(TFTP) As politicians fight to keep an investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump 2016 campaign alive, the Pentagon has admitted to aiding in the genocide of millions of children in the poorest country in the Middle East.
The Defense Department released a statement this week, in which it admitted for the first time that U.S. forces have conducted “multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes this year” in Yemen.
The DoD justified the increased assaults by claiming that they were an attempt to wipe out Al-Qaeda, which it defines as “one of the terrorist groups most committed to and capable of conducting attacks in America.” The statement also claimed that the Islamic State’s presence in Yemen has apparently “doubled in size over the past year.”
“The removal of key facilitators in this region will interrupt al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s freedom of movement and likely force the group into a reactionary posture, limiting their ability to challenge Yemeni security forces and partnered advances,” said Army Lt. Col. Earl Brown, a Centcom spokesman. “U.S. forces also expanded counterterrorism operations in October to encompass both al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS. This parallel targeting effort is required to prevent ISIS-Yemen from filling the vacuum left by a diminished al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula footprint or influence in the region.”
While the statement from the Department of Defense listed all of the alleged commanders and leaders of terrorist groups the U.S. claims to have killed in Yemen, it failed to mention the civilians who were killed or displaced in the process. In addition to launching direct airstrikes, the U.S. has also had a hand in fueling the war by supplying weapons to its close ally, Saudi Arabia.
The current conflict in Yemen was manufactured as a proxy war by Saudi Arabia, targeting its bitter enemy, Iran. After just two years, the death toll from the conflict surpassed 10,000 in January with over 40,000 wounded. The number of casualties has only continued to increase, as a report from the United Nations noted that the parties involved are conducting operations “heedless of their impact on civilians.”
As The Free Thought Project reported, the current situation in Yemen is nothing short of genocide, as even with 7 million civilians in starvation, and 19 million out of the country’s 27 million population “in need of some form of aid,” Saudi Arabia enacted a blockade on humanitarian support last month, with the help of the United States.
While many will blame the Obama Administration for enabling Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen, the Trump Administration should be held accountable for its role in continuing to support the tyrannical kingdom. In fact, within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. launched a special forces raid in Yemen.
The raid was a miserable failure, killing 30 civilians—including 10 women and children. One of those children was Nasser al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old girl who bled to death after she was shot in the neck. Her older brother, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was killed by the U.S. when he was 16 years old, in a drone strike authorized by the Obama Administration in 2011.
While the mainstream media provides full coverage of “Russiagate,” the fact is that it could easily expose and bring public attention to the Trump Administration’s increased involvement in Yemen, in which its collusion with Saudi Arabia is causing genocide. However, in order to do that, the media would have to admit that U.S. foreign policy remains the same from one administration the next, no matter the political party.
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via IFTTT