Boardman writes: "If ANY presidential candidate has said anything
substantive in opposition to the US participation in the war on Yemen, it's
not easy to find. It's not easy to find a presidential candidate in
opposition to America's 14 years of continuous war in the Middle East and
Africa."
A Houthi militant sits amidst debris from the Yemeni Football Association
building, which was damaged in a Saudi-led air strike, in Sanaa May 31,
2015. (photo: Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)
US & Saudi Arabia War Crimes Keep Killing Yemenis
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
30 August 15
Is there anyone who believes that Yemeni Lives Matter?
Saudi ground forces invaded Yemen for the first time in this war on August
27. Officially, the Saudi government characterizes the invasion as an
incursion that will be limited and temporary. The Saudi government made
similar representations about their terror-bombing of Yemen that began March
26 and has continued on a near-daily basis to the present.
Other foreign troops have invaded southern Yemen in support of the ousted
Yemeni government.
At the same time as the Saudi invasion, the ousted Yemeni government, now
talking tough from the safety of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, says it won't
enter into any peace talks until the other side, which has no air force and
no navy, surrenders its weapons and withdraws from disputed territory. This
"demand" is consistent with the corrupt UN Security Council resolution that
passed in April, with the support of the US and other countries then waging
war on Yemen.
Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen, the poorest country in the region,
has been catastrophic for Yemen, which is all-but-defenseless. Backed by
eight other Arab dictatorships and the US, the Saudi alliance has committed
uncounted war crimes and crimes against humanity. The onslaught has killed
more than 4,300 people (mostly civilians), subjected roughly half the Yemeni
population to severe hunger and water scarcity, and laid waste to World
Heritage sites among the oldest in the world.
The US-led naval blockade, an act of war, has cut food imports to Yemen,
which is not capable of growing enough food to feed its population. The head
of the UN World Food Program reported on August 19 that Yemen is on the
verge of famine, making the US naval blockade a potential crime against
humanity. The UN humanitarian chief has reported to the UN Security Council
that "the scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible." As reported
by ABC News:
He said he was shocked by what he saw: Four out of five Yemenis are in need
of humanitarian assistance, nearly 1.5 million people are internally
displaced, and people were using cardboard for mattresses at a hospital
where lights flickered, the blood bank had closed and there were no more
examination gloves.
Like most mainstream media, ABC News delivers the suffering with relish, but
has a hard time telling the war story straight, resorting to euphemistic
evasions such as: "at least 1,916 civilians have died in the Yemen conflict
since it escalated on March 26." [emphasis added] That's just dishonest. On
March 25, the "Yemen conflict" was primarily a civil war (with ISIS and al
Qaeda thrown in).
US leadership cultivates a new generation of war criminals
On March 26, the US-backed Saudi alliance turned the "conflict" into an
illegal international war, launching saturation bombing of defenseless
populations in coordination with the naval blockade designed to starve the
rebels into submission. The "conflict" did not, as ABC wrote, escalate
itself - the US and Saudi coalition started a new, undeclared, criminal war
for which the leading war criminals of eight countries (starting with
President Obama) will likely never face accountability, any more than Obama
was willing to hold Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the Iraq war criminals to
account.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights observers
report war crimes being committed on all sides.
An Amnesty representative said: "All the parties to this conflict have
displayed a ruthless and wanton disregard for the safety of civilians." "All
the parties" includes the rebels and the Yemeni-government-in-exile in Saudi
Arabia, of course. But it also includes the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Senegal, Pakistan, and Somalia. If
any of these countries has a peace movement, there is little evidence of it.
US sponsorship of the criminal war on Yemen also includes the provision of
US cluster bombs, which have been outlawed by most of the world's civilized
nations. More than 100 countries have signed the international ban on
cluster bombs, but the US - like China, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Iran, and Israel - are not signatories. The US did not participate in
negotiations at all. The primary value of cluster bombs is that they kill
civilians, and go on killing them long after wars end in places like
Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq.
Human Rights Watch on August 26 called on the US-back Saudi coalition
bombers to stop using cluster bombs in Yemen. A human rights research said:
"Cluster munitions are adding to the terrible civilian toll in Yemen's
conflict. Coalition forces should immediately stop using these weapons and
join the treaty banning them."
The reality of suffering is way ahead of the reality of US war crimes
The five-sided fighting in Yemen continues without surcease, and media
coverage seems to be picking up on the suffering (perhaps following the "if
it bleeds it leads" creed, though Yemen doesn't often lead the news).
On-the-ground coverage is hampered by a virtual prohibition of reporters in
the country, where they then become targets if they get there. This is Saudi
alliance-enforced policy, supported by the US, along the lines first
implemented in the glorious US victory over Grenada.
Alex Potter is a 25-year-old nurse and photographer from Minnesota who moved
to Yemen in 2012. Her photo album of Yemen beautifully and poignantly
illustrates the destruction wreaked on the people and places of an ancient
part of the world. The album speaks for itself, published on an NPR website.
The NPR-written text and Potter's quotes heartrendingly describe the
suffering of mostly innocent people.
But the NPR text treats the catastrophe more like a natural disaster than an
actual war that actual people have decided to wage at any cost:
Yemen is at war. Rebels from the Houthi minority group took control of Sanaa
and other parts of the country six months ago. Saudi Arabia backs the
government that was forced out and has launched airstrikes against the
Houthis. Other actors - al-Qaida and ISIS - make it even more complicated.
And in June, the unthinkable happened. The densely populated Old City [of
Sanaa], where people have lived for more than 2,500 years, was attacked.
Locals blamed an airstrike.
That is less reporting than it is propaganda. "Yemen is at war" is as
sanitized as "Yemen had an earthquake" - and it is fundamentally dishonest.
Until March 26, "Yemen" was not at war. Yemen was in the midst of the latest
of its chronic civil wars over decades. The rebels were apparently winning.
So the Saudis took the Yemeni government into something like protective
custody and, with US connivance and several allies, started waging
undeclared air war on a population and military forces with no air force and
little effective air defense. NPR must know all that, and chose not to make
it clear.
To say that "locals blamed an airstrike" is almost an obscenity of
journalism, as if there's some other, unmentioned possibility. It's as if
NPR is saying: what do we know, we're only reporters, and only one of us was
on the scene. You'd certainly never know from NPR that the desolation so
vividly shown is the direct result of choices made by American policy makers
(among others).
The people Potter's photographs show have nowhere to go. The text mentions
that "Doctors Without Borders has called this a 'war on civilians.'" What
NPR fails to tell you is that Yemenis have nowhere to go primarily because
there's a US naval blockade keeping their country contained like an open air
prison, enforcing a killing ground which the Saudis and others can - and do
- bomb at will.
New war, continuous war for 14 years - NOT presidential issues?
If ANY presidential candidate has said anything substantive in opposition to
the US participation in the war on Yemen, it's not easy to find. It's not
easy to find a presidential candidate in opposition to America's 14 years of
continuous war in the Middle East and Africa. Years ago, Rand Paul
criticized the extensive drone war Obama was waging in Yemen. Paul was
correct that the US drone war was illegal and destabilizing for Yemen, but
neither point was taken. Yemen's destabilization by drone contributed to
today's reality, an illegal, multinational, interventionist war on a country
in which the "wrong" side was winning a civil war.
In April 2015, when US-supported bombing of Yemen was three weeks old, Paul
criticized US war policies in general, especially as advocated by other
Republicans: "There's a group of folks in our party who would have troops in
six countries right now - maybe more.. This is something, if you watch
closely, that will separate me from many other Republicans. The other
Republicans will criticize Hillary Clinton and the president for their
foreign policy, but they would have done the same thing - just 10 times
over! .
"Everyone who will criticize me wanted troops on the ground, our troops on
the ground, in Libya," he said. "It was a mistake to be in Libya. We are
less safe. Jihadists swim in our swimming pool now. It's a disaster."
Paul went on to say that he supports unspecified "military action" against
ISIS, which is operational in at least three countries now (Syria, Iraq, and
Yemen). Paul did not address the terror-bombing of the Houthis and others in
Yemen.
Democrats appear to be no more interested in American war-making in Yemen
than Republicans, even though al Qaeda has been growing stronger there as a
result of the US-backed bombing weakening the Houthi government. Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula now controls part of the City of Aden, parts of which
are also controlled by the rebels (conflicting reports) and forces fighting
for the government-in-exile in Saudi Arabia (these forces include Moroccan
troops).
For anti-war activists, Bernie Sanders is generally thought to be the best
bet, even though his record is fairly weak (compared to Dennis Kucinich, for
example). World Socialists take a dim view of the democratic socialist
candidate's positions on war/peace issues, calling him the "silent partner
of American militarism." Even more bleakly, Black Agenda Report's Margaret
Kimberley agues that "Sanders' candidacy is as grave a danger to the rest of
the world as that of his rivals." In CounterPunch, Sam Husseini takes
Sanders to task for his support of Saudi Arabia even as it pummels Yemen.
One activist group, RootsAction.org, has an online petition with 25,000
signatures so far, calling on Sanders (a longtime supporter of the F-35
boondoggle) to denounce the madness of militarism:
Senator Sanders, we are enthusiastic about your presidential campaign's
strong challenge to corporate power and oligarchy. We urge you to speak out
about how they are intertwined with militarism and ongoing war.
Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called "the madness of militarism,"
and you should do the same. As you said in your speech to the SCLC, "Now is
not the time for thinking small."
Unwillingness to challenge the madness of militarism is thinking small.
Sanders has yet to respond publicly to the current RootsAction poll. In
December 2013, the senator's "Bernie Buzz" online newsletter reported on
another RootsAction poll. That one found that 81% of RootsAction's 19,131
members were in favor of Sanders running for president (9% opposed).
Currently, his presidential campaign website lists ten major issues - NONE
of them are "war," peace," "militarism," "military spending," "foreign
policy," or anything of that sort.
Until at least one of the candidates for "leader of the free world" says
loudly and clearly that the US will back off trying to run the world at the
point of a gun, Americans will just have to continue living with presidents
who think small about making war against anyone who annoys the US by
challenging our elitist "national interests" for any reason. And that will
mean continuing to outspend the rest of the world on weapons of war. And
that will mean continuing to spend more than half the US budget on war and
the consequences of war. And that will leave little room for any putatively
"socialist" candidate to do much more than nibble at the core corporate
socialism that is the heart of the American economy.
________________________________________
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.
A Houthi militant sits amidst debris from the Yemeni Football Association
building, which was damaged in a Saudi-led air strike, in Sanaa May 31,
2015. (photo: Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
US & Saudi Arabia War Crimes Keep Killing Yemenis
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
30 August 15
Is there anyone who believes that Yemeni Lives Matter?
audi ground forces invaded Yemen for the first time in this war on August
27. Officially, the Saudi government characterizes the invasion as an
incursion that will be limited and temporary. The Saudi government made
similar representations about their terror-bombing of Yemen that began March
26 and has continued on a near-daily basis to the present.
Other foreign troops have invaded southern Yemen in support of the ousted
Yemeni government.
At the same time as the Saudi invasion, the ousted Yemeni government, now
talking tough from the safety of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, says it won't
enter into any peace talks until the other side, which has no air force and
no navy, surrenders its weapons and withdraws from disputed territory. This
"demand" is consistent with the corrupt UN Security Council resolution that
passed in April, with the support of the US and other countries then waging
war on Yemen.
Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen, the poorest country in the region,
has been catastrophic for Yemen, which is all-but-defenseless. Backed by
eight other Arab dictatorships and the US, the Saudi alliance has committed
uncounted war crimes and crimes against humanity. The onslaught has killed
more than 4,300 people (mostly civilians), subjected roughly half the Yemeni
population to severe hunger and water scarcity, and laid waste to World
Heritage sites among the oldest in the world.
The US-led naval blockade, an act of war, has cut food imports to Yemen,
which is not capable of growing enough food to feed its population. The head
of the UN World Food Program reported on August 19 that Yemen is on the
verge of famine, making the US naval blockade a potential crime against
humanity. The UN humanitarian chief has reported to the UN Security Council
that "the scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible." As reported
by ABC News:
He said he was shocked by what he saw: Four out of five Yemenis are in need
of humanitarian assistance, nearly 1.5 million people are internally
displaced, and people were using cardboard for mattresses at a hospital
where lights flickered, the blood bank had closed and there were no more
examination gloves.
Like most mainstream media, ABC News delivers the suffering with relish, but
has a hard time telling the war story straight, resorting to euphemistic
evasions such as: "at least 1,916 civilians have died in the Yemen conflict
since it escalated on March 26." [emphasis added] That's just dishonest. On
March 25, the "Yemen conflict" was primarily a civil war (with ISIS and al
Qaeda thrown in).
US leadership cultivates a new generation of war criminals
On March 26, the US-backed Saudi alliance turned the "conflict" into an
illegal international war, launching saturation bombing of defenseless
populations in coordination with the naval blockade designed to starve the
rebels into submission. The "conflict" did not, as ABC wrote, escalate
itself - the US and Saudi coalition started a new, undeclared, criminal war
for which the leading war criminals of eight countries (starting with
President Obama) will likely never face accountability, any more than Obama
was willing to hold Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the Iraq war criminals to
account.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights observers
report war crimes being committed on all sides.
An Amnesty representative said: "All the parties to this conflict have
displayed a ruthless and wanton disregard for the safety of civilians." "All
the parties" includes the rebels and the Yemeni-government-in-exile in Saudi
Arabia, of course. But it also includes the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Senegal, Pakistan, and Somalia. If
any of these countries has a peace movement, there is little evidence of it.
US sponsorship of the criminal war on Yemen also includes the provision of
US cluster bombs, which have been outlawed by most of the world's civilized
nations. More than 100 countries have signed the international ban on
cluster bombs, but the US - like China, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Iran, and Israel - are not signatories. The US did not participate in
negotiations at all. The primary value of cluster bombs is that they kill
civilians, and go on killing them long after wars end in places like
Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq.
Human Rights Watch on August 26 called on the US-back Saudi coalition
bombers to stop using cluster bombs in Yemen. A human rights research said:
"Cluster munitions are adding to the terrible civilian toll in Yemen's
conflict. Coalition forces should immediately stop using these weapons and
join the treaty banning them."
The reality of suffering is way ahead of the reality of US war crimes
The five-sided fighting in Yemen continues without surcease, and media
coverage seems to be picking up on the suffering (perhaps following the "if
it bleeds it leads" creed, though Yemen doesn't often lead the news).
On-the-ground coverage is hampered by a virtual prohibition of reporters in
the country, where they then become targets if they get there. This is Saudi
alliance-enforced policy, supported by the US, along the lines first
implemented in the glorious US victory over Grenada.
Alex Potter is a 25-year-old nurse and photographer from Minnesota who moved
to Yemen in 2012. Her photo album of Yemen beautifully and poignantly
illustrates the destruction wreaked on the people and places of an ancient
part of the world. The album speaks for itself, published on an NPR website.
The NPR-written text and Potter's quotes heartrendingly describe the
suffering of mostly innocent people.
But the NPR text treats the catastrophe more like a natural disaster than an
actual war that actual people have decided to wage at any cost:
Yemen is at war. Rebels from the Houthi minority group took control of Sanaa
and other parts of the country six months ago. Saudi Arabia backs the
government that was forced out and has launched airstrikes against the
Houthis. Other actors - al-Qaida and ISIS - make it even more complicated.
And in June, the unthinkable happened. The densely populated Old City [of
Sanaa], where people have lived for more than 2,500 years, was attacked.
Locals blamed an airstrike.
That is less reporting than it is propaganda. "Yemen is at war" is as
sanitized as "Yemen had an earthquake" - and it is fundamentally dishonest.
Until March 26, "Yemen" was not at war. Yemen was in the midst of the latest
of its chronic civil wars over decades. The rebels were apparently winning.
So the Saudis took the Yemeni government into something like protective
custody and, with US connivance and several allies, started waging
undeclared air war on a population and military forces with no air force and
little effective air defense. NPR must know all that, and chose not to make
it clear.
To say that "locals blamed an airstrike" is almost an obscenity of
journalism, as if there's some other, unmentioned possibility. It's as if
NPR is saying: what do we know, we're only reporters, and only one of us was
on the scene. You'd certainly never know from NPR that the desolation so
vividly shown is the direct result of choices made by American policy makers
(among others).
The people Potter's photographs show have nowhere to go. The text mentions
that "Doctors Without Borders has called this a 'war on civilians.'" What
NPR fails to tell you is that Yemenis have nowhere to go primarily because
there's a US naval blockade keeping their country contained like an open air
prison, enforcing a killing ground which the Saudis and others can - and do
- bomb at will.
New war, continuous war for 14 years - NOT presidential issues?
If ANY presidential candidate has said anything substantive in opposition to
the US participation in the war on Yemen, it's not easy to find. It's not
easy to find a presidential candidate in opposition to America's 14 years of
continuous war in the Middle East and Africa. Years ago, Rand Paul
criticized the extensive drone war Obama was waging in Yemen. Paul was
correct that the US drone war was illegal and destabilizing for Yemen, but
neither point was taken. Yemen's destabilization by drone contributed to
today's reality, an illegal, multinational, interventionist war on a country
in which the "wrong" side was winning a civil war.
In April 2015, when US-supported bombing of Yemen was three weeks old, Paul
criticized US war policies in general, especially as advocated by other
Republicans: "There's a group of folks in our party who would have troops in
six countries right now - maybe more.. This is something, if you watch
closely, that will separate me from many other Republicans. The other
Republicans will criticize Hillary Clinton and the president for their
foreign policy, but they would have done the same thing - just 10 times
over! .
"Everyone who will criticize me wanted troops on the ground, our troops on
the ground, in Libya," he said. "It was a mistake to be in Libya. We are
less safe. Jihadists swim in our swimming pool now. It's a disaster."
Paul went on to say that he supports unspecified "military action" against
ISIS, which is operational in at least three countries now (Syria, Iraq, and
Yemen). Paul did not address the terror-bombing of the Houthis and others in
Yemen.
Democrats appear to be no more interested in American war-making in Yemen
than Republicans, even though al Qaeda has been growing stronger there as a
result of the US-backed bombing weakening the Houthi government. Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula now controls part of the City of Aden, parts of which
are also controlled by the rebels (conflicting reports) and forces fighting
for the government-in-exile in Saudi Arabia (these forces include Moroccan
troops).
For anti-war activists, Bernie Sanders is generally thought to be the best
bet, even though his record is fairly weak (compared to Dennis Kucinich, for
example). World Socialists take a dim view of the democratic socialist
candidate's positions on war/peace issues, calling him the "silent partner
of American militarism." Even more bleakly, Black Agenda Report's Margaret
Kimberley agues that "Sanders' candidacy is as grave a danger to the rest of
the world as that of his rivals." In CounterPunch, Sam Husseini takes
Sanders to task for his support of Saudi Arabia even as it pummels Yemen.
One activist group, RootsAction.org, has an online petition with 25,000
signatures so far, calling on Sanders (a longtime supporter of the F-35
boondoggle) to denounce the madness of militarism:
Senator Sanders, we are enthusiastic about your presidential campaign's
strong challenge to corporate power and oligarchy. We urge you to speak out
about how they are intertwined with militarism and ongoing war.
Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called "the madness of militarism,"
and you should do the same. As you said in your speech to the SCLC, "Now is
not the time for thinking small."
Unwillingness to challenge the madness of militarism is thinking small.
Sanders has yet to respond publicly to the current RootsAction poll. In
December 2013, the senator's "Bernie Buzz" online newsletter reported on
another RootsAction poll. That one found that 81% of RootsAction's 19,131
members were in favor of Sanders running for president (9% opposed).
Currently, his presidential campaign website lists ten major issues - NONE
of them are "war," peace," "militarism," "military spending," "foreign
policy," or anything of that sort.
Until at least one of the candidates for "leader of the free world" says
loudly and clearly that the US will back off trying to run the world at the
point of a gun, Americans will just have to continue living with presidents
who think small about making war against anyone who annoys the US by
challenging our elitist "national interests" for any reason. And that will
mean continuing to outspend the rest of the world on weapons of war. And
that will mean continuing to spend more than half the US budget on war and
the consequences of war. And that will leave little room for any putatively
"socialist" candidate to do much more than nibble at the core corporate
socialism that is the heart of the American economy.
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
