yam-yam yemeni

Wikileaks and Yemen: How the Yemeni president covers for the USA and then blames Iran!

2011-01-08T08:34:00.000+01:00

Learnt about this Wikileak via Angry Arab blog:

“...On March 28, CDA spoke with President Saleh (who was attending the Arab League summit in Riyadh) via telephone and confirmed that the aircraft belonged to the US Navy. He assured Saleh that the plane crashed performing routine reconnaissance near the ship and had not been operating in Yemeni territory...

“...Comment: President Saleh clearly believes the unmanned aircraft had been performing reconnaissance in Yemeni territory when it crashed. He could have taken the opportunity to score political points by appearing tough in public against the United States, but chose instead to blame Iran...Saleh decided he would benefit more from painting Iran as the bad guy in this case.”

Read the actual wikileak here.

a LEtter the 'left-WinG' mORning sTAr diD noT pUblish

2011-01-06T22:48:00.002+01:00

Paddy McGuffin in his round up of 2010 (30th December) accuses Silvio Berlusconi of being a 'teflon tyrant'. This may or may not be true.

But one thing is for sure, Berlusconi, unlike all shades of the British left, including the ones who in fits of self-deprecation, dub themselves "revolutionary" is capable of looking at Italy’s past adventures in other people’s lands and what’s more compensate for the barbarism unleashed by Italian forces. Berlusconi compensated Libya to the tune of billions of dollars.

Now, dare I ask (and let’s put the British right-wing aside) which British lefty has ever got off his high Victorian horse and acknowledged, in real terms, what Britain has done to countless countries such as India, Palestine, Kenya, Aden, Malaya...etc...etc?

Indeed, under the much vaunted Nye Bevin’s watch, according to a recent book, 400,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by British trained Zionist forces and the suppression of Malayan rebels, which included the use of concentration camps, was given the go ahead. The latter’s suppression allowed Britain to sell Malayan raw materials as its own, on the international market, to fund the new post world war ‘welfare state’. It’s all soaked in the blood of natives!

Once again, Berlusconi may or may not be a ‘teflon tyrant’ but when it comes to anti-imperialism I’d rather see a Berlusconi in power than a Bevin, Benn, Wilson or some other British hoodwinking and blood soaked lefty.

Britain and it’s Islamists

2010-04-21T09:55:00.001+02:00

One of the most intriguing and secretive political relationships in the world over the last nine decades has been that between the British state and what today is called Islamism. Someone I know has briefly written on this relationship and how it began. It can be read here.

Robert Dreyfuss wrote a book on the relationship between the United States and Islamist groups and there is a chapter in there on Britain’s early relationship with Egyptian Islamists in the 1910’s and 1920’s. It was quite inevitable that a British author would soon appear to write a British version of this thesis and lo behold one has.

Mark Curtis is an independent British political writer. He is not one of these who simply regurgitates something that he has read in a Chomsky, Zinn or a Said book and then turns up at a meeting huffing, puffing and palming people off with terms such as “American Foreign Policy” and “Zionist Lobby” and then claims that he is a ‘revolutionary socialist’. Like all genuine political researchers and writers he has written about how his own establishments attempts to manipulate world affairs. He does his own research in that he analyses declassified governmental information.

His latest book is called, ‘Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam’. Curtis gives a brief outline of the relationship between Britain and Islamism in a recent interview:

“When Britain connived with the Muslim Brotherhood to kill Nasser in the 1950s, the Brotherhood at that time had a secret apparatus responsible for various assassinations and bomb attacks in Egypt...

... Radical Islamic forces have been seen as useful to Whitehall in five specific ways: as a global counter-force to the ideologies of secular nationalism and Soviet communism, in the cases of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the major champions of radical Islam; as ‘conservative muscle’ within countries to undermine secular nationalists and bolster pro-Western regimes; as ‘shock troops’ to destabilise or overthrow governments; as proxy military forces to fight wars; and as ‘political tools’ to leverage change from governments.”

The book is out in July and to be honest I can’t wait. By the way, the full interview can be read here.

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee election campaign is announced.

2010-04-07T14:32:00.000+02:00

“...it promises to be the most exciting contest for years - one where at least a dozen different outcomes are possible. But that's enough about Saturday's Grand National. What about the General Election?...”

“...the sad truth is that the vote on May 6 will be the most meaningless poll in modern British political history...”

“Despite the obvious failings of privatisation, nationalisation is still the great 'no no' for Britain's political elite - except of course when it comes to using taxpayers' money to bail out failing banks...”

“...To cover up the fact that on the key issues of the day they are singing from the same hymn sheet, we can confidently expect the election campaign to focus on perceived differences in character...”

The article can be read here.

Tariq Ali on his recent visit to Yemen.

2010-04-04T21:18:00.000+02:00

A good article on Yemen from long time radical Tariq Ali.

Although, I think it lacks a historical account of the relationship between the northern Yemeni political elite and Islamism (and what is now referred to as al-Qaeda), he more than compensates by providing a good outline of the events which led to the civil war in southern Yemen in 1986.

“I asked locals about AQAP. One of them came close to me and whispered: ‘Do you want to know where al-Qaida are based?’ I nodded. ‘In an office next to the president.’ In both Sana’a and Aden I encountered similar views...”

“..Ali Saleh obligingly describes the revolt as a Shia rebellion backed by Tehran, which had to be put down with force. But few believe this. The Yemeni army had embarked last August on Operation Scorched Earth, which destroyed villages and drove 150,000 villagers from their homes.”

Read the whole article here.

Glorification of terrorism.....AGAIN!

2010-02-28T12:38:00.004+01:00

The glorification of terrorism simply knows no bounds in our society.

These miscreants come over here and all they do is sponge off the state. This particular glorifier of terrorism, has the audacity to compare an act of terrorism to a Hollywood blockbuster! Al-Mahajiroun, drew a similar comparison when they referred to the 19 hijackers on 9/11 as the ‘Magnificent 19’. Obviously al-Mahajiroun were playing with the ‘Magnificent 7’ theme, a film starring Yul Brynner. These people truly are despicable.

When is this government going to get off its backside and take some action? It wasn’t like this during the Victorian era! Who let them in – that’s what I want to know!!!?

Furthermore, she moans (and/or taunts?) that the West no longer has ability to carry off such deeds because it has gone flabby with human rights awareness. Damn those human rights.

This unworthy article, glorifying terrorism can be read here.

Giving China the credit it deserves!

2010-02-28T08:54:00.000+01:00

Very few articles give China the credit it deserves. To think a mere hundred years ago this nation was routinely pillaged by Britain, Japan and others makes China’s success even more remarkable.

This article is a rare exemption:

“Why are we so reluctant to acknowledge China's successful pursuit of stability and growth and the benefit its example has brought to other developing countries?”

The real Clare Short according to George Monbiot.

2010-02-08T22:48:00.000+01:00

George Monbiot rips into the image of Clare Short as some kind of morally principled politician with this devastating piece, written a day after she resigned in 2003:

“Short was a licensed rebel...Within her own department, where her decisions made a real impact on people’s lives, she was more Blairite than Blair...

...She was useful to the government because she behaved like someone guided by impulse rather than calculation...

...We have, in other words, been sold Short. Blair told us she had integrity, and, correctly interpreting her role, she acted as if she did. But she knew precisely where the limits lay, and when that “integrity” needed to be jettisoned. Her authenticity was prescribed...

...Throughout her tenure, delegations of squawking NGOs came from the poor world to beg Clare Short not to destroy their lives. They were brushed aside with a ruthlessness which made Peter Mandelson look like Bagpuss. Last year, a group of peasant farmers from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh travelled to Britain to ask the Department for International Development (DFID) not to fund the state government’s “Vision 2020″ programme. Its purpose was to replace small-scale farming with agro-industry. While a few very wealthy farmers, seed and chemical companies, some of them closely connected to the government, would make a great deal of money from the scheme, some 20 million people would be thrown out of work.2 A leaked memo from Short’s own department revealed that the project suffered from “major failings”, threatened the food security of the poor, and offered no plans for “providing alternative income for those displaced.”3 A citizens’ jury drawn from the social groups the scheme is supposed to help rejected it unanimously.4 Yet Short ignored their concerns and instructed her department to give the state government £65million....

...The central project of Blair’s foreign policy is the appeasement of the powerful. Short ensured that this principle informed the business of her department. She was forced to resign yesterday not because she had rebelled, but because she had destroyed her credibility as a rebel. Having squandered her Old Labour credentials, she was of no further use to the New Labour government...”

The full article can be read by clicking here.

Bouthaina Shabaan on an Arab future?

2010-02-07T12:14:00.000+01:00

“The ultimate disaster will take decades to reach its final shape, but all those concerned for the security and dignity of this nation know that we have already started to see its first chapters...

...The only solution is to succumb to the will of the West on one key issue – and here I agree with all those who like to follow Western policies and believe in them and in their classifications – that we are all “Arabs and Muslims”, that our Arab identity is our only safeguard and that our solidarity is the only way for our survival regardless of all differences on how to get there. The fate of Gaza today is the fate of every one of us tomorrow unless we change.”

Click here to read this perceptive article in full.

Some European chap on a trip to Yemen.

2010-02-03T23:49:00.000+01:00

Bookies vs. Opinion Polls

2010-02-03T23:29:00.000+01:00

I decided to trip into a bookies yesterday for an alternative political view, as you do. The one I went to said Labour are 6 to 1 on and the Tories are 12 to 1 on, to win the next general question.

Now the opinion polls are saying the Tories are gonna win, but the bookies beg to differ!

And the concluding question is: are the masses saying one thing with their mouths and another with their money?

“Show me the Money – habeeeeby!”

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown speaking to truth to power?

2010-02-01T23:53:00.000+01:00

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Blair at the Chilcot Enquiry:

“Blair has always been an imperialist and one reason he fell in so readily with the neo-cons was that they promised to fly him on winged horses back to those glory days again. In his victory speech to the Labour party conference in 1997 he expressed unseemly pride and undisguised longing for the British empire "that covered the world", an echo of his godmother Margaret Thatcher's intimations of colonial greatness in Bruges in 1992. And from his testimony he is still is profoundly a Western supremacist...

...The only "humans" in Blair's story are the Americans whose safety and sovereignty was violated on 9/11. We know all that – more clearly than ever before. Blair for sure would not accept China and India using his example to launch an attack on Iraq. That privilege is open only to white power.”

Complete article can be read by clicking here.

Essay sponsorship required!

2010-01-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

If anyone wants to sponsor me to write the following essays please let me know:

Essay number 1: “Why John Bull wants to pillage and loot your country.”

Essay number 2: “The Mumbo-Jumbo of British anti-Islamism”

Essay number 3: “Was Malcolm X an Islamist?”

It’s first come, first serve (or written)! My email is: numanwahid@hotmail.com.

Is Anjem Choudhary also a MI5 informer?

2010-01-31T20:39:00.000+01:00

Omar Bakri Muhammad is the mentor of Anjem Choudhury.

He was interviewed by American journalist, Ron Suskind for his book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an age of Extremism.

This quote is taken from pg. 200-202:

Ron Suskind: "But there's a hidden dimension to it all, which I glimpsed when we (author and Bakri) chatted in the hotel lobby two years back. A British intelligence officer told me that Bakri had helped MI5 on several of its investigations....After Bakri finished one of his long explanations...I mentioned his secret assistance to police. He became flustered. "I'm upset you know this," he said grimly, as one of his deputies looked on from a distance. Of course, such a disclosure would have undermined his credibility among young radical jihadists, his constituency. I asked, then why do it, why help the police? He paused. "Because I like it here ," he said. "My family's here. I like the health benefits..."

“...A few months later, the July 7, 2005...and all such backdoor arrangements were off... (he went to Lebanon, although Suskind mistakenly says Libya)

On the phone...He says the British government, "whether they admit it or not," misses him, too."We were able to control the Muslim youth," he says on the grainy mobile phone connection from Tripoli. "The radical preacher that allows a venting of a point of view is preventing violence. Now many of us are gone or in jail, and we've been replaced by radical jihadis, who take the youth underground. You don't see them until the day they vent with the bombs."

Bakri enoyed his notoriety and was willing to pay for it with information he passed to the police...It's a fabric of subtle interlocking needs: the Brits need be in a backchannel conversation with someone working the steam valve of Muslim anger; Bakri needs health insurance."

Thank you and good night Vienna!

Imperial Britain and Yemen.

2010-01-31T01:04:00.000+01:00

Imperial Britain and Yemen: “The whole thing had been made up by the British officers so that their troops would be able to get some action in, let off a bit of steam, and arrive in Singapore with a bit of confidence.”

It’s a pity he doesn’t mention the fact that Israel joined British mercenaries and Saudi Arabia to fight the new republic.

Actually, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that Saudi troops were involved in the 60’s.

The boots on the ground were entirely Britain's and Israel's with the Wahhabi King Faisal of Saudi Arabia providing the finance.

Click here to read the complete article.

Yemen's ruling gangsters and the Birmingham connection.

2010-01-31T00:09:00.000+01:00

New York Times provides a good sketch of Yemen’s ruling political gangsters:

“Mr. Saleh and his son also face another internal challenge from the next generation of the powerful Ahmar family, Yemeni bluebloods. Sheik Abdullah al-Ahmar was the chief of the powerful Hashed tribe, founded the Islah party and was Parliament speaker until his death in December 2007.” Complete article is here.

This so-called Sheik actually visited Birmingham, England in the 1990’s. And not only that - the Islah party ran it’s own Islamist schools in North Yemen from at least the early 1980’s to the mid 1990’s. The schools had a totally different curriculum to the state schools. These ‘brainwashing’ schools were laughably called ‘Scientific Institutes’. The first ‘guadian’ of these schools (and co-leader of the Islah party) was Abd al-Majid al-Zindani who is now wanted by the Americans because they consider him to be a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” and a former mentor to Osama bin Laden.

It’s so not nice when old friends fall out with each other!

But the really funny thing is that one of these ‘Scientific Institutes’ opened up in...Birmingham, England. One of the former head teachers of this ‘brainwashing’ school decided not to go to Yemen when the Islah party ‘institutes’ were disbanded in the mid 90’s but remained in England. Adnan Saif, a former head teacher of the ‘Scientific Institute’ in Birmingham, is now employed, according to this Guardian article, by Birmingham City Council as Chief Executive of Urban Living.

Adnan Saif has nothing but the ultimate praise for Sheik Abdullah al-Ahmar. Indeed, on his personal website (when it is online) he compares the late gangster to Mandela and Gandi! The reason he thinks he can get away with this comparison is that, in my opinion, he thinks Yemenis are too stupid and brainwashed to know any better to challenge this assertion and the English are too ignorant of Yemen to know what he is talking about.

Hmm...I wonder if there is ever a personal and spiritual conflict of interest of having run a North Yemeni 'brainwashing' Islamist school with connections to an individual associated with bin Laden and being Chief Executive of Urban Living in England's second city?

A good article on al-Qaeda in Yemen.

2010-01-30T22:01:00.000+01:00

I don't know anything about this journal. But this is a good piece on the relationship between so-called al-Qaeda in Yemen and the Yemeni government:

"The opposing view is most often found among Yemeni analysts and holds that the Yemeni regime fosters and deploys Islamic extremists as mercenaries..."

Complete article can be read by clicking here.