Helping Saudis kill Yemeni babies — is a "theological" thing — says Professor David DesRoches — adding a delightful twist to the Biden Administration's justification for that butchery

04 May 2021

We stopped helping the Saudis kill . . .

. . . Yemeni poor people, except we didn't.

From Alex Ward at Vox:

In February, President Joe Biden announced that he was ending America’s “offensive” support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, six years into the conflict that has killed around 230,000 people and triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Instead, the US role would be limited to “defensive” operations “to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people.”

“[D]efensive” support the US is still providing includes greenlighting the servicing of Saudi aircraft.

Multiple US defense officials and experts acknowledged that, through a US government process, the Saudi government pays commercial contractors to maintain and service their aircraft . . . . What the Saudis do with those fighter jets, however, is up to them.

The issue isn’t really a he-said/she-said or who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s a question of how you look at the entirety of America’s role in the war.

“It’s a definitional and kind of theological argument,” said David DesRoches, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, a Pentagon-funded school.

Translated

By Dave DeCamp:

The UN is warning that if conditions don’t change, 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of five will starve to death in 2021 alone. [See here.]

Despite the grim statistics, President Biden is choosing to maintain a good relationship with Saudi Arabia and is putting no pressure on Riyadh to make a sincere effort to end the war.

"Definitional and kind of theological"

Bless 'ya', Professor DesRoches.

Killing babies (and their parents) is indeed an American Military Industrial theology.

If we can't kill y'all one way, we'll come up with an another.

Sort'a like pretending to withdraw from Afghanistan

A move that saw the US send more troops in, after the 01 May deadline to get them all out expired.

Thereby tearing up the previous deal that the Trump Administration had made with the Taliban — and for which the Biden Administration and the Pentagon had had plenty of time to prepare:

The Taliban warned of future attacks on U.S. troops after a withdrawal deadline that was negotiated under the Trump administration passed Saturday [01 May 2021].

The warning comes on the May 1 deadline the Taliban and Trump administration agreed to for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The Taliban warned that it would resume attacks on U.S. forces if the deadline was missed.

President Biden last month announced he would have all troops leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, moving the deadline back by about four months.

Under Biden’s plan, May 1 is the start of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from the country.

The U.S. is sending additional troops to Afghanistan to protect retreating forces.

We see that — despite the fact that the Taliban have honored the deal and have not been attacking American troops — we still need to send more US troops in — purportedly to protect those going out.

Then naturally, when this set of new 'protecting forces' needs to leave, we will have to send another crew in to help those first protectors exit.

This constitutes a Happy Spiral of Staying in Afghanistan.

Pretty much like servicing and maintaining the Saudi planes that continue to kill babies (and their elders) in Yemen.

'Violent duplicity' — thy name be Amuhrika.

The moral? — The Devil made me do it?

There is evidentiarily defensible logic underlying Iran's old theological accusation that the US is the Great Satan.

PeteFree.com

Helping Saudis kill Yemeni babies — is a "theological" thing — says Professor David DesRoches — adding a delightful twist to the Biden Administration's justification for that butchery