mintpressnews--2020-08-28--Kenosha Sheriff’s Racist Rant Follows Pattern of Fraternizing with White Supremacists

The Kenosha Police Department has come under heavy scrutiny in recent days after one of its officers shot Jacob Blake multiple times in the back at close range .
Later , after protests erupted , its officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with local militia , one of whom — a 17-year-old boy — would go on to shoot three people , returning to police lines , where they did not arrest him , allowing him to continue unabated .
The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) has called for the resignation of the city ’ s police chief , Daniel Miskinis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , David Beth .
“ Sheriff David Beth ’ s deputies not only fraternized with white supremacist counter-protesters on Tuesday , but allowed the shooter to leave as people yelled that he was the shooter , ” they wrote in their statement .
The ACLU also drew attention to an obscene rant Beth went on in 2018 , in reaction to a shoplifting incident .
“ I ’ m to the point where I think society has to come to a threshold where there are some people that aren ’ t worth saving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ podium , in front of the press .
“ We need to build warehouses to put these people into it and lock them away for the rest of their lives , ” with “ no recreational time ” whatsoever , he added .
This was in response to the arrest of five black people for shoplifting .
He then went on a bizarre eugenics rant , claiming that the police ’ s job should be to stop “ these males ” from “ getting ten other women pregnant and having small children.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he said , “ at some point , we have to stop being politically correct.
” Beth attempted to justify his opinion , stating that the five black suspects , “ drove through a red light , they stole thousands of dollars worth of clothing , and they don ’ t care.
” The ACLU also condemned Miskinis for his response to the Blake shooting and subsequent murders , noting that he blamed the unidentified victims in Tuesday night ’ s shooting for their own deaths , saying they should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uphold and defend white supremacy , while demonizing people who were murdered for exercising their First Amendment rights and speaking out against police violence , ” said Chris Ott , Executive Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin .
“ The only way to rectify these actions is for both Sheriff Beth and Police Chief Daniel Miskinis to immediately tender their resignations.
” On Sunday afternoon , Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheske shot Jacob Blake , a local 29-year-old black multiple times in the back from point blank range .
While Blake was left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video of the incident was going viral , sparking nationwide protests .
Sheskey was placed on administrative leave , little more than paid vacation in some commentators ’ eyes .
Officers claim that Blake had a knife on his person .
Protests engulfed Keshona , with Governor Tony Evers declaring a state of emergency .
Right-wing militias also converged on the small Wisconsin city .
Among them was 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse , who got his mother to drive him across state lines with an illegal firearm .
Rittenhouse was filmed shooting three people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to police lines , where he was protected from the protestors .
Despite killing two people in front of dozens of police officers , he was not arrested until the next day .
Indeed , video emerged showing police fraternizing with the militias before the shooting , telling Rittenhouse and his crew that “ we appreciate you guys , we really do , ” just before the shootings .
The overlap between law enforcement and racist militias has been well studied .
Far-right groups are infiltrating police departments nationwide , something the government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Facing a recruitment crisis , the military has also been recruiting Neo-Nazis to join its ranks .
During the racial justice protests occurring nationwide throughout the summer , police have been caught coordinating with far-right groups and making white power gestures .
Trying to gauge the exact level of crossover between police and the far-right is not easy , although a recent study by the group Injustice Watch makes for worrying reading .
The study found that 20 percent of police officers post openly racist content or share content glorifying police violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This figure rises to 40 percent of retired cops .
And the two most common professions of readers of right-wing conspiracy website InfoWars are police officer and soldier .
Thus , while Sheriff Beth ’ s remarks might shock the public , those who closely follow the issue are likely less surprised .
Feature photo | Police in riot gear line up against protesters during clashes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse , Aug. 25 , 2020 , in Kenosha , Wis. David Goldman | AP Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2017 he published two books : Bad News From Venezuela : Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary .

The Kenosha Police Department has come under heavy scrutiny in recent days after one of its officers shot Jacob Blake multiple times in the back at close range. Later, after protests erupted, its officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with local militia, one of whom — a 17-year-old boy — would go on to shoot three people, returning to police lines, where they did not arrest him, allowing him to continue unabated.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called for the resignation of the city’s police chief, Daniel Miskinis, and the county’s sheriff, David Beth. “Sheriff David Beth’s deputies not only fraternized with white supremacist counter-protesters on Tuesday, but allowed the shooter to leave as people yelled that he was the shooter,” they wrote in their statement. The ACLU also drew attention to an obscene rant Beth went on in 2018, in reaction to a shoplifting incident.
“I’m to the point where I think society has to come to a threshold where there are some people that aren’t worth saving,” Beth said, from his podium, in front of the press. “We need to build warehouses to put these people into it and lock them away for the rest of their lives,” with “no recreational time” whatsoever, he added. This was in response to the arrest of five black people for shoplifting. He then went on a bizarre eugenics rant, claiming that the police’s job should be to stop “these males” from “getting ten other women pregnant and having small children.” “Let’s put them away,” he said, “at some point, we have to stop being politically correct.” Beth attempted to justify his opinion, stating that the five black suspects, “drove through a red light, they stole thousands of dollars worth of clothing, and they don’t care.”
The ACLU also condemned Miskinis for his response to the Blake shooting and subsequent murders, noting that he blamed the unidentified victims in Tuesday night’s shooting for their own deaths, saying they should not have broken curfew. “Their actions uphold and defend white supremacy, while demonizing people who were murdered for exercising their First Amendment rights and speaking out against police violence,” said Chris Ott, Executive Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “The only way to rectify these actions is for both Sheriff Beth and Police Chief Daniel Miskinis to immediately tender their resignations.”
On Sunday afternoon, Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheske shot Jacob Blake, a local 29-year-old black multiple times in the back from point blank range. While Blake was left paralyzed and fighting for his life, video of the incident was going viral, sparking nationwide protests. Sheskey was placed on administrative leave, little more than paid vacation in some commentators’ eyes. Officers claim that Blake had a knife on his person.
Protests engulfed Keshona, with Governor Tony Evers declaring a state of emergency. Right-wing militias also converged on the small Wisconsin city. Among them was 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who got his mother to drive him across state lines with an illegal firearm. Rittenhouse was filmed shooting three people, killing two, before rushing back to police lines, where he was protected from the protestors. Despite killing two people in front of dozens of police officers, he was not arrested until the next day. Indeed, video emerged showing police fraternizing with the militias before the shooting, telling Rittenhouse and his crew that “we appreciate you guys, we really do,” just before the shootings.
The overlap between law enforcement and racist militias has been well studied. Far-right groups are infiltrating police departments nationwide, something the government has known about and monitored for years. Facing a recruitment crisis, the military has also been recruiting Neo-Nazis to join its ranks. During the racial justice protests occurring nationwide throughout the summer, police have been caught coordinating with far-right groups and making white power gestures.
Trying to gauge the exact level of crossover between police and the far-right is not easy, although a recent study by the group Injustice Watch makes for worrying reading. The study found that 20 percent of police officers post openly racist content or share content glorifying police violence against protesters on their public Facebook pages. This figure rises to 40 percent of retired cops. And the two most common professions of readers of right-wing conspiracy website InfoWars are police officer and soldier. Thus, while Sheriff Beth’s remarks might shock the public, those who closely follow the issue are likely less surprised.
Feature photo | Police in riot gear line up against protesters during clashes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse, Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis. David Goldman | AP
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.


mintpressnews--2020-08-28--Massive Ansar Allah Operation in Central Yemen Reveals Alliance Between al-Qaeda and Islamic State

AL-BAYDA , YEMEN– Yemen may be set to repeat the horrific events of 2014 , when fighters with the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria ( ISIS ) swept across Iraq and Syria , holding an area extending from western Iraq to eastern Syria and carrying out mass executions , kidnapping , and torture .
Today , the same scenario is taking shape in the torn-war country of Yemen where the group had preparations to sweep the Yemeni provinces of al-Bayda , Dhamar , and Sana ’ a in a move that many believe is aimed at changing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failed Saudi-led coalition military incursion in the country .
A national coalition of fighters led by Ansar Allah recently defeated the largest den of IS and al-Qaeda militants seen in the Arabian Peninsula in central Yemen .
In the week-long operation , thought to the be the largest of its kind since the war in Yemen began , the terrorist groups left behind dozens of documents , including maps , passports , and videos , some of which were viewed by MintPress .
Confession of hundreds of captured IS and al-Qaeda fighters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the groups were receiving support from Saudi Arabia and wanted to repeat an “ Iraqi Mousel scenario ” in Yemen by the end of 2020 .
The Ansar Allah-led army , supported by local al-Bayda tribesmen , successfully swept the Qeifah , Gurashyah , and Walled Rabie districts in al-Bayda province where IS and al-Qaeda fighters controlled an area estimated at 1,000 square kilometers .
More than 1,000 foreign and local fighters , including high-ranking leaders , were killed or captured in the operation .
Many of the groups ’ leaders were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civilians in Syria and Iraq and at least 200 surrendered themself to Ansar Allah on the condition that their identities not be revealed to their home countries .
Salem Hassen , who appears no older than 30 years old , is one of the dozens of foreign leaders captured in the operation .
Hassen is from Saudi Arabia , particularly from Breidah al-Qassim , located at the heart of the Kingdom .
Other fighters hailed from Afghanistan , Pakistan , and Syria .
While most surrendered themselves , some wore explosive belts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apprehended , including the man thought to be the head of IS in Yemen , Radwan Muhammad Hussein Qanan , known as Abu Al-Walid Al-Adani .
Other notable high-level figures in the organization were also killed in the operation , including Suleiman al-Adani , who was in charge of manufacturing workshops for explosive belts ; Book Security Officer , Muin Nasir Al-Maflahi and Hamed Abdo Anam , known as “ Khattab al-Ibbi , ” in charge of relations with IS .
Notably , many of the fighters captured in the operation hailed from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe .
After the defeat of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan , the districts of Qeifah and Wald Rabi became al-Qaeda strongholds , and by 2018 , had turned into the headquarters of IS in Yemen , much like Mosul in Iraq and al-Raqqah in Syria .
From there , high-ranking leaders of both groups planned their largest operations inside of Yemen , and around the world .
Yemeni Abu Mohammed al- Adeni , who had been captured by the Yemen army while he was trying to escape to Dhamar province , was behind the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the al-Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques in 2015 that killed more than 150 and injured more than 1,000 as well as the 2012 Sana ’ a bombing against Yemeni Army soldiers preparing for the annual Unity Day military parade The group is believed to have had conducted 320 attacks in Yemen and throughout the world between January 2015 and May 2020 .
At least 190 of the attacks in Yemen involved the detonation of explosives .
Twenty-seven assassinations were also attempted during the period , 11 of which failed .
Terrorist attacks all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as far-ranging as New York , London , Paris , Sydney Brussels , were planned from the new headquarter according to videos that left behind in their well-fortified hideouts .
These districts were known to the United States as strongholds to IS and al-Qaeda .
On January 29 , 2020 , the Emir of AQAP , Qasim al-Raymi , was killed by a U.S. airstrike while traveling in a car with another senior AQAP leader , Abu Al-Baraa al-Ibby , in the Yakla area of Wald Rabi ’ District , al-Bayda .
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the leader of IS in Yemen .
IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen : an uneasy alliance At first , IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen had an uneasy alliance and were working in unison , unlike in Syria and Iraq where they battled it out for territory and influence .
This was due to an agreement reached through Saudi mediation that was implemented in 2018 .
During that time , the groups established additional military bases in remote areas ; six IS camps , including Shaeb Aleshr , Alnajdu , Shaear Alzel , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eight al-Qaeda bases .
More than 13,000 fighters were conducting maneuvers and daily training using live ammunition in camps where black flags were flying over at a time when U.S. drones were almost constantly spotted over the skies of al-Bayda .
By 2020 , the groups , now supported by Saudi Arabia , had prepared a four-pronged plan to wrest control of al-Bayda due to its strategic location in central Yemen .
Al-Bayda is known as the gate to eight provinces ; Sana ’ a , Dhamar , Ibb , al-Dhale , Lahij @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The first axis was to advance through the areas adjacent to Shabwa from the Beihan district with the aim of gaining complete control of the Nati ’ and Noman directorates .
Many parts of two districts had been under the control of al-Qaeda since 2015 when the Saudi war on Yemen began in earnest .
The second axis marched towards the directorates adjacent to Dhamar and Bani Dhabian districts in the Kholan region , south of Sana ’ a through the areas of Qaifa , then on to Sana ’ a city .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ adjacent to the provinces of Lahij and Abyan to control Makeras and the areas south of al-Bayda under the leadership of Saleh al-Shajri , commander of the so-called al-Amajid Brigade .
The fourth axis was to take the area adjacent to Marib in order to cut the line between Rada ’ a and al-Bayda and in turn , cut off Yemeni forces completely .
The documents recovered from Ansar-Allah ’ s operation indicated that the groups were planning an increase in attacks , using explosive devices to target the army , security services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saudi war in al-Bayda .
Other documents belonging to the groups acknowledge that the security services had foiled four suicide car bombings and that eight had failed to blow up in the al-Yasbel area of al-Wahbia district in al-Bayda .
Documents show that those plans were carried out in full coordination with Saudi Arabia and leaders of Saudi-backed militant groups .
Dozens of meetings were held between both sides in Marib and al-Bayda .
Many Saudi officers and some local leaders visited Qiefah and Yakla to oversee the disbursement of funds and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces , including 50-caliber sniper rifles that were placed under the custody of Pakistani nationals .
Under the eye of American drones Since 2015 , the Saudi-led Coalition has increased support to IS and al-Qaeda , who now roam Yemen ’ s battlefields equipped with U.S. made-weapons .
According to documents recovered from the operation , coalition support for the groups was led by Ali Muhsein and Tawfiq al-Qayyz .
The duo acted as liaisons to the groups , overseeing operations to airdrop food and weapons to them , and in a more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 95 Saudi airstrikes to prevent the Ansar Allah from advancing on their barracks and bases in Qifa and Ikla .
Many international organizations , particularly the U.S. government-run United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ) , have been accused of supporting al-Qaeda and IS fighters in Yemen .
Documents recovered from during the raid as well as during previous raids revealed weapons caches lifted by al-Qaeda and IS emblazoned with the USAID flag in enclaves that were particularly difficult to access .
That support apparently increased in frequency in the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Yemeni military strategist and expert with extensive knowledge of terrorist groups believes it is unlikely that the United States was unaware of the groups proliferation in Yemen .
“ It is difficult to believe that the existence of so many camps , fighters , and weapons in a particular geographical area were out of the eye of the drones and spy satellites of the United States , ” said al-Thour .
Another military expert told MintPress that “ it was likely that the United States turned a blind eye to IS camps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reality along the lines of events in Iraq and Syria to defeat the Houthis , at best.
” For his part , Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said that IS and al-Qaeda had coordinated with Arab and Western intelligence agencies and received financial and military support from Saudi Arabia , the United States , and the United Arab Emirates .
He mentioned that the Saudi-led coalition conducted dozens of airstrikes in an attempt to hinder Ansar Allah ( the political wing of the Houthis ) forces from advancing toward IS and al-Qaeda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Saudi support for IS and al-Qaeda , as they share a similar ideology and same enemy , but what is incomprehensible is the support , or blind eye , of the United States and other countries to IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen .
Many officials in Sana ’ a said the U.S. plays with a fire that not only burns Yemenis but also burns many innocent people around the world , including in the United States .
In fact , Ansar Allah ’ s operation not only stopped the repetition of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many areas in Syria , but it has also hindered the ability of IS and al-Qaeda to carry out planned attacks on Western nations , including in Europe and the United States , and in some Arab countries as retaliation attacks to “ fight their country in Iraq and Syria ” according to their documents that showed contacts between members of IS with individuals in these countries .
Feature photo | A silhouette of tribesmen loyal to Houthi rebels raise their weapons as they chant slogans during a gathering against the agreement to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Arab Emirates in Sanaa , Yemen , Aug. 22 , 2020 .
Hani Mohammed | AP Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist .
He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media .

AL-BAYDA,YEMEN– Yemen may be set to repeat the horrific events of 2014, when fighters with the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) swept across Iraq and Syria, holding an area extending from western Iraq to eastern Syria and carrying out mass executions, kidnapping, and torture. Today, the same scenario is taking shape in the torn-war country of Yemen where the group had preparations to sweep the Yemeni provinces of al-Bayda, Dhamar, and Sana’a in a move that many believe is aimed at changing the equation on the ground after a failed Saudi-led coalition military incursion in the country.
A national coalition of fighters led by Ansar Allah recently defeated the largest den of IS and al-Qaeda militants seen in the Arabian Peninsula in central Yemen. In the week-long operation, thought to the be the largest of its kind since the war in Yemen began, the terrorist groups left behind dozens of documents, including maps, passports, and videos, some of which were viewed by MintPress. Confession of hundreds of captured IS and al-Qaeda fighters, including many from western countries, revealed that the groups were receiving support from Saudi Arabia and wanted to repeat an “Iraqi Mousel scenario” in Yemen by the end of 2020.
The Ansar Allah-led army, supported by local al-Bayda tribesmen, successfully swept the Qeifah, Gurashyah, and Walled Rabie districts in al-Bayda province where IS and al-Qaeda fighters controlled an area estimated at 1,000 square kilometers. More than 1,000 foreign and local fighters, including high-ranking leaders, were killed or captured in the operation. Many of the groups’ leaders were involved in the killings and executions of civilians in Syria and Iraq and at least 200 surrendered themself to Ansar Allah on the condition that their identities not be revealed to their home countries.
New scenes of the Massive sweep operation against AQAP and ISIS in Al-Bayda’ 26-08-2020#YemenWrath pic.twitter.com/VY340Uz0Cg — البأس اليماني (@YeWrath) August 26, 2020
Salem Hassen, who appears no older than 30 years old, is one of the dozens of foreign leaders captured in the operation. Hassen is from Saudi Arabia, particularly from Breidah al-Qassim, located at the heart of the Kingdom. Other fighters hailed from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria. While most surrendered themselves, some wore explosive belts and blew themselves up before they could be apprehended, including the man thought to be the head of IS in Yemen, Radwan Muhammad Hussein Qanan, known as Abu Al-Walid Al-Adani. Other notable high-level figures in the organization were also killed in the operation, including Suleiman al-Adani, who was in charge of manufacturing workshops for explosive belts; Book Security Officer, Muin Nasir Al-Maflahi and Hamed Abdo Anam, known as “Khattab al-Ibbi,” in charge of relations with IS. Notably, many of the fighters captured in the operation hailed from countries far from Yemen, including from Europe.
What the Yemeni war media has shown, and what the world should know, is the nationality of the takfirs and those who want to spread terrorism in Yemen which is the countries of aggression that support them by their air raids against the Yemeni army and popular committees . pic.twitter.com/jTz1CqrPGU — Princess Of Yemen 🇾🇪 بديل (@princess_yMn20) August 27, 2020
After the defeat of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the districts of Qeifah and Wald Rabi became al-Qaeda strongholds, and by 2018, had turned into the headquarters of IS in Yemen, much like Mosul in Iraq and al-Raqqah in Syria. From there, high-ranking leaders of both groups planned their largest operations inside of Yemen, and around the world. Yemeni Abu Mohammed al- Adeni, who had been captured by the Yemen army while he was trying to escape to Dhamar province, was behind the planning and execution of two suicide attacks against the al-Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques in 2015 that killed more than 150 and injured more than 1,000 as well as the 2012 Sana’a bombing against Yemeni Army soldiers preparing for the annual Unity Day military parade
The group is believed to have had conducted 320 attacks in Yemen and throughout the world between January 2015 and May 2020. At least 190 of the attacks in Yemen involved the detonation of explosives. Twenty-seven assassinations were also attempted during the period, 11 of which failed. Terrorist attacks all over the world, in cities, as far-ranging as New York, London, Paris, Sydney Brussels, were planned from the new headquarter according to videos that left behind in their well-fortified hideouts.
These districts were known to the United States as strongholds to IS and al-Qaeda. On January 29, 2020, the Emir of AQAP, Qasim al-Raymi, was killed by a U.S. airstrike while traveling in a car with another senior AQAP leader, Abu Al-Baraa al-Ibby, in the Yakla area of Wald Rabi’ District, al-Bayda. However, no airstrikes have yet been recorded against the leader of IS in Yemen.
IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen: an uneasy alliance
At first, IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen had an uneasy alliance and were working in unison, unlike in Syria and Iraq where they battled it out for territory and influence. This was due to an agreement reached through Saudi mediation that was implemented in 2018. During that time, the groups established additional military bases in remote areas; six IS camps, including Shaeb Aleshr, Alnajdu, Shaear Alzel, Ghajaman, Altamasih military camps, and eight al-Qaeda bases. More than 13,000 fighters were conducting maneuvers and daily training using live ammunition in camps where black flags were flying over at a time when U.S. drones were almost constantly spotted over the skies of al-Bayda.
By 2020, the groups, now supported by Saudi Arabia, had prepared a four-pronged plan to wrest control of al-Bayda due to its strategic location in central Yemen. Al-Bayda is known as the gate to eight provinces; Sana’a, Dhamar, Ibb, al-Dhale, Lahij, Abyan, Marib, Shabwa. The first axis was to advance through the areas adjacent to Shabwa from the Beihan district with the aim of gaining complete control of the Nati’ and Noman directorates. Many parts of two districts had been under the control of al-Qaeda since 2015 when the Saudi war on Yemen began in earnest.
The second axis marched towards the directorates adjacent to Dhamar and Bani Dhabian districts in the Kholan region, south of Sana’a through the areas of Qaifa, then on to Sana’a city.
The third axis moved towards the areas adjacent to the provinces of Lahij and Abyan to control Makeras and the areas south of al-Bayda under the leadership of Saleh al-Shajri, commander of the so-called al-Amajid Brigade.
The fourth axis was to take the area adjacent to Marib in order to cut the line between Rada’a and al-Bayda and in turn, cut off Yemeni forces completely.
The documents recovered from Ansar-Allah’s operation indicated that the groups were planning an increase in attacks, using explosive devices to target the army, security services, and community leaders opposed to the Saudi war in al-Bayda. Other documents belonging to the groups acknowledge that the security services had foiled four suicide car bombings and that eight had failed to blow up in the al-Yasbel area of al-Wahbia district in al-Bayda.
Documents show that those plans were carried out in full coordination with Saudi Arabia and leaders of Saudi-backed militant groups. Dozens of meetings were held between both sides in Marib and al-Bayda. Many Saudi officers and some local leaders visited Qiefah and Yakla to oversee the disbursement of funds and the storage of arms shipments provided by Saudi forces, including 50-caliber sniper rifles that were placed under the custody of Pakistani nationals.
Under the eye of American drones
Since 2015, the Saudi-led Coalition has increased support to IS and al-Qaeda, who now roam Yemen’s battlefields equipped with U.S. made-weapons. According to documents recovered from the operation, coalition support for the groups was led by Ali Muhsein and Tawfiq al-Qayyz. The duo acted as liaisons to the groups, overseeing operations to airdrop food and weapons to them, and in a more recent operation, to conduct more than 95 Saudi airstrikes to prevent the Ansar Allah from advancing on their barracks and bases in Qifa and Ikla.
Many international organizations, particularly the U.S. government-run United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have been accused of supporting al-Qaeda and IS fighters in Yemen. Documents recovered from during the raid as well as during previous raids revealed weapons caches lifted by al-Qaeda and IS emblazoned with the USAID flag in enclaves that were particularly difficult to access. That support apparently increased in frequency in the first months of 2018.
Abed al-Thour, a Yemeni military strategist and expert with extensive knowledge of terrorist groups believes it is unlikely that the United States was unaware of the groups proliferation in Yemen. “It is difficult to believe that the existence of so many camps, fighters, and weapons in a particular geographical area were out of the eye of the drones and spy satellites of the United States,” said al-Thour. Another military expert told MintPress that “it was likely that the United States turned a blind eye to IS camps to let the groups create a new reality along the lines of events in Iraq and Syria to defeat the Houthis, at best.”
For his part, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said that IS and al-Qaeda had coordinated with Arab and Western intelligence agencies and received financial and military support from Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates. He mentioned that the Saudi-led coalition conducted dozens of airstrikes in an attempt to hinder Ansar Allah (the political wing of the Houthis) forces from advancing toward IS and al-Qaeda positions.
It is easy to understand the Saudi support for IS and al-Qaeda, as they share a similar ideology and same enemy, but what is incomprehensible is the support, or blind eye, of the United States and other countries to IS and al-Qaeda in Yemen. Many officials in Sana’a said the U.S. plays with a fire that not only burns Yemenis but also burns many innocent people around the world, including in the United States.
In fact, Ansar Allah’s operation not only stopped the repetition of a scenario like that seen in Mosul and many areas in Syria, but it has also hindered the ability of IS and al-Qaeda to carry out planned attacks on Western nations, including in Europe and the United States, and in some Arab countries as retaliation attacks to “ fight their country in Iraq and Syria” according to their documents that showed contacts between members of IS with individuals in these countries.
Feature photo | A silhouette of tribesmen loyal to Houthi rebels raise their weapons as they chant slogans during a gathering against the agreement to establish diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in Sanaa, Yemen, Aug. 22, 2020. Hani Mohammed | AP
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.


mintpressnews--2020-08-28--Decades Later, America’s Meddling in Colombia is Still Costing Lives

On a warm Tuesday morning earlier this month in Llano Verde , an eastern suburb of the city of Cali , five Afro-Colombian children decided to leave their homes to take advantage of the fine weather to spend some time outside .
They would never return .
Only a few hours later , they were found dead ; their bodies burned , cut to pieces with machetes and riddled with bullets , dumped in public for all to see .
The residents of Llano Verde are no strangers to violence ; the majority of them are refugees , displaced from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war .
The local press reported that the boys , Luis Fernando Montaño , Josmar Jean Paul Cruz Perlaza , Álvaro Jose Caicedo Silva , Jair Andrés Cortes Castro , and Leider Cárdenas Hurtado , were members of the vibrant local art scene and had gone to fly kites — such an innocent activity in a land of the guilty .
The incident has shocked the people of Cali , but not surprised them .
Last week alone there were five massacres across the country .
Cali is not even the most recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of three young men were found on a roadside in Ocaña , a city near the Venezuelan border .
That was the country ’ s 46th massacre in 2020 to date , according to local human rights group Indepez , who notes that 185 people have been killed this year — more than one person per day .
“ Every massacre is a message , ” said Manuel Rozental , a physician and longtime activist living in Cauca , in the country ’ s southwest .
“ Young , indigenous , Afro-Colombians are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the country…The massacres are methodic , systematic .
It is a job being done as planned , ” he told MintPress .
James Jordan , the National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice , appeared to agree , stating that : The government , led by President Ivan Duque , blamed leftist rebel groups for the killings , particularly the FARC .
The majority of the latest massacres have indeed occurred in rural areas controlled by the rebels until the historic 2016 peace accords , where the FARC agreed to demobilize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet the experts MintPress spoke to were skeptical of Duque ’ s claims .
“ Who in Colombia , after the FARC dismantled has the capacity to locate , threaten and murder social leaders and now proceed with massacres with such precision ?
The answer is obvious , there has to be military intelligence involved , ” said Rozental .
Certainly , throughout Colombia ’ s recent history , the majority of atrocities have been carried out by government-linked paramilitaries , who have enjoyed virtually free rein to impose their will on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and ordered national police chief General Oscar Atehortua to take charge of the investigation , and instructed his forces to be “ relentless ” in their pursuit of justice , aggressive language which worried many he was trying to calm .
At the same time , he has attempted to downplay the recent upsurge in violence , describing the massacres as merely “ collective homicides.
” Today , the government announced it had arrested two suspects , although their affiliations , let alone their guilt , are still unclear at this point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University , author of “ Colombia and the United States : War , Terrorism and Destabilization , ” was profoundly agnostic about the perpetrators of the violence , but believes the broader situation stems from failures in government .
“ The recent wave of massacres hitting predominantly rural communities in Colombia , at first glance , appears to be part of a random lawlessness which authorities are deliberately finding difficulty in attributing responsibility to , but is actually the direct result of the failures of the current government to fully implement the 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the previous administration , ” he said .
Ivan Duque came to power in 2018 in a hotly contested and highly questionable election that pitted him against former leftist guerilla Gustavo Petro .
This was the first time that the left appeared to have a shot at power since the assassination of President Jorge Gaitan in 1948 , an event that sparked decades of civil war .
Right-wing paramilitary death squads sprung into action , announcing generalized death threats against those who attempted to vote for Petro .
Petro himself narrowly survived an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
Some of his supporters were less lucky .
American human rights lawyer Daniel Kovalik , an election observer , said he was mistaken for a voter and offered money to vote for Duque .
There were over 1,000 official electoral fraud complaints .
Jordan explained to MintPress his experiences with the questionable vote Duque is the protege of the strongly conservative president Alvaro Uribe , who ruled the country between 2002 and 2010 .
Uribe worked closely with the United States government to implement the Bush administration ’ s “ Plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ militarize the drug war , leading to huge death and destruction in the nation ’ s countryside and resulting in widespread social dislocation and upheaval .
However , many observers saw Washington ’ s move as a veiled attempt to ply a favored government with weapons so they could defeat Colombia ’ s leftist rebels once and for all .
Of note is that Uribe himself was named as an important player in the narco-trafficking trade in a 1991 U.S. government document .
Largely unknown outside the country , Colombia ’ s civil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has never fully stopped , has caused massive social upheaval , including some 7.4 million currently displaced people , according to the United Nations .
By comparison , the conflict in Syria generated 6.2 million displacements .
Afro-Colombians were particularly hard hit .
Uribe also oversaw a years-long series of extrajudicial murders and massacres that resulted in over 10,000 deaths .
Dubbed the “ False Positives Scandal , ” government forces would murder anyone they wished , later claiming their victims were members of the FARC .
This allowed Uribe to impose his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into silence .
Colombia became , according to Amnesty International , the “ most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist , ” with more unionist murders occurring inside the country than in all others combined .
Even today , right-wing paramilitaries linked to the government have been using the COVID-19 lockdown to go after activists , with more than 100 murdered in the first half of 2020 alone .
“ Our enemies are still killing us and it ’ s not difficult for them during the pandemic because we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mandatory quarantine which means nobody can move , ” one Afro-Colombian activist wrote for Amnesty .
“ Being at home 24 hours a day is a death sentence because the gunmen know where to find us.
” Rozental was of the opinion that drugs , violence and the state were all fundamentally intertwined in Colombia , telling MintPress , Yet this is largely ignored in the West , with corporate media often presenting the country as an emerging democracy , and Uribe as a beloved statesman , with some even describing him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation and a “ beacon of hope ” for the world .
Uribe ’ s past may have finally caught up to him , however , as the former president was charged and placed under house arrest earlier this month for allegedly attempting to bribe a witness in a case involving members of a paramilitary group .
He also stands accused of being a founding member of a right-wing death squad .
He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted .
Could it be the man who was once considered untouchable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state he helped build ?
Murillo believed that there could be a connection between his arrest and the explosion of violence in the past few weeks , saying : So who is responsible for the upsurge of massacres ?
Is it the FARC , as the government alleges ?
Or were right-wing paramilitaries to blame ?
Or perhaps one of the myriads of narco-trafficking groups operating in the region ?
Or a combination of many factors ?
If history is any judge , we will probably never get a definitive answer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beauty and so little justice .
For Rozental , even asking that question can be unhelpful .
Instead , he says , we must simply “ recognize who the beneficiaries are.
” Then it becomes easier to understand .
“ The intention is to consolidate an articulation between transnational corporate financial and extractive interests with drug trafficking mafias , ” he said , noting that marijuana grown in his home department of Cauca and bought for $ 3- $ 5 is sold in the U.S. for $ 5,000 .
Cocaine production is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coca cultivation more than tripling between 2013 and 2018 , according to the U.N. For Jordan , the actions of the United States government have also played a part in the surge in violence , telling us that the Trump administration has leaned on Duque to abandon his government ’ s commitment to rural communities and its crop substitution policy , which allowed poor farmers the opportunity to make an honest living , rather than growing illicit crops .
Instead , as they did during Plan Colombia , the U.S. government has favored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eradicate crops around the country , efforts that have strengthened their hand and emboldened paramilitaries to act like all rural farmers are mortal enemies engaged in criminal activity .
Jordan also alleges that Trump has “ eagerly pushed ” Colombia to abandon its truth and reconciliation program and the rehabilitation of former guerilla fighters back into polite society .
To understand the situation fully , he said , “ we have to look beyond Colombia , toward the US and NATO Empire.
” Colombia , of course , has for nearly 200 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be America ’ s “ backyard , ” with the nation proving to be among the U.S. ’ s most loyal allies in the hemisphere .
Even during the wave of left-wing governments that came to power in Latin America during the 2000s and 2010s , Colombia held firm , being a vital American foothold on the continent , from which it continued to destabilize neighboring states like Venezuela .
The U.S. has always been deeply involved in the drug trade .
Investigative journalist Gary Webb detailed how , during the 1980s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black communities with crack cocaine , allowing the far-right Nicaraguan Contra death squads to profit from the practice , aiding them in their fight to overthrow the leftist Sandinistas .
Webb was found with two bullets in his head in 2004 .
Officials ruled it a suicide , although some remain skeptical .
To this day , Webb is still despised in elite journalist circles ; corporate media outlets having worked overtime to contain the story and stop his reporting going mainstream .
Today , some of the Iran-Contra squad is back in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appointed special advisor to Trump on Venezuela and Iran .
In 1991 Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to congress about how , behind the scenes , his associates were selling arms to Iran to fund their regime change project in Nicaragua .
Ultimately , as long as Americans continue to pay top dollar for illicit drugs , Colombians will continue to pay in blood .
The identities of most of the country ’ s killers remains a mystery , but the violent context in which the massacres are happening is not .
Feature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mayor of Cali , visits the crime scene where the bodies of five young men were found earlier this month .
Photo | Twitter via Jorge Ivan Ospina Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News .
After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books : Bad News From Venezuela : Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and The Canary .

On a warm Tuesday morning earlier this month in Llano Verde, an eastern suburb of the city of Cali, five Afro-Colombian children decided to leave their homes to take advantage of the fine weather to spend some time outside. They would never return. Only a few hours later, they were found dead; their bodies burned, cut to pieces with machetes and riddled with bullets, dumped in public for all to see.
The residents of Llano Verde are no strangers to violence; the majority of them are refugees, displaced from the fighting in Colombia’s civil war. The local press reported that the boys, Luis Fernando Montaño, Josmar Jean Paul Cruz Perlaza, Álvaro Jose Caicedo Silva, Jair Andrés Cortes Castro, and Leider Cárdenas Hurtado, were members of the vibrant local art scene and had gone to fly kites — such an innocent activity in a land of the guilty.
A violent history
The incident has shocked the people of Cali, but not surprised them. Last week alone there were five massacres across the country. Cali is not even the most recent one; on Tuesday, the bodies of three young men were found on a roadside in Ocaña, a city near the Venezuelan border. That was the country’s 46th massacre in 2020 to date, according to local human rights group Indepez, who notes that 185 people have been killed this year — more than one person per day.
“Every massacre is a message,” said Manuel Rozental, a physician and longtime activist living in Cauca, in the country’s southwest. “Young, indigenous, Afro-Colombians are being murdered en masse in different regions of the country…The massacres are methodic, systematic. It is a job being done as planned,” he told MintPress.
James Jordan, the National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice, appeared to agree, stating that:
We have been watching with alarm as enemies of peace in Colombia have continued to escalate threats and assaults against human rights defenders, social movement leaders, and ex-insurgents participating in the peace process. Also targeted have been their family members, including, in some cases, children and even infants. As always, the most affected by political violence are rural farming, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities.”
The government, led by President Ivan Duque, blamed leftist rebel groups for the killings, particularly the FARC. The majority of the latest massacres have indeed occurred in rural areas controlled by the rebels until the historic 2016 peace accords, where the FARC agreed to demobilize and enter the political arena instead. Yet the experts MintPress spoke to were skeptical of Duque’s claims. “Who in Colombia, after the FARC dismantled has the capacity to locate, threaten and murder social leaders and now proceed with massacres with such precision? The answer is obvious, there has to be military intelligence involved,” said Rozental. Certainly, throughout Colombia’s recent history, the majority of atrocities have been carried out by government-linked paramilitaries, who have enjoyed virtually free rein to impose their will on the country.
Duque visited Cali on Saturday, and ordered national police chief General Oscar Atehortua to take charge of the investigation, and instructed his forces to be “relentless” in their pursuit of justice, aggressive language which worried many he was trying to calm. At the same time, he has attempted to downplay the recent upsurge in violence, describing the massacres as merely “collective homicides.” Today, the government announced it had arrested two suspects, although their affiliations, let alone their guilt, are still unclear at this point.
Professor Mario A. Murillo of Hofstra University, author of “Colombia and the United States: War, Terrorism and Destabilization,” was profoundly agnostic about the perpetrators of the violence, but believes the broader situation stems from failures in government. “The recent wave of massacres hitting predominantly rural communities in Colombia, at first glance, appears to be part of a random lawlessness which authorities are deliberately finding difficulty in attributing responsibility to, but is actually the direct result of the failures of the current government to fully implement the 2016 peace agreement signed with FARC rebels by the previous administration,” he said.
The bottom line is if President Duque had not taken the lead from the right-wing base of his Democratic Center Party in dismantling every important provision of the peace accord — from land reform to justice for the victims of the decades-long war, from sustainable rural development, to guarantees for social movements and demobilized guerillas in a post-conflict Colombia — the country would not be reliving this kind of terror, reminiscent of the horrors of the late 1990s and early 2000s.”
Don’t vote for Petro
Ivan Duque came to power in 2018 in a hotly contested and highly questionable election that pitted him against former leftist guerilla Gustavo Petro. This was the first time that the left appeared to have a shot at power since the assassination of presidential candidate Jorge Gaitan in 1948, an event that sparked decades of civil war. Right-wing paramilitary death squads sprung into action, announcing generalized death threats against those who attempted to vote for Petro. Petro himself narrowly survived an assassination attempt in the run-up to the election. Some of his supporters were less lucky. American human rights lawyer Daniel Kovalik, an election observer, said he was mistaken for a voter and offered money to vote for Duque. There were over 1,000 official electoral fraud complaints. Jordan explained to MintPress his experiences with the questionable vote
During the Summer of 2018, we took an election observation team to Colombia. That election season was, historically, the first in which former insurgents from the FARC participated as a legal political party after laying down arms. It was also marked by organized threats and assaults by paramilitary actors against left and center-left campaigns, and against various popular movements. And it was marked by massive electoral fraud and irregularities, some of which our teams witnessed directly.”
Plan Colombia
Duque is the protege of the strongly conservative president Alvaro Uribe, who ruled the country between 2002 and 2010. Uribe worked closely with the United States government to implement the Bush administration’s “Plan Colombia,” a massive push to militarize the drug war, leading to huge death and destruction in the nation’s countryside and resulting in widespread social dislocation and upheaval. However, many observers saw Washington’s move as a veiled attempt to ply a favored government with weapons so they could defeat Colombia’s leftist rebels once and for all. Of note is that Uribe himself was named as an important player in the narco-trafficking trade in a 1991 U.S. government document.
Largely unknown outside the country, Colombia’s civil war, which began in 1964 and has never fully stopped, has caused massive social upheaval, including some 7.4 million currently displaced people, according to the United Nations. By comparison, the conflict in Syria generated 6.2 million displacements. Afro-Colombians were particularly hard hit.
Uribe also oversaw a years-long series of extrajudicial murders and massacres that resulted in over 10,000 deaths. Dubbed the “False Positives Scandal,” government forces would murder anyone they wished, later claiming their victims were members of the FARC. This allowed Uribe to impose his rule on the country, intimidating opponents into silence. Colombia became, according to Amnesty International, the “most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist,” with more unionist murders occurring inside the country than in all others combined.
Even today, right-wing paramilitaries linked to the government have been using the COVID-19 lockdown to go after activists, with more than 100 murdered in the first half of 2020 alone. “Our enemies are still killing us and it’s not difficult for them during the pandemic because we are all at home, complying with the mandatory quarantine which means nobody can move,” one Afro-Colombian activist wrote for Amnesty. “Being at home 24 hours a day is a death sentence because the gunmen know where to find us.”
Rozental was of the opinion that drugs, violence and the state were all fundamentally intertwined in Colombia, telling MintPress,
The relationship with drug trafficking and cartels…no-one can ignore or deny the evidence and the knowledge of the fact that the Colombian state, at the highest level, the Armed Forces, the judicial system and the congress are all involved in drug trafficking mafias and the business of drug trafficking. The personification of this is Alvaro Uribe.”
Yet this is largely ignored in the West, with corporate media often presenting the country as an emerging democracy, and Uribe as a beloved statesman, with some even describing him as the “savior” of a nation and a “beacon of hope” for the world.
Uribe’s past may have finally caught up to him, however, as the former president was charged and placed under house arrest earlier this month for allegedly attempting to bribe a witness in a case involving members of a paramilitary group. He also stands accused of being a founding member of a right-wing death squad. He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted. Could it be the man who was once considered untouchable is about to feel the wrath of the state he helped build?
Murillo believed that there could be a connection between his arrest and the explosion of violence in the past few weeks, saying:
It is most likely not a coincidence that this current wave of massacres, which were part of daily life in Colombia when Duque’s benefactor, former President Alvaro Uribe, took the reigns of power in 2002, are occurring just as Uribe sits through house arrest, facing justice for his involvement in witness tampering and paramilitary activity. Are they designed as a distraction? Or worse yet, retribution for Uribe’s detention? Unfortunately, in Colombia, we will most likely never get to the bottom of it.”
Who benefits?
So who is responsible for the upsurge of massacres? Is it the FARC, as the government alleges? Or were right-wing paramilitaries to blame? Or perhaps one of the myriads of narco-trafficking groups operating in the region? Or a combination of many factors? If history is any judge, we will probably never get a definitive answer. Colombia is a country of so much beauty and so little justice.
For Rozental, even asking that question can be unhelpful. Instead, he says, we must simply “recognize who the beneficiaries are.” Then it becomes easier to understand. “The intention is to consolidate an articulation between transnational corporate financial and extractive interests with drug trafficking mafias,” he said, noting that marijuana grown in his home department of Cauca and bought for $3-$5 is sold in the U.S. for $5,000. Cocaine production is a similar story, with the area under coca cultivation more than tripling between 2013 and 2018, according to the U.N.
There is a massive transfer of wealth flowing north with drug trafficking, and the entire violent mafia-type organizations that produce and transform, open spaces for extractive transnational interests, for geo-political initiatives and for the displacement and destruction of social movements and organizations that generate alternatives from below. One needs a different mindset to look at what is happening here. The massacres are means to ends. Victims call upon the government for help, which provides the pretext for militarization, which has in every case led to more drug trafficking and more violence,” Rozental told MintPress.
The American connection
For Jordan, the actions of the United States government have also played a part in the surge in violence, telling us that the Trump administration has leaned on Duque to abandon his government’s commitment to rural communities and its crop substitution policy, which allowed poor farmers the opportunity to make an honest living, rather than growing illicit crops. Instead, as they did during Plan Colombia, the U.S. government has favored empowering the military to intervene and to eradicate crops around the country, efforts that have strengthened their hand and emboldened paramilitaries to act like all rural farmers are mortal enemies engaged in criminal activity. Jordan also alleges that Trump has “eagerly pushed” Colombia to abandon its truth and reconciliation program and the rehabilitation of former guerilla fighters back into polite society. To understand the situation fully, he said, “we have to look beyond Colombia, toward the US and NATO Empire.”
Colombia, of course, has for nearly 200 years been considered by those in Washington to be America’s “backyard,” with the nation proving to be among the U.S.’s most loyal allies in the hemisphere. Even during the wave of left-wing governments that came to power in Latin America during the 2000s and 2010s, Colombia held firm, being a vital American foothold on the continent, from which it continued to destabilize neighboring states like Venezuela.
The U.S. has always been deeply involved in the drug trade. Investigative journalist Gary Webb detailed how, during the 1980s, the CIA helped flood America’s black communities with crack cocaine, allowing the far-right Nicaraguan Contra death squads to profit from the practice, aiding them in their fight to overthrow the leftist Sandinistas. Webb was found with two bullets in his head in 2004. Officials ruled it a suicide, although some remain skeptical. To this day, Webb is still despised in elite journalist circles; corporate media outlets having worked overtime to contain the story and stop his reporting going mainstream. Today, some of the Iran-Contra squad is back in the White House, with Elliott Abrams appointed special advisor to Trump on Venezuela and Iran. In 1991 Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to congress about how, behind the scenes, his associates were selling arms to Iran to fund their regime change project in Nicaragua.
Ultimately, as long as Americans continue to pay top dollar for illicit drugs, Colombians will continue to pay in blood. The identities of most of the country’s killers remains a mystery, but the violent context in which the massacres are happening is not.
Feature photo | Jorge Ivan Ospina, the Mayor of Cali, visits the crime scene where the bodies of five young men were found earlier this month. Photo | Twitter via Jorge Ivan Ospina
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.


mintpressnews--2020-09-08--Biden Urged to Adopt a Good Neighbor Policy Toward Latin America

Election season is a difficult time to develop good policies towards Latin America , since both Democrats and Republicans cater to the small , but organized , conservative factions of the Latinx community in Florida , vying for their votes .
But if Biden wins the White House , there is a chance to reverse the Trump administration policies that have been devastating for Latin America , policies that punish innocent civilians through harsh economic sanctions , destabilize the region through coups and attempts at regime change , and close our borders to desperate people fleeing north in search of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result of U.S. security and economic policies .
The Trump administration openly calls its Latin America and Caribbean policy the “ Monroe Doctrine 2.0.
” The Monroe Doctrine – asserting U.S. geopolitical control over the region – served as a pretext for over 100 years of military invasions , support for military dictatorships , the training and financing of security forces involved in mass human rights violations and economic blackmail , among other horrors .
President Franklin D. Roosevelt distanced himself from this doctrine , outlining a new vision for relations in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy temporarily ended the gunboat diplomacy that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries .
Although the policy had its flaws , such as FDR ’ s support for the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua , his administration ’ s failures were often the result of not adhering to the Good Neighbor principle of non-interference .
That is why over 100 organizations that work on issues related to Latin America and the Caribbean sent a letter calling for the next administration to adopt a new Good Neighbor Policy toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mutual respect .
Among the organizations calling for a new approach are Alianza Americas , Amazon Watch , the Americas Program , Center for International Policy , CODEPINK , Demand Progress , Global Exchange , the Latin America Working Group and Oxfam America .
The letter to the presidential candidates warns that in January 2021 , the U.S. president will face a hemisphere that will not only still be reeling from the coronavirus but will also be experiencing a deep economic recession , and that the best to help is not by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather by adopting a broad set of reforms to reframe relations with our neighbors to the south .
First among the reforms is lifting the brutal economic sanctions against Cuba , Venezuela and Nicaragua that are causing widespread human suffering , especially during a pandemic .
These sanctions have not fulfilled their objective of regime change ; the past 20 years of U.S. wars in the Middle East has taught us that U.S.-imposed regime change brings nothing but death and chaos .
Another reform is to put a stop to the hundreds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equipment and training that the U.S. provides Latin American and Caribbean countries each year .
In many cases , such as Honduras and Colombia , U.S. funding and training have supported troops involved in corruption and egregious human rights abuses , including numerous extrajudicial killings and attacks targeting local activists and journalists .
Much of this militarized “ aid ” is transferred in the name of the decades-long war on drugs , which has only fueled a vicious cycle of violence .
The letter asserts that the “ war on drugs ” is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US public health issue that is best addressed through decriminalization and equitable legal regulation .
It also calls for scaling down US “ security assistance ” and arms sales , as well as the removal of US military and law enforcement personnel from the region .
The letter points out that although the U.S. public has been rightly condemning any sort of foreign interference in our own country ’ s elections , the U.S. government has a history of flagrant interference in the elections of our neighbors , including training political groups it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political forces it opposes .
In Venezuela , the Trump administration has gone to the extreme of anointing a legislator , Juan Guaidó , as the unelected “ president ” of Venezuela and putting a multi-million dollar bounty on the head of the UN-recognized president , Nicolas Maduro .
The letter denounces such blatant interference and calls on the U.S. to respect the sovereignty of other nations .
The endorsing organizations also denounce U.S. intervention in domestic economic policymaking , which occurs in large part through its enormous influence within multilateral financial institutions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World Bank and the Inter-American Bank .
In order to obtain credit lines from these institutions , governments typically have to agree to austerity measures and other policies that lead to the downsizing of welfare states and a weakening of workers ’ bargaining power .
Moreover , as Latin American economies are reeling from the pandemic , the U.S. must cease demanding the implementation of neoliberal models and instead support public health , education and other basic needs .
Regarding human rights , the letter notes the U.S. has a role in advocating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it warns against the instrumentalization of human rights for political gain , since too often human rights violations in the U.S. or in allied countries are ignored , while violations in countries considered adversaries are magnified .
It says the U.S. should focus – both at home and abroad – on the rights of historically excluded communities , including indigenous and Afro-descendant communities , LGBTQ+ individuals , women , and migrants and refugees .
It urges the United States to speak out when human rights defenders , including environmental and land rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ danger—a situation all too frequent in Latin America and the Caribbean today .
It also calls on the U.S. to help depoliticize and strengthen existing multilateral institutions that defend human rights .
With respect to immigration , the letter insists that the next administration must undo the brutal harms of the trump administration , but also reject the status quo of the Obama administration , which deported more people than any administration ever before and built the infrastructure for the Trump administration to carry out violent anti-immigrant policies .
The next administration must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including a moratorium on all deportations ; an end to mass prosecutions of individuals who cross the border ; the re-establishment of asylum procedures at the border ; an immediate path to citizenship for the Dreamers and for Temporary Protected Status holders ; defunding the border wall ; an end to the “ zero-tolerance ” ( family separation ) policy and other policies that prioritize migration-related prosecutions ; and an end to private immigration detention .
As the region–and the world–anxiously awaits the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections , groups in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a Biden win , and the need to push a new administration to make a positive contribution to the well-being of people throughout the hemisphere .
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace , and author of several books on foreign policy .
Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CodePink .

Election season is a difficult time to develop good policies towards Latin America, since both Democrats and Republicans cater to the small, but organized, conservative factions of the Latinx community in Florida, vying for their votes. But if Biden wins the White House, there is a chance to reverse the Trump administration policies that have been devastating for Latin America, policies that punish innocent civilians through harsh economic sanctions, destabilize the region through coups and attempts at regime change, and close our borders to desperate people fleeing north in search of safety and opportunity, often as a result of U.S. security and economic policies.
The Trump administration openly calls its Latin America and Caribbean policy the “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” The Monroe Doctrine – asserting U.S. geopolitical control over the region – served as a pretext for over 100 years of military invasions, support for military dictatorships, the training and financing of security forces involved in mass human rights violations and economic blackmail, among other horrors.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt distanced himself from this doctrine, outlining a new vision for relations in the hemisphere. His “Good Neighbor” policy temporarily ended the gunboat diplomacy that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the policy had its flaws, such as FDR’s support for the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, his administration’s failures were often the result of not adhering to the Good Neighbor principle of non-interference.
That is why over 100 organizations that work on issues related to Latin America and the Caribbean sent a letter calling for the next administration to adopt a new Good Neighbor Policy toward the region based on non-intervention, cooperation and mutual respect. Among the organizations calling for a new approach are Alianza Americas, Amazon Watch, the Americas Program, Center for International Policy, CODEPINK, Demand Progress, Global Exchange, the Latin America Working Group and Oxfam America.
The letter to the presidential candidates warns that in January 2021, the U.S. president will face a hemisphere that will not only still be reeling from the coronavirus but will also be experiencing a deep economic recession, and that the best to help is not by seeking to impose its will, but rather by adopting a broad set of reforms to reframe relations with our neighbors to the south.
First among the reforms is lifting the brutal economic sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua that are causing widespread human suffering, especially during a pandemic. These sanctions have not fulfilled their objective of regime change; the past 20 years of U.S. wars in the Middle East has taught us that U.S.-imposed regime change brings nothing but death and chaos.
Another reform is to put a stop to the hundreds of millions of dollars of police and military equipment and training that the U.S. provides Latin American and Caribbean countries each year. In many cases, such as Honduras and Colombia, U.S. funding and training have supported troops involved in corruption and egregious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings and attacks targeting local activists and journalists. Much of this militarized “aid” is transferred in the name of the decades-long war on drugs, which has only fueled a vicious cycle of violence. The letter asserts that the “war on drugs” is a counterproductive way to deal with a US public health issue that is best addressed through decriminalization and equitable legal regulation. It also calls for scaling down US “security assistance” and arms sales, as well as the removal of US military and law enforcement personnel from the region.
The letter points out that although the U.S. public has been rightly condemning any sort of foreign interference in our own country’s elections, the U.S. government has a history of flagrant interference in the elections of our neighbors, including training political groups it favors and funding efforts to marginalize the political forces it opposes. In Venezuela, the Trump administration has gone to the extreme of anointing a legislator, Juan Guaidó, as the unelected “president” of Venezuela and putting a multi-million dollar bounty on the head of the UN-recognized president, Nicolas Maduro. The letter denounces such blatant interference and calls on the U.S. to respect the sovereignty of other nations.
The endorsing organizations also denounce U.S. intervention in domestic economic policymaking, which occurs in large part through its enormous influence within multilateral financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Bank. In order to obtain credit lines from these institutions, governments typically have to agree to austerity measures and other policies that lead to the downsizing of welfare states and a weakening of workers’ bargaining power. Moreover, as Latin American economies are reeling from the pandemic, the U.S. must cease demanding the implementation of neoliberal models and instead support public health, education and other basic needs.
Regarding human rights, the letter notes the U.S. has a role in advocating for them across the hemisphere. However, it warns against the instrumentalization of human rights for political gain, since too often human rights violations in the U.S. or in allied countries are ignored, while violations in countries considered adversaries are magnified. It says the U.S. should focus – both at home and abroad – on the rights of historically excluded communities, including indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and migrants and refugees. It urges the United States to speak out when human rights defenders, including environmental and land rights activists and labor organizers, are in danger—a situation all too frequent in Latin America and the Caribbean today. It also calls on the U.S. to help depoliticize and strengthen existing multilateral institutions that defend human rights.
With respect to immigration, the letter insists that the next administration must undo the brutal harms of the trump administration, but also reject the status quo of the Obama administration, which deported more people than any administration ever before and built the infrastructure for the Trump administration to carry out violent anti-immigrant policies. The next administration must hear the demands for immigrant justice, including a moratorium on all deportations; an end to mass prosecutions of individuals who cross the border; the re-establishment of asylum procedures at the border; an immediate path to citizenship for the Dreamers and for Temporary Protected Status holders; defunding the border wall; an end to the “zero-tolerance” (family separation) policy and other policies that prioritize migration-related prosecutions; and an end to private immigration detention.
As the region–and the world–anxiously awaits the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, groups in the U.S. are gearing up for the possibility of a Biden win, and the need to push a new administration to make a positive contribution to the well-being of people throughout the hemisphere.
Feature photo | Social Fragments Archive
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books on foreign policy.
Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CodePink.


mintpressnews--2020-09-08--John Pilger: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

When I first met Julian Assange more than ten years ago , I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks .
He replied : “ Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism.
” I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way .
Assange believes that journalists are the agents of people , not power : that we , the people , have a right to know about the darkest secrets of those who claim to act in our name .
If the powerful lie to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know .
If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public , we have the right to know .
If they conspire against us , as Bush and Blair did over Iraq , then pretend to be democrats , we have the right to know .
It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trumps fascist America .
In 2008 , a top secret US State Department report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would combat this new moral threat .
A secretly-directed personal smear campaign against Julian Assange would lead to “ exposure [ and ] criminal prosecution ” .
The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its founder .
Page after page revealed a coming war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech and freedom of thought , and democracy .
The imperial shock troops would be those who called themselves journalists : the big hitters of the so-called mainstream , especially the “ liberals ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dissent .
And that is what happened .
I have been a reporter for more than 50 years and I have never known a smear campaign like it : the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club : who believed journalism was a service to the public , never to those above .
Assange shamed his persecutors .
He produced scoop after scoop .
He exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America ’ s wars , the corruption of dictators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced us in the West to look in the mirror .
He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators : those I would call Vichy journalists .
None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger : that the “ sex scandal ” in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination .
And he was right , and repeatedly right .
The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It is due revenge .
The American indictment is clearly rigged , a demonstrable sham .
So far , the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War .
Today , the land that gave us Magna Carta , Great Britain , is distinguished by the abandonment of its own sovereignty in allowing a malign foreign power to manipulate justice and by the vicious psychological torture of Julian – a form of torture , as Nils Melzer , the UN expert has pointed out , that was refined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effective in breaking its victims .
Every time I have visited Assange in Belmarsh prison , I have seen the effects of this torture .
When I last saw him , he had lost more than 10 kilos in weight ; his arms had no muscle .
Incredibly , his wicked sense of humor was intact .
As for Assange ’ s homeland , Australia has displayed only a cringeing cowardice as its government has secretly conspired against its own citizen who ought to be celebrated as a national hero .
Not for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Australian prime minister his “ deputy sheriff ” .
It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West .
But which press ?
The Guardian ?
The BBC , The New York Times , the Jeff Bezos Washington Post ?
No , the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely .
The Judases on the Guardian who flirted with Julian , exploited his landmark work , made their pile then betrayed him , have nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are needed .
Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few : the exceptions , the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club , who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers , but produce fine , disobedient , moral journalism – those like Julian Assange .
Meanwhile , it is our responsibility to stand by a true journalist whose sheer courage ought to be inspiration to all of us who still believe that freedom is possible .
I salute him .
Feature photo | A woman holds up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during a protest demanding the freedom of Assange in front of the UK embassy in Brussels , Sept. 7 , 2020 .
Francisco Seco | AP John Pilger is an award-winning journalist .
His articles appear worldwide in newspapers such as the Guardian , the Independent , the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , the Mail & Guardian ( South Africa ) , Aftonbladet ( Sweden ) , Il Manifesto ( Italy ) .

When I first met Julian Assange more than ten years ago, I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks. He replied: “Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism.”
I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way. Assange believes that journalists are the agents of people, not power: that we, the people, have a right to know about the darkest secrets of those who claim to act in our name.
If the powerful lie to us, we have the right to know. If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public, we have the right to know. If they conspire against us, as Bush and Blair did over Iraq, then pretend to be democrats, we have the right to know.
It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trumps fascist America.
In 2008, a top secret US State Department report described in detail how the United States would combat this new moral threat. A secretly-directed personal smear campaign against Julian Assange would lead to “exposure [and] criminal prosecution”.
The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its founder. Page after page revealed a coming war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and democracy.
The imperial shock troops would be those who called themselves journalists: the big hitters of the so-called mainstream, especially the “liberals” who mark and patrol the perimeters of dissent.
And that is what happened. I have been a reporter for more than 50 years and I have never known a smear campaign like it: the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club: who believed journalism was a service to the public, never to those above.
Assange shamed his persecutors. He produced scoop after scoop. He exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America’s wars, the corruption of dictators, the evils of Guantanamo.
He forced us in the West to look in the mirror. He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators: those I would call Vichy journalists. None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger: that the “sex scandal” in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination. And he was right, and repeatedly right.
The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian Assange. It is not due process. It is due revenge. The American indictment is clearly rigged, a demonstrable sham. So far, the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War.
Today, the land that gave us Magna Carta, Great Britain, is distinguished by the abandonment of its own sovereignty in allowing a malign foreign power to manipulate justice and by the vicious psychological torture of Julian – a form of torture, as Nils Melzer, the UN expert has pointed out, that was refined by the Nazis because it was most effective in breaking its victims.
Every time I have visited Assange in Belmarsh prison, I have seen the effects of this torture. When I last saw him, he had lost more than 10 kilos in weight; his arms had no muscle. Incredibly, his wicked sense of humor was intact.
As for Assange’s homeland, Australia has displayed only a cringeing cowardice as its government has secretly conspired against its own citizen who ought to be celebrated as a national hero. Not for nothing did George W. Bush anoint the Australian prime minister his “deputy sheriff”.
It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West. But which press? The Guardian? The BBC, The New York Times, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post?
No, the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely. The Judases on the Guardian who flirted with Julian, exploited his landmark work, made their pile then betrayed him, have nothing to fear. They are safe because they are needed.
Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism – those like Julian Assange.
Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to stand by a true journalist whose sheer courage ought to be inspiration to all of us who still believe that freedom is possible. I salute him.
Feature photo | A woman holds up a photograph of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a protest demanding the freedom of Assange in front of the UK embassy in Brussels, Sept. 7, 2020. Francisco Seco | AP
John Pilger is an award-winning journalist. His articles appear worldwide in newspapers such as the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), Aftonbladet (Sweden), Il Manifesto (Italy).


mintpressnews--2020-09-09--Cheap Mediterranean Natural Gas Could Spell the End for the NATO Alliance

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) is an alliance in name alone .
Recent events notwithstanding , the brewing conflict over territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean indicates that the military union between mostly Western countries is faltering .
The current Turkish-Greek tension is only one facet of a much larger conflict involving , aside from the two Mediterranean countries , Israel , Egypt , Cyprus , France , Libya and other Mediterranean and European countries .
Notably absent from the list are the United States and Russia ; the latter , in particular , stands to gain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the outcome of the conflict .
Conflicts of this nature tend to have historic roots – Turkey and Greece fought a brief but consequential war in 1974 .
Of relevance to the current conflagration is an agreement signed by Israeli Prime Minister , Benjamin Netanyahu and his Greek and Cypriot counterparts , Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Nicos Anastasiades , respectively , on January 2 .
The agreement envisages the establishment of the EastMed pipeline which , once finalized , is projected to flood Europe with Israeli natural gas , pumped mostly from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keen on being part of , and profiting from , the project .
But Europe ’ s gain is not just economic but also geostrategic .
Cheap Israeli gas will lessen Europe ’ s reliance on Russia ’ s natural gas which arrives in Europe through two pipelines , Nord Stream and Gazprom , the latter extending through Turkey .
Gazprom alone supplies Europe with an estimated 40 % of its natural gas needs , thus giving Russia significant economic and political leverage .
Some European countries , especially France , have labored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a Russian economic chokehold on their economies .
Indeed , the French and Italian rivalry currently under way in Libya is tantamount to colonial expeditions aimed at balancing out the over-reliance on Russian and Turkish supplies of gas and other sources of energy .
Fully aware of France ’ s and Italy ’ s intentions in Libya , the Russians and Turks are wholly involved in Libya ’ s military showdown between the Government of National Accord ( GNA ) and forces in the East , loyal to General Khalifa Haftar .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ underway for years , the Israel-et al EastMed pipeline has added fuel to the fire : infuriating Turkey , which is excluded from the agreement ; worrying Russia , whose gas arrives in Europe partially via Turkey , and empowering Israel , which may now cement its economic integration with the European continent .
Anticipating the Israel-led alliance , on November 28 , 2019 , Turkey and Libya signed a Maritime Boundary Treaty , an agreement that gave Ankara access to Libya ’ s territorial waters .
The bold maneuver allows Turkey to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a massive region that extends from the Turkish southern coast to Libya ’ s north-east coast .
The ‘ Exclusive Economic Zone ’ ( EEZ ) is unacceptable in Europe because , if it remains in effect , it will cancel out the ambitious EastMed project and fundamentally alter the geopolitics – largely dictated by Europe and guaranteed by NATO – of this region .
However , NATO is no longer the once formidable and unified power .
Since its inception in 1949 , NATO has been on the rise .
NATO members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of defending one another and also to protect ‘ the West ’ from the ‘ Soviet menace ’ .
NATO remained strong and relatively unified even after the dismantlement of the Soviet Union and the abrupt collapse , in 1991 , of its Warsaw Pact .
NATO managed to sustain a degree of unity , despite its raison d ’ être – defeating the Soviets – being no longer a factor , because Washington wished to maintain its military hegemony , especially in the Middle East .
While the Iraq war of 1991 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s new mission , the Iraq war of 2003 was NATO ’ s undoing .
After failing to achieve any of its goals in Iraq , the US adopted an ‘ exit strategy ’ that foresaw a gradual American retreat from Iraq while , simultaneously , ‘ pivoting to Asia ’ in the desperate hope of slowing down China ’ s military encroachment in the Pacific .
The best expression of the American decision to divest militarily from the Middle East was NATO ’ s war on Libya in March 2011 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ term , ‘ leading from behind ’ , to describe the role of the US in the Libya conflict .
For the first time since the establishment of NATO , the US was part of a conflict that was largely controlled by comparatively smaller and weaker NATO members – Italy , France , Britain and others .
While former US President , Barack Obama , insisted on the centrality of NATO in US military strategies , it was evident that the once-powerful alliance had outweighed its usefulness for Washington .
France , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the same ferocity it fought to keep the European Union intact .
It is this French faith in European and Western ideals that has compelled Paris to fill the gap left by the gradual American withdrawal .
France is currently playing the role of the military hegemon and political leader in many of the Middle East ’ s ongoing crises , including the flaring East Mediterranean conflict .
On December 3 , 2019 , France ’ s Emmanuel Macron stood up to US President Donald Trump , at the NATO summit in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for its reliance on American defense and threatened to pull out of the alliance altogether if NATO members did not compensate Washington for its protection .
It ’ s a strange and unprecedented spectacle when countries like Israel , Greece , Egypt , Libya , Turkey , and others lay claims over the Mediterranean , while NATO scrambles to stave off an outright war , among its own members .
Even stranger , to see France and Germany taking over the leadership of NATO while the US remains , thus far , almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imagine the reinvention of NATO , at least a NATO that caters to Washington ’ s interests and diktats .
Judging by France ’ s recent behavior , the future may hold irreversible paradigm shifts .
In November 2018 , Macron made what then seemed as a baffling suggestion , a ‘ true , European army ’ .
Considering the rapid regional developments and the incremental collapse of NATO , Macron may one day get his army , after all .
Feature photo | A helicopter flies over Turkey ’ s drilling ship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eastern Mediterranean , near Cyprus , July 9 , 2019 .
Photo | Turkish Defence Ministry via AP Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle .
He is the author of five books .
His latest is “ These Chains Will Be Broken : Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons ” ( Clarity Press , Atlanta ) .
Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs ( CIGA ) , Istanbul Zaim University ( IZU ) .
@ @ @ @

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance in name alone. Recent events notwithstanding, the brewing conflict over territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean indicates that the military union between mostly Western countries is faltering.
The current Turkish-Greek tension is only one facet of a much larger conflict involving, aside from the two Mediterranean countries, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, France, Libya and other Mediterranean and European countries. Notably absent from the list are the United States and Russia; the latter, in particular, stands to gain or lose much economic leverage, depending on the outcome of the conflict.
Conflicts of this nature tend to have historic roots – Turkey and Greece fought a brief but consequential war in 1974. Of relevance to the current conflagration is an agreement signed by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his Greek and Cypriot counterparts, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Nicos Anastasiades, respectively, on January 2. The agreement envisages the establishment of the EastMed pipeline which, once finalized, is projected to flood Europe with Israeli natural gas, pumped mostly from the Leviathan Basin.
Several European countries are keen on being part of, and profiting from, the project. But Europe’s gain is not just economic but also geostrategic. Cheap Israeli gas will lessen Europe’s reliance on Russia’s natural gas which arrives in Europe through two pipelines, Nord Stream and Gazprom, the latter extending through Turkey.
Gazprom alone supplies Europe with an estimated 40% of its natural gas needs, thus giving Russia significant economic and political leverage. Some European countries, especially France, have labored to liberate themselves from what they see as a Russian economic chokehold on their economies.
Indeed, the French and Italian rivalry currently under way in Libya is tantamount to colonial expeditions aimed at balancing out the over-reliance on Russian and Turkish supplies of gas and other sources of energy.
Fully aware of France’s and Italy’s intentions in Libya, the Russians and Turks are wholly involved in Libya’s military showdown between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and forces in the East, loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.
While the conflict in Libya has been underway for years, the Israel-et al EastMed pipeline has added fuel to the fire: infuriating Turkey, which is excluded from the agreement; worrying Russia, whose gas arrives in Europe partially via Turkey, and empowering Israel, which may now cement its economic integration with the European continent.
Anticipating the Israel-led alliance, on November 28, 2019, Turkey and Libya signed a Maritime Boundary Treaty, an agreement that gave Ankara access to Libya’s territorial waters. The bold maneuver allows Turkey to claim territorial rights for gas exploration in a massive region that extends from the Turkish southern coast to Libya’s north-east coast.
The ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’ (EEZ) is unacceptable in Europe because, if it remains in effect, it will cancel out the ambitious EastMed project and fundamentally alter the geopolitics – largely dictated by Europe and guaranteed by NATO – of this region.
However, NATO is no longer the once formidable and unified power. Since its inception in 1949, NATO has been on the rise. NATO members have fought major wars in the name of defending one another and also to protect ‘the West’ from the ‘Soviet menace’.
NATO remained strong and relatively unified even after the dismantlement of the Soviet Union and the abrupt collapse, in 1991, of its Warsaw Pact. NATO managed to sustain a degree of unity, despite its raison d’être – defeating the Soviets – being no longer a factor, because Washington wished to maintain its military hegemony, especially in the Middle East.
While the Iraq war of 1991 was the first powerful expression of NATO’s new mission, the Iraq war of 2003 was NATO’s undoing. After failing to achieve any of its goals in Iraq, the US adopted an ‘exit strategy’ that foresaw a gradual American retreat from Iraq while, simultaneously, ‘pivoting to Asia’ in the desperate hope of slowing down China’s military encroachment in the Pacific.
The best expression of the American decision to divest militarily from the Middle East was NATO’s war on Libya in March 2011. Military strategists had to devise a bewildering term, ‘leading from behind’, to describe the role of the US in the Libya conflict. For the first time since the establishment of NATO, the US was part of a conflict that was largely controlled by comparatively smaller and weaker NATO members – Italy, France, Britain and others.
While former US President, Barack Obama, insisted on the centrality of NATO in US military strategies, it was evident that the once-powerful alliance had outweighed its usefulness for Washington.
France, in particular, continues to fight for NATO with the same ferocity it fought to keep the European Union intact. It is this French faith in European and Western ideals that has compelled Paris to fill the gap left by the gradual American withdrawal. France is currently playing the role of the military hegemon and political leader in many of the Middle East’s ongoing crises, including the flaring East Mediterranean conflict.
On December 3, 2019, France’s Emmanuel Macron stood up to US President Donald Trump, at the NATO summit in London. Here, Trump chastised NATO for its reliance on American defense and threatened to pull out of the alliance altogether if NATO members did not compensate Washington for its protection.
It’s a strange and unprecedented spectacle when countries like Israel, Greece, Egypt, Libya, Turkey, and others lay claims over the Mediterranean, while NATO scrambles to stave off an outright war, among its own members. Even stranger, to see France and Germany taking over the leadership of NATO while the US remains, thus far, almost completely absent.
It is hard to imagine the reinvention of NATO, at least a NATO that caters to Washington’s interests and diktats. Judging by France’s recent behavior, the future may hold irreversible paradigm shifts. In November 2018, Macron made what then seemed as a baffling suggestion, a ‘true, European army’. Considering the rapid regional developments and the incremental collapse of NATO, Macron may one day get his army, after all.
Feature photo | A helicopter flies over Turkey’s drilling ship, ‘Fatih’ dispatched towards the eastern Mediterranean, near Cyprus, July 9, 2019. Photo | Turkish Defence Ministry via AP
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net