Syria and Afghanistan.
Two terrible wars, two mighty destructions, but two absolutely opposite outcomes.
In Syria, it may be autumn now, but almost the entire country is blossoming again, literally rising from ashes. Two thousand miles east from there, Afghanistan is smashed against its ancient rocks, bleeding and broken. There, it does not really matter what season it is; life is simply dreadful and hope appears to be in permanent exile.
Once again, prohibited chemical weapons have been used in Syria — specifically shells filled with chlorine gas. Despite the significant number of casualties, however, the attack was not met with the usual outcry. World leaders remained tight-lighted with only Macron deciding to break the silence. This is easily explained since the West has good reason to keep schtum.
HODEIDA, YEMEN — Following twelve days of clashes in Yemen’s strategic port city of Hodeida, the Yemeni Army, supported by local volunteer fighters as well as Ansar Allah (Houthi), has pushed back a large-scale offensive by Saudi Arabia, its coalition allies and the mercenary fighters it employs. The attack is the latest of multiple failed attempts by the coalition to seize and occupy Hodeida, considered the most important stronghold of Yemen’s resistance and home of the port responsible for supplying the country with up to 70 percent of its much-needed food imports.
I would like to tell you something about human depravity and illustrate just how widespread it is among those we often regard as ‘responsible’. I am going to use the Democratic Republic of the Congo as my example.
Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the futures predicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business (1985). He wrote:
An investigation by BuzzFeed News has revealed that Middle East Monarchy, United Arab Emirates, hired U.S. mercenaries to assassinate political leaders and religious clerical leaders in war torn Yemen.
The U.S. ex-military, elite soldiers were paid by to kill those designated as “terrorists” by the UAE.
The UAE worked with the U.S. based mercenary-for-hire Spear Operations Group, founded by Israeli-American Abraham Golan, who told BuzzFeed News…
“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it.”
Backil al-Shimi is one of the thousands of Yemenis from the Amran governorate that volunteered to join a group of Yemeni civilians fighting alongside Ansar Allah (Houthi) fighters this week. “I am not ready to see my sons die from famine or malnutrition” al-Shimi, a father of eight told MintPress. Hailing from the village of al Shim, 45 km south Sanaa, al-Shimi participated in a fierce battle to retake control of the city of al Jah, 20 km south of Hodeida, after it was taken by Saudi coalition fighters in a recent attack.
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
— Thomas Paine, December 1776
