I wasn’t sure if I would get back to this thread right away or not, as I’ve had a few more lined up on the docket. Then I was watching CBS Evening News tonight (with Scott Pelley), and they had a story intended to pull the heart strings of viewers. Interviewing a Yemeni refugee, they analyzed Trump’s executive orders halting any new refugees entering the United States from a number of Middle East Islamic countries.
Here’s the video:
Now, before I get blasted for my heartlessness on refugee policy by some or my ignorance of national security concerns by others, let me save you the trouble: Commenting on those is not the primary purpose of this post. Want to know my personal opinion on those? Sign up for my email.
I certainly do not have any problem with the story, or CBS interviewing the Yemeni girl. Her story is genuine, as far as I can tell, and there are many like it. It is just such tragedies as this that cause me to feel obligated to clarify reality–a reality all but ignored by the media and unknown by many people. That reality? That the U.S. military is currently subsidizing, equipping and actively assisting the Saudi Arabian government in its massive military operation against Yemen, including deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian aid groups, like Doctors Without Borders.
Here’s the situation in short:
The capital of Yemen (Sana’a) is currently under the control of the Houthis, a term that designates more of a political sect than a religious one, though the Houthis are primarily a branch off of Shi’ite Islam. These Houthis are currently being attacked by Saudi Arabian forces, who, with U.S. support, are siding with an ISIS/Al-Qaeda group inside of Yemen to overthrow the Houthis. In the process of what are primarily air and missile strikes, scores of civilians have been killed. According to the 
U.N., the war has displaced up to 2.8 million Yemeni (more than 400,000 families), killed around 4,125 civilians and wounded over 7200 (as of October 2016) (More information here, also linked at the end.)
What’s the backstory?
From 1978 to 2012, Ali Abdullah Saleh was the “elected” (staged elections without other options) president of Yemen (North Yemen until the unification of Yemen in 1990) – one of the many dictators in the Middle East (read about the rise of these dictators here). In 2009, the Obama administration began giving massive sums of money to Saleh to help fight Al-Qaeda in North Yemen (from over $30 million in 2009 to $176 million in 2010). Instead of fighting Al-Qaeda, Saleh used this money to help finance war against Houthis (who are not affiliated with Al-Qaeda). When Saleh began using this money against anti-regime protesters in 2011 (an outflow of the widespread “Arab Spring”), Obama cut the funding, but also authorized Hillary Clinton’s State Department to help ensure the election of Saleh’s vice president in a one-man election.
Ousted, Saleh then left with massive portions of his military, ironically joining the Houthis, who were happy to welcome their former enemy so long as he could now help them attack the new government in Sana’a. Saleh and the Houthis easily overthrew the new president and re-took the capital, despite the Iranian warning that doing so would provoke Saudi Arabia. The Iranian warning proved to be right, as it was not long after in 2012 that the Saudi government began its attack on Yemen.
Why did the U.S. agree to aid the Saudis? Notwithstanding a long-time alliance with the Saudis, there was a deliberate effort on the part of American policy-makers to “placate” (words from the White House under Obama) the Saudis after tension regarding the Iranian nuclear deal, a deal that upset the Saudi royal family.
So where does that put us now? I could go into detail into the all the consequences of the U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia, but I’ll leave that for my sources below. The United States is arming, equipping and actively helping an attack that is creating many of the very refugees that tug on our emotions with stories like that shared by CBS News. And these policies, for now, continue under Trump.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are no good guys and bad guys here. The Houthis are no saintly regime or group (they are actually largely socialist totalitarians). But U.S. policy-makers are not responsible for the actions of the Houthis. Like everyone else, they are only responsible for their own.
I’ll leave you with a couple of items. Human Rights Watch has put out a report on the events in Yemen in 2016. This report goes into a great deal of detail on the war crimes in Yemen from both sides, including Saudi attacks on hospitals and civilian targets. And it’s not their clumsiness doing that; the U.S. is offering our own precision-targeting abilities as part of our aid. You can review the report here.
And here’s a video I pulled from that report. Yes, this one also tugs at heart-strings. This one helps round out the story.
