I don’t recall seeing anything in the Constitution about Yemen. Seems the feds will freeze your bank account if you threaten the ascension to power of the U.S. approved President Hadi. Who knows what that means. Can you blog your discontent of the choice? Does that only include aid of the monetary or military type to get you on the Empire’s radar? Who knows. What is clear is that leviathan wants tight lips in regard to the change in power in Yemen. Seems the youth in the country aren’t too happy with the U.S. and its meddling so they are again growing a bit edgy.
Nearly half the population is under 16. Nearly half is in poverty. There’s almost no arable land. “Oil, which accounts for 75% of government revenue, will likely run dry by 2020,” he noted.
Sure enough, the place blew up during the Arab Spring last year. The longtime U.S.-backed dictator Saleh was chased from office, agreeing to a U.S.-brokered “transition.”
As part of that “transition” a Saleh stooge named Hadi won an election in which he was the only candidate.
Having pronounced the election “successful,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ensures that Hadi, like Saleh before him, collects beaucoup bucks and weapons to do Washington’s bidding.
Yemenis, realizing they were had, are restive.
So the president issued an executive order this morning — authorizing the Treasury Department to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone the feds believe “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen.”
Included are “acts that obstruct the implementation” of the “transition” agreement.
“In other words,” writes Salon’s civil liberties blogger Glenn Greenwald, “the U.S. government will now punish anyone who is determined — in the sole discretion of the U.S. government — even to ‘indirectly’ obstruct the full transition of power to President Hadi.”
As part of this transition, the U.S. military has carried out more drone strikes in Yemen this month than in the preceding 10 years combined. Yemen is also the place where last fall, a U.S. drone summarily executed a U.S. citizen — with no trial or other vestige of due process, merely the president’s say-so.
Would criticism of these policies constitute an act that “directly or indirectly threaten[s] the peace, security or stability of Yemen”? Probably not.
Not yet, anyway. But if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t like the government freezing his assets, we pass this along as a public service.
