The 'never again' bullshit

We humans are a bizarre bunch.  We are aware of acute food shortages and malnutrition, yet we keep going with our own lives.  We live the "let them eat cakes" lives of affluence.

We are even willing to bomb the shit out of people trapped between prick-waving maniacs, which then leads to more than mere food shortages.  We use the "f" word: Famine, which the United Nations defines as:

A famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met. They are: at least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons.

How depressingly clinical, right?

Yemen has reached that famine stage:

More than two years of civil war in the country has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with almost seven million people on the brink of famine.
A resurgence of a cholera outbreak has also resulted in 60,000 suspected cases since April and 500 associated deaths.

Let them eat cakes!

the suffering of Yemenis was not a coincidence, or the "result of forces beyond our control" - but rather the fault of those involved and inaction by world powers.

Let them eat cakes!

As Amartya Sen noted, famines are often the result of human (mis)management.  In the case of Yemen, too:

“If there was no conflict in Yemen, there would be no descent into famine, misery, disease and death — a famine would certainly be avoidable and averted,” Mr. O’Brien told the United Nations Security Council.
He depicted the crisis as man-made, implicitly placing part of the blame on the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition that has been bombing Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies for over two years.
He also blamed the Houthis.
“The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death as the world watches,” he said.
Mr. O’Brien also implored the Saudis to avoid an attack on Hodeidah, the only port in Yemen that can still handle shiploads of food and medicine. Virtually all of the basic needs in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, must be imported.

It is not as if we were caught unaware.  This is not like a 9.0 earthquake that suddenly happens.  We have systematically created this famine, and are making sure the misery will get worse:

Donald Trump ran for president as the world’s greatest dealmaker. His first international destination as president, Saudi Arabia, is where he reportedly registered eight companies during his campaign. Yet by announcing one of the largest arms-sales deals in U.S. history during this visit, Trump is revealing to the world a dark side to his boasts of creating jobs: He may be helping to create a famine as well.

Let them eat cakes!

If our dealmaker in chief ever had leverage in a negotiation, it would be this one. With a hundred billion dollars’ worth of U.S. planes, ships and precision-guided munitions on the line, Trump could simply demand that the Saudis end the blockade, refrain from bombing Yemen’s major port and enter into a U.N.-brokered political settlement in exchange for the U.S.-made weapons. But he doesn’t have to listen to a progressive Democrat like me — these are precisely the policies that Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) has been calling for. Even Trump’s own appointee to the World Food Program, former South Carolina governor David Beasley (R), argued that in light of the president’s visit, “it’s very, very timely that the United States apply all the pressure it can with regard to all parties involved, including Saudi Arabia.”

Let them eat cakes, while we sell more arms to kill them all!

Caption at the source:
A woman with cholera was treated at a hospital in Sana, Yemen, on Sunday.

How Winston Churchill starved India. Literally :(

Soutik Biswas writes in reviewing Madhusree Mukherjee's Churchill's Secret War:

Some three million Indians died in the famine of 1943. The majority of the deaths were in Bengal. In a shocking new book, Churchill's Secret War, journalist Madhusree Mukherjee blames Mr Churchill's policies for being largely responsible for one of the worst famines in India's history.

Why is the war time prime minister, Churchill, to be blamed?  Well, the acute shortage of food

was caused by large-scale exports of food from India for use in the war theatres and consumption in Britain - India exported more than 70,000 tonnes of rice between January and July 1943, even as the famine set in. This would have kept nearly 400,000 people alive for a full year. Mr Churchill turned down fervent pleas to export food to India citing a shortage of ships - this when shiploads of Australian wheat, for example, would pass by India to be stored for future consumption in Europe. As imports dropped, prices shot up and hoarders made a killing. Mr Churchill also pushed a scorched earth policy - which went by the sinister name of Denial Policy - in coastal Bengal where the colonisers feared the Japanese would land. So authorities removed boats (the lifeline of the region) and the police destroyed and seized rice stocks.

And, what was Churchill's response when this was discussed at cabinet meetings?  The soon to be appointed Viceroy, Archibald Wavell, writes:

"Apparently it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in this country," writes Sir Wavell in his account of the meetings. Mr Amery is more direct. "Winston may be right in saying that the starvation of anyhow under-fed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks, but he makes no sufficient allowance for the sense of Empire responsibility in this country," he writes.

As Shakespeare wrote, "And Brutus is an honourable man" .... :(

Christian charity feeds non-gay African famine victims

When I was in Tanzania, which now seems like eons ago, one of the hot news items in the papers there was from neighboring Uganda, whose government, with valuable assistance from American evangelicals, had passed one of the most virulently anti-gay legislation in the world.  There I was comfortably seated inside the newly constructed Doubletree and having coffee in the morning admiring the scenery when I almost spilled that bloody strong coffee when I read about the death penalty for gays!  If it was that shocking to a straight guy, I could only imagine how absolutely threatened gays felt in Uganda ...

Well, that was then ... and the following is now (from, ahem, America's Finest News Source) about a Colorado-based Christian charity that raises money to feed non-gay famine victims in Sub-Saharan Africa

Christian Charity Raising Money To Feed Non-Gay Famine Victims
Note how this charity "does not discriminate"--helped non-Muslims in Indonesia :)