Noam Chomsky: Drones Come Home To Roost + Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars

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Dandelion Salad

Akshay Pahilajani on Apr 29, 2013

Noam Chomsky in a discussion on “Dirty Wars” talks about drones coming home to roost.

Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars: Terror Begets Terror

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breakingtheset on Apr 29, 2013

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin talks to Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and author of the new book and upcoming film ‘Dirty Wars’, an exposé on the expansion of American covert wars fought by US intelligence agencies and the Joint Special Operations Command. They talk about covert operations happening in countries like Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan, where drone strikes and targeted assassinations are creating resentment of the US, and how the decline of journalism has prevented the American public from seeing the full story.

Under Darkness in the Somali Region of Ethiopia by Graham Peebles

Warning

This article may contain language depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read by a mature audience.

Image by CharlesFred via Flickr

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
April 18, 2013

State criminality

No matter how tightly truth is tied down, confined and suffocated, she slowly escapes. Seeping out through cracks and openings large and small, illuminating all, revealing the grime and shame, that cowers in the shadows.

Rape and Torture as a Weapon of Control by Graham Peebles

Warning

This article may contain language depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read by a mature audience.

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
March 7, 2013

The Pain of the Ogaden Somali People

Image by CharlesFred via Flickr

Hiding from the truth

“Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us. The second time they took me, they raped me… All three of the men raped me, consecutively”. Along with 15 other female students, Human Rights Watch (HRW)[i] report in Collective Punishment, this innocent 17 year-old Ogaden Somali girl, was held captive for three months in a “dark hole in the ground” and raped 13 times.

Ethiopian Annihilation of the Ogaden People, by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
February 6, 2013

Image by STARSFoundation via Flickr

Besieged, abused, ignored

In the harsh Ogaden region of Ethiopia, impoverished ethnic Somali people are being murdered and tortured, raped, persecuted and displaced by government paramilitary forces. Illegal actions carried out with the knowledge and tacit support of donor countries, seemingly content to turn a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by their brutal, repressive ally in the region; and a deaf ear to the pain and suffering of the Ogaden Somali people.

Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Regarding the War Powers Resolution

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Propaganda Alert!

Image by SS&SS via Flickr

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 13, 2013

Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Regarding the War Powers Resolution

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AND THE PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE

January 13, 2013

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Barack Obama’s Executive Order: Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency with Respect to Somalia

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Propaganda Alert!

The White House
For Immediate Release
July 20, 2012

EXECUTIVE ORDER
- – - – - – -
TAKING ADDITIONAL STEPS TO ADDRESS
THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT TO SOMALIA

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act

Horn of Africa: US Proxy War in Somalia Veers Towards Regional Conflict by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
1 January 2012

Ethiopia’s anticipated invasion marks scramble for territory with Kenyan rival

The conflict in Somalia has been raised to dramatically higher stakes at the weekend after Ethiopian troops occupied a central town, routing Al Shabab militants in fighting that claimed dozens of lives.

The Ethiopian military entered the town of Beledweyne near its border on Saturday morning along with Somali troops belonging to the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government.

US Military Confirms Washington’s Secret New War in Somalia Despite Official Denials by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
29 October 2011

East African “Drone Alley” – a harbinger of Western power projection across the African continent

US military sources have confirmed that the Obama administration is engaged in a new war in the famine-hit Horn of Africa region.

The disclosure in the Washington Post [1] comes only days after other prominent Western media outlets, including the New York Times and the Financial Times, carried denials from the US government that it was involved in directly supporting Kenyan forces that invaded Somalia on 16 October.

Somalia: Western Media Indulge US and French Denials of New War in Famine-Hit Horn of Africa by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
26 October 2011

Despite official denials peddled by the mainstream media, it is emerging that the US and France are engaged in a new war in the Horn of Africa.

Given that 11-12 million people are at risk of starvation in the famine-hit region, an escalation of conflict has huge humanitarian and legal implications. Yet the Western public is being given no oversight on the matter from what appears to be a veritable news blackout on the dire situation.

Is Washington Using Famine in the Horn of Africa to Embark on Yet Another Illegal War? by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
19 October 2011

US Drones Coordinate Air Power For Kenyan Ground Invasion of Somalia

The large troop deployment by Kenya into Somali territory is taking on the form of a full-scale invasion, rather than a temporary incursion as initially reported.

What is also emerging – but largely unreported – is that the US appears to be providing coordinated aerial firepower to help the advance of the Kenyan military against Al Shabab Islamic militants who have held power in the southern Somali territory.

Covering the Somali famine- of news By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
crossposted on Strategic Culture Foundation
4 August, 2011

Image by frankkeillor via Flickr

Over the past days BBC news coverage of the famine in Somalia has been saturating the airwaves and it’s always like this whenever ‘natural disasters’ strike. Fundamentally it’s little more than a fund-raising promo paid for with our taxes as endlessly repeated shots of emaciated babies and dying people serves no informative purpose except to tug covetously at our purse strings. And of course it has the added benefit of distracting us from our own condition – until the next crisis comes our way.

Let Them Eat Cake! By Gary Corseri

By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 28, 2011

Image by frankkeillor via Flickr

The people of Somalia are not like us.
Their skin is black and gray and parched by sun.
They carry their babies on bony hips,
Walking for miles for a little water.
Even their babies are resigned to death,
Hollow-eyed, fly-covered, without the strength
To cry, without the will to endure.

In Past Ten Years U.S. Has Expanded Military Network Throughout The World by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
July 22, 2011

The unprecedented expansion of American military presence throughout the world in the last decade, in support of and consolidated by attacks and invasions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya, has been marked by the Pentagon securing new bases in several continents and Oceania.

Risk-Free And Above The Law: U.S. Globalizes Drone Warfare by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism, July 6, 2011
July 13, 2011

Last week the Washington Post, the New York Times and other major American newspapers reported that the U.S. launched its first unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) missile attack inside Somalia.

The strike was the first acknowledged Pentagon military attack inside the Horn of Africa nation since a helicopter raid staged by commandos in 2009 and the first use of an American drone to conduct a missile strike there.