/2013

Les Etats Unis continuent de miser sur le Prince Héritier pour la réforme au Bahrein, accréditant la thèse du « bad cop/ good cop » au sein de la famille Khalifa. C’est certainement aussi une façon de reprendre la main après que leur accès au pouvoir se soit, aux dires des observateurs politiques, réduit.

Obama urges ’meaningful reform’ in Bahrain - Americas - Al Jazeera English
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136611456263506.html

US President Barack Obama has called for “meaningful reform” and respect for universal rights in Bahrain, during talks with Crown Prince Salman at the White House.

Obama dropped by Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken’s meeting with the prince on Wednesday and stressed the importance of the US partnership in Bahrain and Washington’s support for its stability and security.

Salman, a reputed moderate, has just been made Bahrain’s first deputy prime minister following months of tensions and unrest between the strategic archipelago’s Sunni government and Shiite majority.

“The president emphasised US support for Bahrain’s stability and security,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.

Obama also stressed that “meaningful reform, dialogue and respect for universal human rights is the best path to achieving the peace and security that all Bahraini citizens deserve,” she said.

Teen ’fearful’ after portrayal as US bomber
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/201341975840872269.html

A teenager says he is scared to go outside after he was portrayed on the internet and on the front page of the New York Post as connected to the deadly Boston Marathon bombings.

Ça c’est excellent : l’émission humoristique américaine Saturday Night Live avait un sketch de six minutes parodiant l’invraisemblable focalisation de l’audition de Chuck Hagel devant le Sénat américain sur la seule « sécurité » d’Israël.

Du coup… l’Anti-Defamation League accuse le sketch de « possible » promotion de l’antisémitisme, au motif que le sketch pourrait suggérer, auprès de spectateurs influençables, qu’il y aurait un lobby israélien très puissant aux États-Unis (admire comment je te me conditionnelle tout ça).

L’accusation de l’ADL est d’autant plus savoureuse que le sketch n’a finalement pas été diffusé à la télévision. Hum… #wag_the_dog

▻http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/snl-lands-in-hot-water-with-anti-defamation-league-over-hagel-sketch.

“[T]here inevitably will be those who say, ‘Yeah, it’s funny, but there’s some truth to all of this,’” Foxman wrote in a letter Monday to SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. “And for a smaller minority among those individuals, elements of the skit could play into the worst kind of ideas, even reinforcing pernicious notions of Jewish control of government in the vein of those routinely espoused by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites by suggesting that U.S. officials would even engage in public sex acts if asked to do so by Israel.”

Impossible de voir le sketch sur le site de la NBC si on n’est pas aux États-Unis. Mais il est reproduit dans cet article du Daily Beast.

US legal argument for #drone strikes revealed
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/02/20132517311796860.html

The US government’s internal guidelines for targeted killings of al-Qaeda suspects allow for such strikes against US citizens abroad, as long as they are believed to be senior leaders of the group and still engaged in operations, a leaked justice department memo shows.

The 16-page document, released by the US-based NBC news television service on Tuesday, provides a legal rationale behind the US administration’s use of drone strikes against al-Qaeda suspects.

The memo says that it is lawful for the US to target al-Qaeda-linked US citizens if they pose an “imminent” threat of violent attack against other US citizens, and that delaying action against such people would create an unacceptably high risk.

Such circumstances may necessitate expanding the concept of “imminent threat”, the memo says.

“The threat posed by al-Qaeda and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat,” the document says.

[…]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the document is “profoundly disturbing”.

“According to the white paper, the government has the authority to carry out targeted killings of US citizens without presenting evidence to a judge before the fact or after, and indeed without even acknowledging to the courts or to the public that the authority has been exercised,” Jameel Jaffer, ACLU’s deputy legal director, wrote on the organisation’s website.

“Without saying so explicitly, the government claims the authority to kill American terrorism suspects in secret.”

He termed the limits set out in the memo to be “so vague and elastic that they will be easily manipulated”.

Selon Gougoule News, il n’y a pour l’heure aucune reprise de cette information (qui concerne le fonctionnement de la plus grande démocratie du monde) dans les médias français :
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/20131191816413687.html

Ray Nagin, who served as mayor of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina battered the city in 2005, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges, US law enforcement officials have said.

The indictment, announced on Friday, claims that Nagin handed lucrative city contracts to consultants and contractors in exchange for more than $230,000 in bribes and kickbacks, including free granite for his family business, personal services and free trips.

#land_of_opportunity

Iran blasts Obama for Latin America law
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/20131111127195912.html

On Friday, Obama enacted the law which through a new diplomatic and political strategy to be designed by the State Department is aimed to counter Iran’s alleged influence in Latin America.

The Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, passed by legislators earlier in 2012, calls for the department to develop a strategy within 180 days to “address Iran’s growing hostile presence and activity” in the region.

The text also calls on the Department of Homeland Security to bolster surveillance at US borders with Canada and Mexico to “prevent operatives from Iran, the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), its Quds Force, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organisation from entering the United States”.

Obama signe donc une loi reposant totalement sur des foutaises (les histoires de Hezbollah et de Gardiens de la révolution iranienne en Amérique latine, ça tourne depuis des années…), dans le seul but raisonnable est de manipuler l’opinion publique. Il n’y a rigoureusement aucun fondement factuel à cette loi, sauf à préparer les Américains à l’idée qu’ils sont les victimes des méchants iraniens infiltrés sur le continent américain.

Pfff. Grosse fatigue, là.