Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, speaking in Clark Park on October 12, 2007 at a rally in solidarity with the immigrant rights movement in the United States. (Photo: Alan Pollock)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Nigeria, Yemen and other states targeted for harassment and imperialist intervention
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
It appears from statements being made by Obama administration officials and intelligence sources from the United States, that further military attacks against Yemen are being planned. Yemen has been bombed several times in recent weeks and reports indicate that the U.S. is behind these actions where dozens of people have been reportedly killed.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, visited Yemen on January 2 and met with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. During this same time period embassies of three leading imperialist states, the U.S., Britain and France, were closed purportedly in response to threats from al-Qaida.
This poor country is now being described as dangerous in the same way that Afghanistan was given such a label in 2001. The notion of a "failed state", which was also used against Afghanistan to justify an ongoing U.S. invasion and occupation, is also being utilized in regard to Yemen.
A constant flow of U.S. intelligence operatives and pro-military commentators are being put forward in the corporate media to condition the American people for more aggressive military actions against the Middle-Eastern nation of Yemen. This is being done in a way to deflect public attention away from the horrendous crimes that have been committed against the people of the United States and the world.
Over the last eight years hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Palestine, Pakistan and other countries targeted in the U.S. war on terrorism. The U.S. has the highest defense budget in its history which exceeds the combined military expenditures of all other nations in the world combined.
Nonetheless, what the corporate media commentators and pundits do not ask is how can someone from Nigeria, who has a history of being the leader of an Islamic student organization in Britain, board an airplane in the Netherlands with no passport and travel to the city of Detroit?
His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, reportedly notified the American embassy in Nigeria about his son's activities. The CIA was reportedly in on these attempts to notify U.S. authorities about his son's activity. Yet nothing was done by the U.S. authorities until Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was arrested in Detroit on December 25. How could such a situation develop and the corporate media not scrutinize the Department of Homeland Security which receives billions of dollars in tax money every year from American workers?
Consequently, the economic crisis inflicted upon the people of the U.S. and the world will not be discussed in the corporate media in lieu of the latest “terrorist threat.”
Meanwhile in 2010, millions more will lose their jobs, homes, health care and education over the next year while the American people are being told that the source of the problem is in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria. The Pentagon through the corporate media will say that the sources of instability and terrorism requires greater military expenditures and the consequent injuries, deaths and destabilization of many more individuals and societies.
Background to the Present Situation
On December 25 the United States authorities arrested a 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab aboard Northwest/Delta Airline Flight 253 from Amsterdam that landed in Detroit. News reports emanating from the U.S. indicate that it was an attempted terrorist attack resulting in a small fire aboard the plane and that Abdul Mutallab was either connected with Al-Qaida or sympathetic to its aims.
Moreover, this incident raises a number of serious questions about the character of the attack. First of all why was Abdul Mutallab granted a multiple-entry visa into the United States in June 2008? In November, his father, Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab, 70, a prominent and wealthy Nigerian banker who recently retired as Chairman of the First Bank Plc of Nigeria, warned the American embassy in Nigeria about concerns related to his son's behavior. The senior Mutallab also served as Minister of Economic Development and Reconstruction during the mid-1970s in the Federal Nigerian Government that was under military rule at the time.
Consequently, why was Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab allowed to maintain his U.S. visa status and board a plane bound for the United States? There have been reports that he had spent time in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, implying that this may indicate a connection with al-Qaida. However, there has been no specific evidence that he has links with Islamic organizations including al-Qaida.
In addition, corporate media reports claim that the substances Mutallab had and attempted to ignite could have done substantial damage to the aircraft. This allegation is largely unsubstantiated and raises further questions about the nature of the incident. If these chemicals could have never caused any real damage to the aircraft and in fact the suspect was the only person seriously injured, then this may reveal that the incident is something other than what is being widely reported by media outlets in the U.S. and internationally.
Although U.S. intelligence and media spokespersons have stated that Yemen is a base for al-Qaida, they do not make the claim that it is also a major field of operations for the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon which is working closely with the Yemeni government to fight the Islamic organizations that are in a military struggle with the government in this country that is divided politically and regionally.
In an Associated Press report on December 25 it stated that "Yemen's military hit suspected al-Qaida hideouts for the second time in a week, killing at least 30 militants in a remote area of the country--a fragmented, unstable nation the U.S. fears could turn into an Afghanistan-like refuge for the terrorist network.
"The strikes on Thursday (December 24), which were carried out with U.S. and Saudi intelligence help, hit a gathering of top leaders and other targets in a remote mountain valley, officials said. The newly aggressive Yemeni campaign against al-Qaida is being boosted by a dose of American aid, a reflection of Washington's concerns about al-Qaida's presence in a highly strategic location on the border with oil-rich ally Saudi Arabia." (AP, December 25)
This same AP article goes on to point out that "The Pentagon recently confirmed it has poured nearly $70 million in military aid into Yemen this year--compared with none in 2008. The U.S. military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces and is providing more intelligence, according to U.S. officials and analysts. The result appears to be a sharp escalation in Yemen's campaign against al-Qaida, which previously amounted to scattered raids against militants, mixed with tolerance of some fighters who made vague promises they would avoid terrorist activity."
Therefore, it is quite obvious that Yemen is a major target of U.S. military and intelligence activity. Corporate media reports continue to emphasize what it calls the unstable character of Yemen and labeling the country a "failed state".
Implications for Nigeria
Nigeria has been the scene of unrest in the North some months ago when the military and police killed several hundred people in a crackdown against an Islamic group, Boko Haram, where the leader of this sect was killed by the police extra-judiciously. There is also a flare up in fighting in the Niger Delta region between groups fighting the western-based oil firms that dominate the area and the federal government's joint terrorism task force.
In a just as significant recent development, several western-based multi-national oil firms are threatening the Nigerian economy because of their displeasure with a deal that was agreed upon with the People's Republic of China involving a $50 billion petroleum revenue generation project related to the export of oil to China. Shell is offering its operations for sale which will inevitably undermine the oil industry in Nigeria, which no longer is the dominant producer of oil on the continent. (Nigerian Daily Trust, December 21)
As a result of the recent incident on December 25, Nigerian nationals, along with people from a number of other states, have been targeted for special scrutiny at U.S. airports and flights bound for the country. This West African state as well as Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Somalia are being targeted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the government agency that runs security operations at airports inside the United States.
In a statement to Reuters by the Nigerian Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, the official said that “Abdul Mutallab’s behavior is not reflective of Nigeria and should therefore not be used as a yardstick to judge all Nigerians. It is unfair to discriminate against over 150 million people because of the behavior of one person.” (Reuters, January 4)
The statement goes on to point out that “He was not influenced in Nigeria, he was not recruited or trained in Nigeria, he was not supported whatsoever in Nigeria.”
In an editorial published in the Nigerian Vanguard newspaper on January 4 the publication angrily lashes out at the discriminatory policies instituted by the U.S. against nationals from the country. It challenged the Federal Government in Nigeria to reject these new security measures imposed by the Obama administration.
This editorial says in part that “Nigerian authorities must stand up against the American posture of trying to label us a country of terrorists after the Christmas Day incident in which 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab tried to blow up a passenger aircraft as it was in landing in Detroit. Details of the case as they evolve have not shown any complicity on the part of Nigerian authorities or security lapses at the Murtala Muhammad Airport (Lagos) from which Mutallab’s flight originated.” (Vanguard, January 4)
The editorial continues by point out that “As is their usual practice, American agencies find it convenient to blame others for everything. If they had taken the concerns on Farouk serious, the incident could have been avoided. Their first reaction was to heap the blame on Nigerians and they carried on as if the attack had the support of all Nigerians.
“Our country of more than 140 million people is maligned endlessly each time an infraction involves one of us.... American agencies should like President Obama own up to the defects in their system. They tend to be all-knowing and racist in their action. Had the information from Alhaji Mutallab come from elsewhere, there may have acted differently. Americans throw their importance around enough that at some airports in Europe, those bearing American passports do not go through checks. There are no bases for harassing Nigerians following this incident. We are not terrorists. It is unacceptable for us to be treated as if we are.”
Incident Utilized to Step-up Intervention and Repression
These developments cannot be separated from the recent escalation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama announced at West Point military academy on December 1 that his administration would be sending another 30,000 occupation troops into Afghanistan. This act is being carried out despite the overwhelming opposition to the escalation of the Afghan war by people inside the United States.
In Detroit, the FBI assassinated an African-American imam on October 28. The investigation into the incident is being obstructed on several levels including the refusal of authorities to release the autopsy of the slain Islamic leader, Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who had worked with the poor for decades on the city's west side. Imam Abdullah's assassination has drawn protests and calls for an independent investigation into his assassination by agents of the federal government.
Could Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab be a pawn in a possible scenario of international intelligence intrigue controlled and manipulated by the United States? Such threats of terrorism have been used in the past to deflect the attention of the American people away from the worsening economic and political crisis facing the country.
Since 2001 the American people have been subjected to reports of one plot and conspiracy after another. During the entire decade trillions of dollars have been literally stolen from the people of the United States through real estate, insurance and bank fraud schemes which the taxpayers have absorbed. Unemployment rates are the highest since the Great Depression and there will be a new upsurge in home foreclosures and evictions during 2010.
The incident of course will be used to intensify security practices at airports and throughout American society. It can also be utilized in attempts to justify and sway public opinion towards supporting the wars of occupation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and the extension of these imperialist efforts into Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and Yemen located in the Arabian Peninsula.
One thing is certain and that is the United States government and ruling class has nothing to offer the people other than war, intensified domestic security and economic austerity. If they can bombard the airwaves with threats of terrorism, it will block any real discussion about the economic crisis in the corporate-controlled media that is heavily biased towards the Pentagon and Wall Street.
The question of security will take priority over the economic crisis which has caused the unemployment of 34 million people, the foreclosures of millions of homes, the closing of hundreds of schools and the forcing of tens of thousands of university students away from their studies due to the monumental escalation of fees and cutbacks in financial assistance.
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