Pentagon drones help Yemen dictator Saleh

This video is called US Supports Yemen Dictator.

United States drones kill many civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Since a few days, the Predator drones help killing Libyans in the NATO war in Libya as well.

Officially, against Gadaffi’s dictatorship. Gadaffi claims the opposition against him are “Al Qaeda”. The United States, British, French, Italian, etc. governments claim not to believe that; though by no means all, but indeed some, armed opponents of Gadaffi do have Al Qaeda links.

Like Gadaffi, Saleh, bloody dictator of Yemen, claims widespread opposition to him is “Al Qaeda”. What they disbelieve in Gadaffi’s propaganda, the Pentagon are extremely ready to believe in Saleh’s propaganda.

Today, United States Predator drones have attacked South Yemen. South Yemen, by the way, has a history of secular Leftist, not religious fundamentalist, opposition to Saleh.

John Dear, Truthout: “Guilty! My friends and I have tried every legal means possible to stop our government from its terrorist, drone bombing attacks on civilians in Afghanistan, and so we journeyed to the drone headquarters at Creech AFB near Las Vegas on Holy Thursday to kneel in prayer and beg for an end to the bombings. This nonviolent intervention is determined to be criminal – not the regular drone bombing attacks on children in Afghanistan and Pakistan”: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Yemen leader agrees to quit

Sunday 24 April 2011

by Our Foreign Desk

Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to a proposal by Gulf Arab mediators to step down within 30 days and hand power to his deputy in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

A coalition of seven opposition parties said on Saturday that they also accepted the deal but with reservations.

However, those parties do not speak for all of the hundreds of thousands of protesters.

Signs were already emerging that a deal on those terms would not end confrontations in the streets.

A day earlier, protesters had staged the largest of two months of demonstrations, filling a five-lane road across the capital with a sea of hundreds of thousands of people.

Day after day of protests have presented a huge display of defiance in the face of a crackdown that has included sniper attacks and killed more than 130 people.

The six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council has been seeking to broker an end to the crisis in the fragile nation on the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula.

Under the latest draft, Yemen’s parliament would grant President Saleh legal protection from prosecution.

The president would submit his resignation to MPs within 30 days and hand power to his vice-president, who would call for new presidential elections.

Opposition spokesman Mohammed Kahtan accepted the deal but rejected the call for the formation of a national unity government within seven days of the signing of a deal and wants to see Mr Saleh step down first.

A spokesman for the youth movement that has been one of the key organisers of street protests said any deal that protects the president from prosecution was unacceptable.

State TV announced the president’s acceptance and said Yemen’s foreign minister had delivered the government’s response to mediators on Saturday.

Protests continued throughout the day and expanded to include a general strike.

Schools, government offices and private companies shut their doors in response to the Yemeni opposition’s call for a strike.

Thousands of protesters kept up sit-ins at city squares in at least five provinces, while Saleh accused the opposition of “dragging the country into a civil war” in a televised speech to a military academy.

Antonia Darder, Truthout: “As the uprisings are spreading around the world and in the United States, there are many who feel fear, reticence and intense skittishness about what is transpiring. Yet, this anxiety, rather than surprising, is well cultivated by the contemporary hegemonic forces that govern our lives. What is most important for us to understand is that we, as a people, are most conditioned to fear when populations reclaim their social agency and collective power and rise up against the unjust policies of the state”: here.

Pakistan: Thousands march against US [drone] strikes: here.

Yemen’s other crisis – the daily struggle for food: here.