[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] After being banned by three main Arabic news channels, former Yemeni President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... had to deliver his speech through Al-Mayadeen channel. Similarly, his partner in the insurgency, Abdul-Malak al-Houthi, leader of the Ansar Allah militia, was on Al-Massira channel. Legitimate President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi delivered a written speech to the Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... News Agency.
That evening was part of the inter-Yemeni media war. Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... Hadi's forces, and those of their Saudi and Emirati allies, have made huge gains in Aden, Marib, Taiz and the strategic Bab al-Mandab areas. They are now moving toward Jawf province. Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... forces and Saleh militias are holed up in regions such as the capital Sanaa, which is ringed by mines in anticipation of the promised attack.
Yemeni public opinion might not have significant influence on the war because the disputants have resorted to arms. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... they do seek to justify their positions, and the rebels are now in need of public support given their battlefield setbacks. The media war reflects efforts by the conflicting parties to win support from the forces and tribes that are not yet involved in the war, or are willing to change allegiance.
Saleh's intransigence After listening to Saleh's interview, I am more convinced than ever that he is determined to fight until the end, contrary to recent rumors that he is willing to compromise by leaving Yemen. He has killed the closest people to him in order to consolidate his control. This is how he remained in power for 40 years, through his brutality and intelligence, not through the achievements of his government, whose sole task was to prevent challenges against him.
Countries such as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... knew that trying to support change in Yemen, or challenging Saleh's rule, would be expensive and unsuccessful. That is why they did not interfere until the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen in 2011. These countries urged Saleh to resign and hand over power to the Yemeni people. He did not accept until he was nearly killed in an kaboom.
Saleh will never accept the legitimacy of the current government, contrary to what he said on TV about making concessions in order to stop the war. He has always been known as a liar, so legitimate Yemeni forces and their allies will be forced to plan a longer and stronger war.
Saleh has ruined Yemen's future. This is much worse than the harm he caused by his alliance with Houthi militias, and his subversion against the transitional government that was writing a new constitution and planning elections under U.N. supervision.
This two-year period was paving the way for a historic shift in Yemen, which would give the country the first real opportunity to build institutions that manage the state. The Yemeni people were eager to get out of poverty, ignorance and chaos.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2015 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
[DanielPipes.org] The Republic of Turkey is undergoing possibly its greatest crisis since the founding of the state nearly a century ago. Present trends suggest worse to come as a long-time Western ally evolves into a hostile dictatorship.
The crisis results primarily from the ambitions of one very capable and sinister individual, Turkey's 61-year old president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A career politician who previously served four years as the mayor of Turkey's megacity, Istanbul, and then eleven years as the country's prime minister, he forwards two goals hitherto unknown in the republic: dictatorship and full application of the Shari'a, Islam's law code.
...The poor showing in June 2015 blocked Erdogan from legitimately gaining his dream powers as executive president. But being the politician who stated long ago, when mayor of Istanbul, that democracy is like a trolley, "You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off," he predictably did not let something as petty as election results get in his way. Instead, he immediately began scheming to get around them.
...Assuming that Erdogan's mystery diseases stay under control, this Islamist idyll contains just one flaw: foreign relations, the most likely cause of its demise. Unlike a fellow dictator like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who had the good fortune to rule in the placid confines of South America, Erdogan is surrounded by the world's most crisis-ridden region. His domestic success increases the chances of an ego-driven blunder that diminishes or ends his rule. Tense relations with Iran and Russia over the fighting in Syria offer one temptation, as the seemingly purposeful Russian penetrations of Turkish airspace highlight; or with Israel over Jerusalem or Gaza; or with Cyprus over the newly discovered gas fields.
[CanadaFreePress] President Obama failed to take out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but now he's going after Canada's Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a big supporter of Israel and opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It's a story the U.S. media won't cover. But Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press has been documenting how Obama is planning the "fundamental transformation" of Canada by taking down Harper's government and bringing to power a progressive majority assembled from Canada's Liberal Party and New Democratic Party (NDP), an affiliate of the Socialist International.
In a dispatch earlier this year, McLeod provided the facts about the interference of Obama campaign operatives in the Canadian elections scheduled for October 19. "In Canada, Obama's campaign team is guiding the election campaigns of both the Liberals and the NDP," she wrote. She urged the Harper government to investigate. More @ link.
So we suppose nobody is supposed to know about Grandma's top aide testifying before a Congressional committee? If they've got nothing to hide and are confident in themselves, why the bitching and moaning?
Hillary Clinton's campaign on Thursday night slammed the House Select Committee on Benghazi for publicly announcing the Friday appearance of her top campaign organizer before the panel, dismissing it as "just another tactic in their partisan plan to go after Hillary Clinton."
Huma Abedin, the vice chairwoman of Hillary for America who also worked for Clinton at the State Department, had been scheduled weeks ago to testify Friday behind closed doors. On Thursday, the committee circulated a background memo that confirmed her appearance and noted that investigators would only ask her about Libya policy and events related to the 2012 attack.
But the campaign accused the panel of playing politics, particularly because the committee rarely announces appearances before they happen -- and because Abedin wasn't at the State Department the night of the Benghazi attacks, they said. The campaign also said Abedin, who was working part-time at State around the time of the attack, has limited "knowledge about the events surrounding Benghazi."
"The Committee's focus on Huma (as opposed to numerous intelligence and defense community officials still outstanding) is additional evidence that the actual attack in Benghazi, and its lessons about how we might better protect diplomats serving in dangerous places, are the last things on the committee's mind," the campaign said a statement.
"The Republicans' focus on her of all people, and their decision to leak details about her appearance, is just another tactic in their partisan plan to go after Hillary Clinton," the statement added.
It's almost as if these lying scumbags want to play the victim to avoid any accountability for their massive cover-up. Meanwhile, another secret email address of Grandma's consigliere was uncovered Thursday.
A previously unknown e-mail address used by Huma Abedin was discovered on Thursday, just hours before the top Hillary Clinton aide prepares to testify in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Conservative watchdog group Citizens United discovered the address in an e-mail exchange that shows Clinton Foundation CEO Robert Harrison forwarding a speaking invitation for then-Secretary of State Clinton to both Abedin's State Department account and an unfamiliar Abedin address on November 6, 2012. "I tried to send this to your 'clintonemail.com' address, but it bounced back as undeliverable, so here it is again," Harrison wrote.
The new address is titled "humamabedin," and appears to be a private e-mail account. The State Department redacted the account's domain name, citing a personal-privacy exemption. A spokesman for the Benghazi Committee did not immediately respond when asked if the committee was aware of the e-mail account, and if it is under investigation for possibly containing official or classified government information on the September 11, 2012 attack on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya.
In August, the State Department admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and others close to Clinton used private accounts to conduct government business, and that they were unable to search those accounts for official records.
But we're sure she's got nothing to hide, except for everything. Clinton and her cronies pretend they're transparent and have nothing to hide, yet three-plus years after Benghazi they're still fighting tooth and nail to hide the truth. They can't hid it forever.
[Jpost] ...While at this point it is abundantly clear that Kerry like the administration he serves has an unpleasant, irrational obsession with the Jewish state, it's hard to shake the conclusion that there is more going on here than simply opposition to Israel.
For instance his claim this week that "Unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody," is more an assault on reality generally than on Israel in particular.
Kerry, like the Obama administration as a whole, is angry at reality because at least as far as Israel and its Palestinian neighbors are concerned, reality shares no common ground with the administration's assumption of Israeli guilt.
[Ynet] Analysis: Paleostinians committing violence are mainly interested in being hailed as heroes online; Arab world surmises that without support from Fatah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, the 'knife intifada' won't devolve into anarchy.
It seems that every 13--15 years, a new generation of Paleostinians arrives that has been schooled on the values of the struggle against the "Zionist occupation" but has forgotten the tremendous damage and death this battle has caused.
The first intifada in 1987 was called "the intifada of stones," the second in 2000 "the al-Aqsa intifada." The security establishment has nicknamed October's series of attacks "the rising wave of terror" but the Arab world has already defined it "the intifada of knives" or "the intifada of stabbings." It's also being nicknamed "the intifada of the young."
Why then, despite the gravity of the events and their non-stop momentum, do most commentators in the Arab world feel that there is little chance of their succeeding or effecting change?
It seems that every 13--15 years, a new generation of Paleostinians arrives that has been schooled on the values of the struggle against the "Zionist occupation" but has forgotten the tremendous damage and death this battle has caused.
The reasons for the outbreak of each uprising change -- for example the economic crunch at the end of the '80s, or the Paleostinians' refusal to accept the outcomes of the Oslo Accords at the end of the '90s. The two-stage withdrawal from Leb, each one preceded by an intifada, served as an example to Paleostinians of the effectiveness of a guerilla war.
The first intifada was a popular uprising, which the Paleostinian Liberation Organization and Hamas gradually took over. The second intifada was planned and initiated by both organizations, therefore making use of the PA's police weapons and Hamas's jacket wallahs.
The current intifada is a popular initiative like the first, except without the management of any of the Paleostinian organizations. Why is that?
Fatah is scared of Hamas, Hamas is scared of Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
The situation has changed and does not resemble that of the '80s or '90s. The leadership has been silenced by the rift between the West Bank and the Gazoo Strip, between Fatah and Hamas. The Paleostinian Authority fears that the spread of unrest through the West Bank could undermine its power and allow Hamas to take over.
Hamas, for its part, is worried about a confrontation with Israel at this time, too close to last summer's conflict. The "hudna" (ceasefire) agreed with Israel was supposed to give the organization time to regroup for the next round, but Hamas is still some way from completing its preparations. Furthermore, Hamas is currently supported by Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... rather than Iran and the Gulf state is not currently encouraging them to start firing.
Hamas hopes to win aid from Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... as well, in order to rebuild the Gazoo Strip. The organization is worried that its current weakness will strengthen rival organizations in the Strip such as Islamic Jihad and the Sinai branch of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... No faith in the leadership
Support for the "intifada of knives" from the governments in Gazoo and the West Bank is, therefore, verbal only. The present uprising has sprung from teenagers -- youths who despaired of the chances of Fatah and Hamas achieving national goals.
Youngsters surf internet sites that influence them far more than their education at home. Adults recoil from the disturbances out of fear of the repercussions of supporting them.
The atmosphere in the Middle East radiates from every screen in every young Paleostinian's home -- young protesters coming out against the regime in many of the region's countries, serious violence on the part of Islamist organizations fighting this or that, civil wars and kabooms. The web is full of violent videos from Iraq and Syria that one does not see in the rest of the world.
Many youngsters are influenced by this atmosphere and want to become deaders for the ultimate religious goal. The security establishment needs to shut down dangerous websites and educators need to try and understand why it is so easy to incite youth in East Jerusalem and elsewhere.
Online propaganda
Propaganda on the internet is distributed by the Islamic Movement in Israel, whose northern branch is behind much of Israeli Arabs' involvement in the current intifada. Unofficial and anonymous organizations are active online, among them the "Al-Aqsa Media Center" that spreads propaganda under the mantle of a news network on its website and Facebook page and "The Third Intifada in Jerusalem." The website administrators have doctored a Facebook "like" button that shows the hand grasping a knife.
While it's difficult to go after the websites' creators, most of them criticize the Egyptian regime, which informs us that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are behind them. As we know, the regime of Egyptian President Abel Fattah al-Sissi puts a great deal of effort into fighting the Moslem Brüderbund.
The youngsters working on their own are not trying to reignite the stalled political process or persuade Israel to return to the negotiating table. They want to be hailed as heroes on the internet, because for their generation there is no separation between the real and virtual worlds.
They use knives and cars, and attempt to snatch weapons because they don't have any in reach as they did during the second intifada. They are presented as heroes worthy of emulation, deaders who sacrifice themselves for the Paleostinian homeland and who will reach paradise after their death.
The program of incitement that focuses on what the Paleostinians are calling "al-Aqsa in danger" is propaganda that the Islamic Movement has been disseminating in mosques in Israel and throughout the Arab world for years. The websites that influence youngsters include a list of alleged Jewish plots to harm the mosque, starting with the plan to set it on fire in August 1969. This plan was actually put together by a mentally ill Christian from Australia. The websites also list alleged plots to change the current status quo.
There is also real information interwoven with propaganda, foremost regarding burning of the house of the Dawabsheh family in the Paleostinian village of Duma, a crime that set off riots in Jerusalem. Websites post photographs of Jews in kippahs ascending the Temple Mount escorted by Border Police, under the headline "Al-Aqsa incursion." All these events are subject to distortion and incomplete coverage which changes their meaning.
For example, Paleostinian protesters holed themselves up inside al-Aqsa Mosque several months ago, armed with Molotov cocktails and fireworks. This was not mentioned at all; only the entry of police into the mosque, which was in fact in response to their activities, was covered - under the heading of "desecration of our holy ground."
The insane actions of the stabbers of recent weeks are also disconnected from the responses of the public and security forces. The web is flooded with pictures of the bodies of bandidosDeath Eaters after they have been taken out and are presented as free of criminal guilt. The goal is thus achieved: dead and injured young Paleostinians splayed out on the ground, with "al-Yahood" (the Jews) to blame.
A fire without coal
But Arab commentators are pessimistic about the "knife intifada" surviving. They think that it is fire with a lot of matches but no coal. Without support from Fatah or Hamas, the chances of it spreading or having any real longevity are slim. The Arab world also only offers verbal support. Most commentators blame Israel for exploiting the disruption across the Arab world during the past few years in order to continue the momentum of building in the settlements. There are also claims that Israel took advantage of the US applying less pressure regarding settlement-building during the Iran talks.
Middle East media networks primarily deal with the principal concerns of the Arab world: Russia's arrival on the scene, the threat from Islamic State and Iran's involvement. From the Paleostinians' perspective, the "intifada" erupted at a bad time. They have no real internal or external support (financial or weapons-wise) and it broke out at a time when the nightmare of all the Arab world's leaders is the social protests turning into anarchy.
#1
I remember how the II intifada started. First, a bunch of stabbings. When, after Israeli response transformed it into ineffective, the boomings started.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] After being banned by three main Arabic news channels, former Yemeni President 
[CanadaFreePress] President Obama failed to take out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but now he's going after Canada's Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a big supporter of Israel and opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
