It’s on Us to Stop the War in Yemen
By: Olivia Alberstein
US taxpayers help fight someone else’s war in Yemen, and blood is on our hands. We help fight someone else’s war in Yemen – and blood is in our hands.
Since March 2015, the United States has supported a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is involved in a civil war in Yemen. The war has resulted in massive civilian casualties and the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The war killed more than 10,000 Yemenis and wounded more than 40,000, mostly civilians. More than 3 million Yemenis are displaced, and millions more have cholera, and about 14 million of them are now at risk from hunger to death.
These are not empty statistics. These are crimes, we can empower them.
American weapons – including US bombs – help to wage war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is a close ally of the United States in the Middle East, so many US lawmakers have turned a blind eye to US involvement in this epic humanitarian crisis.
“This war has created refugees, orphans and widows,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, who recently chairs the Senate to call for an end to US support for a war the Americans know nothing about.
Sanders, an independent, and Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, took part in a joint decision by the two parties to pull the United States out of the three-year war. Unfortunately, this decision failed in the Senate, despite considerable support from foreign organizations and the House of Representatives.
Yemen’s fate hangs in the balance as the world watches scenes of pain in hospitals being bombed and young children crying because they are hungry. There is another big cholera outbreak, and medical officials lack sufficient supplies to treat people.
This is not the country that Yemenis know and love. Yemenis and Yemeni Americans such as Mukhtar al-Khanshli, a coffee dealer known as the monk of the brain, shared frightening stories about their lives in Yemen and the country they remember – and the war that took many of them.
We are here before. The United States gave foreign allies supplies, funding and weapons that supported human rights atrocities around the world.
Most Americans can not even point to Yemen on a map, but that has not stopped us before. It is not our war, but that has not stopped us before.
We are helping our allies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to create the most terrifying humanitarian crises on earth. When innocent Yemenis flee, they face the prospect of being barred from entering the United States, where the Trump administration is still trying to impose a travel ban on Yemen and other Muslim countries.
It is time to end our participation in this massacre. The United States provides a large part of the money, intelligence, weapons and logistical support that fuels the Saudi-led bombing campaign. If we withdraw this support, we may force our allies to abandon the war altogether.
As taxpayers, we collude if we keep silent. Our legislators have the power to end this humanitarian crisis, and they must act before it is too late.