When a bomb fell on a school bus in the Yemeni city of Dahyan on August 9, killing dozens, including 40 children, and injuring dozens more, it proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back: US mainstream media could no longer refuse to pay attention to the war that has killed 13,000 and threatened millions with cholera and starvation.
"It is quite remarkable that in these last three years, where the US has been so involved in this devastating war in Yemen, there has been so little coverage," Medea Benjamin, activist and co-founder of anti-war organization Code Pink, told Radio Sputnik's Fault Lines Tuesday. "And we in Code Pink have had campaigns trying to get even MSNBC to cover the war. A year went by; they didn't do a story on the war in Yemen. So it's not just Fox News; it's CNN, it's MSNBC, and it's in general even the print media. There's been almost no coverage on Yemen for the past three years."
[Interview begins 78:00]
The bomb that fell on Dahyan on August 9 was a 500-pound, laser-guided munition manufactured by US defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
"I am so glad to finally see CNN not only covering the slaughter of these children, but calling out General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon for being the ones that supply these bombs," Benjamin told Sputnik. "This has been happening every week since March of 2015, but to finally see a graphic in a mainstream US media calling out these weapons manufacturers is a positive thing," she said, adding that it "puts pressure on the US Senate."
However, the last time the Senate took up this question last March, the upper legislative house voted 55 to 44 not to invoke the War Powers Act, which would have forced US President Donald Trump to end all US involvement "in or affecting" the war in Yemen within 30 days, Sputnik reported at the time.
Benjamin noted that the Pentagon claims it's impossible to determine where US-supplied bombs are falling in Yemen and so refuses to take responsibility for having supplied those bombs. "Of course it's US bombs that were used: the US is supplying billions of dollars of bombs. But it was great that CNN went a step further and actually identified which bombs were being used, which companies they were coming from, not only in the graphic, but there have been shows that show the remains of these weapons with their identifications on them."
"So yes, something that was ‘too difficult' for the Pentagon to do seemed quite easy for CNN."