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Mohammed bin Salman, who seems to be running Saudi Arabia these days, is one of the bad guys. If he were a good guy, he wouldn’t have attacked his neighboring country, Yemen. He wouldn’t be committing war crimes there in conjunction with vital U.S. support. If he were a good guy, he’d respect not only the rights of females but also the rights of everyone else.

Based upon some cursory research, all that I have time for at the moment, I suggest that the dominant media in America are biased in their reporting about this political potentate. I searched Google using “Mohammed bin Salman 2016”. You can check me. I found headlines with terms like this: “…the prince trying to wean Saudi Arabia off oil”, “shatters decades of Royal tradition”, “plotting to try and take over as the country’s new king by the end of 2016”, “buys £452m yacht”, “Mohammed Bin Salman seems to have won a power struggle in the Kingdom”, “The 30-year-old prince who is changing the world”, “just pushed through a bold package of reforms”, “Prince Muhammad Bin Salman Three-Pronged Approach to Counter-Terrorism”, “Saudi deputy crown prince to visit the United States”, “Obama hosts Saudi Prince Salman at White House” and “Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammed Bin Salman To Visit Silicon Valley”.

The preceding articles mainly sell bin Salman as progressive, modern, bold, daring, and innovative. They paint him as a great guy with youthful energy. His age is almost always mentioned.

You would not know that he started a war against Yemen unless you searched on “saudi aggression on yemen 2016”. Then you’d find some headlines like these: “Airstrikes on Yemen funeral kill at least 140 people”, “U.N. experts warn Saudi-led coalition allies over war crimes in Yemen”, “Yemen conflict: The view from the Saudi side”, “US/Saudi Aggression in Yemen Celebrated by Co-Aggressor UAE”, “Why Saudi Arabia Is Continuing Its War In Yemen”, “Saudi-Led Coalition Says It Bombed Yemen Funeral Based on False …”, and “Why is Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen”.

Some of these war-oriented articles are justifying the Saudi aggression. One article explains that bombing the funeral procession can be blamed on false intelligence. The man’s name who is responsible for all this is not in these headlines.

Nowadays, the press is busy associating Yemen with Iran in order to justify Saudi aggression. However, it is reluctantly being forced to acknowledge the Saudi starvation strategy. The spread of cholera and the rising number of deaths is the attention-getter after 2 years.

Had the dominant press recognized and reported the Saudi aggression for what it was in 2015, the image of bin Salman would have been entirely different. Today he’s being celebrated in these media as a liberalizer, even a populist. He’s letting women drive cars! Think of that! He must be okay. He must be a good guy.

He’s not. Good guys do not kill with the left hand while distributing Thanksgiving turkeys with the right hand. That’s what neighborhood gangsters and Mafia do. Bin Salman is a gangster. He’s a bad guy.

ADDENDUM: 9 hours after this was written, an article in The Duran confirms the media bias.

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

It’s remarkable that whenever you read an article about Yemen in the mainstream media, the central role of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the tragedy is glossed over or completely ignored. A recent Washington Post article purporting to tell us “how things got so bad” explains to us that, “it’s a complicated story” involving “warring regional superpowers, terrorism, oil, and an impending climate catastrophe.”

No, Washington Post, it’s simpler than that. The tragedy in Yemen is the result of foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of that country. It started with the “Arab Spring” which had all the fingerprints of State Department meddling, and it escalated with 2015’s unprovoked Saudi attack on the country to re-install Riyadh’s preferred leader. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and millions more are at risk as starvation and cholera rage.

We are told that US foreign policy should reflect American values. So how can Washington support Saudi Arabia – a tyrannical state with one of the worst human rights record on earth – as it commits by what any measure is a genocide against the Yemeni people? The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs warned just last week that Yemen faces “the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims.” The Red Cross has just estimated that a million people are vulnerable in the cholera epidemic that rages through Yemen.

The United States is backing Saudi aggression against Yemen by cooperating in every way with the Saudi military. Targeting, intelligence, weapons sales, and more. The US is a partner in Saudi Arabia’s Yemen crimes. Does holding hands with Saudi Arabia as it slaughters Yemeni children really reflect American values? Is anyone even playing attention?

The claim that we are fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen and thus our involvement is covered under the post-9/11 authorization for the use of force is without merit. In fact it has been reported numerous times in the mainstream media that US intervention on behalf of the Saudis in Yemen is actually a boost to al-Qaeda in the country. Al-Qaeda is at war with the Houthis who had taken control of much of the country because the Houthis practice a form of Shi’a Islam they claim is tied to Iran. We are fighting on the same side as al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Adding insult to injury, the US Congress can’t be bothered to even question how we got so involved in a war that has nothing to do with us. A few conscientious Members of Congress got together recently to introduce a special motion under the 1973 War Powers Act that would have required a vote on our continued military involvement in the Yemen genocide. The leadership of both parties joined together to destroy this attempt to at least get a vote on US aggression against Yemen. As it turns out, the only Members to vote against this shamefully gutted resolution were the original Members who introduced it. This is bipartisanship at its worst.

US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemen is a national disgrace. That the mainstream media fails to accurately cover this genocide is shameful. Let us join our voices now to demand that our US Representatives end US involvement in Yemen immediately!

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Amidst the rising clamor in the US over groping and goosing, America’s Congress is beginning to fret about President Donald Trump’s shaky finger being on the nation’s nuclear button.

The air force officer that dutifully trails the president carries the electronic launch codes in a black satchel that could ignite a world war that would largely destroy our planet.  This is rather more serious than groping and pinching.

The inexperienced Trump has talked himself into a corner over North Korea.  He thought bombastic threats and a side deal with China could force the stubborn North Koreans to junk their nuclear weapons.  Anyone with knowledge of North Asia could have told him this plan would not work.

Trump threatened North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ – a clear allusion to the use of nuclear weapons.  The North Koreans mooned the tough-talking president and went ahead with their nuclear programs.  So Trump’s big bluff was called.  A huge embarrassment for the amateur president who evaded military service in the 1960’s.

On top of that, the wicked North Koreans referred to Trump as ‘old.’  He riposted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was ‘short and fat.’  It is to this level of kindergarten invective that we have sunk – idiotic kids armed with nuclear weapons.

Nuclear war is absolutely unthinkable.  Totally crazy. Yet serious discussion is underway in military and neocon war circles about a nuclear war against North Korea and, even crazier, against Iran and Russia.  Welcome home, Dr Strangelove.

Responsible people in government are increasingly worried that President Trump might ignite nuclear war to salvage his bruised ego and to show the Asians who is boss.  Trump has already ringed North Korea with heavy bombers, strike aircraft, three heavy aircraft carriers and fleets of warplanes in Japan, South Korea and Guam.

A single incident – a naval clash, a mining, an air encounter – could set the stage for war.  Senior US officers have been telling Trump the same message that this column has delivered for years: that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is unlikely to be destroyed by even a surprise nuclear attack.

The Pentagon admits that a ground invasion of North Korea would be far too costly.  A decade-old Rand Corp study estimated US losses would be in the range of 250,000 men.

North Korea will probably retain enough nuclear-armed missiles in deep caves after a US nuclear attack to riposte against South Korea and Japan, where there are nearly 100,000 US troops and dependents. Japan, the world’s third most important economic power, is totally vulnerable to nuclear devastation.

Nuclear-armed China and Russia are right next door to North Korea.  Trump’s threats to attack North Korea might force them to challenge the US in a major confrontation.  The head of South Korea’s ruling party just insisted that the US must not attack North Korea without her nation’s prior consent – which will not likely be given.

Washington is planning large, new provocative military exercises around North Korea – just the type of sabre rattling that provoked the current crisis.  China urged Washington to call off its warlike actions and, in exchange, for North Korea to stop testing nuclear warheads and missiles.

Sensible, of course, but Chief Crusader Trump rejects such plans and keeps sending mixed messages to the world.  If he really wanted peace with North Korea all he would have to do is fly to Pyongyang, bury the hatchet, and shoot some rounds of golf with Kim Jong-un who would be thrilled to pieces.

This is unlikely to happen.  Meanwhile, senior military officers and some in Congress who actually mastered high school are trying to figure out how to keep the volatile Trump away from the nuclear trigger.

According to the US Constitution, Congress has the power to declare war.   But the president has a residual right to initiate military action in the event of a sudden threat.  The fate of the globe cannot be left in the hands of one man.  Even Russia and China require some checks and balances before nuclear war is unleashed.  The US apparently does not.

Some senior officers say they would refuse to obey an illegal order.  But none refused when it came to the unjustified attack on Iraq and war against Syria. In fact, the US nuclear attack system is designed to thwart interference with any orders to unleash war.

A no-first use pledge would be a positive step, to be sure.  A better way would be for Congress to mandate a collegial decision to use nuclear weapons that would involve the president, vice president, secretary of state, chief of staff and chief justice.  This, of course, would not apply if the US was under nuclear attack.  But even certainty of attack can be uncertain, as numerous nuclear crises during the cold war showed.

The urgent message of the day is: President Trump. Step away from that nuclear button and calm down.

From Lewrockwell.com, here.