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Yemen
February 2, 2011 - 7:26am
The Yemeni president told parliament on Wednesday he will not seek another term in office or hand power to his son - an apparent reaction to protests in this impoverished nation that have been inspired by Tunisia's revolt and the turmoil in Egypt.
The U.S.-allied Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years, spoke to lawmakers in both houses of the assembly on the eve of mass rallies that the opposition has called for Thursday in all Yemeni provinces.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2011/02/02/yemen-president-parliament.html#ixzz1CntUja00
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2011/02/03/yemen-protest-presidnet.html#ixzz1Cv7ThTZP
The US sponsored 30 year installment plan for the Middle East appears to be reaching maturity.
Every oppressive corrupt dictatorships with extreme poverty and food insecurity are vulnerable. In the middle east or elsewhere.
maybe now we will finally realize that this is what happens when you support viciously undemocratic authoritarian military regimes against the will of the people who live under them.
and why the worry about who the new leaders will be? because our leaders know they've been working on destroying any independent nationalist or democratic movements in these countries for decades, and have largely succeeded.
This is one of the few journalists that tells it like it is, Ted Rall really gets it. But they tried to run him off as well. Fortunately his female editor stood by him.
SYNDICATED COLUMN: The New Face of RevolutionFebruary 3rd, 2011
After Tunisia and Egypt, the World
From the British newspaper the Independent: "Like in many other countries in the region, protesters in Egypt complain about surging prices, unemployment and the authorities' reliance on heavy-handed security to keep dissenting voices quiet."
Sound familiar?
Coverage by U.S. state-controlled media of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt is too dim by half: they say it's an Arab thing. So it is. But not for long. The problems that triggered the latest uprisings, rising inequality of income, frozen credit markets, along with totally unresponsive government, span the globe. To be sure, the first past-due regimes to be overthrown may be the most brutal U.S. client states-Arab states such as Yemen, Jordan and Algeria. Central Asia's autocrats, also corrupted by the U.S., can't be far behind; Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, who likes to boil his dissidents to death, would be my first bet. But this won't stop in Asia. Persistent unemployment, unresponsive and repressive governments exist in Europe and yes, here in the U.S. They are unstable. The pressure is building.
Global revolution is imminent.
The first great wave of revolutions from 1793 through 1848 was a response to the decline of feudal agrarianism. (Like progressive historians, I don't consider the 1775-1781 war of American independence to be a true revolution. Because it didn't result in a radical reshuffling of classes, it was little more than a bunch of rich tax cheats getting theirs.)
During the 19th century European elites saw the rise of industrial capitalism as a chance to stack the cards in their favor, paying slave wages for backbreaking work. Workers organized and formed a proletariat that rejected this lopsided arrangement. They rose up. They formed unions. By the middle of the 20th century, a rough equilibrium had been established between labor and management in the U.S. and other industrialized nations. Three generations of autoworkers earned enough to send their children to college.
Now Detroit is a ghost town.
http://www.rall.com/rallblog/2011/02/03/syndicated-column-the-new-face-o...
And now that is being reversed. In America anyway. I will not shed a single tear for them as Americans have gotten fatter and richer have blown their wealth on the military. That is the single largest expenditure of their federal budget, bar none. When you include the Dept. of Energy (nuclear weapons) it comes to about a trillion USD a year.
If they bankrupt themselves, so be it.
Yemen's UN envoy resigns over killings
Three Yemeni army commanders, including a top general, defected Monday to the opposition calling for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule, as army tanks and armored vehicles deployed in support of thousands protesting in the capital.
With the defection, it appeared Saleh's support was eroding from every power base in the nation - his own tribe called on him to step down, he fired his entire cabinet ahead of what one government official said was a planned mass resignation, and his ambassador to the UN and human rights minister quit.
All three officers who defected Monday belong to Saleh's Hashid tribe. A Hashid leader said the tribe, eager to keep the president's job for one of its own, was rallying behind one of the men, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, as a possible replacement for Saleh.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/03/21/yemen-defection032111.html
Obama, Harper, Sarkozy, Cameron, Ignatieff, Layton, Duceppe, and our "make-war-to-protect-civilian" pro-imperialist babblers don't really give a shit about this story, so don't read it:
Ruling party in Sana'a assembly backs President Saleh's move to suspend constitution, ban protests and allow tougher powers of arrest
He's not nearly as bad as Gaddafi, though, who has pulled hospital patients out of their beds, denied them Viagra, and personally tortured and executed them, I think I heard somewhere.
Stop selling weapons to Yemen: NDP
Thanks for the article, Fidel, but where in the article did the NDP say to stop selling weapons to Yemen? Can't find it.
Dewar and the NDP are saying it's not just Yemen but a number of oppressive regimes that are buying Canadian made weapons.
Apparently governments in Ottawa haven't been very discriminating as to which of Uncle Sam's imperialist dictatorships receive Canadian-made weapons. Whether Yemen or Saudi Arabia now helping Bahrain to crush a rebellion in the streets, it makes no difference to our own autocratic regimes in Ottawa.
US fears Yemen instability could impact phony-baloney war on terror
Apparently they are not worried about fueling a civil war in oil-rich Libya though, a committed partner in the war against the invisible army of darkness.
Countering US taxpayer-funded false flag terrorism is for spies, whistleblowers and cops not soldiers.
Ok, Fidel. I don't mean to be harsh. But when you actually read the article that you linked to, you find that Dewar is not calling for a halt to sales to ANYONE - including Saudi Arabia.
And he certainly doesn't give a damn about the fact that the biggest market for Canadian arms is the U.K., which has used them in Iraq besides everywhere else.
And Dewar is still the same shithead who praised Harper for being the first government leader to boycott Durban II in support of Israel - which Jack later had to intervene and reverse.
And Dewar is still the same warrior who called for a no-fly zone back on Feb. 22.
So do me a favour. Just quote what he says, and let's discuss the truth. Don't try to dress this shit up as shinola. And please don't tell me that they're the best of a bad bunch. When it comes to the uprising of the Arab masses, and the aggression against Libya, they're all united with Harper and Obama and Sarkozy and Cameron.
If we start with reality as it is (understand the world), we may begin to see what steps need to be taken to change the world.
He's not calling for a ban on exports to Tuvalu either but that's besides the point. Are you implying that our corrupt stooges in Ottawa are doing their jobs with respect to deciding which of Uncle Sam's proxies should buy weapons from Canadian manufacturers and which should not?
No that's true. Apparently Dewar is more concerned about this thread topic than you, and he's not even posting here.
The point is that you falsely stated upthread (and in other threads) that the NDP was calling for a halt to arms sales to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The least you can do, now that you have realized your error, is to retract that - and write to them suggesting they actually do that. You want to fight me instead? There's something a little wrong with that. You need to figure out whose on your side - like in real life, not in your wishes and dreams.
You defend the stands this bastard has taken? Or you just defend him because he's from the NDP (for the time being)? Is this for real?
NDP MP Paul Dewar of the 4th party is saying our corrupt stooges in Ottawa have been turning a blind eye to Canadian weapons sales to oppressive regimes in Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc for too long.
What are you saying?
Nothing, Fidel. Nothing you can't figure out on your own, once you decide to open your eyes.
Oh, and thanks for managing to introduce the NDP into every thread and turn it to shit. I have a request to make: When you introduce the NDP, try to quote something positive and progressive that they've said or done - you'll actually find no shortage of material. When you make no distinction between shit and shinola, you profoundly discredit the good people (translation: NOT Paul Dewar, NOT Pat Martin) in that party.
Sorry. Carry on with your anti-imperialist monologue while Canadian-made weapons are shipped to Yemen and Saudi Arabia to put down popular peoples rebellions against corrupt and intolerable US-backed regimes similar to the ones we enjoy in Ottawa. And FUCK Paul Dewar and the NDP!!!
What does this even mean if it isn't a statement in favour of banning the export of arms to dictatorships? Is he saying that the shipments will continue, but that an NDP government won't be shy about owning up to it? Are we supposed to nod our heads in agreement with this promise of transparency?
Sure, and Dewar was surely not sincere when he wrote about the ongoing holocaust in the Congo since 1998.
Apparently accountability in federal government is a concept of ethical and moral behaviour which neither our corrupt stooges in Ottawa, nor a certain babbler whose handle rhymes with stumbleback, fully understand.
How can you put a stop to millions of dollars worth of Canadian weapons shipments to brutal US-backed military dictatorships in the Middle East during the period 2007 to 2009 if DFAIT only tabled the report in 2011, you moreanne? Those weapons were shipped some time ago, and it wasn't disclosed to Parliament until some time this year. Is that an example of federal accountability? No, it's not. Try dropping the knee-jerk anti-NDP frame of mind and reading the article being discussed for a change of pace.
We'll just have to take Dewar's word for it then when he says that this is 'not about banning export.' What it is about as it pertains to NDP policy on the matter remains open to interpretation, depending on ones definition of accountability. Meanwhile we can expect no infidelity from you towards them, no matter what.
And we'll just have to take your word for it that anyone in Ottawa, including our corrupt and unaccountable stooges themselves, would be able to ban weapons sales to countries which Parliament had no idea were buying from Canadian companies in the first place. At least, no one knew about it until DFAIT published a report two years too late.
Which leads us to another related issue - the scrapping of Foreign Investment Review Agency years ago. The NDP pushed for its creation, and a certain federal party dismantled it during the "lean years." Canadian Parliament had a much harder time stopping 12,000+ foreign takeovers of Canada's economy when StatsCan was left to figure it out by themselves and often publishing information on takeovers and foreign investment years too late for anyone in Ottawa to be able to object on time. Next thing you know, we've got absentee corporate landlords calling the shots from corporate board rooms and mostly in America. It's a lot harder negotiating labour and other issues with the owners of the means when they are in another country and mostly rich Americanos south of the border.
DFAIT has been producing figures for awhile now Fidel, along with a few other organizations that track those sorts of things. Try sending this link to Dewar, and ask him to search for Canadian arms exports. Here's a few right off the top:
Ploughshares Monitor (circa 1995)
Small Arms Production and Export
Canada Ranked 6th Largest Weapons Exporter in 2004
5th of 40 Weapons Exporting Countries
Bullshit. Show us where any of those bs web sites lists Canadian weapons sales to Yemen for the years 2007 to 2009 and published in those same years.
I get the strong impression that one of us is apologizing for the corrupt stoogeaucracy in Ottawa here. I'll give you two guesses who, and the first one doesn't count.
Why not just admit that all of you and our vicious toadies to Uncle Sam in Ottawa had no idea that millions of dollars in Canadian weapons sales to Yemen took place from 2007 to 2009 until Dewar and the NDP pointed it out to you in 2011?
Well, you've been making it sound like the issue of Canadian weapons exports to questionable US backed regimes such as Saudia Arabia and Yemen is a recent revelation bought to us by an anti-weapons exporting crusader named Dewar. Additionally, you seem to have a problem wrapping your mind around the fact that none of this comes as a surprise, and that Dewar is actually not advocating a complete export ban to US friendly henchmen. He just wants government to do a better job with its bookkeeping in that regard.
So you're saying that you knew full well so many Canadian-made weapons to the part number and penny were being sold and shipped off to Yemen from 07-09 and said nothing about it to anyone on the internet in the years leading up to street rebellions in Yemen in 2011. You've been holding out on us all this time. tsk tsk
That means YOU are as guilty as our corrupt and unaccountable stooges in Ottawa who also knew in spite of the dog eating DFAIT's homework all that time in between. And you kept that information to yourself while you knew all along Yemenis were oppressed and downtrodden by the heavy hand of the state using Canadian made weapons. And you said nothing to anyone. Or at least, I can't find where you warned us after a quick google search of babble. Nothing.
Your voluntary confession here is duly noted. But I must say I am very disappointed, SJ. I thought more of you before this. I held you in the highest regard as a defender of basic human rights.
I feel nothing now. You're ded to me.
We knew we were open for business to Yemen in 2003. Whether one country temporarily drops off the list one year to the next is not really the issue here. Perhaps it has to do with something as simple as no orders being placed in a particular year, or they've purchased what they require elsewhere. The real issue though is whether or not it exists within the dear Party's 'new' and 'democratic' ideology to cease the practice of supplying weaponry to US backed authoritarian kingdoms and dictatorships. It doesn't appear to be the case from Dewar's statement.
Okay now youre off of the "which country exactly" was buying Canadian made weaponry specifically and on to the more flexible "we shouldn't be surprised" that US-backed Yemeni dictators were filling purchase orders for weapons from
20072003 to 2009. Because, and afterall, our stooges were "doing business" in general with them beginning in 2003. It should have been obvious to everyone involved, including the fourth and effective opposition party in Ottawa, you say.We should have gleaned from this that weapons were part of "business as usual" in another of Uncle Sam's many third world capitalist bastions for gross violations of basic human rights.
Let's send some maple sugar, beavertails, semolina flour, guns and ammo, two-by-fours etc to Yemen. It was all there plain as day.
And no thanks to the NDP for pointing it out to us in 2011.
Because all of you and our corrupt and unaccountable stooges in the Librano-Harper governments knew all along and said nothing.
I should remind you that you're still on the hot seat here for having said nothing about the weapons to Yemen from 2003 now to 2009. Now you're TWICE as guilty as our corrupt and unnaccountable stooges in Ottawa over the period of THREE governments not one.
What do you have to say for yourself now?
Well, it seems we've each owned up to our respective roles. I owned up a few years ago here to my part as a cog within the military/industrial security state, and you've apparently owned up to being a supportive cog within an organization that supports the perpetuation of that sort of business.