– Quote by Philippe Le Billon.
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” – Major General Smedley Butler
We last published an action on Yemen on 3/15/18. Back then, Trump had just tweet-fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and proposed CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a Tea-Party conservative, torture-supporter and relentless anti-Muslim bigot, in his place, and Yemenis were starving and dying of cholera. (Background from that column included at the bottom.) That’s still happening.
This is where we are now:
- Children were targeted: Last Thursday, a U.S.-backed Saudi airstrike killed 44 children. In a school bus. On the way home from field trip.
- Business as usual: This was just one of more than 50 airstrikes THIS YEAR. The Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT) has only admitted Saudi error in 2 of 75 incidents involving civilian casualties.
- Hitting civilians is a feature, not a bug…: Strike rates on civilian, non-military targets average 33%.
- Hey, we better go check on this: US Defense secretary, James Matti sent a US 3-star general to inspect the bus bombing because…
- It’s now the law…: The defense spending bill Trump just signed includes a clause that Pompeo must certify that Saudi Arabia and UAE aren’t targeting civilians or lose our help refueling their warplanes. Trump has raised objections to 52 provisions of the new law, including that measure.
- Too late, we’re already complicit in war crimes!: Specifically Article 14 of Additional Protocol II and customary international laws that prohibit warring parties from attacking indispensable civilian resources and/or using starvation as a weapon of war. Also from hindering humanitarian aid and workers.
- Nothing to see here: Trump hasn’t mentioned this attack, nor has Pompeo after talking to the Saudi crown prince.
- Nothing to see here – part 2: Saudi Arabia is the biggest single buyer of arms from the US and the UK. Raytheon is currently lobbying to sell 60,000 precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia in a multi-billion dollar deal. Maybe that’ll help them get ALL the kids next time.
- Making new friends everywhere we go!: Said the father of one of the survivors who escaped with a broken leg. “America is the head of evil, as well as the Saudi regime and the mercenaries of the Saudi regime.”
