Chris Murphy - US is complicit & responsible for war crimes in Yemen

[Shadows]

The brutal war in Yemen has killed well over 10,000 people since Saudi Arabia began bombing the country in 2015, but in recent months, cholera has been killing people much faster than bombs. The International Committee on the Red Cross estimates that by the end of the year, a million people will have contracted the contaminated water-born disease. One U.S. senator is breaking the Senate silence — and even going further, explaining how U.S. support for the war has enabled the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.  “There is a humanitarian catastrophe inside this country – that very few people in this nation can locate on a map – of absolutely epic proportion,” said Murphy. “This humanitarian catastrophe – this famine … is caused, in part, by the actions of the United States of America.” Murphy has been speaking out about the war in Yemen nearly as long as it’s been going on, criticizing both the Obama and Trump administrations. Together with Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, he has introduced multiple measures in the Senate trying to block weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, but none have passed.

Murphy argued on the Senate floor, Saudi Arabia, led by its headstrong crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is hoping to use disease and starvation to force the country to surrender to its terms, a strategy that is on its face a war crime. Since the bombing campaign began, Saudi Arabia has targeted the country’s water infrastructure. In April 2015, a month after the bombing campaign began, coalition planes destroyed equipment at a water treatment plant in Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a. The plant stopped functioning a few months later, after Saudi Arabia knocked out the city’s electrical grid, cutting off access to clean water for millions of people. “That bombing campaign that targeted the electricity infrastructure in Yemen could only happen with U.S. support,” Murphy said. “It is the United States that provides the targeting assistance for the Saudi planes.”

“It is U.S. refueling planes flying in the sky around Yemen that restock the Saudi fighter jets with fuel, allowing them to drop more ordnance,” said Murphy. “It is U.S.-made ordnance that is carried on these planes and dropped on civilian and infrastructure targets inside Yemen. The United States is part of this coalition. The bombing campaign that has caused the cholera outbreak could not happen without us.” “We have a responsibility to make sure that the coalition, of which we are a part, is not using starvation as a weapon of war,” said Murphy. “This is a stain on the conscious of our nation if we continue to remain silent.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/14/chris-murphy-accuses-u-s-of-complicity-in-war-crimes-from-the-floor-of-the-senate/

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

He's right.

Murphy has the most reasonable foreign policy of the bunch.

[NewYorkExpress]

Cutting ties with the Saudis are the minimum of what we should do to restore balance to the Middle East.

[MAINEiac4434]

Please run my prince 😍

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Democrats can criticise the war in Yemen now that Obama is no longer President

[Fuzzy Bear]

Democrats can criticise the war in Yemen now that Obama is no longer President

True.  Imagine that!

Here's a suggestion:  Other nations don't openly discuss these aspects of their foreign policy.  Folks who are REALLY committing war crimes have no such public introspection. 

These discussions do not need to be carried out on the Senate floor.  Not because Murphy doesn't have a point, but because we are constantly being manipulated by evildoers in the world BECAUSE of our openness.   The real perpetrator nations of human rights violations don't have Freedom Of Information Acts (or Freedom Of Anything Acts, to be frank).  I am skeptical of the vicious responding properly to an expression of virtue.

[Bismarck]

Senator Todd Young has also spoken out on this issue and broke against his party to vote against arms sales to the Saudis.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Murphy is great!

[Figueira]

Senator Todd Young has also spoken out on this issue and broke against his party to vote against arms sales to the Saudis.

Huh, an actual example of him doing something praiseworthy that isn't "bland Republican=FF!"

[Fuzzy Bear]

So why, exactly, are we in Yemen?

[YE]

Oh wow someone not named Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rand Paul making sense on foreign policy.

[publicunofficial]

Democrats can criticise the war in Yemen now that Obama is no longer President

True.  Imagine that!

Here's a suggestion:  Other nations don't openly discuss these aspects of their foreign policy.  Folks who are REALLY committing war crimes have no such public introspection. 

These discussions do not need to be carried out on the Senate floor.  Not because Murphy doesn't have a point, but because we are constantly being manipulated by evildoers in the world BECAUSE of our openness.   The real perpetrator nations of human rights violations don't have Freedom Of Information Acts (or Freedom Of Anything Acts, to be frank).  I am skeptical of the vicious responding properly to an expression of virtue.

Awful, awful opinion.

Any candidate willing to challenge the US dogma on the middle East jumps massively in my personal rankings. Calling out the fact that the US is basically helping the KSA commit genocide in Yemen is huge.

[NeederNodder]

Democrats can criticise the war in Yemen now that Obama is no longer President

It's about time.

[Orser67]

I don't have a problem with Murphy speaking against the war, but reading this article reminded me of how awful the Intercept is.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's like the article goes out of its way to avoid mentioning that the Yemeni Civil War started before the Saudi intervention. Nor do they bother to mention why the Saudis intervened or why the U.S. supported that intervention.

But sure, let's just blame all of the world's problems on the U.S. without actually trying to explain why things are happening.

[Shadows]

I don't have a problem with Murphy speaking against the war, but reading this article reminded me of how awful the Intercept is.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's like the article goes out of its way to avoid mentioning that the Yemeni Civil War started before the Saudi intervention. Nor do they bother to mention why the Saudis intervened or why the U.S. supported that intervention.

But sure, let's just blame all of the world's problems on the U.S. without actually trying to explain why things are happening.

Those are BS reasons. Damn right Yemen Civil War started before. However, there is no justification for an outside country like Saudi or US to intervene & massacre people because they support 1 version of Radical Sunni Islam.

This is Trumpian type justification of a terrible mass murder.