Showing posts with label yemen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yemen. Show all posts

Saturday 1 June 2013

A Croydon Haji at Guantanamo Bay's Court





On 4 March 2006, following a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press, 5000 pages of information were released containing the names and home countries of many detainees in Guantanamo Bay. 

Amongst this documentation is a transcript of the hearing at which Feroz Abbasi was present. Mr. Abbasi's session, begins in this way:


Feroz Abbasi asked: 

"May I have my legal representative present, please?"

The tribunal president, a USAF colonel (whose name has been blacked out in the document) replied: 

"No you may not. This is not a legal proceeding. It is a military tribunal."

Feroz Abbasi continued: 
"On the basis that the tribunal can actually hold me here in incarceration or release me, I would consider this a criminal proceeding."

Feroz Abbasi (reading): 

"AKA Malcolm X: 'I am not anti-American and I did not come here to condemn America. I want to make that very clear. I came here to tell the truth and if the truth condemns America, then she stands condemned...'(inaudible) 

The sun rising is splendour. A notice. It is my duty as a Muslim to warn all who are involved in this matter that they are personally responsible for their actions at all times before Allah. 

Allah says in this uncreated word that is the Koran. Is the man who believes no better than the man who is rebellious and wicked? Not equal are they. For those who believe and do righteous deeds are gardeners as hospitable homes for their good deeds. 

As to those who are rebellious or wicked their abode will be the fire. 

Every time they wish to get away from there they will be forced there into and it will be said to them, Take ye the penalty of the fire which ye will want to reject as false. 

And indeed we will make them taste of the penalty of this life prior to the supreme penalty in order that they may repent and return. 

And who does more wrong than one to whom are recited the signs of his lord and who turns away there from. 

Vary from those who transgress we will exact due retribution." 

Chapter 32 Al Sajdah, 
verses 18-22.

Abbasi continues quoting from the Koran.

The president says he: 
"appreciates your concern for our souls".

Following Abbasi's concerns about his classification from the point of Islamic law, the tribunal president states: 
"This is not Islamic law. It has no authority here."

Abbasi then repeatedly brings up his status under international law. The tribunal president says:

"International law does not apply. 
Geneva Conventions do not apply. 
You have been designated an enemy combatant. 
This Tribunal will fairly listen to your explanation of your actions."

After repeated references to international law by Abbasi, the tribunal president states:

"I don't care about international law.
I don't want to hear the word international law again."

Abbasi also asked to be treated as a prisoner of war and declared he would be humbled to be regarded as a combatant, stating:

"Do not be fooled into thinking I am in any way perturbed by you classifying me as a (nonsensical) 'enemy combatant'.

In fact quite to the contrary I am humbled that Allah would honour me so."

Abbasi admitted attending an Al Qaeda training camp visited by Osama Bin Laden:

"Yes, I was present at the very speech when with his own mouth and tongue he told Basic Training that he had received a fax from the Americans!"


Thursday 21 February 2013

Dick Cheney - JSOC Targetted Killing of Benzir Bhutto (and un-targeted killing of 157 innocent bystanders)

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

Seymour Hersh, University of Minnesota , March 10th 2009











KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct. 19 — Looking pale and shaken the day after she survived a suicide bomb attack, the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Friday that she had warned the Pakistani government that suicide bomb squads were going to go after her on her return to the country and that it had failed to act on the information.



Ms. Bhutto did not blame the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for the bomb blasts and said extremist Islamic groups who wanted to take over the country were behind the attacks, which killed 134 people.

But she pointed the finger at government officials who she said were sympathetic to the militants and were abusing their powers to advance their cause. She did not identify them on Friday, but said she had in a letter to the government this Tuesday. It was not clear if she was implicating the officials directly or accusing them of dragging their feet on her warning.

“I am not accusing the government, but I am accusing certain individuals who abuse their positions, who abuse their powers,” she said at a news conference of hundreds of journalists in the garden of her home in Clifton, an upscale neighborhood of the southern port city of Karachi.

“I know in my heart who my enemies are,” she added. “There is a poem that says that even if you hide yourself behind seven veils, I can still see your hand.”



While it was not possible to assess the veracity of Ms. Bhutto’s charges, she has long accused parts of the government, namely Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of working against her and her party because they oppose her liberal, secular agenda.

Aides close to Ms. Bhutto said that one of those named in the letter was Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country’s intelligence agencies and a close associate of General Musharraf.

Mr. Shah hung up when asked by telephone for a reaction to the allegations.

Ms. Bhutto seemed careful on Friday not to implicate General Musharraf, taking pains for the time being to preserve the power-sharing arrangement that allowed her to return to Pakistan, and which may make her prime minister for a third time after parliamentary elections in January. She spoke to the president by telephone on Friday.

The ISI has for decades backed militant Islamic groups in Kashmir and in Afghanistan in pursuit of a military strategy established by the former military dictator, Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, in the 1970s. “I know exactly who wants to kill me,” Ms. Bhutto said. “It is dignitaries of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the fanaticism.”



Before her return, she said a “brotherly country,” which she did not identify, warned her that several suicide squads were plotting attacks against her — one from a Taliban group, one from Al Qaeda, one from Pakistani Taliban and one from Karachi.

That friendly government, she said, had also supplied Pakistan’s government with telephone numbers the plotters were using.

“I would hope with so much information in their hands the government would have been able to apprehend them,” she said, “but I can understand the difficulties.”

Aware of the risks she faced, she said she sent General Musharraf the letter two days before her return, naming “three individuals and more” who should be investigated for their sympathies with the militants in case she was assassinated.

She added that there were more plots against her, including one to infiltrate police guarding her homes in Karachi and the rural district of Larkana in order to mount attacks “in the garb of a rival political party.”

Ms. Bhutto said the street lamps had been turned off Thursday night as her cavalcade inched its way through Karachi, amid perhaps as many as 200,000 supporters and party workers who had turned out to celebrate her return after eight years of self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges.




The darkness made it difficult, she said, for her security officials to scan the crowd for possible bombers. She did not accuse the government of turning off the lights, but demanded an investigation.

A security official said the government was investigating which group was behind the blasts, and said that five groups of militants from Pakistan’s tribal areas, on the Afghan border, had trained and dispatched suicide bombers for her arrival.




The details of the attack remained disputed on Friday. Ms. Bhutto implied that the two blasts were set off by two bombers. Government officials, who updated the toll to 134 killed and about 450 wounded, said the explosions were caused by one bomber on foot who first detonated a grenade and then blew himself up, scattering a lethal mix of screws, pellets and shrapnel into the dense crowd massed around Ms. Bhutto’s armored truck.



“We have no doubt it was a suicide attack,” the home secretary of Sindh province, Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem, a retired brigadier, said Friday at a news conference, flanked by the Karachi police chief and other high-ranking police officials.

The target, he agreed, was Ms. Bhutto. “It can’t be definitively said which group was involved but it is one of the extremist groups,” he said.

Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban militant commander from Pakistan’s tribal areas, who has been accused of threatening to send bombers after Ms. Bhutto, denied that he was involved, Reuters reported.






Ms. Bhutto said the attack was more than an assassination attempt on her, and represented the broader aims of Islamist terrorism. “The attack was not on me,” she said, “the attack was on what I represent, it was an attack on democracy, by those who are against the unity and integrity of Pakistan.”

The blasts killed 50 of the security guards from her Pakistan People’s Party who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, Ms. Bhutto said.

A woman and a small child were among the dead, she said. A number of senior officials on the truck were also wounded. Officials said six police officers were killed and 20 wounded.

Ms. Bhutto said she had been sitting down at the back of the truck to relieve her swollen feet, and to go over a speech with her political assistant, and so had avoided the force of the blast.

She vowed that she would not be deterred by the attack. “They are saying peace-loving people are not safe to gather,” she said of the militants. “A minority wants to hijack the destiny of this great nation. And we will not be intimidated by this minority.”

“I know who the forces are of militancy, and I know they want to kill me because they are cowards,” she added. “They cannot face the people of Pakistan in the political field.”

She said she had thanked people in the government who also have given her warnings of plots. She appealed for them to continue passing her information.

General Musharraf called Ms. Bhutto on Friday, expressed his “shock and profound grief” and prayed for the safety and security of Ms. Bhutto, the government news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, reported.

“The president expressed his firm resolve that all possible steps would be taken and a thorough investigation would be carried out to bring the perpetrators to justice,” the news agency said.

It added that the president had ordered law enforcement authorities to track down the mastermind of the bombings within 48 hours, and had offered a force of special services commandos trained by the United States to Ms. Bhutto for her protection.

Karachi was almost deserted Friday in the aftermath of the attack. Almost all shopping malls and business centers closed for fear of more violence. A crowd gathered at the scene of the blasts to offer prayers on the blood-stained median dividing the road. The heavy smell of dead bodies hung in the air.

At a morgue run by the Edhi Foundation, a private relief organization, bodies wrapped in white shrouds were brought in from hospitals around the city. Distraught relatives milled around to inquire about the dead and missing, covering their noses to escape the stench.

Ali Muhammad, 45, a driver, was standing with reddened eyes near the information room on Friday at noon. He said his 18-year-old nephew Zohaib had been missing since last night.

“We searched in every hospital,” he said, close to tears. “We inquired from every police station. It’s only just now that we have located him here. The body is all blood.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/world/asia/20Pakistan.html?_r=0




"I received information that I could be attacked by Hamza Bin Laden, the son of Osama Bin Laden..."

"...Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden..."




.......














Operation Neptune Spear (aka The Bin Laden Raid) was one of the last and most recent JSOC Operations, one of the few carried out by the current administration, due to the afore mentioned concern and alarm over the vast number of collateral deaths.

Even official accounts of Operation Neptune Spear confirm that Hamza Bin Laden was present and confirmed killed at the Bin Laden compound in Abbattobad on May 2nd 2011.

Subsequent statements by ISI have tried to back-peddle this announcement and state instead that
 his half brother Khalid bin Laden was killed and mistaken for Hamza; the US position continues to be that no-one there got out alive and imply that BOTH Khalid and Hamza were killed in the raid.

A Bin Laden was certainly killed in the raid. Just perhaps, almost certainly not Osama Bin Laden.


Nevertheless:



Sunday 10 February 2013

Targeted Killing: Where were you on September 14th, 2001?

S.J.Res.23 -- One Hundred Seventh Congress of the United States of America
Joint Resolution - To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

AT THE FIRST SESSION


Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the third day of January, two thousand and one


Joint Resolution

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens; and

Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad; and

Whereas, in light of the threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence; and

Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States; and

Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'.


SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.



"Yea" votes in support of the above-worded resolution :  420


"Nay" votes in disagreement with granting such authority to order executive action





Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our ranking member and my friend for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today really with a very heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and the loved ones who were killed and injured this week. Only the most foolish and the most callous would not understand the grief that has really gripped our people and millions across the world.


This unspeakable act on the United States has forced me, however, to rely on my moral compass, my conscience, and my God for direction.

September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us.

Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.

This is a very complex and complicated matter.


This resolution will pass, although we all know that the President can wage a war even without it. However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint.

Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, let us step back for a moment. Let us just pause for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control.


I have agonized over this vote, but I came to grips with it today and I came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said,


"As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.''

---- NAYS    1 ---

Lee

---- YEAS    420 ---

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Allen
Andrews
Armey
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barr
Barrett
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Collins
Combest
Condit
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crane
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Culberson
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Fattah
Ferguson
Filner
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Frank
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Graves
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Grucci
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Harman
Hart
Hastert
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Israel
Issa
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kennedy (RI)
Kerns
Kildee
Kind (WI)
Kingston
Kirk
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Largent
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Markey
Mascara
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McInnis
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mink
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sabo
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schrock
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Toomey
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Visclosky
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins (OK)
Watson (CA)
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)


Now, that's moral courage.

The Conspicuously Unquestioned Certainty of Al-Aulaqi's claim to US CItizenship - Where did all those Birthers go...?


Right, I'm fed up with this: NO American Citizens have been killed by drone strikes.

Accidentally, or otherwise.


Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Lets sort this out once and for all:"

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. "

Al-Aulaqi was born in the United States to parents from Yemen, while his father was doing graduate work at US universities."
Birthers, note: He is NOT  therefore, a Natural Born Citizen. And his implicit naturalisation, appears to have been obtained years later by fraud; if indeed if ever was, which I am increasingly beginning to doubt as this takes on all the hallmarks of another National Security set-up.

Neither one of his parents were US Nationals, he claimed at various times when it suited him to have US Citizenship, but there seems to be not documentary proof of this, at least not in the public domain.


Already, AT BEST, he is a Yemeni national with a claim to dual US Citizenship 

"Al-Aulaqi was born in 1971 in New Mexico in the United States, where his father was doing graduate studies. "

Prove it.

"In 1978, when he was seven years old, he returned with his family to Yemen. "

He is a Yemeni national with two Yemeni parents who at various times has claimed to have been born in both Yemen and New Mexico, claiming both Yemeni and US Citizenship and maybe travelling under both on different passports for different occasions. There is no proof of either claim - but he is DEFINITELY a Yemeni National, with two Yemeni parents who grew up and spend most of his life in Yemen.

"He lived in Yemen for 11 years, where he studied at Azal Modern School."

 Can we do better than that to clear this up? What if he was born (as is claimed) in New Mexico but there was a fire and they lost all the birth records?

In other words, if the dates are found to match up and he can be reasonably estimated to have been born while his mother and father were studying at college, but no actual documentation can be found that definitively affirms that, does he have a reasonable claim to make a case?

Do we have any case law on this?

As it happens, actually - yes. We do.
The clause's meaning was tested again in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898). The Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment a man born within the United States to Chinese citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States—and whose parents were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power—was a citizen of the United States. Subsequent decisions have applied the principle to the children of foreign nationals of non-Chinese descent.[19]

So, let's lawyer this  one - the "official version" - systematically, statement by statement and see if we can't give the guy a break, here.

Al-Aulaqi was born in the United States to parents from Yemen, He isn't automatically an American at birth, because neither of his parents are.

Were either (or both) of his parents "[Yemeni]
citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and ...carrying on business in the United States...?"

while his father was doing graduate work at US universities.

Evidently they weren't. "Work" in this case implies study, implies education. The actual work may or may not involve or consist of paid employment but that's totally irrelevant, even if it is the case, which is unlikely.

Neither his father nor his mother can be said to be conducting "business" to support themselves - they are not in the country - primarily at least - for the sake of a job, even though they obviously do have ecconomic input and interactions and their admission into the country would be granted only if they fulfilled a certain very different set of criteria.

They were clearly NOT resident in the US on an open-ended basis, nor was their stay in the country expected to be permanent or last beyond a certain point.


His father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, was a Fulbright Scholar earned a master's degree in agricultural economics at New Mexico State University in 1971,

Nowhere do we get told where he earned his undergraduate first degree prior to this... which is a strange omission.

We might also note that the geological composition of Yemen is comprised almost entirely of enormous rocks and bare ground with 26 million desperately poor people, clinging round its coastline in fishing communities - the issue here is not merely the fact of there being no workable soil and next to no water (as with most of the rest of the Arabian Peninsular)... It's that next to none of the land for much of the country is anything close to being flat.

When I said "big rocks", I meant really meant "big rocks", rather than mountains or sand dunes.

it's a strange subject to major in - agriculture surely can never be economic in a land where nothing is able to grow.

Which is surely one of the many reasons it's so desperately poor...

received a doctorate at the University of Nebraska, and worked at the University of Minnesota from 1975 to 1977.

 In 1978, when he was seven years old, [Al-Awlaki] returned with his family to Yemen.

That's clear and unambiguous. Both parents were in the country on temporary student visas granted for the purpose of education, with no expectation that they would remain permanantly resident beyond the end of the final course and not therefore domiciled in the US.

Everyone clear? Anyone disagree?

Can I get a second on that source?



The Albuquerque Journal said New Mexico State University's Fall 2002 alumni newsletter notes that Awlaki's father, Nasser al-Awlaki, was named a distinguished international alumnus. The newspaper said the elder Awlaki earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from NMSU in 1969 and a master's in 1971, when Anwar al-Awlaki [was born].

He eventually obtained a doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of Nebraska and from 1975 to 1977 he was a researcher and faculty member at the University of Minnesota before returning to Yemen in 1978, the Journal said.

Source: UPI

Done.

"In 1991 Al-Aulaqi returned to the U.S state of Colorado to attend college. He earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University (1994), where he was president of the Muslim Student Association."


That'll certainly attract attention in Denver....

And
Denver, as previously noted is, Spook Central.

Aside from being the home city and pricinple command and training hub for the US Air Force, housing NORAD, Cheyanne Mountain, about a dozen unsolved quasi-Satanic Ritual Abuse murders facilitated by Aurora Police Department and the Jefferson County Sherrif's Department, school board and others, DIA are all over the International Airport as well with giant underground Nuclear Doomsday Facilities hidden in plain site so everyone will just ignore them. Which mostly works.


I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "He was likely recruited about this time".

Or earlier - if CIA had worked with his folks in the 70s, they may have even paid his plane fare over to infiltrate campuses and set up recruitment for Jihad in Bosnia and Kosovo and Chechnya - MI5 were doing EXACTLY that in EXACTLY this time period in Leeds and other cities in the North of England. This is the same year FBI were chasing Ramzi Yousef halfway round the world.


"He attended the university on a foreign student visa and a government scholarship from Yemen, apparently by claiming to be born in that country, according to a former U.S. security agent."

He is now 20 and never claims to be anything other than a Yemeni national and entered the US on a Student Visa to satisfy INS.

"He spent a summer of his college years training with the Afghan mujahideen"

I can't believe I even need to say this: CIA.

"In June 2002, a Denver federal judge signed an arrest warrant for al-Aulaqi for PASSPORT FRAUD."

Just show 'em your birth certificate....?

 Note, he is unable to prove he is a US Citizen when applying for a US passport to travel overseas - he presumably travelled to Kabul previously on his Yemeni passport or a possibly CIA fake one.

"On October 9, the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office filed a motion to dismiss its complaint, and vacate the arrest warrant. Prosecutors believed that they lacked sufficient evidence of a crime, according to U.S. Attorney Dave Gaouette, who authorized its withdrawal."

I have only once before encountered ANYONE with the surname Gaouette in my ENTIRE life, and he was fired as Rear Admiral Commanding the Stennis Battlegroup patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by Panetta 72 hours prior to a Presidential election for evidence impilicating him in a military coup to oust Obama and provoke a war with Iran;

SPECULATION: CIA is a family company. IF this US Attourney is (say) Rear Admiral (Ret.) Gaoutte's brother, this Gaoutte at the US Attourney's office appears to have arrived on the scene to smooth things over with the Judge and his visa situation.


"Al-Aulaqi had listed Yemen rather than the United States as his place of birth on his 1990 application for a U.S. Social Security number, soon after arriving in the US. "The bizarre thing is if you put Yemen down (on the application), it would be harder to get a Social Security number than to say you are a native-born citizen of Las Cruces," Gaouette said."

I know it isn't just me: that's complete hogwash. If he had valid  US citizenship in 2002, he would have been able to present his US Birth Certificate and apply for a US passport.

He didn't. Because he couldn't.


"Al-Awlaki used this documentation to obtain a passport in 1993. He later corrected his place of birth to Las Cruces, New Mexico."

What documentation? His social security number obtained by presenting his Yemeni passport and student visa...?

Let me get this straight: he claimed (accurately) to be a Yemeni National, born in Yemen to two Yemeni parents to get a social security number issued, THEN used the social security documentation to (fraudulently) obtain as US passport in 1993....? or do they mean a Yemeni passport issued in Denver?

I doubt it.


Far more likely explanation: CIA gave him a fake passport to travel to Afghanistan and back and he kept it it and set off red-flags in the system when he tried to replace it a decade later, triggering the warrent for his arrest, which goes away just in time for him to travel on a hate speech tour of Europe in 2002 - MI5 and MI6 just let him in.

"Prosecutors could not charge him in October 2002, when he returned from a trip abroad, because a 10-year statute of limitations on lying to the Social Security Administration had expired. The motion for rescinding the arrest warrant was approved by a magistrate judge on October 10, and filed on October 11."

"According to a 2012 investigative report by Fox News, the arrest warrant for passport fraud was still in effect on the morning of Oct. 10, 2002, when FBI Agent Wade Ammerman ordered al-Aulaqi's release. U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and several congressional committees are urging FBI Director Robert Mueller to provide an explanation about the bureau’s interactions with al-Aulaqi, including why he was released from federal custody when there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest."

I think we all know the answer to this one: CIA were protecting him and moving him around where they needed him most on the globe, radicalising domestic Muslim Youth, sowing the seeds for homegrown terror and adhering to the Blind Sheikh Omar Rahman model . Slick. Very slick...

"ABC News reported in 2009 that the decision to cancel the arrest warrant outraged members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego at the time. They were monitoring al-Aulaqi and wanted to "look at him under a microscope"."

Yes, I bet they did, and I bet they were - this is evidently, a Made Guy, protected on orders right from the top.... "He's someone very important to Mr. Dulles, y'honour..."


"But US Attorney Gaouette said that no objection had been raised to the recission of the warrant during a meeting including Ray Fournier. He was the San Diego federal diplomatic security agent whose allegation had set in motion the effort to obtain a warrant. Gaouette said that if al-Aulaqi had been convicted at the time, he would have faced about 6 months in custody."

Translation: DSA were asked to drop the case by their domestic CIA liason.

"The New York Times suggested later that al-Aulaqi had claimed birth in Yemen (his family's place of origin) to qualify for scholarship money granted to foreign citizens."

Yeah, that's a major breach of Sharia Law - you have to sign and affirm a sworn oath and statement that you are telling the truth and he lied.

That's completely haraam - forbidden. In actual fact, "Bin Laden", or someone speaking on his behalf in one of the 17 released Abbottabad documents is incensed by this, along with the same behaviour by the alleged Fort Hood Shooter and declared them both kuffur and both excommunicated them and threw them out of Al-Qaeda (of his bit of what was left of it) for bringing shame on them.

Bin Laden (when he was alive) had zero tolerance for Oathbreakers and would not tolerate it amongst the brothers, as shown here:

 The critique of The Yemeni Brothers begins at the 9.09 mark.





(Authors's Footnote: I believe, and I always have, both that Osama Bin Laden himself has been dead since early 2002 of untreated kidney disease in Tora Bora, and that the "Bin Laden Raid in Abbottobad (Operation Neptune Spear) was not what were told it was.)

 However, I depart from both mainstream and "alternative" consensus on this issue in as much as I don't think it was what the White House and Obama's inner circle was told it was either; there have been rumours and allegations for years of continued contact and financial support for Bin Laden from family members inside Saudi Arabia, long after his official public disinheritance by the family in 1993.

I offer a more specific breakdown of my analysis of the truth, lies, myth and efficacy of the Bin Laden Myth in context with the halftruths associated with the reality of Operation Neptune Spear as an actual real event that verrifiably took place amid the Fog of War, details quickly fudged or contradicted, early accounts and minority reports burried or smeared liberally with bullshit before being burried up to its neck in classic Pentagon baloney, augmented with fake, planted stories, fake witnesses, deliberate disinformation and red herrings at length elsewhere; for now, surffice to say this - the White House by their own account was forced into a position immediately following the raid wherein they were left with no option other than to announce the successful execution (in both senses) of the Bin Laden raid far earlier than they had agreed beforehand they would be comfortable going public with the announcement and while they were still far short of meeting their own (admittedly very tough, but stringently self-imposed) criteria for confirming both the fact of both the ID on the target and the kill to a standard of accuracy all concerned would be neccessary to meet prior to public disclosure of Osama Bin Laden's death at the hands of Special Forces;

The Official History of the build-up to the go-order on the raid conceedes that those in The Room on the night were in no sense close to certain what SEAL Team 6 would encounter inside the safehouse compound once their boots hit the ground and began kicking down doors - there could be no-one there at all, the coupound itself just a dead drop for relaying messages or worse still, a baited trap. While it could be fairly safely said that there certainly seemed to be someone seemingly very important and highly furtive and secretive hiding out in there and being ultracautious when it came to living off the grid and leaving no footprints, the likelihood of it being an international arms dealer, a Taliban War Lord's lovenest or an international heroin trafficker who had developed a Howard Hughes complex were still filling out at least 30-40% probability of providing the correct answer. ID was attempted post-mortem via facial biometrics on photographs of the corpse, bloodwork, DNA and we're told fingerprinting and e fewother methods, seeking to get, if not a perfect match, then at least a finding in excess of 95% certainty across a battery of different ID methods.

They did not yet have that when the President went on television to announce that the result of the raid was unambiguously beyond reasonable doubt

As I recall bei

Given that he was still verifiably acting on behalf of CIA in influencing the outcome of the Afghan Civil War immediately post-Soviet withdrawl, given that this was three years prior to even his most moderate identification of America as the "Far Enemy", conspiring with the "Near Enemy" embodied by the corrupt absolutists rule of the House of Saud and their poor stewardship as the guardians of the Holy Sites of Mecca and Medina, from the massacre of Hajii at the Grand Mosque to the invitation of American and Coalition "Crusader" troops barracked in occupation of the lands claimed by conquest by the Prophet for his people, and given that his crossing of the Rubicon in the aftermath of the Gulf War took the form of open condemnation of the Saudi Royal Family for their refusal to acceed to his pleas to allow some basic form of opposition, it's hardly a barmstormer of an allegation to suggest that much of the wider almost-as-wealthy Bin Laden clan more than likely were in complete agreement with him and supportive of his moral stand in private, even accepting the neccessity to save face and aquiesnce to his disinheritence as a sop in deference to the reality of tribal feudal patronage in the Kingdom.

He was, after all, in the right on these points and his righteous indignation was both well earned and well-met.

I have little doubt that the Family had his back and helped out whenever they could behind the scenes, certainly until the wrath brought down by the response to the African Embassy Bombings in 1998 (which simply do not match Bin Laden's M.O. or moral code - he would have been appalled by such a senseless and random act of brutality which injured over 1000 civilian bystanders, nearly all of them fellow Muslims and is therefore condemned by multiple Haddith) forced his retreat back into Afghanistan, where the collateral cost of any American Airstrike intended for him personally (as the Clinton/Berger  cruise missile strike on the Nairobi pharmaceutical factory was intended as) could be kept to to the absolute minimum.

Much has been written (and the full story yet to be told) of Osama's Jihadi glory days battling the Atheistic Soviet Hordes with his trusty AK-47, riding headlong into the fray on horseback against Russia Hinds and Anti-Personnel Cluster Bombs and other ordenance;

Rumours and sworn affidavits about from numerous US and Western members of his CIA funded tactical support effort, who talk of the man they knew as Tim Osman , adopting a nom de voyage to maintain a low profile on visits Stateside to attend specialist and tactical training, engage in tactical planning meetings with CIA brass and brief his handlers and their superiors on the reality of conditions on the ground in Afghanistan, having arrived directly from the front - most notable amongst these witnesses and anedcdotalists is Former FBI Regional Director, turned part-time Hoover apologist and  freelance private investigator Ted Gunderson and whistleblowing CIA Weapons Designer, INSLAW Case witness , victim of a drugs bust frame-up and 9/11 Cassandra, Michael Rocconacioto, who both allege to have met with "Tim" in the US at this point on Company business and both also cite suppression by the FBI linking Oklahoma City with the Afghan veterans Jihadi cell of Sheikh Abdul Rahman, Zawhari's Egyptian Islamic Jihad group and Ramzi Yousef's "Bojinka" plot centring on Malaysian Airliners; several men of Middle Eastern appearance were seen in the company of Tim McVeigh and his Ryder Truck, before, during and after the home-made AMFO-Nitrate Bomb went off immediately prior to the Demolition charges taking out the first set of core columns.

And at least one credible witness, a former CIA Asset acting as a a diplomatic back-channel between the US Government and the Government of Iraq under Sadaam Hussain acting under the auspices of the Iraqi mission to the UN handling exchanges conducted under the UN "Food for Oil" (hmph) Program has stated categorically with complete certainty that she was at one time shown photos obtained or taken by CIA of Ramsey Yousef meeting in Malaysia in 1995 with Terry Nichols, the oft-forgotten "second lone nut" of Oklahoma City, currently serving life in the Federal SuperMax in Colorado, ostensibly for assisting Timmy to help load, assemble and build the Nitrate-Fuel Oil AMFO Bomb parked out in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19th, 1995, by Timothy McVeigh of US Special Forces. And "friends".


"U.S. Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) wrote in May 2010 that it was his understanding that by doing so, al-Aulaqi fraudulently obtained more than $20,000 in scholarship funds reserved for foreign students, for which he was not legally eligible." 


OR: He was legally eligible for it, because he was a Yemeni National born in Yemen to two Yemeni parents, as seems to be the case and no one can produce documentation proving otherwise.

There's a lot more besides this, not least his activities in San DIego, where a domestic CIA front-Mosque was HIDING two of the future 9/11 Highjackers away from FBI, who were scouring the Earth (literally) to track them down after they lost track of them in Malaysia.

But that has no bearing on the question of if he was was a US Citizen under the protection of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights when he got whacked with a CIA Predator Drone strike in - where else? Yemen.

His HOME COUNTRY. Not that that's relevant. This is a question of rule of law and things do not look like they would go in his favour if this ever saw the inside of a court, as I'm sure is becoming increasingly apparent.

Before the final summing up one final point - someone we're forgetting in all of this...