Marisacat

Obviously… 31 March 2011

Libyan rebels flee an area near the eastern town of Brega [AFP/GETTY]

Obviously, North Africa, bordering the Med, has always been part of Eastasia.  Someone needs to sue the estate of George Orwell  for not being clearer.

Democracy NOW!  had on Scahill and a former DIA person… sigh, he does use “homeland”, and as always I hear “Fatherland”

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, I think it’s much ado about nothing regarding the CIA teams being there. I mean, the United States has CIA operatives around the world, and of course they had them in Libya before this no-fly zone attack began, and they’re going to have them well after it. What I think, though, is happening here is that the United States is flailing to try to figure out a position on the Libyan rebels. If you read Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker, his recent dispatch where he’s with the rebels, he said that there are maybe a thousand of them and that they are not a fighting force, that they do not have the equipment, they do not have the skill or the training to overthrow the Gaddafi regime on their own. So, President Obama stuck his neck out and said that Gaddafi has to go; he said regime change. Now he’s tried to back off of that. But the reality is that these rebels are not going to be able to take down Gaddafi’s government without substantial support from the United States or potentially France or another government.

But there’s really no such thing as NATO without the United States. And so, this idea that the mission is being passed off to NATO under Canadian command is really kind of a farce, and I think a lot of people that are within the military community and the intelligence community are really suspicious of what they see as kind of a mission creep here, where the United States could end up being embroiled in a civil war in Libya for many years to come.

If Gaddafi emerges from this still in power, what does that say about Obama’s—President Obama’s credibility, having gone so far as to say that he has to fall? I think there’s a lot of reactionary policy making going on here that in the end could prove dangerous for Libyans and for the United States.  …

The conversation goes back and forth between Libya and Yemen… which considering the differences in our publicly voiced approach is interesting.

Nice little description of this “kinetic” phrasing the US has been using…

JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, the United States has had—I mean, we don’t know the exact number, but a couple hundred Special Operations Forces people on the ground in Yemen, primarily in a training capacity. We also of course have CIA people there that are doing intelligence operations. And those could all be called into serious question if the Saleh government falls, in terms of the on-the-ground presence. So there is talk of moving those operations to Djibouti, where AFRICOM is headquartered, and it’s the main command for the U.S. in the attacks against Libya right now. But Djibouti, in the early stages of the Bush administration’s war against the world, was really the hub of action for covert ops in the Horn of Africa and also, to an extent, in Yemen. When the Bush administration sent a drone in to kill six individuals in Yemen in 2002, including a U.S. citizen from Buffalo, New York, Kamal Darwish, that was the first kinetic action or direct action, killing operation, targeted killing operation, outside of Afghanistan. So it could be that they shift over to Djibouti. And you’re seeing this area, North Africa, really becoming a hub for a kind of—for U.S. military policy in that region.

It is not mentioned in this transcript, but “stories” (and who knows) are coming out of the regional press and what are called “Yemeni reporters” (again, who knows, I have not seen a link, just a reference from an operative, information release sort of site) that Southern Yemen has been declared separate, by none other than AQAP!, and under Shari’a law (cue the US women neo lib warriors!), thus it is forbidden for women to leave home alone.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has declared Yemen’s Abyan province an “Islamic Emirate” and banned women from going outside, according to Eurasia Review and accounts from Yemeni journalists. 

AQAP, which has established full control over the southern province, made an online statement Wednesday declaring Abyan an Islamic Emirate governed by Shariah.

The statement said women in the province should not go out except under necessary circumstances, “and she who urgently needs to go out, should be with one of her male relatives, and should have ID with her.”

AQAP’s announcement comes just a few days after jihadists looted an ammunition factory in Ja’ar, a city in Abyan province, killing 150 people in an apparently accidental explosion. Al Qaeda militants have also taken control of local communications facilities in the province.

Obviously we MUST invade to head off partition and to save the women.  Mustn’t we?

”We Are The Saviors” is running thru my head, sung to the old Queen song… We are the champions….  I heard a snip of Gates this am, openly calling for a senior mil officer in Libya to “take out” Qaddafi and (basically) dial  1-800-Pentagon to “cut a deal”. 

Who knows…. other than these are wars of US-centric de-stabilisation, above all.

Somebody (or other) will be hosting AFRICOM out of this, whether they like it or not.  Whether we can afford it or not.

As a… 20 February 2011

Manama, Bahrain: A Bahraini anti-government protester at the Pearl roundabout holds up a poster with pictures of former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali (centre), former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (left) and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein above a picture of Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa with the words “soon” written in Arabic [Hassan Ammar/AP]

As a twisted Paladin, of sorts, rides in.

Hail the mush faced Mullen….

US top military officer arrives in Saudi Arabia

(AFP) – 3 hours ago

RIYADH — Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for the first stage of a Gulf tour to boost US relations with its allies in the region.

“Part of what I want to accomplish is to reassure our friends and also just listen to what’s on their mind,” Mullen told journalists.

The highest ranking US military officer’s visit comes as an unprecedented wave of revolts challenges Arab authoritarian regimes, notably in Bahrain and Yemen, after uprisings toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt.

The purpose of his mission is to “reassure, discuss and understand what is going on,” Mullen said, adding the “trip was scheduled for other reasons but as it turns out the context has changed.”

In his two-day stay in Saudi Arabia, US President Barack Obama’s top military adviser will meet high-ranking Saudi military officials.

At the top of the agenda is Bahrain, where six people were officially reported killed in last week’s demonstrations, raising pressure on the Sunni Muslim ruling dynasty to talk with the Shiite-led opposition.

Mullen said it was “absolutely critical” that governments and their opposition resolve differences peacefully.

“We certainly would like to see whatever happens happen in a non violent way,” he said. “That where there are differences, they be resolved non violently. And that governments and their people figure this out.”

The Sunni Saudi kingdom has expressed alarm at Iran’s nuclear programme and the Shiite Islamic republic’s growing influence in the Middle East, particularly Bahrain, Iraq and Lebanon which have sizeable Shiite communities.

Foreign ministers of the Gulf monarchies signalled support for Bahrain’s monarchy on Thursday in a joint statement, saying “our security is a collective responsibility and there is no question of accepting foreign interference.”

Bahrain is strategically vital to Washington as it hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which protects the Gulf’s maritime oil routes supplying US operations in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia is a long-standing US ally and a key regional player in the war on terrorism, with Washington announcing in October a massive contract to supply Riyadh with fighter jets and helicopters.

Information that Saudi Arabia collects on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), operating out of Yemen, has also become critical to alert Western governments of potential threats.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

Oh puhleese. The biggest mil power on earth arrives for a circle tour to urge ”peace” and ”non-violence”.

Don’t make me laugh too hard, now.