GWB, don't.
The famine in Yemen is a war crime and crime against humanity.
- Thread starter Slartibartfast
- Start date
GWB is on ignore now, staying that way this time.
Looked up Yemen on Wikipedia.org and found an detailed article. Destroying the water supplies of a country that already had the lowest per capita use of water in the Middle East, much less the world, is not cool. It is genocide. Interestingly, this article says 40% of the available water in Yemen goes for growing a non food related crop for local drug use.
When children are needlessly dying, it is a failure of human civilization no matter how you want to play the blame game. Sure, the leaders of Yemen are assholes. But does anyone really think these leaders are going thirsty if you take out local water supplies? It is the local innocent population that always suffer.
How about taking out the leaders? That obviously doesn’t sit well with politicians around the world because of fear such behaviour may become the status quo. If leaders around the world were held more directly accountable for their actions and morally reprehensible inactions, perhaps they would more feel the weight of their obligations to lead. And no, I am not excusing the Kavanaugh protesters or ANTIFA for their tactics.
This planet has ample resources. So much so, we actually don’t even use whole classes of energy sources such as thorium fission, methane clatherates (The Japanesse are just now developing technology for extraction). Extraction of shale oil is becoming more efficient and there is likely huge untapped untapped reserves around the world. Hell we even bury some of our energy sources as waste when there is probably technology available now or the near future to safely utilize it. There is great potential in clean energy with tidal and wave power. These capital intensive energy sources have the added bennefit of potentially helping with food security through local artifical reef marine ecosystems.
Where there is energy, there is water through desalinization or trade. Where there is water, there is food. Where there is food, there is a chance for innocent children to grow up healthy and to have a good life. Should this not be a fundamental goal of world leaders for all children of the world?
Now for politics. Would it be fair to compare this situation with taking over the care of dangerously neglected children from their parents with taking over the management of a country who can’t take care of its citizens? The citizens of the afflicted country can be trained to take care of themselves in an increasing technological world and be a source of labor for building their own energy, hydrologic, and food infrastructure. The United Nation countries can chip in an initial investment of basic needs, capital equipment, and expertise to get things started.
The US Media has sanitized war since the Bush Administration. We no longer see photos or videos of the horrors of war like WWII, Vietnam, and so on. I guess the powers that be don’t want the US public to get “too emotional” and demand changes that could adversly affect the very profitable arms businesses and the campaign contributions that go along with it.
One of the strongest issues for Democrats is when they are unified against war. Parents of children can really connect with this issue, right?
Now what should the US do with Latin American caravans and “refugees”? As stated before, if a country is compelled to take care of another country’s citizens, the host country should have a right of political power over the “donor” country to at least some extent, perhaps using the United Nations as an intermediary. However, any United Nation type intervention must be very efficent and not an unnessarily expensive and wasteful givaway or employ a kickback system to benefit the already wealthy and well connected.
Its almost criminal to start this Humanitarian thread off with a implied attack on Trump. The issue did not start in 2016...
Something needs to be done. But it does not help to try and blame this on Trump.
It would be like blaming Obama for Bush's wars.
I have no idea how to solve this issue given the parties involved. Iran and the Saudis and different Muslim factions...
But, it seems important we understand the issues were issues long before Trump became President.
Yemen: The Graveyard of the Obama Doctrine
The human costs of facilitating Saudi Arabia’s proxy war
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/yemen-saudi-arabia-obama-riyadh/501365/
This past Tuesday, President Barack Obama delivered his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Though he tried to sound optimistic, he couldn’t help but strike a rueful tone. Gone was the global media darling who electrified world leaders in 2009—that Obama was “determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.” The graying, deliberate Obama of 2016 could offer only limited aspirations of a “course correction” in world politics, while pondering why cycles of conflict and suffering persisted. Though the president advocated for the “hard work of diplomacy” in places like Syria, he also elaborated on one of his recent, common refrains, cautioning that in the Middle East “no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to co-exist for long.” Across the region, “we have to insist that all parties recognize a common humanity and that nations end proxy wars that fuel disorder,” Obama said.
A day later, the U.S. Senate held a rare debate on the sale of arms destined for another war in the Middle East. The deal, for $1.15 billion in weaponry to Saudi Arabia, including over 150 Abrams tanks, is a drop in a bucket: more than $100 billion in arms sales to the kingdom have already been approved by the Obama administration. But a year and a half into the kingdom’s relentless war in Yemen, opponents of the new sale see it as an outright affirmation of Washington’s involvement in a deadly, strategically incoherent war that the White House has kept largely quiet about. What’s more, it is at odds with Obama’s apparent distaste for regional proxy wars.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has targeted Yemen’s Shia Houthi militias and their allies, loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who two years ago seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa by force. Several months later, they drove the Saudi-backed President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile. When Saudi King Salman announced the intervention in Yemen—an intervention the kingdom has painted as a proxy war with Iran, its regional foe—the White House immediately authorized a support package that included intelligence-sharing and logistical support for military operations. That package has seen the United States deliver more than 40 million pounds of fuel to Saudi jets over the past 18 months, according to U.S. Central Command. The Saudis would be crippled without direct U.S. military assistance, particularly aerial refueling, which continues unabated.
Supporters of the new arms package portrayed it as necessary support after the Obama administration’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran. To them, Yemen is a proxy war, and the United States must side with the Gulf—never mind the absence of direct evidence of wide-scale Iranian meddling in the Houthi rebellion. “Blocking this sale of tanks will be interpreted by our Gulf partners, not just Saudi Arabia, as another sign that the United States of America is abandoning our commitment in the region and is an unreliable security partner,” Arizona Senator John McCain said, depicting the very dynamic Obama appeared to warn against the day before. “That’s what this vote is all about.”
Those opposing the deal, including Republicans like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Democrats like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, urged their colleagues to reconsider the costs of enmeshing the United States in another war. “Let’s ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with the United States getting slowly, predictably, and all too quietly dragged into yet another war in the Middle East,” Murphy said from the floor. Ultimately, the Senate voted to table the resolution opposing the deal. But 27 senators voted against the motion to table—coming out against the arms deal in a considerable, if symbolic, rebuke to the Saudis, the Obama administration, and their largely Republican backers.
Earlier this year, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published “The Obama Doctrine,” in which the president described a Middle East populated by unreliable “free-rider” allies constantly drawing the United States into their petty rivalries, fueled by avarice, tribalism, and sectarianism. Key among those free riders were the Sunni Arab states of the Gulf, Goldberg wrote. The Saudis, along with the Iranians, Obama said, “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood.” Yet despite the Obama White House’s misgivings about Saudi Arabia, it backed its campaign in Yemen, enabling perhaps the chief free-rider’s war.
At times, the Obama administration’s support for the Saudis has thrown diplomatic efforts to end the war into confusion. In August, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Jeddah to meet with officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, and the United Nations. Some Yemenis were cautiously optimistic that Kerry—who says the war in Yemen does not have a military solution—would use his leverage with Riyadh to push for an easing of airstrikes. Instead, he left them with a vague “roadmap” for peace that offered the Houthis certain concessions, angering some in Riyadh, but did little to pressurethe Saudis to implement the plan. Within 24 hours, the Saudi-led coalition had intensified its aerial campaign, while its allies on the ground launched a renewed offensive on the Houthi-controlled northwest of the country. The Houthis responded by escalating their own attacks over the border into the kingdom.
more at link...
Something needs to be done. But it does not help to try and blame this on Trump.
It would be like blaming Obama for Bush's wars.
I have no idea how to solve this issue given the parties involved. Iran and the Saudis and different Muslim factions...
But, it seems important we understand the issues were issues long before Trump became President.
Yemen: The Graveyard of the Obama Doctrine
The human costs of facilitating Saudi Arabia’s proxy war
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/yemen-saudi-arabia-obama-riyadh/501365/
This past Tuesday, President Barack Obama delivered his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Though he tried to sound optimistic, he couldn’t help but strike a rueful tone. Gone was the global media darling who electrified world leaders in 2009—that Obama was “determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.” The graying, deliberate Obama of 2016 could offer only limited aspirations of a “course correction” in world politics, while pondering why cycles of conflict and suffering persisted. Though the president advocated for the “hard work of diplomacy” in places like Syria, he also elaborated on one of his recent, common refrains, cautioning that in the Middle East “no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to co-exist for long.” Across the region, “we have to insist that all parties recognize a common humanity and that nations end proxy wars that fuel disorder,” Obama said.
A day later, the U.S. Senate held a rare debate on the sale of arms destined for another war in the Middle East. The deal, for $1.15 billion in weaponry to Saudi Arabia, including over 150 Abrams tanks, is a drop in a bucket: more than $100 billion in arms sales to the kingdom have already been approved by the Obama administration. But a year and a half into the kingdom’s relentless war in Yemen, opponents of the new sale see it as an outright affirmation of Washington’s involvement in a deadly, strategically incoherent war that the White House has kept largely quiet about. What’s more, it is at odds with Obama’s apparent distaste for regional proxy wars.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has targeted Yemen’s Shia Houthi militias and their allies, loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who two years ago seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa by force. Several months later, they drove the Saudi-backed President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile. When Saudi King Salman announced the intervention in Yemen—an intervention the kingdom has painted as a proxy war with Iran, its regional foe—the White House immediately authorized a support package that included intelligence-sharing and logistical support for military operations. That package has seen the United States deliver more than 40 million pounds of fuel to Saudi jets over the past 18 months, according to U.S. Central Command. The Saudis would be crippled without direct U.S. military assistance, particularly aerial refueling, which continues unabated.
Supporters of the new arms package portrayed it as necessary support after the Obama administration’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran. To them, Yemen is a proxy war, and the United States must side with the Gulf—never mind the absence of direct evidence of wide-scale Iranian meddling in the Houthi rebellion. “Blocking this sale of tanks will be interpreted by our Gulf partners, not just Saudi Arabia, as another sign that the United States of America is abandoning our commitment in the region and is an unreliable security partner,” Arizona Senator John McCain said, depicting the very dynamic Obama appeared to warn against the day before. “That’s what this vote is all about.”
Those opposing the deal, including Republicans like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Democrats like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, urged their colleagues to reconsider the costs of enmeshing the United States in another war. “Let’s ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with the United States getting slowly, predictably, and all too quietly dragged into yet another war in the Middle East,” Murphy said from the floor. Ultimately, the Senate voted to table the resolution opposing the deal. But 27 senators voted against the motion to table—coming out against the arms deal in a considerable, if symbolic, rebuke to the Saudis, the Obama administration, and their largely Republican backers.
Earlier this year, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published “The Obama Doctrine,” in which the president described a Middle East populated by unreliable “free-rider” allies constantly drawing the United States into their petty rivalries, fueled by avarice, tribalism, and sectarianism. Key among those free riders were the Sunni Arab states of the Gulf, Goldberg wrote. The Saudis, along with the Iranians, Obama said, “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood.” Yet despite the Obama White House’s misgivings about Saudi Arabia, it backed its campaign in Yemen, enabling perhaps the chief free-rider’s war.
At times, the Obama administration’s support for the Saudis has thrown diplomatic efforts to end the war into confusion. In August, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Jeddah to meet with officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, and the United Nations. Some Yemenis were cautiously optimistic that Kerry—who says the war in Yemen does not have a military solution—would use his leverage with Riyadh to push for an easing of airstrikes. Instead, he left them with a vague “roadmap” for peace that offered the Houthis certain concessions, angering some in Riyadh, but did little to pressurethe Saudis to implement the plan. Within 24 hours, the Saudi-led coalition had intensified its aerial campaign, while its allies on the ground launched a renewed offensive on the Houthi-controlled northwest of the country. The Houthis responded by escalating their own attacks over the border into the kingdom.
more at link...
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Aren't you aware? Prior to 2016 the entire world was a virtual utopia. We all lived in peace, and there was no poverty, no war, or famine. Everyone got along just swimmingly, and then the evil one called Trump used his sorcerous powers and somehow won over Hillary, who was loved by all. It's been a living hell ever since.
Trump gets power and the Saudi's switch to a policy of famine. Not before, when he gets power.
He IS directly responsible for this. They would never have used famine as a weapon with Hillary or Bernie. Probably with Ted Cruz and Bush.
Brexit (Bannon's test for the US Election) has the Brits afraid to upset the Saudis. Trump has no conscience whatever. The French have never done the honourable thing, they actually caused Rwanda.
But the important thing now is to stop Saudi doing this. They are literally sending aid, getting the photo op and then bombing their own convoys with US, British and French weapons.
Your opinion regarding the change in policy runs contrary to facts... see the underlined portion below from the link I gave you above. I wonder how you can make such a declaration which such little regard for the facts or doing research to find them.
But, again I share your concern about the plight of the people.
...
Some in the Obama administration are unsettled by its position on Yemen. In August, after Saudi jets bombed a bridge that brought nearly all UN aid to Sanaa, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power tweeted out a picture of the rubble, and wrote “Strikes on hospital/school/infrastructure in #Yemen devastating for ppl already facing unbearable suffering&must end.” According to U.S. officials, the Pentagon had put the bridge on a no-strike list, reflecting its importance to the humanitarian response there, only to be ignored. Their plight worsened by a suffocating Saudi blockade, more than 21 million Yemenis are in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance and people in many areas are verging on starvation, as the BBC has shown. A few days after the bridge strike, a spokesperson for CENTCOM said that the United States continued to refuel Saudi jets like the ones that hit the bridge. If the Saudis decided on more bombing missions, the spokesperson said, they would refuel more.
If you click on the word "shown" above it will take you to the bbc site where the starvation is documented in September 2016. That is before Trump was elected.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-eas
But, again I share your concern about the plight of the people.
...
Some in the Obama administration are unsettled by its position on Yemen. In August, after Saudi jets bombed a bridge that brought nearly all UN aid to Sanaa, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power tweeted out a picture of the rubble, and wrote “Strikes on hospital/school/infrastructure in #Yemen devastating for ppl already facing unbearable suffering&must end.” According to U.S. officials, the Pentagon had put the bridge on a no-strike list, reflecting its importance to the humanitarian response there, only to be ignored. Their plight worsened by a suffocating Saudi blockade, more than 21 million Yemenis are in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance and people in many areas are verging on starvation, as the BBC has shown. A few days after the bridge strike, a spokesperson for CENTCOM said that the United States continued to refuel Saudi jets like the ones that hit the bridge. If the Saudis decided on more bombing missions, the spokesperson said, they would refuel more.
If you click on the word "shown" above it will take you to the bbc site where the starvation is documented in September 2016. That is before Trump was elected.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-eas
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Yemen has a long complicated history of conflict. It has been going on for decades prior 2016. The Obama administration did little to resolve the situation, nor did any administration before it. The harsh reality is that Yemen is not U.S. priority - nor a world priority - and little will be done to alleviate the suffering caused by the proxy war being waged there.
Which is just another confirmation that the United Nations is as worthless as tits on a nun.
We are the major contributor to the UN which oversees all sorts of health and food relief programs. Then when there is hunger somewhere, we are accused of doing nothing- having already given bigly "at the office" ie. the UN. And then when it gets to apocalyptic levels as in Somalia and we take action in spite of the world and the UN doing nothing, then we have to deal with all accusations of meddling while watching americans being killed while trying to deliver food through warlords.