How Was This Found At A Temple Mount Dig If The Jews Have ‘No Connection To The Land Of Israel’
Sunday, August 17, 2014
BOMBSHELL: Allen West Comes Forward With Truth About Benghazi
BOMBSHELL: Allen West Comes Forward With Truth About Benghazi
August 17, 2014Democrats have completely stonewalled attempts to uncover the truth surrounding those attacks. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has insisted that Republican inquiries were a “diversion.” Hillary Clinton said there was “no reason” for the House to investigate them. Even President Barack Obama himself said that the issue was “not serious.”
Now former Florida Congressman Allen West says that the attacks may have derived ultimately from a clandestine CIA mission known as Operation Zero Footprint.
The explanation is long and complex, and West advises readers to plan on taking at least 20 minutes to read through and digest the material he presents.
Click here to watch Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brag that the Senate would not investigate the Benghazi attacks.
The key to the theory is that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attacks, was facilitating U.S. arms shipments from Libyans the Obama administration had previously armed to Syrian rebels–rebels who would morph into ISIS, or the Islamic State, the brutal terrorists currently murdering Iraqi Christians and other minorities.
Because of the covert–and very possibly illegal–nature of the operation, the Benghazi investigations were discouraged by every Democrat the president could rely on to do so.
To the degree that there is any truth to these claims–and they certainly appear to be thoroughly researched–President Barack Obama, then-Secretary Hillary Clinton, and possibly a large number of others in the Obama administration may very well be guilty of conducting covert operations illegally-that is, without notifying Congress as required.
The truth usually comes out in the end, however, and Congressman Trey Gowdy is both determined and well-qualified to see that happen in this case–no matter what obstacles the Democrats put in his path.
Op-Ed: The President’s True Colors Finally Revealed
Op-Ed: The President’s True Colors Finally Revealed
Steven Emerson's Opinion on JerusalemOnline's Report
Aug 17, 2014, 08:45PM | Steven Emerson
President Obama Reuters/Channel 2 News
When I first glanced at the headline on today’s Jerusalem Online and
reports in the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers, I thought
they must have been a satire: “Washington officials have told Egypt that
the US will grantee Israel's commitment to any agreement signed.” But
it was not a satire. The was deadly serious, confirmed by other Israeli
newspapers and sources in Cairo.
The US offering to Hamas to “guarantee”
Israeli commitments to any agreement signed? As if anyone needed proof
of the Obama Administration’s antipathy to Israel, here it was in black
and white. If anyone party needed a commitment to enforce its agreements
in any deal, it would have been Hamas, that has been known to break
every commitment it ever made. To pick just a few at random:
Israel on the other hand meticulously fulfilled its part of the bargain by severely relaxing the blockade on Gaza, allowing tons of previously restricted cement and steel into Gaza, increasing the number of daily truckloads of food, medical stuff and building equipment through the two Israeli checkpoints into Gaza by more than 250 truckloads a day ( a commitment is still upheld during the Hamas war against Israel, a fact mostly ignored by the mainstream media blindly committed to the Hamas narrative that Israel was the aggressor).
Remember when Obama spoke to the annual AIPAC conference a few years back and ceremoniously declared, “I got your back.” This is the same President who, as the Wall Street Journal disclosed last week, personally held up the Israeli request for additional Hellfire missiles that it had depleted in its war with Hamas.
As far back as 1967, the United States had made a firm promise to Israel that it would never allow the Egyptians to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, considered the lifeline of Israel. But when the Egyptians blockaded the Straights of Hormuz in May 1967, what did the US do? Nothing.
And in the current round of negotiations being held in Cairo now, according to leaked details in Egyptian newspapers reported by today’s Jerusalem Online
Israel agreed to make the following astonishing concessions:
And what did the Hamas commit to?
In light of the fact that Hamas has manifestly never upheld any of the commitments it has ever made, the salient question that has to be asked is why Obama did feel compelled to assuage Hamas with an assurance that the US would “guarantee” that Israeli upheld its commitments? The word “guarantee” has a rather expansive and vague latitude for definition. The most recent demonstration of an American guarantee that Israel would halt its defensive war against Hamas was the suspension of critical military deliveries to Israel during the height of the conflagration instigated by Hamas.
Indeed, for all the public affirmations made last week—after the WSJ expose-- by the Obama Administration that the US was “totally committed to the security of Israel,” Obama suddenly decides to make a promise to Hamas—whose covenant differs not one bit from the fascist radical Islamic doctrine adopted by ISIL—that it would enforce the commitments made by Israel, which in fact have historically been studiously upheld by Israel.
If Obama was truly sincere in his now obviously contrived promises to “watch [Israel’s] back”, he would have offered to guarantee Hamas commitments, a terrorist group that has repeatedly violated its commitments in previous agreements. But with his statement that he would “guarantee” Israeli commitments and not those made by Hamas, the President has revealed his true colors for everyone to see.
Steven Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (www.investigativeproject.org), a non profit group that investigates the threat of radical Islam, author of 6 book on terrorism and national security and executive producer of the award winning 2013 documentary “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception” (www.granddeception.com)
-
Hamas recently violated 9 cease fire agreements, including two of its own
-
Hamas illegally siphoned thousands of tons of cement and steel
shipments it received from international donors and Israel that it had
committed to use the build the civilian infrastructure in Gaza for
hospitals, schools and apartment buildings; instead it spent upwards of
$500 million of these humanitarian shipments to covertly build numerous
tunnels buried deep underground into Israel in order to carry out
murderous raids on Israeli civilian communities intended to kill tens of
thousands of Israelis
-
Hamas violated the 2012 Cease Fire negotiated by then State
Department Secretary Hillary Clinton together with then Egyptian Muslim
President Mohammed Morsi in which Hamas committed to stop smuggling
weapons and missiles into Israel, of which nearly 4000 were recently
launched into 80% of Israel’s population centers
-
Hamas violated the commitment to the Palestinian Authority that it
would never launch a coup d’état against the PA after Israel withdrew
from Gaza in 2005. But in 2007, Hamas did exactly that in a bloody
takeover of Gaza, kicking out and killing PA officials.
-
Hamas violated a publicly solemn commitment to its own civilians
that it would uphold the rule of law (yea, right) when it took over
Gaza only to subsequently execute hundreds of dissident Gazans, torture
and imprison thousands of political opponents, violently persecute the
minority of Christians still living in Gaza and imprison and prosecute
suspected gay Gazans.
-
Violating a commitment it made in the Clinton negotiated 2012 truce that it would cease its missile attacks on Israel.
Israel on the other hand meticulously fulfilled its part of the bargain by severely relaxing the blockade on Gaza, allowing tons of previously restricted cement and steel into Gaza, increasing the number of daily truckloads of food, medical stuff and building equipment through the two Israeli checkpoints into Gaza by more than 250 truckloads a day ( a commitment is still upheld during the Hamas war against Israel, a fact mostly ignored by the mainstream media blindly committed to the Hamas narrative that Israel was the aggressor).
Remember when Obama spoke to the annual AIPAC conference a few years back and ceremoniously declared, “I got your back.” This is the same President who, as the Wall Street Journal disclosed last week, personally held up the Israeli request for additional Hellfire missiles that it had depleted in its war with Hamas.
As far back as 1967, the United States had made a firm promise to Israel that it would never allow the Egyptians to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, considered the lifeline of Israel. But when the Egyptians blockaded the Straights of Hormuz in May 1967, what did the US do? Nothing.
And in the current round of negotiations being held in Cairo now, according to leaked details in Egyptian newspapers reported by today’s Jerusalem Online
Israel agreed to make the following astonishing concessions:
-
“Israel will stop its attacks in Gaza - in land, sea and air. No ground operations will be conducted.”
-
Israel has agreed to the “opening of crossings between Israel and
Gaza [in which] Movement of people and merchandise will be allowed, to
rebuild Gaza.”
-
“ Eliminating the buffer zone in the North and East of Gaza and
deployment of Palestinian military forces starting from January 1, 2015”
-
“Freedom of fishing and action in the territorial waters of the
Palestinians in Gaza to a range of 6 miles. The range will gradually be
increased, to no less than 12 miles…”
-
“Israeli authorities will assist the Palestinian Authority to restore
the foundations in Gaza, as well as help provide the necessary living
needs for those who were forced to leave their homes due to the battles.
Also, Israel will provide emergency medical attention to the wounded
and will supply humanitarian assistance and food to Gaza as soon as
possible.”
And what did the Hamas commit to?
-
“All Palestinian factions in Gaza will stop the attacks against
Israel, in the land, the sea and the air; also, building tunnels from
Gaza to Israeli territory will be stopped.”
In light of the fact that Hamas has manifestly never upheld any of the commitments it has ever made, the salient question that has to be asked is why Obama did feel compelled to assuage Hamas with an assurance that the US would “guarantee” that Israeli upheld its commitments? The word “guarantee” has a rather expansive and vague latitude for definition. The most recent demonstration of an American guarantee that Israel would halt its defensive war against Hamas was the suspension of critical military deliveries to Israel during the height of the conflagration instigated by Hamas.
Indeed, for all the public affirmations made last week—after the WSJ expose-- by the Obama Administration that the US was “totally committed to the security of Israel,” Obama suddenly decides to make a promise to Hamas—whose covenant differs not one bit from the fascist radical Islamic doctrine adopted by ISIL—that it would enforce the commitments made by Israel, which in fact have historically been studiously upheld by Israel.
If Obama was truly sincere in his now obviously contrived promises to “watch [Israel’s] back”, he would have offered to guarantee Hamas commitments, a terrorist group that has repeatedly violated its commitments in previous agreements. But with his statement that he would “guarantee” Israeli commitments and not those made by Hamas, the President has revealed his true colors for everyone to see.
Steven Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (www.investigativeproject.org), a non profit group that investigates the threat of radical Islam, author of 6 book on terrorism and national security and executive producer of the award winning 2013 documentary “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception” (www.granddeception.com)
K PEOPLE TIME TO QUIT PAY IN SCHOOL TAX
WHEN OUR TAX DOLLARS GO TO SCHOOL THESE KIDS AND WE HAVE TO PAY FOR IT TIME TO NEVER PAY ANY MORE SCHOOL TAX
WHEN OUR KIDS HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE COMMON CORE TIME TO STOP PAY IN SCHOOL TAX NOW
WHEN OUR KIDS HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE COMMON CORE TIME TO STOP PAY IN SCHOOL TAX NOW
Unspeakable horrors in a country on the verge of genocide
Unspeakable horrors in a country on the verge of genocide
Militias
in the Central African Republic are slitting children's throats, razing
villages and throwing young men to the crocodiles. What needs to happen
before the world intervenes?
Email
Fleeing families arrive at a camp near the cathedral in Bossangoa this month Photograph: Matthieu Alexandre/AFP/Getty Images
A massacre of the innocents is taking place in the heart of Africa as the world looks the other way.
One man describes how his four-year-old son's throat was slit, and how he saw a snake swallowing a baby. A woman explains that she is caring for a young girl because her mother went searching for medicine and was bludgeoned to death with Kalashnikov rifles. A young man tells how he was bound and thrown to the crocodiles, but managed to swim to safety.
This is the world of horrors that the Central African Republic (CAR) has become. Thousands of people are dying at the hands of soldiers and militia gangs or from untreated diseases such as malaria. Boys and girls as young as eight are pressganged into fighting between Christians and Muslims. There are reports of beheadings and public execution-style killings. Villages are razed to the ground.
Never much more than a phantom state, the CAR has sucked in thousands of mercenaries from neighbouring countries and, France warned on Thursday, now stands "on the verge of genocide". Yet many would struggle to find the country on a map, despite the clue in its afterthought name.
The humanitarian emergency in the CAR, a landmass bigger than France where the average male life expectancy is 48, remains a blind spot for most of the international community. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, noted recently that the situation in the CAR has been referred to as "the worst crisis most people have never heard of".
That is nothing new for a country that stands as one of the most profound indictments of European colonialism, a contrivance that since independence in 1960 has endured five coups, infrastructure run on a shoestring and a self-declared emperor whose lavish coronation was inspired by Napoleon. Rich in gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the CAR has proved irresistible to warlords such as Joseph Kony, the leader of a cult-like militia who the government claimed this week is finally negotiating surrender.
The latest eruption began in March when the unpopular president, François Bozizé, fled by helicopter with five suitcases after being overthrown by a loose coalition of rebels, bandits and guns for hire known as the Seleka, meaning "alliance" in the local language. One of its leaders, Michel Djotodia, declared himself president — the first Muslim to rule this majority Christian nation of 4.6 million people. What Médecins sans Frontières termed "a crisis on top of a crisis" for the population accelerated considerably in September when Djotodia officially disbanded the Seleka. Many of the rebels refused to disarm and leave the militias as ordered but veered further out of control, killing, looting and burning villages. They also systematically stripped administrative offices down to the light fittings and destroyed public records.
The US estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced – many hiding in the jungle without access to malaria or HIV treatment – and 68,000 have gone to neighbouring countries.
The Seleka are playing judge, jury and executioner without regard even for Djotodia. Last Saturday, when a prominent judge was assassinated by men on motorbikes in the ramshackle capital, Bangui, the Seleka rounded up three suspects and offered his family the chance to kill them; when the family refused, citing the judge's dedication to due process, the Seleka shot the suspects dead outside their front gate. The family still do not know if they were the real culprits.
Sonia Mackotoua, 37, with a photo of her cousin Modeste Martineau Bria, the judge killed by men on motorbikes in Bangui.
Photograph: David Smith for the Guardian
Two days later and 185 miles away in the town of Bossangoa, Jislain
Ngangaguende was among five men accused of plotting against the Seleka
who were tied up, beaten with guns and thrown off a bridge into a river
with perils including crocodiles and hippos. "I started to drink water
so I brought my head up, but a soldier saw me and tried to shoot me,"
recalls the 24-year-old, multiple sticking plasters on his head. "I
stayed down for minutes and when I came up they were gone. I bit on a
branch and moved up the river but my hands were still tied behind my
back. I thought I was dead but the power of God made me get out."
Fear of the Seleka's brutality can be seen in ghost villages that line a rutted dirt road running north of Bangui through a vast sprawl of lush green African bush. Mudbrick houses with thatched roofs stand empty beneath the trees, raising the question of where the residents have fled. The answer can be found in Bossangoa, where about 34,000 people have sought refuge at the St Antoine de Padoue Cathedral.
Inside, the white-walled church remains immaculately clean. Two delicate chandeliers hang from a wood-beam ceiling and, beyond the rows of empty pews, flowers grace the altar and a fresco depicts the sun, a golden chalice and two angels against a blue sky. But the serenity mocks the monumental human tragedy manifesting itself outside the padlocked gate.
The Catholic mission compound is a melee of men, women and many children, their colourful T-shirts and dresses wearing a layer of grime, some carrying bowls of food or firewood on their heads, some even restarting their lives with barber shops, cooking pots, food stalls, sewing machines and livestock. Washing lines hang between row after row of blue and white tarpaulin tents marked Unicef. It is a sanctuary of sorts, with a constant hubbub of voices, but the cramped conditions leave women sleeping rough in corridors, children playing in the dirt, waste piling up and worries about an outbreak of cholera.
Everyone here has a sad story to tell. Zita Nganamodei, 26, has a baby girl tied to her back who is not her own. Yesterday, she says, her neighbour, Josephine Kolefei, brought the baby for medical treatment without realising she was crossing an arbitrary boundary that the Seleka had just imposed. The 35-year-old was beaten with a Kalashnikov and taken to hospital, where she died. "I went to site and found the baby on the ground," says Nganamodei, who has two children of her own. "I brought her to the hospital to be treated."
Zita Nganamodei with 18-month-old Arethas Demba, whose mother was
bludgeoned to death after unknowingly crossing an arbitrary boundary
while taking her daughter for medical treatment. Photograph: David Smith
for the Guardian
She says she will now take care of the girl, 18-month-old Arethas
Demba, but will one day have to explain how her mother died. "I do not
know why they had to kill her. I ask that justice be done for this
killing. I don't know what will happen in the future if these killings
continue."
Meanwhile a 35-year-old first aid worker who wants to be known as Papa Romeo claims that, on 8 November in the village of Bombi Te, the Seleka were outrun by motorcyclists carrying weapons and took revenge on the population. "My wife was in the field with our four-year-old, Richide," he says. "The Seleka took her money and gold and told her to leave and not come back.
"They started to attack my son. They tried to shoot him but the gun was not working. So they slit his throat instead. What threat does this child pose to the Seleka? He is just a child. My heart is right here: if Michel Djotodia was here, my heart would destroy him."
Papa Romeo (not his real name), 35, whose four-year-old son was
murdered in Bossangoa. Photograph: David Smith for the Guardian
More than 30 people have been killed in the village of around 5,000,
situated near a gold mine about 30 miles from Bossangoa, Romeo
estimates. "I went to the field where my wife was and found a boa
constrictor eating a baby because its mother had been killed. Then I saw
a woman shot in the leg with a child whose intestines were falling
out."
What started as a political movement against the corrupt and autocratic Bozizé is now taking on an ominously religious character. Nearly all the Seleka are Muslim, including mercenaries from neighbouring Chad and the notorious Janjaweed from Sudan's Darfur region. An "us and them" mentality of mutual distrust and paranoia is taking root, with some Christians taking up arms in vigilante militias known as "anti-balaka" — meaning anti-sword or anti-machete — and committing atrocities of their own, giving the Seleka a pretext for yet more aggression. The spiral of violence has become a recruiting sergeant for thousands of child soldiers.
Everyone at the Catholic mission in Bossangoa is Christian; internally displaced Muslims are gathered in a part of town including about 450 at a school, where wood desks and benches lie abandoned under trees and the blackboards are frozen at 2 August 2013. It is a stark physical separation. Romeo adds: "We have never seen religions tensions like this in the CAR before. The CAR is not a Muslim country; it is a Christian country. We have never seen so many Muslims in the country before. They have come from other countries." Like many in the CAR, he feels it is being ignored and abandoned to its fate. "International leaders should open their eyes to what is going on. Children are sleeping on the floor like goats. Is it because we have black skin?"
The Seleka are also torturing suspected enemies, according to a 47-year-old who gives his name only as Laurent. When they accused him of trying to pass on fake money, he claims, they jailed him and tortured two of his adult sons with a pepper paste rubbed into the armpits and legs to create a burning sensation. "They put it in the ears and nose of one of my sons and forced him to inhale it, then hit him so he almost asphyxiated. He was bleeding from his ears and mouth. I asked them to kill me and let my children go."
Eventually they were released. The son, 24, spent two days in hospital and still has breathing difficulties. Laurent, who has 12 children in all, adds: "The Seleka are criminals. In the beginning, the relations between Christians and Muslims were good here but the Muslims followed the Seleka and now things have changed."
The Catholic mission is presided over by Father Frédéric Tonfio, struggling to cope with the influx and working with a local imam to keep the peace across the sectarian divide. "The Christians feel betrayed by the Muslims and are starting to feel vengeances in their hearts," he warns. "This is a very big challenge for the church."
Tonfio is pleading for global intervention before it is too late. "I have only been able to count on my colleagues in the church. The silence of the international community is like they are accomplices allowing this to happen. It's almost as if the Sekela is stronger than the international community. Everyone knows what is going on here. Every day that we delay, more people die."
The local Seleka commanders, officially now part of the national army, deny responsibility for what Amnesty International has called human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale" and claim Tonfio is being obstructive. A Chadian colonel named Saleh says: "He says one thing and does something else. We said to everyone at the church they can return to their homes but they refused. Civilians need to return home because we will take care of their security.
"We don't say this is Christian or this is Muslim. We work for everybody. Even if someone who's Muslim is wrong, we will put him on the right path."
The atmosphere remains tense and unpredictable here and in other towns. Bouca, to the east, has been destroyed in heavy fighting in recent days, with around 3,000 people – more than half of them children – again seeking sanctuary at the Catholic mission there. Lewis Mudge, a Human Rights Watch researcher, says he witnessed a Seleka colonel telling them: "If there are people here tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning, we will shoot and burn the mission. If you are still here, you will see what we do."
The arrival of African regional peacekeepers neutralised that threat for the time being, but their 2,500-strong force is still too small and ill-equipped to carry out its mandate of protecting civilians. French armoured vehicles could also be seen patrolling north of Bangui again this week but their contingent of 400 troops can do little more than protect the airport and other assets. The UN security council meets on Monday to discuss a possible peacekeeping mission.
A Seleka fighter poses with his weapon at the former Bangui
firefighters barracks, now a Seleka base. Photograph: Xavier
Bourgois/AFP/Getty Images
Headline-grabbing claims of mass rapes or infiltration by Islamist
militant groups such as Boko Haram from Nigeria or al-Shabaab from
Somalia are currently unfounded, according to Mudge and humanitarian
sources working in the area. One said of the Seleka: "These guys are not
Islamic fundamentalists. They are Muslim-lite. They are here for
prosperity and power; they are not here to change anyone's confession."
Nor, says Mudge, should this be called a genocide – yet. It is too chaotic for that, meaning that the international community still has time to prevent another Rwanda. Six thousand peacekeepers would be a start, Mudge says. "The world needs to find the CAR on the map and start paying attention on humanitarian grounds. It's still early enough to avert a crisis in this country. It's not a genocide and it's not a civil war but it's certainly trending in that direction."
Capital Bangui
Area 622,984 sq km (240,535 sq miles)
Life expectancy 51 years for women 48 years for men (UN)
Religion Christian 50%, Muslim 15%, indigenous beliefs 35%
1910 Integrated in the Federation of French Equatorial Africa
1958 The territory gains self-government within French Equatorial Africa and Barthélemy Boganda becomes PM
1960 David Dacko becomes president of now independent Central African Republic
1962 President makes the country a one-party state. The Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa, or Mesan, becomes the only legal party
1965 Army commander Jean-Bédel Bokassa gains power
1976 Bokassa crowns himself emperor in the renamed Central African Empire
1988 Bokassa sentenced to death for embezzlement and murder
1993 Military rule ends with the election of President Ange-Félix Patassé
2003 Patassé is ousted by rebel leader François Bozizé who declares himself president
2007 Three rebel groups ‚ the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), the Union of Republican Forces (UFR) and the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP)‚ form an alliance called Seleka. After an accord with the government, they join the CAR army
2012 Some rebels take up arms once more and gain control of the north and centre of the country
2013 Seleka rebels seize power in the capital, Bangui, and Bozizé flees. Rebel leader Michel Djotodia becomes president Luc Torres
One man describes how his four-year-old son's throat was slit, and how he saw a snake swallowing a baby. A woman explains that she is caring for a young girl because her mother went searching for medicine and was bludgeoned to death with Kalashnikov rifles. A young man tells how he was bound and thrown to the crocodiles, but managed to swim to safety.
This is the world of horrors that the Central African Republic (CAR) has become. Thousands of people are dying at the hands of soldiers and militia gangs or from untreated diseases such as malaria. Boys and girls as young as eight are pressganged into fighting between Christians and Muslims. There are reports of beheadings and public execution-style killings. Villages are razed to the ground.
Never much more than a phantom state, the CAR has sucked in thousands of mercenaries from neighbouring countries and, France warned on Thursday, now stands "on the verge of genocide". Yet many would struggle to find the country on a map, despite the clue in its afterthought name.
The humanitarian emergency in the CAR, a landmass bigger than France where the average male life expectancy is 48, remains a blind spot for most of the international community. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, noted recently that the situation in the CAR has been referred to as "the worst crisis most people have never heard of".
That is nothing new for a country that stands as one of the most profound indictments of European colonialism, a contrivance that since independence in 1960 has endured five coups, infrastructure run on a shoestring and a self-declared emperor whose lavish coronation was inspired by Napoleon. Rich in gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the CAR has proved irresistible to warlords such as Joseph Kony, the leader of a cult-like militia who the government claimed this week is finally negotiating surrender.
The latest eruption began in March when the unpopular president, François Bozizé, fled by helicopter with five suitcases after being overthrown by a loose coalition of rebels, bandits and guns for hire known as the Seleka, meaning "alliance" in the local language. One of its leaders, Michel Djotodia, declared himself president — the first Muslim to rule this majority Christian nation of 4.6 million people. What Médecins sans Frontières termed "a crisis on top of a crisis" for the population accelerated considerably in September when Djotodia officially disbanded the Seleka. Many of the rebels refused to disarm and leave the militias as ordered but veered further out of control, killing, looting and burning villages. They also systematically stripped administrative offices down to the light fittings and destroyed public records.
The US estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced – many hiding in the jungle without access to malaria or HIV treatment – and 68,000 have gone to neighbouring countries.
The Seleka are playing judge, jury and executioner without regard even for Djotodia. Last Saturday, when a prominent judge was assassinated by men on motorbikes in the ramshackle capital, Bangui, the Seleka rounded up three suspects and offered his family the chance to kill them; when the family refused, citing the judge's dedication to due process, the Seleka shot the suspects dead outside their front gate. The family still do not know if they were the real culprits.
Sonia Mackotoua, 37, with a photo of her cousin Modeste Martineau Bria, the judge killed by men on motorbikes in Bangui.
Photograph: David Smith for the Guardian
Two days later and 185 miles away in the town of Bossangoa, Jislain
Ngangaguende was among five men accused of plotting against the Seleka
who were tied up, beaten with guns and thrown off a bridge into a river
with perils including crocodiles and hippos. "I started to drink water
so I brought my head up, but a soldier saw me and tried to shoot me,"
recalls the 24-year-old, multiple sticking plasters on his head. "I
stayed down for minutes and when I came up they were gone. I bit on a
branch and moved up the river but my hands were still tied behind my
back. I thought I was dead but the power of God made me get out."Fear of the Seleka's brutality can be seen in ghost villages that line a rutted dirt road running north of Bangui through a vast sprawl of lush green African bush. Mudbrick houses with thatched roofs stand empty beneath the trees, raising the question of where the residents have fled. The answer can be found in Bossangoa, where about 34,000 people have sought refuge at the St Antoine de Padoue Cathedral.
Inside, the white-walled church remains immaculately clean. Two delicate chandeliers hang from a wood-beam ceiling and, beyond the rows of empty pews, flowers grace the altar and a fresco depicts the sun, a golden chalice and two angels against a blue sky. But the serenity mocks the monumental human tragedy manifesting itself outside the padlocked gate.
The Catholic mission compound is a melee of men, women and many children, their colourful T-shirts and dresses wearing a layer of grime, some carrying bowls of food or firewood on their heads, some even restarting their lives with barber shops, cooking pots, food stalls, sewing machines and livestock. Washing lines hang between row after row of blue and white tarpaulin tents marked Unicef. It is a sanctuary of sorts, with a constant hubbub of voices, but the cramped conditions leave women sleeping rough in corridors, children playing in the dirt, waste piling up and worries about an outbreak of cholera.
Everyone here has a sad story to tell. Zita Nganamodei, 26, has a baby girl tied to her back who is not her own. Yesterday, she says, her neighbour, Josephine Kolefei, brought the baby for medical treatment without realising she was crossing an arbitrary boundary that the Seleka had just imposed. The 35-year-old was beaten with a Kalashnikov and taken to hospital, where she died. "I went to site and found the baby on the ground," says Nganamodei, who has two children of her own. "I brought her to the hospital to be treated."
Zita Nganamodei with 18-month-old Arethas Demba, whose mother was
bludgeoned to death after unknowingly crossing an arbitrary boundary
while taking her daughter for medical treatment. Photograph: David Smith
for the Guardian
She says she will now take care of the girl, 18-month-old Arethas
Demba, but will one day have to explain how her mother died. "I do not
know why they had to kill her. I ask that justice be done for this
killing. I don't know what will happen in the future if these killings
continue."Meanwhile a 35-year-old first aid worker who wants to be known as Papa Romeo claims that, on 8 November in the village of Bombi Te, the Seleka were outrun by motorcyclists carrying weapons and took revenge on the population. "My wife was in the field with our four-year-old, Richide," he says. "The Seleka took her money and gold and told her to leave and not come back.
"They started to attack my son. They tried to shoot him but the gun was not working. So they slit his throat instead. What threat does this child pose to the Seleka? He is just a child. My heart is right here: if Michel Djotodia was here, my heart would destroy him."
Papa Romeo (not his real name), 35, whose four-year-old son was
murdered in Bossangoa. Photograph: David Smith for the Guardian
More than 30 people have been killed in the village of around 5,000,
situated near a gold mine about 30 miles from Bossangoa, Romeo
estimates. "I went to the field where my wife was and found a boa
constrictor eating a baby because its mother had been killed. Then I saw
a woman shot in the leg with a child whose intestines were falling
out."What started as a political movement against the corrupt and autocratic Bozizé is now taking on an ominously religious character. Nearly all the Seleka are Muslim, including mercenaries from neighbouring Chad and the notorious Janjaweed from Sudan's Darfur region. An "us and them" mentality of mutual distrust and paranoia is taking root, with some Christians taking up arms in vigilante militias known as "anti-balaka" — meaning anti-sword or anti-machete — and committing atrocities of their own, giving the Seleka a pretext for yet more aggression. The spiral of violence has become a recruiting sergeant for thousands of child soldiers.
Everyone at the Catholic mission in Bossangoa is Christian; internally displaced Muslims are gathered in a part of town including about 450 at a school, where wood desks and benches lie abandoned under trees and the blackboards are frozen at 2 August 2013. It is a stark physical separation. Romeo adds: "We have never seen religions tensions like this in the CAR before. The CAR is not a Muslim country; it is a Christian country. We have never seen so many Muslims in the country before. They have come from other countries." Like many in the CAR, he feels it is being ignored and abandoned to its fate. "International leaders should open their eyes to what is going on. Children are sleeping on the floor like goats. Is it because we have black skin?"
The Seleka are also torturing suspected enemies, according to a 47-year-old who gives his name only as Laurent. When they accused him of trying to pass on fake money, he claims, they jailed him and tortured two of his adult sons with a pepper paste rubbed into the armpits and legs to create a burning sensation. "They put it in the ears and nose of one of my sons and forced him to inhale it, then hit him so he almost asphyxiated. He was bleeding from his ears and mouth. I asked them to kill me and let my children go."
Eventually they were released. The son, 24, spent two days in hospital and still has breathing difficulties. Laurent, who has 12 children in all, adds: "The Seleka are criminals. In the beginning, the relations between Christians and Muslims were good here but the Muslims followed the Seleka and now things have changed."
The Catholic mission is presided over by Father Frédéric Tonfio, struggling to cope with the influx and working with a local imam to keep the peace across the sectarian divide. "The Christians feel betrayed by the Muslims and are starting to feel vengeances in their hearts," he warns. "This is a very big challenge for the church."
Tonfio is pleading for global intervention before it is too late. "I have only been able to count on my colleagues in the church. The silence of the international community is like they are accomplices allowing this to happen. It's almost as if the Sekela is stronger than the international community. Everyone knows what is going on here. Every day that we delay, more people die."
The local Seleka commanders, officially now part of the national army, deny responsibility for what Amnesty International has called human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale" and claim Tonfio is being obstructive. A Chadian colonel named Saleh says: "He says one thing and does something else. We said to everyone at the church they can return to their homes but they refused. Civilians need to return home because we will take care of their security.
"We don't say this is Christian or this is Muslim. We work for everybody. Even if someone who's Muslim is wrong, we will put him on the right path."
The atmosphere remains tense and unpredictable here and in other towns. Bouca, to the east, has been destroyed in heavy fighting in recent days, with around 3,000 people – more than half of them children – again seeking sanctuary at the Catholic mission there. Lewis Mudge, a Human Rights Watch researcher, says he witnessed a Seleka colonel telling them: "If there are people here tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning, we will shoot and burn the mission. If you are still here, you will see what we do."
The arrival of African regional peacekeepers neutralised that threat for the time being, but their 2,500-strong force is still too small and ill-equipped to carry out its mandate of protecting civilians. French armoured vehicles could also be seen patrolling north of Bangui again this week but their contingent of 400 troops can do little more than protect the airport and other assets. The UN security council meets on Monday to discuss a possible peacekeeping mission.
A Seleka fighter poses with his weapon at the former Bangui
firefighters barracks, now a Seleka base. Photograph: Xavier
Bourgois/AFP/Getty Images
Headline-grabbing claims of mass rapes or infiltration by Islamist
militant groups such as Boko Haram from Nigeria or al-Shabaab from
Somalia are currently unfounded, according to Mudge and humanitarian
sources working in the area. One said of the Seleka: "These guys are not
Islamic fundamentalists. They are Muslim-lite. They are here for
prosperity and power; they are not here to change anyone's confession."Nor, says Mudge, should this be called a genocide – yet. It is too chaotic for that, meaning that the international community still has time to prevent another Rwanda. Six thousand peacekeepers would be a start, Mudge says. "The world needs to find the CAR on the map and start paying attention on humanitarian grounds. It's still early enough to avert a crisis in this country. It's not a genocide and it's not a civil war but it's certainly trending in that direction."
The Central African Republic
Population 4.6 million (UN, 2012)Capital Bangui
Area 622,984 sq km (240,535 sq miles)
Life expectancy 51 years for women 48 years for men (UN)
Religion Christian 50%, Muslim 15%, indigenous beliefs 35%
History
1894 Area named Ubangi-Chari and set up as a dependency by the French1910 Integrated in the Federation of French Equatorial Africa
1958 The territory gains self-government within French Equatorial Africa and Barthélemy Boganda becomes PM
1960 David Dacko becomes president of now independent Central African Republic
1962 President makes the country a one-party state. The Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa, or Mesan, becomes the only legal party
1965 Army commander Jean-Bédel Bokassa gains power
1976 Bokassa crowns himself emperor in the renamed Central African Empire
1988 Bokassa sentenced to death for embezzlement and murder
1993 Military rule ends with the election of President Ange-Félix Patassé
2003 Patassé is ousted by rebel leader François Bozizé who declares himself president
2007 Three rebel groups ‚ the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), the Union of Republican Forces (UFR) and the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP)‚ form an alliance called Seleka. After an accord with the government, they join the CAR army
2012 Some rebels take up arms once more and gain control of the north and centre of the country
2013 Seleka rebels seize power in the capital, Bangui, and Bozizé flees. Rebel leader Michel Djotodia becomes president Luc Torres
Photographer: Central African Republic "Falling Apart" in "Horrific Violence" Marcus Bleasdale reports from the front lines of chaos.
Photographer: Central African Republic "Falling Apart" in "Horrific Violence"
Marcus Bleasdale reports from the front lines of chaos.
Muslims
flee the capital city of Bangui in the Central African Republic, aided
by Chadian special forces. Thousands of people have been killed and
nearly a million have been displaced by sectarian violence.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS BLEASDALE, VII
Published February 7, 2014
Widespread violence has erupted again in the Central African Republic,
where thousands of people have been killed and nearly a million—20
percent of the population—have been displaced over the past few months.
The conflict began in December 2012 and has seen
tit-for-tat exchanges of violence between an alliance of largely Muslim
militia groups and Christian "anti-balaka" militias, resulting in
thousands of deaths, according to Human Rights Watch.
Violence has escalated since March 2013, when a coup d'état
by the loosely organized Muslim alliance, known as Seleka, ousted then
President Francois Bozize, a Christian. The Central African Republic has
a Christian majority, with a substantial Muslim minority.
The overthrow was followed by the installation of the
nation's first Muslim president, Michel Djotodia, who stepped down
January 10 amid international pressure over the continued bloodshed.
Last month, Catherine Samba-Panza was sworn in as the
Central African Republic's first female president. She had been mayor of
the nation's capital city and is seen as a nonpartisan who enjoys
support from Christians and Muslims.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS BLEASDALE, VII
A Christian man runs through looted and burning
homes of Muslims who have fled from the outskirts of Bangui, after being
targeted by Christian militias and mobs in retaliation for months of
oppressive rule by a Muslim president.
Samba-Panza has been calling for peace, but British photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale, a National Geographic contributor who has been documenting
Central African Republic's crisis for months, says the violence is spiraling on.
This week, Bleasdale, along with an Associated Press photographer and a Human Rights Watch worker, rescued thousands of photo negatives from the looted home of internationally known photographer Samuel Fasso in Bangui, the capital.
Fasso is famous for his provocative self-portraits that
explore issues of African identity, evoking Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, Jr., and African chieftains. In one he depicts himself as Muhammad
Ali shot full of arrows.
The Cameroon-born photographer recently fled the Central
African Republic with his family out of concerns for their safety,
leaving thousands of archival negatives behind at his home in Bangui.
Jerome Delay, the AP photographer, had noticed negatives
lying in the dirt outside Fasso's home and picked up some prints from
inside the looted studio. He, Bleasdale, and Peter Bouckaert of Human
Rights Watch returned the next day and rescued thousands of negatives
from the house, while looting and shooting swirled around them.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS BLEASDALE, VII
A child is treated after being injured by opposing
militias in a compound maintained by the Multinational Forces of Central
Africa (FOMAC) in Bossangoa on December 6, 2013.
We spoke with Bleasdale about his recent experiences.
What has it been like there the last few days?
It's horrific, actually. You have a country that is
essentially falling apart. Neighbor killing neighbor on a daily basis in
the most brutal, horrific fashion I have ever seen. Lynchings, people
attacked by mobs, people having their arms cut off, people burnt with
tires around their necks like we saw in South Africa in the 1990s.
It is a complete catastrophe that no one seems to be paying
much attention to. I can count the number of journalists here on my
hand.
I just saw today 10,000 Muslims forced to flee from Bangui
and surrounding towns north toward Chad, because they are in fear for
their lives. They are getting hacked to death, attacked in streets by
mobs, the districts they live in and their houses and mosques are being
looted and burned, so they have no choice but to leave.
What is the violence stemming from?
This violence and hatred stems from months of Muslim Seleka
rule—they quite honestly treated the Christian population horrifically.
Last year I spent time documenting abuses Seleka were
inflicting, and many Christians had fled out of Bangui. Many thousands
lived in the bush, and over 100,000 moved to a displaced camp in the
airport.
Since March 2013 [the country] has been a violent pit of hell.
What has been the impact of 1,600 French and 4,000 African Union troops who are there, trying to keep peace?
Thankfully they're here but there's not enough of them to
take care of the problem. They are doing a valiant job but the country
is larger than France, so it's not enough troops to control Bangui, let
alone towns outside the main city.
I was driving today down a road and a body was lying there
who had been lynched. His left hand and left foot had been chopped off,
his penis chopped off and his throat had been slit. That happened seven
times today.
I've documented seven or eight lynchings like this in three weeks, and a lot more killings. Those are just the ones I have seen.
Has the situation gotten worse?
Yes. The international community and politicians would like
you to believe that it hasn't. But it's the most violent and hateful
environment I've ever documented in 16 years. And I've covered every
conflict in Africa over that time, but I've never documented anything
this bad.
There is so much hatred. Yesterday I was in a town that had
eight mosques and over 30,000 Muslims, but now the mosques have been
burnt and there are only 300 Muslims left there, hiding in a mosque
surrounded by French peacekeeping forces who are trying to keep them
alive.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS BLEASDALE, VII
Civilians celebrate as Seleka militia fighters are driven away from their region.
Have there been calls for more UN peacekeeping troops?
There have been calls for at least another 10,000 troops on
the ground, because you need many more troops to try to make this work.
What is the current political situation?
There is a new president who was voted by parliament. Her
dialogue has been very peaceful and full of hope. She says the violence
has to stop.
Just days ago she gave a speech to Christian FACA (The
National Army) and told them that the violence must end. But five
minutes after she left the FACA lynched a Muslim man, right in front of
the international press. It's complete and utter chaos.
View a curated stream of dispatches from recent
violence in the Central African Republic, from Marcus Bleasdale and
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch.
Don’t Believe Everything You Read in the Papers: General Amos Edition
Don’t Believe Everything You Read in the Papers: General Amos Edition
Recently, a collaborator and I fell into this trap. A series of venues reported some remarks by General Jim Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, which seemingly questioned the president’s leadership on issues of international security, blamed the current crisis in Iraq on his fecklessness, and strongly implied that the president had betrayed the sacrifices of American warriors who had died there. As strong advocates for civilian control of the military, we submitted a blistering piece to War on the Rocks outlining the proper limitations for general officers publicly speaking on matters of policy, explaining the rationale for those limitations, and ending with Amos standing at attention in the Oval Office being reminded of his place in the chain of command. It was right on all counts — except for the not so minor detail that Amos hadn’t done what we were criticizing him for doing.
Late last week, several press accounts about the speech Amos delivered at the Brookings Institute began circulating.
Foreign Policy (“Top Marine Commander: Iraq Chaos Shows Costs of U.S. Withdrawal”) seems to have broken the news and set the stage for our reaction. They reported:
Stepping into an intensifying political debate, the head of the Marine Corps said the United States doesn’t have the luxury of isolationism and said Iraq’s deterioration may have been prevented if Washington had maintained a larger U.S. presence there.We first saw the story via a Fiscal Times report headlined “Top Marine to Obama: Get in the Fight.” The article began with a provocative lede: “It’s highly unusual for a high-ranking soldier, let alone a high-ranking Marine, to publicly question White House and Pentagon policy. Yet that’s exactly what four-star Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, did yesterday in Washington.”
Business Insider (“The Marine Corps’ Top General Slams The Obama Administration Over Iraq”) and the Washington Times (“Top Marine Corps general slams Obama’s handling of Iraq”) followed suit.
There were several troubling quotes in these articles but the most seemingly controversial was Amos’ remark that:
I have a hard time believing that had we been there [in Iraq], and worked with the government, and worked with parliament, and worked with the minister of defense, the minister of interior, I don’t think we’d be in the same shape we’re in today.He’s quoted as reiterating that point, declaring,
I just I find it hard to believe knowing how Iraq looked when we left in 2010, when we left, the Marines, and then what it looked like when the last U.S. forces left. That we would be in the position we’re in today in Iraq had we had the right forces, the right leadership, the right mentoring, the right government and courage.In the context of the current political debate in Washington, where Republican critics of the president are blaming the current crisis in Iraq on our 2011 withdrawal, it would have been egregious for the Commandant to utter those remarks in a prepared public speech, much less one open to the press. And, indeed, that’s not quite what happened.
At the time when we wrote the piece, we were relying on press accounts and a partial transcript of the speech supplied by Brookings upon our request. After some pushback from an editor at War on the Rocks to clarify context, we had the opportunity to review a full transcript of the speech. We discovered that the remarks being pieced together in the various press accounts were in responses to questions from the audience, not the general’s prepared remarks, and often not in the context or order in which they were placed in the reports.
For one thing, the actual line from the transcript is more nuanced than that quoted in the press reports: “I have a hard time believing that had we been there and working with the government and working with parliament an working with the minister of defense, the minister of interior, and the governance and the rule of law, I mean, all of that stuff, that I don’t think we’d be in the shape we’re in today.” More importantly, rather than a planned commentary on the ISIS mess, it was in response to a question asking, “Are you concerned that the same thing [that has happened in Iraq] will happen to the Afghan security forces once we leave?”
Further, in the sentence right before the supposedly damning quote, Amos declared flatly that Iraq “didn’t need combat forces when we left. They’d already had, they were trained up.” So, Amos was actually saying exactly the opposite what Ollie North and others are claiming he did. The Commandant wasn’t criticizing the drawdown of American combat forces, but rather lamenting that the Iraqi leadership has failed so spectacularly at governance and arguing that American advisors at the ministerial level might have helped on that front.
Moreover, when asked directly about the ISIS situation much earlier in the dialogue, Amos described the pride his Marines had in what they’d accomplished in Iraq and added, “it was time for us to leave. We’d completed. We’d done what we said we were going to do. And actually we’d done what we were told to do.” Some analysts, myself included, might take issue with that assessment. But it’s hardly the criticism of the decision to pull out that’s being portrayed or the advancement of some sort of dolchstoss narrative.
Similarly, Amos’s remarks that “we as a nation have a role in that world whether we like it or not” and that “we may think we’re done with all these nasty, thorny, tacky little things that are going on around the world . . . but they’re not done with us” is being widely reported as a rebuke of administration leadership and an oblique reference to inaction over Syria. Read in context, however, it’s part of an explanation of the threat environment in a complex world where we claim global interests. While some of us might push back on Amos’ interpretation and see him taking sides in an ongoing policy debate, he’s essentially outlining the president’s National Security Strategy. Until and unless an election intervenes and changes our outlook, that’s settled policy as far as the Joint Chiefs are concerned. Furthermore, even in that part of the speech, Amos put his own role in exactly the right context observing, “And so what is our role? You know, I think that’s something that ought to have, you know, national discussion and dialogue.” And so it should.
While the Commandant was well inside his lane, explaining existing national security policy rather than joining the fray, this controversy nonetheless illustrates the pitfalls of senior officers commenting on matters of public policy: Amos’ words were used to pit the military against the commander-in-chief. Whether through honest error or disregard for the truth, partisans will glom on to juicy quotes from generals to buttress their own position.
James Joyner, a former Army officer and combat veteran, is an associate professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the publisher of OutsideTheBeltway.com. These views are his own.
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