Yemen Breaking: "Islamic Militants" Occupy the New York Times

Photo: Hani Mohammad (AP)UPDATE 1930 GMT: The Times has an article with a different approach this afternoon, "Yemen Battles Opponents on Two Fronts". While the reference to "Islamist militants" remains, this at least is set alongside the developments in Taiz:

"The Yemeni government ratcheted up its violent response to opponents on two fronts Monday, pounding a major coastal city with airstrikes aimed at dislodging Islamic militants, and smashing the country’s largest antigovernment demonstration in overnight clashes that killed more than a dozen protesters, according to witnesses reached by phone."

So what happens to the priorities of "Western" reporting when the spectre of "Islamist militants" arises?

Exhibit A from The New York Times, which headlines on the occupation of Zinjibar in Yemen by 300 insurgents, "Islamists Seize a Yemeni City, Stoking Fears". (The lead photograph (see left) of armed men is not actually of "Islamists" in Zinjibar, but of "tribesman" in the capital Sana'a, if you can read the small-font caption.)

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Yemen, Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Ceasefire?

2055 GMT: Another clip of protest in Morocco today --- at the end of the footage, the marchers flee from security forces:

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Pakistan Latest: Taliban Revenge for bin Laden --- Attack on Naval Base Kills At Least 8 (Dawn)

Taliban militants assaulted the headquarters of Pakistan’s naval air force, battling on Monday security forces in the most brazen attack in the unstable, nuclear-armed country since the killing of Osama bin Laden, killing eight people, injuring 16 others and blowing up at least two military aircraft. 

The dead include seven navy officials and one Ranger.

Blasts rang out and helicopters hovered above the PNS Mehran base near Shahrah-e-Faisal almost 12 hours after more than 20 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants stormed the heavily guarded building with guns and grenades, blowing up at least one aircraft and casting doubt on the military’s ability to protect its installations.

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US-Israel Video & Transcript: President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu Speak to Press

Video and transcript of the remarks by US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after their meeting in the White House today:

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Well, let me, first of all, welcome again Prime Minister Netanyahu, who I think has now been here seven times during the course of my presidency.  And I want to indicate that the frequency of these meetings is an indication of the extraordinary bonds between our two countries, as is the opportunity for the Prime Minister to address Congress during his visit here.

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Middle East Video and Transcript: The Obama Speech

See also Middle East Special: Live Analysis of Obama Speech as It is Delivered

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Please, have a seat.  Thank you very much.  I want to begin by thanking Hillary Clinton, who has traveled so much these last six months that she is approaching a new landmark -- one million frequent flyer miles.  (Laughter.)  I count on Hillary every single day, and I believe that she will go down as one of the finest Secretaries of State in our nation’s history.

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Pakistan Latest: Tehrik-e-Taliban Kill More than 80 in "Revenge for Bin Laden Death"

Photo: AFPThe Tehrik-e-Taliban on Friday claimed their first major strike in revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death as more than 80 people were killed and at least 115 were wounded in a suicide and bomb attack on FC personnel.

“This was the first revenge for Osama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

It was the deadliest attack in the nuclear-armed country this year and came with Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership plunged into crisis over the killing of the al Qaeda chief by US commandos on May 2.

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: He Didn't Change the Arab World --- He Changed "America" (Engelhardt)

Bin Laden’s greatest wizardry was performed on us, not on the Arab world, where the movements he spawned from Yemen to North Africa have proven remarkably peripheral and unimportant.  He helped open us up to all the nightmares we could visit upon ourselves (and others) -- from torture and the creation of an offshore archipelago of injustice to the locking down of our own American world, where we were to cower in terror, while lashing out militarily.

In many ways, he broke us not on 9/11 but in the months and years after.

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: The Crisis in Pakistan (Zaidi)

Bombing in Lahore, December 2009Could it actually be that Pakistan is now so bereft of capacity that it cannot defend itself against a ragtag set of ruffians and thugs who use teenaged boys as human missiles? Or alternatively, could it be that Pakistan is now so far off the moral deep-end that it knowingly and deliberately assists and enables the world’s most wanted terrorists, despite making claims to the contrary?

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The Death of Osama Bin Laden: EA's Coverage

7 MAY

Sean Foley looks at the little-noted effect of this week's events: "Bin Laden Feature: Why The Significance of His Death May Be in East Asia"

Steve Hewitt offers a perspective on why the Al Qa'eda leader spent the last years of his life in the town of Abbottabad: "Bin Laden Feature: How US Drones Drove Osama to His Final Location"

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: Reflections on the Killing of a Terrorist...and Our Celebration of It (Jackson)

The killing of bin Laden, and the obvious delight and celebrations it provoked, should make us question what kind of society we really are that we openly rejoice in killing and violence --- do we consider an eye for an eye, a life for a life, blood for blood, as "justice"? What kind of people are we that we can exult without a thought for the hundreds of thousands of victims of that "justice"?  And what kind of a society are we that we shrug off and excuse the fact that a man was officially killed without trial and his body thrown into the sea, that international law was flouted, that we have denied the victims of 9/11 the opportunity to confront their attacker in a court of law, and that we have made an exception to our deepest values and rules?

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