Posts tagged ‘Senator Diane Feinstein’
President ignores Yemen, Feinstein Calls for Embassy Evacuation – UPDATED
Posted by Leslie Eastman Wednesday, January 21, 2015
URL of the Original Posting Site: http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/01/president-ignores-yemen-feinstein-calls-for-embassy-evacuation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29
In September, Obama touted Yemen as a success story!
Sometimes, more can be learned from what a world leader fails to say.
One of the topics President Obama failed to cover in his State of the Union address is the situation in Yemen, a country that has descended so far into chaos that two U.S. Navy warships now stand ready to evacuate Americans from the Embassy.
Just prior to the President’s speech, California Senator Dianne Feinstein urged that the embassy be closed immediately and the personnel evacuated.
The U.S. government should immediately close and evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
I asked her today whether the embassy, which remains open despite raging violence throughout the Yemeni capital, should be closed. She responded: “Based on what I know so far, yes.”
“I’m very concerned about our embassy there, who is still there, who isn’t still there, and what the plans are,” Feinstein added.
Contrast this to what the President said of Yemen just last September:
President Obama recently told Thomas L. Friedman of The Times that failing to help Libya form a new state after the fall of Qaddafi was his biggest foreign policy regret. Yet the fate of that country has been largely absent from discussions about the new war, which is certain to last longer and unleash a wider array of consequences.
Instead, Mr. Obama, in making the case for carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State, drew a dubious parallel to counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, which he billed as successful.
While dangerous Al Qaeda offshoot organizations in tribal areas of southern Yemen have been weakened by drone strikes, calling Yemen a success story is absurd.
Not only absurd, but potentially dangerous to Americans in that country. Just because Obama scrubbed any mention of Benghazi doesn’t mean we have forgotten the lives lost there.
VICE News recently compiled a video, “Yemen: A Failed State”:
Heavily featured in this analysis is another group that somehow escaped mention in the year’s State of the Union Address: Al-Qaeda. It appears as if these terrorists are no longer on the run; their Yemen branch claimed credit for the Charlie Hebdo slaughter.
Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor for The Telegraph, has a substantive analysis of region — pointing out the clear winner (Iran, as supporter of the Yemen rebel group) and the obvious losers in recent events.
An Iranian politician close to that country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could not contain himself. Ali Reza Zakani, an MP, boasted that Sana’a [Yemen’s capital] was now the fourth Arab capital in Iranian hands – after Beirut (through Hizbollah), Damascus (through President Assad) and Baghdad (through Iraq’s democratically elected Shia-led government).
…[O]on the surface, a stunning blow for the West. The US and UK – and regional allies like Saudi Arabia – strongly backed a political settlement in Yemen following an “Arab Spring” uprising against the country’s long-time leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in late 2011.
That put a pro-western replacement, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, in office, presiding over a parliament that was supposed to represent all shades of Yemeni political thinking apart from al-Qaeda, which is strong in some southern and eastern parts of the country.
Truly, more was learned last night about the state of the Union by figuring out what Obama failed to mention. Let’s just hope our people come back home safely.
~~UPDATE~~
U.S. Embassy in Yemen set to evacuate
Posted by Amy Miller Tuesday, January 20, 2015
URL of the Original Posting Site: http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/01/u-s-embassy-in-yemen-set-to-evacuate/
“U.S. Navy on alert”
Yemen is in chaos.
For the past two days, Shiite Houthi rebels have laid siege to the presidential palace. Now, reports claim that the rebels have seized the palace; and the status of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi remains unknown. Although the Houthi rebels are not targeting Americans—at least for the time being—U.S. officials are preparing for the possibility of a “non permissive environment,” meaning that the city of Sana’a will have descended into combat-like conditions.
Unfortunately for Americans in Yemen, evacuation isn’t simply a matter of driving to the airport and hopping a flight.
If an evacuation is ordered, the first option would be to have embassy personnel drive to the commercial airport in Sanaa and fly out, the official said. But in the wake of an embassy car being fired Tuesday, the safety of the roads in the capital is now being constantly evaluated, the official said. If embassy workers did drive to the airport it is likely some sort of air cover would be provided, under the current plan.
Other detailed military planning for various options has been finalized, the official said. Those options would be used if a request for military assistance were made.
If helicopters and V-22 aircraft from the ships are sent to Sanaa, it would be a complex operation that could last for several days to fully evacuate “several hundred Americans” from the embassy, the official cautioned. “Nobody should think this would be easy.”
The Houthi rebels claim that they’re working for a more democratic Yemen, but analysts are skeptical of the group’s claims, and worry that a successful coup could lead to further radicalization.
The Houthis are an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is known as Zaydism, and they have put together a militia that has been fighting the central government on and off for the past decade.
The Houthi leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, 33, is considered a saint by his followers. The militia, which is widely believed to be backed by Iran, claims it is willing to work with other groups in Yemen and would like a democracy.
But the majority Sunnis feel threatened by the minority Houthis, whose rise could easily lead to increased sectarian friction in Yemen, the poorest of the 22 Arab countries.
“Yemen could become another Afghanistan — a failed state dominated by warlords and extremists, and with even fewer prospects for the young revolutionaries who just three years ago thought their nightmare had ended,” Middle East analyst Robin Wright wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Unrest has plagued Yemen since 2004, when now-rebels revolted over perceived discrimination on the part of the majority Sunni government. In September, the rebels began to move out of their traditional strongholds in north Yemen and into new territory.
As of right now, plans are to evacuate only State Department personnel if conditions deteriorate; U.S. officials haven’t yet decided whether or not to extend evacuation orders to other Americans in Yemen.
An Interrogator Breaks His Silence
Dec 9, 2014 • By STEPHEN F. HAYES
URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/interrogator-breaks-his-silence_821039.html
What follows is the document written by Jason Beale — a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report, scheduled to be released today, prepared by the Democratic staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Beale would not confirm to THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he worked in that program, but others with knowledge of the program and its personnel tell TWS that he served as a senior interrogator beginning in 2004.
Beale tells TWS that his document was reviewed, redacted, and cleared by a U.S. government agency. A CIA spokesman would not confirm that the CIA was the agency in question. Beale says he made minor edits for grammar and flow after the document was cleared.
An Interrogator Breaks His Silence:
(click on link below to view PDF file)
246578813-An-Interrogator-Breaks-His-Silence
Media Shield Law Heralds the Death of the 1st Amendment
By Onan Coca / http://eaglerising.com/1785/media-shield-law-heralds-death-1st-amendment/#Xu8A6M6vQeb5ttHO.99
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Senate Judiciary Committee just passed a new “media shield” bill, and will now ask the Senate to take the bill up for a vote. In the wake of the Justice Department’s recent attacks on the freedom of the press, many members of Congress seem ready to take up the cause and support the media shield law. At first glance a new media shield law would be a positive development, because it would imply that our Congress took our press freedom seriously. However, that is just not the case. This media shield law is not just a bad idea, but a dangerous one.
Let’s begin with the most basic argument against the media shield law. It is unnecessary because the Bill of Rights offers us complete coverage on freedom of the press. “Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech, or of the press.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that. So the real issue here is not that we need a media shield law (we already have the 1st Amendment), but that someone at the Justice Department needs to go to prison for their roles in the AP scandal and in the Fox News and James Rosen case. The likely jailbird should be Attorney General Eric Holder, because he signed off on both investigations. In addition, the Justice Department should have to pay hefty restitution to both organizations for their heavy handed attack on free speech.
The first argument was easy – we already have a media shield in the First Amendment and the real problem is that the Justice Department broke the law, so they should be punished. But the next argument gets a little more nuanced.
The second argument here is that by allowing Congress to pass a media shield law we are allowing them to decide who is a journalist. Congress will not pass a bill that gives blanket protection to any Tom, Dick, or Harry’s free speech or press freedom. Their concern is that someone blogging out of their mom’s basement will get a hold of classified information, publish it and then be covered by the media shield law… and Congress just cannot risk any more Edward Snowdens. So in the bill that has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, they have drawn lines to show who is and isn’t a “real” journalist. An example – an 80 year old retired English teacher working for a small town newspaper (or newsletter) is a journalist… but Matt Drudge who publishes the Drudge Report and is read by millions may not be covered. A reporter with a college paper may be covered, but one of the writers for this site might not be. This begs the question… where is Congress given the authority to decide who is and isn’t a journalist? The answer is, that Congress has no say in that question whatsoever – because the 1st Amendment says Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech, or of the press. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. In fact, the 1st Amendment strictly prohibits Congress doing anything to draw lines on free speech or press freedom. The very notion of passing a media shield law that applies only to some is Congress doing exactly what the First Amendment says it CANNOT do.
So… Congress passing a shield law for some but not for all, and putting conditions on the information covered by said law – is unconstitutional and therefor illegal.
The last argument I want to make is about precedent. If we allow Congress to move forward with a media shield law that protects some citizens at a greater level than others, who’s to say they won’t use similar tactics to weaken other freedoms? For example, could we next see a Religious Practice shield law? Perhaps it will allow only practitioners of certain government recognized religions to practice freely. Or maybe a Firearm Shield law, which will say that the government cannot prohibit the use of certain firearms, while at the same time effectively saying that other firearms can be legislated against? Do you see the danger? Do you see how thin the razor’s edge of our liberty is?
A media shield law sounds like a good and noble idea, and maybe some legislators are well intentioned as they seek to pass the law. But you know the old saying about good intentions don’t you? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s often true, and this law is no exception.
This is a dangerous bit of legislation and those of us who value our freedom of speech and our free press, should stand against it.
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