Civilians flee bombardment as Arab states pound Yemen port

[riversedge]

Source: reuters




June 14, 2018 / 1:54 AM / Updated 22 minutes ago


ADEN (Reuters) - ......................................


The United Nations is struggling to avert disruption to the port, the main lifeline for food aid to a country where 8.4 million people are on the verge of starvation in what potentially would be the world’s worst famine for generations.

The Arab coalition also struck the main road linking Hodeidah to the capital Sanaa to block reinforcements, residents and anti-Houthi Yemeni military officials said.

The Iran-aligned Houthis control the capital and most of Yemen’s populated areas. The Arab states have been fighting since 2015 to unseat them, restore an exiled Saudi-backed government and halt what they see as Iranian expansionism.
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Western countries have quietly backed the Arab coalition, but the threat of humanitarian catastrophe on an historic scale could unravel that support. The United Nations says 22 million Yemenis need humanitarian aid. ........................................

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/civilians-flee-bombardment-as-arab-states-pound-yemen-port-idUSKBN1JA0N2

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Link to tweet

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen May 10, 2017. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

[Eugene]

1. wrong link

See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/civilians-flee-bombardment-as-arab-states-pound-yemen-port-idUSKBN1JA0N2

[riversedge]

2. oops, thanks for heads up. I will fix

[Hortensis]

3. "8 million teeter on the brink of famine. America is complicit"

WaPo Editorial Board:

WHILE THE world was focused on the U.S.-North Korea summit, two U.S. allies in the Middle East launched a reckless and potentially catastrophic military offensive in Yemen, a country already enduring the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. ...

The attack nevertheless went ahead early Wednesday after receiving what amounted to passive assent from the Trump administration. That means the United States, which already has been supplying its two allies with intelligence, refueling and munitions, will be complicit if the result is what aid officials say it could be: starvation, epidemics and other human suffering surpassing anything the world has seen in decades.

As it is, Yemen’s escape from full-blown famine during the past two years has been something of a miracle, the result of heroic efforts by aid groups that have kept trucks rumbling up the dangerous roads from Hodeida to regions where food and medicine are in desperately short supply. But humanitarian assistance has not prevented what has become the worst cholera epidemic in history, with more than 1 million people infected. ...

David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary who now heads the International Rescue Committee: The “attack on the port,” he says, is “an assault on the chances of a political settlement in addition to a danger to civilian life.” The Trump administration could have prevented the assault on Hodeida; instead, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo equivocated, thereby allowing it to go forward. Congress, which has long been uneasy with U.S. support for the Yemen war, must now act. All funding for U.S. support for the intervention should be halted and further arms sales put on hold until the offensive ends, humanitarian assistance flows freely and peace talks are underway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/8-million-teeter-on-the-brink-of-famine-america-is-complicit/2018/06/13/632fd6f8-6f2b-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html?utm_term=.136d915e3820

[TimeSnowDemos]

5. Complicit

Is typical of how the US media dishonestly portrays our involvement. Like we didn't know what we're doing and someone else is really ultimately responsible.

The US could stop this all tomorrow. Cut off support for dictators, try that. Stop selling weapons to people you KNOW are using them to massacre refugees and commit VAST war crimes.

Try those things and see what happens.

[Hortensis]

6. This IS American MSM. And Yemen's even on the boob tube.

The various crises involving Yemen have been covered extensively in the media.

Unfortunately, even if we didn't do those things you list, we could not stop all this tomorrow. This region has a history and its own people. We never were powerful enough to rule them, and the Middle East is currently going down under the weight of many crises, including the move away from oil energy, climate change, disappearance of fresh water, refusal to modernize to meet their own problems, and religious, ethnic and nationalist strife.

This editorial summarizes some of the history of this current conflict in Yemen. Note what Yemen's NEIGHBORS are doing to Yemen, and note that America is being accused of being passive in this newest situation. We all agree we should not be and that trumpism is evil. But attacks from Yemen's NEIGHBORING NATIONS have been creating humanitarian crises in Yemen before this and are setting up this massive famine now.

[TimeSnowDemos]

7. MSM

Remember this has been going on since 2008. The US MSM - in the last year - has decided to vaguely and often dishonestly cover it.

The FAMINE in Yemen is caused largely by two things:

A US lead naval blockade - based on demonstrably false fear mongering about Iran - and the destruction of vast civilian infrastructure with US weapons and support.

When the Saudis - who wouldn't and COULDN'T do this without the US - decided to bomb pedeatric hospitals - plural - what was the US response?

Why the US response was to sell them hundreds of millions in US weapons and continue to support them logistically, while at the same time trying to prevent a UN investigation into Saudi war crimes.

Yemen was run by a dictator. That dictator was trying to ethnically cleanse northern Yemen, with Saudi (and therefore) US help. They failed.

That lead to a civil war, which - according to ALL non-US media - helped al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen.

The Saudi/US response?

Vast war crimes. Starving millions, bombing refugee camps, bombing dozens of medical facilities.

And why? To reinstall a Saudi dictator.

the Saudis were never able to do this without the US, and the US could end it all in a few months by withdrawing their support for SA until they stop massacring and starving millions.

And you know who the Yemeni blame? The US. Because almost every bomb that falls on that country is made in the US. Because every plane flying over that country was made in the US. Because the US protects SA in the UN.

The culprit here in us. Like in, many other countries since the end of WW2, the US is siding with dictators, arming them, and helping them target civilians - like it did in Iraq in the 80s, and South America for 30 years.

The entire world knows this, well... except for Americans.

Same as it ever was.

[Hortensis]

8. Stop reading dishonest media. There're plenty of good ones.

And strive for balance?

To completely discount the contributions of the peoples of that region to their own problems is not only profoundly intellectually dishonest, it is profoundly dismissive of those people as even people. Are they just a big mental void where knowledge of people and their proud cultures and nationalism should be?. The cultures of the Middle East existed for thousands of years before America came into being. They're real. They matter.

As do the rest of the 95% of humanity who don't happen to be Americans.

[TimeSnowDemos]

9. I don't read dishonest media

I do however love this blame the victims attitude you've got going.

For a bit of fun, let's replace Yemeni women and children with black kids in America.

"To completely discount the contributions of the peoples of that region to their own problems is not only profoundly intellectually dishonest, it is profoundly dismissive of those people as even people."

Say that to Trayvon Martin.

Let me guess, you're one of things that thinks the hoodie was responsible for his death, because:

"To completely discount the contributions of the peoples of that region to their own problems is not only profoundly intellectually dishonest, it is profoundly dismissive of those people as even people."

Let's be ULTRA CLEAR.

Yemen was run by a US/Saudi backed DICTATOR.

They - the people you're blaming - had NO CONTROL of their country's military and foreign policy.

After the Yemini government and Saudi Arabia - who were using US WEAPONS - and eventually with open US support - tried to ethnically cleanse the Houthis, the Houthis fought back.

That's what happened.

Iran wasn't involved.

Iran is Shia; Yemen is Shia; but they're like Catholics and Protestants. Ask the Northern Irish if that sort of difference is enough to stop people from cooperating.

After 6 years of war - during which the US played an active roll in innumerable war crimes - Iran had a grand total of a "few dozen" fighters there. They'd also only provided mostly small arms. This against the US and Saudi Arabian Air Force and Navy.

None of this is about culture. This is about control and wealth. The Saudi's used to control Yemen. Look at a map and see what that means. They and the Yemeni military overplayed their hand and lost control of Yemen. The MAIN benefactors in Yemen SO FAR have been Saudi funded jihadist groups - ISIS and al Qaeda. That's who we've empowered.

You can try and spin this way or that way in an attempt to ameliorate your guilt, because you think every American is guilty:

"To completely discount the contributions of the peoples of that region to their own problems is not only profoundly intellectually dishonest, it is profoundly dismissive of those people as even people."

They are, but your victim blaming doesn't justify that guilt; in fact it just makes you look MORE guilty.

[Hortensis]

10. Can we agree that we should get back to the Yemeni

crisis and care about what is happening to those people?

It is possible, and desirable, to view events without rushing to some sterile, remote focus on blame alone. Regardless of how narrow or broadly that exercise might choose to focus, surely it is yet another dehumanization to be strenuously avoided? Yemen's always been the poorest, or among the poorest, in the Middle East, but not long ago these people had homes and incomes, yards to play in and neighbors to visit.

[TimeSnowDemos]

12. Sure let's..

So in your version what happens?

Because what the Saudis and Americans are trying to install a Saudi dictator, who can continue where he left off, trying to massacre the Shia in Northern Yemen. That's been the goal since 2008.

And to accomplish that?

Well the Americans and Saudis have been starving and bombing refugees and hospitals and schools for a few years... There's no notion of any other plan...

That's what the plan is, if you support the US in Yemen.

What do YOU think should happen?

Because I think the US and Saudis should leave Yemen, Yemen should be split in half along religious lines, and those two halves should have democratic elections.

I also think anyone on either side involved in war crimes should be publicly tried and punished of guilty.

Guess who won't EVER let that happen: The United States.

So until that reality changes, I can either be silent as my tax money is used to starve and bomb civilians, as al Qaeda and ISIS gain a foothold, as Saudi's murder untold numbers of civilians to install a dictator.

Or.

I can use whatever I have to expose this, in the hopes that enough people will be outraged and put pressure on the US government, and maybe it'll end. Someday.

What I typically find though is a lot of Americans like you, who want to sweep it under the table, who make excuses for dictators and murder, and who try and blame anyone but the people responsible.

And Yemeni see this behavior, BTW. They know the story. Americans planes are bombing them, and Americans don't know or if they do know, they don't care. Sure the Kardashians are on, and anyway what does helping dictators commit genocide have to do with them?

The last time we acted like this it resulted in 9/11.

And that's probably the outcome here as well. Blowback.

[Fred Sanders]

11. Well said! Arab warplanes? More like Stars and Stripes warplanes. Like saying "Persian warplanes".

Even as Western media are forced to cover this American-led war they change terminology to distance America....corporate media is propaganda. When it comes to war the propaganda is on steroids.

[TimeSnowDemos]

4. The US has been involved in vast war crimes in Yemen

For a decade.

Starving millions of women and children, bombing endless medical facilities - including multiple pediatric hospitals, bombing civilian infrastructure, bombing refugee camps...

And why?

Well the big lie is that it's about Iran. It's not. It never was. And if you read more than US media you'd know this. That little lie is just propaganda designed to keep the America populous on side.

The big truth is this:

Saudis have been bombing Shia in Northern Yemen for a decade. Their goal was to wipe them out. These Shia are known as Houthis. Why?

Their leader was named Hussein Badreddin al-Houthis. He waged a war on a dictator propped up by the US. That dictator - with the help of Saudi dictators and the US - eventually murdered him and his family. He became a martyr. Now they're the Houthis.

How did they murder him and his family?

They had retreated into a cave for protection. The Yemeni military filled the cave with petrol and burned them all to death. Women and children.

That has become iconic in this war. This US backed dictator barbecuing women and children, to prop up a dictator that's trying to ethnically cleanse the region... Potent.

And what did the Houthis do next?

They fought a civil war for years, eventually taking over the capital. Iran was not meaningfully involved. In fact the Washington Post noted that - in 2014 - years after this started - the Iranians were really increasing their presence in Yemen, all the way up to a few dozen people and mostly small arms. Noting that the amount of guns were meaningless, as Yemen was swamped with weapons.

That school bus full of Iranians has been used to retroactively justify numerous war crimes. In the US media.

In the media everywhere else, this is what you hear:

US support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen is largely helping Sunni extremists, funded by Saudi Arabia, including ISIS and Al Qaeda.

And that's the truth.

And why oh why?

The stated goal is to install a Saudi dictator (who ran unopposed in the last election).

Installing dictators, helping mass starve and mass murder civilians... That is happening NOW. You are paying for it with your taxes.

And yet most of you and most Americans will feign shock when it comes back to hurt you and your family some day, like 9/11.

[oberliner]

13. Basically Saudi Arabia doing this