Antiwar.com Blog

Last week, US State Department officials met with Taliban leaders in Qatar. At the request of the Taliban, the US-backed Afghan government was not invited. The officials discussed ceasefires and an end to the war. Meanwhile, the US inspector general charged with monitoring US spending on Afghanistan reconstruction has reported that since 2008, the US has completely wasted at the least $15.5 billion. He believes that’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Will President Trump do the smart thing and negotiate peace and leave? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Over the weekend, several news report have suggested that the US is planning an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Other reports suggest that the US is going to unleash the Saudis to do the fighting. What’s behind the relentless – going back 60 years – US drive to intervene in Iran’s internal affairs? Oil is a big factor…but not the only one. Tune in to today’s Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

Matt Taibbi comments on the widespread ignorance and lack of coverage of the war on Yemen and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis:

Yemen features the wrong kinds of victims, lacks a useful partisan angle and, frankly, is nobody’s idea of clickbait in the Trump age. Until it becomes a political football for some influential person or party, this disaster will probably stay near the back of the line.

There are many reasons for the international neglect of Yemen’s plight. The Saudi coalition has done its best to make it very difficult to enter Yemen to report on the conflict. The U.S. government has studiously ignored anything that might reflect poorly on the coalition, and it has kept its own role in enabling the role as invisible as possible. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Yemenis have no one speaking on their behalf and no one in a position to influence the way that the conflict is perceived in Washington and other Western capitals. Yemeni views of the war occasionally come through in a few news reports, but for the most part they aren’t the ones being cited in reports about the war destroying their country. When the war does receive some coverage, it is frequently misrepresented as a regional “proxy” war because that is the only framing that seems to get anyone’s attention in the West.

Continue reading “Yemen Is the Most Important and Most Ignored Story in the World”

I was looking at some old military history notes today and came across this photo of Lieutenant General Hubert Reilly Harmon, known today as the father of the Air Force Academy and its first superintendent:

I love the simplicity of this photo. General Harmon is wearing four ribbons on his uniform and his pilot’s wings. He commanded an air force in the Pacific during World War II and helped to win that war.

Continue reading “William J. Astore on Grade Inflation in the US Military”

In brief, you will find that the illogical direction the Pentagon and Department of State have directed this nation’s foreign affairs and military has its roots in the defeat of the United States Military in Vietnam. The Vietnamese used terrain and guerrilla (insurgency) strategy to oppose the US tactical deployment which was organized to fight like a WWII main force enemy. The US fielded a military force of draftees and inexperienced officers to fight a war they did not understand or desire to participate. As the war lingered on, much of it on TV, the American wins were insufficient to continue the support for the war back home. General Westmoreland’s light at the end of the tunnel was fading. President Johnson sent the "A" team into the war to reorganize it under one director, combining all military and civilian personnel into the organization CORDS. This did not help; the tactics only got worse.

With new organization came new tactics, the strategy was the same, that of full military dominance of the population of South Vietnam and total destruction of the North Vietnamese communist government. (As an embarrassment for Russia, I assume). There were two misguided tactics promoted; the first was the "Oil Slick" theory which believed if the military continued to cover more area the security and pacification would spread like oil on water. The trouble with it was the lack of enough military to secure the ever-enlarging perimeter; it often created a safe haven for the enemy.

Continue reading “Same Strategy, Different War, Same Failed Results”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The Washington Post reports on the aftermath of the April 23 wedding massacre Alex Potter reported on last month:

The 22 fatalities included 12 of the dancers, four musicians and six villagers, including one who played the lute. Most of the children killed were in the dance troupe.

The dancers all belonged to the Muhamasheen, Yemen’s most marginalized ethnic group. Performing at weddings was among the few jobs they could find.

For 10 of them, only pieces of their bodies were found, so they are buried in two mass graves. “It’s all my family,” said Ahmed Rifaei, 37, a dancer who survived.

The living, too, are in bad shape.

Some of Raqah’s residents have lost their hearing. Children have lost limbs, while others carry shrapnel from the missile inside their bodies. The nearest hospital is in the provincial capital, and most villagers cannot afford the three-hour journey.

The attack on this wedding party is just one of the thousands of strikes that have hit civilian targets over the last three years. There is no possible justification for what the Saudi coalition did to this village. It was a wanton slaughter of innocent people that showed the coalition’s complete disregard for civilian lives. There have been many similar attacks on other weddings, funerals, schools, markets, and homes, and they have all been similarly outrageous and indefensible. The Saudis and their allies have been able to carry out all these attacks with impunity because none of their Western patrons will ever hold them accountable for what they have done.

Continue reading “The Aftermath of a Saudi Coalition Wedding Massacre in Yemen”