Bombed into Famine

Iona Craig is an exceptional journalist with a true devotion to finding the real story, and the courage to dig it out and print it. This is one everybody needs to hear.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/bombed-into-famine-how-saudi-air-campaign-targets-yemens-food-supplies

Too Many Guns

Many people have noticed that mass shootings happen very often in the USA, and hardly any happen anywhere else. Some people believe we have too many guns, too many assault rifles, too many gun shows, and that all these weapons are too easy to get. Much of this seems obvious to many people, which is why right now there is a movement started by the students at Stoneman Douglas High School, and spread all over the country, many inspired by the impassioned speech of  Emma Gonzalez, to take real action on gun control, including outlawing assault rifles. I applaud all these brave young people, and  wish them every success.

Libya

At the beginning of 2011 Libya was still one of the nicest countries in Africa, and pretty good by any standard- Muammar Gaddafi was using the oil money his country made to provide free public education from pre-school through Phd, there was free universal health care, the streets were safe at night- a good country. Also  Gaddafi and Nelson Mandela had been best pals and strongest advocates of the Pan Africa movement. Libya was no threat to any other country. So why the U.S. empire and Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton and France and Britain thought it was just the place for bombing, no one will ever know. But they did bomb it into the store age, turned this once beautiful country into a dump, and murdered Gaddafi. This left a vacuum of sorts, and prime territory for al Qaeeda,.then Islamic State and an assortment of cutthroats, thieves, pimps, and then, in 2017, slave traders. Libya was still  after all on the Mediterranean and still in Africa, so it became a passage out for the millions of refugees fleeing big and little wars all over. Refugees never have much money and are easy prey for whoever wishes to exploit them for whatever reason, and the country was so wild and so lawless setting up a slave market was easy. Last week slaves were sold in Libya for as little as $400. And the U.S. empire looked on with pride at what wonders this regime change had wrought.

Yemen

We are getting alarming news and videos from Yemen, because there is a ferocious famine, and the worst cholera epidemic ever. Both disasters are caused by an ongoing war waged by the U.S./Saudi coalition, and most grotesque of all, with 27 million people hungry or sick or both, this U.S./Saudi
coalition, far from sending food and medicine to this desperate country, are instead maintaining a blockade to PREVENT ANY AID FROM GETTING THROUGH! You may have been told that its the Saudis who are doing this, but they cannot do it without U.S. support. They could also not bomb
Yemeni people without U.S. aircraft refueling the Saudi bombers, or without the "intelligence and logistic" support provided by U.S. military

Inuit prople

Otherwise known as Eskimo. Thee are some really wonderful, really amazing peopele.
They have lived as hunter-gatherers for untold thousands of years. All over the worlrl, after farming was invented, the farmers always wanted more and more land. So they took over almost all the best places where hunter-gatherers had been living, and are still pushing. But the Inuit lived in ice and snow, so for a long time, the farmers did not did not invade their territory. To the Inuit where they live is the best place in the world, and always has been. Anybody who comes up there can see how beautiful it is, and if they stay around long enough to meet the Inuit, they will lern how beautiful they are too.
    Now you may have heard stories about the Inuit having  many many words for "snow". This is true. But they might have even more words for ice. In this case it's easy enough to understand why. When they leave their igloos to go hunting, they find their way around by the ice, which they can read like a gps map. At least equally important, their many words for ice instruct them, and their children, about where to walk and where not to.

As it happens many people in many parts of the world have experienced deadly effects of climate change. You may have been hearing about the ice in the Arctic Circle melting, getting smaller. Mostly when this is mentioned, it's like a way of understanding how serious it is. But for he Inuit it has become a disaster. Even the elders themselves can no longer navigate this suddenly treacherous ice. They must be much more careful how they travel, and use other markers to guide them. The children who once learned the ice when they were very young, cannot find their way around at all. So they don't go out to hunt or play. They stay home where it is safe. Safe, but boring and empty. What this means is that climate change is killing their rich traditional culture.

We are now entering the tenth year of murdering Afghanistan. No one know why we keep on doing this. When Obama got to be president he started escalating the murders with more troops. Then made everything a lot worse with attacks by drones- pilotless planes operated by remote control from Nevada. A cowardly way to "fight", using remote control,planes, but perfectly suited to the u.s.a. and it's craven new president.
So here's to the women and children and men of Afghanistan who have endured ten years of mayhem delivered by the world's great superpower. A superpower so cowardly it rains bombs and missiles on the most pitiful, defenseless country in the world. And still expects me to stand up and salute the flag.

Some excitement this week about a video shot from an Apache helicopter killing a bunch of Iraqi guys who were just hanging out. It came from wikileaks if you haven't seen it yet. We got to see it mostly because among those killed were two Reuters photographers, and so Reuters kicked up a ruckus. otherwise it probably would not have seen the light of day. What impresses most people is the revolting way the troops talk about what they are doing- these guys sound callous and hard to the point of being hardly human anymore. They sure do like killing people, and laughing about it.

So it turns out they were acting like proper troops, doing everything the right way, always asking for permission. And all the brass sees nothing wrong with
anything they did. They followed the U.S. rules of engagement to the letter.

This footage horrified most people who saw it. But the problem is, this event is just about exactly what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. This is what our "war" is like. Guys flying around in f-16s and choppers shooting or bombing defenseless people. It's been happening for seven yers in Iraq and nine in Afghanistan- thousands and thousnds of times. It's happening now.