Noord-Koreaans 'bedrog met nucleaire deal' is fake news o.a. gebracht door de New York Times

In een artikel op The Nation bericht Tim Shorrock over een artikel in de New York Times, geschreven door David Sanger, éen 'journalist die in het verleden vaak als bron fungeerde voor lekken over het VS buitenlandbeleid t.a.v. Noord-Korea (ofwel men lekte officiële documenten naar Sanger).

Deze Sanger bracht dat artikel in de NYT en daarin wordt gesteld dat Pyongyang zich niet aan de afspraken houdt die met Trump zijn gemaakt en waarin voorts wordt gesteld dat Noord-Korea nog steeds raketten ontwikkeld. Een en ander n.a.v. een door de rechtse denktank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) opgesteld rapport

Uitvoerig legt Shorrock uit dat het rapport van een enorm 'fake news' (nepnieuws) niveau is. Zo zijn de getoonde foto's van de sites in Noord-Korea, van 2 maanden voor de gesprekken tussen Trump en Kim Yung-un.........

Bovendien zo stelt Shorrock, zijn er geen verdragen getekend over het raketprogramma van Noord-Korea en zoals het in de dagelijkse praktijk gaat: totdat er zaken zijn getekend gaat men door waar men mee bezig was, of het nu om de strijd over het bezit van een gebied gaat, of zoals in dit geval het werken aan middellange- en langeafstandsraketten.......

Lees het volgende verhaal en intussen een cliché op deze plek: geeft het ajb door, laat je niet langer besodemieteren door instituten als CSIS of het Haagse Centrum voor Strategische Studies (HCSS) met hun oorlogshitserij op basis van leugens en halve en verdraaide waarheden...... Instituten die fungeren als grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex, de NAVO en het uiterst gewelddadige, terroristische buitenlandbeleid van de VS in het groot..... (waar de NAVO onder opperbevel staat van de VS.....)

NUCLEAR ARMS AND PROLIFERATION NORTH KOREA MEDIA BIAS

How ‘The New York Times’ Deceived the Public on North Korea

Stretching the findings of a think-tank report on Pyongyang’s missile bases is a reminder of the paper’s role in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

By Tim Shorrock

NOVEMBER 16, 2018

(Photo by Haxorjoe at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The New York Times may still have a Judith Miller problem—only now it’s a David Sanger problem.

Miller, of course, is the former Times reporter who helped build the case for the 2003 US invasion of Iraqwith a series of reports based on highly questionable sources bent on regime change. The newspaper eventually admitted its errors but didn’t specifically blame Miller, who left the paper soon after the mea culpa and is now a commentator on Fox News.

Now, Sanger, who over the years has been the recipient of dozens of leaks from US intelligence on North Korea’s weapons program and the US attempts to stop it, has come out with his own doozy of a story that raises serious questions about his style of deep-state journalism.

The article may not involve the employment of sleazy sources with an ax to grind, but it does stretch the findings of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank that is deeply integrated with the military-industrial complex and plays an instrumental role in US media coverage on Korea.

“Controversy is raging,” South Korea’s progressive Hankyoreh newspaper declared on Wednesday about the Times report, which it called “riddled with holes and errors.”

Sanger’s story, which appeared on Monday underneath the ominous headline “In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception,” focused on a new study from CSIS’s “Beyond Parallel” projectabout the Sakkanmol Missile Operating Base, one of 13 North Korean missile sites, out of a total of 20, that it has identified and analyzed from overhead imagery provided by Digital Globe, a private satellite contractor.

None of the 20 sites has been officially acknowledged by Pyongyang, but the network is “long known to American intelligence agencies,” wrote Sanger.

Sakkanmol, according to CSIS, “is an undeclared operational missile base for short-range ballistic missiles” a little over 50 miles (85 kilometers) north of the border and therefore “one of the closest to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and Seoul.” Pyongyang’s highly publicized decommissioning last summer of the Sohae satellite launch facility “obscures the military threat to U.S. forces and South Korea from this and other undeclared ballistic missile bases.”

Its authors added a huge caveat at the end: “Some of the information used in the preparation of this study may eventually prove to be incomplete or incorrect.”

But the Times ignored the warning and took the report several steps further. According to Sanger, that analysis of the missile base shows that North Korea is “moving ahead with its ballistic missile program” despite pledges made by Kim Jong-Un to President Trump at their Singapore summit on June 12 to eliminate his nuclear and missile programs if the United States ends its “hostile policy” and agrees to forge a new relationship with North Korea.

The “new commercial satellite images” of the undeclared missile sites, Sanger concluded darkly, suggest that North Korea “has been engaged in a great deception.”

While North Korea has offered to dismantle a major launching site, he asserted, it continues “to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.” That finding “contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination” of the North’s nuclear weapons and missiles, Sanger concluded.

The implication was that North Korea, by continuing to build missiles after the Singapore summit, is lying to the United States and is therefore untrustworthy as a negotiating partner—and that Trump, by proclaiming that he has neutralized Kim’s threats, has been deceived. The Times-CSIS report was immediately picked up by major media outlets and repeated almost verbatim on NBC Nightly News and NPR, with little additional reporting.

A leading Democrat, Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, seized on the report to argue that President Trump is “getting played” by North Korea. “We cannot have another summit with North Korea—not with President Trump, not with the Secretary of State—unless and until the Kim regime takes concrete, tangible actions to halt and roll back its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,” he said in the statement.

But even a cursory analysis of the imagery should have raised questions. On Monday night, a Korean news outlet pointed out that all the photos analyzed in the CSIS report are dated March 29, 2018—almost two and a half months before Trump and Kim met in Singapore on June 12.

The dates make Sanger’s claim that North Korea is “moving ahead” on missile production after its pledges to Trump laughable; indeed, they make his story look like a serious attempt to deceive the American public about the real progress that has been made in ending the standoff.

In fact, as discussion swirled on Twitter, it became clear that Sanger was exaggerating the report. Arms-control experts immediately questioned his assertions, arguing that he had ignored the fact that North Korea and the United States have yet to sign any agreement under which the North would give up its nuclear weapons and missiles. And in the absence of an agreement, it’s status quo for both North Korea and the United States.

North Korea’s missile program “is NOT deception,” Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at MIT, posted soon after the story was published. Narang, who writes occasionally for the Times editorial pageon North Korea, pointed out that Kim Jong-un has never offered to stop producing ballistic missiles and in fact had ordered more to be produced in January 2018.

“Unless and until there is a deal” with Trump, he wrote, “Kim would be a fool to eliminate and stop improving [them].… So the characterization of ‘deception’ is highly misleading. There’s no deal to violate.” (Like other US analysts, Narang did not question the CSIS report itself, calling it “excellent.”)

The CSIS report was denounced by the government of South Korean President Moon Jae-in as “nothing new,” and Kim Eui-kyeom, its chief spokesperson, took particular exception to the Times’ use of the term “deception.” To his credit, Sanger acknowledged the criticism and quoted the statement in full.

“North Korea has never promised to dismantle its missile bases, nor has it ever joined any treaty that obligates it to dismantle them,” said Kim. “So calling this a ‘deception’ is not appropriate. If anything, the existence of these missile bases highlights the need for negotiation and dialogue, including those between the North and the United States, to eliminate the North Korean threat.”

Hankyoreh, in its analysis, objected to Sanger’s claim that Sakkanmol and other missile bases are “hidden.” It reported that South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had identified the base as the source for a short-range missile launched by North Korea on March 10, 2016.

“South Korean and overseas news outlets at the time dedicated significant coverage to the launch, noting the presence of an underground Scud missile base in the Sakkanmol area.”

Leon Sigal, the author of a book about North Korea and a former member of the New York Times editorial board, sharply disagreed with Sanger’s assertion that North Korea is now “moving ahead with its ballistic missile program.” Writing Tuesday in 38 North, Sigal said the CSIS report notes that “only minor infrastructure changes were observed” at the missile site since Kim came to power in December 2011. That’s hardly progress.

Sigal also noted the absence of a US–North Korea agreement inhibiting the “deployment of missiles by Pyongyang, never mind requiring their dismantlement. Nor has Washington yet offered the necessary reciprocal steps that might make such a deal possible.”

In a biting comment on his former employer, he added that “substituting tendentious hyperbole for sound reporting may convince editors to feature a story on page one, but it is a disservice to readers.”

Taking note of the response from the Moon government and arms-control experts, Christine Ahn, the founder of Women Cross DMZ and a strong advocate for engagement with the North, called on the newspaper to correct the story. “The @nytimes should write a retraction,” she said. “They just made real Trump’s allegations of #fakenews.”

On Tuesday, as she predicted, Trump used the story to launch another attack on the media. “The story in the New York Times concerning North Korea developing missile bases is inaccurate,” he tweeted. “We fully know about the sites being discussed, nothing new—and nothing happening out of the normal. Just more Fake News. I will be the first to let you know if things go bad!”

Less than two hours later, the Times communications office put a short statement out on Twitter defending Sanger’s reporting. “The New York Times stands by our story, which is based on satellite imagery analyzed by experts,” it stated in a post that linked to Trump’s earlier blast.

Sanger, who is interviewed frequently for national security conferences and documentaries on North Korea, did not respond to e-mails asking for comment on his story.

Like many of his North Korea stories over the years, Sanger’s account of what he basically described as a betrayal by Kim Jong-un seemed perfectly timed to interject public skepticism of the North at a crucial moment for the US negotiations with both Koreas to resolve the nuclear standoff and pave the way for a final peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula.

Over the past month, while the two Koreas have made spectacular leaps in reducing military tensions along their border, the US dialogue with North Korea has stalled. The primary issues dividing them are Trump’s insistence on keeping his pressure campaign of economic sanctions in place until the North denuclearizes, and the North’s demand that Trump join the two Koreas in publicly declaring an end to the Korean War.

South Korea has also pushed for such a declaration, saying that it would assure the North that it can eventually disarm without fear of attack or invasion from the United States (its position on the end-of-war declaration has been harshly criticized in Washington, including by CSIS analysts).

The differences came into stark relief last week, when North Korea abruptly canceled a planned meeting in New York between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean Workers’ Party Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol. In a bid to get them back on track, President Moon this week sent his unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon, to Washington, where he is meeting with Pompeo, congressional leaders, and, according to Yonhap News, top officials at CSIS.

South Korean officials are confident the US–North Korea talks will resume, and point to the steps Pyongyang has taken since the Singapore summit. They include North Korea’s decommissioning of a major satellite launch facility; its destruction of the tunnels where its nuclear weapons were tested; its return of American dead from the Korean War; and its unprecedented cooperation with South Korea and the US-controlled UN Command to remove guard posts and firearms in the DMZ.

On Tuesday, John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national-security adviser, toldreporters in Asia that Trump “is prepared to have a second summit” with Kim in early 2019. And on Thursday, in a brief meeting in Singapore with President Moon, Vice President Mike Pence asked that South Korea “communicate and talk more closely with North Korea” to help bring this about, Moon’s spokesman told reporters.

The most glaring problem with the Times story was Sanger’s characterization of CSIS as a neutral organization (“a major think tank”) and his failure to disclose that it receives enormous funding from the US government as well major military contractors. Nor did he mention that CSIS and its key analysts provide a kind of anchor to the Times’ coverage of Korea; they often appear near the lead of a story to explain its political significance. That is particularly true of Victor Cha, one of the authors of the report.

Cha, the director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House, was briefly considered last year by President Trump for US ambassador to Seoul (apparently his hawkish views weren’t enough to get him the job).

In his interview with Sanger for the Times article, Cha seemed to be pushing for a more aggressive stance against North Korea. “It’s not like these bases have been frozen,” he said. “Work is continuing. What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal—they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things, and in return they get a peace agreement” that formally ends the Korean War.

Cha continued to defend the report as the criticism intensified, and took special umbrage at South Korea’s response. “How can [South Korea] defend NK’s undisclosed operational missile bases?” he asked in a heated exchange on Twitter that caught the attention of Charles Knight, an analyst with the Project on Defense Alternatives. “Seriously, how contorted can these rationalizations for NK weapons possession get??”

Knight, in an e-mail, said he had concluded that Cha has been “enabled” by Sanger and the editors of the Times to “be the agent of the opening salvo of an offensive by the most reactionary elements of the US national security and foreign policy establishment against the Korean diplomacy of both the Trump administration and South Korea.”

Here’s where the contractor money that pours into CSIS comes in: Providing the justification for a tougher policy of sanctions and military threats would be very much in tune with the defense and intelligence companies that support the think tank.

According to the CSIS page for “corporation and trade association donors,”they include Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, L-3, Rockwell, General Atomics, and Booz Allen Hamilton. CSIS is also funded by several Asian defense giants, including Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Korea Aerospace Industries.

All of these companies have a stake in US military options focused on North Korea, including monitoring its military activities, building missile-defense systems and providing weapons, ships, drones, and aircraft for offensive military operations when they become necessary.

As I reported in 2017 for Newstapa/The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism, “As the South Korean and US militaries have become more integrated in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, CSIS has become an important forum where military collaboration—especially on the industrial side—is thrashed out and decided.”

In 2016, for example, CSIS sponsored a conference on “U.S.-Korea Defense Acquisition Policy and the International Security Environment” that drew high-ranking officials from the South Korean government and its military industry. In opening the conference, CSIS’s CEO John Hamre, a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, declared, “We’ve been military partners for 70 years but we are now going to be business partners in a very new way.”

Digital Globe, the satellite company that supplied the imagery for the CSIS report, is not a donor to the think tank. But it has a special relationship with US intelligence as an important contractor for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, one of the primary collection agencies for the US government. According to CSIS report, Joseph Bermudez Jr., its primary author, is a former “senior all-source analyst for DigitalGlobe’s Analysis Center.”

The Moon government, while a donor to CSIS, did not seem impressed with the Digital Globe imagery. In his critique of the Times story, Moon’s spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom pointed out that the source for the CSIS analysis is a “commercial satellite” vendor. “The intelligence authorities of South Korea and the U.S. have far more detailed information from military satellites and are closely monitoring [it],” he said.

In the end, the Sanger story was widely derided in the circle of people who closely follow North Korea. Once these doubts were voiced, both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post avoided the Times’ claim of deception and played down its dire conclusions that North Korea is cheating on the agreement it reached with Trump last June.

That’s a good development, indicating that Sanger’s questionable scoop probably won’t mushroom out of control and add fuel to a conflict, as Judith Miller’s phony reporting did at the advent of the Iraq War. And Sanger’s role as a leading expert on North Korea and US intelligence may take a hit.

“In an age of baseless allegations of fake news devaluing the work of journalists worldwide, it’s extremely lamentable that the New York Times—which is meant to be a nuanced and quality outlet—spun the CSIS story in the egregious way it did,” Chad O’Carroll, the CEO of Korea Risk Group, a Seoul-based organization that analyzes North Korea, tweeted on Tuesday.

Correction: The passage discussing a Twitter exchange involving Victor Cha and Charles Knight was garbled in the editing process; it has now been corrected.

Tim Shorrock TWITTER Tim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.

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Zie ook:
'Haags Centrum voor Strategische Studies (HCSS): stelt dat Noord-Korea nog steeds raketten bouwt'

Haags Centrum voor Strategische Studies (HCSS): stelt dat Noord-Korea nog steeds raketten bouwt

Het Haags Centrum voor Strategische Studies (HCSS) kwam gisteren met een bericht dat de NRC al op 31 juli van dit jaar publiceerde: het bewind in Pyongyang zou ondanks de afspraken over denuclearisatie nog steeds raketten bouwen......

Tja het 'The Hague Center for Strategic Studies', zoals men dit flutinstituut hééél interessant noemt*, moet natuurlijk af en toe het nieuws halen, dat lukt niet in het ongelofelijk suffe BNR programma met HCSS oprichter en fantast de Wijk, samen met de door het ijs gezakte 'buitenland deskundige' (ha! ha! ha!) van de VVD, Boekestijn, waar beiden hun best doen om zoveel mogelijk dom gelach te laten horen....

In plaats van 'in te zoomen' op de bemoedigende besprekingen tussen Noord- en Zuid-Korea, wil men Noord-Korea liever demoniseren, het ging immers 'net zo lekker' met het demoniseren, angstzaaien tegen en bedreigen van dit land na het aantreden van Trump als VS president.......

De meest lullige buitenlanddeskundige die Nederland rijk is (na Boekestijn, maar die heeft dan ook helemaal niets met deskundigheid te maken), BNR's Hammelburg, sprak over deze zaak of alles een feit is en hij zelf satellietbeelden had gezien waarop aantoonbaar raketten in elkaar werden gesleuteld, alsof hij zelf had gesproken met de VS inlichtingendiensten, die deze leugens 'lanceren......'

Terwijl ook de NRC in haar artikel moest stellen dat men e.e.a. had vernomen van 'Amerikaanse inlichtingen organisaties', die ook de satellietbeelden hadden gezien van raketfabrieken (beelden die verder niemand te zien krijgt, of men toont foto's waarop alleen gebouwen te zien zijn en/of foto's die al jaren oud zijn), hier dat deel van de NRC tekst:

'Ondanks toezeggingen over “denuclearisatie” gaat Noord-Korea volgens Amerikaanse inlichtingendiensten door met het bouwen van intercontinentale ballistische raketten (ICBM’s). Dat zou blijken uit satellietfoto’s van een raketfabriek in het stalinistische land, zeggen inlichtingenbronnen dinsdag tegen The Washington Post'.

Alsof die 'Amerikaanse inlichtingendiensten altijd de waarheid vertellen, terwijl ze aantoonbaar vaker liegen dan de waarheid spreken, dat geldt trouwens in wat mindere mate ook voor de Washington Post (WaPo) en de NRC, mediaorganen die de vuilbek vol hebben met aanvallen op 'fake news' (nepnieuws), terwijl ze zelfs 'fake news' brengen, waarmee men bijvoorbeeld het volk achter de illegale oorlogen van de VS weet te krijgen...... (over gevaarlijk 'fake news' gesproken.......)

* HCSS >> grootlobbyist van VS en NAVO terreur en natuurlijk voor het militair-industrieel complex.

PS: vergeten bij publicatie: men spreekt over denuclearisatie, terwijl het woord kernraket niet één keer valt...... Ofwel: men vindt dat Noord-Korea zelfs geen raketten mag maken om satellieten in de ruimte te brengen.

Zie ook: 'Noord-Koreaans 'bedrog met nucleaire deal' is fake news o.a. gebracht door de New York Times'

Jemen, de gemartelde, vermoorde of 'verdwenen' Jemenieten, onder verantwoording van de Saoedische coalitie......

Amnesty Inbternational bracht deze maand een rapport uit over de situatie in Jemen, getiteld 'God Knows If He's Alive'. Hierin aandacht voor de vreselijke martelingen, moorden en verdwijningen onder verantwoording van de Saoedische coalitie, die door dik en dun gesteund wordt door de VS (die ook de regie voert over de bombardementen en veel van de gevechten op de grond...) en Groot-Brittannië (verantwoordelijk voor: militair advies, leveringen van wapens, munitie en militaire hardware als vliegend en rollend oorlogstuig.....)

Mensen zijn wanhopig op zoek naar familieleden die gevangen werden genomen door de barbaarse Saoedische coalitie, waar de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten, ofwel VAE (in Engels: UAE >>United Arab Emirates), veel van de geheime gevangenissen in Jemen controleren...... Er is een netwerk van geheim gevangenissen in de door de Saoedische coalitie gecontroleerd gebied, waar mensen worden gemarteld en vermoord en van waaruit ze 'verdwijnen....'* ('tijd voor het koningspaar, Rutte en Blok om een bezoek te brengen aan deze reli-fascistische gewelddadige koninklijke dictatuur staatjes....')

Lees de verschrikkingen waarmee de sjiieten in Jemen te maken hebben, alsof het land nog niet genoeg lijdt onder het enorme aantal oorlogsmisdaden begaan door de moorddadige Saoedische coalitie, die zoals gezegd bezig is met de uitvoering van een genocide in Jemen...... Laat je nooit meer wijsmaken dat Iran vecht in Jemen, dan wel wapens levert aan dat land, een vervloekte leugen, die de zogenaamde onafhankelijke media in het westen, plus een groot deel van de westerse politici, minstens 1 keer per dag herhalen..........

Published on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 by Common Dreams

'God Only Knows': The Tortured, Killed, or Forcibly Disappeared People of Yemen

US citizens bear responsibility for the US government’s support of these crimes

By Kathy Kelly

“If they would just confirm to us that my brother is alive, if they would just let us see him, that’s all we want. But we can’t get anyone to give us any confirmation. My mother dies a hundred times every day. They don’t know what that is like.” 


In July of 2018, an Amnesty International report entitled “God Knows If He’s Alive,”documented the plight of dozens of families in southern Yemen whose loved ones have been tortured, killed, or forcibly disappeared by Yemeni security forces reporting to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that, with vital US support, has been bombarding and blockading famine and disease-ravaged Yemen for three brutal years. The disappearances, and torture, can sadly be laid at the doorstep of the United States.

One testimonial after another echoes the sentiments of a woman whose husband has been held incommunicado for more than two years. “Shouldn’t they be given a trial?” she asked. “Why else are there courts? They shouldn’t be disappeared this way – not only are we unable to visit them, we don’t even know if they are dead or alive.”

The report describes bureaucratic farces in which families beg for information about their loved ones’ whereabouts from Yemeni prosecutors and prison officials, but the families’ pleas for information are routinely met with silence or intimidation.

The families are appealing to an unelected Yemeni exile government whose president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, (when “elected” president in 2012, he was the only candidate) generally resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The UAE has, so far, supported Hadi’s claim to govern Yemen. However, the Prosecutor General of Hadi’s government, as well as other officials, told Amnesty International the government of Yemen has no control over operations “spearheaded by the UAE and implemented by the Yemeni forces it backs.”

When months and years pass and families of people who are missing still have no news about their loved ones, some try to communicate unofficially with prison guards or with former detainees who have been released from various detention sites. They repeatedly hear stories about torture of detainees and rumors about prisoners who died in custody.

The Amnesty report implicates UAE-backed local forces in Yemen, as well as the UAE military, in the crimes of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees. Of seven former or current detainees interviewed by Amnesty, five said they were subjected to these abuses. “All seven witnessed other detainees being tortured,” the report adds, “including one who said he saw a detainee held in a cell next to him being carried away in a body bag after he had been repeatedly tortured.”

In June 2017, Human Rights Watch and the Associated Press exposed a network of clandestine prisons operated by the UAE in Yemen. Their reports described ghastly torture inflicted on prisoners and noted that senior US military leaders knew about torture allegations. Yet, a year later, there has been no investigation of these allegations by the Yemeni government, by the UAE, or by the UAE’s most powerful ally in the Yemen war, the United States.

“It is shocking, to say the least,” the Amnesty report states, “that one year after a network of secret prisons operated by the UAE and the Yemeni forces it backs was exposed, these facilities continue to operate and that there has not been a serious investigation undertaken into credibly documented violations, including systemic torture in custody.” The Amnesty report calls on the US to “facilitate independent oversight, including by the US Congress, over US military or intelligence cooperation with Yemeni and UAE forces involved in detention activities in Yemen.” It further calls for investigating any involvement of US military or intelligence personnel in detention-related abuses in Yemen.

To date, the US continues selling weapons to the UAE and to its coalition partner, Saudi Arabia, despite several Congressional debates and a few increasingly close votes demanding a full or partial end to US weapons sales considering the terrible practices being carried out as part of the Yemen war.

Since March of 2015, a coalition of nine countries led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and relying on crucial U.S. logistical aid, has bombarded Yemen while blockading its major port, despite Yemen’s status as one of the poorest countries in the world. Targeting transportation, electrical plants, sewage and sanitation facilities, schools, mosques, weddings and funerals, the vicious bombing has led to starvation, displacement, and the spread of disease including cholera.

On the same day that the Amnesty report was released, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman (Salman al-Saoed) pardoned “all military men, who have taken part in the Operation Restoring Hope of their respective military and disciplinary penalties, in regard of some rules and disciplines.” It seems likely that the Amnesty report precipitated this royal decree**.

Along with three countries in North Africa’s “Sahel” desert region, Yemen has been cited as part of the worst famine crisis in the 70-year history of the UN. In the past three years of aerial and naval attacks, Yemen’s key port of Hodeidah has remained partially or fully closed despite the country’s vital need for relief supplies. And, while Yemenis suffer the chaos and despair characteristic of war, the Saudis and UAE refer to the war as “Operation Restoring Hope.”

Many thousands of Yemenis, subjected to consistent bombing and threats of starvation and famine, have fled their homes. Many seek refuge out of Yemen. For instance, close to 500 Yemenis have traveled nearly 500 miles to reach a visa-free port on South Korea’s Jeju Island. On July 21, during an international phone call hosted by young friends in Afghanistan, listeners heard Kaia, a resident of Jeju Island, describe the “Hope School.” She explained how she and several other young people are trying to help welcome Yemenis now living in their village of Gangjeong. 

The young people are already committed to peacefully resisting U.S. and South Korean military destruction of their shoreline and ecosystem. Now, they have started an informal school so Yemeni and South Korean residents can learn from one another. Small groups gather for conversational exchanges translated from Arabic to English to Korean. Many South Koreans can recall, in their own familial history, that seven million Koreans fled Japanese occupation of their land. Their Korean forebears relied on hospitality from people in other lands. 

The Catholic Bishop of the Jeju diocese, Monsignor Kang Woo-il, called on Koreans to embrace Yemeni refugees, labeling it a crime against human morality to shut the door on refugees and migrants. Kaia’s account of the newly launched school describes an effort that truthfully involves restoring hope. The cynical designation of Saudi and UAE led war in Yemen as “Operation Restoring Hope” creates an ugly smokescreen that distracts from the crucial need to investigate war crimes committed in Yemen today.  

US citizens bear responsibility for the US government’s support of these crimes.

The Yemenis mean us no harm and have committed no crime against us. Congressional votes have come quite close, with bipartisan support, to ending US participation in and support for the Saudi and Emirati led Coalition war against Yemen. Ending arms sales to the UAE and Saudi monarchies, supported by both sides of the aisle, will signal to the UAE and Saudi Arabia the US will no longer assist their efforts to prolong war and siege in Yemen. On cue from the initiative and energy shown by young South Koreans, people in the US can and should organize campaigns to educate their communities, educational institutions, and media outlets about the plight of people in Yemen. Conscious of the nightmare faced by Yemenis whose husbands, brothers, fathers and sons have been disappeared or detained by shadowy military enforcers, US people can work toward implementing each recommendation in Amnesty’s devastating report.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

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*  Je hoeft er niet van op te kijken als een aantal van deze gevangenen is afgevoerd naar de illegale VS gevangenis in Guantanamo Bay, een gevangenis waar het gevangen houden van mensen die niet eens zijn aangeklaagd, al een heel smerige vorm van marteling is, dit nog naast het martelen van gevangenen, wat nog steeds zou gebeuren in dat VS concentratiekamp (want dat is het)..........

** Zie: 'Saoedi-Arabië geeft toe in Jemen gruwelijke oorlogsmisdaden te hebben begaan.... ' (en daarmee is ten overvloede nog eens duidelijk gemaakt dat ook de VS meewerkt aan oorlogsmisdaden en een genocide in Jemen.....)

Zie ook:
'Saoedi-Arabië woedend over VN rapport waarin de waarheid wordt verteld over S-A en de oorlog in Jemen'

'Saoedische terreurcoalitie raakt alweer een bus met kinderen, dit keer tijdens een bombardement van een vluchtelingenkamp........'

'Genocide Jemen: 'eindelijk ontdekt' door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU'

'Saoedische aanval op schoolbus in Jemen: 43 kinderen vermoord......'

'Aanval op schoolbus Jemen, door Saoedi-Arabië opzettelijk als doel gekozen, geen reden voor VS veroordeling......'

'Bom waarmee schoolbus in Jemen werd getroffen is van VS makelij'

'Democratisch congreslid eist antwoorden over de rol van de VS bij de massamoorden in Jemen, zoals de aanval op een schoolbus'

'Genocide Jemen: 'eindelijk ontdekt' door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU'

'8 miljoen Jemenieten, inclusief een groot aantal kinderen, dreigen te sterven van de honger........'

'Door VS geregisseerd bombardement op ziekenhuis Hodeida >> 50 doden......'

'Jemen: de vergeten genocide en haar kinderslachtoffers.........'

'Agressie vanwege een vermeende gifgasaanval op Douma, terwijl de tienduizenden kinderen die in Jemen worden vermoord middels een genocide blijkbaar niet meetellen......'

'Saoedische coalitie valt in Jemen de laatste haven voor humanitaire goederen aan...... Weer ziekenhuis met hulp van VS gebombardeerd.........'            

'VS rol in Jemen gaat verder dan eerder gemeld, ofwel nog meer VS hulp bij Saoedische genocide op sjiieten.....'

'Congres VS geeft akkoord voor verdere steun aan de Saoedische genocide in Jemen......'

'VS versterkt militaire terreur t.b.v. genocide >> deelname aan aanval op Jemenitische havenstad Hodeida.......'

'VS en Groot-Brittannië weigeren een onmiddellijk staakt het vuren op haven t.b.v. door genocide geterroriseerd Jemen.....'

'VS vecht in Jemen, Pentagon loog weer eens >> Congres eindelijk 'wakker''

'Saoedi-Arabië vermoordde minstens 20 bruiloftsgangers in Jemen'

'Saoedi-Arabië dreigt Iran aan te vallen voor vanuit Jemen afgevuurde 'raketten' op Saoedische 'doelen..........''

'VS doet planning van de Saoedische genocide in Jemen.....'

'VS rol in Jemen gaat verder dan eerder gemeld, ofwel nog meer VS hulp bij Saoedische genocide op sjiieten.....'

'Jemen: meer VS steun voor genocide op sjiieten met grote levering 'slimme munitie' aan Saoedi-Arabië......'

'Jemen: BBC propaganda voor genocide door Saoedische coalitie........'

'Mike Pompeo (ex-CIA, VS min. van BuZa en 'christen') liegt openlijk over genocide in Jemen' (zie ook de links in dat bericht)

'Saoedi-Arabië heeft op verzoek van de VS intensief haar islam ideologie (en die van ISIS) verspreid.....'

Trump vs. Kim: Noord-Korea, een land dat nooit een ander land aanviel, wordt als agressief afgeschilderd door een land dat de ene na de andere illegale oorlog start en al eens atoomwapens heeft ingezet tegen burgers >> de VS.....

Zie ook:
'VS vermoordde meer dan 20 miljoen mensen sinds het einde van WOII........'

'VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen..........'

'List of wars involving the United States'

'CIA 70 jaar: 70 jaar moorden, martelen, coups plegen, nazi's beschermen, media manipulatie enz. enz.........'

Een uur na publicatie toegevoegd (dom genoeg vergeten): de VS heeft met de Koreaanse Oorlog 20% van de Noord-Koreaanse bevolking vermoord en had uiteindelijk zelfs geen doelen meer over om te bombarderen in Noord-Korea, daar alles al was gebombardeerd......... Zie: 'Noord-Korea verkeerd begrepen: het land wordt bedreigd door de VS, dat alleen deze eeuw al minstens 4 illegale oorlogen begon........'

Noord-Koreaanse nucleaire testsite ingestort, geen radioactieve straling te meten ........ Eindelijk vrede tussen Noord- en Zuid-Korea!!

Bij het wederzijdse bezoek van de Noord- en Zuid-Koreaanse presidenten, respectievelijk: Kim Yung-un en Moon Jae-in, is besloten dat men nog dit jaar een vredesverdrag zal tekenen. Na de Koreaanse Oorlog (1950 - 1953) werd nooit een vredesverdrag getekend. Voorts besloten de twee dat alle kernwapens moeten verdwijnen van het Koreaanse schiereiland

Een mooi gebaar, waarmee de VS agressie tegen Noord-Korea een gevoelige klap krijgt toegediend........

Over deze agressie gesproken, die kreeg enorm de wind in de rug, nadat Trump Noord-Korea demoniseerde op een manier zoals deze na de Koreaanse Oorlog niet meer werd gehoord of gezien.....

Hoofdbestanddeel bij het demoniseren van Noord-Korea waren de zogenaamde kernproeven die Noord-Korea uitvoerde. Ondergrondse kernproeven waarbij nooit werd aangetoond dat er na die proeven radioactieve straling bovengronds was vrijgekomen (te meten middels satellieten), wat normaal gesproken wel het geval is......

Een paar dagen geleden meldden wetenschappers dat de Noord-Koreaanse ondergrondse site waar de 'kernproeven' werden gehouden, ingestort moet zijn. Vreemd genoeg kwam er ook nu weer geen radioactieve straling vrij, terwijl deze nu bovengronds in grote hoeveelheden vrij had moeten komen.....

Ofwel: er is nog steeds geen bewijs dat Noord-Korea werkelijk kernbommen bezit (gezien het voorgaande is dat zelfs onmogelijk....), ondanks alle westerse en Japanse hysterie daarover.........

Alles bij elkaar mooi nieuws mensen!!

Nu nog een wereldwijde blokkade tegen de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde: de VS!