Forbidden to Feed the Homeless?

How is it now a crime to help the poor? Recently, Arnold Abbott in Fort Lauderdale was arrested twice for publicly helping feed the vulnerable in his community and now faces jail time for giving food to homeless people. This new law bans public meal-sharing. Arnold Abbott, 90-years-old said: “One of the police officers came over and said ‘Drop that plate right now,’ as if I was carrying a weapon.” He added: “These are the poorest of the poor, they have nothing, they don’t have a roof over their heads. How do you turn them away?”

Ron Book, a city lobbyist, defended the law arguing that “Feeding people on the streets is sanctioning homelessness.Whatever discourages feeding people on the streets is a positive thing.” This aloof statement suggests that homeless individuals are choosing a luxurious option as if there situation wasn’t riddled with suffering and hopelessness. The city has decided the best response to hunger and homelessness is to allocate money in their budget to bus the homeless out of town.

This phenomenon not isolated to Fort Lauderdale. This new law has come into effect in Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas and Philadelphia. Astonishingly, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 33 American cities passed new restrictions on feeding the homeless between January 2013-April 2014.

Jews are commanded against following these laws, since we are obligated to feed and tend to the most vulnerable in our midst. The Shulchan Aruch writes:

If someone comes and says, “feed me,” you don’t check him to see if he is an imposter, but you feed him right away. If there is a naked person who comes and says, “give me clothing,” you check him to see if he is an imposter. And if you know him, you give him clothing right away (Yoreh Deah, Laws of Tzedakah, 251:10).

In the Bible, a society that punishes those that feed the homeless is analogous to Sodom, a city that was riddled with moral perversion. Not only are we encouraged to engage in hospitality and acts of kindness we are warned that there will be punishment for those who mistreat guests and those in need. We see this in the paradigmatic failure of hachnasat orchim (hosting guests) in Sodom and how it leads to the destruction of society (Genesis 19): “They had beds [in Sodom] upon which travelers slept. If he [the guest] was too long, they shortened him [by lopping off his feet]; if too short, they stretched him out” (Sanhedrin 109b). They not only avoided welcoming guests and abused them, but punished those who reached out to others. “Rabbi Yehudah said: They issued a proclamation in Sodom saying: ‘Everyone who strengthens the hand of the poor and the needy with a loaf of bread shall be burnt by fire!’” (Pirke DeRabbi Eliezer 25).

It is hard to imagine any religious (or secular humanist) tradition endorsing such perverse cruelty to the most vulnerable in society, but it has a long history. More than 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus not only theorized (with little empirical data, one might add) that population would outstrip the ability of people to feed themselves, he was obsessed with the idea that the poor should not procreate, and militantly opposed any charity as an encouragement for the poor to multiply. Charles Dickens famously parodied Malthusian cruelty in A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge, who rejects an appeal for charity from poor Bob Cratchit. When told that many of the poor would rather die than face the harsh conditions of the workhouse, Scrooge answers that “...they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

In the 20th century, there were further efforts to restrict aid to the homeless. During the early years of the Great Depression in the 1930s, some western communities banded together to prevent migrants from entering their town, an episode vividly described in John Steinbeck’s graphic novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Among the homeless, an estimated 2 million people (nearly all men) called “hoboes” hitched rides on freight trains in an effort to find work in America. Perhaps 6,500 were killed annually by accident (for example, falling under a train) or by being murdered by train agents hired to ensure that no hobos boarded their trains. Among these hoboes was future Supreme Court Associate Justice William O Douglas, and undoubtedly many others fought and died fighting for this nation in World War II.

More recently, a new assault on the homeless has centered on laws that effectively criminalize feeding the homeless. In 2010, a report issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homeless and Poverty issued a report detailing various ways in which municipalities made feeding the homeless a crime, through the following methods:

• Restriction of feeding on public property

• Limiting the number of people who can be fed

• Restricted areas

• Restrictions based on spurious concerns for food safety

• Police harassment to deter feeding

One person who is behind the spate of laws outlawing the feeding of the homeless is consultant Robert Marbut. In a recent interview with NPR, speaking from San Antonio, Texas, he claimed that more than 90 percent of money given to the homeless is wasted on things like drugs and alcohol, and that feeding the poor results in “preventing people from going into 24/7 programming.” Marbut claims that he lived “for days” as a homeless person, and that he found that in nearly every case the homeless could find people who fed them up to six times a day.

What is remarkable about Marbut’s specious illogic is that he never once asked the homeless what they wanted. He paints such a rosy picture of homelessness that one wonders why he did not stay with the homeless so he could continue to eat all the abundant food that the homeless seem to enjoy daily.

What of the “24/7” programs that Marbut assumes are available to all, starting with Texas? According to the Texas Medical Association:

Texas is the uninsured capital of the United States. More than 6.3 million Texans—including 1.2 million children—lack health insurance. Texas’ uninsurance rates, 1.5 to 2 times the national average, create significant problems in the financing and delivery of health care to all Texans. Those who lack insurance coverage typically enjoy far-worse health status than their insured counterparts.

Approximately 5 million Texans lacked health insurance in 2012 (32 percent of the population), and with the governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid (which is 100 percent covered by the federal government at present), it is unlikely that the situation will improve, as Republican Greg Abbott just won a landslide victory in the election for governor. Florida (which is where the Fort Lauderdale arrest occurred), with 3.2 million uninsured (29 percent of the population), and also with a governor who refused to expand Medicaid, is also near the top of this dubious list, and the re-election of Governor Rick Scott will not change anything. In order for anyone to enroll in a “24/7” program (and in general, they do not exist and are unlikely to be created), they would have to pay thousands of dollars for even a minimal program of a few days. It is unrealistic and cruel to deprive people of food because a program might be created sometime in the distant future.

A more realistic view of homeless life and available resources was reflected in 2013 in Raleigh, North Carolina, another state that did not expand Medicaid coverage. For six years, the Rev. Hugh Hollowell and others distributed coffee and sandwiches on Saturdays and Sundays to the homeless of Raleigh, North Carolina, because no state- or local-funded facility was open on weekends. As a result, the homeless gathered in the park, but could not be fed there because of an $800 permit requirement to do an activity in the park. Instead, the homeless had to gather on the sidewalk and (without blocking sidewalk traffic) receive their coffee and sandwich. However, on August 24, 2013, Raleigh police abruptly threatened Rev. Hollowell with arrest if he fed the homeless, but refused to cite any ordinance. Rev. Hollowell, citing his religious principles, wrote: “...when we ignore hungry people, we ignore [G-d].”

To make matters worse, the city of Raleigh recently came in possession of the Salvation Army building, which was a possible replacement area for feeding the homeless. Sadly, city authorities sent out an email stating that people could no longer be fed at that facility.

Consider these other efforts to prevent the feeding of the homeless:

• In Orlando, Florida, a 2006 law is structured so that no one can feed more than 25 persons within 2 miles of City Hall without getting a permit, and can only get 2 permits per year, a law that was upheld in court. Twelve people were arrested in 2012 for violating this zoning law.

• In Houston in 2012, a Christian group that had distributed food to the homeless for a year, during which there were no criminal incidents or litter reported, was told that it could not longer feed the homeless because it did not have a permit, and that a permit would not likely be granted even if they applied.

Relief is also not likely to come at the federal level, where mandatory sequestration continues to impose cuts on all federal spending programs. In the House of Representatives, where budgets originate, Rep. Paul Ryan (who was the 2012 Republican candidate for Vice President) has consistently presented budgets with steep cuts to food stamps (SNAP), Medicare, and Medicaid (and until 2014, privatization of Social Security), in contrast to huge tax cuts to the very wealthy and large corporations. These measures mirror the ideas of “Objectivist” Ayn Rand, whose works constantly exalted the individualistic millionaire while hurling invective at the poor, and opposed any program to help the poor, including Social Security. Rep. Paul Ryan has tried to distance himself from accusations that he favors the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, but he stresses the religious difference only. While Rep. Ryan is a Catholic (Rand was born Jewish, but became an atheist), he has repeatedly endorsed Rand’s extreme views on pure capitalism, including an adversarial position toward the poor.

Every November, we commemorate Veterans Day. The American government estimates (very conservatively) that there are more than 49,000 homeless veterans on any given night, although the National Council for Homeless Veterans estimates that an additional 1.4 million veterans are at risk of becoming homelessness due to poverty and a lack of support networks. These are among the people who we are now forbidden to feed?

We have also just had another election season in which non-issues such as Ebola, ISIS fighters allegedly coming over from Mexico, and a viral ad featuring a successful candidate who boasted of “castrating hogs“ dominated the media and garnered wins in almost every instance. Unfortunately, it was left to English actor/activist Russell Brand to put things in sarcastic perspective: “America just had midterm elections where $4 billion was spent on campaigning... But feeding the homeless? That’s illegal.”

From Henry David Thoreau to Martin Luther King, America has a strong tradition of objecting and even defying laws that violate core spiritual values in manners most egregious. It is not adequate to provide meager soup kitchens that one must travel to. Many need more and find themselves so desperate that they are begging in the streets. We must respond compassionately. This law must be repealed, and the Jewish people need be at the forefront of this call to action.

Trump's Cruel Ban on Refugees Sets a Chilling Precedent

Trump's Cruel Ban on Refugees Sets a Chilling Precedent

This self-serving move may only be the beginning from the new President. If he can stop refugees from coming in, who's to say he won't also kick them out – or worse?

So Donald Trump is going to f**k them all. No excuses for such filthy words today. I’m only quoting the man whose Pentagon offices he just used to disgrace himself – and America. For it was Secretary of Defence James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis who told Iraqis in 2003 that he came “in peace’ – he even urged his Marines to be compassionate – but said of those who might dare to resist America’s illegal invasion of their country: “If you f**k with me, I’ll kill you all.”

There’s no getting round it. Call it Nazi, Fascist, racist, vicious, illiberal, immoral, cruel. More dangerously, what Trump has done is a wicked precedent. If you can stop them coming, you can chuck them out. If you can demand “extreme vetting” of Muslims from seven countries, you can also demand a “values test” for those Muslims who have already made it to the USA. Those on visas. Those with residency only. Those – if they are American citizens – with dual citizenship. Or full US citizens of Muslim origin. Or just Americans who are Muslims. Or Hispanics. Or Jews? Refugees one day. Citizens the next. Then refugees again.

No, of course, Trump would never visit such obscene tests on Jewish immigrants – for they would be obscene, would they not? — and nor will he stop Christians from Muslim countries. America has always condemned sectarian states, but now Trump declares that he approves of sectarianism. Minorities will be welcome – the Alawites of Syria, to whom Bashar al-Assad belongs, will presumably not count, and I guess we can expect all US embassies to have three queues for visa applicants. One for Muslims, one for Christians, and a third marked ‘Other’. That’s where most of us will be standing in line. And by doing so, we will automatically give approval to this iniquitous system – and to Trump.

There’s no point in wasting time over the obvious: that America has bombed, directly or indirectly, five of the seven nations on Trump’s banned list. Sudan just escapes, but the US blew a packed Iranian passenger airliner out of the sky in 1988 and has raised no objections to Israel’s bombing of Iranian personnel in Syria. So that makes six. There’s nothing to be gained by reiterating that the four countries whose citizens participated in the international crimes against humanity of 9/11 – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates and Lebanon – do not feature on the list. For the Saudis must be loved, cosseted, fawned over, approved, even when they chop off heads and when their citizens funnel cash to the murderers of Isis. Egypt is ruled by Trump’s “fantastic guy” anti-‘terrorist’ president al-Sisi. The glisteningly wealthy Emirates won’t be touched. Nor will Lebanon, although its tens of thousands of dual-national Syrians may have a tough time in the future.

But no, this vile piece of legislation is not aimed at nations. It’s targeting refugees, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The Muslim ones, that is, not the Christians. How can they ever withstand a “values test”? And what are America’s “values” anyway? It’s OK to attack sovereign states. It’s OK to use pilotless planes to assault men and women in other countries. It’s OK if your allies steal land from others for their own people, if you support Arab dictatorships that emasculate and execute and rape their prisoners, as long as they are “allies” of the USA. It’s OK to fast-track Saudi visas – as the Brits have been doing for years – even if they are members of the most inspirational Wahhabi cult in the world: membership includes the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Isis, you name it.

There’s even no value in touting our own participation in this charade. Having just patted the killer governments of the Gulf on the head – and heading off to do the same to Turkey’s autocrat-in-chief – our poodlet prime minister, fresh out of Washington, hasn’t uttered a word about Trump’s wickedness. Wasn’t it Britain – and America, for heaven’s sake – that was weeping copious tears, buckets of the stuff, for the 250,000 (or 90,000) Muslim refugees of eastern Aleppo a couple of months ago? And now, so much do we care for them, that they are being well and truly f****d.

They were almost all Muslims in eastern Aleppo, by the way. The Christians of Syria have, through no fault of their own, sought protection from Bashar. And what message did the Christian priests of northern Syria give when I interviewed them? They did not want their people to leave for the West, they said. Hard though it was, Christians should stay in the lands of their faith, the Middle East. In the West, they would merely be lost in a secular world. Trump is going to make sure they are.

Thus America is henceforth going to “protect” itself from “radical Islamic extremists” – “Islamic” note, not “Islamist” – and we’ll all be able to follow him. Is non-EU Britain not going to be able to march along the same awful path? If America is our economic lifeline, will it not also be our moral lifeline for the political buffoons of the United Kingdom? Sure, it’s a long time since World War Two. But then, what did the US do before – or after – Hitler’s evil? It prevented Jewish refugees from coming to America. Yes, even Anne Frank. And now they’re at it again.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FREEDOM OR ANARCHY Campaign of Conscience

Robert Fisk

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Joseph F Barber

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Pre-Emptive Attack Iran Bill Active in US House

Pre-Emptive Attack Iran Bill Active in US House

You will often see potentially important pieces of legislation languish in the US House. A bill will remain active, meaning that it can be brought to the Floor at any time. But it flies just under the radar. Other times the language floats around Washington for years until a “crisis” necessitates its activation and passage. As we know well, what eventually became the PATRIOT Act — one of the single greatest attacks on civil liberties in US history — started out and spent much of its early life as a sugar-plumb fairy dancing in neocon fantasies. Then came 9/11 and it was dusted off and imposed on the American people. And the United States has never been — and may never be — the same. Either way, these measures are important if seldom seen.

So it may well be with H.J.Res. 10, introduced in the House just as the new Congress began at the beginning of this month. The title of the bill tells the tale: a bill “To authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” This legislation, introduced by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), is as it appears: an authorization for the President to use military force against Iran. But it is much worse than that.

Why so? Because it specifically authorizes the president to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran at any time of his choosing and without any further Congressional oversight or input. The operative sentence in the resolution reads, “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines necessary and appropriate in order to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” (Emphasis added).

President Trump — and, importantly, his entire national security team — has been extraordinarily aggressive toward Iran, repeatedly threatening that country both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield. H.J.Res 10 would be just the blank check the Administration craves to realize such threats.

And thanks to ongoing US and allied sabre-rattling in the Persian Gulf, tensions continue to escalate. At the end of this month, the UK, US and allied military forces will take part in operation “Unified Trident,” a joint exercise in the Persian Gulf that will simulate a military confrontation with Iran.

How would Washington respond if a bill was active in the Iranian parliament authorizing war on the United States and the Iranian navy began conducting joint exercises with the Chinese in the Gulf of Mexico simulating an attack on the United States?

Reprinted from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FREEDOM OR ANARCHY Campaign of Conscience

 Dan McAdams

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Joseph F Barber

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Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister.

Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister.

 
The Intercept" - In 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate – the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out – another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.

Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely “collateral damage.” Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post “to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman,” which explained: “Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.”
Few events pulled the mask off Obama officials like this one. It highlighted how the Obama administration was ravaging Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries: just weeks after he won the Nobel Prize, Obama used cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. Even Obama-supporting liberal comedians mocked the Obama DOJ’s arguments for why it had the right to execute Americans with no charges: “Due Process Just Means There’s A Process That You Do,”snarked Stephen Colbert. And a firestorm erupted when former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered a sociopathic justification for killing the Colorado-born teenager, apparently blaming him for his own killing by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated over the next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally recklessly bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation, seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the west’s direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have received vanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.
In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S. barbarism, Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore) the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.
But reports from Yemen quickly surfaced that 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children. Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter of Nasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.

This is the 8-year-old girl killed in US raid in Yemen, Arabic media reports https://t.co/nPlWh6LqE3
US killed her teen American brother too pic.twitter.com/QP0TsgdIfq

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 29, 2017

As noted by my colleague Jeremy Scahill – who extensively interviewed the grandparents in Yemen for his book and film on Obama’s “Dirty Wars” –  the girl was “was shot in the neck and killed,” bleeding to death over the course of two hours. “Why kill children?,” the grandfather asked. “This is the new (U.S.) administration – it’s very sad, a big crime.”

The New York Times yesterday reported that military officials had been planning and debating the raid for months under the Obama administration, but Obama officials decided to leave the choice to Trump. The new President personally authorized the attack last week. They claim that the “main target” of the raid “was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots.” The paper cited a Yemeni official saying that “at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13, had been killed in the raid,” and that the attack also “severely damaged a school, a health facility and a mosque.”
As my colleague Matthew Cole reported in great detail just weeks ago, Navy Seal Team 6, for all its public glory, has a long history of “‘revenge ops,’ unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities.” And Trump notoriously vowedduring the campaign to target not only terrorists but also their families. All of that demands aggressive, independent inquiries into this operation.
Perhaps most tragic of all is that – just as was true in Iraq – Al Qaeda had very little presence in Yemen before the Obama administration began bombing and droning it and killing civilians, thus driving people into the arms of the militant group. As the late, young Yemeni writer Ibrahim Mothana told Congress in 2013:

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants . . . Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen.
During George W. Bush’s presidency, the rage would have been tremendous. But today there is little outcry, even though what is happening is in many ways an escalation of Mr. Bush’s policies. . . .
Defenders of human rights must speak out. America’s counterterrorism policy here is not only making Yemen less safe by strengthening support for A.Q.A.P. [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] but it could also ultimately endanger the United States and the entire world.

This is why it is crucial that – as urgent and valid protests erupt against Trump’s abuses – we not permit recent history to be whitewashed, or long-standing U.S. savagery to be deceitfully depicted as new Trumpian aberrations, or the War on Terror framework engendering these new assaults to be forgotten. Some current abuses are unique to Trump, but – as Idetailed on Saturday – some are the decades-old by-product of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting. Obscuring these facts, or allowing those responsible to posture as opponents of all this, is not just misleading but counter-productive: much of this resides on an odious continuum and did not just appear out of nowhere.

Congress voted on border wall in 2006, Hillary, Schumer, Feinstein voted Yes https://t.co/70y1dwH1J7 Bernie voted no https://t.co/QWcWWQZ602

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 30, 2017

It’s genuinely inspiring to see pervasive rage over the banning of visa-holders and refugees from countries like Yemen. But it’s also infuriating that the U.S. continues to massacre Yemeni civilians, both directly and through its tyrannical Saudi partners. That does not become less infuriating – Yemeni civilians are not less dead – because these policies and the war theories in which they are rooted began before the inauguration of Donald Trump. It’s not just Trump but this mentality and framework that needs vehement opposition.

Glenn Greenwald

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 

U.S. invades Yemen kills 25 civilians : At least nine women, six children, and 10 men were killed in the raid which was carried out at dawn in the Yakla village within the Walad Rabi'e district in the town of Qaifa, Baida, the sources said. 

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US Invades Yemen, Shoot and Kill 8-year-old Girl, 29 Others

US Invades Yemen, Shoot and Kill 8-year-old Girl, 29 Others
BY MEMO

While the media attention has been focused on the death of one US serviceman who was killed during a raid in Yemen, one of the most tragic casualties of the assault ordered by President Donald Trump was an eight-year-old girl.

The raid took place over the weekend, as US forces attempted a “site exploitation” attack that attempted to gather intelligence on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the extremist group behind several high-profile terror attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in two years ago.

Though the United States hailed the operation as a success, reports from Yemen would seem to indicate that the price paid by Yemeni civilians and non-combatants was extraordinarily high.

‘Don’t cry mama, I’m fine’

According to medical sources on the ground cited by Reuters, 30 people were killed by US soldiers, at least ten of them women and children in what appeared to be a case of disproportionate force utilised by the American commando unit who were sent in to retrieve intelligence.

Amongst the casualties was eight-year-old Nawar Al-Awlaki. Nawar is the daughter of US-born preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki who was the first American citizen to be assassinated in a US drone strike in 2011, decried by civil rights groups as an extrajudicial execution that denied him his right to a fair trial.

Two weeks after Anwar’s assassination, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed in another US drone strike. Abdulrahman was a US citizen said to have been born in Denver, Colorado and was a child at the time he was killed on the authority of the Obama administration.

With Nawar’s murder, it appears that no relative of Anwar Al-Awlaki is safe, regardless of whether they are children or not, or even involved in terrorism or not.

In a Facebook post, Nawar’s uncle and former Yemeni Deputy Minister of the Environment and Water Resources, Ammar Al-Aulaqi said: “[Nawar] was shot several times, with one bullet piercing her neck. She was bleeding for two hours because it was not possible to get her medical attention.”

“As Nawar was always a personality and a mind far older than her years, she was reassuring her mother as she was bleeding out; ‘Don’t cry mama, I’m fine, I’m fine’,” Ammar’s emotional post continued.

“Then the call to the Dawn prayer came, and her soul departed from her tiny body.”

Trump’s fight against ‘Islamic terrorism’

 Nawar’s violent death came as a result of the Trump administration’s fight against so-called “radical Islamic terrorism”. In his inaugural speech, Trump vowed to wipe it off the face of the Earth. Trump made no similar vow against other forms of terror, including state terrorism.

“She was hit with a bullet in her neck and suffered for two hours,” Nasser Al-Awlaki, Nawar’s grandfather, told Reuters.

“Why kill children? This is the new [US] administration – it’s very sad, a big crime.”

In a statement, the Pentagon did not refer to any civilian casualties, although a US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they could not be ruled out. Instead, the US was preoccupied with the death of one US serviceman who was killed during the operation that ended up with Nawar and many other children dead.

Hailing the operation as a success, Trump said: “Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism.”

Two more US servicemen were injured when an American V-22 Osprey military aircraft was sent to evacuate another wounded commando, but came under fire and had to be “intentionally destroyed in place,” the Pentagon said.

Social media reacts

Social media was awash with anger at the death of Nawar, blaming the US for “assassinating children”.

Assassinating children#Nawar_Anwar_al_Awlaqi
One of the victims of the American assault on the Qayfa region in #Yemen
January 2017 pic.twitter.com/zVSPRBD2B8

— إفريقيا المسلمة (@Africa_Mu5lima) January 29, 2017

Mohammad Alrubaa, an Arab journalist and television show host, tweeted: “This is Nawar Al-Awlaki that the American marines came to Yemen to kill…#American_terrorism.”

هذه #نوار_العولقي
التي جاءت قوات المارينز الأمريكي لليمن لتقتلها
وتنفذ عملية إستخباراتية نوعية للتخلص منها ووالدتها .#الارهاب_الأمريكي pic.twitter.com/1d1hGnXQzP

— محمد الرّبع (@malrubaa) January 29, 2017

Mousa Alomar, a Syrian journalist, tweeted “[US] marines killed Nawar Al-Awlaki and tens of women and children in Yemen. #US_terrorism_kills_Yemenis.”

قتل المارينز نوار العولقي وعشرات النساء والأطفال باليمن#الارهاب_الامريكي_يقتل_اليمنيين #US_terrorism_kills_Yemenis pic.twitter.com/SkTYiYiUaE

— موسى العمر (@MousaAlomar) January 30, 2017

Commenting on the fact that many civilian fatalities are justified as “collateral damage” by US military and political officials, Yemeni politician Ali Albukhaiti tweeted: “Nawar Al-Awlaki was not killed in an airstrike, but by a bullet fired by a marine and at close range. It is terrorism beyond terrorism, but it is defended and justified by a media that markets [such attacks].”

#نوار_العولقي لم تقتل بغارة جوية؛ بل برصاص من جندي مارينز ومن مسافة قريبة؛ انه ارهاب ما بعده ارهاب. لكنه محمي ولديه اعلام يبرره ويسوق له. pic.twitter.com/JnXyM9VSUS

— علي البخيتي (@Ali_Albukhaiti) January 30, 2017

Though raids like this one in the rural Al-Bayda province in Yemen’s south are rare, the United States habitually utilises drone strikes to target individuals in what many deem to be extrajudicial killings, especially of its own citizens. Civilians are routinely killed in such drone strikes that are largely indiscriminate, but justified as a “legal act of war” by the US Justice Department.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of

U.S. invades Yemen kills 25 civilians : At least nine women, six children, and 10 men were killed in the raid which was carried out at dawn in the Yakla village within the Walad Rabi'e district in the town of Qaifa, Baida, the sources said.

Obama Actually Committed More Religious Discrimination than Any That Trump Is Accused of

Where was the outrage against the Obama Administration? Where is the outrage against the people protesting against Trump?

Obama Actually Committed More Religious Discrimination than Any That Trump Is Accused of

Any intellectually honest people who care about immigration should be far more upset with President Obama’s immigration policies than President Trump’s

Syrian Christians constitute 10% of the Arabs in Syria, yet during the Obama administration, they constituted from .5% to 1% of the refugees permitted to escape into America from Syria. It is patently obvious that Christians face far greater persecution in Syria and other Arab countries than Muslims, so the statistic described above demonstrates clear discrimination against Christians by the Obama administration, based 100% on religion and 0% on counter-terrorism.  If anything, Christians are less likely than Muslims to be members of ISIS or Muslim fundamentalists or terrorists.

Note the contrast with the policies of the Trump administration, where the ban on immigrants from certain ISIS-infested countries makes no mention of religion and does not take religion into account. It is clearly based on an attempt to prevent potential or actual terrorists from infiltrating our country. The hypocrites of the left also conveniently fail to note that the 7 Arab countries singled out for the ban are precisely the identical Arab countries singled out for extra careful security measures by the Obama administration, so on top of everything else, the leftists and others who focus on the 7 Arab countries singled out by Trump are hypocritical in their outrage.

The Unites States State Department even under Obama found that Christians in more than 60 countries face persecution from their governments or the surrounding neighbors simply because of their belief in Jesus. Yet what did Obama do about it? How many Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors and actresses complained about this?

An estimated 322 Christians are killed because of their faith each month.  What is the estimate of Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors and actresses complaining about this?

A Pew Research Center Poll found that more than 75% of the world’s population centers are areas with severe religious restrictions, many of them Christian. What percentage of Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors and actresses are complaining about this?

The fact that Christians are singled out more than Muslims is obvious. The question is why more Christians, let alone more people of all religions as well as atheists haven’t spoken up about the discrimination.

An estimated 2/3 of Christian Arabs left the “Palestinian” areas between 1949 and 1967, when these areas were exclusively under the control of Arab Muslims, but their numbers have grown subsequent to that time when these areas became partly under Israeli control.

The contrast is even greater in Israel proper. There were an estimated 34,000 Christians in the area now encompassed by Israel in 1949; now there are an estimated 150,000, constituting approximately 9% of the Israeli Arab population, and 2% of the total Israeli population.

Under Jordanian rule, Christians were forbidden to purchase land and houses, and many were persecuted, tortured, and murdered because of their religion.

The Palestinian Authority notoriously denies Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem, but they not as notoriously, but equally despicably, deny Christian ties to Jerusalem as well.

Bethlehem and Nazareth used to be populated by Christians in the majority.  After Jordanian control and now Palestinian Authority control, they are in the minority.

Three quarters of the Christians who used to live in Bethlehem now live abroad.  Many of Jerusalem’s Christians now live in Australia. Chile alone has become the home to 30,000 Christians who used to live in Israel and Jordan.

In 2002, a la Hamas in Gaza, Muslims took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and fired at Israeli soldiers from it, knowing that Israel tries to avoid firing at religious holy places and civilians.

In the recent fighting, 100,000 Christians fled from Mosul , and for the first time in almost 2,000 years, virtually none are left. How many of the anti-Trump protestors are protesting? How many did Obama let into America?

In Nigeria, thousands of Christians were denied schooling, clean water, heath care, and ultimately their very lives.

Saudi Arabia tortures and murders Muslims who convert to Christianity as a matter of course, and is not exactly a haven to Christians unfortunate enough to have been born there.

The atrocities against Christians may be worst in Syria, but they continue in one way or another in many parts of the world. Yet, coming back to our opening paragraph, the Obama Administration only permitted ½ to 1% of the Syrian refugees who were Christian to enter the United States, vs. 99 to 99.5% Muslims, which is a far more direct and outrageous implementation of discrimination based on religion than anything proposed or implemented by the Trump Administration.

Where was the outrage against the Obama Administration? Where is the outrage against the people protesting against Trump?

Ron A. Y. Rich

Pro Deo et Constitutione –
Libertas aut Mors Semper Vigilans Fortis
Paratus et Fidelis
Joseph F Barber

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