Boardman writes: "The American-backed genocidal war on Yemen is in its fifth
month, making it one of the hotter issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign,
right? Wrong."
President Obama. (photo: AP)
Do War Crimes in Yemen Matter to an American President?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
08 August 15
The US added Yemen to its 14 years of continuous war somewhere
The American-backed genocidal war on Yemen is in its fifth month, making it
one of the hotter issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign, right? Wrong.
If ANY announced candidate has said anything about Yemen, it's hard to find.
None of our would-be leaders of the free world are calling for a halt to the
war of aggression that violates international law, none are demanding a stop
to the war crimes and crimes against humanity that flow from the
terror-bombing carried out by Saudi Arabia and its allies, with US tactical
and intelligence support. None of our White House aspirants are demanding a
halt to this criminal war or demanding justice against its war-criminal
perpetrators.
Of course, neither is the present president, whose administration seems to
have adopted a policy variant on the way we won the west ("the only good
injun is a dead injun"). Now the American mantra amounts to "the only good
Houthi is a dead Houthi." The slogan may change, but the genocide remains
the same.
The good news here, in its way, is that there's no cheerleading section for
multi-state savagery against largely defenseless people. Little reported,
even less discussed, the US-Saudi terror bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen
goes relentlessly on, like the fascist intervention in the Spanish Civil
War, causing a Yemenicide of displaced, starving, and dead civilians, along
with a few dead fighters whose enemies include not only the US and Saudi
coalition, but also Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIL) in Yemen as well.
In other words, President Obama's policy amounts to a declaration that the
enemies of our enemies are also our enemies. Why? Who knows? Because the
Saudi Sunnis say so? Because the US thinks killing Shi'ites en masse is a
good thing? Is it pure, homicidal cynicism for the sake of Saudi oil? Is it
just a continuation of the recent American proclivity to get in on the wrong
side of stupid wars, as the president said of Iraq?
Is American foreign policy built on institutional stupidity?
There's plenty of evidence for a prima facie case that American policy on
war and peace has been rooted in stupidity at least since Viet-Nam. The
underlying question is whether stupidity is a product or a cause of
capitalism or imperialism. And a related question is whether it's really
stupidity, since it's the consistent policy of a tiny minority, the
bipartisan American elite that continues to benefit from being consistently
wrong from a moral or humanitarian perspective. That's another reason a
healthy country needs war crimes trials for people above the rank of
lieutenant.
One of the major stupidities still raging through American political
discourse, such as it is, is that Iran is all bad. This is an article of
faith for which the evidence is very thin. Any honest indictment of Iran
would be far briefer than an indictment of Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the
United States. Clearly, no honest indictments are in the offing.
Caught in this web of Iran inanity as he tries to establish a sane
relationship with Iran (a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,
unlike Israel), President Obama recently undermined the prime Saudi
rationale for reducing Yemen to rubble. The Saudis are Iranaphobic, blaming
Iran for the Houthi rebellion against decades of repression by the Yemeni
government. Now President Obama has quietly said that actually Iran tried to
restrain the Houthis when they started to take over Yemen:
"When the Houthis started moving, that wasn't on orders from [the head if
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qasim] Soleimani, that wasn't on an order
from the IRGC [Iranian Guard]. That was an expression of the traditional
Houthi antagonism towards [the Yemeni capitol] Sanaa, and some of the
machinations of the former president, [Ali Abdullah] Saleh, who was making
common cause out of expediency with the Houthis..
"We watched as this proceeded. There were moments where Iran was actually
urging potential restraint. Now, once the Houthis march in and there's no
there there [the government fled] are they interested in getting arms to the
Houthis and causing problems for the Saudis? Yes. But they weren't
proceeding on the basis of, come hell or high water, we're moving on a holy
war here."
Whatever. That didn't keep the Obama administration from joining the Saudis
in committing war crimes if there was a holy war. Obama argues, heretically
in the present American belief system, that Iran is a rational state actor.
What he doesn't say is that, in recent history, Iran has been a more
rational state actor than the US. Having called US anti-terrorist policy in
Yemen a success, President Obama has been all but silent about the criminal
war that resulted from that "success."
If no one talks about a genocide, it's not really happening, is it?
Like their president, the current candidates' silence on Yemen is just as
deafening. That silence is aided and abetted by a passive press corps that
chooses not to ask questions about why the US is aiding the Saudi coalition
in trashing international law and destroying one of the poorest countries in
the world. That's similar to the Turkish Rule about Armenians: if you forbid
mention of genocide, then it never happened.
As a former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton might have some insight into
what's happening in and to Yemen. She might even have an opinion. But if she
does, she hasn't shared it much. She has a record of voting for and
tolerating criminal wars. Her official website, skimpy on foreign policy
generally, doesn't seem to mention Yemen at all. Surely her reticence has
little to do with gifts to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia,
Morocco, and Yemen (the former government, whose president has fled to Saudi
Arabia), all of which are among the criminal belligerents in the Saudi
coalition.
Bernie Sanders doesn't seem to have anything to say about war crimes in
Yemen, either. But then Bernie Sanders doesn't have much to say about war
and peace issues, defense spending (more than half the US budget), or
militarism generally. He's made a point of supporting wounded American
veterans, which is decent and politically easy, but fails to address the
pathology that creates wounded veterans in the first place. He's said the US
needs to fight terrorism, but so do Saudi Arabia and Turkey ("Those
countries are going to have to get their hands dirty, it cannot just be the
United States alone"). This implies that Sanders is OK with Turkish attacks
on its Kurds and Saudi depredations against Yemen. He doesn't actually say.
Jill Stein of the Green Partyapparently hasn't said anything about America's
criminal war on Yemen in particular. She has, however, expressed sanity
about Iran, called the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan illegal, and in 2012 she
noted that:
"It's very clear that there is blowback going on now across the Middle East,
not only the unrest directed at the Libyan embassy. 75% of Pakistanis
actually identify the US now as their enemy, not as their supporter or their
ally. And, you know, in many ways, we're seeing a very ill-conceived,
irresponsible and immoral war policy come back to haunt us, where US foreign
policies have been based, unfortunately, on brute military force and wars
for oil. Under my administration, we will have a foreign policy based on
international law and human rights and the use of diplomacy." [emphasis
added]
As for the 17 Republican candidates running for president, that's a running
joke, with a potential punch line that's not too funny. Given their
collective performance on the Fox News "debates," none of them has a
coherent view of the US place in the world beyond doing whatever it pleases.
The Fox News reporters didn't ask any probing questions.
There were some hilarious responses about foreign policy, as Juan Cole
noted. Ted Cruz seemed to praise Egyptian President al-Sisi for killing
hundreds of opponents and establishing a military police state. Ben Carson
seemed to defend torture and other war crimes. A Fox reported asked Scott
Walker, "Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has
potential to be our greatest partner?" Walker's effectively answered "none"
when he said:
". we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the
best relationship we've had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly
important. You look at the Saudis - in fact, earlier this year, I met with
Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them
what's the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal.
They said it's the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind
under the Obama-Clinton doctrine - America's a great country. We need to
stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in
Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf."
All of this seems to confirm the observation attributed to Ambrose Bierce
more than a century ago, that "War is God's way of teaching Americans
geography."
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
President Obama. (photo: AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Do War Crimes in Yemen Matter to an American President?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
08 August 15
The US added Yemen to its 14 years of continuous war somewhere
he American-backed genocidal war on Yemen is in its fifth month, making it
one of the hotter issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign, right? Wrong.
If ANY announced candidate has said anything about Yemen, it's hard to find.
None of our would-be leaders of the free world are calling for a halt to the
war of aggression that violates international law, none are demanding a stop
to the war crimes and crimes against humanity that flow from the
terror-bombing carried out by Saudi Arabia and its allies, with US tactical
and intelligence support. None of our White House aspirants are demanding a
halt to this criminal war or demanding justice against its war-criminal
perpetrators.
Of course, neither is the present president, whose administration seems to
have adopted a policy variant on the way we won the west ("the only good
injun is a dead injun"). Now the American mantra amounts to "the only good
Houthi is a dead Houthi." The slogan may change, but the genocide remains
the same.
The good news here, in its way, is that there's no cheerleading section for
multi-state savagery against largely defenseless people. Little reported,
even less discussed, the US-Saudi terror bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen
goes relentlessly on, like the fascist intervention in the Spanish Civil
War, causing a Yemenicide of displaced, starving, and dead civilians, along
with a few dead fighters whose enemies include not only the US and Saudi
coalition, but also Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIL) in Yemen as well.
In other words, President Obama's policy amounts to a declaration that the
enemies of our enemies are also our enemies. Why? Who knows? Because the
Saudi Sunnis say so? Because the US thinks killing Shi'ites en masse is a
good thing? Is it pure, homicidal cynicism for the sake of Saudi oil? Is it
just a continuation of the recent American proclivity to get in on the wrong
side of stupid wars, as the president said of Iraq?
Is American foreign policy built on institutional stupidity?
There's plenty of evidence for a prima facie case that American policy on
war and peace has been rooted in stupidity at least since Viet-Nam. The
underlying question is whether stupidity is a product or a cause of
capitalism or imperialism. And a related question is whether it's really
stupidity, since it's the consistent policy of a tiny minority, the
bipartisan American elite that continues to benefit from being consistently
wrong from a moral or humanitarian perspective. That's another reason a
healthy country needs war crimes trials for people above the rank of
lieutenant.
One of the major stupidities still raging through American political
discourse, such as it is, is that Iran is all bad. This is an article of
faith for which the evidence is very thin. Any honest indictment of Iran
would be far briefer than an indictment of Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the
United States. Clearly, no honest indictments are in the offing.
Caught in this web of Iran inanity as he tries to establish a sane
relationship with Iran (a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,
unlike Israel), President Obama recently undermined the prime Saudi
rationale for reducing Yemen to rubble. The Saudis are Iranaphobic, blaming
Iran for the Houthi rebellion against decades of repression by the Yemeni
government. Now President Obama has quietly said that actually Iran tried to
restrain the Houthis when they started to take over Yemen:
"When the Houthis started moving, that wasn't on orders from [the head if
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qasim] Soleimani, that wasn't on an order
from the IRGC [Iranian Guard]. That was an expression of the traditional
Houthi antagonism towards [the Yemeni capitol] Sanaa, and some of the
machinations of the former president, [Ali Abdullah] Saleh, who was making
common cause out of expediency with the Houthis..
"We watched as this proceeded. There were moments where Iran was actually
urging potential restraint. Now, once the Houthis march in and there's no
there there [the government fled] are they interested in getting arms to the
Houthis and causing problems for the Saudis? Yes. But they weren't
proceeding on the basis of, come hell or high water, we're moving on a holy
war here."
Whatever. That didn't keep the Obama administration from joining the Saudis
in committing war crimes if there was a holy war. Obama argues, heretically
in the present American belief system, that Iran is a rational state actor.
What he doesn't say is that, in recent history, Iran has been a more
rational state actor than the US. Having called US anti-terrorist policy in
Yemen a success, President Obama has been all but silent about the criminal
war that resulted from that "success."
If no one talks about a genocide, it's not really happening, is it?
Like their president, the current candidates' silence on Yemen is just as
deafening. That silence is aided and abetted by a passive press corps that
chooses not to ask questions about why the US is aiding the Saudi coalition
in trashing international law and destroying one of the poorest countries in
the world. That's similar to the Turkish Rule about Armenians: if you forbid
mention of genocide, then it never happened.
As a former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton might have some insight into
what's happening in and to Yemen. She might even have an opinion. But if she
does, she hasn't shared it much. She has a record of voting for and
tolerating criminal wars. Her official website, skimpy on foreign policy
generally, doesn't seem to mention Yemen at all. Surely her reticence has
little to do with gifts to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia,
Morocco, and Yemen (the former government, whose president has fled to Saudi
Arabia), all of which are among the criminal belligerents in the Saudi
coalition.
Bernie Sanders doesn't seem to have anything to say about war crimes in
Yemen, either. But then Bernie Sanders doesn't have much to say about war
and peace issues, defense spending (more than half the US budget), or
militarism generally. He's made a point of supporting wounded American
veterans, which is decent and politically easy, but fails to address the
pathology that creates wounded veterans in the first place. He's said the US
needs to fight terrorism, but so do Saudi Arabia and Turkey ("Those
countries are going to have to get their hands dirty, it cannot just be the
United States alone"). This implies that Sanders is OK with Turkish attacks
on its Kurds and Saudi depredations against Yemen. He doesn't actually say.
Jill Stein of the Green Partyapparently hasn't said anything about America's
criminal war on Yemen in particular. She has, however, expressed sanity
about Iran, called the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan illegal, and in 2012 she
noted that:
"It's very clear that there is blowback going on now across the Middle East,
not only the unrest directed at the Libyan embassy. 75% of Pakistanis
actually identify the US now as their enemy, not as their supporter or their
ally. And, you know, in many ways, we're seeing a very ill-conceived,
irresponsible and immoral war policy come back to haunt us, where US foreign
policies have been based, unfortunately, on brute military force and wars
for oil. Under my administration, we will have a foreign policy based on
international law and human rights and the use of diplomacy." [emphasis
added]
As for the 17 Republican candidates running for president, that's a running
joke, with a potential punch line that's not too funny. Given their
collective performance on the Fox News "debates," none of them has a
coherent view of the US place in the world beyond doing whatever it pleases.
The Fox News reporters didn't ask any probing questions.
There were some hilarious responses about foreign policy, as Juan Cole
noted. Ted Cruz seemed to praise Egyptian President al-Sisi for killing
hundreds of opponents and establishing a military police state. Ben Carson
seemed to defend torture and other war crimes. A Fox reported asked Scott
Walker, "Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has
potential to be our greatest partner?" Walker's effectively answered "none"
when he said:
". we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the
best relationship we've had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly
important. You look at the Saudis - in fact, earlier this year, I met with
Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them
what's the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal.
They said it's the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind
under the Obama-Clinton doctrine - America's a great country. We need to
stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in
Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf."
All of this seems to confirm the observation attributed to Ambrose Bierce
more than a century ago, that "War is God's way of teaching Americans
geography."
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
