US response to defection of the Saudi Prince ..... cue the sounds of silence.....
http://rt.com/news/saudi-arabia-opposition-prince-374/
Saudi prince defects: 'Brutality, oppression as govt scared of Arab revolts' (EXCLUSIVE)
Saudi Arabia, a major supporter of opposition forces in Syria, has increased crackdown on its own dissenters, with 30,000 activists reportedly in jail. In an exclusive interview to RT a Saudi prince defector explained what the monarchy fears most.
“Saudi Arabia has stepped up arrests and trials of peaceful dissidents, and responded with force to demonstrations by citizens,” Human Rights Watch begins the country’s profile on its website.
Political parties are banned in Saudi Arabia and human rights groups willing to function legally have to go no further than investigating things like corruption or inadequate services. Campaigning for political freedoms is outlawed.
One of such groups, which failed to get its license from the government, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), was cited by AFP as saying the kingdom was holding around 30,000 political prisoners.
Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Farhan Al-Saud, who spoke to RT from Dusseldorf, Germany, confirmed reports of increased prosecution of anti-government activists and said that it’s exactly what forced him to defect from his family. He accused the monarchy of corruption and silencing all voices of dissent and explained how the Saudi mechanism for suppression functioned.
“There is no independent judiciary, as both police and the prosecutor’s office are accountable to the Interior Ministry. This ministry’s officials investigate ‘crimes’ (they call them crimes), related to freedom of speech. So they fabricate evidence, don’t allow people to have attorneys”, the prince told RT Arabic. “Even if a court rules to release such a ‘criminal’, the Ministry of Interior keeps him in prison, even though there is a court order to release him. There have even been killings! Killings! And as for the external opposition, Saudi intelligence forces find these people abroad! There is no safety inside or outside the country.”
One of such groups, which failed to get its license from the government, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), was cited by AFP as saying the kingdom was holding around 30,000 political prisoners.
Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Farhan Al-Saud, who spoke to RT from Dusseldorf, Germany, confirmed reports of increased prosecution of anti-government activists and said that it’s exactly what forced him to defect from his family. He accused the monarchy of corruption and silencing all voices of dissent and explained how the Saudi mechanism for suppression functioned.
“There is no independent judiciary, as both police and the prosecutor’s office are accountable to the Interior Ministry. This ministry’s officials investigate ‘crimes’ (they call them crimes), related to freedom of speech. So they fabricate evidence, don’t allow people to have attorneys”, the prince told RT Arabic. “Even if a court rules to release such a ‘criminal’, the Ministry of Interior keeps him in prison, even though there is a court order to release him. There have even been killings! Killings! And as for the external opposition, Saudi intelligence forces find these people abroad! There is no safety inside or outside the country.”
The strong wave of oppression is in response to the anti-government forces having grown ever more active. A new opposition group called Saudi Million and claiming independence from any political party was founded in late July. The Saudi youths which mostly constitute the movement say they demand the release of political prisoners and vow to hold regular demonstrations, announcing their dates and locations via Facebook and electronic newspapers.
Human rights violations are driving people on to the streets despite the fear of arrest, according to activist Hala Al-Dosari, who spoke to RT from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“We have issues related to political and civil rights, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These are the main issues that cause a lot of people to be at risk for just voicing out their opinions or trying to form associations, demonstrate or protest, which is banned by the government.”
Human rights violations are driving people on to the streets despite the fear of arrest, according to activist Hala Al-Dosari, who spoke to RT from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“We have issues related to political and civil rights, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These are the main issues that cause a lot of people to be at risk for just voicing out their opinions or trying to form associations, demonstrate or protest, which is banned by the government.”
The loudest voice of the Saudi opposition at the moment is a person called ‘Saudi Assange’. His Twitter name is @Mujtahidd, he keeps his identity and whereabouts secret and is prolific in online criticism of the ruling family, which has gained him over a million followers.
“The regime can destroy your credibility easily and deter people from dealing with you if your identity is public,” Mujtahid wrote to RT’s Lindsay France in an email.
“The regime can destroy your credibility easily and deter people from dealing with you if your identity is public,” Mujtahid wrote to RT’s Lindsay France in an email.
Prince Khalid Bin Farhan Al-Saud announced his defection from the Saudi Arabian royal family on July 27.
“They don’t think about anything but their personal benefits and do not care for the country’s and people’s interests, or even national security,” his statement reads as cited by the website of Tehran-based Al Alam International News Channel.
The prince criticized the royal family for silencing all voices calling for reforms and said he learned of the common Saudis’ sufferings having gone through “horrible personal experience,” without specifying exactly what it was.
The Twitter activist’s anonymity is understandable. The most recent example of what can happen to activists is the case of Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, who was found guilty of insulting Islam through his online forum and sentenced the activist to 600 lashes and seven years in prison.
In June, seven people were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for ‘inciting protests’ via Facebook. The indicted denied charges and said they were tortured into confession.
“The government is obviously scared of the Arab revolutions. And they’ve responded as they usually do: by resorting to oppression, violence, arbitrary law, and arrest,” Prince Khaled says, adding that so far the tougher the measures the government took to suppress the dissent, the louder that dissent’s voice was.
In June, seven people were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for ‘inciting protests’ via Facebook. The indicted denied charges and said they were tortured into confession.
“The government is obviously scared of the Arab revolutions. And they’ve responded as they usually do: by resorting to oppression, violence, arbitrary law, and arrest,” Prince Khaled says, adding that so far the tougher the measures the government took to suppress the dissent, the louder that dissent’s voice was.
“The opposition used to demand wider people’s representation in governing bodies, more rights and freedoms. But the authorities reacted with violence and persecution, instead of a dialogue. So the opposition raised the bar. It demanded constitutional monarchy, similar to what they have in the UK, for example. And the Saudi regime responded with more violence. So now the bar is even higher. Now the opposition wants this regime gone.”
There was a time, at the beginning of the Arab Spring movement in the region in 2011, when the government tried to appease opposition activists by a $60 billion handout program by King Abdullah, according to Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for the Asia Times. He calls that move an attempt to “bribe” the population. However there was also a stick with this carrot.
“The stick is against the Shiite minority - roughly 10 percent of Saudi Arabia - who live in the Eastern province where most of the oil is, by the way. They don’t want to bring down the House of Saud essentially. They want more participation, judiciary not answering to religious powers and basically more democratic freedoms. This is not going to happen in Saudi Arabia. Period. Nor in the other Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] petro-monarchies”.
Escobar points out the hypocrisy of the Saudi Arabian rulers, who feel free to advise other regional powers on how to move towards democracy, despite their poor human rights record.
“They say to the Americans that they are intervening in Syria for a more democratic post-Assad Syria and inside Saudi Arabia it’s the Sunni-Shiite divide. They go against 10 percent of their own population.”
There was a time, at the beginning of the Arab Spring movement in the region in 2011, when the government tried to appease opposition activists by a $60 billion handout program by King Abdullah, according to Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for the Asia Times. He calls that move an attempt to “bribe” the population. However there was also a stick with this carrot.
“The stick is against the Shiite minority - roughly 10 percent of Saudi Arabia - who live in the Eastern province where most of the oil is, by the way. They don’t want to bring down the House of Saud essentially. They want more participation, judiciary not answering to religious powers and basically more democratic freedoms. This is not going to happen in Saudi Arabia. Period. Nor in the other Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] petro-monarchies”.
Escobar points out the hypocrisy of the Saudi Arabian rulers, who feel free to advise other regional powers on how to move towards democracy, despite their poor human rights record.
“They say to the Americans that they are intervening in Syria for a more democratic post-Assad Syria and inside Saudi Arabia it’s the Sunni-Shiite divide. They go against 10 percent of their own population.”
Syria updates.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/revealed-what-the-west-has-given-syrias-rebels-8756447.html?printService=print
Revealed: What the West has given Syria's rebels
Sunday, 11 August 2013
The holy month of Ramadan is over and both sides in Syria’s civil war are preparing for a new round of attrition. Now, documents obtained by The Independent and extensive talks on the ground have revealed the level of equipment sent by the West to Syria’s rebels – divided between the Islamists and more moderate factions – to equip them for the fight.
After a series of reverses in the battlefront, opposition forces have recently struck back, taking control of a strategically important military air base they had been trying to overrun during months of fierce clashes. Menagh, north of Aleppo, was captured last week after a suicide attack that breached regime fortifications and unnerved the defending troops. Two and half years on from the start of the uprising against Basher al-Assad, the most potent weapons in the armoury of the opposition in their most notable recent triumph were not tanks or missiles, but human bombs.
The best case scenario for the rebels now would appear to be attempts at a land-grab to create a position of strength before the much-delayed ceasefire talks, “Geneva II”, take place in the autumn. The alternative is continuing, relentless blood-letting, which has already cost more than 100,000 lives in the deadliest chapter of the Arab Spring.
The British Government is considering sending weapons to the moderate rebel fighters, arguing that a failure to do so would not only further empower President Assad but also weaken future potential Western allies. The bulk of the arms that get into opposition areas in Syria go to Islamist rebels, courtesy of wealthy benefactors in the Gulf, especially Qatar.
So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4x4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4x4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers. In addition, funds have been allocated for civic society projects such as inter-community dialogue and gathering evidence of human rights abuses. The last “gift” to the opposition, announced by William Hague last week, is that £555,000 worth of counter-chemical warfare equipment is on standby.
The best case scenario for the rebels now would appear to be attempts at a land-grab to create a position of strength before the much-delayed ceasefire talks, “Geneva II”, take place in the autumn. The alternative is continuing, relentless blood-letting, which has already cost more than 100,000 lives in the deadliest chapter of the Arab Spring.
The British Government is considering sending weapons to the moderate rebel fighters, arguing that a failure to do so would not only further empower President Assad but also weaken future potential Western allies. The bulk of the arms that get into opposition areas in Syria go to Islamist rebels, courtesy of wealthy benefactors in the Gulf, especially Qatar.
So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4x4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4x4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers. In addition, funds have been allocated for civic society projects such as inter-community dialogue and gathering evidence of human rights abuses. The last “gift” to the opposition, announced by William Hague last week, is that £555,000 worth of counter-chemical warfare equipment is on standby.
Any military aid from Britain will not arrive until Parliament returns from its summer break. Last month the Commons approved by 114 votes to one a motion calling for the “explicit consent” of MPs, in both debate and vote, before weapons are sent to Syria.
France was instrumental, alongside the UK, in lifting the European Union arms embargo on Syria which would allow supplies to be sent to the rebels. But the messages from the Hollande government on the issue have been ambiguous. Last month Foreign minister Laurent Fabius stated that it would not be possible to send weapons as they may fall into the wrong hands and end up being used against France.
French fears are informed by the country’s experiences during the recent intervention in Mali, when French forces encountered surface-to-air missiles that had been looted from Libya. Some of the stock was brought to Mali by Tuareg tribesmen who had been in the pay of Muammar Gaddafi, while others had come from Islamist rebels who had been fighting his regime.
The French had provided arms on the ground in the Libyan conflict, airlifting around 40 tonnes to the rebels in the Nafusa mountains in the west in preparation for the assault on Tripoli. Some Syrian opposition commanders in Jordan and Lebanon have claimed that French-supplied weapons – assault rifles, pistols and ammunition – have already arrived, although this is strongly denied by Paris.
Instead both France and Britain, say they are exploring high-tech methods to ensure any weapons supplied in the future are tracked and can be de-activated if they come to the possession of hostile groups. In essence this would apply to missiles, the tools the opposition need the most to counter Assad’s warplanes and armour.
But weapons specialists urge caution about the availability and effectiveness of such “fail-safe” systems. An official at MBDA, one of Europe’s largest missile manufacturers, points out that its products do not come off the production line with such features and complex and expensive alterations would have to be carried out.
In June the US administration announced that it would give “direct military aid” to the rebels because the Assad regime had crossed the “red line” set by Barack Obama when it used chemical weapons on the rebels. Until then congressional committees had blocked the sending of arms because of the jihadist threat but now, two months on, opposition fighters say they are yet to see much sign of the new armaments. In any event, US officials say that in the immediate future only small arms are likely to be dispatched and even then only after careful vetting of the groups that are getting them.
CIA officers have, in fact, been carrying out such vetting since June last year. But the political and religious beliefs of the rebel khatibas or battalions, have not remained constant. “The problem is that some of the khatibas which used to be semi-secular have now become Islamist. So it’s a question of constant monitoring,” said a security contractor, a former US army Ranger who is part of a liaison team with the Syrian opposition in Turkey.
The same uncertainty has limited the number of “moderate” fighters passing through training camps in Jordan run by former Western military personnel; fortnight-long courses largely restricted to instructions on tactics and the use of small arms. Particular emphasis is being placed on the creation of teams designed to rush in and snatch chemical arsenals. That, says Abu Khalid, a rebel officer in Idlib province, is “a joke”. “Where are these secular commando teams?” he says. “We haven’t seen them. But then we haven’t seen many chemical weapons either. Assad doesn’t need to use them, he is killing enough with his tanks and planes. We need missiles to fight that, and that is what the Americans and Europeans are not giving us.”
There is some evidence, however, of small quantities of missiles arriving in Syria for the opposition, some of them apparently obtained from Croatia in a shipment organised by the Americans and paid for by Gulf states earlier this year. More recently the rebels have also used Konkurs wire-guided anti-tank missiles from former Warsaw Pact arsenals, while 82mm recoil-less rifles have been deployed in recent gains near Latakia, a regime stronghold, and in the defence of Aleppo.
But the missiles are largely in the hands of Islamist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The Islamists’ ever-increasing power is now a direct threat to the moderates, as was shown by the recent assassination in Latakia of Kamal Hamami, a member of the FSA’s supreme military council, by the al Qa’ida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Qassem Saadeddine, a FSA official, recalled: “They phoned to say they had carried out the killing of infidels. They said they will kill all of the supreme military council.”
The assault on Menagh was led by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant which provided the two suicide bombers. “They decided to use the suicide men to save the few rockets they had. As you know it was very effective as a strategy” said Abu Khalid, the moderate rebel officer. “We believe that suicide is haram [forbidden] by our religion. But the Salafists are proud of it. That is another advantage they have over us.”
Somali rebels destroyed British aid supplies
Humanitarian aid worth £480,000 was seized by militants linked to al-Qa’ida as they rampaged through southern Somalia.
The supplies, paid for by British taxpayers, were in warehouses captured by al-Shabaab and it is believed they were later set ablaze, according to the Department for International Development (DfID).
Details of the incidents appeared in the department’s annual accounts.
It said: “DfID’s partners had no prior warning of the confiscations being carried out and therefore had no time to prevent the loss by relocating goods.
“While the theft suffered represented a stores loss, the property was not stolen from DfID stores. DfID funding was provided to purchase goods but no benefit was received by the end recipient due to the theft.”
A spokesman for the department said: “DfID works in some of the most dangerous places in the world, including Somalia, because tackling the root causes of poverty and instability there ensures a safer world and a safer UK.
“Working in conflict-affected and fragile states carries inherent risk. DfID does all it can to mitigate against this but, on occasion, losses will occur. We work with our partners to design programmes that protect our investment from misuse or theft.”
That inability to disperse protests in any way but mass-murder is seen as a major liability for the junta at this point, and promises of crackdowns on two camps today never came, withanalysts saying the many thousands who turned out would’ve made such a crackdown prohibitively bloody, and was likely to spark an international backlash.
Following the major strikes across Baghdad yesterday, the State Department issued a statement faulting the attackers for carrying out attacks during Eid al-Fitr, saying anyone who did so were “enemies of Islam.”
Humanitarian aid worth £480,000 was seized by militants linked to al-Qa’ida as they rampaged through southern Somalia.
The supplies, paid for by British taxpayers, were in warehouses captured by al-Shabaab and it is believed they were later set ablaze, according to the Department for International Development (DfID).
Details of the incidents appeared in the department’s annual accounts.
It said: “DfID’s partners had no prior warning of the confiscations being carried out and therefore had no time to prevent the loss by relocating goods.
“While the theft suffered represented a stores loss, the property was not stolen from DfID stores. DfID funding was provided to purchase goods but no benefit was received by the end recipient due to the theft.”
A spokesman for the department said: “DfID works in some of the most dangerous places in the world, including Somalia, because tackling the root causes of poverty and instability there ensures a safer world and a safer UK.
“Working in conflict-affected and fragile states carries inherent risk. DfID does all it can to mitigate against this but, on occasion, losses will occur. We work with our partners to design programmes that protect our investment from misuse or theft.”
Egypt......
Egypt Junta’s Cairo Crackdown ‘Postponed,’ Officials Say
Protests Seen as Prohibitively Large
by Jason Ditz, August 12, 2013
The Egypt junta’s last two crackdowns on sit-in demonstrations in Cairo ended identically, with a significant percentage of the protesters dead and a solid majority wounded.
That inability to disperse protests in any way but mass-murder is seen as a major liability for the junta at this point, and promises of crackdowns on two camps today never came, withanalysts saying the many thousands who turned out would’ve made such a crackdown prohibitively bloody, and was likely to spark an international backlash.
Egypt’s military has gotten away with last month’s coup more or less scot-free, with the US government and others eagerly backing the new military regime after not particularly liking the government Egyptians elected in last year’s historic votes. Cynically backing a coup as “democratic reform” isn’t going to be sustainable for many of those countries, however, if the military’s massacres continue.
Officials say that the crackdown wasn’t cancelled but merely postponed, though they provided no indication when they might resume the plan. Junta leaders had previously ordered police to use “any means necessary” to force anti-coup demonstrators off the streets, insisting they were “terrorists” and were also disrupting traffic.
Iraq.......
State Dept: Iraq Bombers Are ‘Enemies of Islam’
Officials Say Attacks Probably al-Qaeda Related
by Jason Ditz, August 11, 2013
The US withdrawal from Iraq doesn’t extend to the US State Department’s decision to issue bizarre expressions of sympathy for bombings.
Following the major strikes across Baghdad yesterday, the State Department issued a statement faulting the attackers for carrying out attacks during Eid al-Fitr, saying anyone who did so were “enemies of Islam.”
The statement went on to say that the attacks bore the “hallmarks” of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which wasn’t really in dispute in the first place, and offered a $10 million reward for a top AQI leader.
That the US bothered to respond at all it odd, and the decision to focus on Eid al-Fitr is doubly so, since the timing was likely entirely coincidental, and attacks of this size have been carried out several times a month all summer without a similar reaction.
Yemen Terror- Rama ....
( Wow , we are just getting extra-terrestrial level , Industrial Grade BS trotted out to justify Yemen drone attacks ..... I love the part where the drone hits the car and destroys it before the passengers could get out -- but then 4 folks suddenly dart from the destroyed car and three more missiles are shot at the fleeing yemenis or whomever they were ......)
Drone Strike Reportedly Wounds Al Qaeda Master Bomb Maker
Bomb maker reportedly behind ‘Underwear Bombing’ plot in 2010
Ibrahim al Asiri / AP
BY:
A Saudi national known to be a key al Qaeda bomb maker was wounded during a U.S.-led drone strike in Yemen, according to a Yemeni news report.
Ibrahim al Asiri, the bomb maker, was targeted during a missile strike launched from a U.S.-operated armed drone in southern Yemen that killed two other al Qaeda terrorists, the online Yemeni news outlet Al Watan reported Sunday.
A U.S. official had no public comment but urged caution regarding claims that al Asiri was dead.
The drone attack took place in Yemen’s southernmost Lahij Governorate that borders the Gulf of Aden. Covert, U.S. military-operated drones carried out the strike. The United States operates a drone base located in southern Saudi Arabia.
According to the Al Watan report, photos of the drone strike victims showed one man whose facial features matched al Asiri, who was said to have been severely wounded.
Al Asiri is one of the most wanted terrorists and was behind at least two unsuccessful plots to blow up airliners.
Al Watan quoted eyewitnesses as saying the drone strike Saturday was carried out against a passenger car that heard the drone and sought refuge under a bridge. However, before the passengers could get out of the car, a missile struck the vehicle and destroyed it.
After seeing that the missile had not hit the passengers, the drone fired three more missiles against four people who had fled from the car.
Al Asiri is believed by U.S. officials to have been the mastermind behind the bomb concealed in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on the way to Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009.
Abdulmutallab was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2012.
Al Asiri also is suspected in the plot to blow up cargo planes using printer cartridges filled with plastic explosive in 2010.
Al Asiri, a chemist by training, is also believed to have trained other members of the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Saturday’s drone strike followed an unprecedented public warning by the U.S. government that terrorists were planning an attack on the United States.
More than a dozen U.S. diplomatic outposts were temporarily closed amid concerns of a terrorist attack.
No attacks have been carried out and current and former U.S. officials have said the terrorist threat may have been hyped by the Obama administration for political purposes. A White House spokeswoman dismissed that claim as “insulting.”
U.S. officials were quoted in press reports as saying the threat of a coming attack was based on an intercepted communication between al Qaeda leader Aymen al Zawahiri and the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Nasser al-Wuhaysi.
London’s Telegraph newspaper reported Saturday that Yemeni authorities have offered a reward of up to $23,000 for information on al Asiri and 24 other al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen.
As reminder , there was no factual basis for the Terror- Rama - so says Yemeni official under cover of secrecy !
Official: Embassy Attack Threat “Had No Basis in Fact”
Terror plot manufactured to dampen opposition to drone strikes
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 12, 2013
Infowars.com
August 12, 2013
A high-ranking Yemeni security official has told McClatchy that the Obama administration’s recently announced terror threat which supposedly targeted US embassies had “no basis in fact” and was manufactured merely to dampen opposition to drone strikes.
Image: YouTube
After initially warning of a terror plot “thought to have been one of the most serious against American and other Western interests since the September 11 attacks,” the US closed 20 embassies and consulates earlier this month, 18 of which reopened yesterday.
The announcement of the threat occurred as it was simultaneously acknowledged that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last year was linked to a clandestine CIA arms smuggling operation based in the Libyan city that was being used to transport arms to rebels in Syria, many of whom are allied with Al-Qaeda militants.
The announcement of the threat against US embassies also served to justify blanket NSA surveillance, leading some to suggest that the alleged plot was being hyped to distract from the Edward Snowden scandal. It was later claimed that the NSA had intercepted a “conference call” of Al-Qaeda members during which militants discussed an attack.
However, in a report entitled U.S. embassies in Muslim world reopen amid still-murky threats, McClatchy cites, “A high-ranking Yemeni security official speaking on the condition of anonymity,” who told the news outlet that the threat “had no basis in fact,” with the source bemusedly attributing “media reports about imminent terror strikes to a single official’s comments, which he cast as a misguided attempt at shifting public opinion in the face of increasing and unpopular American drone strikes.”
Dozens of people, labeled “suspected militants” by the US, have been killed in Yemen over the last two weeks as a result of at least eight drone strikes, attacks that have outraged Yemeni citizens. According to Princeton University professor and Yemen expert Gregory Johnson, the drone strikes are actually serving to recruit more terrorists.
“There are strikes that kill civilians. There are strikes that kill women and children. And when you kill people in Yemen, these are people who have families. They have clans. And they have tribes. And what we’re seeing is that the United States might target a particular individual because they see him as a member of al-Qaeda. But what’s happening on the ground is that he’s being defended as a tribesman,” said Johnson.
Figures show that 50 civilians are killed for every one terrorist taken out by a drone strike, which means that 95% of the victims are innocent men, women and children.
As Ron Paul notes in his column today, while the Obama administration is conducting drone strikes in Yemen to supposedly target Al-Qaeda terrorists, the White House is simultaneously supporting the allies of Al-Qaeda terrorists, the vast majority of whom have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, in Syria.
Furthermore, as the high-ranking Yemeni security official reveals, the administration is also apparently manufacturing terror plots in order to justify these drone strikes as well as mass NSA surveillance.
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