Fuente: Cubadebate

(Imagen: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adaptada de: The U.S. Army)

por Manuel E. Yepe
9 de febrero, 2010

Filológicamente, se denomina victoria pírrica a aquella que se logra a un costo tan grande que no alcanza a ser compensado por la ventaja adquirida en la batalla. Y creo que es eso exactamente a lo que está abocado Estados Unidos, por la ambición desmedida de una oligarquía desenfrenada que ha hecho de las guerras su modus operandi de dominación.

Según el Premio Nobel de Economía Joseph Stiglitz, la guerra de Irak costará a Estados Unidos entre tres y cinco billones de dólares ($3-5 trillion dollars). Pero los expertos norteamericanos en cuestiones de seguridad nacional dicen que la guerra de Irak ha incrementado la amenaza del terrorismo en vez de reducirla. Read the full story

Fuente: CounterPunch
Traducción: Germán Leyens, Rebelión

Yemen (Bryan Denton/ The New York Times)

por Patrick Cockburn
31 de diciembre, 2009

Somos los awaleq

Nacidos en la inclemencia

Somos los clavos que penetran la roca

Somos las chispas del infierno

El que nos desafíe se quemará

Es un canto tribal de la poderosa tribu awaleq de Yemen en el que desafían al mundo. Su tono airado da una idea de la vida yemení y debería hacer reflexionar a los que en EE.UU. sugieren despreocupadamente una mayor participación estadounidense en Yemen después del intento de destruir un avión estadounidense por un estudiante nigeriano que dice que recibió entrenamiento en ese país. Read the full story

A Yemeni anti-terrorist soldier. (AP)

Source: Salon.com

by Glenn Greenwald
January 27, 2010

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest today reports that “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people.”  That’s no surprise, of course, as Yemen is now another predominantly Muslim country (along with Somalia and Pakistan) in which our military is secretly involved to some unknown degree in combat operations without any declaration of war, without any public debate, and arguably (though not clearly) without any Congressional authorization.  The exact role played by the U.S. in the late-December missile attacks in Yemen, which killed numerous civilians, is still unknown. Read the full story

foto por Grégoire Lalieu (Investig'Action)

Entrevista a Mohamed Hassan, especialista en geopolítica y en el mundo árabe

Fuente: Investig’Action
Traducción: Beatriz Morales Bastos, Investig’Action

por Gregoire Lalieu y Michel Collon
12 de enero, 2010

Un pantalón se incendia cerca de Detroit y llueven misiles en Yemen: ¿efecto mariposa? Para Mohamed Hassan la amenaza terrorista es sólo un pretexto. En este nuevo capítulo de nuestra serie «Comprender el mundo musulmán» nuestro especialista nos explica el verdadero reto de Yemen: luchar contra la democracia en el Golfo para conservar el control del petróleo.

Yemen ha saltado a las portadas de los periódico desde el atentado fallido del avión Amsterdam-Detroit: es ahí donde se habría adiestrado al joven terrorista nigeriano. ¿Cómo este país, aliado de Estados Unidos, se ha podido convertir en un refugio para al Qaeda? Read the full story

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Yemeni workers sit outside a shop at a market in Sanaa, Yemen, on Tuesday. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)

From smoky halls to the rugged mountains of Yemen, locals are worried that their country – threatened more by poverty and water shortages than terrorism, they say – could turn into another Afghanistan.

by Michael Horton
January 5, 2010

Sanaa, Yemen – Amid an intensifying US effort to curb Al Qaeda activity in Yemen, locals in this impoverished country are worried that a focus on military aid alone could backfire – spawning a more robust militant movement and potentially drawing the US into an Afghanistan-like war.
In a smoke-filled hall in the capital of Sanaa, where men gather to chew the mildly intoxicating leaves of the qat tree and smoke water pipes, most of the talk is about Al-Qaeda and American intentions in Yemen. Read the full story

Source: TomDispatch

(Image: truthout)

by Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse
January 3, 2010

According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger.  We don’t name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin.

We, of course, think of ourselves as something like the peaceable kingdom.  After all, the shock of September 11, 2001 was that “war” came to “the homeland,” a mighty blow delivered against the very symbols of our economic, military, and — had Flight 93 not gone down in a field in Pennsylvania — political power.

Since that day, however, war has been a stranger in our land.  With the rarest of exceptions, like Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan’s massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, this country has remained a world without war or any kind of mobilization for war.  No other major terrorist attacks, not even victory gardens, scrap-metal collecting, or rationing.  And certainly no war tax to pay for our post-9/11 trillion-dollar “expeditionary forces” sent into battle abroad.  Had we the foresight to name them, the last few years domestically might have reflected a different kind of carnage — 2006, the Year of the Subprime Mortgage; 2007, the Year of the Bonus; 2008, the Year of the Meltdown; 2009, the Year of the Bailout.  And perhaps some would want to label 2010, prematurely or not, the Year of Recovery. Read the full story

An Iraqi army soldier poses for a picture with his weapon during a mission in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, March 30, 2008. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Richard Del Vecchio) (www.army.mil)

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

by Anne Davies
January 2, 2010

WASHINGTON – Just before Christmas, the US President, Barack Obama, signed into law one of his country’s biggest aid pledges of the year. It was bound not for Africa or any of the many struggling countries on the World Bank’s list.

It was a deal for $US2.77 billion ($3 billion) to go to Israel in 2010 and a total of $US30 billion over the next decade. Read the full story

Source: Hornberger’s Blog

US operations - including bomb attacks carried out using drones - have attracted bitter resentment in Pakistan Photo: AFP/GETTY

by Jacob G. Hornberger
December 28, 2009

To justify the federal government’s massive post-9/11 infringements on civil liberties, the proponents of Big Government have sometimes said, “There hasn’t been another major terrorist attack on the United States since 9/11. ”

I have responded with the following: “But if there had been another major terrorist attack, you Big Government advocates would be using that as a justification for even more severe infringements on civil liberties. So, either way you go, doesn’t Big Government win? ” Read the full story

In this 2001 image made available on Monday Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab poses with a group of fellow pupils from Lome's International School, Togo, while on a school trip to London. (AP)

see article U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastion below

Source: Glenn Greenwald

by Glenn Greenwald
December 29, 2009

“In all their alleged allegedness, this Administration has an allergy to the concept of war, and thus to the tools of war, including strategy and war aims” — Supreme Tough Guy Warrior Mark Steyn, National Review, yesterday.

“The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan” — New York Times, December 4, 2009.

“In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen” — New York Times, yesterday. Read the full story

Fuente: La Jornada

por Editorial (La Jornada)
29 de diciembre, 2009

A tres días del fallido atentado contra un avión de pasajeros de la línea Northwest Airlines, que cubría el trayecto de Ámsterdam a Detroit, el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, dijo que ordenará una investigación para esclarecer por qué Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab –el nigeriano acusado de introducir explosivos en la aeronave– pudo abordar rumbo a territorio estadunidense pese a estar en la lista de los “observados” por los servicios de inteligencia ante sus presumibles nexos con organizaciones terroristas. Asimismo, ordenó reforzar las medidas de seguridad en los aviones, y advirtió que su gobierno usará “cada elemento de nuestro poder nacional” para combatir las amenazas contra Estados Unidos, “sean de Afganistán o Pakistán, Yemen o Somalia, o cualquier lugar”. Read the full story