[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Protests: Les Gillets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) protests continue for 34th week 
in France

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRUJhLHp1zk -- nearly 5 hours of footage 
from RT, one of very few networks covering these protests.




War with Iran now more likely: Iran angry after Britain seizes an oil 
tanker headed for Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJKiSeXvI2o -- British Royal Marines 
captured the Grace 1 tanker as the tanker approached Gibraltar near the 
southern tip of Spain. Iranian and Spanish authorities are angry about 
this, and the British government choice has no clear justification for this 
choice. This move appears to be carried out at the behest of the US.

> George Galloway: Piracy on the high seas, piracy in Spanish territorial 
> waters. It's a major mistake by the British government which is the
> only government in history that has set about leaving the European Union
> and making enemies of the rest of the world, simultaneously. It is an
> act of madness, it is an act of brigandage, piracy, it's a crime, and I
> think Britain will be made to pay for it. The Iranians will almost
> certainly retaliate in-kind, then we'll be into an international crisis
> point, a flashpoint, which could lead to a shooting war. [...] The idea
> that a state-owned oil tanker headed for Syria was some kind of illegal
> contraband is utterly ridiculous. The European Union does not have oil
> sanctions against the Republic of Iran neither does it have oil
> sanctions against Syria. So if Donald Trump and John Bolton invented a
> causus belli, that's a matter for them. [...]




Russiagate: Skripal/Sturgess affair update is possible. A new way to leak 
insider information?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbir6T5_IZs -- Top secret files from Porton 
Down lab were found in a London garbage bin. Look for information 
pertaining to the Skripal/Sturgess affair in which the Skripals were 
poisoned in a park near Porton Down lab, and Dawn Sturgess died after she 
was poisoned. The UK government was quick to label the Russian government 
as a culprit in this given no clear evidence to justify such an allegation; 
we don't have any evidence that the two Russian men being accused of 
poisoning the Skripals and 3 others across 2 incidents (Det. Sgt. Nick 
Bailey of the Wilts Police, Charlie Rowley, and Dawn Sturgess) actually did 
what they're accused of doing. Nor do we have any information to suggest 
that this is a state-run poisoning (or murder in the case of Dawn Sturgess).

The closest thing we have to evidence implicating Russia are two Russian 
men who claim to be sightseers in the Salisbury area. But we have no 
evidence from their customs search either on arriving or leaving Salisbury, 
no evidence of anyone in the area seeing them leave poison behind, and no 
rationale with which to understand why it is in Russia's interest to try 
and kill any of the poisoning victims (even former Russian spy Sergey 
Skripal who survived the first Salisbury poisoning).

The UK has not cooperated with Russia in showing them evidence on which the 
UK's accusations are based. The UK government purchased Sergei Skripal's 
house and everything in it, killed Skripal's pets (and destroyed their 
corpses), and won't show the public evidence backing up repeated claims 
that Russians are the poisoners (or killer of Dawn Sturgess).

It seems that the UK government could have something to do with this: we're 
told that this poisoning involved one of the "Novichok" (Russian for 
'newcomer') poisons which are allegedly very deadly, capable of killing 
multiple full-grown men with a minuscule quantity of poison one could 
easily fit in a test tube. But so far only 1 of the 5 people known to have 
been affected by this substance has died (Dawn Sturgess). We're told that 
this poison's effectiveness decreases rapidly with exposure to air, and 
that this is not a substance one can make at home; one needs a professional 
chemical lab to make this substance (but the recipe for it has been 
publicly published since the 1980s). These poisonings all happened within a 
very short distance of Porton Down lab in the UK. And the two men 
interviewed by RT who are widely made fun of and accused of being the 
poisoners -- Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga -- are 
allegedly helping the UK government, according to investigative reporter 
Seymour Hersh.

Could it be that someone in the UK with Porton Down lab access made some 
batches of this poison in Porton Down lab to try to implicate the Russian 
state?

In August 2018 the US government used the allegations of Russians poisoning 
the Skripals as the justification for sanctions against Russia starting 
August 22, 2018. Sanctions are war against the poor; US sanctions means 
that the US is making it harder for the citizens of a sanctioned country to 
get what they need to live including critical medications like insulin for 
Type-1 diabetics (if Type-1 diabetics don't get insulin daily, they'll die).

One more item to factor into this: Seymour Hersh, whom investigative 
reporter John Pilger has called "Probably the greatest investigative 
reporter in the world", Hersh told Afshin Rattansi (host of RT's "Going 
Underground") that the Russian mafia is more likely to be involved in the 
Skripal attack than the Russian government.

 From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgTiP6WBss

> Seymour Hersh: Those two [Mishkin & Chepiga] were helping the British
> intelligence services with information about the Russian mafia. That's
> what they were doing here [in the UK]. In other words, the people that
> were high on the list of people who would want to hurt him [Sergey
> Skripal] would be the Russian mafia. Russians, but not the Russian
> government.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi, RT host: Do you mean the Skripals?
> 
> Seymour Hersh: Yeah, I mean that was the understanding. There was also 
> some reporting out of Europe about that that's been pretty much 
> widespread.




Update on Julian Assange associate Arjen Kamphuis: "friends and family 
believe that he is still alive and that he chose to disappear himself"

Last we knew, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks associate Kamphuis' belongings 
were found in the sea and he did not arrive in Trondheim as expected on 
August 22, 2018. Now there's some reason to believe he's alive and trying 
to seek increased privacy but it's not clear if this is the case or why he 
chose to do this around the time when the US was apparently working to get 
physical custody of Australian citizen Julian Assange to hold Assange to 
account for alleged violations of US law.

https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/20/missing-dutch-cyber-expert-still-alive-disappearance-voluntary-friends-believe

> Four months after Dutch cyber security expert Arjen Kamphuis disappeared
> in Norway, his friends and family believe that he is still alive and
> that he chose to disappear himself. He previously also disappeared from
> the radar, they said to newspaper AD.
> 
> "We take into account that Arjen might have been in a mental emergency",
> Ancilla van de Leest said, speaking on behalf of the missing man's
> friends and family. "His stressful life, combined with high intelligence
> and sitting on your own for weeks, could lead to that." Kirk Wiebe, NSA
> whistleblower and a colleague of Kamphuis, believes the same. "There are
> indications for the scenario that Arjen wanted to disappear from the
> radar himself."
> 
> The 47-year-old man, a worldwide authority on cyber security and
> espionage, has been missing since August 20th, when he left his hotel in
> Bodo, Norway. His kayak was later found in a nearby fjord. There are
> several indications that Kamphuis may be in Germany. A German SIM card
> was placed into his phone shortly after his disappearance. Witnesses saw
> him in Denmark. And he made a payment to Deutsche Bahn shortly before he
> left to holiday in Norway.
> 
> Kamphuis also previously disappeared for a time after a private setback,
> "people involved" said to AD. Though at that time he did tell some of
> his friends where he was going. This past period was stressful for
> Kamphuis and his friends believe he may have done the same thing now.
> 
> At the same time, his friends don't rule out the other possibilities -
> that he fell victim to an accident or crime. The Norwegian police are
> also keeping all the options open. A spokesperson said to AD that they
> consider one of the scenarios more likely than the others, but he did
> not want to say which one.




Economy: Pro-austerity Christine Lagarde becomes European Central Bank 
President

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5D59rOh9Kc -- Is this an example that 
identity politics advocates want to celebrate? They seemed to be willing to 
do just this when they thought pro-austerity (neoliberal) Hillary Clinton 
was a shoo-in for becoming US President in 2016.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdkCi3c5kYE -- European Union 
finally stands up to US over Iran. But will this last long with Pres. 
Lagarde now heading up EC Bank?




Russiagate: Debunking Russiagate with Muller's own report

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/07/05/crowdstrikeout_muellers_own_report_undercuts_its_core_russia-meddling_claims.html 
-- Aaron Maté's report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52P7G7AHiDg -- Jimmy Dore interview with 
Aaron Maté about this report. Thanks also to David Johnson for pointing to 
this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ublVFxJfeno -- Lee Camp interview with 
Aaron Maté.

Problems with the coverage:

Around 18m48s into the Jimmy Dore interview Maté says that "it is possible 
all this is kosher" to not interview key people involved in the story (such 
as Julian Assange & Craig Murray), and to rely on CrowdStrike's image of 
the DNC server instead of seizing the server hardware and relying on the 
FBI's own analysis of said server. Not interviewing relevant figures (the 
publisher and a person widely known to have met the person who supplied the 
DNC email data) is obviously too poor a judgment to be ineptitude, 
something else is up. The problem with the server data isn't using computer 
system image (an "image" is a complete copy of all of the storage on a 
computer), the problem is what party the images come from. If the FBI made 
their own image from the server and used the image data in their own 
investigation, that would be expected and reasonable. But treating image 
data from a third party (CrowdStrike) as if they were a trusted 
investigator is more of a sign something else is going on.

The FBI's choices here are clear indications of deep corruption at the 
highest levels in order to assist the Democratic Party explain how we saw 
those DNC emails -- Russians got a copy to the WikiLeaks. CrowdStrike is 
properly seen as a suspect who helped their client, the DNC, explain away 
their loss to Donald Trump. Craig Murray (former ambassador to Uzbekistan 
who may have been the courier of a USB thumb drive between Seth Rich of the 
DNC and someone from WikiLeaks) describes this well:

 From Craig Murray via his blog at 
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/the-real-muellergate-scandal/

> There has never been, by any US law enforcement or security service
> body, a forensic examination of the DNC servers, despite the fact that
> the claim those servers were hacked is the very heart of the entire
> investigation. Instead, the security services simply accepted the
> “evidence” provided by the DNC’s own IT security consultants,
> Crowdstrike, a company which is politically aligned to the Clintons.
> 
> That is precisely the equivalent of the police receiving a phone call
> saying:
> 
> “Hello? My husband has just been murdered. He had a knife in his back
> with the initials of the Russian man who lives next door engraved on it
> in Cyrillic script. I have employed a private detective who will send
> you photos of the body and the knife. No, you don’t need to see either
> of them.”
> 
> There is no honest policeman in the world who would agree to that
> proposition, and neither would Mueller were he remotely an honest man.

Also, consider that CrowdStrike redacted some information before submitting 
their report to the FBI. The FBI doesn't object to this. If the FBI carried 
out a proper investigation they would never stand for a (party properly 
considered a suspect) to redact information from them.



Russiagate: "A scheme meant to give Democrats popular support without doing 
anything the public want them to do" (Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report)

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-time-russiagate-end -- 
Black Agenda Report on Russiagate and what we're likely to see in the 
upcoming Mueller hearing: "Russiagate is a scheme meant to give Democrats 
popular support without doing anything the public want them to do.".

> Mueller and his team neglected to interview several individuals who
> could have put this story to rest once and for all. Mueller insists that
> Russian agents hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and
> gave them to Wikileaks. Julian Assange has always said that the material
> was leaked, not hacked. Former British diplomat Craig Murray says he met
> the individual who provided the documents.
> 
> This information is hardly secret, as Assange and Murray have
> consistently made the same statements since 2016. Assange was easy to
> find, having been given asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. But
> no one approached the men who would be able to disprove the story of
> Russian hacking. Of course that is exactly why they were never
> approached. Russiagate is too valuable a commodity to be given up by an
> honest investigation.
> 
> The Democratic majority on the committee will surely pose questions to
> Mueller that allow them to continue their hoax. Sadly, the public will
> be dependent upon right wing racist Republicans like Louie Gohmert and
> gadfly Devin Nunes to ask the hard questions. The contradictions, the
> paradox of the Russiagate story is that Republicans are the ones being
> truthful. Of course their goal is to protect president Trump. Their
> cause is not a noble one at all.
> 
> But when Russiagate is the issue it is the Democrats who are the worst
> liars. They are the ones who have damaged their electorate, the media
> and international relationships in their effort to excuse the debacle of
> their own making. Russiagate is a scheme meant to give them popular
> support without doing anything the public want them to do.



Russiagate: So-called "Press Freedom" conference held by UK & Canadian 
governments in London (about 60 ministers and 1,000 journalists were in 
attendance) with special guest Amal Clooney (international human rights 
lawyer and British Special Envoy on Media Freedom) but RT & Sputnik were 
not invited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAD9T2P_scs -- RT report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2bLWByh0Aw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KMbaO1tyh8 -- Jeremy Hunt refuses to 
answer questions about why RT is not invited to "Press Freedom" conference.

RT applied to attend with plenty of time to vet their credentials but the 
official answer from UK Foreign Office was:

> Unfortunately we're unable to approve your application to accredit as
> media.

Other news outlets were being told a very different message about why RT & 
Sputnik were refused admission:

> We have not accredited RT or Sputnik because of their active role in
> spreading disinformation. While it's not possible to accommodate all
> requests for accreditation, journalists from across the world's media
> are attending the conference, including from Russia.

The Russian Embassy in London has written back to "express its resolute 
disagreement" with the snub. Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry 
spokeswoman said:

> ...the organisers demonstrated their true intentions and attitude to
> media freedom by turning the event into the means of achieving
> opportunistic political ends. We believe other countries and responsible
> journalists will draw the appropriate conclusions and we hope that human
> rights NGOs and relevant international agencies will not shy away from
> stating their position.
RT's Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan:

> It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of
> press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering alternative
> media. Sadly, the world has learned to expect just that from the UK
> Foreign Office.



Russiagate: who leaked Kim Darroch's embarrassing cable (memo) indicating 
what he thought of Pres. Trump? The UK says it was Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNI2SXRK_dk -- British Foreign Secretary 
Jeremy Hunt said:

> Of course it would be massively concerning if it was the act of a
> foreign, hostile state. I've seen no evidence that that's the case, but
> we'll look at the leak inquiry very carefully.
Through illogical contortions that can only be described as supportive of 
more evidenceless Russiagate nonsense, Hunt's words here are being 
interpreted as "Russia did it" by Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, Business 
Insider, and more UK media.

Jeremy Hunt has apologized for the leak but not the content of the cable.

What did Kim Darroch say?

Kim Darroch on Pres. Trump:

> We don't really believe this administration is going to become
> substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less
> faction-riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.
Kim Darroch on Trump calling off the Iranian strike:

> It's more likely that he was never fully on board and that he was
> worried about how this apparent reversal of his 2016 campaign promises
> would look come 2020 -- at the next presidential election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38XenQqaaK0 -- Kim Darroch resigned as a 
result of his cable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY6PE1OpTXE -- George Galloways' reaction 
to the resignation.



Russiagate: Federal judge rules that Mueller's charge that Concord 
Management & Consulting is a "troll farm" is not proof of that claim.

https://on.rt.com/9xxk -- RT report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQbsNn304o -- RT interview with Jim Jatras.

> [A] federal judge ruled that [Robert Mueller's] indictment of a ‘troll
> farm’ is not actual proof of it.
> 
> Mueller’s charges against Concord Management & Consulting, the Russian
> company accused of running a “troll farm” and “sowing discord” on US
> social media in 2016, do not establish a link between that private
> company and the Russian government, US District Judge Dabney L.
> Friedrich pointed out.
> 
> Yet the special counsel’s much-publicized final report claims to have
> “established” and “confirmed” Russian government activities based in
> part on the indictment against Concord, which is a breach of
> prosecutorial rules, Friedrich said.

Aaron Maté (investigative journalist and widely-read Russiagate debunker) 
is quoted:

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1148581532598198273
> Federal judge has issued a significant rebuke of a core Mueller claim.
> Mueller claims that the IRA -- a Russian troll farm -- was the 2nd of
> "two principal interference operations" by Russian gov't. But as judge
> notes, Mueller's implied link between IRA & Russian gov't was false.

[...]

> This is a major blow not just to Mueller but to the entire "Russian
> Active Measures" talking point. As the judge acknowledges, the IRA
> (which, btw, put out juvenile clickbait mostly unrelated to the
> election) is a private entity & Mueller never establishes a Kremlin
> connection.
See 
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/07/05/crowdstrikeout_muellers_own_report_undercuts_its_core_russia-meddling_claims.html 
for Maté's latest article on this.





Economy: "School by day, assembly line by night: How teachers in South 
Carolina make ends meet: Lawmakers in the state, which ranks among the 
worst for education in the country, recently approved a raise for teachers. 
Advocates say it’s not enough."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/school-day-assembly-line-night-how-teachers-south-carolina-make-n1026381

> [Meredith] Blackwood, 27, is a teacher at Cayce Elementary in West
> Columbia, South Carolina, where she made $36,000 for the 2018-19 school
> year. Her husband, Chancen Blackwood, 30, a teacher in the same school
> district, made $35,000.
> 
> The Blackwoods live in a state that pays teachers one of the lowest
> starting salaries in the country.
> 
> With annual raises that have so far been small, their combined incomes
> don’t cover their monthly bills. So when an unusual income booster at a
> local drug manufacturer arose several months ago, they took it, joining
> hundreds of other South Carolina teachers forced into unusually long
> workdays just to get by.
> 
> After their school day ends, on weekends and during school breaks, the
> Blackwoods don red scrubs and hair nets and join the assembly line at
> Nephron Pharmaceuticals, which, since March, has given part-time work to
> more than 650 teachers.
> 
> The teachers’ responsibilities vary. Some days they check syringes for
> imperfections; other days they package drugs to be sent to hospitals or
> assemble the boxes the drugs go into. They typically work in four-hour
> shifts.

[...]

> [N]one of their gigs on school grounds pays them as much on an hourly
> basis as Nephron, where they make $21 an hour.

[...]

> In June, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed a budget that increased
> beginning teachers’ salaries to $35,000, and gave other teachers a four
> percent or more raise. That amount, compared to last year’s salaries,
> would move South Carolina’s starting salary from fourth lowest to 12th
> lowest.

What teachers say they need (as opposed to what state government is working 
on doing):

> SC for Ed, a 30,000-member grassroots education advocacy group, says it
> wants higher salaries that are not compromised by higher health care
> costs; better working conditions, such as protected classroom planning
> time during the school day and smaller class sizes; and more equity and
> funding statewide, so all school districts reap benefits.





Freedom of speech: Pres. Trump (and presumably any other public official) 
cannot block users from reading what they post to others on their official 
public social media accounts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPZi4b-jf9A -- RT's report on this 2nd 
Circuit Court ruling. Public officials are also prohibited from deleting 
commentary on their accounts (such as critical feedback).

This is good policy for everyone in general because this approach 
encourages counterspeech instead of censorship. But this ruling is only 
binding on US public officials using their account in their official capacity.

The commentary regarding the power a social media firm (a publisher) has to 
allow free speech is troublesome: the discussants consider shadowbanning or 
outright banning to be problematic for free speech. Perhaps as a principle, 
yes, but legally no: the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution doesn't apply 
everywhere one can use the social media service, and the 1st Amendment is 
only a restriction against government censorship. Part of Russiagate is 
watching the US government apply pressure to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et 
al to use their private power to censor against the government's opponents 
and to steer censorship policy to favor allowing only the posts that the US 
government approves of. So the US government is well aware of the 
limitation the 1st Amendment imposes on them in their official capacity, 
therefore they outsource their censorious desire to these 3rd parties. 
Hence we can also see line between private industry and government 
dissolving as they work together as partners to achieve amenable ends for 
the US government (very much related is the NSA's partnership with famous 
service providers and software proprietors in their spying program -- see 
the many NSA slides describing this liberated by Edward Snowden including 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prism_slide_5.jpg 
detailing when PRISM "providers" joined the NSA's PRISM program: Microsoft 
on 9/11/2007, Yahoo on 3/12/2008, Google on 1/14/2009, with dates for Skype 
(pre-Microsoft ownership), YouTube, AOL, Apple, and more).





Education takeover by private interests via charter schools:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-teach-for-america-evolved-into-an-arm-of-the-charter-school-movement 
-- source article
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVnZqN_PL2Q -- Redacted Tonight on "Teach 
for America"'s 30th anniversary. Teach for America (TFA) receives huge 
donations ($20M in 2013 from the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, for 
example) in order to effectively help teachers work at charter schools 
instead of public schools. TFA pays teachers more to work at charter 
schools (the aforementioned Walton family grant pays $6,000/teacher for 
placement in a charter school versus $4,000/teacher for placement in a 
traditional public school).

> The gift’s purpose was far removed from Teach For America’s original
> mission of alleviating teacher shortages in traditional public schools.
> It was intended to “generate a longer-term leadership pipeline that
> advances the education movement, providing a source of talent for
> policy, advocacy and politics, as well as quality schools and new
> entrepreneurial ventures,” according to internal grant documents.
> 
> The incentives corresponded to a shift in Teach For America’s direction.
> Although only 7% of students go to charter schools, Teach For America
> sent almost 40% of its 6,736 teachers to them in 2018 — up from 34% in
> 2015 and 13% in 2008. In some large cities, charter schools employ the
> majority of TFA teachers: 54% in Houston, 58% in San Antonio and at
> least 70% in Los Angeles.

And this is another instance where there's no difference across 
administrations or corporate political parties (more evidence of the 
aptly-named 'permanent government'):

> Whichever type of school they serve in, Teach For America’s teachers
> devote their intelligence and energy to helping low-income and minority
> students and closing the nation’s unrelenting achievement gap. But its
> metamorphosis reflects a broader trend: As nonunion charter schools have
> gained acceptance in the past 20 years, political support for
> traditional public schools and teacher unions has eroded.
> 
> While both the Obama and Trump administrations have backed charter
> schools, the appointment of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who once
> called the traditional public education system a “dead end,” fractured
> the political consensus. The issue divides candidates for the Democratic
> presidential nomination. Bernie Sanders has called for a moratorium on
> federal funding of charters until a national review of their growth is
> conducted. Sanders, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have criticized
> for-profit charter schools, with Sanders advocating an outright ban.
> 
> Other candidates, such as Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke, are sympathetic
> to charters. As Newark’s mayor, Booker raised millions in private funds
> for education reforms, including the expansion of charter schools.
> O’Rourke, whose wife started a charter school, has called them a “good
> idea” for encouraging competition and innovation.

This also does a good job of skewering identity politics -- no matter who 
is in charge, the policy of moving resources away from public ends toward 
private gain (public schools to charter schools, in this case) continues.





War: Libya's army finishes 1st stage of its attack on Tripoli. Now there's 
more evidence that the EU is involved: France confirmed that 4 missiles 
found at Libyan base are from the French army.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2OUklT_o_Q -- How did French arms get to 
Libya? Is France's "double game" (supporting two warring parties) finally up?





War: US uses "emergency powers" to sell $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia, 
Jordan, and UAE despite Congressional objections; this arms transfer is 
said to be "exporting the best of America".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bZQr1LuXuk -- RT report; Medea Benjamin is 
interviewed.

These arms will help continue the SA war against Yemen and thus further 
implicate the US in the ongoing Yemeni humanitarian crisis, the worst in 
the world.

R. Clarke Cooper, US Assistant Secretary of State in his testimony to 
Congress at a recent hearing:
> R. Clarke Cooper: Our policy is not just limited to arms transfers, it
> is an expression, a manifestation of what else we export: open society,
> human rights. That is a part of our policy. We do export the best of
> America with our arms transfer policy.
[...]

> R. Clarke Cooper: We do not suspend our security relationship with a
> partner that carries so much weight for our interests and our equities
> in the region.
> 
> Senator: You're saying that the US convention on arms transfer policy
> can be sacrificed if we have an important relationship with a country?
> 
> R. Clarke Cooper: No, it should not be sacrificed.
> 
> Senator: That's what you're doing. Because you're transferring weapons
> after you have knowledge that they [Saudi Arabia] violated international
> norms.
More than 70,000 people were killed by military action in Yemen. The 
overwhelming majority of weapons used there are American weapons. Almost 
100 civilian casualties occur each week in 2018. 70% of Yemen population is 
food insecure (they have no idea where their next meal is coming from).

War: Drone war in Somalia takes a huge toll on the population.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/us/politics/us-civilians-somalia-airstrikes.html
https://www.voanews.com/africa/us-acknowledges-2-civilians-killed-2018-somalia-airstrike
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/05/politics/us-military-civilian-casualties-somalia/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_glsfgMyI -- RT's report.

Newly-released documents from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) show that the 
US government has been aware of multiple civilian deaths as a result of 
AFRICOM's operations for a year, deaths that the US government didn't 
initially admit to.

An April 2018 AFRICOM report claimed that 5 "terrorists" were killed, 1 
vehicle destroyed, and no civilians were harmed. A year later we learn that 
in fact 2 civilians were killed in that strike (a woman and a child).

Voice of America (US propaganda) reported:
> The AFRICOM director of operations, Marine Major General Gregg Olson,
> said Friday that an ongoing review uncovered the civilian deaths, which
> went unreported for nearly a year.
> 
> "We follow the law of armed conflict and regret that this incident
> resulted in the loss of two innocent lives," Olson told reporters in a
> teleconference. "AFRICOM is committed to transparency, and we have a
> solemn obligation to … the Somali people we're trying to protect."
> 
> Olson said AFRICOM is working with the U.S. embassy in Somalia on a way
> forward to potentially provide restitution for the family of the woman
> and child.

How many more drone deaths are we not learning about?

> Amnesty International's Daphne Eviatar: AFRICOM says it conducted 110
> air strikes that killed 800 terrorists. It's just not plausible that all
> of the people killed were actually enemy armed forces, and that none
> were civilians.
Amnesty International says that the US has carried out more than 100 US 
strikes since 2017 and 14 civilians died in 5 of those strikes.

AFRICOM says that 800 Al-Shabaab militants were killed and 2 civilians were 
killed in a 2017 drone strike.

This reads on Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's (D-HI) support for drone war (see 
https://digitalcitizen.info/2019/02/13/is-tulsi-gabbard-really-anti-war-no-shes-pro-drone-and-for-surgical-strikes/ 
for my views on this). Despite being frequently billed as "anti-war", she 
told The Intercept in 2018 that she supports drone war:

> So, with these terrorist cells, for example, yes, I do still believe
> that the right approach to take is these quick strike forces, surgical
> strikes, in and out, very quickly, no long-term deployment, no long-term
> occupation to be able to get rid of the threat that exists and then get
> out and the very limited use of drones in those situations where our
> military is not able to get in without creating an unacceptable level of
> risk, and where you can make sure that you’re not causing, you know, a
> large amount of civilian casualties.

But as before, we don't know all of the people being killed in drone 
strikes. This story about AFRICOM drone strikes is more evidence that the 
reports we get on drone deaths are understatements and that it makes no 
sense to apply an anti-war label on anyone who thinks that this war is 
supportable.

-J