Yemeni activist and Harvard scholar Shireen Al-Adeimi offers a first-hand account of the situation on the ground in Yemen, describes the role and motivations of the various players in this brutal proxy war, and charts a path to peace and recovery via diplomacy. (program)
What was to have been a decisive few week campaign to prove the credentials of the new, inexperienced, but rash Saudi prince, has blown up into a political and humanitarian disaster that the Saudi rulers can not get out of with out loosing face. Shireen explains why the Iranians are but tangentially involved but have been used by former President Saleh and Saudi Arabia to draw the U.S. into a campaign that it is incapable of mounting by it self. The Houthis want no foreign interference in their country.
Chicago Area Peace Action Action Corps Just Foreign Policy Peregrine Forum (Madison, Wis.) Veterans for Peace Chicago Voices for Creative Nonviolence WeClaim Democracy
Shireen Al-Adeimi, born in Yemen, raised in Canada and educated in the United State, is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University. She has published numerous articles about the crisis in her homeland and has emerged as one of the foremost voices for peace and reconciliation in that war-torn country.
Beginning in 2015, Saudi Arabia, assisted by other autocratic Gulf states as well as the United States and Britain, has been conducting a military campaign in Yemen, aimed at ousting the Houthi faction and installing a more pliable government in the neighboring country. The Saudi strategy of starving and terrorizing the Yemeni people into submission involves indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, including hospitals, schools and water treatment plants, as well as the blockading of Yemeni ports.
These war crimes â committed largely with weapons purchased from the U.S. â have resulted in a humanitarian crisis of the first magnitude. In addition to the many thousands of direct casualties in this one-sided war, hunger and illness are rife in Yemen, due to the inability to import food and the destruction of vital infrastructure. The United Nations has declared that Yemen constitutes âthe worldâs biggest hunger crisis.â An estimated 130 Yemeni children are dying every day of malnutrition and disease.
Since the Saudi-led intervention began, the U.S. has been providing intelligence and logistical aid, without which the campaign could not long continue. This military support, never authorized by Congress, includes participation in naval blockades, mid-air refueling of coalition aircraft, targeting assistance and more. Additionally, the U.S. continues to sell billions of dollars of advanced weapons to coalition states, which will be used to wreak further havoc on the long-suffering Yemeni population.
In March, the Senate voted down a measure (sponsored by Bernie Sanders, among others) that would have invoked the War Powers Act to end U.S. collaboration with the Saudis in waging war against Yemen. While the resolution did not pass, 44 senators supported it, in defiance of the formidable Saudi lobby, Trump administration officials and the military-industrial complex. The Senate vote has helped bring the Yemen war â which has not received extensive coverage from the mainstream media â into public awareness and forced legislators to take a stand either for or against peace and constitutional governance.
The killing continues in Yemen, and the effort to halt the U.S.-Saudi war, directed largely against defenseless civilians, continues to gain momentum. Now is the time to take action and to work for peace in the Middle East. The first step is to learn how our tax dollars are being used, without the consent of Congress, to inflict destruction and misery on an impoverished and war-wracked country. By spreading the word, organizing and putting pressure on our elected representatives, we can bring this brutal, shameful war to an end and move toward a peaceful resolution of the Yemeni conflict. (program)
![<?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/rp-navimg.gif)
![Support the <?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/support.png)
