Category Archives: Global Politics

Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Fight in Yemen – The New York Times {Reap what you sow?}

“The private military industry is global now,” said Mr. McFate, adding that the United States essentially “legitimized” the industry with its heavy reliance on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan over more than a decade of war. “Latin American mercenaries are a sign of what’s to come,” he said.The Colombian troops now in Yemen, handpicked from a brigade of some 1,800 Latin American soldiers training at an Emirati military base, were woken up in the middle of the night for their deployment to Yemen last month. They were ushered out of their barracks as their bunkmates continued sleeping, and were later issued dog tags and ranks in the Emirati military. Those left behind are now being trained to use grenade launchers and armored vehicles that Emirati troops are currently using in Yemen.

Source: Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Fight in Yemen – The New York Times

A Definitive Debunking of Donald Trump’s 9/11 Claims – The New York Times

Confronted by Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Trump essentially shrugged: “I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert, and it was also a radio show.” He has said, variously, that 200,000 or 250,000 Syrian refugees would be coming to the United States; the Obama administration’s actual goal for next year is 10,000, as FactCheck.org reported.Indifferent as Mr. Trump is to facts, in retailing the myth of the dancing Muslims, he could not face a more sober and careful fact-finder than Mr. Farmer.Now a professor of law at Rutgers University, he led the Sept. 11 commission’s investigation of the disarray in the nation’s air defenses on that morning and exposed as fiction claims by the Pentagon that fighter pilots were in hot pursuit of the hijacked airliners. In fact, military officials did not know about three of the four hijacked planes until after they had already crashed. That became the subject of a book by Mr. Farmer, “The Ground Truth,” which was hailed by Jacob Heilbrunn in The New York Times as a “precise and reliable accounting of what happened.”Mr. Farmer said isolating and stigmatizing Muslims now, whatever its short-term political appeal, would spawn more alienated Muslim youth and potential recruits for the Islamic State.“Whatever the message, it is just plain wrong to cite thousands of Muslims dancing in Jersey City or Paterson on 9/11 as support,” Mr. Farmer said. “That simply never happened.”

Source: A Definitive Debunking of Donald Trump’s 9/11 Claims – The New York Times

Omar Robert Hamilton: Welcome to Lesvos – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

It’s the next morning, dawn, my tenth day on the island of Lesvos. I’m driving to the camp, cigarette in one hand, phone in the other, clothes unchanged. I unlock the phone and it goes straight to Facebook. I’m confused at first. There’s a message in Arabic to a woman in Sweden:My darlingI’ve crossed the seaI’m near AthensMy phone is deadThen I understand. I remember the young man from the night before. He’s gone on. I will never see him again. I swallow a little surge of exhausted emotion and drop the phone on the empty passenger seat. Clouds are gathering fast around the mountain peak. It will rain today. And when it rains people die.

Source: Omar Robert Hamilton: Welcome to Lesvos – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

Donald Trump on waterboarding: ‘Even if it doesn’t work they deserve it’ | US news | The Guardian

Donald Trump touted the benefits of waterboarding in a campaign rally on Monday night, telling a crowd that “you bet your ass” he would bring it back into use.Addressing thousands of people in Columbus, Ohio, the Republican frontrunner praised waterboarding, an interrogation method that has been called torture. “I would approve more than that,” he said.Trump told supporters: “Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works.”The Republican frontrunner then added “… and if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us”.Trump is not the first Republican candidate to endorse the use of waterboarding, which involves simulating drowning, in an attempt to elicit information from terror suspects.

Source: Donald Trump on waterboarding: ‘Even if it doesn’t work they deserve it’ | US news | The Guardian

Cameron calls for UK to join airstrikes in Syria | News | DW.COM | 23.11.2015 AKA: Cameron lusts for bloodsport to show manliness?

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that he would address parliament on Thursday to urge MPs to back strikes against the self-styled “Islamic State” (IS) militants in Syria.”On Thursday I will come to this house to make a statement” on the air campaign, Cameron said, having flown back to London from an earlier meeting with President Francois Hollande in Paris.The announcement came as the British government pledged an increase in the country’s military spending.Writing in Monday’s “Daily Telegraph” newspaper, the prime minister said: “As the murders on the streets of Paris reminded us so starkly, Islamic State is not some remote problem thousands of miles away; it is a direct threat to our security.”

Source: Cameron calls for UK to join airstrikes in Syria | News | DW.COM | 23.11.2015

We Found Where Donald Trump’s “Black Crimes” Graphic Came From – Little Green Footballs

So there you have it. Donald Trump is posting racist imagery that comes directly from neo-Nazis.I hope you’re not surprised that a guy like Donald Trump, who continually spouts fascist rhetoric, is attracted to fascist memes posted by neo-Nazis. This is where the right wing has ended up in 2015.

Source: We Found Where Donald Trump’s “Black Crimes” Graphic Came From – Little Green Footballs

Nationalistic or Culture War Breeds More War…

According to the political scientist Ulrike Guérot at the European Democracy Lab, the West’s double standards contribute ultimately even to the reinforcement of IS. “The talk of ‘defending our values'” in the “war on terror,” merely steadies “the stirrups, for, first, an exorbitant buildup of police and security measures throughout Europe,” and “second, for an exorbitant military buildup, for which more finances can be mobilized at the bat of an eyelash, than we would have been ready to spend on the refugees.” “The sorely felt discrepancy between our proclaimed values and reality is a breeding ground for IS,” explains Guérot. “We are certainly the rich, but, since quite some time, no longer the “good guys,” in the eyes of many. Some even see us as the barbarians.” “With each drone that fires a missile and bombards IS bases, IS will blow up our European cities and we will be even more terrified,” warns this former employee of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). “As long as we do not understand that each person’s life is just as precious, we will have lost the fight against IS already, even before it has really begun.”[6]

Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com

Experts Say the WHO’s Response to the Ebola Crisis Has Been a ‘Failure’ | TIME {Profit and Non-profits try to score points from tragedy}

{WHO answers to nations that budget it – Ebola stricken states pressured WHO to not push panic buttons to save their industries – Mistakes by many – not just WHO. Obscene how many institutions trying to profit from tragedy and errors.}

A panel of 19 experts brought together by the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) on Sunday condemned the World Health Organization’s (WHO) response to the Ebola crisis, calling it an “egregious failure.”

Source: Experts Say the WHO’s Response to the Ebola Crisis Has Been a ‘Failure’ | TIME

Don’t ignore the saner voices of moderate Muslims – TOI Blogs

TOI last Wednesday reported “the biggest fatwa ever” against ISIS, signed by 1,070 Indian imams and muftis. The fatwa, which condemned ISIS categorically as “inhuman” and “un-lslamic”, has been forwarded by Abdur Rahman Anjaria of the Islamic Defence Cybercell to the UN, several foreign governments and the Prime Minister’s Office. Anjaria says the fatwa is the biggest ever initiative by Indian ulema to reject the dangerous ideology of ISIS, which “has disgraced the name of Allah and the Prophet….It is the duty of every Muslim to join the fight to defeat it.”I think this news should have been on page one in every newspaper. Instead it was hidden in the inside pages of the Times of India. So was another small report on a protest meeting in Delhi by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, to condemn the strikes in Paris, Turkey and Lebanon in the name of Islam. Without naming Azam Khan, its general secretary, Maulana Madani, said “We completely dismiss the action-reaction theory propounded by some persons.”Prime Minister Modi needs to highlight and cite such moderate views. It’s not enough to say India needs social harmony. It’s also necessary to give kudos to those who promote that moderation.

Source: Don’t ignore the saner voices of moderate Muslims – TOI Blogs

Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Syria hit by airstrikes, organisation says – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

MSF said two people were killed and six injured when the makeshift facility was hit while several wounded were arriving for treatment.An attack was launched on Erbin, one of the besieged zones east of Damascus on Thursday afternoon local time, MSF said, during which two missiles exploded just outside the hospital.It follows a US air strike last month that “mistakenly struck” an MSF hospital in Afghanistan, killing 22 people.”MSF is appalled that again a health structure and staff are targeted after responding to provide life-saving treatment to wounded victims of an indiscriminate bombing campaign,” MSF director of operations Brice de le Vingne said.

Source: Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Syria hit by airstrikes, organisation says – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)