Europe's Refugee Crisis + Total War on Yemen

The newspaper is on the thin side this morning. The chief topic in the front section, in a continuation from Saturday, remains the migrant/refugee crisis confronting Europe. Suddenly, it is as if the West has awoke to the consequences of supporting a policy of regime change in North Africa and the Middle East. Never mind the obvious -- failed states in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan; it took scores of dead bodies packed in a box truck abandoned on a highway in Austria for the alarm bell finally to be heard,

Steven Erlanger, a longtime Europe reporter for the Gray Lady, has published two helpful stories since Friday: "Europe’s Halting Response to Migrant Crisis Draws Criticism as Toll Mounts" and "Growing Migrant Crisis Prompts Call for Urgent Meeting of E.U. Officials." The consensus opinion, as reported by Erlanger, is the failure of the Dublin Regulation, the convention that requires asylum seekers to apply for protection in the first European Union country they reach. An ignored Dublin Regulation coupled with freedom of movement allowed in the EU's Schengen area gives us the status quo -- migrants/refugees arriving in Greece, Italy or Hungary overland via Serbia and then pushing north and west to the wealthy social democracies.

The EU summit called for the middle of September (if it is an emergency, why wait two weeks or longer?) looks to create a "line of defense" at the main entry points. According to Erlanger in the second story listed above,

LONDON — With increasing public consternation about the flow of migrants and asylum seekers to Europe and the dangers of their passage, Germany, France and Britain made a joint call on Sunday for an urgent meeting of European Union interior and justice ministers to find “concrete” measures to cope with the escalating crisis. 

In a quick response, Luxembourg — which holds the revolving presidency of the European Union — called such a meeting for Sept. 14 in Brussels. 

What is most urgent, the interior ministers of the three countries said, is agreement on the establishment of welcome centers in Greece and Italy to house, feed and screen migrants and asylum seekers, and to decide who should be allowed to remain as a legal refugee and who should be sent back home.

Similarly, the ministers said, the European Union must agree on a list of “safe countries of origin,” from which people would be considered migrants, not refugees, and therefore allowed to be sent home. The ministers’ appeal included the prospect of an emergency summit meeting of bloc leaders to follow.

Certainly Yemen cannot be considered among the "safe countries of origin." As Saeed al-Batati makes clear in "At Least 13 Reported Dead in Yemen Strikes," the Saudi-UAE-U.S. blockade, terror bombing and invasion of Yemen has long ago dropped the pretense that it is anything but a total war against the civilian population.

MUKALLA, Yemen — Airstrikes by a Saudi-led military coalition killed at least 13 civilians working early Sunday at a water plant in northern Yemen, the plant’s owner said. 

The bombings appeared to be the latest in a series of airstrikes by Saudi Arabia or its Arab coalition partners that have hit civilian facilities with no apparent military target nearby. Houthi rebels, who have been the main target of Saudi Arabia’s five-month military campaign in Yemen, were not in the immediate area at the time, according to Ibrahim al-Razoom, the owner of the plant. 

The airstrikes transformed the factory in Hajja Province, in the north, into “ruins” and wounded at least 11 other people, he said. 

The Saudi-led coalition rarely acknowledges whether its airstrikes have hit civilian targets. A coalition spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asseri, told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that the plant had been used by the Houthis to make explosive devices and was not, in fact, a bottling factory.

The coalition has recently intensified its bombing of Hajja and other parts of Yemen bordering Saudi Arabia in response to more aggressive cross-border attacks by the Houthis. The airstrikes — including an intense barrage late Saturday and early Sunday in the city of Abs, in Hajja Province — are part of a broader escalation of fighting across the country that has prompted dire warnings from aid groups.

The charity group Save the Children issued a statement on Sunday warning that one of the main pediatric hospitals in the capital, Sana, faced imminent closure because of fuel shortages and a lack of medical supplies caused by fighting and the “de facto” blockade of Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. The hospital, called Al-Sabeen, serves roughly three million people, the group said. 

Hospital staff members told Save the Children that Al-Sabeen had run out of critical supplies, including anesthetics, blood transfusion tests and food for severely malnourished children, and that it had enough fuel to run generators for only two days. 

“Should they be forced to close, hundreds of children currently admitted will stop receiving treatment,” the group said.

The Houthis are rightly taking the attack directly to Saudi territory; this, in combination with the stalled Saudi-UAE-U.S. offensive (see two recent posts at the Moon of Alabama: "How The Saudi/UAE Invasion Of Yemen Fails" and "Yemen: U.S. Doubles Down, Saudi-UAE Invasion Stuck"), leads one to believe that the Saudis might be losing their grip. And we know what to expect when this happens. Total destruction.

I haven't seen mention of Yemenis among the many nationalities arriving on Greek beaches or roaming the forests of Hungary. But I have read of Afghani citizens making the trek. Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, was in Islamabad over the weekend to hector the Pakistani government to do something about the Haqqani network, which, to cement its leadership of the Taliban in the wake of the revelation that Mullah Omar has been two-years gone, has staged a series of attacks in Afghanistan.

The refugee crisis will only grow worse. That is obvious. And the result at the very least will be a series of changes in governments in Europe.

Paying Fealty to al-Saud, the Murder of Shaimaa al-Sabbagh and Obama's Al-Azhar Speech Five Years Later

Briefly yesterday a story appeared on the Gray Lady's home page about Obama's visit to kiss the ring of the new king of Saudi Arabia. Written by Michael Gordon and Peter Baker, "Top Officials Join Obama in Brief Visit to Saudi King" describes a large entourage of current and former USG officials arriving in the Kingdom as an act of fealty to the new ruler of the House of Saud:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Obama met with King Salman of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, leading a bipartisan delegation of prominent current and former officials to shore up an important relationship and offer condolences for the death of King Abdullah. 

American officials said the meetings were the first official discussions the new monarch has held with a visiting foreign dignitary. 

Air Force One landed on a clear, mild afternoon with a brisk wind snapping the American and Saudi flags to attention. At the Erga Palace, the king and the president sat in gold chairs as their meeting got under way. 

Mr. Obama was in Riyadh for only a few hours, detouring from the return leg of a three-day visit to India. Still, the fact that he made the stop was significant, because he rarely travels overseas to mark the death of a foreign leader; more often, he dispatches the vice president, secretary of state or other dignitaries to represent the United States.

American relations with Saudi Arabia were strained by Mr. Obama’s decision not to mount military strikes in Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad over the use of chemical weapons. Saudi Arabia has been a bitter foe of Mr. Assad, who has repressed the Sunni Muslim majority in Syria and who has the backing of Iran, the Saudis’ regional rival.

The Saudis are also uneasy about the Obama administration’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, fearing that it will do too little to restrain the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons. And they were unhappy with American policy toward the Arab Spring uprisings, especially in Egypt, where they accused the United States of turning its back on a friend, President Hosni Mubarak.

Still, the Obama administration has worked assiduously to try to repair relations with the Saudis. After a pivotal June meeting in Jidda between Secretary of State John Kerry and King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia agreed to join the United States in carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Joining the president for the visit on Tuesday were his Republican opponent from 2008, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and several veterans of Republican administrations, including two former secretaries of state, James A. Baker III and Condoleezza Rice.

Ms. Rice was also one of four former national security advisers in the delegation, which also included Brent Scowcroft, Stephen J. Hadley and Samuel Berger.

Senior figures from the Obama administration who joined the delegation included Mr. Kerry; Susan E. Rice, the current national security adviser and former ambassador to the United Nations; John O. Brennan, the director of the C.I.A.; and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who oversees Middle East operations. Democratic members of Congress also took part, including Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Ami Bera of California and Eliot L. Engel and Joseph Crowley of New York.

What is strange about this story, besides the obvious -- leaders of the United States, the world's beacon of freedom and democracy, kowtowing to an absolute monarchy -- is that it didn't remain for long in its prominent spot on the NYT home page, and this morning it can't even be found online in the "World" section, one has to type "Saudi Arabia" in the search box and sort by "Newest."

Obviously the story is embarrassing and needs to be hidden. The fawning tweets of Kerry and Susan Rice portray a government in thrall to al-Saud, a totalitarian dictatorship that exports the jihad the lickspittle U.S. leadership is ostensibly waging a war against. It is all hogwash.

Note the conclusion to the piece:

Mr. Obama said before flying to Riyadh from India that the United States has an interest in a strong partnership with Saudi Arabia, despite its record of repression, human rights abuses and links to terrorism.

“It is important for us to take into account existing relationships, the existing alignments within a very complicated Middle East, to recognize that we have strategic interests in common with Saudi Arabia, and that even as we work on those common interests — for example, countering terrorist organizations — that we are also encouraging them to move in new directions, not just for our sake but more importantly for their sake,” he said in an interview in New Delhi with Fareed Zakaria of CNN.

Mr. Obama was asked whether he would raise the case of the Saudi blogger who was sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes. He said he would not on this occasion, but that he does regularly raise human rights issues with the Saudi government, just as he does with other countries with undemocratic governments.

“What I’ve found effective is to apply steady, consistent pressure, even as we are getting business done that needs to get done,” Mr. Obama said. “And oftentimes, that makes some of our allies uncomfortable. It makes them frustrated. Sometimes we have to balance our need to speak to them about human rights issues with immediate concerns that we have in terms of countering terrorism or dealing with regional stability.”

One wonders what kind of "steady, consistent pressure" is being applied to Egypt where police gunned down protesters last weekend commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Arab Spring.

Robert Mackey reports today in "Egypt Condemns Western Outrage at Fatal Shooting of Protester" on the growing tumult over the murder of socialist activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh:

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry expressed dismay on Tuesday that the killing of a female activist in Cairo, which occurred as riot police used force to disperse a peaceful protest, had drawn widespread condemnation from the West.

The death of the activist, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, on Saturday sparked outrage online in large part because it was so well-documented. Wrenching images of Ms. Sabbagh bleeding in the arms of a colleague who picked her up afterher heart and lungs were pierced by shotgun pellets reverberated on social networks.

While Interior Ministry officials initially denied that the police officers who were filmed firing in her direction had played any part in her death, the state prosecutor opened an investigation a day later, in the face of widespread skepticism and the testimony of numerous witnesses.

The graphic images of Ms. Sabbagh’s last moments evoked comparisons to the fatal 2009 shooting of the Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan, who bled to death as two witnesses recorded the scene on their phones. 

That Ms. Sabbagh, 32, was engaged in a peaceful protest, with a handful of marchers carrying flowers to Tahrir Square in memory of those killed there in the Egyptian revolution four years ago, helped make her death a focus of anger at the police in a way that the death of at least 18 civilians in clashes the next day did not.

Where are the State Department tweets reminding the Egyptian government of Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Egypt is propped up by the Saudis. So don't expect any outrage from USG.

I went back to read Obama's ballyhooed Cairo address, the one he delivered in June of 2009, the full flush of his "Hope and Change" popularity, at Al-Azhar University announcing a new day in relations between the West and the Muslim world. It is a conservative speech, and knowing what we know today about Obama, that he has been a great failure as a progressive leader, it reads even more as an apologia for business-as-usual U.S. unipolarity.

Something of course that rings absolutely false today is the part of his speech devoted to democracy:

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other. 

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere. 

There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people. 

As a full partner in the Saudi rollback of the Arab Spring, Obama couldn't make this speech in Cairo today. The blowback will be felt in the U.S. homeland in the form of reduced turnout for Democratic nominee during the next presidential election. There are consequences for such a dramatic about-face. People lose faith. Trust erodes.  Better to stay at home than be gulled into another false message of "Hope and Change."

Peace Conference Impediments

United Nations special representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi was trundled out to appear before the cameras in Geneva to announce that no peace talks are in the offing any time soon.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet next week with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to try to reach agreement on a peace conference. The rundown can be found in a story today by Nick Cumming-Bruce and Michael R. Gordon, "Hopes for Syria Talks Hinge on Kerry-Lavrov Meeting." A sticking point is the attendance of Iran. This sticking point is prior to the big sticking point, which is the role of Bashar al-Assad in any transitional government. So it doesn't look good.

Kerry was in Jedda meeting with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Without anything to go on other than pure speculation, I'd say that the discussion revolved around Afghanistan -- getting the Saudis to pressure the Taliban to agree to a power-sharing agreement with the Karzai government -- and what a successful U.S.-led military campaign to bring Syria to the bargaining table minus al-Assad would look like -- obviously a lot of missile strikes. War not peace was definitely the main focus.

The shrillness of the rhetoric coming from the monarchy (al-Faisal accused the Syrian government of committing genocide) and the West (Susan Rice blasted the UN Security Council for failing to oust al-Assad) I interpret as evidence that rebel territorial acquisitions of the last two years are rapidly disintegrating. More evidence is the rash of terrorist attacks in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, always a reliable indication of jihadi battlefield setbacks.

The Gulf Arab monarchies will not launch a direct military attack unless it is under the umbrella of a United States planned and coordinated and implemented air campaign a la Libya. This is what appears to be in the works. There are many obstacles -- very little if any domestic support in the U.S. among voters; international law; resistance in the U.S. military to being drawn in to the mother of all quagmires -- but nothing in the end that will prevent it from happening. Seeing this, the Russians are probably using Snowden as a chip.