Good News on Yemen

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 12:40am

James Mattis says the US has watched the bloody conflict 'long enough' and he wants 'dropping of bombs' to stop.

US defence chief demands Yemen ceasefire; peace talks in 30 days

Top American officials called for a ceasefire in Yemen and demanded warring parties immediately come to the negotiating table.

The comments came as the Saudi-Emirati-led military coalition deployed more than 10,000 new troops towards a vital rebel-held port city ahead of a new assault.

James Mattis, the Pentagon chief, said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough", adding he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Houthi rebels - are ready for talks.

"We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days."

'Killing innocent people'

The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of air strikes killed ~~tens of thousands~~ scores of civilians.

Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit.

"Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Houthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said.
~
Mattis was being questioned about the civilian casualties from the Saudi-led coalition’s aerial bombing campaign, and US influence on Riyadh to curb the rising death toll. He replied that US planes refueled less than 20% of coalition warplanes and argued the US and Nato air forces had set a high standard for limiting civilian casualties, suggesting that it was unfair to expect the Saudis and Emiratis to attain the same level of accuracy. But the defence secretary insisted the Saudi military chiefs were making an effort.

“The commander of the Royal Saudi air force has been going from base to base... looking pilots in the eye and explaining there is never a reason to drop [bombs] if they don’t think they can hit the right target,” Mattis said.

Tags:

Yemen Genocide

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Comments

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 2:15am

What a crock

I read somewhere today (not sure if I can find it easily again) that Yemen has decided to fight back and have managed to get their hands on some weapons. Edit: Found it ((actually not the original but has more info)

suggesting that it was unfair to expect the Saudis and Emiratis to attain the same level of accuracy.

Translation: The US is still #1 at killing civilians.

—

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 2:32am

This is an interesting development now isn't it?

@WindDancer13

The unveiling of the new smart missile is also a blow to the Saudi coalition, which, despite having access to the latest arms and technology, has failed to conquer one of the poorest nations on earth, according to experts and military analysts.

Is this new weapon a game changer for the Saudis and that's why Mattis is calling for a ceasefire? If so then that blows the hell out of his concern for Yemen lives.

Oh well. If this helps end this atrocious human rights catastrophe then I'm all for it.

Thanks for sharing the information.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by divineorder on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 9:39am

That whole piece sounds like an

@snoopydawg advert for the missles?

The unveiling of the new domestically-manufactured Badr P-1 ballistic smart missile comes within the frame of the right to self-defense, as thousands of Yemenis called for authorities in the capital, Sana’a, to advance the country’s missile programs in a bid to deter further Saudi aggression.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 12:56pm

I am wondering though

@snoopydawg

after nearly four years of Saudi bombardment, where the money came from and the technology. The Yemen people are starving, the infrastructure is pretty much wrecked and there are a lot of diseases taking a toll on the population. And the government all of a sudden pops up with a terribly advanced weapon? And the CIA didn't know about it in advance? Something more is going on there.

—

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Submitted by Linda Wood on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 3:42pm

I wonder

@WindDancer13

if it has to do with the division between the 2 opposing factions in our military leadership, one pro-Saudi and neocon, and the other loyal to the United States and fighting against Al Qaeda and ISIS. The decision to switch sides in Yemen was considered a "bad idea" by CENTCOM and SOCOM in 2015:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/17/us-generals-think-saudi-...

US generals: Saudi intervention in Yemen ‘a bad idea’

Analysis: Some top officers question Washington’s support for Riyadh-led intervention, which they say is doomed

April 17, 2015 by Mark Perry

John McCain... has praised “our Arab partners” for intervening in Yemen. ... But a large contingent of senior U.S. military officers believes the Saudi-led military operation will fail, and possibly turn into a quagmire.

The fact that the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was planned and launched independently of the U.S. was, in McCain’s eyes, a rebuke of the administration’s policies. “These countries, led by Saudi Arabia, did not notify us nor seek our coordination or our assistance in this effort,” he said during a March 26 committee hearing, “because they believe we are siding with Iran.”

A senior commander at Central Command (CENTCOM), speaking on condition of anonymity, scoffed at that argument. “The reason the Saudis didn’t inform us of their plans,” he said, “is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think — that it was a bad idea.”

Military sources said that a number of regional special forces officers and officers at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) argued strenuously against supporting the Saudi-led intervention because the target of the intervention, the Shia Houthi movement — which has taken over much of Yemen and which Riyadh accuses of being a proxy for Tehran — has been an effective counter to Al-Qaeda.

Michael Horton, a Yemen expert close to a number of officers at SOCOM and a consultant to the U.S. and U.K. governments, picked up on this debate. Within days of the Saudi intervention’s start, he said in an email that he was “confounded” by the intervention, noting that many in SOCOM “favor the Houthis, as they have been successful in rolling back AQ [Al-Qaeda] and now IS [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL] from a number of Yemeni governorates” — something that hundreds of U.S. drone strikes and large numbers of advisers to Yemen’s military had failed to accomplish.

Later, in a telephone interview, Horton expanded on that. “These constant reports that the Houthis are working for the Iranians are nonsense, but the view is right out of the neocon playbook,” he said. “The Israelis have been touting this line that we lost Yemen to Iran. That’s absurd. The Houthis don’t need Iranian weapons. They have plenty of their own. And they don’t require military training. They’ve been fighting Al-Qaeda since at least 2012, and they’ve been winning. Why are we fighting a movement that’s fighting Al-Qaeda?”

One reason for U.S. support may be the diplomatic logic of tamping down Riyadh’s opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran by backing an aggressive Saudi-led response to what a number of U.S. allies in the region portray as rapidly expanding Iranian influence in Arab countries. But another is the view among some U.S. military commanders that countering Iran takes strategic priority over combating Al-Qaeda and ISIL.

... But that’s not the view of McCain and other hawkish senators around him. They see Iran’s fingerprints all over whatever goes wrong in the region — a view that alarms Horton. “This is a guy who complained that we were Iran’s air force in Iraq,” he said. “Well, guess what? Now we’re Al-Qaeda’s air force in Yemen.”

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 10:36am

This is something

@Linda Wood that makes a lot of sense to me. I believe there is a deep state war going on in our own country that extends well into the military.

#1.1.2

if it has to do with the division between the 2 opposing factions in our military leadership, one pro-Saudi and neocon, and the other loyal to the United States and fighting against Al Qaeda and ISIS. The decision to switch sides in Yemen was considered a "bad idea" by CENTCOM and SOCOM in 2015:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/17/us-generals-think-saudi-...

US generals: Saudi intervention in Yemen ‘a bad idea’

Analysis: Some top officers question Washington’s support for Riyadh-led intervention, which they say is doomed

April 17, 2015 by Mark Perry

John McCain... has praised “our Arab partners” for intervening in Yemen. ... But a large contingent of senior U.S. military officers believes the Saudi-led military operation will fail, and possibly turn into a quagmire.

The fact that the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was planned and launched independently of the U.S. was, in McCain’s eyes, a rebuke of the administration’s policies. “These countries, led by Saudi Arabia, did not notify us nor seek our coordination or our assistance in this effort,” he said during a March 26 committee hearing, “because they believe we are siding with Iran.”

A senior commander at Central Command (CENTCOM), speaking on condition of anonymity, scoffed at that argument. “The reason the Saudis didn’t inform us of their plans,” he said, “is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think — that it was a bad idea.”

Military sources said that a number of regional special forces officers and officers at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) argued strenuously against supporting the Saudi-led intervention because the target of the intervention, the Shia Houthi movement — which has taken over much of Yemen and which Riyadh accuses of being a proxy for Tehran — has been an effective counter to Al-Qaeda.

Michael Horton, a Yemen expert close to a number of officers at SOCOM and a consultant to the U.S. and U.K. governments, picked up on this debate. Within days of the Saudi intervention’s start, he said in an email that he was “confounded” by the intervention, noting that many in SOCOM “favor the Houthis, as they have been successful in rolling back AQ [Al-Qaeda] and now IS [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL] from a number of Yemeni governorates” — something that hundreds of U.S. drone strikes and large numbers of advisers to Yemen’s military had failed to accomplish.

Later, in a telephone interview, Horton expanded on that. “These constant reports that the Houthis are working for the Iranians are nonsense, but the view is right out of the neocon playbook,” he said. “The Israelis have been touting this line that we lost Yemen to Iran. That’s absurd. The Houthis don’t need Iranian weapons. They have plenty of their own. And they don’t require military training. They’ve been fighting Al-Qaeda since at least 2012, and they’ve been winning. Why are we fighting a movement that’s fighting Al-Qaeda?”

One reason for U.S. support may be the diplomatic logic of tamping down Riyadh’s opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran by backing an aggressive Saudi-led response to what a number of U.S. allies in the region portray as rapidly expanding Iranian influence in Arab countries. But another is the view among some U.S. military commanders that countering Iran takes strategic priority over combating Al-Qaeda and ISIL.

... But that’s not the view of McCain and other hawkish senators around him. They see Iran’s fingerprints all over whatever goes wrong in the region — a view that alarms Horton. “This is a guy who complained that we were Iran’s air force in Iraq,” he said. “Well, guess what? Now we’re Al-Qaeda’s air force in Yemen.”

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Big Al on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 10:46am

What a load of crock.

Pure CYA from Mattis. This in particular,

"Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit."

Man, anyone that believes that isn't playing with a full deck. The war in Yemen would not be happening if it wasn't in the U.S. ruling class' best interest, simple as that. Although S.A. obviously have their interests, U.S. (an Israeli) interests are what are driving that war and genocide.

As for "peace" talks. It's never about peace with these fuckers. Anytime something like this is put out it's either a propaganda setup or a strategic decision for U.S. interests or both.

Sorry sd, I don't see any good news here, just propaganda.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 11:21am

In general

@Big Al

I agree with you, Al, but something has changed here. This especially:

"We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days."

I agree with snoopydawg, whatever this is, if it ends the slaughter, I'll take it. My suspicion is that something like the 9/11 Victims lawsuit against the Saudis has, for the first time in 14 years, a chance of succeeding, and everyone from Bezos to Barack Obama now suddenly has to somehow distance himself from Saudi Arabia.

Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 4:21am

Let’s see how long it takes for Yale Law School to get the memo

@Linda Wood
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=saudi+buys+sharia+law+center

Students protest Kavanaugh but are mum on a Saudi rich guy buying himself a Sharia Law Center?

“Third-wave feminism and #MeToo under Islam” — can’t wait for the podcast of the lecture series on iTunes U.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 10:14am

This is a joke,

@lotlizard

right?

Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 11:54am

I made up that course title as a joke, but

@Linda Wood
who’s to say such a thing won’t become real at some point?

Trump’s candidacy was supposed to be a joke too. At least according to the serious folks in the mainstream media.

Not a joke: Yale really is taking Saudi money in exchange for teaching Sharia law.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 10:44am

there might be something else too

@Linda Wood With all the loud protests over the death of Jamal Khashoggi, there might be a connection. Khashoggi worked for the Washington Post and we know that the WaPo is deeply connected to the CIA. What is Khashoggi was a CIA operative?

I have no proof for this supposition, but am just throwing out for consideration. Feel free to discount it.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 11/01/2018 - 11:06am

Yes,

@gulfgal98

I think you are on to something.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 10/31/2018 - 3:44pm

Things not readily apparent:

(posted this one in the wrong place.)

The Final Goal: For the Saudis (and thus, the US) the final goal is to exterminate all Shiites in the Middle East. This dovetails nicely with Israeli foreign policy and represents the final solution to Palestine. The US provides arms to the Saudi Sunnis, and they blockade shipments of food and medicine to Yemen in order to speed things up. Did the world just notice that genocide has bad optics?

“The commander of the Royal Saudi air force has been going from base to base... looking pilots in the eye and explaining there is never a reason to drop [bombs] if they don’t think they can hit the right target,” Mattis said.

More likely, the Maddog Cabal is sitting in the War Room demanding answers to:
“Why aren’t the Houthis all dead, yet?"

Empire Mania Continues: The Neocons will spend our last tax dollar on their murderous grasp for global supremacy and dictatorship over all countries of the world. That road goes through the Middle East. The American people are unwilling to stop their rogue Deep State that commands the DOD and State Department, among others, because they refuse to see what is really going on. They've succumbed to our national delusion that the world is filled with enemies that want to attack America, steal our private property, and force us into communism. For them, immigration is all the proof they need that the US is under attack.

The Change Makers: The world has conferred too much power upon the US. Each country thought they had something to gain over all the rest by becoming a US vassal. Indeed, foreign leaders in positions of power and influence did gain in wealth and power as they made their countries more dependent on the US. You can watch that in real time from the UAE to Brazil. So now the future of the US is in the hands of the rest of the world. It can only be changed from the outside, which this article makes clear. Criticism within the US has no effect. Perhaps the US vassals will wake up and realize that we would be delighted to destroy them in the same way, if they give us a reason to.

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