Terror-Supporting Saudi Arabia — Is Using American Bombs and Military Coordination — to Kill Children in Yemen

08 April 2016

Is this U.S. exceptionalism doing its Godly work?

You tell me:

On March 26, the Saudi-led coalition, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan, began an aerial bombing campaign against Houthi and allied forces.

At least 3,200 civilians have been killed and 5,700 wounded since coalition military operations began [in Yemen], 60 percent of them in coalition airstrikes, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The naval blockade the coalition imposed on Yemen has contributed to an immense humanitarian crisis that has left 80 percent of the population of the impoverished country in need of humanitarian protection and assistance.

Human Rights Watch has documented 36 unlawful airstrikes – some of which may amount to war crimes – that have killed at least 550 civilians, as well as 15 attacks involving internationally banned cluster munitions.

The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen . . . “documented 119 coalition sorties relating to violations” of the laws of war.

The UN Panel of Experts found that, “the coalition’s targeting of civilians through air strikes, either by bombing residential neighborhoods or by treating the entire cities of Sa‘dah and Maran in northern Yemen as military targets, is a grave violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. . . .”

Lt. Gen. Charles Brown, commander of the US Air Force Central Command, said that the US military has deployed dedicated personnel to the Saudi joint planning and operations cell to help “coordinate activities.”

US participation in specific military operations, such as providing advice on targeting decisions and aerial refueling during bombing raids, may make US forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces.

The American military is coordinating aerial terror?

And to make us still more proud

Why not blast a few kids?

Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes using United States-supplied bombs killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children, in northwestern Yemen on March 15, 2016, Human Rights Watch said today.

The two strikes, on a crowded market in the village of Mastaba that may have also killed about 10 Houthi fighters, caused indiscriminate or foreseeably disproportionate loss of civilian life, in violation of the laws of war. Such unlawful attacks when carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes.

Human Rights Watch conducted on-site investigations on March 28, and found remnants at the market of a GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a US-supplied MK-84 2,000-pound bomb mated with a JDAM satellite guidance kit, also US-supplied.

A team of journalists from ITV, a British news channel, visited the site on March 26, and found remnants of an MK-84 bomb paired with a Paveway laser guidance kit.

“One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s year-long war involved US-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia,” said Priyanka Motaparthy . . . at Human Rights Watch.

“The US and other coalition allies should send a clear message to Saudi Arabia that they want no part in unlawful killings of civilians.”

Is it all just a mistake?

Probably not:

As Common Dreams previously reported, the U.S.-backed bombing campaign has repeatedly targeted critical civilian infrastructure, including markets, schools, hospitals, power plants, refugee camps, and warehouses storing humanitarian aid.

Philippe Bolopion, deputy global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said that "governments that arm Saudi Arabia have rejected or downplayed compelling evidence that the coalition’s airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians in Yemen."

"By continuing to sell weapons to a known violator that has done little to curtail its abuses," Bolopion continued, "the U.S., UK, and France risk being complicit in unlawful civilian deaths."

The moral? — Tell me again, just who are the terrorists?

Hmmm?

PeteFree.com

Terror-Supporting Saudi Arabia — Is Using American Bombs and Military Coordination — to Kill Children in Yemen