Sunday, January 8, 2017

Thanks in Part to US-Backed Saudi Bombing

Throughout his tenure, President Obama has made it clear he has no appetite for involving the United States in another Middle East conflict. Yet the U.S. is bombing daily in Syria and Iraq. And in a separate conflict that's receiving far less attention, the U.S. is increasingly embroiled in Yemen.

Since March 2015, the U.S. has been providing support to a Saudi-led military coalition fighting Houthi rebels. The Houthis ousted Yemen's government and forced the president, Abed Mansour Hadi, to flee to Saudi Arabia.

[...]

Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, says the U.S. is becoming an indispensable partner to Saudi Arabia and its bombing campaign there.

[...]

"It's wild to me that we're not talking more about this," he says. "The U.S. is at war in Yemen today, there's no doubt about it."

[...]

"The United States provides the bombs. We provide the refueling planes in mid-air. We provide the intel," Murphy tells NPR. "I think it's safe to say that this bombing campaign in Yemen could not happen without the United States."

  NPR
Hey. Collateral damage. It's war.
The U.S. role is not risk-free. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Mason, came under a cruise missile attack Wednesday as it sailed near the coast of Yemen. This was the second time this has happened this week, according to U.S. officials, who said no one on the ship was injured.
Well thank God it's only Yemeni children who are dying.
Murphy is one of several members of Congress calling for the administration to end its support for the Saudi-led effort in Yemen. This comes after airstrike on a funeral in the capital city, Saana, over the weekend killed at least 140 people and injured more than 525 others.
Yeah, to be fair, one of those people may have already been dead.
This is not the first time airstrikes have landed on civilian targets — hospitals and wedding halls have also been hit in the past. Kirby says the U.S. was not certain whether the bombing at the funeral was deliberate or an accident.
Because that would mean the difference between right and wrong.
The war has so far killed an estimated 10,000 people, nearly half of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
Hey. Collateral damage. It's war.

By the way..."Throughout his tenure, President Obama has made it clear he has no appetite for involving the United States in another Middle East conflict."

Really?
[MAR 30, 2016]

To cite just some recent examples: In October, the president authorized the first sustained deployment of U.S. special-operations forces to Syria to complement his air campaign against the Islamic State. In January, reports emerged that the Obama administration was rethinking its troop drawdown in Afghanistan, given the deteriorating security situation there, and considering sending more troops to Iraq and Syria. The next month, Obama released a defense budget that included an increase of $2.5 billion over the previous year to expand the fight with ISIS to North and West Africa, and billions more for sending heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and other equipment to Eastern and Central Europe to counter Russian aggression. In the past several weeks alone, we’ve learned of Pentagon plans to dispatch military advisers to Nigeria against the jihadist group Boko Haram and to launch an aerial offensive in Libya against the Islamic State. U.S. bombing raids recently killed 150 suspected militants in Somalia and over 40 in Libya. By one measure, in fact, the U.S. military is now actively engaged in more countries than when Obama took office.

  The Atlantic

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