Yemen:US Military Industrial Complex Benefits from Suffering of a Brave Nation
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“This barbaric nation [Saudi Arabia] should not be getting our weapons,I am embarrassed that people are out here making money and making a buck, while 17 million are living on a starvation diet.” ~ Senator Rand Paul
“The United States has no business supporting a war that has only served to embolden our terrorist enemies, exacerbate a humanitarian crisis, and incite fear and anger among the Yemeni people toward the United States,” ~ Senator Chris Murphy
Yemen is a catastrophe we should all be taking personally. For two years and four months, the Saudi coalition, supported and armed by the UK, US and EU has been pounding 27 million Yemenis with all manner of heavyweight military hardware, including cluster bombs that have been illegally deployed against predominantly civilian targets.
Added to the daily rain of fire and death, are the UN sanctions. Under resolution 2216, 5 named individuals were placed under embargo. Resolution 2216 is based upon an illegitimate pretext that, twice resigned, ex-president, Mansour Hadi, is the rightful claimant to power in Yemen. Resolution 2216 is being used by the UN and one of its primary sponsors, Saudi Arabia, to starve and deprive the people of Yemen as a collective punishment for their recalcitrance and refusal to accept Saudi proxy colonialism. The UN has then ratcheted up the misery of the Yemeni people with its “verification and inspection mechanism” , which further ensures the supplementary, trickle genocide in Yemen through disease, famine and drought.
The suffering of the Yemeni people is a crime against all Humanity. That such a blatant ethnic cleansing pogrom can be conducted under the NATO-aligned, media radar, with the full complicity of all our governments is one of the most egregious violations of Human Rights we will ever bear witness to in our lifetime. The people of Yemen are dying in their droves, with barely a whimper from the majority of the same, state sponsored human rights groups that propagate unsubstantiated accusations against the Syrian government on a daily basis.
A recent sea change may have emerged in the US House of Representatives over the last few days, we can only hope it can carry some weight against the might of the all consuming, Military Industrial Complex that is the primary beneficiary of the genocidal war of aggression being waged by the Saudi Coalition against the impoverished, yet unbowed, sovereign nation of Yemen.
The following is a report from Robert Naiman, policy director at Truth Out:
Today, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved two amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would prohibit US participation in the catastrophic Saudi-United Arab Emirates (UAE) war against the Houthi-Saleh alliance in Yemen.
The Davidson amendment prohibits US military action in Yemen not authorized by the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). US participation in the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen is not targeting al-Qaeda or ISIS and is not authorized by the 2001 AUMF. Davidson’s amendment would block the US refueling of Saudi and UAE warplanes bombing Yemen.
The Nolan amendment prohibits the deployment of US troops to participation in Yemen’s civil war. Nolan’s amendment would block the US refueling of Saudi and UAE warplanes bombing Yemen.
The Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, in which US participation was never authorized by Congress, has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine, with the worst cholera outbreak in the world, with the UN suspending its vaccination plan against cholera in Yemen because of the war.
The Saudi-UAE war in Yemen has also strengthened al-Qaeda and ISIS. Indeed, al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch is allied with the Saudis and the UAE against the Houthi-Saleh forces.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has said, “The Saudis simply could not operate this bombing campaign without us. Their planes can’t fly without US refueling capacity.” Yet the US has doubled the amount of fuel it provided to Saudi and UAE bombers since October. Most of the bombers refueled by the US are UAE bombers, according to the Pentagon. The Pentagon apparently has little oversight or concern about who or what it is helping to bomb:
“We provide refueling totals for the Saudi-led Coalition on an on-demand basis,” said CENTCOM spokesperson Maj. Josh Jacques. “They request refueling and we provide it. I will refer you to the Saudi-led coalition as to the reasons why they requested the amounts of fuel.”
Congressional action to end US participation in the catastrophic Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, which has never been authorized by Congress, is long overdue. President Trump should heed the House votes and end US refueling of Saudi and UAE planes bombing Yemen immediately.
You can urge President Trump to comply with the House demands, and urge the Senate to stand with the House here.
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