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June 23, 2017 at 11:32 pm #70364
znModeratorFareed Zakaria: Trump stumbles into another decade of war in the Middle East
The Washington Post
While we have been focused on the results of special elections, the ups and downs of the Russia investigation and President Trump’s latest tweets, under the radar, a broad and consequential shift in American foreign policy appears to be underway. Put simply, the United States is stumbling its way into another decade of war in the greater Middle East. And this next decade of conflict might prove to be even more destabilizing than the last one.
Trump came into office with a refreshing skepticism about America’s policy toward the region. “Everybody that’s touched the Middle East, they’ve gotten bogged down. … We’re bogged down,” he said during the campaign. But Trump also sees himself as a tough guy. At his rallies, he repeatedly vowed to “bomb the s— out of” the Islamic State. Now that he is in the White House and has surrounded himself with an array of generals, his macho instinct seems to have triumphed. The administration has ramped up its military operations across the greater Middle East. But what is the underlying strategy?
In the fight against the Islamic State, U.S. forces have been aggressively initiating attacks, resulting in a considerable rise in civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria. And in a dramatic escalation, this week the U.S. shot down a Syrian warplane, putting Washington on a collision course with Syria’s ally, Russia. Worse yet, it is unclear how this belligerence toward the Bashar Assad regime will achieve the sole stated mission of America’s involvement in Syria — to defeat the Islamic State. Logically, if Assad gets weaker, the main opposition forces — various militant Islamist groups, including the Islamic State — will get stronger. Compounding the incoherence, the administration explained that while it had attacked Assad’s forces, it was not fighting the Assad regime and the downing was simply an act of “collective self-defense.” A few more such acts of self-defense and American combat troops could find themselves on the ground in Syria.
In Afghanistan, Trump has delegated the details of a mini-surge of 4,000 more troops to Defense Secretary James Mattis and other leaders. But there are limits to the perspective even of generals. Military officers can tell you whether, for example, they can take a hill. But does taking that hill serve America’s broader strategy? Can that hill be held at reasonable cost? Does this mission distract from other, larger interests around the world? Those are questions that must be answered by the commander in chief.
The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for 16 years. It has had several surges in troop numbers and has spent almost a trillion dollars on that country. Last year, America’s aid to Afghanistan was equivalent to about 40 percent of that nation’s GDP. And yet, Mattis admits that the United States is “not winning.” What will an additional 4,000 troops now achieve that 130,000 troops could not?
In Yemen, the United States is now more actively engaged in a conflict that has little connection to the war against radical Islamic terror. With the latest arms sale, Washington is further fueling Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against Iran . Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, seems likely to persist in this conflict, even though it has gone much worse than expected and has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe. A child in Yemen is dying of preventable causes every 10 minutes, according to UNICEF, and the poorest country in the Arab world has been turned into a wasteland in which terror groups will compete for decades to come.
In almost every situation American forces are involved in, the solutions are more political than military. This has become especially true in places like Syria and Afghanistan where many regional powers have staked out positions and spread their influence. Military force without a strategy and a deeply engaged political and diplomatic process is destined to fail.
During the campaign, Trump seemed to be genuinely reflective about America’s role in the Middle East. “This is not usually me talking, OK, ‘cause I’m very proactive,’ ” he once said on the subject. “But I would sit back and (say), ‘Let’s see what’s going on.’” Yes. After 16 years of continuous warfare, hundreds of thousands dead, trillions of dollars, and greater regional instability, somebody in Washington needs to ask — before the next bombing or deployment: What is going on?
June 23, 2017 at 11:44 pm #70365znModeratorIn Yemen, the United States is now more actively engaged in a conflict that has little connection to the war against radical Islamic terror. With the latest arms sale, Washington is further fueling Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against Iran . Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, seems likely to persist in this conflict, even though it has gone much worse than expected and has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe.
The forgotten war”
Yemen’s crisis is already a forgotten catastrophe that stands to get worseYemen’s “forgotten war” is a catastrophe that’s getting worse
Yemen’s war has spawned the largest single-nation humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian aid chief, Stephen O’Brien. Yet Yemen’s conflict receives little media coverage and it’s increasingly difficult to get critical information on the country’s multiple crises, which include a rising civilian death toll, a surging cholera outbreak and an entire nation on the brink of famine.
After almost three years of conflict dubbed “the forgotten war,” Yemen just became even more difficult to access for non-U.N. personnel like human rights monitors, researchers, and journalists. A recent report from IRIN News revealed the formally recognized Yemeni government and the Saudi-led coalition have ramped up restrictions on human rights activists and journalists boarding U.N.-chartered flights to Yemen’s capital, Sana’a — one of the last few avenues of access to the war-torn nation.
“The country is on its knees,” Elias Diab, an emergency management specialist for UNICEF based in Sana’a, told VICE News. “The restrictions are being imposed by both parties and are extremely impacting our work.”
Fighting between the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has produced a civilian death toll of more than 10,000, put 17 million people at risk of famine, and pushed thousands more into the grips of cholera.
Both sides have clamped down on civil society, making it increasingly difficult for world leaders, international organizations, and media outlets to get accurate, up-to-date information vital in protecting Yemen’s civilians. The crackdown on access has stirred alarm among humanitarian workers and human rights monitors, who fear the situation is only getting worse, but in silence.
“We continue advocating to allow the journalists’ access to all parts of Yemen, but in the meantime we have no choice but to abide by this decision, which is beyond our control,” U.N. spokesman Ahmed Ben Lassoued told IRIN News.
“They are giving the Saudis a blank check to do what they want in Yemen.”
Throughout the war the Saudi-led coalition has shut down airports and naval ports, blocking out human rights workers and monitoring groups, while the Houthis have been accused of arbitrary detentions and the forced disappearances of dozens of people, including journalists and lawyers. Saudi-coalition airstrikes, which are blamed for a “disproportionate amount” of civilian casualties, have claimed the lives of numerous reporters and human rights activists.“What’s going to come next?” Diab asked. “If you’re not present, you cannot protect, you cannot deliver.”
Unimpeded access for human rights monitoring is “a key obligation” under international humanitarian law, said U.N. chief O’Brien at the launch of the 2017 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, in January.
Yemen was already extremely limited in terms of its transparency. The country ranks 166th out of 180 countries on the 2017 Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. Six journalists were killed in Yemen in 2016 alone, the highest number on record, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and just last week two journalists were killed in Central Yemen while covering the war.
CLOSING OFF IN THE THICK OF A CHOLERA OUTBREAK
Humanitarian aid workers say tightening access couldn’t come at a worse time as the country teeters on the brink of famine and a cholera epidemic sweeps the country. Meanwhile an emboldened Saudi Arabia — buoyed by its renewed relationship with the U.S. under President Trump — continues to ramp up strikes and trade embargoes that have disproportionately affected Yemen’s civilians and ignores calls for greater precaution in its battle with Houthi rebels.The U.S.’ few inconsistent attempts to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its human rights violations in Yemen have helped set the tone of the Saudi-coalition’s escalating defiance, human rights experts warn. The Trump’s massive $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia will be brought before the Senate Thursday, where it is expected to face resistance from a growing number of Senators concerned by America’s role in Yemen.
“It’s very clear what the message is from the highest levels in Washington,” said Kristine Beckerle, a Yemen and Kuwait researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They are giving the Saudis a blank check to do what they want in Yemen.”
The official estimate of #Yemen #cholera cases is likely to top 100,000 tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/hYxAOOpJFV
— Ben Parker (@BenParker140) June 7, 2017
Cholera has spread at a rapid pace since its outbreak in April. Weakened health facilities and limited access to medicine in Yemen have spurred an “unprecedented increase” in cholera cases, according to Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. The World Health Organization now estimates over 96,000 suspected cases of cholera in Yemen, with 746 people dying as a result of the disease. Figures are multiplying by the day, with no signs of slowing down.
“It is sad today, but we hope the cholera outbreak will be the turning point in turning people’s attention to Yemen,” he told the Associated Press in an interview published last week.
June 23, 2017 at 11:51 pm #70366znModeratorSaudi-US War on Yemen: No Victory, but Cholera, Famine, State Collapse
Sophia Dingli
https://www.juancole.com/2017/06/victory-cholera-collapse.html
Yemen and its people are engulfed by utter devastation. In the two-plus years of the conflict between the Houthi movement and its allies, including ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and an interim government supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, more than 10,000 people have died – and not just because of violence.
Two thirds of Yemen’s 26m people live with the reality of famine, with around 7m already suffering from acute malnutrition. In these conditions, a child under five dies every 10 minutes. What’s more, the World Health Organisation is sounding the alarm over a new cholera outbreak in the country, which has killed hundreds of people and put some 150,000 at risk.
While it’s true that both sides of the conflict have inflicted innumerable harms on Yemeni civilians, the overwhelming force of the Saudi coalition, backed and supplied by the US and the UK, has received the bulk of the attention, at least in the Western media.
This is partly because of reports that the Saudis have used US- and UK-manufactured and internationally banned cluster bombs against civilians, which have drawn the ire of human and civil rights campaigners and concerned legislators on both sides of the Atlantic.
The problem is that focusing on Saudi excesses, as most Western coverage does, seriously simplifies the situation.
An even bleaker futureFor starters, the ongoing famine is mostly the result of the Saudi coalition’s ongoing naval blockade, which targets not just weapons but also the food imports on which Yemen is almost entirely dependent.
The fixation on Western involvement also overlooks the actions of the Houthis, who have contributed to the crises underway today – not least via their protracted ground operations and siege of the city of Taiz. Meanwhile, Yemen’s economy has all but collapsed, and its financial institutions are seriously mismanaged. This means that even where food is available, people cannot afford to buy it.
The situation could deteriorate further yet. The Saudis and their allies have long been preparing an attack on the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeida, so far a crucial supply route and lifeline for Yemenis, and have requested direct US military aid. In response to that request, a bipartisan group of members of Congress wrote to Donald Trump and his defence secretary, James Mattis, demanding that they end the US’s support for the Saudi campaign. The same members have threatened to take legislative action to insist on congressional oversight of the US’s role in the conflict.
Meanwhile, the UN’s Special Envoy in Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is now trying to bring about an agreement between parties to the conflict which would prevent military clashes in Hodeida and ensure aid can still get in. But the conflict has become so intractable that his chances of success probably aren’t high.
At the same time, Trump’s multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, his rollback of Obama-era civilian protections against drone strikes, and the botched raid against al-Qaeda in the village of al-Ghayil on January 29, coupled with the British Conservative government’s unchanged stance on the conflict, do not bode well for Yemenis.
Instead, the Yemeni people are being treated as little more disposable pawns on the chessboard of Gulf geopolitics. This attitude is replicated in the Gulf among the Saudis and their allies, as well as their enemies the Iranians – and for that matter, by Yemeni politicians too.
Moral outrage versus politicsOn returning from a visit to Yemen, Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, stated in exasperation:
Men with guns and power inside Yemen as well as in regional and international capitals are undermining every effort to avert an entirely preventable famine, as well as the collapse of health and education services for millions of children.
His statement perfectly graps the root of Yemen’s misery. Politics, Machiavelli taught us, often overrides moral concerns; indeed, it has a logic of its own. Shared moral principles, including the principles that absolutely prohibit the wilful production of famine, often aren’t enough to shape the actions of powerful actors as they pursue their interests. This is especially true in a conflict that receives relatively little attention from the outside world.
What can change this? The answer, in part, is not spasmodic expressions of moral outrage, but politics. People need to put consistent pressure on their elected representatives in the UK and US to amend, stop or examine their governments’ behaviour and to pressure their regional allies into resolving the conflict. The complication, of course, is that Yemen’s tragedy is taking place in a country relatively inaccessible to the press and unfamiliar to Western audiences. What is more, global powers may have little to no influence on their regional allies, especially in the context of a rapidly changing global distribution of power.
Still, activists are persisting, and governments are not completely AWOL. They might yet be able to offer Yemenis some sort of lifeline, whether via effective investment in the emergency food program or through actively supporting Cheikh Ahmet’s attempts to prevent a catastrophe at Hodeida.
The ConversationThese may look like small victories, but for millions of Yemenis, they are a matter of life and death. They are testament to a simple truth: justified moral outrage is all very well, but without political action, it does not save lives.June 24, 2017 at 12:16 am #70368znModeratorKiller Drones and the Militarization of US Foreign Policy
Ann Wright
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41032-killer-drones-and-the-militarization-of-us-foreign-policy
The militarization of US foreign policy certainly didn’t start with President Donald J. Trump; in fact, it goes back several decades. However, if Trump’s first 100 days in office are any indication, he has no intention of slowing down the trend.
During a single week in April, the Trump administration fired 59 Tomahawk missiles into a Syrian airfield, and dropped the largest bomb in the US arsenal on suspected ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan. This 21,600-pound incendiary percussion device that had never been used in combat — the Massive Ordinance Air Blast or MOAB, colloquially known as the “Mother of All Bombs” — was used in the Achin district of Afghanistan, where Special Forces Staff Sergeant Mark De Alencar had been killed a week earlier. (The bomb was tested only twice, at Elgin Air Base, Florida, in 2003.)
To underscore the new administration’s preference for force over diplomacy, the decision to experiment with the explosive power of the mega-bomb was taken unilaterally by General John Nicholson, the commanding general of US forces in Afghanistan. In praising that decision, Pres. Trump declared that he had given “total authorization” to the US military to conduct whatever missions they wanted, anywhere in the world — which presumably means without consulting the interagency national security committee.
It is also telling that Pres. Trump chose generals for two key national security positions traditionally filled by civilians: the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor. Yet five months into his administration, he has left unfilled hundreds of senior civilian governmental positions at State, Defense and elsewhere.
An Increasingly Shaky Ban
While Pres. Trump has not yet enunciated a policy on the subject of political assassinations, there has so far been no indication that he plans to change the practice of relying on drone killings established by his recent predecessors.
Back in 1976, however, President Gerald Ford set a very different example when he issued his Executive Order 11095. This proclaimed that “No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”
He instituted this prohibition after investigations by the Church Committee (the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho) and the Pike Committee (its House counterpart, chaired by Rep. Otis G. Pike, D-N.Y.) had revealed the extent of the Central Intelligence Agency’s assassination operations against foreign leaders in the 1960s and 1970s.
With a few exceptions, the next several presidents upheld the ban. But in 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered an attack on Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s home in Tripoli, in retaliation for the bombing of a nightclub in Berlin that killed a US serviceman and two German citizens and injured 229. In just 12 minutes, American planes dropped 60 tons of US bombs on the house, though they failed to kill Gaddafi.
Twelve years later, in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered the firing of 80 cruise missiles on al-Qaida facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan, in retaliation for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Clinton administration justified the action by asserting that the proscription against assassination did not cover individuals whom the US government had determined were connected to terrorism.
Days after al-Qaida carried out its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush signed an intelligence “finding” allowing the Central Intelligence Agency to engage in “lethal covert operations” to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy his terrorist network. White House and CIA lawyers argued that this order was constitutional on two grounds. First, they embraced the Clinton administration’s position that E.O. 11905 did not preclude the United States’ taking action against terrorists. More sweepingly, they declared that the ban on political assassination did not apply during wartime.
Send in the Drones
The Bush administration’s wholesale rejection of the ban on targeted killing or political assassinations reversed a quarter-century of bipartisan US foreign policy. It also opened the door to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct targeted killings (a euphemism for assassinations).
The US Air Force had been flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), since the 1960s, but only as unmanned surveillance platforms. Following 9/11, however, the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency weaponized “drones” (as they were quickly dubbed) to kill both leaders and foot soldiers of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The United States set up bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan for that purpose, but after a series of drone attacks that killed civilians, including a large group gathered for a wedding, the Pakistani government ordered in 2011 that the US drones and US military personnel be removed from its Shamsi Air Base. However, targeted assassinations continued to be conducted in Pakistan by drones based outside the country.
In 2009, President Barack Obama picked up where his predecessor had left off. As public and congressional concern increased about the use of aircraft controlled by CIA and military operators located 10,000 miles away from the people they were ordered to kill, the White House was forced to officially acknowledge the targeted killing program and to describe how persons became targets of the program.
Instead of scaling the program back, however, the Obama administration doubled down. It essentially designated all military-age males in a foreign strike zone as combatants, and therefore potential targets of what it termed “signature strikes.” Even more disturbing, it declared that strikes aimed at specific, high-value terrorists, known as “personality strikes,” could include American citizens.
That theoretical possibility soon became a grim reality. In April 2010, Pres. Obama authorized the CIA to “target” Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and a former imam at a Virginia mosque, for assassination. Less than a decade before, the Office of the Secretary of the Army had invited the imam to participate in an interfaith service following 9/11. But al-Awlaki later became an outspoken critic of the “war on terror,” moved to his father’s homeland of Yemen, and helped al-Qaida recruit members.
On Sept. 30, 2011, a drone strike killed al-Awlaki and another American, Samir Khan — who was traveling with him in Yemen. US drones killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al- Awlaki, an American citizen, 10 days later in an attack on a group of young men around a campfire. The Obama administration never made clear whether the 16-year-old son was targeted individually because he was al-Awlaki’s son or if he was the victim of a “signature” strike, fitting the description of a young militaryage male. However, during a White House press conference, a reporter asked Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs how he could defend the killings, and especially the death of a US-citizen minor who was “targeted without due process, without trial.”
Gibbs’ response did nothing to help the US image in the Muslim world: “I would suggest that you should have had a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al-Qaida jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”
On Jan. 29, 2017, al-Awlaki’s 8-year-old daughter, Nawar al-Awlaki, was killed in a US commando attack in Yemen ordered by Obama’s successor, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the media continued to report incidents of civilians being killed in drone strikes across the region, which frequently target wedding parties and funerals. Many inhabitants of the region along the Afghan-Pakistan border could hear the buzz of drones circling their area around the clock, causing psychological trauma for all those who live in the area, especially children.
The Obama administration was strongly criticized for the tactic of “double-tap” — hitting a target home or vehicle with a Hellfire missile, and then firing a second missile into the group that came to the aid of those who had been wounded in the first attack. Many times, those who ran to help rescue persons trapped inside collapsed buildings or flaming cars were local citizens, not militants.
An Increasingly Counterproductive Tactic
The rationale traditionally offered for using drones is that they eliminate the need for “boots on the ground” — whether members of the armed forces or CIA paramilitary personnel — in dangerous environments, thereby preventing loss of US lives. US officials also claim that the intelligence UAVs gather through lengthy surveillance makes their strikes more precise, reducing the number of civilian casualties. (Left unsaid, but almost certainly another powerful motivator, is the fact that the use of drones means that no suspected militants would be taken alive, thus avoiding the political and other complications of detention.)
Even if these claims are true, however, they do not address the impact of the tactic on US foreign policy. Of broadest concern is the fact that drones allow presidents to punt on questions of war and peace by choosing an option that appears to offer a middle course, but actually has a variety of long-term consequences for US policy, as well as for the communities on the receiving end.
By taking the risk of loss of US personnel out of the picture, Washington policymakers may be tempted to use force to resolve a security dilemma rather than negotiating with the parties involved. Moreover, by their very nature, UAVs may be more likely to provoke retaliation against America than conventional weapons systems. To many in the Middle East and South Asia, drones represent a weakness of the US government and its military, not a strength. Shouldn’t brave warriors fight on the ground, they ask, instead of hiding behind a faceless drone in the sky, operated by a young person in a chair many thousands of miles away?
Since 2007, at least 150 NATO personnel have been the victims of “insider attacks” by members of the Afghan military and national police forces being trained by the coalition. Many of the Afghans who commit such “green on blue” killings of American personnel, both uniformed and civilian, are from the tribal regions on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan where US drone strikes have focused. They take revenge for the deaths of their families and friends by killing their US military trainers.
Anger against drones has surfaced in the United States as well. On May 1, 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square. In his guilty plea, Shahzad justified targeting civilians by telling the judge, “When the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children; they kill everybody. They’re killing all Muslims.”
As of 2012 the US Air Force was recruiting more drone pilots than pilots for traditional aircraft — between 2012 and 2014, they planned to add 2,500 pilots and support people to the drone program. That is nearly twice the number of diplomats the State Department hires in a two-year period.
Congressional and media concern over the program led to the Obama administration’s acknowledgment of the regular Tuesday meetings led by the president to identify targets for the assassination list. In the international media, “Terror Tuesdays” became an expression of US foreign policy.
Not Too Late
To many around the world, US foreign policy has been dominated for the past 16 years by military actions in the Middle East and South Asia, and large land and sea military exercises in Northeast Asia. On the world stage, American efforts in the areas of economics, trade, cultural issues and human rights appear to have taken a back seat to the waging of continuous wars.
Continuing the use of drone warfare to carry out assassinations will only exacerbate foreign distrust of American intentions and trustworthiness. It thereby plays into the hands of the very opponents we are trying to defeat.
During his campaign, Donald Trump pledged he would always put “America First,” and said he wanted to get out of the business of regime change. It is not too late for him to keep that promise by learning from his predecessors’ mistakes and reversing the continued militarization of US foreign policy.
June 24, 2017 at 9:35 am #70374
PA RamParticipantI realized several years ago that we would be at war the rest of my life. It is become normal now and distant for most Americans who really don’t care.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
June 24, 2017 at 10:09 am #70375znModeratorI realized several years ago that we would be at war the rest of my life. It is become normal now and distant for most Americans who really don’t care.
Yeah it’s not discussed much. The mainstream doesn’t dwell on it, except to say we’re fighting terrorists. Even republicans in congress come out and say there’s no good reason to be supporting the Saudi war on Yemen, but no one discusses their reactions. In fact in Yemen the “best” that could be said is that we’re supporting a war on Iranian-backed insurgents (and of course whether that is something we SHOULD be doing is an obvious really big question).
Remember, though, when some people were saying before the election, well at least Trump would keep us out of foreign wars? I never believed that one, myself.
This is one of those areas where clearly Hillary was no better than Trump.
…
June 24, 2017 at 3:10 pm #70379PA RamParticipantThere isn’t even any “war” to be won in any of this. Will ISIS or the Taliban raise surrender flags one day? Of course not. The thought is ridiculous. As soon as we aren’t in an area they will move in and take over. As for the idea that their security forces will eventually control things? Like the ones shooting our soldiers?
Knock out the monster Assad and a radical group will fill the vacuum.
So are we going to create new states? Something that runs with some sort of democracy? Yeah–that barely works here–good luck.
It’s insane.
And there is no end. Ever.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
June 24, 2017 at 3:37 pm #70383
nittany ramModeratorAnd there is no end. Ever.
That’s by design.
June 24, 2017 at 11:45 pm #70392znModeratorWhy Is America Helping Yemen Collapse?
Yemen is collapsing. The Saudi coalition’s blockade and airstrikes are a chief source of civilian suffering, keeping millions from accessing basics of food, medicine, and clean water they desperately need, while fostering a power vacuum that has allowed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to flourish. Looking into the faces of Yemen’s famine victims—many too young to talk, let alone fight—it is not hard to understand why the Saudi intervention has been credibly accused of committing war crimes.
Yet, it is an intervention that depends significantly on American support.
Saudi troops are armed with weapons purchased from the United States, flying planes refueled by the U.S., enforcing that blockade with the aid of our ships, and making strategy with the input of U.S. intelligence. It is no exaggeration to say the Saudi intervention could not continue—or, at least, could not continue at its current scale of counterproductive destruction—without American involvement.
Unanswered now by two consecutive presidents is why that involvement continues. What U.S. interests are being served? How does facilitating this brutal Saudi onslaught defend America? In what way does hastening Yemen’s slide into a failed, famine-wracked state prime for further terror expansion keep us safe?
Yemen is collapsing. Why is America helping that happen?
These questions are particularly pressing because so few Americans are even aware of the Washington’s intervention in Yemen. The topic has never been brought before Congress: President Trump, following in President Obama’s footsteps, is entangled in Yemen without anything resembling the congressional authorization the Constitution wisely demands as a preface to all U.S. military action.
Perhaps no debate is forthcoming because there is no plausible case for congressional endorsement of this fight. There are no vital U.S. interests at stake in the Yemeni civil war, and the Saudi-led intervention is mostly effective in adding instability to a situation that is already a powder keg.
AQAP, founded years after 9/11 and often labeled the most dangerous branch of al Qaeda as it exists today, has been the conflict’s biggest beneficiary. Contrary to Saudi claims that intervention has “denied terrorists a safe haven in Yemen,” the coalition’s actions have “made it easier for al Qaeda elements to expand in more than one area,” a senior Yemeni official told Reuters. “And this is why al Qaeda has today become stronger and more dangerous.”
American support for the Saudi intervention is coupled with U.S. drone strikes, which combined with AQAP’s growth make a poisonous mix. “If you think none of this affects you or the United States, think again,” explains Stephen Seche, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen nominated by President George W. Bush. A starving, angry population makes an easy target for AQAP extremists brainwashing new recruits. That means supporting the Saudi-led intervention may well make us less safe.
“We have an unfortunate habit of arming foreign nations, only to discover that these supposed allies may be creating more enemies for America than they are killing,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued in a recent op-ed about this very probability. “[N]one of this,” he easily concluded, “enhances U.S. national security.” It only enhances U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, an increasingly troublesome “ally” with a laundry list of human rights abuses to its name.
U.S. backing of Saudi intervention in Yemen is dangerous and perplexing at every turn: It is happening without congressional authorization or public approval, doing nothing to defend American security, and facilitating one of the most disgraceful humanitarian crises in the world today.
Why is this still happening, and when will Washington be decent and rational enough to make it stop?
June 27, 2017 at 7:59 pm #70475znModeratorWith Yemen Devastated, Time Is Running Out to Demand US Withdrawal
Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed
The development economist Amartya Sen famously asserted that famines do not occur in democracies. ”No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” he wrote, because democratic governments ”have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.”
Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade in Yemen, which have pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and ignited the worst cholera outbreak in the world, pose a new test for Sen’s assertion. Of course Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, but rather an absolute monarchy, and Yemen lacks a functioning democratic government capable of protecting its population from Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade. But the United States is a democracy, and it is beyond reasonable dispute that Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade in Yemen would not be possible without US approval.
On June 13, the US Senate took a “proxy vote” on US participation in the Saudi war and blockade in Yemen, when it narrowly failed (47-53) to support the Paul-Murphy-Franken of disapproval against part of Trump’s Saudi arms deal. Two days later, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a statement calling for immediate cease-fire to save Yemen from cholera and famine. Yet the Saudi war continues, with US approval. Two days after the Security Council vote, at least 25 civilians were killed by a Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni market.
The US House of Representatives — historically more responsive to war-skeptic forces than the more reflexively pro-empire Senate — has not voted on any aspect of US participation in Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade since June 2016, when it narrowly failed (204-216) to approve the Rep. John Conyers amendment barring the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. Since that time, the Senate has voted twice. A House vote on US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen is long overdue.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is expected to be considered by the House on July 11. Depending on the actions in the House Rules Committee, amendments may be allowed to the NDAA or the Department of Defense Appropriation which would be a proxy votes on US participation in the Saudi war and blockade. Last year, the Representative Conyers’ cluster bomb amendment was originally offered on NDAA but not allowed by Rules, then offered on Department of Defense Appropriations and allowed.
If the House Rules Committee does not allow such amendments — or even if they do — House members can force a vote on US participation on Saudi Arabia’s war by invoking congressional war powers, since US participation has never been authorized by Congress. The last time such a vote happened in the House was during the unauthorized 2011 bombing of Libya. If July 28 is the last day before the House leaves for the August recess, then such a resolution should be introduced by July 17 at the latest in order to allow a vote to be forced before the House leaves town.
There is no guarantee that a House vote will end the war. If we win a House vote, it’s possible, though not likely, that Trump would just ignore it. It’s not likely that Trump would just ignore a House vote, particularly a vote invoking war powers, since even the existing level of pressure was sufficient to induce the Trump administration to vote for the UN cease-fire statement, although cease-fire is the opposite of the US policy actually being implemented. Ignoring such a House vote would have a real political cost. It’s possible that the Trump administration is so attached to the Saudi war in Yemen that they are willing to sustain that cost. That’s unknowable for us until we try. Our job is to keep increasing the political cost of the status quo until there is a cease-fire.
And, of course, it is quite possible that we will lose such a vote. On June 13 we narrowly lost a Senate vote. Last June we narrowly lost the House cluster bomb vote. There’s no question that winning would be much, much better than losing. But in this case, losing would be much, much better than not fighting. Each fight increases pressure compared to no action, which is the relevant alternative. We know what the status quo path is: endless war, cholera and famine in Yemen. We have nothing to lose by forcing a floor vote, and a Yemen cease-fire to win.
You can urge your representative to demand a House vote on US participation in the Saudi war and blockade of Yemen here.
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/house-back-un-call-for?r_by=1135580
June 28, 2017 at 12:49 pm #70504znModeratorAfter US-Backed Bombing Sparks Famine in Yemen, WaPo Editor Insists ‘US Not the Problem’
ADAM JOHNSON
Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl took a massive, human rights-violating catastrophe—the US-assisted Saudi bombing of Yemen for the past two-and-a-half years, and the massive famine it’s caused—and somehow turned it into a write-up on how good and noble the United States is. Diehl cynically whitewashed the US’s role in the crisis and turned Saudi Arabia’s primary defender in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, into an unsung hero—a true masterwork in public relations reality inversion.
Diehl framed the topic as something both public and media have ignored, insisting, “No One Is Paying Attention to the Worst Humanitarian Crisis Since World War II” (6/25/17). This is a bold rhetorical gambit, not least because Diehl himself hasn’t made Yemen a topic of an article since the bombing first began in February 2015. “No one’s noticing this thing I just noticed” is a great way to frame oneself as a moral visionary, without the arduous work of ideological coherence.
Not only does Diehl ignore the US’s role in supplying arms, giving logistical supporting and even facilitating torture on behalf of Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen (a complicity so deep the US State Department itself warned the US could be liable for war crimes), he actually writes, “the United States is not the problem here.” In fact, he paints the US as a lone moral voice:
Notwithstanding the anti-foreign aid posture of the Trump administration, the United States is not the problem here. By early June, Washington had pledged nearly $1.2 billion in relief to the four countries [meaning Yemen and South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, also facing famine], including a supplement of $329 million announced on May 24. There’s more coming, thanks to a bipartisan coalition in Congress, spearheaded by Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, that inserted $990 million for famine relief into this year’s budget.
Painting Graham as the savior of Yemen—when, more than any other US politician, he defends and advocates on behalf of the country bombing Yemen—is uniquely perverse and craven. The article continued like a State Department press release:
But Graham and other key legislators have already made clear that [cuts to foreign aid] won’t happen. “For all the chaos,” Beasley told me, “Democrats and Republicans still come together for hungry children.”
If “Democrats and Republicans” want to “come together for hungry children,” then why did 48 Republicans and five Democrats block a vote two weeks ago to cut off arms to Saudi Arabia, which is currently bombing those children? (An estimated 10,000 civilians have been killed in the US-backed airstrikes, in a country where 50 percent of the population is under 16.)
If Trump is supposed to be the savior of besieged Yemeni children, why not mention Trump’s recent lovefest with the Saudi regime that’s killing them? One is left to ask what moral universe Diehl occupies where the US can act as both arsonist and someone bringing a couple of blankets to the fire victims, and get fawning credit for the latter.
But then Diehl has a long history of taking the worst, most violent excesses of US empire and suggesting they are, in fact, good. In 2011 (10/9/11), he wrote that
the Arab Spring, in short, is making the invasion of Iraq look more worthy — and necessary — than it did a year ago. Before another year has passed, Syrians may well find themselves wishing that it had happened to them.
And, as FAIR (12/23/14: http://fair.org/home/the-weird-world-of-the-washington-post-where-reagan-never-met-gorbachev/ ) noted at the time, Diehl also completely rewrote 70 years of US/Soviet relations and bilateral talks to uphold his weird, fringe position that the US shouldn’t directly engage with Cuba. His M.O. is clear, and his shame seemingly nonexistent.
Omitting US’s responsibility for the carnage in Yemen, while a journalistic crime in its own right, is par for course with most media (FAIR.org, 2/23/17: http://fair.org/home/downplaying-us-contribution-to-potential-yemen-famine/ ). Diehl takes it one step further: Under the pretext of feigning outrage over a very real famine, Diehl attempts to recast the US not as one of the disaster’s primary drivers, but as the only country that can save the day; a noble, moral beacon in a sea of unseemly Arabs.
June 28, 2017 at 8:30 pm #70528
wvParticipantFareed Zakaria: Trump stumbles into another decade of war in the Middle East
The Washington Post
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Yeah, I think i prettymuch agree with all or almost all of that.
Funding Saudi Arabian Dictators who are turning yemen into a wasteland all in an effort to weaken Iran (Israel’s nemesis) — is a war crime,
in my view.w
vJune 28, 2017 at 9:34 pm #70529June 28, 2017 at 10:52 pm #70532znModeratorAnd there is no end. Ever.
That’s by design.
I had a different answer to this before. Now I say there’s a lot of truth to that.
.
June 28, 2017 at 10:53 pm #70533znModeratorAnd there is no end. Ever.
That’s by design.
I had a different answer to this before. Now I say there’s a lot of truth to that.
.
June 29, 2017 at 7:25 am #70546wvParticipantAnd there is no end. Ever.
That’s by design.
I had a different answer to this before. Now I say there’s a lot of truth to that.
.
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Can you explain that or expand on that ?w
vJune 29, 2017 at 7:29 am #70547wvParticipant“The country is on its knees,” Elias Diab, an emergency management specialist for UNICEF based in Sana’a, told VICE News. “The restrictions are being imposed by both parties and are extremely impacting our work.”
Fighting between the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has produced a civilian death toll of more than 10,000, put 17 million people at risk of famine, and pushed thousands more into the grips of cholera.”
=======================17 million people may die,
and US Funding of the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia is a significant and contributing cause of that situation.
And Obama funded them too. As did Bush. As did Clinton.This is why i call US Presidents ‘mass murderers’. Just my view.
They dont ‘have’ to fund ANY dictatorships. They could have COMPLETELY different policies. So…why dont they?
My answer? Deep State.
w
vJune 29, 2017 at 9:32 am #70549nittany ramModeratorAnd there is no end. Ever.
That’s by design.
I had a different answer to this before. Now I say there’s a lot of truth to that.
.
==================
Can you explain that or expand on that ?w
vNot zn but the reason I think the perpetual war is by design is spelled out in this article. And it’s not about a conspiracy. It’s just that our economy seems to be deeply, and perhaps irrevocably entangled with the military industrial complex. Like you always say…follow the money.
June 29, 2017 at 11:35 am #70560wvParticipantNot zn but the reason I think the perpetual war is by design is spelled out in this article. And it’s not about a conspiracy. It’s just that our economy seems to be deeply, and perhaps irrevocably entangled with the military industrial complex. Like you always say…follow the money.
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“….Hundreds of billions of dollars flow each year from the public coffers to agencies and contractors who have an incentive to keep the country on a war-footing – and footing the bill for war.Across the country, the war-based economy can be seen in an industry which includes everything from Homeland Security educational degrees to counter-terrorism consultants to private-run preferred traveller programmes for airport security gates. Recently, the “black budget” of secret intelligence programmes alone was estimated at $52.6bn for 2013. That is only the secret programmes, not the much larger intelligence and counterintelligence budgets. We now have 16 spy agencies that employ 107,035 employees. This is separate from the over one million people employed by the military and national security law enforcement agencies.
The core of this expanding complex is an axis of influence of corporations, lobbyists, and agencies that have created a massive, self-sustaining terror-based industry….”
Yup. Deep State. (or corporotacracy, or whatever oversimplified label you wanna give “it” ) I think it is now ‘wagging the dog’ to a great extent. Not completely yet, but to a great extent.
And the dynamic of this ‘thing’ is linked to the concentration of the Media into fewer and fewer corporate hands. I think we are down to SIX mega-corpse now who basically own the media. I really think this concentration of media into six corpse doesn’t get enuff ink. I mean ya now have this Military-industrial-War dynamic wedded with or embedded with this corporate media thing….and…well, i have noticed a significant change in the media over the last few years. The Trump/clinton election really hi-lited it….blah blah blah i could go on.
Point is, America is a menace abroad now. Just a menace. Way worse than Putin or any other oligarchy in my own personal view. Not because Putin is a good guy, but because this ‘thing’ based in America is the most powerful ‘thing’ in Earth history. Its different than anything in history. There’s no comparison to other empires, etc. The technologies now make it unique.
We all talk about the Bernie phenomenon as a hopeful sign, and it is, but lets face it even if Bernie had been elected could he really change the deep state stuff? I dont think so. They’d wait him out. Etc.
…just think of me now, as the crazy, monomaniacal, curmudgeon of the board. I dont mind.
w
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