Just when you think it couldn’t get any sicker things get a little better…for a minute

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Who’d have thought Kim Jong Un would turn out to be a hero? Even Donald Trump has come out looking pretty good on this one. The 65-year-old Korean War is unofficially over, and the two Korean leaders have agreed to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
 


The ever-tone deaf Donald Trump immediately took credit for the reconciliation. But even there, he’s managed to chart a better course, giving China its due. Last Friday he tweeted, “Please do not forget the great help that my good friend, President Xi of China...particularly at the Border of North Korea. Without him it would have been a much longer, tougher, process!” That almost sounded statesman-like.
 

Just a few months ago the media were speculating that Trump could trigger a third world war with Kim via Twitter. Happily, all that has evaporated. But things are still boiling on the other side of the world in Syria. Trump gave the go-ahead for US air strikes on suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites—even though there’s little hard evidence such sites exist, or that Assad’s forces are using them. Of course the UK and France joined in the aerial festivities. There is no good news in any of that; Syria is a disaster.
 

So is Gaza. Palestinians are camping out along the Gaza-Israel border wall, lobbing firebombs at the Israeli troops, and Israeli soldiers are firing live ammunition back at the protesters, including children and journalists, dismembering many. All of this is passively condoned by the US and Saudi Arabia, neither of which wants to get involved. The faint good news there, according to Israel’s Haaretz news outlet, is the suspicion that the US and Saudi Arabia are going to give up in Syria and leave the country to Assad, and ignore Gaza, leaving it to the Israelis (clearly not such a good thing).
 

But the US and Saudi Arabia have other fish to fry, one being Yemen. The war there is particularly ugly. It was one of the first military adventures the young Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman leapt into when he rose to power as defence minister. Even though he’s hot off a recent PR tour of the States, the war is destroying his reputation—for good reason. Human Rights Watch writer Kristine Beckerle excoriates bin Salman for his dirty little war that’s starved millions of Yemenis, and killed and wounded thousands of others over the past three years—including the aerial bombing of a wedding party last week, killing the bride and 20 others. The Guardian reported that 30 children were also wounded, some with severed limbs. Oh, yeah. And it was a ‘double tap’ strike. The US-supplied and serviced planes swooped in for a first strike, then circled back for a second, more deadly strike.
 

These wars are just good business. Donald Trump will tell you that. In fact he did. “Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of equipment and lots of other things. … Some of the things that we are now working on—thanks—and that have been ordered and will shortly be started in construction and delivered: THAAD system, $13 billion; the C-130 heli—airplanes, the Hercules, great plane, $3.8 billion; the Bradley vehicles, that’s the tanks, $1.2 billion; and the P-8 Poseidons, $1.4 billion. … So, we make the best equipment in the world. There’s nobody even close. And Saudi Arabia is buying a lot of this equipment.”
 

This is how psychopaths talk. But we’re all complicit. I don’t see any of us taking to the streets to stop it. We are, in fact, supporting it. Canada is selling armoured vehicles—manufactured in Quebec—to the Saudis, with our own sweet Justin leading the charge last month. The Guardian reports, “Justin Trudeau has defended his government’s decision to sign off on the sale of more than 900 armoured vehicles – including dozens described as “heavy assault” and equipped with cannons—to Saudi Arabia, arguing that the deal is in line with Canada’s foreign and defence policies.” Well, I guess it is, since it’s bringing in $15 billion. Trudeau shrugged off any criticism, saying that the government had to respect the contract made by the previous Harper government, and that “Our approach fully meets our national obligations and Canadian laws.” Right then. How Canadian of us.
 

Fortunately, all’s quiet on the home-front. Only a little pipeline spat between provinces as climate change worsens, and rental van plowing down a crowded sidewalk in Toronto, killing 10. Yep, we’re all just fine.



Additional reading:


https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/korean-summit-provides-unusual-look-at-kim-jong-un-1.3906266

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/north-korea-south-korea-donald-trump-korean-war-nuclear-weapons-a8326321.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/06/north-korea-nuclear-war-264526

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43762251

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/trump-us-foreign-policy.html

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-saudi-arabia-in-lockstep-give-syria-up-to-assad-ignore-gaza-1.5967245

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/03/18/saudi-crown-prince-must-answer-atrocities-yemen

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/at-least-20-killed-as-airstrike-hits-yemen-wedding-officials-say

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/04/24/yemeni_student_saudi_double_tap_air_strike_on_yemeni_wedding_party_only_possible_because_of_us_arms_sales.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/justin-trudeau-defends-canada-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/8-women-2-men-killed-in-toronto-van-attack-coroner-1.3905302

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