Warning:
Trump Is About to Make World's "Biggest Humanitarian Crisis" Much
Worse
Monday, March 27, 2017
While experts say people of Yemen are in "urgent need of
humanitarian assistance," U.S. president strategizing to escalate war
Bombed out buildings in Aden, Yemen. (Photo: WFP/Ammar Bamatraf)
As tens of thousands of Yemenis mark the two years of war that
have claimed the lives of over 4,000 civilians and brought the
country "to the brink of famine," there are signs the United
States' already tainted role in the conflict may be set for
escalation.
Al Jazeera reports that as many as 100,000 Yemenis
took part in a Sunday rally in the capital of Sanaa "to mark the second
anniversary of a war between a Saudi-led military coalition and rebels who had
overthrown the government."
At the Houthi-rebel organized event, former President Ali
Abdullah Saleh made a brief appearance, and "[m]any waved the red, white,
and black national colors and chanted against an air campaign targeting the
rebels," the news outlet adds. Media posted to Twitter of the rally show a
huge crowd:
— Fatik
Al-Rodaini (@Fatikr) March 26, 2017
— RT
(@RT_com) March 27, 2017
MASSIVE
rally in #Yemen today against Saudi Arabia's war
on the poorest Arab country and barely any mention at all in the mainstream
media! pic.twitter.com/trVNk5SdjH
— Sarah
Abdallah (@sahouraxo) March 26, 2017
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports:
Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis has asked the White House to lift Obama-era restrictions
on U.S. military support for Persian Gulf states engaged in a protracted civil
war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to senior Trump
administration officials.
In a memo
this month to national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Mattis said that
"limited support" for Yemen operations being conducted by Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—including a planned Emirati offensive to
retake a key Red Sea port—would help combat a "common threat."
Getting rid of those restrictions "would enable the
military to support Emirati operations against the Houthis with surveillance
and intelligence, refueling, and operational planning assistance without asking
for case-by-case White House approval," the Post adds.
Yet an offensive to seize that port, Hodeidah, from the Houthis
who hold it could portend further humanitarian disaster.
"If there were a serious disruption to that port, that
would, I think, be sufficient to tip the country into famine," the Huffington
Post reported Jeremy Konyndyk, who was the
director of foreign disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International
Development until January, as saying.
And already, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and
emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien said in statement (pdf) Sunday: "Man-made
conflict has brought Yemen to the brink of famine. Today nearly 19 million
Yemenis—over two-thirds of the population—need humanitarian assistance. Seven
million Yemenis are facing starvation."
In another development, as Common Dreams wrote this month,
unnamed
officials told the New York Times
[that] the Trump administration has already declared "parts of three
provinces of Yemen to be an 'area of active hostilities,'' which reporter
Charlie Savage notes "opened the door" to the late January raid that killed dozens of
Yemeni civilians and a U.S service member, as well as the "largest-ever
series of American airstrikes targeting Yemen-based Qaeda militants, starting
nearly two weeks ago."
Further, writes CODEPINK co-founder Medea
Benjamin,
just
before leaving office in December 2016, when faced with increased pressure from
human rights groups and lawmakers after a Saudi strike on a Yemeni funeral
killed at least 140 people, President Obama put a halt of the sale of
precision-guided munitions to the Saudis.
Trump's
State Department already gave notice to Congress that they have approved a
resumption of these sales. If there is no objection from Congress and President
Trump signs off on the deal, the deal will go through. Amnesty International
urged Trump not to sign off on the sales, saying that new US arms could be used
to devastate civilian lives in Yemen and could "implicate your
administration in war crimes."
Despite this context, the "shameful war now extends into a
second presidential administration and a new Congress that seem even more
enthused by it," writes Micah Zenko, senior fellow with
the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relation.
The reason why, journalist Iona Craig said to
"Intercepted" last week, is because "it's good business."
"In the first year of the war, the U.S. sold 20 billion
dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has been buying more
and more weapons as a result of this war," she said to host Jeremy
Scahill. "It's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world." She
noted the country's nearly full dependence on food imports and the fact that
the Saudi-led coalition has enforced a blockade and the Houthi rebels have also
blocked access to food and aid.
"At this rate, the U.S. is liable to be owning a famine in
Yemen, and along with the rest of the international community, as long as they
keep supplying Saudi Arabia with not just the weapons," but also keep
providing support by refueling aricraft—and without that U.S. support, she said,
the Saudis would be forced to stop the bombing.
In a statement marking the two years of
conflict, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said
Friday, "Two years of wanton violence and bloodshed, thousands of deaths,
and millions of people desperate for their basic rights to food, water, health,
and security—enough is enough."
"Twenty-one million Yemenis—82 percent of the
population—are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. I urge all parties to
the conflict, and those with influence, to work urgently towards a full
ceasefire to bring this disastrous conflict to an end, and to facilitate rather
than block the delivery of humanitarian assistance," Zeid said.
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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