The US never really stopped launching airstrikes in Yemen, but during the early part of the Saudi invasion, they certain reduced the number of direct US strikes. They seem to be picking up the pace substantially, with the Pentagon saying more than 70 strikes were launched just in March.
The Pentagon described this as nearly double the number of US strikes in Yemen in all of the previous year, saying they will “continue to target al-Qaeda in Yemen,” claiming the group poses a “significant threat to the United States” and needed to be disrupted.
Deletes on what the US actually targeted in most of those strikes was unclear, with a handful of individual strikes reportedly aimed at targets in the mountains. Two children were reported killed in one of the strikes, and several other civilians were wounded in other strikes.
A number of Pentagon figures have been pushing in the past couple of weeks for further escalation of US involvement in the Saudi war in Yemen as well, arguing it is a “vital” US interest to ensure the Saudis crush the Shi’ite Houthi movement. Since the White House seems to be signing off on most escalations these days, this past month’s airstrikes could be a sign of things to come.
So far reports indicate the strikes are aimed at al Qaeda, not the Houtis. Those “pentagon figures [who] have been pushing in the past couple of weeks for further escalation of US involvement … to ensure the Saudis crush the Shi’ite Houthi movement” it appears, have not yet persuaded Trump to do so. There are legions of make-war-on-Iran people at the Pentagon — the Neocon hangover — and they clearly want Trump to go there. And we’re out here waiting to see “Will he go there?”
This is the 64 zillion dollar question. It will be telling. Very telling.
It’s challenging to speak through the hysteria. So much misinformation — “catapulted propaganda” to use the shrub’s infamous phrase — has deliberately obscured reality and prejudiced the discussion. But I’ll try:
Focusing on al Qaeda is reality-based. They did 911. They are the “Radical Islamic Terrorists” Trump identified as the enemy. He said he would go after them, and it appears he is doing just that. He said that otherwise, he is opposed to further US military adventurism in the Mideast. He opposed the Iraq war, criticized — well, duh! — the Libyan “humanitarian” catastrophe, sees the Syrian regime-change effort as al Qaeda/ISIS-enabling Neocon insanity (and as President has reversed the Syrian policy from “Assad must go” to “We kill ISIS, the Russians kill al Qaeda, and the Syrian people decide about Assad.”)
Meanwhile, Iran, which started out as essentially an innocent bystander — and accidental “winner” — to the Bush/Cheney detonation of Mideast “stability”, has now been drawn into the struggle, alongside Russia and Syria, to stop the Neocon/Saudi (ie US/Saudi) Wahabi terror war against Syria. But even before that, Iran had been the most-favored-target for Neocon regime-change, because it was the most populous, oil-wealthy, developed, and militarily capable of Israel’s remaining adversaries. Then Iran’s development of a nuclear enrichment capability crossed Israel’s existential-threat red line, and promoted Iran to priority-target-number for military destruction. Obama’s nuke deal with Iran temporarily blocked the Neocon march to war. But now we hear all sort of top Trump people making severe anti-Iran noises. The boilerplate of “Iran is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism!” (Hogwash of course. Saudi Arabia is the wellspring and financier of Wahabi Islamic Jihadism which is the Radical Islamic Terrorism of ISIS/al Qaeda.) So, is the anti-Iran rhetoric of the Trump administration just the obligatory political talk required by the Israel lobby, or is it a sincere anti-Iran animus? Will Trump sic the US military on the Houtis, justified by the fiction that the big, bad, Iranians are behind them, or will he confine the Pentagon to dishing whoop ass on ISIS/al Qaeda, but otherwise refraining, as he said he would be inclined, from further wasteful and incoherent military adventurism in the Mideast?
We shall see.
These are the very same war crimes the white rose spoke of…And here i am 70+ years involved in a crazy loop…ARggghh..