{"id":34876,"date":"2021-02-11T05:09:23","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T05:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=161014"},"modified":"2021-02-11T05:09:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T05:09:23","slug":"ending-the-other-war-in-yemen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/11\/ending-the-other-war-in-yemen-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending the Other War in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>On February 4, in his first major foreign policy address<\/a>, President Joe Biden announced \u201cwe are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.\u201d Speaking of the Saudi-led coalition that has been at war in Yemen since 2015, creating what he called \u201ca humanitarian and strategic catastrophe,\u201d Biden declared: \u201cThis war has to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stating an intention is not fulfilling it and considering Biden\u2019s further pledge, \u201cto continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people,\u201d his use of the word \u201crelevant\u201d to modify \u201carms sales\u201d could indicate a convenient loophole. Still, it is refreshing to hear a U.S. president at least recognize that the Yemeni people are suffering an \u201cunendurable devastation\u201d and this is due to the hard work of grassroots peace activists around the world.<\/p>\n

Whether Biden\u2019s proclamation will mean much in the real world beyond a temporary hold on the weapons deals Trump made just before leaving office is yet to be seen. The Saudi kingdom welcomes<\/a> Biden\u2019s announcement and the U.S. arms sellers who have profited from the war seem unruffled by the news. \u201cLook,\u201d Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes reassured<\/a> investors anticipating this move, \u201cpeace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon. I think it remains an area where we\u2019ll continue to see solid growth.\u201d The prospects for peace in Yemen probably depend more on sustained international pressure than on a kinder and gentler administration in the White House.<\/p>\n

The Congressional Research Service in a report updated on December 8, 2020, \u201cYemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention<\/a>,\u201d references a major factor in U.S. policy planning regarding Yemen that the president did not mention. Roughly five million barrels of oil passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen\u2019s western coast on a daily basis, eventually making their way to Asia, Europe, and the United States.<\/p>\n

In case the president gave the false impression that the U.S. was getting out of the business of killing Yemenis completely, the next day the State Department issued a clarifying statement<\/a>: \u201cImportantly, this does not apply to offensive operations against either ISIS or AQAP.\u201d In other words, whatever happens in regard to weapons sales to the Saudis, the war that has been waged for 21 years under the guise of the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by congress authorizing the use of the US Armed Forces against those responsible for the September 11 attacks, will continue indefinitely, despite the fact that neither ISIS nor Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula existed in 2001.<\/p>\n

The \u201coffensive operations\u201d in Yemen that will continue under Biden include drone (UAV) strikes, cruise missile attacks and U.S. Special Forces raids and are a part of the larger \u201cwar on terror\u201d that began in the administration of George W. Bush and was expanded under Obama. Despite his campaign promises to end the \u201cforever wars,\u201d a report<\/a> from Airwars<\/em> suggests that Trump has bombed Yemen more times than his two predecessors combined.<\/p>\n

In January 2017, just days after taking office, Trump ordered Navy Seal commandos<\/a> supported by Reaper drone air cover to raid a compound suspected of harboring officials of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. While the raid\u2019s targets escaped, one Navy Seal died in the raid, and eventually it came out that 30 Yemenis were also killed, including 10 women and children. The Navy Seal was not the only US citizen killed in that raid: the other was an 8-year-old girl, Nawar Awlaki. In September, 2011, Nawar\u2019s father, Yemeni-American imam Anwar Awlaki, was assassinated in a drone strike in Yemen that was ordered by President Obama, on secret intelligence that he was an al Qaeda operative. A few days after her father was killed, Nawar\u2019s 16 year old Denver born brother Abdulrahman was killed in another drone strike.<\/p>\n

Many other Yemeni families have suffered in these attacks. On January 26, 2021, relatives of at least 34 Yemenis alleged to have been killed in American military actions<\/a> asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to determine whether the deaths were unlawful. The petition asserts that six drone strikes and one Special Operations raid during the Obama and Trump administrations inflicted catastrophic damage on two families.<\/p>\n

The statistics around the U.S. war in Yemen are difficult to come by, in part because many of the attacks are carried out secretly by the CIA and not by the military, but the Airwars and other studies count the number of drone strikes and their victims conservatively in the hundreds. The casualties of Saudi led war<\/a>, in contrast, are more than 100,000 dead with almost as many killed by hunger and disease caused by the Saudi blockade and millions of Yemenis being deprived of food and other needs.<\/p>\n

While its death toll is much smaller, the U.S. drone attacks have a disproportional effect on Yemeni society. A 2014 screening study<\/a> of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms among civilians by the Alkarama Foundation found that \u201cfor a large swath of population in Yemen, living under a sky that has become a constant source of trauma is an everyday reality\u201d and that under drone attack and surveillance, Yemen is \u201ca precarious time and a peculiar place, where the skies are becoming traumatic and a generation is being lost to constant fear and suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Special Forces and air strikes are intended to defeat terrorism in Yemen as in the other countries under attack, they are having the opposite effect<\/a>. As the young, late, Yemeni writer Ibrahim Mothana told Congress in 2013<\/a>: \u201cDrone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants. \u2026 Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mothana\u2019s observation about liberal voices in the US \u201clargely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen\u201d was affirmed in Senator Bernie Sanders\u2019 2016 campaign for president. While Sanders has become outspoken in his opposition to the Saudi led war, as a presidential candidate he repeatedly voiced his support of Obama\u2019s drone wars. \u201cAll of that and more<\/a>,\u201d he replied when asked if, as president, drones and Special Forces would play a role in his counter-terror plans. Again, in the 2019 resolution \u201cTo direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen<\/a>\u201d offered by Sanders, passed in both houses of Congress and vetoed by Trump, U.S. participation in this other war was given a pass: \u201cCongress hereby directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen, except United States Armed Forces engaged in operations directed at al Qaeda or associated forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Biden\u2019s foreign policy address, he left open the possibility of arms sales as he pledged his commitment \u201cto continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people.\u201d The threats Saudi Arabia faces include, he said, missile attacks and UAV (drone) strikes from weapons he says are supplied by Iran. In fact, Yemeni Houthi Ansar Allah rebels have launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, most notably a September 14, 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco<\/a> refineries that disrupted world crude oil supplies. It is a strange irony, that after the U.S. assaults Yemen with thousands of Hellfire missiles launched from Predator drones for over 20 years, the U.S. now must arm Saudi Arabia to defend itself (and our oil supply) from Yemeni drones and missiles.<\/p>\n

The global proliferation of weaponized drones is no surprise and Biden\u2019s plea for peace in Yemen that allows for their continued use is a hollow one. Giving a pass, continuing  to ignore, if not condone, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen and elsewhere will not bring peace but will ensure that for generations to come, profiteers like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, will \u201ccontinue to see solid growth.\u201d Peace in Yemen, peace in the world, demands no less than an end to the production, trade and use of weaponized drones.<\/p>\n

This article was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2021 at 9:09pm and is filed under Donald Trump<\/a>, Drones<\/a>, Joe Biden<\/a>, Militarism<\/a>, Saudi Arabia<\/a>, Yemen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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