We reported two weeks ago on the killing of 16 year-old Yemeni teenager Abdul-Rahman, the son of Anwar al-Alwaki who was himself the victim of a drone strike a few weeks previously. However Abdul-Rahamn was not the only 16 year-old killed in a drone strike this month.
Tariq Aziz attending the drone meeting in Islamabad
A few days before being killed, Tariq had attended a meeting on the drones organised by British human rights group, Reprieve with the aim of encouraging local people to document the strikes taking place in their area. Lawyer and campaigner, Clive Stafford Smith talks about the Jirga and meeting Tariq in his piece for the New York Times piece:
"Tariq was a good kid, and courageous. My warm hand recently touched his in friendship; yet, within three days, his would be cold in death, the rigor mortis inflicted by my government. And Tariq’s extended family, so recently hoping to be our allies for peace, has now been ripped apart by an American missile — most likely making any effort we make at reconciliation futile."
Two thousand miles west and Israeli drones fly constantly over Gaza with the latest strike killing seven members of Islamic Jihad. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an eye-opening interview this week with a ‘Lt Col Ido’ (his surname was withheld for security reasons) who teaches ethics to Israeli drone operators. The Lt Col says “When people are killed by mistake, we are tormented, and that’s how it should be… I’ve met some people who had a very hard time with it. Some coped, and others wanted to leave. I told them, ‘This is dirty work. Who would you like to have do it? We would all like to be professors.’”
The whole article, looking at how Israel uses drones for “everything from gathering intelligence in what the air force calls the “third circle” – namely, the Iranian sector and its satellites – to assisting fire-fighters in the Mount Carmel forest fire and guarding worshipers at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus” is well worth reading. Israel is also about to deploy the giant Eitan drone for use in Gaza and Lebanon as Ynet news reports.
Fifteen hundred miles south of Israel is the Ethiopian city of Arba Minch from where, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, the USAF are flying Reaper drones over Somalia. While the US say the drones based in Ethiopia are for surveillance purposes only (the Ethiopian government are refusing to admit the drones are even in Ethiopia) US drones are undertaking strikes against al-Shabab in Somalia.
But it is not only the drones that are circling the globe. Resistance to the drones is growing and going global too. We have repeatedly reported on the anger in Pakistan against US drone strikes and the many protests taking place there, the latest of which saw some 2,000 people protests outside the Parliament building in Islamabad.
For the first time (as far as we know) anti-drone protests have also taken place in Yemen, with some extremely brave people coming together in Sana’a to protest the strikes there (see video below)
In the US, protestors have recently gone on trial following a civil disobedience action at the main entrance of Hancock Air National Guard Base on April 22, 2011, where 38 people were arrested at a die-in protesting the drones. The verdict will be handed down on 1st December (see http://www.upstatedroneaction.org/ for lots more info.
Obama gets a double dose...and the Vatican bans one featuring the Pope and Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, of Cairo's al-Azhar institute, the pre-eminent theological school of Sunni Islam.
Here's the rest...
President Barack Obama and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
The President of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.
Evangelical supporters of Israel fired back at a September open letter by two Baptist ethicists questioning theological and moral grounds of “Christian Zionism.”
David Gushee, a Mercer University professor and columnist for Associated Baptist Press, and Glenn Stassen of Fuller Theological Seminary penned “An Open Letter to America’s Christian Zionist” Sept. 19 denouncing the influence on U.S. foreign policy of the belief the Bible plots out boundaries that by divine right belong to Israel.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, we wish to claim here that the prevailing version of American Christian Zionism -- that is, your belief system -- underwrites theft of Palestinian land and oppression of Palestinian people, helps create the conditions for an explosion of violence, and pushes U.S. policy in a destructive direction that violates our nation’s commitment to universal human rights,” the professors said. “In all of these, American Christian Zionism as it currently stands is sinful and produces sin.”
The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem replied with a letter charging Gushee and Stassen with “theological inconsistency and historical ignorance that are deeply troubling in professors of your standing.”
Leaders of the group founded in 1980 to advocate “scriptural responsibilities towards the Jewish people, to remind Israel of the wonderful promises made to her in the Bible and to be a source of practical assistance to all the people of the land of Israel” said their support does not mean they think Israel is perfect or that they support all its policies, and they also share concern, particularly for Palestinian Christians.
"Your boss is a liar!"......"No! your boss is a liar!"
Rival Lebanese politicians came to blows live on national television over the crisis in neighbouring Syria, hurling insults -- and chairs -- at each other before the show cut to a commercial break. Fayez Shukr, representing the Baath Party -- which has links to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's party of the same name -- and opposition former MP Mustafa Alloush locked horns over Assad's credibility in a late night talkshow Monday on Lebanon's MTV station.
"You don't listen. I wish you would listen to what Assad says," said Shukr, to which Alloush responded: "I heard him. I don't believe a word he says."
"Who are you to believe or not believe him?" Shukr said, prompting Alloush to call Assad a "liar."
The two then proceeded to hurl insults and swear at one another, before Shukr chucked a glass of water over the talkshow host's head at Alloush.
Papers and insults flying, both men then jumped out of their seats and charged at each other, with one picking up a chair as their bewildered host urged them to calm down before the show went off the air.
A US assassination drone strike has killed at least 17 people and wounded nearly 67 others in southern Somalia, Press TV reports.
The attack occurred in a civilian region near the town of Dhobley in southern Somalia on Tuesday.
Somalia is the one of the countries where the United States has used remote-controlled drones to launch deadly missile strikes.
In October, Washington admitted to flying unmanned aerial vehicles from Ethiopia over some North African countries.
The US military has used assassination drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
Washington claims the airstrikes, which are authorized by the Central Intelligence Agency, target militants, though most such attacks have resulted in civilian casualties.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
This is the home page for the Complete 911 Timeline investigative project, one of several grassroots investigations being hosted on the History Commons website. The data published as part of this investigation has been collected, organized, and published by members of the public who are registered users of this website.
Israel has awkwardly and desperately renewed its outworn war threats against Iran in the recent weeks, indicating that it's getting prepared to launch a military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities.
Last week, the Zionist regime successfully test fired a missile which is said to have the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead and reach Iran, as well as Russia and China.
On November 2, the TV stations around the world screened footages of a rocket-propulsion system being launched from somewhere around Israel coastal Palmachim military base. The missile's range is claimed to be 10,000 kilometers and therefore, Iran will be easily within the reach of it, in the case that a military attack on Iran is opted for.
However, now even the most optimistic advocates of war with Iran within the fractured cabinet of Benjamin Netanyahu know that "empty vessels make the most noise" and that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities will be practically the same as the evaporation of the Zionist entity. They are well aware of Iran's unequaled military might and the recent advancements and progresses in Iran's weaponry industry.
Although the hawkish Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman has boasted of "keeping all the options on the table" with regards to Iran's nuclear program, he dismissed the reports that the Israeli cabinet members have reached an agreement over launching an attack against Iran.
The words of Israeli officials, even though disproportionately aggrandized and exaggerated by the mainstream media, cut no ice anymore. Israeli regime is too fragile and small to pose a threat to Iran's security. Over the past 10 years, the White House, with the unreserved assistance of its client state, Israel, repeatedly threatened Iran against the possibility of a military attack. Even Barack Obama who is unquestionably a wolf in the sheep's clothing and understands nothing of peace and cordiality had once in 2010 talked of the possibility of a nuclear strike against Iran; a reckless statement which was condemned by many politicians and pundits around the world.
It's now clear to the international observers that Israel talks through its hat. It only runs a psychological operation against Iran to force it into giving in its nuclear rights. The irony is that it's Israel, the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which is hell bent on disrupting Iran's nuclear program which it impetuously and irrationally claims to be aimed at military purposes.
The Israeli officials, however, frequently direct war threats against Iran with impunity and in breach of several internationally recognized treaties, conventions and charters. From one hand, any Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities can be considered a war of aggression which is "a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense" and since the Korean War of the early 1950s, waging such a war is a crime under the customary international law. It's conventional for the criminal state of Israel to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity; however, if it frantically makes such a decision, it will be committing a crime which the international community should categorically respond to.
On July 3, 1933, the first convention that defined aggression was signed in London by representatives of Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Turkey, USSR, Iran and Afghanistan. It was initiated by Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov in response to threats of use of force by the German government following Hitler's rise to power. The government of Finland acceded to the convention on January 31, 1934. These countries decided that any kind of aggressive behavior on behalf of the members of the League of Nations would be illegal and illegitimate.
On the other hand, if Israelis madly attack Iran's nuclear facilities while no serious threat is posed against them on behalf of the Persian Gulf country, their assault can also be categorized as a "preemptive war" which is illegal without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "The initiation of armed conflict, that is being the first to 'break the peace' when no 'armed attack' has yet occurred, is not permitted by the UN Charter."
Israel's war threats against Iran also violate the UN Charter and so far, the UNSC has given no decisive response to this flagrant breach of the international law. According to Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter which is generally considered to be 'jus cogens' (compelling law), all UN members are prohibited from exercising "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." The Article 51 of UN Charter stipulates that defense by a member state is justified only if, "an armed attack occurs," against the attacking country.
Moreover, it's crystal clear that Israel is not in a position to threaten Iran against a military strike over its nuclear program. Israel even does not have the credibility of asking Iran to halt its nuclear program while it possesses 300 atomic warheads. It has been repeatedly clarified by the international organizations, including the NIE 2007 report that Iran doesn't possess nuclear weapons and also doesn't have any intention of building such weapons. Of course it's dismantling the nuclear arsenal of Israel which should be put on IAEA's agenda, not Iran's nuclear program which has been clearly demonstrated that is aimed at civilian purposes.
At any rate, there are of course wise and prudent people in the political structure of Israel to know that taking any aggressive action against Iran will be equivalent to the disappearance of the Zionist regime. Furthermore, even the closest friends of the Israeli regime know that Netanyahu's war threats against Iran are sheer hollow propaganda, even if they keep the options "on the table" for good!
