Torture, murder, and state repression under Barack Obama

The hype of Obamania has long died down and the US President has slipped into his expected role as a typical Clinton-style Democrat. In the process, many of his supposedly "radical" campaign promises have fallen by the wayside - most notably that to close Guantánamo Bay.

Of late some quite specific consequences of this broken promise have come to light, as the blog Tiresias Speaks notes;

A US federal Judge dismissed a complaint Wednesday (9/29) brought by the families of two Guantánamo prisoners that alleged that the circumstances surrounding the men’s deaths had been covered up when they were declared suicides by the Pentagon in June of 2006. 

The families of Saudi prisoner Yasser al-Zahrani and Salah al-Salami of Yemen were asking US District Judge Ellen Huvelle to reexamine the case in light of new testimony from military personnel working at Guantánamo at the time of the “suicides” that directly contradicts official accounts. 

A third prisoner, Mani al-Utaybi of Saudi Arabia also died the same night, but his family has not filed a complaint. 

At the time of their deaths, Al-Zahrani, 22, and Al-Salami, 33, had been held at Guantánamo without charges for four years at the US naval base. According to the Pentagon, on the night of June 9th, 2006, Al-Zahrani, Al-Salami, and Utaybi were found at approximately the same time hanging from makeshift nooses in their cells. They were then rushed to the camp’s infirmary where they were shortly pronounced dead. 

The following day the commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, put the base on lockdown. He ordered almost all reporters on the base to leave and told those already en route to turn back. He officially declared that the deaths were “suicides,” and he went on to say, “I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” 

But new first-hand accounts from soldiers on duty at the base on the night of June 9th suggest that Admiral Harris’ and the Pentagon’s version of events is false and that the men may have actually died as the result of torture at a site off base known as “Camp No.” According to the petition, this site was called Camp No because if soldiers were asked if it existed the were supposed to say no. 

Army officer Joe Hickman says that he was supposed to log every vehicle that exited or entered the base. Even when Senator John McCain came to visit the base Hickman ensured that he was properly logged in and out. However, there was one windowless paddy wagon that was sometimes used to transport prisoners that he was not supposed to keep any log of. He and other soldiers say that they saw this van pick up three prisoners and drive them to Camp No on the evening of June 9th. 

When the van returned to base later it did not return the prisoners to their cells, instead it backed up to the infirmary. A medical officer told Hickman they had been sent to the infirmary, “because they had rags stuffed down their throats, and that one of them was severely bruised,” the petition said. 

When Hickman heard the official cause of death was suicide by hanging the next day he talked with the other guards who would have had to of seen if any bodies had been transported from the cells to the infirmary, but no one had seen any bodies being moved. 

The families of Al-Zahrani and Al-Salami demanded an independent autopsy, but when the bodies arrived they had already had all of their vital organs surrounding their throats removed making it impossible to 100% verify the cause of death.The medical examiners they had hired made requests for the organs to be sent from Guantánamo, but their requests were ignored. 

In her ruling Wednesday, Judge Huvelle did not really address any of these issues raised in the petition. Instead, she cited a decision by a federal appeals court in Washington stating that conditions at Guantánamo should not be investigated by the courts and should remain the purview of Congress alone due to national security concerns. 

In light of this ruling, it is unlikely that all of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Al-Zahrani, Al-Salami, and al-Utaybi will ever be discovered. The Obama Administration has already made it clear that it not interested in looking backwards to investigate potential war crimes and there is no reason to think that Congress would investigate the Pentagon’s official account. 

The whole incident and yesterday’s ruling in particular serve as a stark reminder of Obama’s broken promise to close Guantánamo within one year of taking office. Even if Obama does end up closing Guantánamo down, it is difficult not to wonder how much of its true history will remain forever unknown?

On its own, this would be a troubling story. But it is not occurring in isolation - rather, it is part of a broader context of gross civil liberties violations by the Obama administration.

Just as, here in Britain, the Blair era never saw the restoration of freedoms taken by Thatcher, so Obama has failed to right the wrongs of the Bush era. The USA PATRIOT Act remains in force. The illegal war in Afghanistan drags on. And the US can now kill its citizens without due process.

Yes, you read that right. From a May article by Glen Greenwald in Salon;

The most recent liberty-abridging, Terrorism-justified controversies have focused on diluting the legal rights of American citizens (in part because the rights of non-citizens are largely gone already and there are none left to attack).  A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations.  Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind.  The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow "public safety" exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion.  John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino -- while noting (correctly) that Holder's Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive -- today demand that U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer).

And last week Greenwald wrote of the shroud of secrecy around this process;

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record.  In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.  That's not surprising:  both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality.  But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets":  in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

Which, as the The Agitator rightly points out, "Obama is arguing the executive has the power to execute American citizens without a trial, without even so much as an airing of the charges against them, and that it can do so in complete secrecy, with no oversight from any court, and that the families of the executed have no legal recourse."

This should give us all a cause for worry. Not least because Obama's is currently the most liberal administration of western governments. And that the actions of the United States all too often set a precedent for others, not least its British "junior partner."

What we see here is nothing less than overt tyranny, being pushed through with much noise on the blogosphere but little on the ground.

The important fact to remember is that, no matter how much we bitch and moan on "teh internets," nothing will change. Righteous anger and moral outrage has to be accompanied by direct action. Tyranny can only be defeated through active resistance, and that is exactly what Obama has wrought.

Tony Blair and yet more apologism for illegal wars of aggression

It seems, having generated a fair amount of media coverage for his memoirs, former Prime Minister and war-criminal Tony Blair is determined to foist himself upon us again. Sit tight for more neo-liberal, imperialist propaganda.

This is his latest offering;

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.

He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified - including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Mr Blair, who led Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.

Asked about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupation, he said Western polices were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were "regressive, wicked and backward-looking".

The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was "not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for", he told the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones in a World Service interview.

As anybody who has read my blogs regularly will know, I'm no fan of militant Islam. It is an inexcusable an abhorrent world-view built upon bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, and fear-mongering. I am more than happy to advocate dealing with Islamists as militantly as we do fascists.

But, for all that, organised Islamism is a joke. Those in charge of the movement are cowards who flee confrontation and have no coherent strategy to achieve anything tangible whatsoever.

Blair is right when he says that militant Islamists are "regressive, wicked and backward-looking," but the idea that they pose the "greatest threat" in the world today is utterly laughable. Moreover, to conflate that ideology with every single person and group resisting occupation in Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan is dishonest at best.

But then, that's Tony Blair for you. Short of indictment at the Hague for war crimes, let's hope that, once his book tour is out the way, he vanishes firmly and finally into obscurity.

Global capital and the second occupation of Iraq

Much is being made of Tony Blair's memoir, particularly the section on Iraq. But the war is being treated like a part of history. US combat troops have withdrawn. Yesterday, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said that his country "is sovereign and independent." But that isn't the end of the story.

For Al Jazeera, Mark Levine makes the following observations;

Winding down the war in Iraq and removing all troops from the country is considered the most important campaign promise Barack Obama, the US president, made. So actually, withdrawing troops on schedule would be a major accomplishment, perhaps the singular accomplishment, of his presidency thus far. But it should be noted that the schedule, and the reality underlying it, belong to President Bush, his predecessor, not Obama.

It was Bush who signed the memorandum of understanding that included the August 2011 timetable for withdrawing combat troops.

It was Bush who initiated the "surge" and, most important, it was the Bush Administration which set the conditions so that when it actually came time to "leave" Iraq, most Iraqis, however grudgingly, would opt to have some permanent US presence rather than be left completely to their own devices, with no one to referee and prevent a possible return to sectarian civil war.

And this is precisely where we are today.

Combat might officially be over for most US soldiers, but the US is not likely going anywhere anytime in the near future.

It was clear as I watched the huge convoys heading out into the desert six years ago that the US was there to stay. And today, listen to the words of Iraqi Lt Gen Babakir Zebari: "If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians, the U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020."

Ryan Crocker, the former US ambassador, revealed a core American reason, or excuse, depending on your point of view, for staying. "For a very long period of time, we're going to be on the ground, even if it's solely in support of its [Iraq's] US weapons systems," he said.

This ties in with the point that I made last week, when the "withdrawal" apparently came to pass.

Yes, on paper, Iraq is now "sovereign and independent." But the malign influence of capital remains, as does the shadow of 50,000 armed troops. (Though they will apparently "only use their weapons in self-defence or at the request of the Iraqi government." Call me cynical...)

The reasons, as Levine points out, don't really need exploring. "US oil companies may not have got all the spoils they'd hoped from the US takeover of Iraq, but the US defence industry has never had it better."

And, alongside the 50,000 armed US soldiers, there are "at least 7,000 private security contractors working for the state department, and tens of thousands of American military contractors." Not to mention the "tens of thousands of foreign contractors" serving corporate interests.

These private forces - the forces of global capital - are not always brought in, as they were in Iraq, at the point of a gun. In other parts of the world, bribery, extortion, and corruption are preferred to outright war. But nonetheless, the consequence is always the same - the rich-poor gap expands exponentially and incomprehensible levels of wealth flow into private hands.

This is the direction in which "sovereign" Iraq is headed. The military occupation is over, but the corporate one has barely begun. Though it is unlikely to make the history books.

Quote of the day...

...isn't a quote so much as it is a cartoon;

The only observation worth adding is that the exit is as much of a lie as the victory. Whilst the headlines declared that the last US combat brigade has left Iraq, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has said that "we are ending the war... but we are not ending our work in Iraq."

The Americans and British "have a long-term commitment to Iraq." Hence why this "end" to the war leaves 50,000 armed troops behind.

Apparently, they "will only use their weapons in self-defence or at the request of the Iraqi government." But this would hardly be the first falsehood told to us by the US military. For one, the collateral murder incident springs to mind. 

This is not to mention the war crimes committed in Fallujah in 2004. And the fallout which people - including the newborn - continue to suffer as a result.

So, yes, for all intents the war may be over. But its effects will continue to be felt for many years to come, not just in terms of lives lost and physical suffering, but in the economic turmoil as the country continues to be carved up for capital.

The soldier who shouted "We've won. It's over. We brought democracy to Iraq!" deserves a medal for irony.

A soldier's argument for no war but the class war

I've only just come across this video. In words far more eloquent and heartfelt than I could ever manage, former soldier Mike Prysner lays out precisely what is wrong with the world we live in;

I tried hard to be proud of my service but all I could feel was shame and racism could no longer mask the occupation.

These were people. There were human beings. I've since been plagued by guilt anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn't walk and we rolled onto a stretcher, told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.

We were told we were fighting terrorists, but the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation.

Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation, and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon deployed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a tomahawk missile. While all of those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them.

Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war. They merely have to sell the war. They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm's way and they need soldiers who are willing to kill or be killed without question.

They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight, and the ruling class - the billionaires who profit from human suffering - care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy, understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interests.

They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation.

The vast majority of people living in the US have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions in this country without healthcare, jobs, or access to education must watch this government squander over $450 million a day on this occupation.

Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer, and without racism soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.

I threw families onto the street in Iraq only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic, tragic and unneccesary forclosure crisis; only to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. Not people whose names we don't know, and cultures we don't understand.

The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable; it's the insurance companies who deny us health care when it's profitable; it's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable.

Our enemies are not 5000 miles away, they are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.

As Prysner so pointedly states, the real divide in this world is not between different races or nationalities. It is between the ruling class of all nations and the working class of all nations.

Particularly as the war hawks agitate for an attack on Iran, this message is worth remembering.

If we want "a better world" to become reality, then we need to support those such as Prysner - and the recently released Joe Glenton - when they speak out. The argument must be made for no war between nations and no peace between classes.

The farther this message spreads, the harder it will be for elites to pit the poor of different nations against each other for political and financial gain.

Transcript courtesy of Allen Roland at the People's Voice.

The Wikileaks war logs won't end the war - we need to turn opposition into resistance

As with the case of Ian Tomlinson, which I wrote about yesterday, the release of the Afghanistan war logs by Wikileaks has caused establishment embarrasment and outrage, but not much else. If we don't act upon it, it can be quietly shelved and forgotten about as time passes.

I haven't yet had time to go throug the 91,000 leaked documents which make up the "Afghan War Diary." In all honesty, given the sheer volume of documents and the other activities that take up my time, I probably won't.

However, others have, and in the mainstream media alone you can find detailed features and articles from the Guardian, the New York Times, and Der Spiegel. According to the Guardian's editorial pages, "the collective picture that emerges [from the logs] is a very disturbing one."

We today learn of nearly 150 incidents in which coalition forces, including British troops, have killed or injured civilians, most of which have never been reported; of hundreds of border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops, two armies which are supposed to be allies; of the existence of a special forces unit whose tasks include killing Taliban and al-Qaida leaders; of the slaughter of civilians caught by the Taliban's improvised explosive devices; and of a catalogue of incidents where coalition troops have fired on and killed each other or fellow Afghans under arms.

Reading these logs, many may suspect there is sometimes a casual disregard for the lives of innocents. A bus that fails to slow for a foot patrol is raked with gunfire, killing four passengers and wounding 11 others. The documents tell how, in going after a foreign fighter, a special forces unit ended up with seven dead children. The infants were not their immediate priority. A report marked "Noforn" (not for foreign elements of the coalition) suggests their main concern was to conceal the mobile rocket system that had just been used.

This is just a brief summary. The logs in full make it possible "to compare the reality on the battlefield in such a detailed manner with what the US Army propaganda machinery is propagating," as Der Spiegel puts it, and it would appear that they "paint a gloomy picture."

But what of the anti-war movement?


The Stop the War Coalition asks "how much longer can the British and US governments maintain the fiction that the war in Afghanistan is ... one of the most noble causes of the 21st century?"

But, whilst the leaks have created a storm, "a war of ever escalating carnage drags on, with rising civilian and military casualties and growing instability in the region." Their response is "to raise the level of campaigning so that the government, parliament and the media are forced to respond."

The problem is that "the overwhelming view of the British public, that the time to bring all the troops home from Afghanistan is now" has persisted for a long time. These war logs aren't the first leaks to offer "an embarrassment to a government and military" or "reflect badly on much of the media, which - without any independent investigation - simply churns out the line of the politicians and military waging war."

And still, these practices persist. The responses to the documents, from security risks to sabotaging relationships between intelligence agencies, have simply refused to address civilian casualties and war crimes. They are simply not an issue on which the US fears any consequences.

With good reason. The recently vindicated EDO decommissioners, whose actions caused significant damage to an arms factory which supplies the Israeli military, are in an extremely small minority.

The broader anti-war movement seems capable only of countless marches which have already failed to have any significant threat whatsoever. Alongside these marches, there is none of the non-violent direct action, harbouring of deserters, or mass resistance by soldiers which made the opposition to Vietnam so succesful.

Raising awareness of the issues around this war and transforming that into opposition is important. But it can't be the only thing we do. The point is to organise that opposition into genuinely radical resistance.

Police everywhere, justice nowhere

It was entirely predictable that nobody would be charged over the murder of Ian Tomlinson by police at the London G20 protests last April. What is surprising, and encouraging, is the level of outrage and justifiable anger that this has created.

As Adam Ford has commented, the "embarrassment caused by the transparent cover-up" was "a necessary evil" in order to avoid "a very public examination of policing tactics at a time of drastic cutbacks." After all, "once again, the idea that police neutrally uphold democratically-decided laws has been exposed as a fiction, and politicians are worried."

Gladly, with public rage simmering over, it seems that they have every right to be.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look that way on the streets. At the hearing, Ian Bone lamented the "pathetic turnout." The 30 people demonstrating outside New Scotland Yard was even less than the 50 that he initially expected. Which made it "no wonder the cops get away with murder."

There is something of a response in the offing. A demonstration has been called for Friday 30th July, outside the office of the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) in Southwark, London.

Soon after that, solidarity demonstrations were called on the same date in Edinburgh and San Francisco. A much broader international call-out has asked for mobilisations at "all British Embassies, High Commissions, British Trade Offices and any other British interests globally."

How much of a demonstration will emerge remains to be seen. A lot of people are very angry at this state of affairs, but at present it is more impotent rage than an insurrection in the making.

The trick will be to transform the one into the other. As a society, we appear to have drifted away from the long history of protest and rebellion that has won us every single (limited) freedom we have. When confronted with the cold reality of the state and the role of its organs such as the police, naive surprise stops us in our tracks.

Beyond any demonstrations that may take place, there needs to be a concerted effort to remind the public that the police are not our friends. These incidents are not "one offs" but the designated role of an institution which exists to protect power and privilege.

As a new poster from Crimethinc puts it;

The ones who beat Rodney King, who gunned down Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo and Oscar Grant, who murdered Fred Hampton in his bed. The ones who broke Víctor Jara’s hands and Steve Biko’s skull, who disappeared dissidents from Argentina to Zaire, who served Josef Stalin. The ones who enforced Apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States. The ones who interrogated Black Panthers and Catholic Workers, who maintained records on 16 million people in East Germany, who track us through surveillance cameras and phone taps. The ones firing tear gas and rubber bullets whenever a demonstration gets out of hand, who back the bosses in every strike. The ones who stand between every hungry person and the grocery shelves stocked with food, between every homeless person and the buildings standing empty, between every immigrant and her family.

In every nation, in every age, you tell us you’re indispensable, that without you we’d all be killing each other.

But we know well enough who the killers are.

The anger is there. Along with a basic, unconscious comprehension of what the police's real role in society is. But the anger will fade. The unconscious faces a barrage of distraction and subterfuge from the mass media. If we do nothing, people as a whole will do nothing, and police brutality will be forgotten. Until the next death.

If we want to change that, then we need to live up to the ideas encapsulated in that simplest of radical slogans: educate, agitate, organise!

The fury over Cameron's "gaffe" only distracts from the realities of empire

I honestly never thought I would find myself in agreement with Peter Hitchens. That is, until David Cameron made a "gaffe" about Britain being America's junior partner.

The part that has irked people, apart from that horrendous crime of "talking down Britain," is that he said "We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis." Telegraph blogger Tim Collard insists that we were in fact "the only game in town," and the Mirror shares the "fury" of World War II veterans.

Hitchens, one of the few right-wing columnists who avoids overt hysteria, is of a different opinion;

For those of you who say I never have a good word for David Cameron, here’s one. He’s pretty much right about 1940, even if it was by accident.

When a politician is accused of committing a ‘gaffe’, it almost always means he has told the truth.

And 1940 was in fact the year that Britain became America’s very junior partner, a sad role we have followed ever since.

I know, I know, the USA didn’t enter the war against Germany until 1941 (and then only when Hitler declared war on them).

But Franklin Roosevelt took great advantage of our desperate position in 1940.

As the Germans advanced through France in early summer that year, he offered one of the most unfair bargains in the history of diplomacy – 50 worn-out, ancient destroyers in return for nine rent-free US military bases in British colonies.

He had already insisted on hard cash for war supplies, which rapidly depleted Britain’s gold and currency reserves.

And Britain only finished paying for ‘lend-lease’ wartime aid – down to the uttermost ­farthing, plus interest charged for late payment – on December 29, 2006.

Post-war loans and Marshall Aid came at the cost of pledges to relinquish what remained of the empire, not least the bits we had just fought so hard to get back from the Japanese, and to open up colonial markets to US competition – plus unrelenting pressure to join the European Union, which still goes on.

These weren’t the acts of besotted friends, but of a hard, wise, calculating politician who wanted the best for his own country, not for ours.

He's right. Especially when he points out that "this is how great powers behave" more generally, when they are able.

This is, in fact, a point that Noam Chomsky has made numerous times before;

Well, if you look at the British diplomatic history, back in the 1940s, Britain had to make a decision. Britain had been the major world power, the United States though by far the richest country in the world, was not a major actor in the global scene, except regionally. By the Second World War it was obvious the US was going to be the dominant power, everyone knew that. Britain had to make a choice. Was it going to be part of what would ultimately be a Europe that might move towards independence, or would it be what the Foreign Office called a junior partner to the United States? Well it essentially made that choice, to be a junior partner to the United States. US, the leaders have no illusions about this. So during the Cuban missile crisis, for example, you look at the declassified record, they treated Britain with total contempt. Harold McMillan wasn't even informed of what was going on and Britain's existence was at stake. It was dangerous. One high official, probably Dean Atchers --he's not identified--, described Britain as in his words "Our lieutenant, the fashionable word is partner". Well the British would like to hear the fashionable word, but the masters use the actual word. Those are choices Britain has to make.

And that choice has defined relations between the two countries ever since;

Britain has been kicked in the face over and over again in the most disgraceful way and they sit there quietly and take it and say, “Okay, we will be the junior partner. We will bring to what’s called the coalition our experience of centuries of brutalizing and murdering foreign people. We’re good at that.” That’s the British role. It’s disgraceful.

The media, of course, will continue to paint this as a "slip up" or a "gaffe." The common line will be that he "has tried too hard to please" or that he has to "get his historical facts right."

But, ultimately, the only slip up Cameron made is that he revealed the truth. The media has whipped up a frenzy to hide the reality, but it has already been pushed into the open. And you can bet that, the power dynamic is not a revelation for Cameron, even if he let the public in on it "by accident."

Britain is the junior partner in the imperial ventures of the United States of America. It has been since 1940, and certainly since the end of World War II. This power dynamic is motivated by the control of strategic markets and resources worldwide, not freedom or democracy, and every war it undertakes is an act of imperial aggression.

That, not a rare moment of honesty about a history we don't learn about in schools, is what we need to be angry about.

More suffering for the people of Fallujah and why we can't gloss over war crimes

Doctors in Fallujah have been reporting a rise in birth defects since 2004. Alongside this, a new survey has found that cancer, leukaemia and infant mortality are all on the increase as well.

According to the report's abstract;

There have been anecdotal reports of increases in birth defects and cancer in Fallujah, Iraq blamed on the use of novel weapons (possibly including depleted uranium) in heavy fighting which occurred in that town between US led forces and local elements in 2004. In Jan/Feb 2010 the authors organised a team of researchers who visited 711 houses in Fallujah, Iraq and obtained responses to a questionnaire in Arabic on cancer, birth defects and infant mortality. The total population in the resulting sample was 4,843 persons with and overall response rate was better than 60%. Relative Risks for cancer were age-standardised and compared to rates in the Middle East Cancer Registry (MECC, Garbiah Egypt) for 1999 and rates in Jordan 1996–2001. Between Jan 2005 and the survey end date there were 62 cases of cancer malignancy reported (RR = 4.22; CI: 2.8, 6.6; p < 0.00000001) including 16 cases of childhood cancer 0-14 (RR = 12.6; CI: 4.9, 32; p < 0.00000001). Highest risks were found in all-leukaemia in the age groups 0-34 (20 cases RR = 38.5; CI: 19.2, 77; p < 0.00000001), all lymphoma 0–34 (8 cases, RR = 9.24;CI: 4.12, 20.8; p < 0.00000001), female breast cancer 0–44 (12 cases RR = 9.7;CI: 3.6, 25.6; p < 0.00000001) and brain tumours all ages (4 cases, RR = 7.4;CI: 2.4, 23.1; P < 0.004). Infant mortality was based on the mean birth rate over the 4 year period 2006–2009 with 1/6th added for cases reported in January and February 2010. There were 34 deaths in the age group 0–1 in this period giving a rate of 80 deaths per 1,000 births. This may be compared with a rate of 19.8 in Egypt (RR = 4.2 p < 0.00001) 17 in Jordan in 2008 and 9.7 in Kuwait in 2008. The mean birth sex-ratio in the recent 5-year cohort was anomalous. Normally the sex ratio in human populations is a constant with 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls. This is disturbed if there is a genetic damage stress. The ratio of boys to 1,000 girls in the 0–4, 5–9, 10–14 and 15–19 age cohorts in the Fallujah sample were 860, 1,182, 1,108 and 1,010 respectively suggesting genetic damage to the 0–4 group (p < 0.01). Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively.

Last night, BBC News covered this story in more detail. The report, though harrowing, is worth watching.

However, there is just one minor point to pick up on. Namely, the idea that "fierce fighting between US forces and Sunni insurgents" is at the root of this problem and that "the use of novel weapons (possibly including depleted uranium)" doesn't need to be overtly identified with either side.

In fact, what happened in Fallujah can only accurately be described as a war crime perpetrated by the United states military. "Balance," as ever, only obfuscates this fact.

The US Army National Ground Intelligence Centre's report on the "Battle of Fallujah I," states that it "was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle whose outcome was far less certain" than military victory. They were concerned that "the effects of media  coverage, enemy information operations (IO), and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations."

Reading the report, it soon becomes clear why;

During the shaping operations, Regimental Combat Team-1 (RCT-1) from the First Marine Division established a cordon of traffic control points (TCPs) on major roads around Fallujah in order to isolate the city's defenders and prevent their escape. Supplies of food and medicine were allowed in, but only women, children, and old men were allowed out. Other MEF units simultaneously conducted aggressive counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the surrounding area (Ar Ramadi, Khaldiyah, Al Kharmah, and Northern Babil) in order to interdict and prevent insurgent groups outside Fallujah from interfering. Civilians were warned to evacuate the city.

In other words, whilst the women and children were allowed to escape, the men were contained within the city walls to await their fate.

There is a strong parallel here with events in the Srebrenica Massacre during the Bosnian war. There, Serb forces separated the men and boys from the broader group of Bosniak refugees at Potočari, busing out the women and children, and slaughtering the men.

As Noam Chomsky has commented, the only major difference is that "with Fallujah, the US didn't truck out the women and children, it bombed them out."

Then, according to the NGIC report, "on 5 April 2004, Phase II kicked off;"

Two battalion task forces from RCT-1 assaulted Fallujah, about 2000 men in total, mostly light infantry supported by 10 M1A1 tanks, 24 AAVP-7 tracks, and a battery of M198 howitzers. The 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (2/1) attacked from the northwest into the Jolan district while the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (1/5) attacked from the southeast into the industrial district (Shuhidah). The MEF

During the campaign, at least one US battalion had "orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not." As a result, according to Iraq Body Count's analysis, "at least 572 of the roughly 800 reported deaths during the first US siege of Fallujah in April 2004 were civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children."

The US withdrew on May 1st, but went back in on November 8th. This time, the consequences would be even starker.

Dahr Jamail was the first to report that "he U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah." This was backed up by reports in the Washington Post that "some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water."

The March-April 2005 edition of Field Artillery ran a special on the assault, which stated quite candidly;

WP [white phosphorous] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [high-explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. .. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions. 

Then there was the use of depleted uranium. Deplete uranium is 1.67 times as dense as lead, giving bullets  and shells tipped with it a higher pressure at the point of impact which leads to deeper penetration.

It is also known to have adverse health effects. In 2001, it was reported that malignant diseases had increased by 200% in Kosovo since the 1998 NATO bombing campaign. It has been linked to Gulf War syndrome and the increased likelihood of veterans to have children with birth defects. At the same time, Iraqis have blamed it for the rise in cancer rates country-wide.

The latest survey from Fallujah seems to confirm that link. This makes the campaign there part of a wider tradition going back through the use of Agent Organge in Vietnam to the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: not only horrendous, destructive acts, but ones whose effect reaches far beyond the present.

This is what media outlets such as the BBC gloss over when they talk about "fierce fighting between US forces and Sunni insurgents" or fail to identify who is behind "the use of novel weapons."

But this needs to be pointed out, and remembered. The seige of Fallujah in 2004 was a horrendous war crime, and for the poor, wretched children being born there the horror of it is only just beginning. By glossing over who the perpetrators of this attrocity are, we are only adding insult to injury.

Why Netanyahu's PR exercise will not bring peace to the Middle East

Israel has "eased" restrictions on what can go into Gaza, and Barack Obama is to hold "key talks" with Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington. This, according to the official narrative, marks the two countries "repairing their friendship." The truth is somewhat more complex.

Yes, as Al Jazeera reports, Israel is "moving from a policy of barring everything except items on a "kosher" list to a system under which everything is permitted except blacklisted items." This means that consumer goods will now be allowed in, no doubt easing the suffering of the Palestinians under the blockade.

This doesn't change the fact that the blockade is illegal under international law. On top of severe and discriminatory rationing of the water supply to Palestinians, and forced eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, it is part of an overall policy of socio-economic apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

People will continue to suffer, especially as "the naval blockade of the coastal enclave will also continue, as will restrictions on the movement of people within Gaza." That "construction materials like iron and steel will only be allowed to enter under Israeli supervision," makes it difficult for any rebuilding in Gaza without a level of political will that simply doesn't exist at present.

But, after Netanyahu's mild chastising by Hilary Clinton for his country's policy in the West Bank, this is Israel returning from the wilderness. It has done something good for Gaza, its other crimes are forgotten, and thus both US-Israeli relations and the official "peace process" are back on track.

Except, of course, that the US-Israeli "rift" was in the first place little more than PR, and the prospects for peace remain slim.

As Fawaz Gerges, a professor at London School of Economics, told Al Jazeera, "this Israeli government has not given the international community, the American government or the Palestinian authority any reason to believe they are serious about the peace process."

Meanwhile, the main subject of talks between Obama and Netanyahu are not the peace process, but Iran.

The US has imposed sanctions, despite Iran meeting the deadline to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of a nuclear fuel swap with Brazil and Turkey. Iran then barred two UN inspectors only when it was met with further UN sanctions.

But both leaders are in "agreement on this issue" as "the sanctions that were imposed by the congress and signed by the president are certainly in line with the Israeli demand." Talks today are likely to see Netanyahu continue in his efforts "to convince the president that the Iranian threat tops any kind of a peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

All of which is entirely consistent with the course of US-Israeli relations and with attitudes to rival powers in the Middle East.

The only potential spanner in the works is that "many voices in America now are saying Israel represents a strategic liability rather than a security asset for the United States" because "what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian theatre affects the national security of United States."

We shall have to wait to see whether this jeopardises Israel's long-held position as the US's most valuable client state as time passes.

In the meantime, though, what we are seeing is the normal course of Middle East politics and the US-Israel propaganda narrative. Especially now that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has become old news, don't expect any "breakthrough" in the peace process any time soon.

Honest reflections on an illegal war

A hospitalised Royal Marine has become the 300th British soldier to die in Afghanistan. Thus, according to David Cameron, "it's a moment for the whole country to reflect on the incredible service and sacrifice and dedication that the armed forces give on our behalf."

Taking his advice, however, I don't think my reflections will be quite what he had in mind.

He rightly points out that "the 300th death is no more or less tragic than the 299 that came before." But it does show that, although pushed out of the headlines and public consciousness by  (amongst other things) the spectacle of the World Cup, nothing much has changed.

The war is still an illegal act of aggression, in violation of the Nuremburg Principles (Principle VI), the UN Charter (Article 2, Paragraph 4) and General Assembly Resolution 3314. The soldiers fighting it are still inadequately equipped for their own safety. The regime we're propping up is still as corrupt and repressive than the one before it. And the goal of the endeavor is still control over strategic markets and resources, not democracy.

Not to mention the Afghans. As Channel 4's Alex Thompson points out, they "are getting wiped out and injured far, far more than any foreign soldier or insurgent mujahedeen." But they also "remain resolutely ignored in what is being forced upon them and their land from the foreign occupation."

To mention this, though, is to show disrespect to "our" troops as they apparently fight in "our name" or for "our freedom."

Leaving a side the point that the only effect of the war on terror upon our freedoms has been to diminish them (or that freedoms are won by civilians fighting against the state, not soldiers fighting for it), this is quite clearly an ideological and political position. Anybody who claims otherwise is either ignorant of this or complicit in it.

Dead soldiers are being used as totems to detract from criticisms of the war. Like dead children, they are easy to exploit for the cause of subduing reason.

But, if we are to be honest when we "reflect," we must be highly critical of the military and of this illegal war. And if we genuinely want to honour the soldiers, then we need to agitate for them to be pulled out of that same reprehensible endeavour and brought home.

Violence, murder, and economics in Somalia

Today, via Anok, I came across this story in the Guardian;

An Islamist rebel administration in Somalia has had a 13-year-old girl stoned to death for adultery after the child's father reported that she was raped by three men.

Amnesty International said al-Shabab militia, which controls the southern city of Kismayo, arranged for 50 men to stone Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in front of about 1,000 spectators. A lorry load of stones was brought to the stadium for the killing. 

Amnesty said Duhulow struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium.

"At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue," the human rights group said. It continued: "Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander."

Amnesty said Duhulow was originally reported by witnesses as being 23 years old, based on her appearance, but established from her father that she was a child. He told Amnesty that when they tried to report her rape to the militia, the child was accused of adultery and detained. None of the men accused was arrested. 

This is, absolutely and unequivocally, beneath contempt.

There simply aren't words to describe how horrendous this act is. One cannot contemplate just how warped somebody's priorities must be that they judge "adultery" to be a greater crime than rape, even when forced. By what insane and barbarous logic is hurling stones at a terrified young girl, who has already suffered an unimaginable ordeal, until her spirit breaks and her body dies considered any form of justice?

As David Copeman, an Amnesty International campaigner in Somalia, said, "this was not justice, nor was it an execution ... [it] is yet another human rights abuse committed by the combatants to the conflict in Somalia." It is also proof of the stateent that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit attrocities.

But that is not all that is wrong with this picture. Recently, Time magazine asked "whether the international community is willing to take the political risk of accepting the emergence of a Taliban-like authority in Somalia" in order to tackle the problem of piracy. The answer, because "the transitional government and international community have to start dealing with all the actors that regular Somalis identify as part of the nation's life," appears to be yes.

Though the US intervened in the country to topple the Islamist government in the early 1990s, those same religious fanatics have now become preferable to the pirates whose success in taking hostages and claiming ransoms is unprecedented. Officially, western backing is with the transitional government against which the Islamists are rebelling, but it is clear that these rebels - fighting for the politics of reaction - are preferrable to the pirates whose motivations are rooted in the interest of ordinary Somalis.

That interest, of course, is defence against toxic waste dumping and illegal trawling, and it is an unanswerable condemnation of western foreign policy that the world's powers would back maniacs who kill rape victims in the name of justice against those trying to prevent depletion of food sources and destruction of the environment.

Perhaps that is why they are a "global threat," the focus of an international conference on Somalia taking place next week,whilst religious fanatics do not get a mention.

The latter do not so obviously threaten "Somalia's private sector, international businesses, and governments," whose plans "to launch new initiatives for reconstruction and job creation" will probably follow the standard IMF model of "structural readjustment." The anarcho-capitalists of the Ludwig von Mises institute were quick to rave about this when it was tried three years ago, and yet neither the "small number of international investors" not the "burgeoning" telecommunications industry boosted prosperity for anybody but themselves, and people continue to flee war, tyranny, and turmoil in record numbers.

The solution to this problem is not clear. What is apparent is that supporting Islamists to get rid of pirates does nothing for those caught up in this vicious cycle of violence. Improvements will not come until the "security" of business and investors is no longer put ahead of the basic welfare of Somalis.

MAD for the Tories

I didn't watch the second leader's debate last night, just as I didn't watch the first last week. It's a triumph of style over substance, each party leader trying to outdo the other's in appealing to the narrow political consensus of society's elite sectors.

However, one thing did catch my eye in the post-game analysis - the "military view" on the debate, from Colonel Richard Kemp in the Independent;

Gordon Brown's unrealistic emphasis during the debate on bringing troops home safely over achieving victory in Afghanistan showed again why he has failed to give effective direction to this war.

David Cameron, demonstrating greater passion and potential as a war leader, made it clear that Afghanistan would be his top priority from day one. With a bloody and intensive campaign in which our troops are fighting and dying, he has no option. His intention to direct and co-ordinate operations in Afghanistan through a properly constituted war cabinet is vital.

Nick Clegg was dangerously equivocal over the connection between our operations in Afghanistan and security on the streets of the UK. This perhaps reflects his party's ethos: wishing to look away from something that they have no answer to. In the weakest performance on defence, his lack of understanding was also evident on nuclear deterrence.

His utopian vision of a nuclear-free world ignores the increasing danger of proliferation among unstable and extremist states such as Iran and North Korea. 

While prosecution of the war in Afghanistan must be our top defence priority today, we simply cannot, as Clegg suggested, mortgage the long-term defence of this country in order to equip our forces today.

This shows just how detatched the ruling class are from the ordinary people of Britain. The last time they were polled, 64% of Britons said that they believed the war in Afghanistan was "unwinnable." 63% agreed with the statement "All British forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan as quickly as possible." No doubt the rank-and-file of the military, working-class people who do not benefit from this war as our leaders do, concur to at least some degree. Unfortunately, for fear of suffering the same fate as Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, they can't say this.

In calling "bringing troops home safely" an "unrealistic" goal, Kemp demonstrates his utter contempt for public opinion. This is not to mention the minor matter of international law.

His throwaway end comment, that "equip[ping] our forces today" requires "mortgag[ing] the long-term defence of this country" is also revealing of his mindset. Last month, Gordon Brown was confronted by grieving mother Ann Probyn who said her son Daniel died because he was sent out "with no equipment." I imagine, if Brown had responded that "we simply cannot ... mortgage the long-term defence of this country in order to equip our forces today," there would have been uproar. But if a member of the military top brass, who like politicians don't have to fight and die wearing shoddy equipment, says it then that's okay.

Finally, there is Kemp's comment that the "utopian vision of a nuclear-free world ignores the increasing danger of proliferation among unstable and extremist states such as Iran and North Korea."

The problem with this, of course, is that it relies on the Cold War MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine being a deterrent to "extremists" - especially Islamic extremists who believe in the glory of dying for jihad. It also assumes that retaliating to a nuclear attack with more nuclear attacks will do anything other than allow us to get in one revenge-dig before the whole world implodes.

As Johann Hari has related, such a policy leaves no room whatsoever for cock-ups;

Do you know the story of the grizzly bear that nearly destroyed the world? It sounds like a demented fairytale – but it is true. On the night of October 25th 1962, when the Cold War was at its hottest and Kennedy and Krushchev’s fingers were hovering over the nuclear button, a tall dark figure tried to climb over the fence into a US military installation near Duluth, Minnesota. A panicked sentry fired at the figure but it kept coming – so he sounded the intruder alarm. But because of faulty wiring, the wrong alarm went off: instead, the klaxon announcing an incoming Soviet nuclear warhead began its apocalyptic wah-wah. Everyone on the base had been told there would be no drills at a time like this. The ashen men manning the station went ahead: they began the chain reaction of retaliation against Moscow.

It was only at the last second – as the missile launch was about to begin – that the sentry got through to the station. It was a mistake, he cried – just a bear, growling at the fence. If he had made that call five minutes later, you wouldn’t be reading this article now.

I doubt it's a line David Cameron would personally endorse, but there it is. The military case for voting Tory: the continuation of illegal and costly wars, fought by troops who are dying because of shoddy equipment, and a dangerous trend of nuclear proliferation on the path to MADness.

I'll let you make up your own minds how you feel about that.

The non-proliferation era?

Today, al-Jazeera reports what appears to be extremely good news from the 47-nation nuclear arms summit convened by Barack Obama in New York;

Leaders at a world nuclear summit have agreed to work together in securing loose nuclear material within four years to prevent them from falling into the hands of groups such as al-Qaeda.

At the second day of the 47-nation summit convened by Barack Obama, the US president, in Washington DC, the leaders called for new controls on enriched uranium and separated plutonium, key elements in making nuclear weapons.

"We welcome and join President Obama's call to secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years, as we work together to enhance nuclear security," the leaders said in a joint communique on Tuesday.

The communique states that the countries will accelerate protection of nuclear materials under their control.

It said that a main issue was "to prevent non-state actors from obtaining the information or technology required to use such material for malicious purposes".

Throughout his presidency one of the major criticism of George Bush II was that, for all his rhetoric on "security" and combatting "terror," he was actively making the world more vulnerable to nuclear terrorism. As such, the communique issued by this summit and the previous day's arms reduction treaty with Russia, seem to run counter to that dangerously lax attitude to nuclear weapons.

But is it what it appears to be, below the surface?

The idea that we are heading towards some utopic golden age without nuclear weapons is derailed instantly by one single fact;

The agreement will not be legally binding.

In itself, this makes the idea that Obama can succeed in his "broader agenda for ridding the world of nuclear weapons, and preventing weapons-grade material from falling into the hands of terrorists" laughable. As with climate change and the Copenhagen summit, non-binding agreements effectively mean all talk and no action, precisely the opposite of the US President's professed aims.

Not only that, but the entire thing is undermined further by the fact that the biggest nuclear proliferator is under no obligations, even non-binding ones, with regards to its own stockpile. We may see "the removal of all highly enriched uranium from Mexico," Russian "dispos[al] of weapons grade plutonium," and "new sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme." But no mention is made at all of the nuclear capability of the United States of America.

The US currently maintains an arsenal of 5,500 warheads, and there are no concrete details on how the "bold and pragmatic" agreement will affect them. Even the treaty between the US and Russia, according to Richard Weitz, the director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Political-Military Analysis, is "not so substantive." Rather, it is "a modest confidence boosting measure" and "the limits are somewhat lower than in previous treaties."

We should not doubt that the Obama policy on nuclear proliferation represents a sharp turn from that of the Bush administration. However, we should be very wary of equating the differences in rhetoric with differences in action until we see something concrete with the US's own arsenal, the main catalyst for proliferation elsewhere by those under threat from US imperialism.

As BBC correspondent Jonathan Marcus notes, "This is an unprecedented gathering. Mr Obama will hope for an unprecedented outcome." But until we get it, we should not get too excited about high-handed rhetoric. And we should not stop campaigning.

The forgotten front of imperialism in Yemen

In January, I reported how Barack Obama and Gordon Brown were using the Christmas hijinks of the "undie bomber" as a pretext to expand the war on terror into Yemen. It didn't take long for alert levels to increase and all the signs were that something dramatic was about to happen.

Nothing did. At least, that was how it seemed, with media coverage dropping away altogether for a veritable anticlimax.

Amnesty International has shattered the blackout on the subject by publishing pictures which show "The scale of the devastation caused by Yemeni and Saudi Arabian aerial bombardments of the northern Yemeni region of Sa’dah." Amongst those buildings destroyed in the air raids are "market places, mosques, petrol stations, small businesses, a primary school, a power plant, a health centre – and dozens of houses and residential buildings." This sheds much needed light on what Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme, called "a largely invisible conflict."

Amnesty's report details the implications of the pictures and the acts that they depict;

International humanitarian law forbids the targeting of civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians, during conflicts. If such attacks are carried out deliberately, they are war crimes.

The bombardments came in the sixth round of fighting in the region since 2004 between Yemeni forces and the so-called Huthis – armed followers of a Hussain Badr al-Din al-Huthi, a Shi’a cleric from the Zaidi sect killed in September that year.

Government restrictions on access to the region combined with landmines and other security concerns mean that no independent observers or media are believed to have visited the area in recent months.

The pictures are consistent with testimony given by many witnesses who had fled Sa’dah to Amnesty International delegates in Yemen earlier this month.
These witnesses, interviewed separately, repeatedly said that Saudi Arabian air strikes, which began in November and were clearly different from earlier Yemeni military attacks, were of an intensity and power not experienced before.

They also said the strikes went on around the clock in the days leading up to their flight and the ceasefire in February 2010.

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said in March that about 250,000 people from Sa’dah had fled the conflict, around 10 per cent of them ending up in camps. The rest are living with relatives or in derelict or half-completed buildings in the capital Sana’a and elsewhere in the country.

Unlike with previous rounds of fighting, families from Sa’dah fled further afield and ,most say they are not planning to return because their homes have been destroyed and they fear the conflict will resume.

Tensions in Sa’dah were originally sparked when followers of the late Hussain Badr al-Din al-Huthi, a cleric who had founded a movement in the 1990s to revive Zaidism, a branch of Shi’a Islam, organized protests against the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The protests focused on the Yemeni government’s relations with the USA and were followed by arrests and detentions. In June 2004, the government ordered Hussain Badr al-Din al-Huthi to surrender. Armed clashes ensued between the security forces and Huthis until Hussain Badr al-Din al-Huthi was killed in September 2004.

The subsequent rounds of fighting in Sa’dah have resulted in hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilian casualties.

An agreement facilitated by the Qatari government in 2008 brought a short-lived lull in hostilities and some releases of prisoners on both sides.
However, the conflict resumed with new intensity in August 2009. The Yemeni government launched a military offensive codenamed “Scorched Earth” that included aerial bombing and deployment of ground troops.

In November 2009, the fighting spilled over the border with Saudi Arabia, which then deployed its army and air force inside Sa’dah.

All parties to the conflict are alleged to have committed serious human rights abuses, although Yemeni government restrictions on access to the area means that reliable information on abuses has been difficult, often impossible, to obtain. The government has accused the Huthis of killing civilians and captured soldiers.

Residents of Sa’dah have alleged that some Yemeni and Saudi Arabian attacks were indiscriminate and disproportionate, though it has not been possible to confirm this independently.

They have also said that attacks on markets, mosques and other places where civilians gather, as well as on large residential properties, have killed dozens of unarmed men, women and children.

Neither the Saudi Arabian nor Yemeni government has provided any explanation for such attacks. The Saudi Arabian government also denied refuge to people seeking to flee across the border to escape this new and more intense round of the conflict in Yemen.

This revelation follows that by Wikileaks of US soldiers committing war crimes against civilians in Iraq. The graffiti on one of the destroyed homes, "this is the help Yemen gets from America," sums up the link between the two places. Inexcusable attrocities have been committed in both places, in the name of combatting terrorism.

As Barack Obama does his best to tone down the "terrorism" rhetoric, not to end imperialist attrocity but to keep a better lid on it than George Bush did, we ought to remember that.