Yemen Houthis

mean mr.mustard said:

Did you see that guy almost die shooting a fridge full of Tannerite?

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Sen. Chris Murphy believes that Jamal Khashoggi’s killing could sway Congress to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war.

BY LARA SELIGMAN | NOVEMBER 5, 2018, 9:00 AM

American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen has been a flashpoint for some vocal members of Congress since the fighting began more than three years ago. But until now, lawmakers have not been able to rally sufficient support to end U.S. involvement in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of Yemeni lives and led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, believes the tide is finally turning. Shortly after the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 6, Murphy, along with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee, plans to reintroduce legislation that would end all U.S. support—in the form of aerial refueling, targeting assistance, and intelligence information sharing—to Saudi forces. Though the legislation was tabled when it was first introduced in March, Murphy believes the mood in the Senate has changed because of the killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and greater awareness of the increasingly catastrophic conditions on the ground in Yemen. What follows are excerpts from his conversation with

Foreign Policy: What impact has Khashoggi’s killing had on how Congress and the public view America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia?

Chris Murphy: The Khashoggi case is earth-shattering. There were a lot of members of Congress who were giving Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman the benefit of the doubt on Yemen, and I think those same members of Congress are now changing their minds.


The war in Yemen and the Khashoggi case are connected in one very important way. The Saudis have been telling us that they were not intentionally bombing civilian targets inside Yemen. We trusted Mohammad bin Salman. We trusted the Saudis. Now, when they’ve spent two weeks lying through their teeth about what happened to Khashoggi, it has started to draw real questions from members as to whether the Saudis were telling us the truth about what is happening inside Yemen.

FP: How much responsibility does the United States bear for the humanitarian disaster in Yemen?

CM: I think there is an American imprint on every single civilian death inside Yemen. We sell them the bombs, we help them with the targeting, we fuel their planes in mid-air, and we give them moral cover. So I don’t think there is any way around complete American culpability for the humanitarian nightmare that is happening there.

We also have made no meaningful effort at all to try to find a path to peace. The Trump administration has been totally AWOL on the political process. They have outsourced it to the U.N., and there is no sign that the U.N. is making any progress. It stands to reason the Saudis will never move until the United States commands them to move.

So, yes, I think we are very much responsible for every terrible thing that’s happened inside Yemen today. I’m not saying if we pulled our military support, peace would blossom, but the first step to getting the parties to the table is for the Saudis to feel like they don’t have a blank check from the United States.

FP: Secretary of Defense James Mattis says the support we provide to the Saudi-led war helps them reduce the number of civilian casualties. What is your response?

CM: It’s just BS. The Saudis are hitting civilian targets on purpose. They are blatantly ignoring the no-strike lists that we give them. Mattis works for Donald Trump, he has to espouse the position of this administration, and this administration’s position is “never question the Saudis about anything.” I worry that there are financial ties between the Trumps and the Saudi royal family. I don’t think that the civil servants who work on this problem every day see it the same way that Trump and his cabinet do.

At some point, you have to actually believe what you see. The number of civilian targets that are being hit are increasing, not decreasing, and the coalition is admitting to hitting civilian targets.

FP: Mattis and Pompeo recently called for a cease-fire in Yemen. Are you encouraged by what looks like a renewed effort by the administration to end the violence?

CM: I think the administration is feeling some political heat here. But again for there to be a cease-fire and a real political process the secretary of state and the secretary of defense have to really put some work into this. They can’t just make a public statement and hope that it happens.

It doesn’t help that we can’t talk to the Iranians, who have a big role to play here. When this administration refuses to have any dialogue with Iran, despite the fact that they seem to be gleefully excited about talking to North Korea, it makes it hard to solve big problems in the Middle East.

FP: It looks like the midterm elections could increase the number of Democrats in Congress. What impact would this have on the U.S.-Saudi relationship?

CM: Let’s take arms sales for a second. In a Democrat-controlled Congress, you could actually get a debate on arms sales to Saudi Arabia to the House floor. Control of the House is really meaningful if you are trying to put a check on the president when it comes to selling Saudi Arabia the bombs they are using to kill people in Yemen.

Regardless of what happens after this election, I think there is now a pretty good bipartisan coalition in the House to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen. The war, the humanitarian crisis, has gotten worse. The civilian targeting has gotten worse, and the Saudis’ behavior has gotten worse.

FP: How much leverage does the United States actually have to end the war?

CM: I think we have tremendous leverage. The Saudis can’t conduct a bombing campaign without the United States. It is a fiction to suggest that if we don’t sell them the precision-guided missiles, they will just go buy them from the Russians. That’s not how it works: Russian munitions don’t work on Saudi systems. It would take them years if not a decade to transition their military toward Russian-based offensive weapons.

I think that what’s just as important as the logistical support is the moral cover. By having the United States integrated into this campaign, the Saudis are very much immune from international criticism. I think it will be much harder for them to stand up to international criticism if the United States pulls out because of the war crimes that are likely being committed.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Even as the humanitarian crisis precipitated by Saudi Arabia’s more-than-three-year war in Yemen has deepened, the Pentagon earlier this year launched a new classified operation to support the kingdom’s military operations there, according to a Defense Department document that appears to have been posted online inadvertently.

The existence of the new classified operation, code-named Yukon Journey, was partially revealed in a Defense Department inspector general report posted online earlier this month, which noted that “the Secretary of Defense designated three new named contingency operations: Operation Yukon Journey, and operations in Northwest Africa and East Africa.”

The three operations, which focus on al-Qaida and ISIS, are classified, the report notes, and the Pentagon has not publicly disclosed their location beyond saying they are in the Middle East and Africa.

But another document posted earlier this year on a Pentagon-affiliated website identifies Yukon Journey as a Central Command operation supporting the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Partner Nations in Yemen.”

The existence of a classified operation in Yemen raises the possibility that even as the Pentagon scales back unclassified operations, such as refueling Saudi-led coalition aircraft, covert support, to include possible U.S. special forces on the ground, could continue.

The document, marked for official use only, was posted on the All Partners Access Network, an unclassified website the Defense Department uses to share information with NGOs and humanitarian organizations.

Though it’s unclear what type of support Yukon Journey provides to Saudi Arabia, it has long been suspected that the Defense Department has special operations forces on the ground in Yemen, where the Saudis are fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

“My guess — and purely a guess — is it’s something to do with going after Houthi ballistic missiles,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, tells Yahoo News. “That’s probably the thing the administration worries about the most, that the Houthis’ ballistic missile will cause a mass casualty event in Saudi Arabia or the UAE.”

Riedel pointed to previous reports of special forces assisting in the hunt for ballistic missiles. “My guess is that’s some part of that, but there may be some more aggressive part of it. Maybe operations inside Yemen, instead of just along the border,” he said.

U.S. Central Command declined to answer questions on Yukon Journey or confirm its location.

“The United States is currently providing limited support to the coalition in the form of logistical assistance (to include air-to-air refueling), intelligence sharing, best practices and other advisory support,” a spokesperson for the command wrote when asked about current unclassified support.

The Defense Department inspector general also declined to confirm that Yukon Journey was for support to the Saudi coalition in Yemen.

It “is indeed accurate to say that the location of Operation Youkon [sic] Journey is classified and is therefore not being discussed publicly,” a spokesperson for the inspector general wrote.

But the Pentagon’s refusal to name the location of operations appeared to bother the Pentagon’s top watchdog. The Pentagon “did not answer the question as to why it was necessary to designate these existing counterterrorism campaigns as overseas contingency operations or what benefits were conveyed with the overseas contingency operation designation,” the inspector general’s report noted.

While the Defense Department argued that the operations were classified to protect U.S. forces operating abroad, the inspector general did not sound convinced, writing that it was “typical to classify such tactical information in any operation even when the overall location of an operation is publicly acknowledged.”

Steven Aftergood, who runs the Secrecy News blog of the Federation of American Scientists and was the first to call public attention to the Yukon Journey designation in the inspector general’s report, said he wasn’t surprised by the secrecy. “When it comes to classified operations, I think the default position is to withhold all information unless there is a requirement to disclose it or a foreseeable benefit from doing so,” he said.

There is, he pointed out, no specific requirement to disclose the location of the operations. “What’s interesting here — and actually somewhat encouraging — is that the DOD inspector general is not overly impressed by the military rationale for secrecy and seems determined to press for better answers,” he added.

The Trump administration has come under increasing pressure over its long-standing support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which began under former President Barack Obama. In September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that the Saudis were attempting to minimize civilian casualties, a finding that allowed the U.S. military to continue refueling the coalition aircraft operating over Yemen.

But U.S. patience may be wearing thin amid mounting civilian casualties in Yemen and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey at the hands of Saudi intelligence officers.

Despite the September certification, on Friday night, just hours after the Washington Post reported that the Defense Department was considering halting its refueling of the Saudi-led coalition’s aircraft, the Pentagon issued a formal statement confirming the decision. “We support the decision by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, after consultations with the U.S. Government, to use the Coalition’s own military capabilities to conduct inflight refueling in support of its operations in Yemen,” Defense Secretary James Mattis said in a statement.

That decision would appear not to affect Yukon Journey’s classified activities, however.

While previous attempts in Congress to halt U.S. support have failed, opponents of the war believe they may now have the votes to take action on a resolution introduced in late September that would bring U.S. support for the coalition to an end.

“In the wake of the Khashoggi murder and the Pompeo certification, that left a lot of members upset,” said one congressional aide.

The prospect of classified operations in Yemen only deepens those concerns, according to the aide. “There’s also concern among some members that the Pentagon has not been fully transparent about our role in the war against the Houthis in Yemen,” the aide said.


While a Democratic House of Representatives in January could put even more pressure on the administration, opponents might seek action before then. The aide said that when Congress comes back into session, it will vote on a resolution introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would end U.S. involvement in the war.

When the bill was introduced in late September, before Khashoggi’s murder, it had high-level support among Democrats, but only a few Republicans supported it.

The calculus now may have changed, said Riedel, the former CIA official.

“I think they’ve got the votes now,” he said.

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gaiusmarius said:

you know, it's something quite interesting to me, i notice when i watch the Yemeni Hothis fighting, they have a certain innocence about them, they might well be blowing some Saudis up, but they don't do it with malice, glee or hatered. at least thats the impression i get, they are doing their duty to defend their ancestral land from foreign invasion.

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gaiusmarius said:

RT America exposing news the msm ignores...

Pentagon Inadvertently Reveals Secret Saudi Operation

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November 27, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - The numbers are mind-blowing: Since the beginning of the conflict in Yemen, an estimated 85,000 children under five may have died from extreme hunger and disease, according to the last analysis by Save the Children, the international health and human rights organization. Although children are the most affected by the conflict, 14 million people are at risk of famine, according to data compiled by the United Nations.

For almost four years, Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been ravaged by a bloody conflict between Houthi rebels and supporters of Yemen’s internationally recognized government. In 2015, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of Arab states to fight the Houthis, which included Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, and Senegal. These countries have either sent troops to fight on the ground in Yemen or have carried out air attacks.

Iran has reportedly sent armaments and military advisers to help the Houthis, thus exacerbating their long-held animosity against the Saudis. In addition to fighting the Houthis in Yemen, the Saudis are backing the rebels fighting against Bashar al-Assad’s government, while Iran has a strong influence over the Assad regime. In Lebanon, while Iran has shown strong support for Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni Future Movement, led by Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The Yemen war, however, goes beyond a Saudi-Iranian geopolitical or Sunni-Shia conflict. The Houthis’ demands have been primarily economic and political, trying to take the Yemenis out of a cycle of poverty. The brutal and indiscriminate attacks of the Saudi-led coalition have left a ravaged country, with millions of civilians fighting for survival.

Fearing for their lives, more than 3 million Yemenis have become internally displaced persons, and almost 300,000 have sought asylum in other countries, including Djibouti and Somalia. Both the internally displaced, as well as those who have left to other countries often lack adequate nutrition and shelter. According to UNICEF, Yemen’s health care system is on the verge of collapse.

Those remaining in the country must cope with the relentless attacks by the coalition, which don’t distinguish between civilian and soldiers. In addition, across the country, aid organizations are unable to provide needed assistance. Hospitals have been bombed, provoking tens of deaths both as a result of the attacks and those left without urgent care.

Close to 15 million men, women, and children have no access to health care. An outbreak of cholera which started in October 2016 has not yet been controlled. It doesn’t help that water infrastructure in Yemen, one of the world’s most water-scarce countries, has been continuously attacked by the Saudi coalition.

As a consequence, 8.6 million children in Yemen don’t have adequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene services. “Since 2015, the escalation of the conflict has only exacerbated this already dire situation, with attacks and military action on and around water infrastructure cutting off even more people from access to safe drinking water,” states UNICEF.

Last August, a United Nations report on the situation in Yemen sharply criticized all parties in the conflict but placed stronger blame on the Saudi coalition’s attacks on Yemeni civilians. Three UN experts said that the Saudi-led coalition routinely failed to consult its own “no-strike” list of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. According to the experts’ report, restrictions that Saudi Arabia has placed on the delivery of aid by sea or air have had such a severe humanitarian impact that “such acts, together with the requisite intent, may amount to international crimes.”

There is something pathetic when looking at some of the most powerful countries in the world: the United States, Great Britain, and France plotting with Saudi Arabia’s criminal regime to destroy the Houthis’ resistance movement in Yemen. In the last few weeks, hundreds of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in and around Hodeidah have endangered the lives of 150,000 children. These coalition actions violate basic humanitarian rules and the rule of law. The War in Yemen is a massacre, and it is the responsibility of the international community to uphold justice in the face of such tragedy.

Dr. César Chelala is an international public health consultant and a winner of several journalism awards

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2:20 pm today
US Senate defies Trump, votes to stop support for Yemen war

2:20 pm today



In a rare break with President Donald Trump, the US Senate has voted to move ahead with a resolution to end military support for the Saudi Arabian-led coalition in the war in Yemen and lawmakers vowed to push for sanctions against the kingdom in the new year.


Eleven of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Democrats to provide the 60 votes needed to advance the war powers resolution in the Republican-led chamber. The vote paved the way for debate and a vote on US involvement in a conflict that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them young children and left millions more at risk of starvation and death by disease.


The nearly unprecedented break the 11 Republicans made from Trump was largely symbolic because the House of Representatives is not expected to take the matter up this year. Trump has threatened a veto.


But backers of the resolution said it sent an important message that lawmakers are unhappy with the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, and angry about the lack of a strong US response to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.


Republican and Democratic lawmakers also vowed to keep pushing after the new

Congress take office in January for further tough action against Saudi Arabia, including legislation to impose human rights sanctions and opposition to weapons sales.


"If you want to buy our weapons, there are certain things you have to accept. How you use them matters," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told a news conference.


"The individual, the crown prince, is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed, that I can't ever see myself doing business with Saudi Arabia unless there's a change there," said Graham, generally a close Trump ally in the Senate.


Republicans will hold a slightly larger majority in the new Senate, but Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives, increasing the chances of sanctions legislation passing.


The Trump administration had urged Congress not to oppose US fueling, targeting help and other support for the Saudi-led coalition as it battles the Houthis, Shi'ite Muslim fighters viewed by Yemen's neighbors as agents of Iran.


Earlier on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the administration's handling of Khashoggi's killing.


Mr Pompeo repeated his assertion there was no direct evidence linking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the 2 October killing of Khashoggi in Istanbul, despite a CIA assessment it was likely he ordered the killing.


Riyadh initially denied knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, then offered contradictory explanations, including that he was killed in a rogue operation.
Trump stands by Crown Prince

Trump condemned the murder but has stood by the Saudi crown prince. "He's the leader of Saudi Arabia. They've been a very good ally," Trump told Reuters on Tuesday in an Oval Office interview.


Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel briefed leaders of the House of Representatives behind closed doors about the killing. After the classified meeting, House members said they had not heard anything to change their minds about Khashoggi's death.


Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, likely the next chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee when Democrats take control of the House in January, said he intended to hold hearings starting early next year on all aspects of Saudi behavior and the US-Saudi relationship.


"Saudi Arabia's an important ... partner, but I don't think we can simply look the other way when things happen and talk about business as usual," Mr Engel said.


Mr Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who held a separate briefing for the entire Senate, are due to discuss Saudi Arabia with the entire House on Thursday.


But several lawmakers have urged that Congress keep the Yemen conflict separate from anger over the killing of Khashoggi, a US resident and Washington Post columnist.


They view Saudi Arabia as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close US ally Israel. White House officials see Saudi support as a linchpin for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Wednesday in Jerusalem that Saudi Arabia's role in the Middle East must be taken into account in responding to Khashoggi's "horrific" fate.


"If Saudi Arabia were to be destabilized, the world would be destabilized," Netanyahu told foreign reporters, speaking in English.
- Reuters

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More than 60,000 people have been killed in Yemen in the last two years, according to a new assessment, a figure six times higher than previous estimates.

The figure of 10,000 used by the United Nations is outdated and nowhere near the likely true fatality figure of 60,223, according to UK-based independent research group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

Calculating death tolls in Yemen, which is approaching its fourth year, is complicated by the lack of access.

The figure offered by ACLED, which looked at open-source data and local news reports, does not include those thought to have died from malnutrition. Save the Children charity says some 85,000 may have died from starvation since 2016.

The death toll “is far higher than official estimates - and still underestimated,” Clionadh Raleigh, ACLED’s executive director, said.

“Fatality numbers are only one approximation of the abject tragedy and terror forced upon Yemenis from several sides. This cannot be overstated,” Ms Raleigh said.

The number has increased year-on-year, which they say could be explained by Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the war on behalf of the internationally recognised Yemeni government now in exile.

Of all the fatalities, 28,182 were recorded in the first 11 months of 2018. That marks a 68 per cent increase compared to last year, the group said. The Saudi-led coalition has been battling rebel Houthis in the Red Sea city of Hodeidah, which is home to the most strategic port in the country.

Last month was the deadliest on record, with 3,058 killed.

Both sides have gathered for UN-sponsored peace talks in Stockholm this week - the first in two years.

Martin Griffiths, UN envoy to Yemen, is asking both sides to withdraw from the city Hodeidah, where coalition forces have massed on the outskirts, in a bid to prevent a full-scale assault.

His proposal envisions an interim entity be formed to run the city and port, and international monitors deployed.

Both sides agree to a UN role in the port, the entry point for most of Yemen's commercial imports and vital aid, but differ on who should run the city.

The Houthis want Hodeidah declared a neutral zone while President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi's government believes the city should fall under its control as a matter of sovereignty.

They have also yet to agree on reopening Sanaa airport, shoring up the central bank and a transitional governing body.

Some progress has been made since the talks were launched last week with a prisoner swap deal.

The two sides on Tuesday exchanged lists of about 15,000 prisoners to be released under supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Another round of talks could be held in early 2019.

Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015, want an end to nearly four years of war that have killed tens of thousands of people and pushed millions to the brink of famine.

President Donald Trump told Reuters on Tuesday he could abide by legislation being considered by the Senate to end US support for the Saudi-led war effort following outrage over the October 2 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.

"I hate to see what's going on in Yemen," Mr Trump said. "But it takes two to tango. I'd want to see Iran pull out of Yemen too. Because - and I think they will."

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St. Phatty said:

It becomes total Bizarro World if you try to discuss this news with family members who eat Fox & CNN.

Or friends who think they have to support Israel if they want to go to Heaven.

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Badfishy1 said:

The real issue is having friends who support the that terrorist state...

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