Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Add Another 3,000 Murders to Obama's Tally

Obama, we've been told, has a bit of a mental itch. He's somewhat obsessive about his "place in history." One legacy he's been busily building during his term is murder. To be sure, he's murdered fewer people than his predecessor, Bush the Younger. And I'm not implying that every killing has been a murder. Some could be justified as killing combatants or their commanders in various (not officially declared) wars the U.S. is waging. Some have been flat-out murders, as the assassination of the son and nephews of al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.

Now there must be added to the tally of skulls on Obama's escutcheon over3,000 Yemeni civilians. (I'm excluding another 3,000 Yemenis who are Houthi tribesmen and alleged armed combatants.) These numbers are from the UN and from Human Rights Watch, and I haven't heard them contested. They were killed with U.S.-supplied bombs, including vicious cluster bombs, dropped from U.S.-supplied planes, on markets, on apartment buildings, on mosques, and on hospitals.The planes and bombs were purchased by Saudi Arabia and its fellow Arabian peninsula oiligarchies from the U.S. U.S. officers are stationed in Saudi military headquarters passing along target locations. U.S. aerial refueling tankers fly with the Arab warplanes so they can carry out their missions.

Obama has authorized the sale of tens of billions of dollars of munitions and weapons, including to feed the Saudi war machine's attack on Yemen.

This is one murderous legacy the U.S. media will be sure to ignore in the future. The only crime of a U.S. president that media is willing to acknowledge is the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., by Nixon's burglars, the so-called "plumbers," fascist CIA veterans. (Including one of the assassins of Nixon's hated predecessor and rival, John F. Kennedy, namely E. Howard Hunt.)

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