The Real Scandal Is the Illegal War in Yemen
Dozens of innocent Yemenis are dead and many more are maimed so that Trump and his allies could congratulate themselves for being “tougher” than Biden.
The Yemen Data Project reports that U.S. strikes in Yemen over the last week have killed at least 25 civilians, including four children. The initial strikes that top Trump administration officials were celebrating killed at least 13 civilians and injured nine more. This is the bombing campaign that Waltz has been boasting about as he desperately tries to deflect attention from his ineptitude and lawbreaking. Dozens of innocent Yemenis are dead and many more are maimed so that Trump and his allies could congratulate themselves for being “tougher” than Biden.
Our government killed and injured these people as part of an ineffective and unnecessary war that the U.S. should never have been waging. That is the real scandal. It is this senseless death and destruction that our government is dealing out to people on the other side of the world that should outrage us. It speaks volumes about our leadership class and our foreign policy that the victims of these attacks receive almost no notice and if they are noticed at all they are quickly forgotten.
Administration officials defend their illegal war by talking about freedom of navigation and deterrence, but these are poor and insulting excuses for bombing poor, innocent people in a country that our government has already played a major role in wrecking and starving over the last ten years. Blowing up Yemeni civilians will not secure commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and the U.S. shouldn’t be doing this even if it could. Continuing to bomb Yemen will further destabilize the region, and it will kill more innocent Yemenis, but it is unlikely to achieve anything else.
Six years ago, there was a remarkable and unprecedented movement to challenge the illegal U.S. involvement in the Saudi coalition’s war on Yemen. That movement drew support from both parties and had members from all across the political spectrum. For the first time in almost half a century, Congress insisted that the president end U.S. involvement in a foreign war. Trump refused to stop U.S. support, but there was at least a concerted effort against the war.
Today the U.S. is actively engaged in hostilities in Yemen without Congressional authorization, but there is no similar movement to end the bombing. The antiwar coalition that formed during the first Trump administration disappeared, and when Biden ordered attacks on Yemen last year hardly anyone said anything about it. Perhaps now that Trump has taken ownership of this terrible policy there will be more resistance, but so far there has been no significant opposition in Congress that I can see.
The illegal war in Yemen is the real scandal. It is useless and destructive. It will cause more harm than it prevents. It is also a shameful attempt to divert attention from the war and genocide in Gaza that the U.S. continues to support. The U.S. is killing innocent people in Yemen because our leaders lack the courage to stop Israel’s killing of innocent people in Gaza. The U.S. must end its enabling of the genocide and it must halt its attacks on Yemen.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but aren‘t the Houthis‘ attacks in international shipping also illegal? Some ships that have been attacked have no connection to Israel, the country the Houthis claim is the main target of their attacks. The Houthis say the primary aim of their attacks is to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza. I don‘t recall the UN sanctioning the Houthis‘ attacks.
With the fear countries that we have disagreements with usa grows of a tactical nuclear attack given the USA has stated it will 1st strike and the fact that our words regarding agreements are meaningless it would be in their best interests to either fold and not appose their repressor (USA) or unit and form a kind of NATO agreement that a strike on an individual is a strike on them all. Russia, China, India, Pakista, N.Korea joining this agreement could deter the USA and its allies to think twice before a 1st strike option. Any nation apposing us really has no option but to conider such an agreement.
A 3rd option is somehow learning to get along with each other dispute our differences. But that option requires trust and you got to be pretty naive to trust our word.
So my logical conclusion is we are on the brink of nuclear disasters.