The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.
The preposterous ironies of President Obama’s unapologetic visit to Laos on September 6 have not yet generated the attention they deserve, but they provide an excellent measure of the self-righteousness of the monstrous continuity of American violence inflicted on the world from Viet Nam in the 1950s to Yemen more than sixty years later.
US President Barak Obama took to three former enemy targets in Asia this year.
His mission in Vietnam was to sell “lethal weapons”. This comes after a 50 year embargo of selling it weapons, and after the US weapons industry had scored billions selling death tools to its government so that it could conduct the un-provoked war (1960-75). The cost in human lives: between 1.5 and 3.9 three million Vietnamese and 58,000 US aggressors.
Weapon sales are conditioned, naturally, on Vietnam respecting US-defined human rights.
While the slaughter of Yemenis continues, the world remains silent in response to their screams. Why is that? Has the world lost its senses, especially to feel the sufferings of the tormented? In an alleged effort to defeat the Houthi rebels, a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, have been bombarding Yemen, already one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, with air-strikes since March 2015, sending it literally back to the stone-age.
… a landmark agreement that will save lives and ease the immense human suffering caused by armed conflict around the world. It will reduce the number of illegal arms …We should be proud of the role Britain has played to secure this ambitious agreement … that will make our world safer for all.
— David Cameron on the Arms Trade Treaty, April 2, 2013.
Yemen is being destroyed. A US-backed “Saudi Coalition” has been bombing and shelling Yemen for 16 months. The UN puts the civilian death toll at 3700, but (aside from the question of why combatants’ lives apparently only count if they are Western soldiers) this probably vastly under-represents the death toll by both direct violence and by the indirect effects of the war.
Nuremberg: “a war of aggression … is the supreme international crime”
Last week, the Pentagon announced the approval of the sale of an additional $1.15 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. The callousness of this announcement – just days after Saudi Arabia rebooted its devastating bombing campaign in Yemen – is breathtaking.
On June 17th, US destroyer cut off Russian patrol frigate that was fighting Islamic terrorists ISIS in Syria, by sailing a little too close to the wind. About 55ft or
