War on Terror

(Updated on Jan 1, 2012)

The Occupy movement that spread around the US just marked its 3-month anniversary. The movement was first ignored by the mainstream media, then ridiculed. Over time, with the spreading police crackdowns, it is beginning to reveal the true state of America.

For those who identify themselves as the 99%, this movement has come to represent a reclaiming of the public space, a renewal of community and a resurgence of intrinsic citizen power. At the same time, government and police reactions reflect the very struggles that many working class Americans have been experiencing. For instance, the police eviction of camps is just what police have been doing for the banks, evicting millions of homeowners from their houses through legal fraud. From Liberty Square to Bradley Manning Plaza in San Francisco, brazen police attacks against people gathering peacefully have signaled the position of the current government on the direct democracy that has begun to emerge on the streets.

Peaceful protesters in Occupy camps and marches were met with extreme police crackdowns. From students in Denver, to an elderly woman in Seattle, from Oakland to Houston, people were pepper sprayed, physically assaulted and arrested without reason. These violent scenes can make one for a moment wonder if this can happen in the US.

Today, CNN reports that a "Yemeni colonel and two soldiers were killed in clashes with Islamic militants in the southern province of Abyan." According to one official, "Clashes are intensifying in the city and the government is trying to put an end to the militants' control over the city."

On Saturday Yemeni army forces killed 18 ‘terrorists’ in Zinjibar, the capital of the southern Abyan province, and another three in Lawdar, a second provincial city, according to Reuters. In a text message from the Yemeni Defense Ministry, officials said that the army had also destroyed a weapons and ammunition cache in Zinjibar.

Yemeni President Saleh sustained serious burns and shrapnel injuries in an attack on his presidential complex in Sanaa on June 3. Saleh was transported to Saudi Arabia and is “in stable condition and recovering,” the Yemen’s ambassador to Britain told Reuters. But, according to an informed source, identified by Agence-France Presse as a Yemeni expatriate in Riyadh, the health of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was 'bad.' (Source: Al Arabiya).

Colonel mustard in the library with the candlestick

While the government has blamed the al-Ahmar tribe for the attack, Al Jazeera reports that some residents in Sanaa suspect that the raid could actually be orchestrated by the president himself.

For WL coverage and analysis of US Targeted Operation Kills Bin Laden: US Celebrates Victory in Fight Against Extremism please see this article. For WL analysis of news, media, and American politics as regards the War on Terror, please see The Entertainment Superpower and the American Theater of Cruelty

Crowds assembled last night on the eastern side of the site where the World Trade Center once stood, at the perimeter of what is referred to since the 9/11 terrorist attack as "Ground Zero".

The site has become a kind of tourists destination with vendors selling wares: from postcards, to flags, to T-shirts, and, finally, photos of the twin towers on fire. The trinket shops are repugnant to New Yorkers - who had been adults during 9/11 and who had witnessed people falling from the sky or the towers falling. They are a kind of creepy simulation of a genuine horror and tragedy.

I was told by several people, that crowds last night totaled several thousand. They assembled along the entire Eastern side of the site earlier in the evening.

By the time I arrived the crowd was at one intersection and made up mostly of young twenty-somethings.

One of the most interesting aspects last night was that there seemed to be two groups of people. One group was cheering and chanting, breaking out into songs, and the others were bystanders, quietly taking photographs. There were media cameras and journalist of all types.

There was not a large presence of FDNY (firemen) or NYPD (police) except those appointed to cordon off the streets from traffic. Those that were down there, were reserved. Many of them over by the gate to the site, saying prayers, standing quietly, or leaving flowers.

People shouted obscenities, "USA," "We are the Champions," and "Yes we did," wrapped themselves in flags, and one man was even seen smoking a cigar. The environment had the feel of a sporting event or a carnival.

The New York Times reported today on former Guantánamo Bay detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. On Tuesday, Ghailani was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa. Ghailani is the first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in the civilian court system.

Lewis A. Kaplan of the US District Court wrote of the evidence that Ghailani had been acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy:

Mr. Ghailani knew and intended that people would be killed as a result of his own actions and the conspiracy he joined.

Mr. Ghailani, 36, was convicted on November 17 of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. After over two months of deliberation, judge Kaplan handed down the sentencing earlier today.