Yemen: Today’s Guernica

by CESAR CHELALA

Photo by Felton Davis | CC BY 2.0

On the market day of April 26, 1937, at the bequest of General Francisco Franco, a bombing of the Basque town of Guernica took place. It was carried out by Spain’s nationalistic government allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria. The attack, under the code name Operation Rügen, in which hundreds of people died, became a rallying cry against the brutal killing of innocent civilians. 80 years later, however, an even more criminal action is carried out against Yemeni civilians mainly by Saudi Arabia, with the complicity of the United States.

The Yemeni civil war began in 2015 between two factions that claim to represent the Yemeni government. Houthi soldiers allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, clashed with forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched military operations against the Houthis, and the U.S. provided logistical and military support for the campaign.

The Houthi rebels make up almost a third of Yemen, and have ruled the country for hundreds of years. Since the beginning of the hostilities, the Houthis advance to the south of Yemen has met with the constant bombardment by Saudi Arabia and its allies, resulting in a dramatic humanitarian crisis. Thousands of people have been killed, many of them civilians, and thousands more have been forced to leave their homes and are desperately trying to find food and potable water.

Contaminated water as a result of an almost total sanitation breakdown has provoked a cholera outbreak considered the worst in history. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported more than 815,000 suspected cases and 2,156 deaths. At the current rate of infection, experts estimate that the number of cases will reach seven figures by the end of the year. Presently, almost 20 million Yemenis –more than two-thirds of the population- do not have access to clean water and sanitation.

Since the beginning of the conflict, the emergency health-care needs of the population have been so great that health care workers are unable to provide even basic medical care. When fighting intensified in some areas, there were no formal rescue services so residents and relatives had to dig out their loved ones from the rubble of damaged buildings.

An Amnesty International report, “Yemen: The Forgotten War” describes the consequences of the attacks carried out by Saudi Arabia’s coalition: more than 4,600 civilians killed and over 8,000 injured; three million people forced out of their homes, 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance including food, water, shelter, fuel and sanitation and two million children out of school.

The flow of arms however, continues, unabated. “The irresponsible and unlawful flow of arms to the warring parties in Yemen has directly contributed to civilian suffering on a massive scale,” declared James Lynch, from Amnesty International. As Iran continues its support of the Houthis’ ragtag army, reports indicate that Saudi Arabia will purchase $7 billion worth of arms from the U.S.

In the meantime, health facilities continue to be hit by bombs and health and humanitarian workers are increasingly targeted. In a scene out of Guernica, Amal Sabri, a resident of Mokha, a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen, described a Saudi Arabia airstrike which killed at least 63 civilians, “It was like something out of Judgment Day. Corpses and heads scattered, engulfed by fire and ashes.”

In Yemen today, world powers have not yet learned the lesson from Guernica.

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Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America award for the article “Missing or Disappeared in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims.”

On Black Friday, the Hologram Is Revealed

Today’s Teresas are driven to ecstasy by commodities

W.J. Astore

It’s Black Friday: shop ’til you drop!  I watch my share of TV (mainly sports), and this week I’ve been subjected to a bumper crop of commercials showing me that my happiness–even my life–depends on buying more and more stuff.  People on these commercials experience paroxysms of pleasure when they save a few dollars on sweaters or shoes or electronic gizmos (probably all made in China).  Thank goodness I stopped watching morning “news” shows and other infotainment, which simply reinforce the drive to consume like gormless zombies.

Speaking of zombies, my favorite scene from the “Walking Dead” series came in Season 1 when our intrepid heroes are hiding in a department store among the racks of merchandise as hordes of zombies press against the doors, fighting desperately to gain access so they can consume some choice brains.  What a telling visual metaphor for brainless consumption!

As usual, Joe Bageant knew the score.  If you haven’t read his work, I strongly urge you to read “Deer Hunting with Jesus” or “Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball.”  From the latter:

In effect, the economic superstate generates a superhologram that offers only one channel–the shopping channel–and one sanctioned collective national experience in which every aspect is monetized and reduced to a consumer transaction.  The economy becomes our life, our religion, and we are transfigured in its observance.  In the absence of the sacred, buying becomes a spiritual act conducted by satellites in outer space via bank transfers.  All things are purchasable and, indeed, access to anything of value is through purchase–even mood and consciousness, through psychopharmacology, to suppress our anxiety or enhance sexual performance, or cyberspace linkups to porn, palaver, and purchasing opportunities.  But, most of all, the hologram generates and guides us.

Through advertising and marketing, the hologram combs the fields of instinct and human desire, arranging our wants and fears in the direction of commodities or institutions.  No longer are advertising and marketing merely propaganda, which is all but dead.  Digitally mediated brain experience now works far below the crude propaganda zone of influence, deep in the swamps of the limbic brain, reengineering and reshaping the realms of subjective human experience…

Now, as walking advertisements for Nike and the Gap or Jenny Craig, and living by the grace of our Visa cards, we have become the artificial collective product of our corporately “administrated” modern state economy.  Which makes us property of the government.

Bageant, from another essay: “The media have colonized our inner lives like a virus.  The virus is not going away. The commoditization of our human consciousness is probably the most astounding, most chilling, accomplishment of American culture.”

Amen, Joe.  One thing that strikes me from the commercials I’ve seen: the depictions of people as they purchase that commodity they hold so dearly.  Their expressions are akin to religious or sexual ecstasy.  The message is simple: Here is your god.  Here is your loved one.  Here is your life. This commodity–buy it–now.  Rapture!

https://bracingviews.com/2013/11/29/on-black-friday-the-hologram-is-revealed/

America's $20 trillion debt 'should keep people awake at night'

Published time: 30 Nov, 2017 09:35

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© Carlos Barria / Reuters

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Americans shouldn’t forget their country owes the biggest debt in history, warns the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.

"I would simply say that I am very worried about the sustainability of the US debt trajectory. Our current debt-to-GDP ratio of about 75 percent is not frightening, but it's also not low,"Yellen said.

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US debt surpasses historic $20 trillion

"It's the type of thing that should keep people awake at night," she added.

US debt now stands at $20.6 trillion and rising. Of that total, $14.9 trillion is owed by the public. It is the highest level of public debt since World War II.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that if current laws stand, widening budget deficits will increase the debt sharply in the next 30 years. The deficit would reach 150 percent of GDP by 2047.

Yellen’s comments come at a time the US Republican party is proposing a tax reform plan that would cost the budget $1.5 trillion.

The US Democrats have been criticizing President Donald Trump, warning about the growing debt. However, the debt almost doubled under the administration of Democrat Barack Obama.

According to USDebtclock.org, when Obama entered the Oval office in 2008, the national debt stood at $10.7 trillion. It increased 86 percent to almost $20 trillion when he left.

However, the total US debt, which is the combination of government, business, mortgage, and consumer debt is approaching $70 trillion. It was $2.2 trillion less than fifty years ago.

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US Arms Makers Sold $42 Billion in Weapons Overseas in 2017

Sales Up Nearly $10 Billion From Previous Year

Jason Ditz 

Posted onNovember 29, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsPentagon

Continuing to brag that the US is the “global provider of choice” for arms, Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) Director Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper has issued a statement reporting that the US sold in the realm of $42 billion in weapons to the rest of the world in 2017.

That’s a $10 billion increase over sales the previous years, with the overwhelming majority of the sales taking place in the Middle East, but the Indo-Pacific region also seeing a substantial increase.

Hooper said the US advantage was not just in the arms themselves, but in the provision of training and maintenance capabilities for customers, who he labeled “partners.” He added that he expects the positive sales trend to continue.

This is likely to be the case, of course, because even though the world is awash in weapons the regions with the most sales are also areas of particular US foreign policy interest, and by extension regions full of costly wars, for which US arms makers are only too willing to sell more equipment.

US should come clean if it’s looking for pretext to destroy N. Korea – Russian FM Lavrov

Published time: 30 Nov, 2017 08:26Edited time: 30 Nov, 2017 09:37

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FILE PHOTO © Official U.S. Navy Page / Flickr

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The US has been consciously provoking North Korea to take action, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged after Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test. Moscow suspects the US wants a pretext to attack North Korea, he said.

Commenting on the latest developments, Lavrov said it seems that the US wants North Korea to resume the tests. “The latest US action seemed to be directed towards provoking Pyongyang into taking some rash action,” he told journalists on Thursday. The foreign minister called the missile test “an adventure,” but said that Washington has apparently been trying to goad North Korean leader Kim Jong-un into it.

READ MORE: North Korea releases photos of ICBM from latest test ‘capable of striking US’

“The Americans should start with explaining their intentions to us all. If they are really looking for an excuse to destroy North Korea, as the US envoy to the UN said at a Security Council meeting, let them spell it out clearly and let the US leadership confirm it. Then we will decide how to react,” Lavrov said.

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UN Amb. Haley warns ‘N. Korean regime will be utterly destroyed’ if war breaks out

On Wednesday, North Korea tested the Hwasong-15 missile, which splashed off the Japan coast. Pyongyang claims it was an upgraded projectile capable of delivering a nuclear payload to any part of the United States. The test followed a two-month pause in test launches, which gave some hope that Pyongyang and Washington may find a way to talk their differences over instead of resorting to belligerent rhetoric, which has been their main mode of operation this year.

The US has been demonstrating to North Korea its military might by staging a number of exercises in the region, some jointly with its allies South Korea and Japan. The escalation in tensions came as a disappointment for Moscow, which is advocating a ‘double freeze’ approach, in which North Korea halts missile and nuclear tests and the US stops its military maneuvers.

Sergey Lavrov said, “in September the American colleagues hinted that the next exercise may not come until spring [2018], which may give North Korea a pause and make it refrain from any rash action… We were hopeful about the approach, but then they stage [an] unscheduled exercise in October, then in November, and now they have declared they will have [a] large-scale unscheduled exercise in December.”

The US policy of ramping up sanctions on North Korea to force them to roll back the missile and nuclear programs is not working, according to Lavrov. The potential for the pressure “has essentially exhausted itself” he said, adding that Washington should stop ignoring the calls from other countries, including Russia, which ask it to open direct negotiations with Pyongyang.

North Korea’s Nuclear

North Korea May Have Sufficient Deterrence for Negotiations

Jason Ditz 

Posted onNovember 29, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsNorth Korea, Trump

Following Tuesday’s missile test, North Korea has declared itself a full nuclear power, saying they have the ability to deliver a “super-large heavy warhead” anywhere within the mainland United States now.

The declaration is presented by some US officials as just grandstanding, but it might also portend a shift in North Korea’s strategy, and open up the possibility of real negotiations with the United States.

After all, North Korea has been very open about its goals in developing missiles and nuclear weapons being a deterrent force to prevent US attacks on them. This latest missile test may have been the culmination of that.

Analysts note that while there are still questions about North Korea’s missiles, the fact that they could plausibly fire a nuclear weapon at New York City at this point, even if it’s not with 100% certainty, should be enough to deter a US first strike.

North Korea has long believed that negotiation could only take place once the US was no longer able to hold the threat of attacking over their head

UN Amb. Haley warns ‘N. Korean regime will be utterly destroyed’ if war breaks out

Published time: 30 Nov, 2017 04:17Edited time: 30 Nov, 2017 10:10

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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley © Mike Segar / Reuters

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US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley ratcheted up talk of war with North Korea in reaction to the isolated country's most recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, warning that Kim Jong-un’s government is on a road to ruin.

During an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Haley asked the members of the panel to increase the sanctions imposed on North Korea and to implement penalties established by the council earlier in the year, The Hill reported.

Haley also warned the panel that North Korea's latest missile test has brought Pyongyang and Washington “closer to war.”

“If war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed,” Haley said.

“The dictator of North Korea made a choice yesterday that brings the world closer to war, not farther from it,” Ambassador Haley added.

Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that he would put forth “additional major sanctions” against North Korea in reaction to the recent ICBM test. Trump added that “the situation will be handled.”

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US heading to war with N. Korea 'if things don't change' - Sen. Graham

North Korea's latest ICBM test on Tuesday was its first in more than two months, and the rocket that was launched flew further than any previous launches. The distance of the launch allegedly put the US mainland into the range of the missile, according to North Korean state media.

As a result of the continuous pressure the US has put on Pyongyang, on November 20, Trump officially declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism.

While speaking of the designation, Trump said: “In addition to threatening the world with nuclear devastation, North Korea has supported international acts of terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil.”

On November 15, as tensions between the two countries continued to heat up, the US military stated their B-1 bombers are capable of dropping nuclear weapons, and the US possesses “secret silos” of nuclear hardware.

US Strategic Command, which is responsible for the Department of Defense's global operations, shared a KPNX article on Twitter to back up their claims, but subsequently faced backlash from users on the social media platform calling it “false and misleading.”

And earlier in November, Pyongyang's ambassador to the UN, Han Tae Song, ruled out negotiations over its nuclear program in November, citing US-South Korea military exercises in the waters off of the Korean peninsula, which the north sees as a threat to their country.

"As long as there is a continuous hostile policy against my country by the US and as long as there are continued war games on our doorstep, then there will not be negotiations," he said.

READ MORE: Fears of nuclear Trumpocalypse prompt Hawaii to reinstate Cold War-era attack sirens

In October, North Korea mimicked the the Trump administration’s tough talk and threatened an "unimaginable" strike on the US, as tensions further ramped up over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, North Korean state media reported.

Haley’s comments are a continuation of the Trump administration’s responses to North Korean military displays. The president stated in August that he would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued threatening the US and its allies.

By DANIEL LARISON • November 29, 2017, 2

Screengrab: Trump speaks before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Trump is reportedly going to announce that the U.S. embassy in Israel will be moving to Jerusalem:

The Israeli government considers it extremely likely that US President Donald Trump will declare in the next few days that he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that he is instructing his officials to prepare to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, an Israeli TV report claimed Wednesday.

The Hadashot news report came a day after US Vice President Mike Pence said Trump was “actively considering” moving the US embassy.

Presidents have routinely issued a waiver to block the relocation of the embassy for more than twenty years. Trump signed a waiver to this effect in June, and the next deadline comes up on Friday. Like many previous presidential candidates, Trump had promised during his campaign to relocate the embassy if elected. If this report is correct, it seems that he may follow through. That would be consistent with the extremely one-sided hawkish “pro-Israel” views of his administration and his party, but it would represent a break with decades of U.S. policy and risks triggering a new round of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. There is a real chance that it could be the spark that leads to a third intifada with all of the destruction and loss of life that would entail.

Moving the embassy would be a reckless symbolic gesture that threatens to have very serious consequences for Israeli and Palestinian security. It is a sop to hard-liners and extremists that benefits no one. It goes without saying that doing this would snuff out what little hope of resuming peace negotiations still remains, and it would gain the U.S. absolutely nothing except more opprobrium and hostility throughout the region.

Posted in foreign policy, politics. Tagged Israel, Palestine, Donald Trump.

Despite Mounting Evidence, Pentagon Denies US Troops Killed Somali Civilians

Investigators Say No Civilians Killed at All

Jason Ditz 

Posted onNovember 29, 2017
CategoriesNewsTagsSomalia

The August 25 massacre at Barire village in Somalia was a major problem for the Somali government, who initially denied that anything happened but then admitted that 10 civilians were killed in joint US-Somali operations against the village.

There’s pretty strong evidence for this massacre taking place, not the least of which being that the village brought the bodies to the capital city and put them on display until the government admitted to what they did. The Pentagon however appears not to have been keeping up with the very public fallout of this incident.

Instead, their “investigation” claimed that US troops never fired on any civilians, and that no civilians at all were killed. Again, they are claiming that civilians weren’t killed despite the raid leading to an immediate arrival of 10 corpses, including three children, all very much killed in that incident.

African Command says everyone killed was a combatant, which is in keeping with the Pentagon’s increasingly reckless strategy of denying overseas incidents of civilian deaths. It is not, however, credible that children as young as eight were “armed enemy combatants,” particularly when the signs are many of them were executed at close range.

While traditionally lying about war crimes like this was done to protect foreign partners, that doesn’t apply in this case either, because the Somali government was already forced to admit their role in the killings.