Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is an honest man of deep integrity, intelligence and straightforwardness. He was Gen. Colin Powell’s chief of staff in the last Bush administration and is now a Distinguished Professor of Government & Public Policy at William and Mary. His recent article in the New York Times, “I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again” illustrates his depth of conscience.
I always try to read and/or listen whenever I come across anything from Wilkerson. So, given my recent posts on the catastrophe unfolding in Yemen (here and here), I am sharing an 18 minute interview with Wilkerson available on the RealNews (an excellent source of information I look at regularly).
Col. Wilkerson discusses vital topics: the Saudi Arabian bloodletting going on; US involvement; the famine; Pentagon malfeasance; Iran and more.
Please take a few minutes to hear a man of conscience discuss American culpability in the poorest Arab-speaking country in the Middle East. (I was hoping to post the video here, but it is too large. So, click the link above.)
The bipartisan bill (SJ Res 54) that will help to end the war in Yemen could come up for a vote as early as today (3/20/10). Call now if you haven’t already.
Recall that the US has helped Saudi Arabia create the largest humanitarian crisis in the world right now. A few weeks ago, I asked you to call your elected officials in support of SJ Res 54, insisting that the US stop arming the Saudis in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
We are the largest weapons supplier to the Saudis government, which means billions in profits for the US military-industrial complex. Not long ago, Pentagon officials openly admitted that THEY HAD NO IDEA exactly how, when or where US bombs and missiles were being deployed!
But US military strategy is not the point. MONEY — profiting from another war — is the point.
When the Pentagon now warns that withdrawing US support for the Saudi slaughter in Yemen will damage our relations, what they really mean to say is that American weapons manufacturers will make less money than they had otherwise hoped. After all, Saudi Arabia is one of our “best” customers. President Trump recently announced a $350 billion arms deal with them.
There is a lot of profit to be found in butchering innocent men, women and children in the poorest nation in the Arab world! A gruesomely devilish calculus when measured against the tens of thousands of innocent Yemenis that continue to suffer death, injury, malnutrition and starvation in yet another illegal, American proxy war.
We cannot allow Trump’s war machine to win this contest. Innocent lives literally depend upon the outcome of this vote. If you called previously, THANKS! Please take a moment to call again, while we still can.
Tell your Senators to vote YES on Senate Bill H. Con. Res. 81, a bipartisan bill invoking the War Powers Act (1973) with regard to America’s unlawful military attacks on Yemen video link.
Yemen, the poorest Arab speaking country in the Middle East, is in the midst of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. At least 1 million cases of cholera, affecting over 600,000 children, have been reported with no end in sight.
According to the United Nations, 7 million people are on the verge of starvation as the country suffers the largest famine the world has seen in many decades. One hundred thirty children slowly waste away and die every day from hunger and disease.
Yemeni children suspected of being infected with cholera receive treatment at a makeshift hospital in Sanaa on June 5, 2017. Yemen is descending into total collapse, its people facing war, famine and a deadly outbreak of cholera, as the world watches, the UN aid chief said. / AFP PHOTO / Mohammed HUWAISMOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images NYTCREDIT: Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Yemen’s catastrophe is entirely man-made, and the American church ought to be leading the charge in putting an end to this grotesque proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
American hands are covered in Yemeni blood, for our government remains the primary source of military weaponry, (such as bombs, missiles and fighter planes), intelligence, targeting information, ground support and the financial backing that makes Saudi Arabia’s continuing slaughter of innocent men, women and children possible.
After Yemen’s civil war in 2015, Saudi Arabia decided that it did not approve of the winning faction, largely because they had backing from Iran. The Saudis (who are Sunni Arabs) and the Iranians (who are Shia Persians) have long been regional antagonists, staring each other down over ethnic and religious divides.
Yemen quickly fell victim to Saudi Arabia’s hatred of Iran when the Saudi’s inserted themselves into the country’s internal affairs, choosing to slaughter and destroy anyone and everything that might assist Yemen’s pro-Iranian side of the conflict.
Tragically, Saudi Arabia’s largest ally is the United States. I say “tragically” because America’s longstanding, irrational hostility towards Iran made us the perfect willing accomplice to horrendous Saudi war crimes.
Yemen is hugely dependent on international food imports (link) to feed its people, the very people who are now dying of starvation because the US/Saudi joint military blockade (stopping all air, ground and sea transportation) is strangling the life out of an entire nation.
Yemen’s cholera epidemic is a direct result of Saudi pilots raining down American made bombs and missiles on Yemen’s water treatment plants, waste disposal facilities, pipelines, reservoirs, irrigation systems and electric grids.
Leaked! Despite War Crimes in Yemen UK Trains Saudi Pilots
This US/Saudi criminal collusion is responsible for an estimated 10,000 deaths, at least half of them civilians, including 140 mourners snuffed out at a village funeral. While fervishly digging for survivors, rescuers uncovered the tail fin of an American-made bomb buried in the rubble – a gruesome American tombstone over one of hundreds of mass graves financed by the US political establishment.
Bodies of Somali migrants, killed in attack by a helicopter while travelling in a boat off the coast of Yemen, lie on the ground at Hodeida city, Yemen, Friday, Mar. 17, 2017. A helicopter gunship attacked a boat packed with Somali migrants off the coast of Yemen overnight Thursday, killing at least 31 people, according to a U.N. agency, Yemeni officials and a survivor who witnessed the attack. (AP Photo/Abdel-Karim Muhammed)
President Obama unilaterally began our blind support for these Saudi war crimes in 2015. But the death toll has risen 3 times over during Trump’s presidency. In March 2017 alone there were more bombing strikes in 1 week than during any given year under Obama. In the first 7 months of Trump’s presidency, there have been more civilian deaths (between 3,000 to 4,500) than there were during the entire Obama administration.
Every American who claims to follow Jesus needs to rise up, filled with Christian moral indignation, and speak out against these horrific war crimes now underway at our expense.
intelligence and straightforwardness. He was Gen. Colin Powell’s chief of staff in the last Bush administration and is now a Distinguished Professor of Government & Public Policy at William and Mary. His recent article in the New York Times, “I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again” illustrates his depth of conscience.
