunt for Al Qaeda militants. American defense officials said US forces have interrogated some detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in, or knowledge of, human rights abuses.
And you thought all those disappeared after Bush.
Defense officials said the department had looked into reports of torture and concluded that its personnel were not involved or aware of any abuses.
The American officials confirmed that the United States provides questions to the Emiratis and receives transcripts of their interrogations. The officials said the United States also provides information to the UAE on suspected Al Qaeda militants that the United States believes should be apprehended or questioned.
Do the transcripts include the screams, and if the U.S. government is providing information it is an accessory to the crime.
The 18 lockups mentioned in the AP investigation are run by the UAE and by Yemeni forces it created, according to accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers, and Yemeni military officials. At the Riyan airport in the city of Mukalla, former inmates described shipping containers smeared with feces and crammed with blindfolded detainees.
They said they were beaten, roasted alive on a spit, and sexually assaulted, among other abuses. One witness, who is a member of a Yemeni security force, said American forces were at times only yards away.
Would that be considered a hate crime?
American forces yards away but couldn't see or hear anything!
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Friday that the allegations are ‘‘completely untrue’’ and a ‘‘political game’’ by Yemeni militias to discredit a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE and which has been fighting since 2015 on the side of the internationally-recognized government against the rebels.
I guess you can go either way on it.
It says it does not run or oversee any prisons in Yemen, and that any such facilities are under ‘‘the jurisdiction of the legitimate Yemeni authorities.’’
Most of the clandestine sites are run by either the Hadramawt Elite or Security Belt, Yemeni forces that were created, trained, and financed by the UAE. Officially, they are under the authority of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, but multiple Yemeni government officials said they have no control over them and they answer to the Emiratis.
More Western ally war crimes!!
It was not immediately clear whether the committee set up on Saturday by the Yemeni government would gain access to any of the lockups and whether its findings could lead to action that may end the abuses.
Yemeni rights lawyers and activists were skeptical about the outcome, saying they did not expect commanders of the two UAE-backed military outfits to meaningfully assist in the investigation.
Relations between Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the UAE have been fraught with tension, chiefly over allegations by the Yemeni leader that the Emiratis are offering patronage to southern Yemeni politicians campaigning for secession as well as what he sees as UAE violations of his country’s sovereignty.
Is that also part of the plan?
--more--"
Well, this isn't really surprising given the new president, and I wouldn't expect to see any war crimes trials in the future.
I think the use of the word monsters is quite correct.
RELATED:
"They Were ‘Grilled Alive’: US Govt Exposed Running Nazi-Like Torture Program; The US is once again facing allegations of torture, this time during the interrogation of detainees in more than a dozen secret prisons in Yemen
by Claire Bernish - June 22, 2017
An unprecedented report from the corporate press claims U.S. forces have participated in extreme torture and abuse of detainees accused of affiliation with Al Qaeda in Yemen — including “the ‘grill,’ in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire,” the Associated Press finds.
A network of secretive prisons in southern Yemen provide the backdrop for the alleged barbaric acts allegedly carried out by forces from the U.S. and United Arab Emirates — many of those detention facilities remain hidden in plain sight.
That some of the covert prisons sit inside military bases might not be much of a shock, but others are located in ports, an airport, private villas, and even a nightclub — and all, according to the AP, remain untouchable by the embattled Yemeni government.
American officials unsurprisingly balked at the accusation troops have participated in the astonishingly heinous behavior described in the AP’s report.
Reports the AP:
“Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses. Interrogating detainees who have been abused could violate international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.
“The AP documented at least 18 clandestine lockups across southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or by Yemeni forces created and trained by the Gulf nation, drawing on accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials. All are either hidden or off limits to Yemen’s government, which has been getting Emirati help in its civil war with rebels over the last two years.”
Notably, this is the first ‘official’ acknowledgment the United States participates in interrogations inside the borders of Yemen.
Forces transported some detainees to an Emirati base in Eritrea, according to Yemen Interior Minister Hussein Arab.
Unnamed and unverifiable U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press ‘senior U.S. military leaders’ have been aware of alleged torture taking place in Yemen for some time — but have investigated the charges, and apparently found nothing amiss, as U.S. troops, they claim, were never present during detainee torture.
Perhaps beyond tellingly, neither the AP nor the anonymous officials elucidated on whether the lack of U.S. troop presence during the alleged grilling alive of detainees meant senior military leaders indeed discovered forces from other nations roasting people alive and said nothing, or that the torture allegations were completely baseless.
Those defense officials further “told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainees at locations in Yemen, provide questions for others to ask, and receive transcripts of interrogations from Emirati allies.”
Torture this horrific, if proven true, harkens immediately back to Bush-era implementation of barbaric human rights violations by the CIA — which included waterboarding and other acts the agency, itself, knew to be utterly inefficacious — which temporarily halted adherence to the law and all semblance of ethics under the premise of extracting information from detainees following the attacks of 9/11.
“We always adhere to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” chief Defense Department spokeswoman, Dana White, told the AP on perusal of its report. “We would not turn a blind eye, because we are obligated to report any violations of human rights.”
In a statement, the UAE government also balked, insisting, “There are no secret detention centers and no torture of prisoners is done during interrogations.”
“The UAE was one of the countries involved in the CIA’s torture and rendition program,” reminds New York University Professor of Law Ryan Goodman. “These reports are hauntingly familiar and potentially devastating in their legal and policy implications.”
To repeat, the U.S. Department of Defense must report violations of human rights — yet the vagueness of the claim senior military brass investigated allegations of excruciating torture, but would only offer that U.S. troops had not been present. Without further explanation, that detail could indicate a troubling sin of omission — in short, a failure to report violations of human rights.
Reports the AP:
“Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses. Interrogating detainees who have been abused could violate international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.
“The AP documented at least 18 clandestine lockups across southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or by Yemeni forces created and trained by the Gulf nation, drawing on accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials. All are either hidden or off limits to Yemen’s government, which has been getting Emirati help in its civil war with rebels over the last two years.”
Notably, this is the first ‘official’ acknowledgment the United States participates in interrogations inside the borders of Yemen.
Forces transported some detainees to an Emirati base in Eritrea, according to Yemen Interior Minister Hussein Arab.
Unnamed and unverifiable U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press ‘senior U.S. military leaders’ have been aware of alleged torture taking place in Yemen for some time — but have investigated the charges, and apparently found nothing amiss, as U.S. troops, they claim, were never present during detainee torture.
Perhaps beyond tellingly, neither the AP nor the anonymous officials elucidated on whether the lack of U.S. troop presence during the alleged grilling alive of detainees meant senior military leaders indeed discovered forces from other nations roasting people alive and said nothing, or that the torture allegations were completely baseless.
Those defense officials further “told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainees at locations in Yemen, provide questions for others to ask, and receive transcripts of interrogations from Emirati allies.”
Torture this horrific, if proven true, harkens immediately back to Bush-era implementation of barbaric human rights violations by the CIA — which included waterboarding and other acts the agency, itself, knew to be utterly inefficacious — which temporarily halted adherence to the law and all semblance of ethics under the premise of extracting information from detainees following the attacks of 9/11.
“We always adhere to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” chief Defense Department spokeswoman, Dana White, told the AP on perusal of its report. “We would not turn a blind eye, because we are obligated to report any violations of human rights.”
In a statement, the UAE government also balked, insisting, “There are no secret detention centers and no torture of prisoners is done during interrogations.”
“The UAE was one of the countries involved in the CIA’s torture and rendition program,” reminds New York University Professor of Law Ryan Goodman. “These reports are hauntingly familiar and potentially devastating in their legal and policy implications.”
To repeat, the U.S. Department of Defense must report violations of human rights — yet the vagueness of the claim senior military brass investigated allegations of excruciating torture, but would only offer that U.S. troops had not been present. Without further explanation, that detail could indicate a troubling sin of omission — in short, a failure to report violations of human rights.
Not one of the dozens interviewed by the AP accused U.S. troops of witnessing torture, but the malicious, degrading, deplorable, torturous abuses described by former inmates of the secret prisons would seem impossible to have taken place without their cognizance.
AP continues:
“At one main detention complex at Riyan airport in the southern city of Mukalla, former inmates described being crammed into shipping containers smeared with feces and blindfolded for weeks on end. They said they were beaten, trussed up on the ‘grill,’ and sexually assaulted. According to a member of the Hadramawt Elite, a Yemeni security force set up by the UAE, American forces were at times only yards away. He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
“‘We could hear the screams,’ said a former detainee held for six months at Riyan airport. ‘The entire place is gripped by fear. Almost everyone is sick, the rest are near death. Anyone who complains heads directly to the torture chamber.’ He was flogged with wires, part of the frequent beatings inflicted by guards against all the detainees. He also said he was inside a metal shipping container when the guards lit a fire underneath to fill it with smoke.”
As in the first revelations on the renewed use of the gross physical and psychological abuses comprising torture, human rights advocates admonished such practices cannot be carried out without the broad knowledge of military and intelligence officials at the scene — particularly not for the duration described.
“It would be a stretch to believe the US did not know or could not have known that there was a real risk of torture,” Amnesty International Director of Research in the Middle East, Lynn Maalouf, told the Associated Press. Amnesty called for a swift investigation by the United Nations into the torture allegations against the UAE and other possible participants or knowledgeable parties.
Torture has been championed as acceptable by the president and other U.S. officials, despite its illegality internationally — almost exclusively as a tool of the War on Terror to extract information from prisoners — but torture has been proven repeatedly to be ineffective for that very purpose.
At least 2,000 people have vanished in Yemen — their families left agonizing over their fate, tragically wondering whether a torturous interrogation took their lives.
“Wives, mothers, and daughters in the north and south of Yemen want to know whether their husbands, sons, and brothers are all right, if they are even alive,” noted Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, after issuance of a similar report on torture in Yemen by her organization, on Thursday.
“Yemen, the UAE, Houthi-Saleh forces, and any other party disappearing people should immediately inform families of where their loved ones are and release those held arbitrarily.”
Despite denial of allegations by the United States military and government of the United Arab Emirates, the report from the Associated Press most likely will be remembered as the beginning of yet another torture scandal embroiling perpetually-ethicless entities during a complex and violent conflict — one, again, involving the U.S., which fights for freedom and against terror by, apparently, eviscerating freedom and waging terror.
--MORE--"
I'm wondering on whose watch was that:
"NYU Abu Dhabi blocks journalists from filming John Kerry" by Jon Gambrell, AP | May 20, 2018
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday warned that “true civil discourse” is under threat around the world while speaking to graduates at NYU Abu Dhabi, an event that the school blocked journalists from filming, while obliquely criticizing President Donald Trump.
The stench of hypocrisy is absolutely gagging!!
The United Arab Emirates has long opposed the deal as not going far enough to limit Iran’s power in the greater Mideast. Kerry shared the stage with Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, who long had led the UAE’s criticism of the deal.
“True civil discourse is also under threat all around the planet, eroding rights alongside trust,” Kerry said. “Certainly in my country, our politics has become almost all accusatory and all bombastic.”
Just when you think you miss a guy..... sigh!
While never naming Trump, Kerry began his remarks by saying: “Given what’s going on today, I’m glad to be invited anywhere folks.”
About says it all!
Andrew Hamilton, president of New York University, also made a point to criticize “disturbing trends of anti-intellectualism and anti-factualism” in the world.
How very interesting that he would say that, given the current date and time in this world.
By that I mean the recent addition to the New York Times editorial board shows they are not even trying to hide their hate anymore, they are excusing it, and after the spew from the left all these years, this blog -- despite its anger and rage sometimes -- has proven to be mild. I've never used the n-word, f-word (sorry for the fucks), or c-word here, or any ethnic slur for that matter (unless Jew is considered a slur) and I never broke into someone's house.
Then there is the arrogant Jim Acosta and his beat down by Sarah Sanders. I don't know what you saw, but what I saw was a man bullying a woman. That's all. And they ARE the enemy of the people (which I will prove shortly, unless you think lying us into wars by blaring bull$h*t from the front pages was good for you), both of which today's printed Globe ignored for the most part (no names, please).
As for the anti-factualism in the world, well, the 54th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin is a reminder of the media's fabrications to get wars going. Somehow, the Globe missed that but it did note that in 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait -- and we were treated to another whopper, that of babies being thrown out of incubators onto the cold, hard floor -- and we all know what happened in 2003 with WMD.
Btw, did he say that before or after the reporters were kicked out?
NYU Abu Dhabi invited reporters to cover Kerry’s speech, then just before the ceremony said journalists from The Associated Press and others could not film his full remarks. They said the school would offer video that it would editorially control after the event.
A university spokeswoman, Kate Chandler, said it was the school’s decision. Staffers for Kerry said they had no part in the organization of the event. The school allowed an AP photographer and writer to attend Kerry’s full speech.
Did anyone ask him about the torture chambers the U.A.E was running in Yemen?
This is not the first time NYU Abu Dhabi has faced criticism when trying to balance the ideas of an American liberal arts education in the UAE, which has strict rules governing speech despite being a staunch American ally in the Mideast.
Yeah, but the U.S. government ignores such things when it is an ally.
Human rights groups have criticized the school for using migrant workers to build the campus who they say had been subject to a range of violations including being forced to pay recruitment fees to get their jobs that were never reimbursed, living in overcrowded conditions and being forced to work overtime.
Just doing what the U.S. does.
Following the report, NYU commissioned an investigation, which found a number of workers hadn’t been protected by the fair labor practices the school had said would be in place. The school promised reimbursement. A report released this month said that even though the school investigated its labor compliance, some workers involved in the campus’ construction still were owed money and worked in harsh conditions.
The journalism department at New York University in 2017 told the school it was cutting its ties to NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus over two professors being denied work visas by the UAE, as well as the school’s handling of the situation.....
--more--"
As for Obama's criticism of the Saudis and civilian casualties, I went back to where I left off to see if he complained about the shelling of civilians and its death toll. He had no problem with the sea and air blockade as the Saudi coalition resumed airstrikes and attacked a Houthi base. He was silent as the troops advanced towards the mosque or when they bombed the hospital. No wonder Al-CIA-Duh was able to take control of a Red Sea port and push north for a key battle in Yemen's capital against Saudi ground troops.
The Saudis bombed embassies as the Shi'ite rebels intensified attacks before a suspected US drone attack on a military encampment killed at least four people. The Saudi-led coalition responded airstrikes that killed 29 people, including civilians, with other possible victims buried under the rubble, as Emirati troops pushed forward to free British and American hostages and reinstall Hadi with the help of God.
The Saudi-led effort received support from the Obama administration, even as it struck a wedding party, killing 131 civilians, and still no criticism. I'm told they also interdicted an Iranian weapons ship but couldn't push Al-CIA-Duh out of the city until much later.
The UN said thousands have been killed but three Americans made it out alive even as a bomb killed a governor and six others (I will give you one gueSs who claImed responSibility). After another medical site was bombed (you-know who was suspected) there were talks of a cease fire and peace before the airstrikes began again:
"Fierce fighting and airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition pounded northern Yemen on Saturday, as the two main parties in the country’s conflict continued to violate a cease-fire agreement and undermine already tenuous peace talks in Switzerland. The clashes in Hajjah province near the Saudi border, between rebel-allied units and progovernment Yemeni forces, have killed more than 75 over the past three days, Yemeni security officials and witnesses said. Most were killed by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition that dominates the skies in Yemen. Yemen’s fighting pits the internationally recognized government backed by a Saudi-led, US supported coalition against the rebels, known as Houthis, who are allied with a former president and backed by Iran. According to UN figures, the war in Yemen has killed at least 5,884 people since March."
That was in the FIRST YEAR of the WAR, and where is that Iranian air force, huh?
And just when we needed him most..... peace talks suspended amid new fighting.
They they agreed!
Of course, some benefited from continued warfare.
Others did not.
As Saudi air sirens wailed and Yemeni forces battled over a key port, civilian deaths in Yemen spiked despite the cease-fire, most of the deaths due to airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, including U.S. drones.
By the time the Doctors Without Borders hospital was bombed, the Yemenis were trying to get out. One was killed when the museum was shelled during more Saudi-led coalition exercises before the clashes in Taiz and Aden before (thank God they got the Jews out) peace talks began again after "tens of thousands protested in the Yemeni capital Saturday on the anniversary of a US-backed, Saudi-led coalition’s entrance into a civil war that has killed thousands and strengthened the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in this strategic Middle East nation. As coalition jets roared overhead, the demonstrators carried the Yemeni flag and chanted “end the siege,” while others vowed “to fight the Saudi aggression and its agents until their last man.”
That's when the prisoner exchanges, and did you know that one Saudi is worth more than 12 Yemenis or that every day at least 6 children are killed or maimed, not counting the malnourishment or cholera (maybe someone could make a buck of it)? That is one way of neutralizing them, I guess. Then there is another even as peace talks progress and ‘‘the people of Yemen feel there is a cessation of hostilities,’’ despite the airstrikes overnight.
Yemen is now looking for a few good men to be all they can be amid fighting and protests to try and end the war. The Emirates should have gone around and landed at another airport, but the sun got in their eyes. They were lucky they had a smart captain piloting the plane who got it down before the Saudi-led coalition resumed bombing:
"Airstrikes carried out by warplanes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia killed at least 19 people, mostly children, on Saturday in a residential area and a school in northern Yemen, witnesses and hospital officials said. One bombardment in the village of Birken in the Razih District, near Yemen’s northern border with Saudi Arabia, struck the home of Ali Okri, a school principal, killing his wife and four of their children. Then, in what has become known in the war here as a double tap, a second airstrike killed four more of Mr. Okri’s relatives as rescuers were trying to free them from the rubble. In another northern border area, airstrikes on Saturday hit a school, killing 10 students."
In all of that, I never once saw Obama criticizing the civilian casualties. Must be because he also has blood on his hands even though he is out of office. It doesn't wash off, you know.
Btw, where has Qatar been in all this?
