Last week, the leader of the rebel military campaign in Libya, Abdel Fattah Younes was killed in action. It appears that the Libyan rebels killed their own General. This happened on the same day as reports trickled out that the West is now backing off the "humanitarian intervention". If these reports are true, then this is good news for the Libyan people. This is shown by the recent attack on the Libyan water supply by NATO. An air strike not only killed 6 guards, but destroyed a factory that makes the pipes for the country's irrigation system. This irrigation system gives water to 70% of the country.

With media coverage focused almost primarily on the debt ceiling in the past few weeks, the wars have been all but forgotten. With at least 3 wars being waged by the US (I count at least 6 major military operations, and who knows what the CIA has been doing across the globe), the amount of time actually spent by the media on foreign affairs is shockingly low. The corporate media seems much more interested in getting the latest sound-bite from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Nancy Pelosi than the amount of people dying from war, especially wars supported by the West and the United States. As I am writing this, Martin Bashir of MSNBC has a movie reviewer on to mock Sarah Palin's movie. In his hour long show, there was no mention of Libya, Iraq, or Somalia. Taking shots at Sarah Palin may be fun, but seems to be more of the job of Conan or Letterman than MSNBC or CNN. We just had a (rather absurd) debate about the debt and deficit at Washington, and the government agency that spends the most money, the Pentagon, was hardly mentioned. No major politician or prime-time pundit called for the ending of the wars as a solution to the debt, instead there were only discussions of taxes (which were not raised) and domestic spending (which could go through some drastic cuts). The utter failure of the mainstream media to cover the events going on in the Middle East has proved to not only annoying, but devastating.

Of course, all of this goes on while Africa (especially Somalia) is going through a severe food crisis, while the US simultaneously uses drone attacks on selected targets. Its shocking that nearly a whole country is in starvation, and it still gets less media coverage than bizarre Washington wrestling matches. This week in Syria, tanks stormed a city killing 61 people amid protests. This is after more than 20 civilians died on Friday because of soldiers firing into crowds, but you wouldn't know it if you only watched Fox News or MSNBC.