Yemen First Nation to see Arab Spring Failure

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Feb 272012
 
Some 66% of Yemen's voting public turned out to end a multi-decade dictatorship. Unfortunately for all their efforts, the only ballot choice was another member of the same party.

Some 66% of Yemen's voting public turned out to end a multi-decade dictatorship. Unfortunately for all their efforts, the only ballot choice was another member of the same party.

Officially on the 25th of February, Yemen became the fourth country to see an overthrow of a dictatorship thanks to the Arab Spring movement. Protests began on the 27th of January last year, demanding government reforms and an end to the single party state that has dominated the country for decades. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled the country since 1990, decided to step down and hand over power after being nearly killed in a shelling attack on his compound during some of the more violent stages of the uprising. The end result was an “election” for a new leader, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi, who has gone on to become the country’s new president.

Al-Hadi didn’t have what could be considered a difficult campaign season – in fact he had little of any to speak of whatsoever. He was the only candidate on the ballot and, according to state sources, with some 65% turnout Al-Hadi won the ‘election’ with a 99.8% margin. A vote total that great puts him right there in the upper echelon of products of sham dictatorial elections and illusions of democracy so transparent, only those with their head willingly buried in the sand could miss it.

Sadly, topping the list of having said heads buried in the sand is the United States, which enthusiastically embraced the “election” results:

President Barack Obama called Hadi to congratulate him and to say that the United States “will stand with the people of Yemen as they continue their efforts to forge a brighter future for their country,” according to a White House statement.

“Under President Hadi’s leadership, Yemen has the potential to serve as a model for how peaceful transitions can occur when people resist violence and unite under a common cause,” Obama said, warning that much work still lies ahead.

Before Hadi took power, the Yemeni government had been engulfed in anti-Saleh protests and for years has been fighting al Qaeda militants.

With that official recognition and ceremonies wrapping up to mark the occasion, Yemen becomes the first state to see an outright Arab Spring failure. The most the country was able to do was overthrow one dictatorship for another with a member of the exact same party with, largely, the exact same political infrastructure surviving intact.

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Syria Steps Up Attacks on Protestors, China & Russia Lead UN to Political Stalemate

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Feb 062012
 
Anti-government rallies continue in Idlib, Syria, despite continued government crackdowns that have killed hundreds over the weekend and as many as 7,000 in the past ten months.

Anti-government rallies continue in Idlib, Syria, despite continued government crackdowns that have killed hundreds over the weekend and as many as 7,000 in the past ten months.

On the 15th of March last year, the Syrian people entered the Arab Spring movement with mass demonstrations against the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad on scales equal to that seen in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and others. As one regime after another began to topple, Mr. Assad began a suppression effort against those protesters which wen combined with some concessions would hopefully lead to a peaceful outcome and his ability to remain in power. Ten months later and this policy has long since failed.

Much like the Libyan Civil War in 2011, Western powers appealed to the United Nations in order to provide cover and support for the protesters now turned into revolutionaries who sought to bring down the Assad regime. Libya won support: acting with approval from the Arab League, the United Nations for the first time in history issued a resolution specifically targeting the protection of civilians from an internal conflict, and green-lit international action to support this end. The vote was a bit of a surprise as China and Russia were persuaded to not veto the measure – primary motives being China’s investments in Libyan infrastructure and energy sectors, and Russia’s desire to not see the influence of the European Union continue to spread into northern Africa.

Syria will not see the same level of support from the international community, and for the time being it appears the Syrian rebels will be left to fight on their own. Motives for Russian veto of a weekend Security Council vote range everywhere from protecting a longstanding ally to petty domestic politics:

By bluntly using its veto power to block a United Nations resolution urging Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, Russia has shown a willingness to defy the West at a scale rarely seen since the Cold War times.

The price Russia will have to pay in international condemnation of its action clearly doesn’t seem excessive to the Russian leaders. In fact, the Kremlin even may hope to reap some dividends both at home and abroad by coming to Assad’s defense.

With Russia’s presidential election just a month away, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, seeking to return to the Kremlin, appears eager to stand up to the United States by protecting a longtime ally. Putin already has given his campaign a distinct anti-American flavor, accusing the U.S. of trying to thwart his bid to reclaim the presidency, so bickering with Washington over Syria would give him an extra chance to consolidate his support among nationalists.

Russia’s relations with the U.S. are in a downward spiral amid a host of disputes, and the discord over Syria wouldn’t bring any dramatic change in the overall picture.

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Newsbyte: Syria Protest Violence, Greece Nears Government Collapse, Antarctic Birthing New Iceberg

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Nov 062011
 

Hello & welcome to newsbyte. This will be my attempt to hit on a couple of the bigger stories of the day and attempt to make sense of it all, as much as brevity allows.

Inside this issue:

Now for a commercial break from Wikileaks

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Jul 132011
 

Journalistic hero or a terrorist? Julian Assange, head of Wikileaks, remains under house arrest in England – where he has been since March of this year, attempting to stave off extradition to Sweden on rape allegations.

That case aside, Assange remains with a tremendous amount of political and judicial pressure on him since the release of the U.S. State Department cables in November of last year. While the story of those cables being released has long since faded from a day-to-day news story in the United States – fading as soon as a couple of weeks into the document dump – revelations of information have continued to stir reaction and affect change around the world.

A string of cables released about the U.S. admitting just how corrupt the regime in Tunisia was is regarded as one of the contributing factors to the eventual Tunisian Revolution, which was the opening salvo in what is now known as the Arab Spring.

A 2-day hearing on Assange’s extradition began today. It has been floated that Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom to Sweden would make him a target for extradition to the United States because of his role in the dissemination of information from the State Department leaks.

Arab Spring: Syrian President “Lost Legitimacy”, France working on exit strategy for Libya’s Gadhafi

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Jul 122011
 
Libyan rebels creep ever so slowly closer toward the nation's capitol of Tripoli.

Libyan rebels creep ever so slowly closer toward the nation's capitol of Tripoli.

The Arab Spring, the pan-nation movement that has so far toppled two dictatorships, continues in affecting change across the region – though in recent months that change has taken on much less of the original romanticized nonviolent revolt and instead has counted its days in pools of fresh blood.

The Libyan Civil War, a war that we’re kinetically involved in, grinds on at a pace just beyond a stalemate in favor of the Libyan rebels. Rebel forces continue to hold the eastern third of the country, mountains to the south and southwest of Tripoli, and the not-as-besieged city of Misrata along the country’s central coast.

Weeks of pinpointed bombardment by NATO forces have left Leader Gadhafi’s forces mainly stuck where they are, with rebels very slowly chipping villages away from his control.  Still, the front lines from a military standpoint are far from the city of Tripoli, and it’s hard to imagine how an unskilled rag-tag force could ever win an urban invasion battle in a place like Tripoli.

With that in mind, and hoping to find a solution to end the bloodshed, France has apparently been talking extensively with the Gadhafi regime about an exit strategy that involves the strongman leaving the country:

France’s foreign minister said Tuesday Paris has had contact with emissaries from Moammar Gadhafi who say the embattled Libyan strongman is “prepared to leave.”

Alain Juppe said that while the contacts do not constitute proper negotiations, “everyone (involved in Libya’s civil war) has contacts with everyone else. The Libyan regime sends its messengers all over, to Turkey, to New York, to Paris.

“We receive emissaries who are saying, ‘Gadhafi is prepared to leave. Let’s discuss it.’”

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A War Whose Language Would Kinetically Enthuse Orwell

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Jun 212011
 
Obama speaking out against Libya in the run-up to the... kinetic military action.

Obama speaking out against Libya in the run-up to the… kinetic military action. (Photo: New York Times)

(a follow-up)

As the inspiring, peaceful Arab spring turned repressive and bloody on the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi in late February and early March, the world watched as a rag-tag band of rebels were being systematically routed back toward their last stranglehold and capital, days after seemingly undoing the Libyan military almost overnight.  With empathic pleas from rebels and turncoat diplomats outside of Gadaffi’s grasp, the United Nations voted on March 17th to greenlight a no fly zone over Libya in order to protect the potential slaughter of civilians.  By the 19th, French and Italian planes were patrolling the skies over Benghazi, and British and American warships were firing Tomahawk missiles into the country.

In the United States, it was a Saturday.  Those viewing the 24-hour news networks were being kept aware of what was going on, but as for the rest of country?  There was no break-in to shows or sporting events.  There was no dramatic speech or announcement of the involvement of American forces in another country.  There was no straight and to the point… On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Muammar Gaddafi’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a limited and decisive campaign.

It was a Saturday.
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The Right Call, Pending The Right Outcome

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Mar 292011
 
President Obama delivers a speech on our Libyan involvement to the National Defense University on March 28, 2011. (Photo: WH.gov)

President Obama delivers a speech on our Libyan involvement to the National Defense University on March 28, 2011. (Photo: WH.gov)

Last night President Obama took to the airwaves to deliver a speech outlining his rationale for the recent American-led military involvement in the Libya civil war, and its siding with the Libyan rebels.  Instead of skirting around the issue or trying to take cover behind rhetoric, the President put himself out in front of the decision, standing by it and whatever its outcome may be because in the end, it was the right thing to do.

For ten days, American military jets, along with air power from other NATO members, have taken part in targeted air strikes against key elements of the army and defenses of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  The assaults have allowed rebels mainly based in the eastern third of the nation to regroup after a week of retreat to begin pushing back to the west, edging closer to the capital of Tripoli.  The inadvertent result of this military action may be the eventual downfall of Gaddafi himself and the creation of a more democratic and free society by the Libyan people, but it was made clear by the President that this was not the main goal of the attack.  Put simply…

We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world … I refused to let that happen.

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