Author: Daniel Larison

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

ABC News reports on the start of the Saudi coalition’s attack on the port of Hodeidah:

As many as 22 million people – three-quarters of Yemen’s population – could be at risk of losing access to necessary food and medicines they receive through the port, amid a worsening humanitarian crisis on the verge of famine that the U.N. has described as the world’s most dire.

“Any attack on or significant, long-term disruption of operations of the port will have catastrophic consequences for the people of Yemen,” Frank McManus, the International Rescue Committee’s country director in Yemen, told ABC News.

Continue reading “The US-Backed Assault on Yemeni Port Has Started”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Yemen reported that the Saudi coalition bombed one of the cholera treatment centers earlier today:

The Yemen War is spiraling out of control. The Saudi/UAE/U.S. coalition bombed a Doctors Without Borders cholera treatment facility earlier today.

Let me repeat that – the US helped bomb A DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS CHOLERA TREATMENT FACILITY.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 11, 2018

Yemenis have been suffering from the world’s largest modern cholera epidemic for more than a year, and there have been over one million cases since April of last year. Medical facilities such as this one are never to be targeted in time of war, and attacks on medical facilities constitute war crimes. The Saudi coalition has routinely struck hospitals and clinics throughout their three-year war on Yemen, and they have destroyed MSF-supported facilities on many occasions. The coalition bombing campaign has wrecked the infrastructure and destroyed many of the country’s medical facilities, the blockade has created a fuel crisis that makes it difficult to run generators to pump clean drinking water, and coalition forces have even struck at water and sewage treatment plants. They have created the conditions for the extensive spread of cholera, a normally preventable disease, and they even bomb the treatment centers that are set up to cope with the epidemic their policies helped to cause.

Sen. Chris Murphy condemned the attack:

The Yemen War is spiraling out of control. The Saudi/UAE/US coalition bombed a Doctors Without Borders cholera treatment facility earlier today.

Let me repeat that – the US helped bomb A DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS CHOLERA TREATMENT FACILITY.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 11, 2018

US support for the bombing campaign enables the frequent bombing of medical facilities and other civilian targets. The coalition governments are not trying to limit the harm they do to the civilian population, and the US should not be aiding and abetting their war crimes.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at The American Conservative, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and is a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Dallas. Follow him on Twitter. This article is reprinted from The American Conservative with permission.

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The UAE-led attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen appears to going ahead, and the U.S. isn’t trying to prevent it and is going to support it:

The Trump administration is now reluctantly getting behind the U.A.E.’s military moves, but top US officials are encouraging their Emirati allies to do all that they can to prevent a humanitarian crisis and to limit the impact on U.N. diplomatic efforts, people familiar with the matter said.

One US official characterized the administration as giving the U.A.E. a “blinking yellow light” for the operation, not a green or red one.

As I feared, the US won’t oppose an attack that the UN estimates could cause 250,000 deaths and lead to full-blown famine in Yemen that threatens the lives of millions more. Signing off on this offensive while pretending to care about the humanitarian consequences is a bad joke. If the administration didn’t want to make Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe worse, it would firmly oppose this attack and penalize the governments involved in it. As usual, the administration’s concern for Yemeni civilians is empty and counts for nothing.

Continue reading “The Trump Administration Is Backing the Saudi Coalition Attack on Hodeidah”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The Trump administration is considering lending additional support to the atrocious Saudi-led war on Yemen:

The Trump administration is weighing an appeal from the United Arab Emirates for direct U.S. support to seize Yemen’s main port for humanitarian aid from Iranian-backed Houthi fighters, according to US officials, a move they worry could have catastrophic effects on the country.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked for a quick assessment of the UAE’s plea for assistance such as surveillance drone flights to help a Saudi-led coalition retake Hodeidah, which currently serves as a vital lifeline for the country’s 29 million residents, US officials said.

US support for the war on Yemen has been a disgrace for the last three years. Increasing that support to enable coalition forces to attack Hodeidah would be the worst thing our government could do in Yemen right now. Instead of entertaining requests for increased military assistance, our government needs to be withdrawing all support. Coalition governments need to believe that the US won’t tolerate an attack on Hodeidah, and just by considering this the administration is giving them reason to think that they can go ahead with the attack on their own.

Continue reading “The US Must Oppose a Saudi Coalition Attack on Hodeidah”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

Curt Mills explains who Fred Fleitz is and why it matters that he has been hired as John Bolton’s chief of staff on the National Security Council:

But Fleitz’s hiring signals three developments clearly: Bolton’s propensity to tap hardline loyalists; Bolton’s readiness to associate with Iran and North Korean regime change advocates; and Bolton’s assiduous staffing of Russia investigation critics.

Fleitz has been working for Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, which is known for both its wacky conspiracy theories about Islamist infiltration and its hard-line foreign policy views. Like Bolton, he was a vehement opponent of the nuclear deal, and absurdly claimed in 2014 that Obama was “conceding” an Iranian nuclear weapon by negotiating the agreement. Bolton’s hiring of Fleitz is a reunion for the two, as Fleitz served as Bolton’s chief of staff when the latter worked in Bush’s State Department. It was there that he earned the reputation of being Bolton’s “enforcer,” and presumably that is the role he is going to reprise on the NSC.

Fleitz’s position confirms that Bolton continues to remake the National Security Council in his image, and it shows once again the extent to which hard-line fringe figures have gained extraordinary influence in the Trump White House.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at The American Conservative, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and is a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Dallas. Follow him on Twitter. This article is reprinted from The American Conservative with permission.

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The Washington Post calls on the Trump administration to pressure the Saudi coalition to halt its offensive against the port of Hodeidah:

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis may be about to get much worse. In Yemen, where some 8 million people are on the brink of famine and the worst cholera epidemic in history is raging, the country’s most important port has become the target of a new offensive in the three-year-old civil war. Yemeni forces backed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are seeking to cut off and eventually capture Hodeida, a city of 700,000 that is the entry point of 70 percent of the aid shipments keeping millions of civilians alive. The United States, which supplies the Saudi-UAE alliance with arms and intelligence, should use its leverage to stop this reckless venture.

The U.S. absolutely should do as the editorial recommends, but the fact that the offensive is happening suggests that the Trump administration supports the coalition’s decision to attack the port or it tells us that the coalition doesn’t think they will face any consequences for doing it anyway. Trump has shown no interest in pressuring the Saudis and their allies, and his administration has fought every Congressional effort to end US support for the war. It would be good news if the administration suddenly changed its position on the war on Yemen, but we have to assume that it won’t.

Continue reading “Making Yemen’s Humanitarian Catastrophe Even Worse”