Tag: Arabian Peninsula

Yemen Finally Makes The News!

For about half a decade the Saudis have been hammering Yemen, the Middle East poorest countries, with airstrikes…..most Americans have no idea where it is or why it is being fought….please take 8 minutes and learn about this conflict…..

Now that I have caught you up…..the incident that finally put the Yemen war in the news was the Saudi attack on a school bus…..

An airstrike hit a bus in a market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 43 people, including children, and wounding as many as 63, according to Yemen’s rebel-run Health Ministry. The airstrike came from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite Houthi rebels in the country, and the coalition said it was in retaliation for a missile fired at the kingdom the previous day. Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers, per the AP. The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold that lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said an ICRC-supported hospital received dozens of dead and wounded following the attack. “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten,” adds the head of the ICRC in Yemen. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said the attack targeted rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesday’s projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties. The spokesman insisted Thursday’s attack was a “legitimate military action.” Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sa’naa.

The Saudis are one of the US biggest customers for weapons and armament….as can be seen in this photo from the bus attack….

A prominent Yemeni journalist who throughout the war has been instrumental in getting images and information out of the country ahead of Western journalists has photographed and examined fragments from one of the exploded missiles found at the site of the US-Saudi coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured — the vast majority of which were children. 

https://theantimedia.com/yemen-bus-bombing-lockheed-martin/

The price of war that few want to hear….the death of children….unacceptable from a country that cares so little for their fellow man…..

This transgression will go the way of all such attacks….swept under the proverbial rug…..for you see NO ONE gives a shit especially Americans!

Turn The Page!

Yemen: Finally The Media Has Noticed!

I have been writing about the war that the Saudis have waged on their poorer neighbor to the South…..in all that time, a couple of years, the largest group to suffer have been the civilians especially the children…..I touched on this just recently……https://lobotero.com/2018/07/27/why-not-yemen/

Kids trapped in a cave endless reports with live feeds……children dying from bombs or starvation not really that important to the media or the world at large.  And that is pathetic and disgusting!

Finally the Saudis have committed a crime that could not be ignored…..

An airstrike hit a bus in a market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 43 people, including children, and wounding as many as 63, according to Yemen’s rebel-run Health Ministry. The airstrike came from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite Houthi rebels in the country, and the coalition said it was in retaliation for a missile fired at the kingdom the previous day. Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers, per the AP. The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold that lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said an ICRC-supported hospital received dozens of dead and wounded following the attack. “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten,” adds the head of the ICRC in Yemen. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said the attack targeted rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesday’s projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties. The spokesman insisted Thursday’s attack was a “legitimate military action.” Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

It is f*cking sad that it takes an atrocity like this to get the attention of the MSM…..

Warning:  Video is graphic so pleas be advised

Saudi Arabia should be held accountable…if they are they will just use some oil wealth to make this barbaric act go away…..and the US will just turn a blind eye to the people that gave us AQ and ISIS……their money talks and will protect.

So I Have written!

Turn The Page!

Yemen Made Simple

Or should I call it….A Guide To Yemen For The Unsympathetic?

The Saudi and UAE-led operation to retake the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah, which could jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, represents more than the latest tragic chapter in Yemen’s civil war. It is the fully expected outcome of several Western nations’ complicity in a multi-country assault that has made Yemen the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.

The recent attack on Hodeidah is both a function of Western arms support and a feature of longstanding Western political programming that has sustained the coalition’s attack on the country since a bombing campaign began in 2015.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/27/yemeni-suffering-made-easy/

Yemen has been raging for a couple of years and the world seems not to care….why is that?

For one Yemen has nothing the West desires….if so then why is Saudi so involved it there is nothing to danger to them?

Are the Saudis challenging an old enemy?

How many deaths does it take before someone steps up and ends this madness?

And So It Begins

There comes a time when a nation realizes its capabilities and does what they all have done….flexes their muscle.

A few years ago a few missiles flew over the Arabian Peninsula originated in Yemen……the Saudis intercepted them, using equipment acquired from the US, and started a long war on civilians or should I say the Houthi tribesmen?  The country, Yemen, has been bombed into the Stone Age.  The death toll has been on the Yemeni side there have been very few deaths in Saudi Arabia (if any) because of something Yemen has done.

I bring up this short history of the struggle between Yemen and the Saudis because they, the Saudis, have threatened yet another country….Qatar.

Saudi King Salman has threatened to take military action against neighboring Qatar if the nation follows through with a plan to install an anti-aircraft defense system. Salman said he would take military action to “eliminate this defense system.”

Saudi Arabia and many of its allies severed ties with Qatar last year, based around a false media report claiming the Qatari Emir wasn’t sufficiently hostile toward Iran. The Saudis have since suggested they’d channel out the entire Qatari border, turning it into an island, and dumping nuclear waste in the area.

Around this ever growing Saudi hostility toward Qatar, the nation made a deal to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia. Russia says that plans to deliver he missiles have not changed, despite the Saudi threats.

(antiwar.com)

Was this threat needed?  Qatar already host a large US base.  That should protect Qatar from its war hungry neighbor.

By the way….last year the Saudis decided to punish Qatar for some alleged transgressions…..they, Saudis, and their allies tried to isolate Qatar from the outside world…..how did that work out for the Saudis?

It’s hard to imagine the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates thought it would go this way. Officials from their governments — as well as junior partners Egypt and Bahrain — described the punitive sanctions they collectively slapped on Qatar in early June as an unfortunate but necessary action, aimed at bringing the pesky Qataris to heel. It was as if Qatar, accused by its neighbors of fomenting extremism near and far, was an unruly child who needed to be disciplined.

But in the grown-up world of geopolitics, the Saudi and Emirati-led move against Doha does not seem to be achieving its goals. Rather than isolating Qatar, it has deepened Qatari ties with regional powers Turkey and Iran. Oman and Kuwait, two other states in the Gulf Cooperation Council, have not joined in. Food supplies and other goods are still flowing into Qatar’s docks and airports. And, no matter the White House’s mixed messaging, American diplomats appear to be pushing for conciliation and compromise with Qatar rather than seeking Doha’s acquiescence to the Saudi and Emirati demands.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/18/the-blockade-of-qatar-is-failing/

Let me close with something that few people will tell you…the Saudis export an extremist brand of Islam that is embraced by al-Qaeda and ISIS…..you want to look for the fathers of terrorism then look no further than Saudi Arabia.

With all the resources at the disposal of the Saudis and a friend like the US………Qatar wins!

foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/04/qatar-won-the-saudi-blockade

The Saudis

You want to know the key to all the problems in the Middle East then look no further than the kingdom of Saudi Arabia…..

Think I am smoking some weird shit?

Let’s look at Islamic terrorism…..ther brand of Islam that these creeps follow is an extreme form of Islam…Wahhabism which originated in Saudi Arabia….let us jump on the “way back” machine to the 18th century……and the new prince of the year MbS is cited as the savior of the House of Saud from itself……

Wahhabism, cited as the official Saudi religious doctrine for which the country’s leadership has been so vehemently criticised and which MBS is looking to rebrand, is based on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792).

Abd al-Wahhab was an Islamic scholar from the Nejd region of the Arabian Peninsula, an avid traveller and the author of The Book of Unity, which was rejected by most of his contemporaries in Mecca and Medina. Abd al-Wahhab preached returning to the Quran and the Hadith, rejected religious innovation (bidaa) and advocated eliminating practices (such as Sufi rites and veneration of saints) that are not grounded in the Quran. He even accused other Muslims of being infidels for following practices that were, in his opinion, un-Islamic and called for strict adherence to traditional Islamic law (sharia).

There was nothing new in Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings which were based on some old ideas and constituted a revival of the Hanbali doctrine in the most ultraconservative form. It was, however, his religious zeal that ultimately drove him close to the Saud family.

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/can-mohammed-bin-salman-break-the-saudi-wahhabi-pact.html

More reference into the marriage of the Sauds and Wahhab…..

http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/7.htm

The US has been drawing closer and closer to the kingdom for about 30 years….at the same time Americans are ignorant to the fact that Saudis made up the biggest ethnic group of the 9/11 terrorists……and the creeps in ISIS and Al-Qaeda are followers of this extreme form of Islam….and yet we keep them close as an ally……and now people are putting all their faith in the next and future king….MbS……

Liberalization but democracy will not be a thing of the future……

Saudi Arabia’s leadership is coming under growing pressure to address significant economic and demographic challenges so it can remain a stable, prosperous country. These include:

• Nearly 45 percent of the population (currently about 26 million) is under the age of 25.

• Although the official unemployment rate is less than 6 percent (private estimates are significantly higher), nearly one-third of young Saudis are unemployed.

• As demand for jobs grows, the traditional employers—the public sector and the energy sector—are increasingly incapable of providing opportunities.

• Young, urbanized Saudis are demanding reforms that will relax the country’s highly restrictive social climate, especially in regard to gender issues.

http://afsa.org/saudi-arabia-liberalization-not-democratization

But in the long run the “new” Saudi is just the same as the “old” Saudi…..

For months, Saudi Arabia had been enjoying a public-relations windfall. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS, the kingdom’s charismatic future leader, seduced the world with his vision for a new, modern nation. There have been live concerts, and cinemas are opening, with many more planned. Women can attend soccer games. Last September, MbS announced a bold promise to overturn the country’s ban on women driving, a change that is set to go into effect on June 24.Then, late on Friday, it all came crashing down: Reports emerged that the women activists who pressed for the policy change had been arrested and imprisoned. As of this morning, 13 are reported to have been arrested; most are women. Apart from the driving issue, they have campaigned against so-called guardianship rules which require Saudi women to receive permission from a male relative before making many life decisions, like traveling. One of those detained was Loujain al-Hathloul, who was photographed at the 2016 One Young World Summit with none other than Meghan Markle, who married Britain’s Prince Harry on Saturday.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/saudi-arabia-hits-the-brakes-on-reforms/560870/The PR blitz the Saudis have used for months started off with a bang but the the true nature of the “royals” came forth and NO amount of PR can change it.

The future looks like the kingdom is trying to become a player in Iraq once again……

Saudi Arabia is re-engaging with Iraq after nearly a quarter-century of broken ties. The rapprochement began in 2016, sharply accelerated in mid-2017 and stands to move even faster after Iraq’s general elections in May 2018, particularly if politicians open to reconnecting with Saudi Arabia succeed in forming a government. Riyadh’s strategy is to ride a wave of Iraqi national pride, reinvest economically and build relationships across ethnic and confessional lines. If its objective is to roll back Iran’s influence in Iraq, however, it will find that many Iraqis – even those who are critical of Iran’s overweening influence – view that as a red line, a way of turning their country back into an arena of regional combat. If it moves too fast and favours infusions of cash over carefully calibrated and targeted economic assistance, it will fuel rather than curb rampant corruption. And it will need to silence sectarian rhetoric to reach out across Iraq’s ethnic and religious spectrum.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/186-saudi-arabia-back-baghdad

I do not see this working…..the new Iraqi PM is of Shia sect and unless you have been asleep for 15 years Iran is Shai, Saudis are Sunni….and the two have been enemies since 8th AD……and now we think that an extreme sunni sect will become friends with the shia in Iraq, who now control the strings of government.

And there is the call for a palace coup in the kingdom by a royal…….MbS is seen as doing more damage than good to the royal family by members of the family……

A dissident Saudi prince has called on his uncles to depose King Salman and take over the country.

Prince Khaled bin Farhan made the appeal to Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz and Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, saying that the damage being done to the Saudi royal family and the kingdom by Salman’s “irrational, erratic and stupid” rule had gone beyond the point of no-return.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Prince Khaled, who was given political asylum in Germany in 2013, said that if Ahmed and Muqrin were to unite ranks then “99 percent of the members of the royal family, the security services and the army would stand behind them”.

http://theantimedia.com/coup-saudi-prince-khaled-bin-farhan/

Saudi may be a source of international intrigue in the coming months and years…..will be fascinating to watch this drama play out…..but no matter the outcome the one thin g that will not change…..the nature of the “royals”.

Saudis Make History

Another Sunday and another weekend……sunny, clouds and a cool breeze…..the perfect day…..

The new Saudi Crown Prince is making news plus he has hired a PR firm and has come to the throne of power in the US to meet with the ruler extraordinaire….

First the Saudis made history by showing a movie…..Let’s right made history by showing a movie…..

The lights dimmed and the crowd of men and women erupted into applause and hoots as Hollywood’s blockbuster Black Panther premiered in Saudi Arabia’s first movie theater. Though it was a private, invitation-only screening on Wednesday evening, for many Saudis it marked one of the clearest moments of change to sweep the country in decades, the AP reports. It’s seen as part of a new era in which women will soon be allowed to drive and people in the kingdom will be able to go to concerts and fashion shows, and tuck into a bucket of popcorn in a cinema. “This is a historic day for your country,” Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, told the crowd at the screening. “It’s been about 37 years since you’ve been able to watch movies the way movies are meant to be watched in a theater, together on a big screen.”

Authorities said the public would be able to purchase tickets online on Thursday for showings starting Friday. But there may be delays. Movies screened in Saudi cinemas will be subject to approval by government censors, and Wednesday night’s premiere was no exception. Scenes of violence were not cut, but a final scene involving a kiss was axed. Still, it’s a stark reversal for a country where public movie screenings were banned in the 1980s during a wave of ultraconservatism that swept Saudi Arabia. Many Saudi clerics view Western movies and even Arabic films made in Egypt and Lebanon as sinful. Despite decades of ultraconservative dogma, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pushed through a number of major social reforms with support from his father, King Salman, to satiate the desires of the country’s majority young population.

Making history…..allowing Saudis to participate in something the rest of the world has enjoyed for about 100 years…..now that is progress!

There is more….

I do not know if my readers remember that the Saudis have a real dislike for Qatar……the war of words just took a silly turn from the Saudis……they hate Qatar so much they want to contaminate part of the Arabian Peninsula with nuke waste just to make a point….

Saudi Arabia has been accused of attempting to cut off former British protectorate Qatar from international trade with plans for a new military base and nuclear-waste burial site close to its border.

Riyadh is said to want to build a new industrial and economic hub and excavate a waterway along Qatar’s sole land border, allowing shipping to bypass the emirate.

News of the plan has prompted fears that Qatar, which has large natural reserves of oil and gas, could be cut off and effectively turned into an island.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-qatar-latest-updates-military-base-nuclear-dump-oil-gas-uae-a8296026.html

Seriously?

I can now understand why the Saudis love Trump…..both are petty tyrants……birds of a feather crap together…..or something like that….

Sunday is about to begin and I want to wish all my friends and readers a great day filled with joy and love……chuq

The Saudis Are At It Again

I do hope that everyone enjoyed their Sunday…..but now it is time to get back to the seriousness of the world around us.

The Saudis have been getting some pretty bad press lately……their war in Yemen, their beheadings, their lousy human rights score, etc….things are so bad that they hired a PR firm to help improve their image……and I admit that it does need work and lots of it…..

The Crown Prince called MbS has come to America to start his rehabilitation…….and he went straight to the Jews to get the PR off on a positive footing……

Amid recent reports of improving Saudi-Israel ties, at least behind the scenes, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is visiting the United States, has met with the leaders of a number of US Jewish organizations.

The prince visited with officials from AIPAC, Stand for Israel, the American Jewish Committee, ADL, the Jewish Federation of North America, and others. The visits were revealed in a leaked copy of his itinerary, and were not meant to be publicized.

It’s not just that these groups are Jewish, as such, or even that they’re broadly pro-Israel. Much of the controversy is seen as many of the groups are both involved in the Israeli settlement venture, illegal under international law and widely criticized in the Middle East, and are anti-BDS groups.

Analysts familiar with the situation say that these meetings are being done broadly for the benefit of how the Saudis believe it looks to the Trump Administration. The Saudis apparently think such meetings show the prince as much more willing to engage with Jewish groups, and by extension to align themselves with the administration’s pro-Israel policy, than previous Saudi leaders have been.

(antiwar.com)

If they can get the Jews on their side then the US will weasel in behind them…..

Then I read a report that MbS has stated that the US was behind the spread of radical Islam, as the tin foil hat group likes to call it………

In a sensational interview with the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto leader Muhammad bin Salman has blamed the US and its allies for putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to export the extremist Wahhabi ideology during the Cold War as a means to counter the influence of the Soviet Union in the wider Muslim world.

Slaman’s statement is unequivocally true as the US constantly worked to prop up monarchical regimes in the Arab world at the expense of secular Arab Nationalist governments whose style of government and geo-political struggle for post-colonial liberation automatically drew them closer to the USSR. In Asia, during the Soviet intervention on behalf of the legitimate Afghan government in the 1980s, the United States collaborated with Riyadh to fund and arm the Mujahideen which ultimately mutated into Al-Qaeda.

http://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/03/28/saudi-crown-prince-muhammad-bin-salman-blames-america-for-spread-of-wahhabism-as-petroyuan-beckons/

There is more…….

“Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.” [emphasis added]

http://theantimedia.com/saudi-crown-prince-america-isis-ideology/

The extreme form of Islam is called Wahhabism and it originated in Saudi Arabia…..it is possible that the US tried to use religion to halt the spread of Communism….but I think that MbS is trying to put a US spin on his country’s radicalism….

The tour, the PR tour continues, and he will get whatever he wants from the Trump White House including the nukes he so desires.

Now think about that for damn minute.

In case it is too much to ask then here is what I mean……nukes in the hands of radical Islamists….the very fundamentals that fuel AQ and ISIS…..get it now?

Yemen War Update

Recently Congress attempted to flex its muscle and invoke the AUMF in the Yemen War fiasco….

On February 28, Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 54, a resolution that seeks to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Even before the resolution was introduced, the Department of Defense responded with the extraordinary claim that Congress lacked the legal authority to “override the President’s determination as Commander in Chief” and end the United States’ involvement in the conflict.

To catch my reader up on the situations……March of 2015, a coalition of nine Arab governments, led by Saudi Arabia, began a bombing campaign in Yemen. The Saudi airstrikes were aimed at restoring to power the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who had been deposed by an armed rebel group known as the Houthis.

Since 2015, the United States has been refueling Saudi planes in mid-air before their bombing runs into Yemen. As of last October, the military reported that the U.S. had provided over 80 million pounds of fuel, and refueled over 10,400 in “the Horn of Africa region.” (This total includes support for U.S. and allied counterterrorism operations as well as the Saudi coalition’s war in Yemen. The number of airstrikes by the Saudi coalition is orders of magnitude higher than the number of reported U.S. counterterrorism strikes, so refueling for Saudi planes for operations in Yemen likely constitutes a large share of the total). The war has killed thousands of civilians and contributed to epidemics and widespread food shortages.

The M-IC when it heard about the attempt by Congress went into “get tough mode”…….

The multi-trillion-dollar military-industrial-counterterrorism complex (MICC) has a business model for scuttling legislation that would end or curtail the involvement of the United States in military operations overseas.This typically involves leaking classified falsehoods, i.e., a false statement that the executive branch has classified to prohibit disclosure to the general public on the theory that disclosure might damage the national security of the United States (Executive Order 13526). Typically they will purport to demonstrate catastrophic danger or damage to the United States if Congress ends a use of the United States Armed Forces (USAF) in a designated conflict. Leaks like these will tend to fall into the hands of favored columnists like David Ignatius of The Washington Post or Tom Friedman of The New York Times.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-congress-tests-authority-military-brings-out-big-guns/

The issue is dead!  The M-IC has defeated any effort to end a barbaric war that is causing a humanitarian crisis….death, destruction, disease, and so much more….but to preserve their profits the M-IC will continue to fuel the crisis on the Arabian Peninsula…..

In a surprising admission on Tuesday, the head of U.S. Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia — admitted that the Pentagon doesn’t know a whole lot about the Saudi airstrikes in Yemen that the United States is supporting through intelligence, munitions, and refueling.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/14/yemen-war-centcom-elizabeth-warren/

This is NOT what the US is suppose to stand for…but these days it is all we have.

Update to the update……..

Senate Joint Resolution 54, which would force the end of the US involvement in the Saudi War in Yemen, continues to face mounting opposition from the administration. Defense Secretary James Mattis is the latest to express opposition to the bill, in a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Mattis argues that the US support for Saudi Arabia is “non-combat support,” and that without it, Saudi Arabia would kill even more civilians in their airstrikes. This is a bold prediction given the outrageous number of civilians the Saudis are killing already.

Mattis further claims that the Saudis are engaged in a “legitimate exercise of self-defense,” another outrageous claim that other administration officials have made. This is based on the Shi’ite Houhis firing missiles at the Saudis, though presenting this as a pretext for a war of self-defense is preposterous, since the missiles were fired years after the Saudi invasion began.

Mattis does concede the point in his letter that there is no legal authorization for US involvement in the Yemen War, but insists Congress should “not impose restrictions” based on the war’s plain illegality under the War Powers Act.

Exact timing for the vote on S.J. Res 54 is still not certain, though proponents of the bill are hopeful that the vote will come early next week. Those wishing to contact their senators to urge them to support SJ Res. 54 should call 1 (202) 899-8938.

The US War Powers Act requires that Congress authorize any US military operations of the sort being carried out in Yemen. Since 2015, the US has conducted mid-air refueling for Saudi warplanes, and committed warships to the naval blockade which is fueling starvation across Yemen.

(antiwar.com)

Yemen–Looking For The Solution

Another morning of doctors…..I may not be around much today…..hopefully everyone will have a good Friday.

The US has been entangled in the events in Yemen since the attack on the USS Cole….first we set about trying to find and punish those that planned the attack and after we have been fighting the Houthi tribesmen along with the Saudis.  This little conflict is causing a massive humanitarian crisis……starvation, epidemics, death and destruction…..

The US Senate has stepped up to try and end the US involvement in Yemen….surprise, surprise….it is a bi-partisan endeavor…..

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) unveiled the bipartisan Senate resolution which aims to force an end to the US military involvement in the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen.

The bill makes use of the 1973 War Powers Act, which allows any legislator to introduce a resolution which would compel a withdrawal from any conflict that was not specifically authorized by Congress in any Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Neither of the two extent AUMFs have anything to do with the attack on Yemen’s Shi’ite Houthi movement.

This is the first time the Senate will have ever made a War Powers challenge to a conflict. A previous effort at such a legal challenge in the House was derailed by the leadership, and replaced with a “non-binding” resolution noting the Yemen war was unauthorized, which overwhelmingly passed.

Centcom commander Gen. Joseph Votel confirmed to the House Armed Services committee only the day prior that the US does not have an AUMF for Yemen, and that America’s involvement is solely a function of having sold the arms to the Saudis in the first place, and promising to “provide support” for those arms.

Yet legally, Congress is supposed to have the war-making powers, and this Senate effort stands to be the first time in recent history that Congress looks like they might be reasserting that authority.

(antiwar.com)

The US is fighting in too many countries ans this one is one that we need to remove ourselves from……

As early as the next few days, the Senate will have its best opportunity so far to end US support for Saudi Arabia’s devastating war in Yemen — a war that has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe that puts millions of lives at risk.

The vehicle for congressional action is a bipartisan bill introduced last week by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut. The bill would end US refueling and targeting assistance for Saudi Arabia’s bombing, aimed at Houthi rebels in Yemen, unless such actions are authorized by Congress
This is a good start….but it needs to be expanded to include the AUMF and the War Powers Act…..
The Senate started the ball rolling and now the House seems to want to join in……

Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), hosted a bipartisan hearing on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that for 17 years has been used to exercise executive military action abroad under multiple presidential administrations.

The hearing focused the congressional caucus members’ desire to repeal the 2001 AUMF, hold a congressional debate and vote on a new authorization. The hearing was composed of members from both the House Liberty Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The caucuses say the vote on war isn’t a partisan issue.

“The overly broad and outdated AUMF represents a critical deterioration of congressional oversight of military operations,” a press release from Rep. Amash for the ad-hoc hearing read.

Republicans and Democrats join forces to call for repeal of 2001 AUMF war making powers

The old college try…..finally a glimmer of spines peeks out of the cowardly Congress…..I wish them luck.

The Dhofar War

I know it is obvious that I am a student of history so much so that I tend to hit people over the head with history as often as possible.

I am always going on about the US and its wars…..so I decided to check into some of our allies and their little wars.  I have many English visitors so I decided to try and embarrass them if possible (that is a joke please do not take offense)…….

The English have a long history on the Arabian Peninsula….this is one of their wars against god-less commies during the Cold War….

Between 1963 and 1975 the Sultanate of Oman was the scene of one of the most remarkable, and forgotten conflicts of the Cold War. The British-led Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) would battle and defeat a formidable Marxist guerrilla movement based in the southern province of Dhofar. The Dhofar War remains one of the few examples of a successful Western-led counterinsurgency in a postwar Middle Eastern country.

An interesting aspect of this conflict is the polyglot nature of the forces involved, with British, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, and Dhofari irregulars ultimately involved in fighting the rebels (known in Arabic as the adoo), themselves a transnational outfit. A survey of the war raises interesting questions about the myth of fighting ‘localized’ conflicts, insofar as the Dhofar War is often portrayed as an isolated contest between British and Omani troops and the Dhofari guerillas. . It also draws interesting parallels with other ongoing multi-faceted counterinsurgencies as seen in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. As exhausted Western publics become increasingly hesitant to commit large-scale forces to conflicts in the Third World, their governments may depend on regional allies to provide the necessary manpower instead.  The war in the ‘Frankincense Mountains’ provides lessons in the benefits and complications of such strategies.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/01/12/the_dhofar_war_and_the_myth_of_localized_conflicts_112890.html

You see the US was not the only participant in those proxy wars of the Cold War era….