Top Obama-era officials urge immediate end to U.S. involvement in Yemen war

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post



By Missy Ryan November 11 at 9:30 AM

Top Obama administration officials have drafted a letter acknowledging their responsibility for initiating U.S. involvement in Yemen’s destructive civil war and calling for the Trump administration to halt America’s role in the conflict.

Thirty former senior officials, including former national security adviser Susan E. Rice and former CIA director John Brennan, said the Obama administration decided in 2015 to provide limited support to a Saudi-led military coalition in an attempt to ensure a prudent operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen and to steer the conflict toward a diplomatic resolution.

“We did not intend U.S. support to the coalition to become a blank check. But today, as civilian casualties have continued to rise and there is no end to the conflict in sight, it is clear that is precisely what happened,” the former officials wrote. “However, rather than learning from that failure, the Trump administration has doubled down on support for the Saudi leadership’s prosecution of the war, while removing restrictions we had put in place,” they said. “It is past time for America’s role in this disastrous war in Yemen to end.”

The letter, which has not been made public previously, comes two days after the Pentagon said it would end one of the principal elements of U.S. support for the Gulf-led coalition: aerial refueling of flights over Yemen.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-obama-era-officials-urge-immediate-end-to-us-involvement-in-yemen-war/2018/11/10/ce8e8654-8d93-4dd2-9f68-822cb08b9f16_story.html

[Sunlei]

1. I remember when Obama admin tried to get Saudis to step-up & help, with restrictions.

So now we learn, Trump admin removed restrictions and lets the Saudis have a blank check of Americas Federal money.

Federal Billions we Americans could use in the USA.

Plus millions of people wouldn't be slaughtered by Saudi bombers.

[MrQRO]

2. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but....

The whole Saudi-Yemen shit show started under the Obama admin.
and they were happy to support, and turn a blind eye to it.
Now it's a bad thing?

They could have stopped it years ago.... Gimme a break!!
Hypocrites much?

[question everything]

3. Just one more example when we try to intervene and ended up

backing the wrong side.

Like staying in Europe after WWI to help the White Russians against the Bolsheviks.

[ansible]

4. The anti-war crowd sure got quiet too once Obama was president

[Hortensis]

6. This is a very strange takeaway from this article alone.

Much less to an incredibly complex situation involving the entire Middle East.

America's venal interests should in no way have blinded anyone to our very long efforts to keep this region from collapsing into a holocaust of economic failure, wars over not just religion but virtually everything this region lacks -- including fresh water, and enormous famine, millions trying to flood into other regions, and unprecedented population death. Collapse there could potentially drag the rest of the planet into another world war.

Under Obama the U.S. managed to become essentially energy independent, at least temporarily as a transition to the real thing, but most nations have not. Right after water, energy is the very stuff of life. The planet's vast populations only grew because adequate energy became available to support them. Almost 200 nations must have it or they and their people will die, very quickly too.

And energy is only one of many considerations, though a big one.

[MrQRO]

8. OK....?

Those are a whole lot of nice words, that have nothing to do with the topic at hand..
Thanks though for the endeavor to point at something shinny in the distance and change the subject.
Do you work in the MSM? Pretty much the same crud they do!

Not everyone is easily baffled by slight of hand.... Just saying...

[Hortensis]

5. Good. Evidently conditions are coming together to

at least limit Trump's involvement in these dreadful atrocities.

The decision to end refueling, which the Saudi government said resulted from improvements in its own refueling capacity, appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of expected moves by Congress to force the Trump administration out of the conflict.

Lawmakers from both parties have expressed mounting frustration with Saudi Arabia over its conduct of the war and, more recently, its role in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Pressure to curtail U.S. involvement in the war is expected to increase in the wake of last week’s midterm elections, which handed control of the House to Democrats critical of President Trump’s Yemen policy.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

7. Pull the damn plug! nt