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Yemen: UN Gives Cover For U.S. Spies – Endangers Its Employees
On October 26 UN reporter Mathew Lee of InnerCity Press scooped all other media with this nugget on Yemen:
Inner City Press' sources exclusively tell it of a new low, that the UN brought into Sana'a what the Houthis call two members of US intelligence, with the cover identification that they work for the company running the former hotel now occupied by the UN. But, the sources say, security in Sana'a recognized the two and they are now detained.
The "contractors" flew to Sanaa from Djibouti where the U.S. has a large military and intelligence base. The plane the "contractors" came on was rented by the UN.
The Houthis surely wondered why at that time, with Sanaa being under intense Saudi-U.S. air attacks, "hotel contractors" would arrive in Sanaa.
Now one of the "contractors" died, allegedly by suicide, while imprisoned by the Houthis. USAToday reports that his name is John Hamen from Chesapeake, Va. and that his body is currently repatriated to be buried at Arlington Cemetery. For a "hotel contractor" Hamen has a rather interesting resumé:
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told CBS that she could not confirm the contractors' nationality but said they arrived on a U.N. aircraft from Djibouti on Oct. 20 and were detained by "the authorities at the airport in Sanaa."
He said the two "are not U.N. contractors" but work for the company that manages the facilities that the U.N. is using in Sanaa, CBS reported.
Hamen's LinkedIn professional page lists his occupation as "Diplomatic Support" and described his previous employers as the U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Army, and the Joint Communications Support Element.
Is that the qualification one needs to run a former hotel for the UN?
The Joint Communications Support Element is an interesting shop:
JCSE [..] is composed of joint active duty, Guard and Reserve personnel who can globally deploy within hours of notification to provide communications packages tailored to the specific needs of a full joint task force headquarters and to a joint special operations task force.
These two "contractors" and "former" U.S. special forces were anything but regular civilian staff. The were probably preparing to set up a new U.S. military or intelligence communications hub in Sanaa.
The UN has bungled the Yemen issue since the moment that former president Saleh left his office. It was tasked with setting up a new governance structure that would administrate Yemen and organize elections to replace the interim president Hadi. But the UN driven National Dialog Conference left out the interests of the most important forces on the ground which had helped to push for Saleh's ouster, the Houthis. Left without representation in the UN advised structures the Houthis took over Sanaa and the government. Under Saudi pressure the UN envoy to Yemen resigned.
Now the Saudis and the U.S. wage war on Yemen to kick out the Houthis and to reinstall Hadi who no Yemeni wants back in power. While the Saudis are committing war crimes in Yemen they now also occupy an important seat at the UN Human Rights Council. The UN also bungled the current ceasefire negotiations between the Houthi and the Saudi-U.S. alliance:
Inner City Press previously reported on and published the Houthis' letter denouncing UN envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed as little more than a Saudi tool. Now it's gotten worse: even Kenny Gluck who works for the envoy and went to Muscat trying to meet the Houthis was unable. He waited then returned to Riyadh.
…
The Saudis, asserting control, have told Ould Cheikh Ahmed to try to cut Oman out, sources tell Inner City Press, hence the idea the talks will be in Geneva. But what talks, if the Houthis won't talk to Ould Cheikh Ahmed or his Kenny Gluck.
The Houthis accused the new UN envoy of falsely asserting that they agreed to all Saudi conditions while ignoring the spread of al-Qaeda in southern Yemen. The Russians, also haggling with the Saudis, seem to be the only other party concerned over the spread of al-Qaeda and terrorism in Yemen under the Saudi war cover.
The UN has completely abdicated any neutrality on Yemen. It serves as a mere mouthpiece and servant of misguided U.S.-Saudi policies. The now confirmed, though not admitted, transporting of "former" U.S. special forces under UN cover is an inexcusable breach of its independence and a danger to all its employees.
Any UN envoy or contractor all over the world will now be under suspicion of being a U.S. military or intelligence agent. This will endanger the lives of thousands of UN employees working under difficult circumstances in various conflict areas.
Meanwhile the Saudis and the UAE are pulling all ground forces out of Yemen and are outsourcing their war to soldiers from Sudan, Mauritania, Senegal and Eritrea as well as to mercenaries from Columbia. After the UAE pullback the Houthis have recovered several southern Yemeni cities and are planing to re-capturing the Al-Anad airbase near Aden.
@Piotr Berman@50
[…] However, Al Manar is selective on what it reports, so right now they may wish to avoid putting Russian in bad light (they are supposed to defend the Syrian sky), in part because of a promise (my speculation) that southern Syria will have air defenses restored, or because of some other favors.
No such a thing. This late into the game, an attack within Syria with a dozen planes coming from anywhere wouldn’t go unanswered. I posted this quote a while ago, here it is again. First case in point, Russia’s position re: Hezbollah vis-a-vis Israel.
Russian elite units in Zabadani, Homs, Hama and Aleppo
[…] The senior commander explained, “Israel and the United States are also concerned about the possibility that Hezbollah could benefit from the advanced Russian military equipment pouring into Syria. As far as it concerns us, Damascus and Hezbollah are strategically linked and share the same destiny. Any sophisticated weapon owned by Syria and Iran that an organized but irregular force, like Hezbollah, can use in case of war against Israel is already in our possession. Israel is raising the alarm by saying that its “national security” could be in jeopardy if Hezbollah has this or that technology or could benefit from Russia’s presence to transport more weapons into Lebanon. Russia’s answer is that its own national security is already in jeopardy due to terrorism expansion. Russia is not fighting a battle but a war on terror on Syrian soil and elsewhere and is present in a hostile environment. Russia will pursue and won’t give up upon in this war, in Syria, regardless any possible international pressure to persuade it otherwise”.
Second point, in mid October, Lebanese, Arab and Israeli media made public a warning to Israeli planes about to cross the Lebanon/Syria border. For obvious reasons, the Russians have closed the airspace around the port of Tartus and Latakia airport.
Report: Russia blocks Israeli jets over Lebanon
Russian forces warned Israel over IAF flights in Russian controlled airspace near the Syrian–Lebanese border area after Israeli jets were detected nearby, according to a report Friday in the Lebanese media outlet As Safir […]
Third point, just recently the news surfaced Russia provided Syria with an air defense missile system. The reasons for its deployment, as explained by Russian Air Force chief Viktor Bondarev, were,
Russia deploys air defense systems in Syria
[…]”We have calculated all possible threats. We have supplied not only fighters, attack planes, bombers and helicopters to Syria, but also and anti-aircraft missile systems. Various types of force majeure circumstances may occur. For example, a military aircraft can be hijacked from the territory of a state that borders on Syria. We must also be prepared for a possible retaliation strike on our forces,” the official said […]
It doesn’t make any sense that two weeks later, after a loud and clear warning to Israeli planes, the Russians will allow Israel to bomb a Hezbollah convoy with impunity. If they allow it the first time, when would that stop? Given the statement from chief Bondarev, how would the Russians know this is not a kidnapped plane or planes about to go kamikaze on the Russian base? As he said, they should be ready for any type of force majeure circumstances. Furthermore, I am sure the Syrians have itchy fingers on their new air defense system toys, waiting for some Israeli planes to come and try them. BTW, no one knows what kind of air defense system was deployed, but the Tank-Thinkers are up-in-arms talking S-300s. I for sure hope so.
In plain English, and while there is no evidence other than zionazi rags, the Israelis are bullshitting. Again.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Nov 11 2015 5:20 utc | 54
Ah! Excellent, thanks very much for rewriting this. This is a very, very interesting perspective. I feel a bit vindicated in my constant posting about the subject – it isn’t just a historical debate, its touches how, even today, policy is formed at the international level.
So again, these attacks on Stalin are very important to the ideology backing US hegemony (which is certainly why discussion of the topic leads to very vigorous reaction from the troll here). Its interesting that Aleksey Fenenko understands what’s at stake, but meanwhile at RT even the Russian hosts are clueless – witness Oksana Boyco on a recent World’s Apart describe two of the most ideologically committed anti-Russian American intellectuals – Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder – as “good historians” though their research is seriously flawed. You can see this in her discussion with Steven Cohen, a usually reasonable man when it comes to issues regarding Russia. He talks of “East-West Accord” but then himself repeats all of the same wildly inflated numbers invented – we must admit – by the Gehlen Organizaion and the Nazis. Even when discussing the meaningful and important the work of the Memorial NGO is, he at the same time denigrating their research as he adds several millions to the numbers of executions that NGO itself has come up with.
I think people should read this article on one of the most referenced evens used to attack Stalin, the famine of 1933. This author of this paper is University of West Virginia Professor Mark Tauger. He’s no leftist – he’s an expert on agricultural and agrarian history, including Eastern European famines. And in this brief paper he calls into question the US Cold Warrior and Ukrainian ultra-nationalist interpretation of the 1933 Soviet famine as one of “Genocide”.
As stated, this professor is a very serious researcher of famines. And no, he’s not a communist for those who’d want to jump on that. He’s not a leftist. He’s got no ideological horse in the race, so to speak. And as those who questioned Grover Furr’s ability to remain totally unbiased (because of his left activism) – this doesn’t come in as an issue here. Though I would point out to TovioS, who questioned Grover Furr’s ability to remain an unbiased scholar. This serious stuff is the kind of scholarship he references in his works like Blood Lies, books which pointing out – point by point – the lies and distortions that “historians” like Timothy Snyder fill us with today.
On another related note, I was watching author Stephen Kotkin discuss his newest bio of Stalin (“Stalin”). There was so much interesting about it – so much.
Kotkin is a Hoover Institute fellow: We shouldn’t forget that Herbert Hoover was one of the major figures in the US efforts to overthrow the Bolshevik Revolution by invading Russia in 1919. Now, why did Hoover want to do this? After all, Bolshevism barely had a grasp on power at that point – the civil war was raging. The answer is surely in the fact that he personally had over $1 Billion worth of interests in Russian oil companies. In fact, these interests were worth so much, that Hoover would have been the richest man in America – richer than Rockefeller. And the Bolshevik Revolution snatched that all away from him.The US invasion of Russia in 1919 wasn’t a crusade for freedom or something so high minded as that – in fact, the ideological attacks on Bolshevism where barely worked out at that point so this excuse wasn’t in play. This was Hoover’s personal monetary interests at stake – fantastic sums.
Kotkin discussed how General Kornilov actually lived on the grounds of the Hoover Institute after fleeing Russia: I won’t go into the history of who the General is, but he was the last best hope of defeating the Bolsheviks and reestablishing Czarist rule (and saving Hoover’s Billion). When he lost his campaign during the Russian Civil War, he escaped to the US where he lived for an extended period at the Hoover Institute and wrote his memoirs there! So think about this – its an uninterrupted line of supporting the anti-Communist line, all right there in Stanford. 95 years ago, you had Kornilov supported to write his anti-Communist memoirs, and practically in the same room, we have Kotkin doing his work – an anti-Communist biography of Stalin.
Killing people is never necessary: Kotkin has a few ridiculous statements. He describes collectivization as Stalin “enslaving 100 million people” which is a bizarre way of putting it. He accused Stalin of “killing 10 million people”, numbers even Timothy Snyder won’t use. But he has one line he uses in his talks about Stalin which is very, very important and revealing. He says: “It’s never necessary to kill millions of people”. In a couple of talks I watched of him, he used this line to take on the idea that collectivization was a required reform in a country where agriculture was continuously under-performing. Notice that phrase “never necessary”. I found it interesting because later in his talk, under the questioning of the moderator, he stated flatly that “The Cold War was necessary”. Now, the link is clear – he even uses that same word, so there’s no confusion – “Kiling millions of people is never neccessary” but “the Cold War was neccessary”? With that single sentence, Kotkin lays his hypocrisy – and the hypocrisy we see all the time from anti-Communists – out bare. After all, what was the Wold War except for US helping to kill millions of people? Vietnam, Indonesia, Latin America – these were episodes of wholesale murder on par with even the inflated numbers Kotkin writes about. But it was “neccessary” because it was killing communists.
That’s what you get from the long history of Hoover institute: Greed and hypocrisy bookended by intellectual excuses for both.
Posted by: guest77 | Nov 13 2015 6:49 utc | 68
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