Antiwar.com Weekly Newsletter for February 16, 2021

Your source for foreign policy news. 

February 16th, 2021

UN: At Least 400,000 Yemeni Children Under Five Could Starve to Death in 2021

The UN warned on Friday that at least 400,000 children in Yemen could die of starvation this year if the war doesn't end and aid does not reach areas suffering severe food shortages.

A report released by four UN agencies projected that acute malnutrition in the country will rise by 22 percent from 2020, and 2.3 million children will endure acute malnutrition, with one out of six - 400,000 - expected to die if conditions don't change. The report said about 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women in Yemen could also face acute malnutrition.

The report was issued by the World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. "These numbers are yet another cry for help from Yemen, where each malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive," said David Beasley, the head of the WFP.

By Dave DeCamp

Iran Restates Pledge That it Does Not Seek Nuclear Weapons

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh restated on Monday that Tehran's official policy prohibits the development of nuclear weapons. His comments came after Iran's intelligence minister suggested pressure from the US could cause Iran to consider a different policy.

"Iran's position remains unchanged. Iran's nuclear activities have always been peaceful and will remain peaceful," Khatibzadeh said. "The supreme leader's fatwa banning weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons is still valid," he said, referring to a religious edict from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Last week, Iran's Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi made comments that were taken by Western and Israeli media as a "threat" that Iran is considering making a nuclear weapon. But even in his remarks, Alavi repeated that nuclear weapons were prohibited by Khamenei.

By Dave DeCamp

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Barack Obama's War on a Free Press

U.S. presidents have had a long, dishonorable history of trying to undermine the First Amendment, especially freedom of the press. Woodrow Wilson's brutal suppression of critics, primarily through prosecutions under the Espionage Act of 1917, remains the most odious example, but it's hardly the only one. During the late 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt harassed activists, including members of the press, who sought to keep the United States out of the war raging in Europe. Richard Nixon went to great lengths attempting to prevent the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers because those documents exposed how US policymakers repeatedly lied to Congress and the American people about the Vietnam War.

Fortunately, the US Supreme Court rebuffed the Nixon administration's bid to legitimize prior restraint, but the ruling offered no clear prohibition against efforts to punish journalists and their sources after news stories are published using leaked classified materials.

By Ted Galen Carpenter

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Taliban Controls 52% of Afghanistan's Territory

With hopes that the 2020 US peace deal and intra-Afghan peace talks might ultimately end decades of war, some uncomfortable facts remain, raising the question of who controls Afghanistan anymore.
The US would insist the Ghani government is the lawfully elected government there, but the facts on the ground show that the Taliban physically control 52% of the country, compared to only 48% in government hands.
That's a staggering amount when one considers that the Taliban has been fighting 20 solid years of war with both the would-be government and NATO. It would be hard to imagine that people living in Taliban territory wouldn't feel that the Taliban, who was the Afghan government before the 2001 invasion, is effectively still in charge.

By Jason Ditz

Same as the Old Boss, Julian Assange Edition

On February 9, the US Justice Department announced that US President Joe Biden, as in so many other areas, intends to serve Donald Trump's second term when it comes to persecuting heroes guilty of exposing US war crimes and embarrassing American politicians.

As Trump's presidency drew to an end, some activists held out hope that he'd pardon political prisoner Julian Assange, whose incarceration at the hands of the Swedish, British, and US governments has, according to the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, gone on for more than a decade now (between British prisons and de facto house arrest in Ecuador's London embassy). No dice. Trump handed out plenty of pardons to political cronies, but left Assange in stir.

By Thomas Knapp

Rocket Attack Hits US Base in Iraqi Kurdistan, One Contractor Killed

Multiple rockets hit a US military base and a nearby airport in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on Monday night. Initial reports say one civilian contractor was killed, five others were wounded, and one US soldier was also wounded. Two other civilians were wounded outside of the base, according to local security officials.

A US military spokesman said more details will follow, and the nationality of the contractor that was killed is not clear at this time. The attack also impacted the Chinese consulate in Erbil.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement on the incident. "We are outraged by today's rocket attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region," he said. Blinken did not attribute blame and added that he discussed the attack with Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.

By Dave DeCamp

Why Victoria Nuland Is Dangerous and Should Not Be Confirmed

Alan Macleod on the Social Media Giants in Bed With Big Government

Washington Should Put the American People First: No One Has the Right To Be a US Ally

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