So What's Our Excuse?

Amnesty International is urging Britain's Cameron government to stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  Amnesty claims the weapons are being used to deliberately slaughter civilians in Houthi-rebel controlled parts of Yemen.

Amnesty said it found a pattern of “appalling disregard” for civilian lives by the Saudi-led coalition in an investigation of 13 air strikes in north-eastern Saada governorate during May, June and July: these killed some 100 civilians – including 59 children and 22 women and injured a further 56, including 18 children.

Since last March coalition air strikes have hit homes, schools, markets and other civilian infrastructure, as well as miltiary objectives. Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been badly hit. Thousands who remain in the governorate “live in constant fear of the airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions”, Amnesty says.

Canada is also on the Saudi weapons of indiscriminate destruction/war crimes gravy train with Harper having inked a $15-billion deal for the sale of light armoured fighting vehicles (light tanks) presumably for democracy suppression patrols. The deal supposedly gags Harper from discussing (having to explain) the sale but seemingly leaves him quite free to excuse it on the basis that, if we didn't sell Saudis its instruments of carnage then some other nation would.

For the radical Sunni Muslim House of Saud, being a Shiite Muslim is enough to qualify you for live-fire target practice.  Fortunately, that exempts the devoutly Sunni al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS terrorists/insurgents from Saudi bloodlust. Yemen's Houthi rebels daily fight ISIS and al Qaeda forces while the Saudis, with the active support of Canada, Britain and the US, wage a ground and air war against the Houthis.

If you're interested in this curious murderous mess, check out this episode of VICE TV. The Houthi segment begins at the 17:00 minute mark. It's an eye-opener.



Keeping with the theme of "So What's Our Excuse?" let's talk bitumen and the armada of supertankers that may soon ply British Columbia's coast.  Roger Annis has written an important report, "The Canadian Election and the Global Climate Crisis," for CounterPunch that should be required reading for every British Columbian before they vote in the federal election.  The only party that's even partly standing up for this province and our incredibly fragile ecosystems is Elizabeth May's Green Party and even May is a bit wobbly on bitumen trafficking.

Which brings us to the first segment of the VICE TV episode above concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and how BP used a highly toxic chemical, Corexit, that, instead of dispersing the oil as promised simply made it far more lethal and sank it to contaminate the bottom and the marine life that is found there. Watch it. It's a genuine call to arms.

h/t Northern PoV

About That Islamic Terrorism, Who Are We Kidding?

Well those damned Muslims have us in hysterics now.  Rupert Murdoch says this is on all Muslims.  Bill Maher says ditto.

But wait.  There are two strains of Muslims - Sunni and Shia.  Our Muslims of choice, those we consider our allies, are Sunni - Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, that bunch. The Muslims we normally despise and distrust are those other guys, the Shiites.

So, let's step back and look at all this Muslim terrorism that has us in such a state. Let's start with Osama bin Laden.  Sunni.  Al Qaeda, Sunni.  ISIS, Sunni.  Those Muslims Obama keeps whacking with his drones, Sunni.  The Taliban, Sunni. All those wedding parties we brought to an abrupt and terminal end with our gifts of Hellfire missiles, Sunni.  Let's count that up - Sunni, Sunni, Sunni, Sunni, Sunni and Sunni.  So far it's Sunni 6, Team Shia no score.  That's a shut out in any league.  Wowser.

That 9/11 wrecking crew?  All Sunni. About three-quarters of them were Saudi. It's widely believed that the 28-pages redacted by the Bush regime from the 9/11 report fingered the House of Saud as in on the attacks.  Whatever is in those pages even Obama is keeping them under lock and key.

We know that the Salafist/Wahhabist extremists have been lavishly supported by the Gulf states, including the remarkably like-minded Saudis.  You might even call them the terrorists' benefactors.

When the ISIS problem got out of control (and not one minute before) some of these Gulf principalities pledged to - wait for it - stop funding them.

Now you might have thought we would bring the Hammers of Hell down on the heads of these potentates to repay their perfidy.  A hundred or so Tomahawk cruise missiles targeted at their royal palaces likely would have done the trick. But that hasn't happened, has it.

Harper loves the Saudis, especially now that they've inked a $15-billion deal to buy Canadian-built light armoured vehicles to meet their democracy-suppression needs.  And, besides, it wouldn't be seemly for one petro-state to get uppity with another petro-state.

Well we have to whack somebody to avenge the Paris massacre.  Hmm, the Sunnis are out - at least those right at the core of this.  I guess that just leaves the Shia.  I know, let's attack Tehran.

p.s.  That scary banner being carried by the angry mob in the picture above? That could have been written by any crown prince of the House of Saud.