Military Madness > No Punishment for Kabul Drone Strike on Civilians; Sub Comes in From the Cold After Hitting Mountain; Tehran Publishes Israeli Targets; NATO Keeps War Inventory Moving

..

U.S. drone strike that killed Afghan civilians will go unpunished, officials say

Review concluded strike was tragic mistake and not caused by misconduct or negligence

The Associated Press · 

Posted: Dec 13, 2021 3:56 PM ET

An Afghan inspects the damage of the Ahmadi family house in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 13. A U.S. drone strike there in August killed 10 people, including seven children. (Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press)

No U.S. troops involved in the August drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children will face disciplinary action, U.S. defence officials said Monday.

Officials said that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved recommendations on the disciplinary matter from the generals who lead U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, based on the findings of an independent Pentagon review released last month.

The Generals got to recommend their own discipline. How cool is that?

The review, done by Air Force Lt.-Gen. Sami Said and endorsed by Austin in November, found there were breakdowns in communication and in the process of identifying and confirming the target of the bombing, which killed 10 civilians, including seven children. But he concluded that the strike was a tragic mistake and not caused by misconduct or negligence.

And yet, the breakdowns somehow were either unnoticed, or were ignored, and the command to strike was given anyway. Who was responsible for the breakdowns? Does that not qualify as negligence?

By holding no-one responsible, at least in part, for this travesty, the Generals make sure that it will happen again, and again. Military madness!

Austin asked Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of Central Command, and Gen. Richard Clark, head of Special Operations Command, to review Said's conclusions and come back to him with recommendations. The two commanders agreed with Said's findings, and did not recommend any discipline, officials said, adding that Austin endorsed their decisions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss decisions not yet made public. Austin's latest endorsement was first reported by The New York Times.

Strike killed 7 children

The Aug. 29 drone strike on a white Toyota Corolla sedan killed Zemerai Ahmadi and nine family members, including seven children. Ahmadi, 37, was a longtime employee of an American humanitarian organization.

The intelligence about the car and its potential threat came just days after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. troops and 169 Afghans at a Kabul airport gate. The U.S. was working to evacuate thousands of Americans, Afghans and other allies in the wake of the collapse of the country's government.

Said concluded that U.S. forces genuinely believed that the car they were following was an imminent threat and that they needed to strike it before it got closer to the airport. He concluded that better communication between those making the strike decision and other support personnel might have raised more doubts about the bombing, but in the end may not have prevented it.

He made a number of recommendations, including that more be done to prevent what military officials call "confirmation bias" — the idea that troops making the strike decision were too quick to conclude that what they were seeing aligned with the intelligence and confirmed their conclusion to bomb what turned out to be the wrong car.

And he said the military should have personnel present with a strike team, and their job should be to actively question such conclusions. And he recommended that the military improve its procedures to ensure that children and other innocent civilians are not present before launching a time-sensitive strike.

It's hard to believe that they don't already do that.

Officials said that McKenzie and Clarke largely agreed with Said's recommendations.

The U.S. is working to pay financial reparations to the relatives and surviving family members, and potentially get them out of Afghanistan, but nothing has been finalized.

US nuclear sub pulls in for repairs after collision in South China Sea

13 Dec, 2021 17:32

USS Connecticut (SSN 22) departs Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton for deployment in Bremerton, Washington.

May 27, 2021. © AFP / US Navy / Mack Jamieson

The US Navy submarine that stoked international tensions after colliding with an underwater mountain in the South China Sea pulled into the California coast on Sunday, bearing visible surface damage from the crash in October.

The USS Connecticut nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine arrived at San Diego Bay with significant damage to its bow. Defense news outlet The Drive reported that the Seawolf-class vessel was missing its entire bow sonar dome, which would have made the 6,200-mile (9,950-kilometer) journey across the Pacific “extremely unpleasant.”

According to the US Naval Institute (USNI), the “inoperable” sonar dome would have made it “unsafe” for the stricken submarine to make the transit underwater. The outlet also added that the ballast tanks and forward section of the vessel had been damaged as well.

Following an initial damage assessment at Guam, the ship was scheduled to undergo additional repairs at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Washington, the outlet reported – adding that it was unclear why the boat was directed to San Diego instead.

It is also not known how long the repairs will take – or how much they will cost. The Navy has not commented on potential repairs, but Naval News has suggested that a new sonar dome would need to be a “custom repair job” if the submarine is deemed “worthy and cost-effective.”

US Pacific Fleet Submarine Force spokesperson Commander Cindy Fields would only tell The Drive that the vessel is in port and “remains in a safe and stable condition.”

Nearly a dozen members of the crew were injured during the collision, though none of their injuries were thought to be life-threatening, the USNI reported, adding that the submarine’s nuclear reactor and propulsion systems had not been affected.

An investigation by the US Seventh Fleet, which operates in the western Pacific, stated that the vessel had struck an “uncharted seamount” but China criticized the “ambiguous” statement as not a sufficient explanation of the events during a period of escalating tensions.

Last month, Seventh Fleet commander Vice Admiral Karl Thomas fired the boat’s commanding officer, executive officer and chief sonar technician “due to loss of confidence.” Thomas had determined that the incident could have been prevented by “sound judgment, prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in navigation planning, watch team execution and risk management.”

Iran releases Israel map with multiple targets marked

15 Dec, 2021 11:58

A missile is launched during an Iranian Army exercise dubbed 'Zulfiqar 1400', in the coastal area of the Gulf of Oman, Iran, in this picture obtained on November 7, 2021. © Iranian Army / WANA (West Asia News Agency) / Handout via REUTERS

Iran has decided to bolster its traditional threats against archrival Israel with visual materials, publishing a map of the Jewish state marked with numerous possible targets Tehran could hit in response to its foe's aggression.

An article with the attention-grabbing headline “Just one wrong move!” appeared in state-run English-language newspaper the Tehran Times on Tuesday.

“An intensification of the Israeli military threats against Iran seems to suggest that the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” the authors of the piece suggested.

Alongside the warning was a map of Israel, almost entirely covered with red pins symbolizing possible targets Iranian missiles could strike.

The article also cited the chief of general staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, who insisted that “our forces have never underestimated the threat of the enemy and are prepared for the smallest of threats in the strategic field.”

“At the strategic level, we do not intend to strike anyone, but at the operational and tactical level we are ready for a decisive response and a quick and tough offensive against the enemy,” he stressed, apparently referring to Israel.

The Iranian ballistic missile attack on a US base in western Iraq in January 2020 and the downing of an American Global Hawk drone over the Strait of Hormuz in June 2019 have proven Tehran’s capabilities, Bagheri insisted.

The Tehran Times pointed out that Israel has intensified its activities, as talks to revive the landmark 2015 Iranian nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers restart after a break in Vienna.

The moves by Israel the paper considered the most concerning were: continuing Israeli air raids on targets in Syria, which relies on Tehran’s help in fighting terrorists; the reported calls by Israeli military and intelligence for the US to clamp down on the Iranian ballistic missile program; and the planned IDF drills in the Mediterranean that would simulate an attack on Iran.

“Keep your hands off!” the authors of the article wrote in conclusion.

NATO dismisses Russia’s call for moratorium on missile deployment

15 Dec, 2021 01:41

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a news conference after a meeting with French defence and foreign ministers in Paris, France December 10, 2021. © Bertrand Guay/REUTERS

NATO has rejected Russia’s call for a ban on the deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles in Europe, while blaming Moscow for violating the INF treaty that was scrapped by the US.

Responding to a Russian suggestion for a moratorium on the deployment of such missiles in Europe on Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg dubbed the idea “not credible.”  

Of course not! How can NATO keep the American-made missile inventory moving if there's a moratorium on them?

“The proposal from Russia on a moratorium is not credible because we had a ban and they violated that ban,” Stoltenberg said, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a landmark 1987 security agreement that the US unilaterally withdrew from back in 2019.

He repeated the bloc’s accusations that Moscow had run afoul of the now-defunct treaty by deploying missile systems prohibited under its scope, demanding Russia dismantle them before offering to negotiate a moratorium.

So unless Russia in a verifiable way destroys all its SSC-8 missiles, which are those missiles that violated the INF treaty, then it is not credible when they now propose a ban on something they actually have already started to deploy

NATO's secretary general was referring to the 9M729 missile, also known under NATO’s reporting name SSC-8 Screwdriver. The 9M729 is a ground-launched cruise missile, designed to be used with mobile launchers. Washington and NATO have repeatedly claimed the missiles were created in violation of the INF Treaty, which banned land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500km to 5,500km. The 9M729 missiles were ultimately cited by the Trump administration as the pretext for scrapping the INF agreement. 

Moscow, however, has maintained that the munitions have been created in “full compliance” with the treaty, and could fly up to 480km. 

Russia has also claimed that the US had been in violation of the now-defunct treaty itself, pointing to the Mk-41 Aegis Ashore systems, which are deployed in Europe.

While Washington portrays the systems only as a part of its anti-missile defense, Russia has repeatedly pointed out that the Mk-41s can be used to launch cruise missiles such as Tomahawks, which are currently carried exclusively by US naval vessels.

In recent weeks, Russia has called for the creation of a comprehensive security agreement, with the proposed restrictions on missile deployment coming as part of it. Moscow also signaled that it has no trust in NATO’s promises on the non-deployment of such missiles, insisting that such assurances must come in a legally binding form. The stance was reiterated by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who warned that Moscow might ultimately be forced to deploy such weaponry in Europe itself.

Military Madness - Dramatic Increase in Drone Strikes in Afghanistan - What did it Accomplish?

..

‘Killing for the sake of killing’: Disillusioned US drone pilots

leak footage of air strikes against unarmed Afghans, media says

25 Aug, 2021 13:54 / Updated 2 hours ago

FILE PHOTO. The US military in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold, are using high-tech Predator drones against their enemy. © Getty Images / Veronique de Viguerie; (inset) A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). © Getty Images / John Moore

American drone pilots have leaked video of “punitive” and “nihilistic” strikes in Afghanistan in 2019 that led to the killing of civilians, including at least one child, as the US looked for an exit strategy in the two-decade war.

The footage, published on Tuesday as part of an investigation by military news outlet Connecting Vets, reportedly reveals how successive US administrations and defense strategists relaxed the rules of engagement in Afghanistan – as part of a policy to pressure the Taliban to the negotiating table.

However, drone operators interviewed by the outlet claimed the loosened rules around air strikes served “no point” and did not “make a difference” – with one pilot stating that it was “killing for the sake of killing.” The strikes also reportedly killed far more civilians than the Pentagon has admitted.

An unidentified pilot, who worked with the Marines as part of ‘Task Force South West’ in the country’s Helmand province in 2019, said he had been traumatized by one mistaken killing and shared a journal account of the incident with the site.

My productivity today was derailed. We killed two innocent men and a charger [military slang for a child]. They were on a motorcycle and by dumb luck drove into the same intersection as our target as the hellfire [missile] struck.

The operator said the target was an Afghan man on a bike who had been using a two-way radio – which were commonly used in Helmand after cellular towers were downed.

However, the target “rode right through the blast and kept going,” the pilot wrote, adding that he “watched a passerby load the bodies into a truck and drive them to a hospital. They are all dead.”

The account was corroborated by a military official involved in the operation who spoke to the site on condition of anonymity. While the Afghan on the radio – whose name or connection to the Taliban was never discovered – drove off through the smoke like a “Bond villain,” the official said the “two adults and a toddler on the other motorcycle ... were killed right off.”

But the Connecting Vets report noted that the Department of Defense (DoD) recorded only one civilian casualty on the date of the strike, which was “likely the toddler,” while leaving out the two adult males who “just happened to be there.”

US Central Command, which had jurisdiction over military operations in the area, did not respond to questions submitted by the site.

Drone operators told the site about being disillusioned with the task force, whose Marines had apparently already given up on Helmand. By 2019, the province was largely under the control of the Taliban, with “virtually no American ground patrols ... and not many Afghan military ones”.

According to the outlet, the military had “transitioned from intelligence-driven targeting to using a target engagement criteria” such as holding a rifle, but the threshold for coming under suspicion could be easily crossed by unarmed adult men.

Last year, the DoD released air power summaries for Afghanistan that showed a six-fold increase from less than a thousand strikes in 2015 to 7,423 strikes in 2019.

And what did they accomplish except to keep the 'hellfire' inventory moving?

According to a 2017 report by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Barack Obama “vastly [expanded] and [normalized] the use of armed drones for counterterrorism” to the tune of 542 strikes, killing roughly 3,797 people in various countries.

Under Donald Trump, authorization for drone strikes was delegated to field commanders as part of a National Security Council strategy to get the Taliban to agree on an exit strategy for US forces.

How did that work?

Whistleblowers and The Criminal Activities of The US Military and The Insecurity Industry

..

US drone whistleblower Daniel Hale sentenced to 45 months in prison

27 Jul, 2021 17:42

A Predator drone is prepared for operations in this November 9, 2001 file photo at an undisclosed location.

©  US Air Force/Handout

Daniel Hale, a former US Air Force intelligence analyst who leaked information about civilian deaths caused by drone strikes overseas, has been sentenced to almost four years in prison under the Espionage Act.

US District Judge Liam O’Grady passed the sentence on Tuesday in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, saying that the 45-month sentence was needed as a deterrent to others from disclosing government secrets. O’Grady told Hale he had other options than to share classified documents with a reporter.

Hale, 33, pleaded guilty in March to one count of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, admitting to “retention and transmission of national security information” and leaking 11 classified documents to a journalist. The documents were leaked to the Intercept, which published them in October 2015 as ‘The Drone Papers’.

Under the plea deal, Hale faced up to 10 years in prison – far less than the 50 years the original charges would have carried, had he gone to trial.

Other whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Daniel Ellsberg and WikiLeaks have advocated on Hale’s behalf, but prominent human rights organizations such as the ACLU and PEN have mostly remained silent. Freedom of the Press Foundation called his punishment “shamefully excessive.”

The ACLU reacted after the sentencing, saying Hale "helped the public learn about a lethal program that never should have been kept secret. He should be thanked, not sentenced as a spy."

As Kiriakou told RT in April, prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act robs them of the opportunity to explain their motivations. 

“He did it because he was exposing a war crime. He is not allowed to say that. And he really doesn't have any chance of acquittal,” Kiriakou said.

While working as a private contractor, Hale leaked a number of documents to the Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill, showing the extent to which President Barack Obama’s drone warfare program in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen resulted in civilian casualties. 

Documents showed that, of the 200 people killed between January 2012 and February 2013, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period, nearly 90% of those killed were innocents, who were nonetheless classified as “enemies killed in action.”

Hale is the third Intercept source to be arrested and put on trial by US authorities. The FBI’s Terry Albury and the NSA’s Reality Winner – only recently released on parole for good behavior – were both caught due to errors on part of the outlet’s staff. It wasn’t clear whether the same happened to Hale, but his attorney blamed “failure of source protection” for his 2014 arrest.

Snowden skewers Big Tech, ‘amoral’ capital firms for enabling

‘Insecurity Industry’ & calls for urgent action before it’s too late

27 Jul, 2021 12:00

Warning that companies that claim to protect national security are the “greatest danger” to it, Edward Snowden has urged the dismantling of this ‘Insecurity Industry’ by banning trade in intrusive software and penalizing enablers.

In a searing post on his blog, ‘Continuing Ed’, the NSA whistleblower pointed to the Pegasus scandal as a “turning point” that exposed the “fatal consequences” of private-sector companies like the NSO Group that are part of this “out-of-control” industry – whose “sole purpose is the production of vulnerability.”

“The phone in your hand exists in a state of perpetual insecurity, open to infection by anyone willing to put money in the hand of this new Insecurity Industry,” Snowden noted, adding that its clients range from countries to “sex-criminal Hollywood producers who can dig a few million out of their couch cushions.”

The entirety of this industry’s business involves cooking up new kinds of infections that will bypass the very latest digital vaccines (security updates) and then selling them to countries that occupy the red-hot intersection of a Venn Diagram between ‘desperately craves the tools of oppression’ and ‘sorely lacks the sophistication to produce them domestically.’

As news of the Pegasus scandal broke last week, it emerged that over 50,000 phones were infected by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group’s flagship malware. Many of the numbers on the leaked list reportedly belong to political opponents of these client countries.

The former US intelligence contractor described the mobile ecosystem as a “dystopian hellscape of end-user monitoring and outright end-user manipulation.” Similarly, he stated that the world is “in the midst of the greatest crisis of computer security in computer history.”

This is partly because, he noted, software developers and device manufacturers like “Apple, Google, Microsoft (and) miserly chipmakers who want to sell...not fix things” are still writing code in “unsafe” programming languages because it is easier and more cost-effective than modernizing.

In recent years, both Google and Microsoft engineers have said that roughly 70% of all serious security bugs in the Chrome codebase and Microsoft products respectively are related to memory safety problems – that Snowden puts down to the lack of incentive to switch to a safer programming language.

“The vast majority of vulnerabilities that are later discovered and exploited by the Insecurity Industry are introduced, for technical reasons related to how a computer keeps track of what it’s supposed to be doing, at the exact time the code is written,” he noted.

As examples of “incentivizing change,” Snowden suggests that “defining legal liability for bad code in a commercial product” would give Microsoft a “heart attack.” As well, he noted, make Facebook legally liable for any leaks of its users’ “unnecessarily collected” personal records and “Mark Zuckerberg would start smashing the delete key.”

Similar liability clauses needed to be applied to “amoral” global capital firms that bankroll companies like the NSO Group. Without these funds, Snowden noted, neither the scale nor the global consequences of ‘Insecurity industry’ activities would be possible.

However, the “first digital step” must be to “ban the commercial trade in intrusion software.” By “eliminating the profit motive” there would be a reduction in the risk of proliferation by private companies while preserving avenues for genuine research.

“If we don’t do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it’s not just going to be 50,000 targets: It’s going to be 50 million targets, and it’s going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect,” Snowden noted, warning of a future where “people (are) too busy playing with their phones to even notice that someone else controls them.”

=============================================================================================

A Million More Children Face Famine in Yemen, NGO warns

MOHAMMED AWADH/ SAVE THE CHILDREN

A 14-month-old child suffering from malnutrition receives treatment at a clinic in the city of Amran

A further one million children are at risk of famine in Yemen, the charity Save the Children has warned.

Rising food prices and the falling value of the country's currency as a result of a civil war are putting more families at risk of food insecurity.

But another threat comes from fighting around the key port city of Hudaydah, which is the principal lifeline for almost two-thirds of the population.

Save the Children says a total of 5.2 million children now face famine.

The conflict in Yemen has been raging for years - but what is it all about?

Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in early 2015, when the rebel Houthi movement seized control of much of the west of the country and forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee abroad.

Alarmed by the rise of a group they saw as an Iranian proxy, Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government. They have received logistical and intelligence support from the US, UK and France.

Many families in rebel-held Yemen are reliant on food handouts from aid groups

At least 6,660 civilians have been killed and 10,563 injured in the conflict, according to the UN. Thousands more civilians have died from preventable causes, including malnutrition, disease and poor health.

The fighting and a partial blockade by the coalition have also left 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the world's largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that is thought to have affected 1.1 million people.

Why can people no longer afford food?

The war has also led to severe delays in paying the salaries of teachers and public servants, with some people receiving no wages for almost two years.

Those who are paid face food prices which are 68% more expensive than when the war began.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni riyal has lost almost 180% of its value over the same period, according to Save the Children.

Earlier this month, the currency reached its lowest value in history, placing a further burden on population.

Fears also remain of potential damage to or a blockade of Hudaydah's port as a result of the fighting.

The UN has warned that in a worst-case scenario, the battle for Hudaydah could cost up to 250,000 lives, as well as cut off aid supplies to millions of people living in rebel-held areas.

"Millions of children don't know when or if their next meal will come," the chief executive of Save the Children International, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said in a statement.

"In one hospital I visited in north Yemen, the babies were too weak to cry, their bodies exhausted by hunger.

"This war risks killing an entire generation of Yemen's children who face multiple threats, from bombs to hunger to preventable diseases like cholera," she added.

Earlier this month, Save the Children said that more than 36,000 children could die from extreme hunger before the end of the year.

Thank you, Mr Obama for putting billions of dollars back into the hands of Iranians so they can continue to sponsor this proxy war. 

Report: Saudi School Bus Bombing in Yemen Not Justified

Were USA, Britain and France complicit in this slaughter of children?

By Sommer Brokaw

Yemenis inspected a destroyed bus at the site of a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on Aug. 10, a day after the strike hit the bus, which was carrying children at Dhahyan market in the northern province of Saada, Yemen. A coalition investigative team has since admitted the attack was not justified. Photo by Stringer/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- A Saudi-led coalition investigative team said Saturday a coalition airstrike that hit a school bus in Yemen killing dozens of children last month was not justified.

The Aug. 9 Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Dhahyan market in the northern province of Saada, Yemen, killed at least 50 people, mostly children, and injured 77, the ministry said, CNN reported.

Mansour al-Mansour, official spokesman of the Arab Coalition's Joint Incident Assessment Team, said at press conference Saturday that video from the plane that conducted the strike was analyzed for the report.

Saudi Arabia's official news agency initially reported that the strike was a legitimate military action in retaliation to a Houthi ballistic missile attack and Mansour maintained Saturday it was still a legitimate military target because it had Houthi leaders and led to the killing of a number of Houthi leaders. However, he also admitted that "the raid on Dhahyan does not comply with the coalition's rules of engagement," because the bombing was not justified at the time, since the target was not a threat to the coalition forces.

So, the target was not a threat at that moment so it did not comply with the coalition's rules of engagement. The fact that several dozen children were on the bus did not de-legitimize the attack, but only that they were not deemed to be an immediate threat. Perhaps if the bus had been going in the other direction it would have qualified as a justifiable target. In other words, the dozens of children massacred in this horrific act were of no consequence whatsoever. Sounds like Islam, doesn't it? It also sounds like we can expect many more dozens of children to be blown to bits thanks to mindless, military men.

Mansour also called on the coalition to hold those responsible for mistakes in Dhahyan raid responsible.

In response, the Saudi and United Arab Emirates coalition agreed Saturday with the report and pledged to "hold the ones who committed mistakes accountable."

Like that's going to happen. Someone is going to pay, but it certainly won't be those who are really responsible.

The attack led to widespread condemnation.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the airstrike and offered condolences for the families of the victims. He called on all parties involved in the Yemen civil war to respect international humanitarian law and called for an independent investigation.

Following the bus attack, some Congress members called on the U.S. military to clarify its role in the war and investigate whether support for the air raid could render American military personnel "liable under the war crimes act."

The Saudi coalition, which has had U.S., French and British logistical and intelligence support, has carried out strikes in Yemen to reinstate the internationally recognized presidency of Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi, whom rebels drove into exile three years ago.

So, Congress is worried that the US could be held liable for war crimes. They are not, apparently, concerned about actually committing war crimes, only that they might be held liable. Is there no-one who has a guilty conscience about the massacre of dozens of children? Incredible! Is the massacre of dozens of children now considered acceptable collateral damage?

The United Nations' human rights agency said in a report Tuesday that parties to the civil war in Yemen may have committed war crimes over the three years. At least 6,660 civilians have been killed and more than 10,500 injured in the conflict, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Yemen, also reeling from a multi-year cholera epidemic that's killed more than 2,300, has the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world, humanitarian agency Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere said.

"Since [2015], 22.2 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance, among which 11.3 million are in acute need of immediate assistance to save or sustain life, mostly women and children," the group said.

In June alone, the coalition carried out 258 air raids on Yemen, nearly one-third of which targeted non-military sites.

Isn't it always women and children who pay for the insanity of men?

Dhahyan, Yemen

50 Dead, Mostly Kids, in Saudi-led Coalition's 'Legitimate' Airstrike on Yemen Bus

If Yemen were Gaza - MSM and liberal governments would be

running around in circles with their hair on fire. 

But it isn't, and there is only silence.

A Yemeni man holds a boy who was injured by an airstrike in Saada, Yemen. © Naif Rahma / Reuters

Fifty people died in a bus attack in Yemen and 77 were injured, most of whom were children, the International Committee of the Red Cross stated, citing officials. The Saudi-led coalition has called the attack "legitimate."

The attack took place in Dahyan Market in northern Saada, a Houthi rebel stronghold, on Thursday morning.

The Saudi-led coalition later said the airstrikes were aimed at missile launchers used to attack the southern Saudi city of Jiza, claiming its strike constituted a "legitimate action." It went on to accuse Houthi rebels of using children as human shields.

The tragic incident has prompted the ICRC to once again call for the protection of civilians during conflicts. “Twenty million Yemeni people are in need of [humanitarian] aid. The ICRC has always called upon all parties of the conflict to [find] a political solution… in order to curb worsening humanitarian conditions,” Mirella Hodeib from the ICRC earlier told RT.

It's not the first time the coalition has hit a residential area this month. Just one week ago, an air raid in Hodeidah seaport claimed the lives of 55 civilians. An additional 170 were wounded.

"We see violations across the country and it's really sad to speak about civilian casualties in a matter of less than a week. So for us, this is painful...this is just horrific," Hodeib said.

The similarities between this situation and the violence between Israel and Gaza are significant. Both the Houthis and the Palestinians use children as shields when they launch missiles into the other country. However, Israel manages to take out these facilities with few, if any, civilian casualties. They haven't killed 50 civilians in 2 years of far more intense fighting. The Saudis are averaging 50 per week. Yet, do you hear the outcry from the world's media, from western governments, from anyone? Deafening silence! Why?

'Devastating’: Yemen’s Cholera Endemic Hits 1 Million Mark

A woman holds her son who is suspected of being infected with cholera in Sanaa. © Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

Yes, there is a woman in this photo - she's invisible, as are all women in devout Islam

Yemen’s cholera outbreak has surpassed the 1 million mark while 300 cases of diphtheria have been reported as civilians in the war-ravaged country continue to face starvation and a crippling blockade. “We can confirm that the country has now reached 1 million suspected cases of cholera,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “This is devastating.”

The World Health Organization has recorded 2,226 deaths since the epidemic began in April. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and dehydration and is spread by dirty water and the contamination of food with feces. It can cause death within hours if untreated.

The ICRC also said over 80 percent of Yemen is in need of food, clean water, healthcare and fuel.

The country is in the grips of a brutal war, with a Saudi-led coalition of nine countries conducting airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in support of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled the country in 2015.

The Houthis were in alliance with long-running former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who they killed in December after indicating he was changing sides and seeking dialogue with the Saudis.

The Houthi rebels are supported by Iran, which is also accused of supplying weapons to the group, a charge which Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described as “baseless accusations,” on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia has imposed a blockade on the country, which has further intensified the food and aid shortage. On Wednesday, it said it would keep the rebel-controlled port of Hodeidah open for 30 days to allow humanitarian deliveries to get into the country.

In January, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the civilian death toll had reached 10,000, citing data gathered by health facilities, and said the actual number could be much higher.  

The United Nations on Tuesday said coalition airstrikes had killed at least 136 civilians between December 6 and 16.

“We urge all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including their obligation to respect the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.“They should take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimise, the impact of violence on civilians.”

Meanwhile, MSF announced in Geneva on Thursday the country also faces a diphtheria outbreak, with more than 300 cases reported. “In Yemen, the last diphtheria case was recorded in 1992, and the last outbreak in 1982,” MSF Emergency Coordinator said. “The ongoing war and blockade is sending Yemen’s health system decades back in time.”

At about the same time as the above report came out,

the Pentagon confirms ‘multiple ground ops & 120+ strikes’ in Yemen 

Why is the US in Yemen?

A man walks past a graffiti, denouncing strikes by U.S. drones in Yemen, painted on a wall in Sanaa, Yemen

on November 13, 2014. © Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

The Pentagon has disclosed that it carried out “multiple ground operations” in Yemen this year. The confirmation sheds new light on largely covert US military activities in the region.

US forces have conducted “multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes in 2017,” according to a statement released by US Central Command in Tampa, Florida. The US military hopes to prevent Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State from using Yemen “as a hub for terrorist recruiting, training and base of operations to export terror worldwide,” the statement reads.

The 120 claimed strikes against targets in Yemen would mark a 3-fold increase compared to the number of airstrikes from last year.

Before Wednesday’s statement, there had been few official disclosures of the extent of US military involvement in Yemen. In sharp contrast to the fight against IS in Syria and Iraq, the Pentagon has avoided holding regular briefings or updates on ground or air operations in Yemen.

However, there are sporadic reports of US military activity in the country. US Central Command said earlier this month that five Al-Qaeda militants had been killed in a US airstrike that took place on November 20 in Yemen’s Bayda Governorate.

The Pentagon previously acknowledged that the US “has people on the ground” in Yemen. According to media reports, in April, US special operations forces stepped up ground operations in Yemen, but military officials did not elaborate on the matter. It is still unclear exactly how many US boots are on the ground in Yemen. A White House report submitted to Congress last week detailing US military operations worldwide failed to disclose the number of US troops stationed in Yemen.

In February, it was revealed that a botched US raid in the country had left at least 25 civilians and one Navy SEAL dead. Inquiries into the disaster found that the raid yielded no significant intelligence, but the Trump administration nonetheless praised the mission as a success. Apart from the deaths, a $70 million military helicopter was also destroyed.

The latest acknowledgement of US ground operations in Yemen raises questions about the legality of such activity with respect to Yemen’s sovereignty.

Kim Sharif, director of Human Rights for Yemen, said in March, “the Yemeni people are saying: ‘Where are the other powers in the Security Council? Why aren’t they standing up for the sovereignty of Yemen, when clearly it is in their best interest as well to do so, because they surely must have business interest, commercial interest to protect and preserve the sovereignty of Yemen for the purpose of preserving that international passage for the benefit of all.’”

Meet Hameed: 12yo Yemeni Boy is Battling Cholera after Having 23 Surgeries & Losing Arm

This is a disgraceful exercise in man's inhumanity

and just as disgraceful is the lack of concern of western countries

which just keep selling arms to the combatants as though the

blood of those children was not on their hands

May God have mercy on the beautiful people of Yemen

Arhab, Yemen

A 12-year-old Yemeni boy has undergone 23 surgical operations, including the amputation of his left arm, after falling victim to the war in his country that left him with terrible scars. He is now battling cholera.

Hameed has had a rough childhood. In 2014, the boy was electrocuted when a high-voltage cable fell from a transmission tower during armed clashes in Yemen’s Amran governorate. The shock was enormous, but the kid survived.

For the past several years, he has been in and out of the hospital with various health-related problems.

“Even a slight cough affects him badly. He’s very weak. His elbow has been damaged by frequent falls,” Hameed’s father, Faraj Al-Asadi, told RT.

“As you can see, his neck is injured as well. These tragedies come from war. The boy spent a month in intensive care before regaining consciousness. He’s undergone surgery many times and will need more operations. Look at all his injuries.”

Hameed, his face and body awash with heart-stopping scars, is also battling with repeated cholera infections.

More than half a million people in Yemen have been infected with cholera since the outbreak began in spring, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week. 

"The total number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen this year hit the half a million mark, and nearly 2,000 people have died since the outbreak began to spread rapidly at the end of April," the WHO said in a statement. 

Yemen's cholera epidemic is currently the “largest in the world,” the WHO says. The disease has been spreading like wildfire due to worsening hygiene and sanitation conditions and disruptions to the water supply across the country. Local residents are cut off from clean water.

“Half of the people who are affected by the cholera are children, and a quarter of the people who have died from suspected cholera cases are children," Marie Claire Feghali, regional communications manager with Red Cross, told RT.

A few key reasons contributed to the deadly disease outbreak in Yemen.

“Everything in the country has collapsed. That includes the water system, the health system, it also includes the fact that there’s no garbage collection in the country. Cholera is a water-borne disease. When you don’t have garbage collection, when you don’t have proper treatment of the water, it’s a whole number of factors that cause this cholera outbreak to be as serious as it is and as it was.”

“The situation in Yemen in general is extremely bad. It’s a man-made situation. It’s due to the fact that there’s a war going on in the country and there are people, who are civilians, who are paying the highest price,” Feghali said.

Yemen's ongoing conflict and a “man-made” humanitarian catastrophe has “no end in sight,” the head of the UN Development Program (UNDP) in the war-torn country said in August, warning that nearly 7 million people are at risk of starvation.

Around 70 percent of Yemenis are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Roughly 60 percent have no prospects of securing their next meal as nearly 7 million “are close to slipping into a state of famine,” Auke Lootsma, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Country Director said earlier this month. 

The Saudi-led coalition launched its aerial bombing campaign in support of the ousted Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in March 2015. The campaign targets the remnants of the country’s military loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthi rebels. The casualties in the fighting have surpassed 10,000 dead and 40,000 injured by January 2017, according to the UN estimates, with civilians making up a large share of victims. The bombing failed to bring victory to the Saudi-backed side in the conflict, but devastated Yemeni cities and infrastructure.

"Since March 2015, OHCHR has documented 13,609 civilian casualties, including 5,021 killed and 8,588 injured. These numbers are based on the casualties individually verified by the UN human rights office in Yemen," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesman Rupert Colville said in July. 

Colville, however, noted at the time that the “overall number” of civilians killed could be much higher and estimated it to be over 11,000.

Some two-third of the verified civilian deaths were caused by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, while the rest of the victims were killed by Houthi rebels and terrorist groups Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, Colville told Anadolu Agency. 

Leading humanitarian organizations have named the aerial bombing the main cause of civilian deaths in the country.

The Saudi-led coalition has struck civilian targets on numerous occasions, but acknowledged only few of the attacks, calling them “mistakes” caused by “bad intelligence.”

The military campaign is supported by a tight air and naval blockade on Yemen, backed by the US. The situation has effectively led to healthcare collapse, according to Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien.

A UN report, leaked last week, indicates that Riyadh-led coalition strikes have resulted in hundreds of Yemeni children being killed or maimed. The confidential draft was to be presented by the UN Secretary-General, but it was first seen and published by Reuters and Foreign Policy (FP) magazine. The report alleges, that Saudi forces and their Gulf allies were complicit in over half of the deaths and injuries of children in Yemen last year.

“The killing and maiming of children remained the most prevalent violation” of children’s rights in Yemen, the 41-page paper says, as cited by FP. “In the reporting period, attacks carried out by air were the cause of over half of all child casualties, with at least 349 children killed and 333 children injured,” the report added, urging that Riyadh and its allies be added to a black list of countries violating children's rights.

video 2:50