Middle East and North Africa 17, where everything is what it seems

[The Fallen]

Both Shryke and Dicer make valid points.

The media is being hypocritical in the way they're covering Saudi King Abdullah, an American ally, as opposed to how they treated President Hugo Chavez. Abdullah should have been criticized more harshly. And Hugo Chavez did become a tyrant once he got power. Including the curtailing of the free press and freedom of speech. If I recall correctly, he even changed the constitution so that he could remain in power.

And to Shryke's point, Greenwald would have made a better argument if he had stated that like Chavez, Abdullah should also be brutally criticized, rather than trying to whitewash Chavez' own shortcomings in order to make Abdullah's tame coverage even more egregious.

[Shryke]

Both Shryke and Dicer make valid points.

The media is being hypocritical in the way they're covering Saudi King Abdullah, an American ally, as opposed to how they treated President Hugo Chavez. Abdullah should have been criticized more harshly. And Hugo Chavez did become a tyrant once he got power. Including the curtailing of the free press and freedom of speech. If I recall correctly, he even changed the constitution so that he could remain in power.

And to Shryke's point, Greenwald would have made a better argument if he had stated that like Chavez, Abdullah should also be brutally criticized, rather than trying to whitewash Chavez' own shortcomings in order to make Abdullah's tame coverage even more egregious.

I never denied Abdullah was a right bastard and that the media's treatment of him as almost saintly is disgusting.

[Darzin]

In other news the Houthis just seized the Yemeni capital and the president resigned, I know their influence has been building but now they seem to control the government. Does anyone know what their war goals are, some kind of separate Shia state or just ruling the government? Personally if I was them I'd just let the rest of the country go since it's such a mess and there have been secessionist rumblings in Aden since unification anyway.

[Horza]

In other news the Houthis just seized the Yemeni capital and the president resigned, I know their influence has been building but now they seem to control the government. Does anyone know what their war goals are, some kind of separate Shia state or just ruling the government? Personally if I was them I'd just let the rest of the country go since it's such a mess and there have been secessionist rumblings in Aden since unification anyway.

With the disclaimer that Yemeni politics is complex and I'm paraphrasing people who have forgotten more about the subject than I will ever know:

Houthis have had supremacy in Sana'a for months now, the wave of resignations is just the latest marker of their influence. Basically, their objective isn't a sectarian one, they are a powerful faction that is dissatisfied with both the ruling regime and Saudi-aligned political Islam. This is complicated by the possibility that they're being assisted by deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Fuck knows how anything plays out because Yemeni politics is complex and has largely to do with issues related to Yemen.

[Darzin]

So apparently officials now refuse to follow dictates from Sana'a not that that's much of a surprise. Do you think it's possible the country splits again?

[arya_underfoot]

So apparently officials now refuse to follow dictates from Sana'a not that that's much of a surprise. Do you think it's possible the country splits again?

I was under the impression that for some time now, Yemen has been a single country in name only.

[The Monkey]

So now these motherfuckers have gone and burned alive that Jordanian pilot.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/world/isis-captive/index.html

As vile as these people are, I believe this is the most brutal thing yet. I read people on other forums who have watched the video, and I don't recommend anyone searching for it. It's supposedly horrific on an almost unimaginative level.

[Suttree]

F**cking hell.

Islamic State militants are systematically mass-executing and abusing children, including by crucifying them, burying them alive, and using mentally disabled youth as suicide bombers and shields in battle, according to a United Nations review of atrocities committed against children in Iraq.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) reviewed Iraq for the first time since 1998 and found "severe violations of children's rights" as a result of ongoing sectarian warfare in that country, exacerbated by the rise of the Islamic State terror group (also known as ISIS/ISIL), which has routinely murdered and enslaved children in areas under its control.

[The Once and Future King]

Gotta love the response by King Abdullah though. Makes the entire western world look like a bunch of Chickensh#ts.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

F**cking hell.

Some JV team, huh?

[Ramsay Gimp]

There is a pretty amazing article about the Islamic State here. Long even for the Atlantic but absolutely worth it. It gets into all kinds of things like how fundamentalist they are, how much they are able to recruit from around the world and yet are hated by all of the nations around them, about how devoted to scripture they are, the implications of having established a caliphate, there this is all going, etc...

Very good read, thanks

One thing I find interesting is that Osama Bin Laden strongly disapproved of the strategies and methods that are now embraced by ISIS. He repeatedly warned his followers to focus their wrath on Israel and the U.S. rather than the Shia, and to avoid an excessively brutal application of Sharia.

[Dicer]

So now these motherfuckers have gone and burned alive that Jordanian pilot.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/world/isis-captive/index.html

As vile as these people are, I believe this is the most brutal thing yet. I read people on other forums who have watched the video, and I don't recommend anyone searching for it. It's supposedly horrific on an almost unimaginative level.

Yeah, it's as brutal as that 13 year old child burned alive by American drones in Yemen.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

Only difference is that ISIS parades it's brutality while the Americans hide it.

To expand on how brutal it is when civilians get killed by drone strikes:

The most immediate consequence of drone strikes is, of course, death and injury to those targeted or near a strike. The missiles fired from drones kill or injure in several ways, including through incineration, shrapnel, and the release of powerful blast waves capable of crushing internal organs. Those who do survive drone strikes often suffer disfiguring burns and shrapnel wounds, limb amputations, as well as vision and hearing loss. . . .

In addition, because the Hellfire missiles fired from drones often incinerate the victims’ bodies, and leave them in pieces and unidentifiable, traditional burial processes are rendered impossible. As Firoz Ali Khan, a shopkeeper whose father-in-law’s home was struck, graphically described, “These missiles are very powerful. They destroy human beings . . .There is nobody left and small pieces left behind. Pieces. Whatever is left is just little pieces of bodies and cloth.” A doctor who has treated drone victims described how “kin is burned so that you can’t tell cattle from human.” When another interviewee came upon the site of the strike that killed his father, “[t]he entire place looked as if it was burned completely, so much so that even [the victims’] own clothes had burnt. All the stones in the vicinity had become black.” Ahmed Jan, who lost his foot in the March 17 jirga strike, discussed the challenges rescuers face in identifying bodies: “People were trying to find the body parts. We find the body parts of some people, but sometimes we do not find anything.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/04/burning-victims-death-still-common-practice/

AP finds high civilian death tolls in house strikes in Gaza including 108 pre-schoolers between the age of 1 and 5 bombed to death by Israel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/ap-exclusive-high-civilian-death-toll-in-gaza-house-strikes/2015/02/13/a0ef0892-b381-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html

The Associated Press examined 247 airstrikes on homes, interviewing witnesses, visiting attack sites and compiling a detailed casualty count. The review found that 508 of the dead — just over 60 percent — were children, women and older men, all presumed to be civilians. Hamas says it did not use women as fighters in the war, and an Israel-based research group tracking militants among the dead said it has no evidence women participated in combat.

The AP count also showed that:

— Children younger than 16 made up one-third of the total: 280 killed, including 19 babies and 108 preschoolers between the ages of 1 and 5.

— In 83 strikes, three or more members of one family died.

— Among those killed were 96 confirmed or suspected militants — or just over 11 percent of the total — though the actual number could be higher since armed groups have not released detailed casualty lists.

— The remainder of the 240 dead were males between the ages of 16 and 59 whose names did not appear in connection with militant groups on searches of websites or on street posters honoring fighters.

One thing I find interesting is that Osama Bin Laden strongly disapproved of the strategies and methods that are now embraced by ISIS. He repeatedly warned his followers to focus their wrath on Israel and the U.S. rather than the Shia, and to avoid an excessively brutal application of Sharia.

Osama Bin Laden has stated that he targeted the US for it's foreign policy. Even Al Qaeda is quite different from ISIS. ISIS is some sort of savage, brutal ideology born out of the wreck that is Syria, fomented and nurtured by the radical Sunni Wahhabism taught and spread by the Saudi Royal family.

[sToNED_CAT]

Yeah, it's as brutal as that 13 year old child burned alive by American drones in Yemen.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

Only difference is that ISIS parades it's brutality while the Americans hide it.

No, the difference is that Americans don't kill those civilians deliberately. And don't forget that terrorist often deliberately surround themselves with civilians to protects themselves. As for drones and thermobaric Hellfire - it is terrible weapon, but very accurate and has relatively small impact radius, it's collateral damage is smaller than virtually every other air launched weapon. So at least Americans (and Israelies) try to limit those civilian casualties, terrorist organizations don't give a shit.

[Dicer]

No, the difference is that Americans don't kill those civilians deliberately. And don't forget that terrorist often deliberately surround themselves with civilians to protects themselves. As for drones and thermobaric Hellfire - it is terrible weapon, but very accurate and has relatively small impact radius, it's collateral damage is smaller than virtually every other air launched weapon. So at least Americans (and Israelies) try to limit those civilian casualties, terrorist organizations don't give a shit.

Yeah, we don't do it deliberately so it's totally okay when we burn children alive!! And lets stop with 'terrorist' deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians excuse shall we? It's a war crime to target innocent civilians. End of story.

And Israelis try to limit civilian damage? LOL! Funniest thing I have heard all day. Just take a look at the article I posted above. More than 1000 innocent civilians killed, hospitals and schools bombed (Even after the UN informed the IDF that children were in there) , 500 children (including babies) slaughtered, many hundreds maimed and you think they try to limit civilian causalities? Gaza is still absolutely destroyed and most Palestinians spend the harsh winter with no homes because Israel has still not allowed construction materials into Gaza and have withheld Palestinian tax money. Very humane and thoughtful of them, no doubt.

As for the drones, lets take a look at this very accurate weapon that incinerates the flesh and burns even the clothes shall we?

Mousid al-Taysi was travelling in a wedding convoy celebrating a cousin's marriage when a missile slammed down from the sky. All he remembers are bright red-and-orange colours, then the grisly sight of a dozen burned bodies and the cries of others wounded around him.

Mousid survived the December 12 attack in Yemen's central al-Baydah province, apparently launched by an American drone, but his physical and psychological recovery process is just beginning. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest drone attack in the country in more than a year.

Mousid told Al Jazeera he had no idea why his family members were blown to pieces in Radaa district. Some have suggested the convoy may have been mistaken for fighters belonging to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).Aref al-Taysi was one of those killed. "Whatever we do, they [the US] will never look at us as human beings. We wear wounds they can't see," his mother told Al Jazeera.

Members of the Taysi family said they have no links to al-Qaeda and don't know why a drone had been circling in their village for at least a year, or why a missile was fired at their convoy as they went to the wedding.

Both families said no investigations have been carried out by the Yemeni or US governments to determine who and how many people were killed. No one visited and no one asked.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/yemenis-seek-justice-wedding-drone-strike-201418135352298935.html

The deaths, immediately prior to the discovery of Yemeni links to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged "underpants bomber" who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas day, caused outrage across the country.

The Yemeni government, anxious not to stir anti-American feeling, denied initial claims that the attack was carried out by the US.

But a study Amnesty International said a US Tomahawk cruise missile hit the site, judging by photographs of debris studied by a weapons expert. The warhead include cluster bombs, at least one of which remained in the area unexploded afterwards.

The Pentagon has refused so far to confirm the allegations, but the deaths would represent the biggest civilian loss of life in an American attack in Yemen.

In the attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen on December 17, 55 people are thought to have been killed. Yemeni forces said 14 of these were al-Qaeda members. They included a local al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Saleh al-Kazimi.

The others were civilians, and 14 were women and 21 children, including al-Kazimi's family.Amnesty said it was "gravely concerned" by the evidence of use of cluster bombs, since most states have promised to ban their use.

"Cluster munitions have indiscriminate effects and unexploded bomblets threaten lives and livelihoods for years afterwards," said Mike Lewis, the group's international arms control researcher.

21 children dead by banned cluster bombs. But that's okay, because some terrorists died too, right?

When the Guardian interviewed Mohammed last September, he spoke of his anger towards the US government for killing his father. “They tell us that these drones come from bases in Saudi Arabia and also from bases in the Yemeni seas and America sends them to kill terrorists, but they always kill innocent people. But we don’t know why they are killing us.

“In their eyes, we don’t deserve to live like people in the rest of the world and we don’t have feelings or emotions or cry or feel pain like all the other humans around the world.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

But hey, it's okay. It's no so bad. He got burned to death just like his father.

[Shryke]

Yeah, we don't do it deliberately so it's totally okay when we burn children alive!! And lets stop with 'terrorist' deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians excuse shall we? It's a war crime to target innocent civilians. End of story.

You understand that not doing it deliberately means the US isn't targeting them, yes?

[Arakan]

Yeah, we don't do it deliberately so it's totally okay when we burn children alive!! And lets stop with 'terrorist' deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians excuse shall we? It's a war crime to target innocent civilians. End of story.

And Israelis try to limit civilian damage? LOL! Funniest thing I have heard all day. Just take a look at the article I posted above. More than 1000 innocent civilians killed, hospitals and schools bombed (Even after the UN informed the IDF that children were in there) , 500 children (including babies) slaughtered, many hundreds maimed and you think they try to limit civilian causalities? Gaza is still absolutely destroyed and most Palestinians spend the harsh winter with no homes because Israel has still not allowed construction materials into Gaza and have withheld Palestinian tax money. Very humane and thoughtful of them, no doubt.

As for the drones, lets take a look at this very accurate weapon that incinerates the flesh and burns even the clothes shall we?

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/yemenis-seek-justice-wedding-drone-strike-201418135352298935.html

21 children dead by banned cluster bombs. But that's okay, because some terrorists died too, right?

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/

But hey, it's okay. It's no so bad. He got burned to death just like his father.

Any comments to the 21 murdered egyptian christians in Lybia or doesnt it fit your narrative?

By the way, one can be against American drone bombing and still condemn the barbarity of burning a man alive.

Allahu akbar I guess...

[The Iceman of the North]

Any comments to the 21 murdered egyptian christians in Lybia or doesnt it fit your narrative?

By the way, one can be against American drone bombing and still condemn the barbarity of burning a man alive.

Allahu akbar I guess...

Not sure hat one have to do with the other?

[Commodore]

this is the definitive article on ISIS

There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to “moderns.” In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.

To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)

But Adnani was not merely talking trash. His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands of kuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away.

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.

[Horza]

Well hello there, Captain I Didn't Read The Previous Page.

[Horza]

great New Yorker article on Haftar, Libya and that swaggering fraud Bernard-Henri Levy