Take Russian interference in US election with a bit of perspective. And no doubt Russia, England, Germany, China, most other countries, too, have tried to have their way without overt war.

Senate Majority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell is leading the charge to punish Russia for the crime of attempting a regime change in the United State by meddling in its recent election for president.

Addison is old enough to remember the United States involvement in changing regimes in many countries, especially since the end of WWII.  Wikipedia has the history detailed. See United States involvement nregime change.

A wikipedia summary is this:

United States involvement in regime change has entailed both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments. In the latter half of the 19th century, the U.S. government undertook regime change actions mainly in Latin America and the southwest Pacific, and included the Mexican-American, Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. At the onset of the 20th century the United States shaped or installed friendly governments in many countries including Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. government expanded the geographic scope of its regime change actions, as the country struggled with the Soviet Union for global leadership and influence within the context of the Cold War. Significant involvements included the 1950 Korean War, the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion targeting Cuba, the Vietnam War, and support for the Argentinian Dirty War, but included other operations throughout the world.

The cited article goes into great and interesting detail about all the US regime change activities, some still on-going.  Read especially about US and Britain's activity in Iran, for that activity has important present consequences for Syria and for US relations with Russia.

In the curious world of the US congress (and in all the world’s deliberative bodies), what We  do is good; what They do is bad.  And these deliberative bodies are supposed to prevent the Bomb from Destroying All Life on the Planet (except for some germs, who are the most successful life form of all).  Good luck to all of us.

Yemen update

If you haven't been following the multiple tragedies in Yemen, this MaGill University post is a useful update.

Nothing I have read sheds light on why the United States supports the unnecessary Saudi war on the Yemen people.  The war is a blot on the Obama presidency.  I would like to give por president the benefit of the doubt, and the realities of the merciless bombing which the United States makes possible is devastating.  I can't think of a justification.

THE MCGILL INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Yemen
by Maddie Clark • December 5, 2016

A man walks past graffiti denouncing US involvement in Yemen. https://flic.kr/p/MA4RAs

When the war in Yemen began, military advisors and foreign policy experts claimed the fighting would come to a swift end. That was in March of 2015. In the 20-odd months since, at least 10,000 people have been killed and Yemen has been plunged into the throes of a near calamitous humanitarian disaster – one rivalling that in nearby Syria.  According to the U.N, over 1.5 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, and roughly 80% of the population of the country is in need of immediate humanitarian aid. Hospitals have been bombed, the economy is in shambles, and civilians have been slaughtered by the thousands. How did we get here, and can this conflict ever end?

The situation that has unfolded in Yemen isn’t your typical conflict. On the ground, there are four major actors: the Yemeni armed forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the Saudi-led Gulf coalition supporting President Hadi, the Zaidi Shia Muslim minority championed by the Houthis, and, intermittently, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The political upheaval in the Middle East in 2010 and 2011 in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia inspired Yemen, which, following an uprising a-la Arab Spring, forced the transition of power from authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh to Mr. Hadi – his deputy. Houthi’s, who had long fought against Mr. Saleh, took advantage of the tumultuous political transition and invaded Sana’a, Yemen’s capitol city, in September, 2014. By early 2015, they had consolidated their control over Sana’a, shutting down the government and placing Mr. Hadi and his cabinet members under effective house arrest. He escaped the following month, and the situation, already deadly, went rapidly downhill. What was simply a civil war morphed into the complex global proxy war that continues to claim lives in the war torn country.

With the first airstrike against Yemen by Saudi Arabia in March, 2015, the real conflict began. What has followed has been described using many different terms, from justified action to an  aggressive, fault laden military campaign to the blatant use of war crimes. Saudi Arabia, along with a coalition of neighbouring Gulf States, and the United States claim that they are simply attempting to restore the legitimate president, Mr. Hadi, to his rightful post. Saudi Arabia, however, took this a step further and accused Iran of funding the Houthis, which, as they share a key ideological standpoint, isn’t a drastic stretch. To make matters even messier, the Houthis are partnered with former President Saleh, and have been acting together to rule Yemen from the capital of Sana’a while Hadi’s government leads from the port city of Aden. Yemen is yet again a country divided. When fuel from the geopolitical fire raging outside of its borders was added – explosions were inevitable.

A Saudi soldier stands next to a bombed out building in the port city of Aden in September of 2015. https://flic.kr/p/Gxzq45

On October 8th 2016, a Saudi airstrike on a funeral in San’a left 140 people dead and 500 injured, exactly a year after a Saudi bombing of a wedding which killed 57 people in Taiz. This is not the first attack on civilians, nor will it be the last. It wasn’t even the deadliest, but it was the first attack since the bombing of the Medicines Sans Frontiers hospital in August 2016 that garnered international attention. It also drew a new bout of criticism from Saudi Arabia’s key military suppliers, specifically the United States. Sixty four members of Congress sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to postpone the sale of new weapons to Saudi Arabia. The letter, however, was too little too late.

A report published in September of this year by the Yemen Data Project revealed that one in three Saudi led attacks hit civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, and mosques. This has resulted in over 3,000 Saudi strikes on civilian areas, using, in all likelihoods, military equipment and arms procured from the US. In July and August of 2016, the US shipped Saudi $8.8 million in bombs, $47.3 million in parts for bombs, 313 guided missiles, and a number of other assorted items. In total, over the course of President Obama’s administration, $115 billion in weapons have been sold to Saudi Arabia.

The United States has attempted to maintain a degree of separation from the conflict, but evidence keeps emerging of their deep ties to the conflict. Before the war, the United States and Yemeni government had a close relationship focused on counter-terrorism and development. Now, despite the US’s best efforts, anti-American sentiment is on the rise. Many believe that, should the US demand an end to the bombings, Saudi Arabia would have to oblige. William Hartung, from the Center for International Policy, stated that “without US support, there’s no way Saudi coalition could wage war at this level”.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and US Secretary of State John Kerry with UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in London, 10/16/2016. https://flic.kr/p/N64Xoo

This view, one that many share, is hindering much needed peace agreements. Cease fire after cease fire have been promised over the last 20 months, and all have quickly and violently ended. Recently, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Oman with the explicit purpose of manufacturing a new peace accord between the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels. Meetings were held, deals were agreed to, but in the end, nothing will change. The Hadi government is refusing to cooperate in diplomatic talks on unity governments with the Houthis as they reject the legitimacy of the newly formed Houthi/Saleh government ruling out of Sanaa. So, in the end, this peace deal seems fated to follow in its predecessors’ footsteps, much to the dismay of everyone involved.

John Kerry desperately needs this deal, as do the people of Yemen. A feather in Kerry’s cap equals an end of over a year of fighting and an opportunity for increasingly vital aid to be distributed. Should he broker a lasting cease fire and peace accord, Kerry’s positive foreign policy legacy in the Middle East would result in a future for the 27 million citizens fighting to stay alive and healthy in a country plagued by famine and disease. A unity government needs to be formed, hopefully before President-Elect Donald Trump’s impending inauguration. No one knows how his foreign policy will manifest in Yemen. It’s not as hot of a topic as the rest of the Middle East, and is not as geopolitically strategic as other conflict zones. Even if his Secretary of State follows in Kerry’s diplomatic footsteps, the time it will take to get acclimated to the role will leave many more Yemenis at risk of death, either by conflict or from one of the unavoidable humanitarian issues that accompanies it. United Nations peace envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has warned that the country is teetering on the “brink of the abyss”, and the quicker Yemen is pulled back from plummeting off the edge, the better off the entire Middle East will be.

 

American presidents fail the rest of us

First draft of an indictment of United States Presidents:

Ah, but you who don't think we Anglo-Saxons have been unfaithful to indigenous peoples of the lands we moved here to claim as our own.   look you well:

We the triumphant heirs of those warlike, Marcomanni, Alamanni, Franks, Angles, and Saxons, who now share power over the  Earth only with the Han of China, are remarkable in many respects.  Our works of art have not been equaled since 560 BCE.  Our manipulation of the stuff of this world is unparalled:  we go to Mars!; We have bestowed upon our children the Mushroom Cloud!  Michelangelo and the destruction of all life on Earth!  Wow!

I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air—look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.  

Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2

We for all our power are not good stewards of the lands we now temporarily occupy.  

There are too many of us and our increase continues at a pace; w eat up all there is.  

We are  Chögyam Trumpa Rinpoche's Hungry Ghost  -- a being with a huge belly and a tiny mouth trying to stuff the world though that tiny mouth, and never do we fill up the wanting void at the center of our being.

It is time now, that we listened the the ancient peoples of the world; the ones we should have lived with in peace not war these long centuries.

In particular now, today,

GET YOUR DESTRUCTIVE ARMIES 

OFF DAKOTA LAND.

LEAVE IT TO THE SIOUX 

WHO LIVE THERE 

TO DETERMINE WHAT 

LEAKY OIL PIPES 

SHOULD CROSS THE LANDS,

DRILL UNDER THEIR RIVERS.

They can't make worse decisions that the good Burghers of Bismarck, ND,

 who successfully stopped the pipes from poisoning their land!   Shortsighted, selfish buggers!  

"Go yonder and poison Indian land" the Burghers said.  "They're just niggers.  What do they matter?"  

And the Oil Barons and their government lackeys agreed.

There is no possible justification for moving the clearly-set-out route of the poison lines from Bismarck to Standing Ruck because citizens of Bismarck prefer that Native Americans be be poisoned instead.  No other justification has been offered.  None other is possible.

  "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war!

 Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1,

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Oh?  You don't think we have dogs of war?  Don't think we can raise a ruckus if we are pushed too far?

Keep on  as you're doing at Standing Rock and see.

Next week the Armed Forces of the United States will knock down the shelters that folks have built at Standing Rock to shelter them from the storms of winter while they keep vigil...

Someone is likely to die.

It is likely to be one of the water protectors.

Given Mr. Trump's lack of empathy -- like Nixon's -- a lot of people are likely to die throughout the world before the Revolution runs its course.

I'll not sew the end of it.  My children will see the beginning of the end of it.  My grandchildren will see how it plays out.

I hope the Revolution's end is as peaceful and beneficial as the Revolution Nixon unintentionally engendered.

This time, though, it won't be Christian Evangelicals on other end.  It will be all the wealth and power of the 1% of the whole world, against all the unrest and rage of the rest of us.

We know how the French Revolution, which went up against great wealth, turned out.

Hope the guillotine isn't brought back.

But --

He said -

How could it come to this?

We're really worried about living.

How could it come to this?

Yeah we really wanna know about this.

World Party - Is It Like Today? 

For a more sophisticated analysis of inequality in the United States and pre-Revolutionary France,see James Traub, Let them eat apple pie: inequality in the US, an article in Foreign Policy Magazine, published in full in the Sydney Morning World, May 13, ,2014.

• 
  

Someone died at Kent State, when Nixon useda rule of "Law and Order"

That Kent State death marked one of the starts of a series of cultural revolutions in the World that are still going on today.