Please include links at the end of ways that we can concretely help, this is devastating. The daily outrage is depleting and would be better channeled towards more humanitarian needs! Thank you.
24
We need more mainstream honest reporting about our role in Yemen. News networks are eerily silent, which leads me to believe they are cowed into this silence. This also makes me fear that the only forces keeping us from starting war with Iran are the E.U and Russia, and not our own independent media.
We need to speak the truth about the military industrial complex that relentlessly agitates for war.
Mr Kristoff, NYTimes, when will we have an honest discussion about Operation Timber Sycamore, the American CIA regime change scheme designed to oust Assad that has resulted in 600,000 Syrian deaths with 12 million displaced? We did that. Not Assad, not Iran, WE did that.
I learned about it from watching Dr. Jeffrey Sachs by chance on Morning Joe. The talking heads predictably glossed right over him, and refocused the discussion right back to “Assad! Monster! Gasses his own people.” Sachs has not been invited back since.
Thank you for calling attention to Yemen. Someone had to do it. Rachel and company are obsessed with Trump/Putin, it’s clearly safer territory not to ruffle the Pentagon’s feathers. I write MSNBC about once a week to remind them about Yemen and Syria, so far the response is crickets.
15
Nick, we can all support programs that provide food for those who are being starved in Yemen. Send donations to the World Food Programme through its Yemen food program (or a similar program). Tell your Member of Congress what you are doing and that you want international journalists to be allowed in Yemen. US citizens must see what their government is doing in their names. Vote for a sane, humanitarian foreign policy on November 6.
14
The monstrous warmongering done in our names... it is utterly unconscionable.
Yet, right now I must focus on the elephant in the room aiding and abetting this crisis of humanity, and that is the warmongering done by our government. Yes, it is bipartisan, but one part is far more complicit than the other.
I do not have the right words to express my inchoate sadness and anger on behalf of the people of Yemen. All I can say is this: when circumstance requires that I speak, I will not be silent.
8
It's sad, even outrageous that USA had tacitly approved the bombing of Yemen, killing so many civilians. And Saudi led coalition has been causing starvation of millions of children and a manmade famine in Yemen, affecting about 8 million people in Yemen.
One would wonder why president Trump is not acting as he did in Syria, to ease the misery, the agony of Yemen's millions. Is it from a lasting impact of the phenomenal reception he received in Saudi Arabia.
5
Our support of all things Saudi Arabian is appalling. They are not GOOD rulers and they are awful to women on their best days. They beat up on poor -- and I mean very poor -- Yemen. Not in my name.
10
Thank you for this piece, it's been a long time since we heard about anything real going on outside the US Big Top.
4
In all fairness, Iran is responsible for the vast majority of the suffering in Iran. It won't stop until the Iranian leadership is overthrown.
1
"A bipartisan effort this year, led by Senators Mike Lee, Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders, tried to limit U.S. support for the Yemen war, and it did surprisingly well, winning 44 votes."
Again, there goes my hero. Bernie Sanders, a true mensch. I hope he runs again in 2020. With him, we would have morality guide our foreign policy, not the military-industrial complex.
I still Feel the Bern.
14
Is it always necessary for you guys to include Obama when writing about the follies of the current so called president?
Journalists need to get over the idea that when pointing out the moral rot of t rump some mention of some democrat being imperfect is always needed.
Pointing out the rot that currently infects the White House, the Congress and Senate, and the entire republican party should provide full employment for newspaper people and anchors everywhere.
The U.S. should be told by the rest of the world to just get out and stay out of the Middle East for the foreseeable future. We just keep getting it all wrong. We don't have a clue what to do there.
If We the People were to divest ourselves of the koch bothers and their never ending greed, thirst for power, and addiction to oil the influence of a lot of the world's bad actors would suddenly diminish greatly.
Cut off the oil addiction and Putin and the House of Saud would find themselves a lot less powerful than they currently are.
Cut off the oil addiction and the kochs would have a lot less money to use to buy off our democracy and install people like t rump and Walker and McConnell.
1
Children, again, are paying the price of a war. All U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen should see the dramatic photographs that came with this column. The United Nations were created to use diplomacy, not weapons, to solve this kind of conflicts. The veto power is shameful when it is used to protect criminals. Dictatorships are involved again. And many thanks, again, to the brave photographers that risk their lives to inform about this very grave situation. We will never forget the Napalm Girl photo that helped to change the attitude of millions of Americans about the Vietnam war.
Dear readers please don't evade the subject of this column: Children in Yemen are suffering. And they are beautiful.
NO MORE WARS!
12
Over 70 years after the fall of Nazi Germany, we are still pursuing and prosecuting tottering old men who were junior to junior concentration camp guard flunkies.
What should we expect in the future for our administration and political figures complicit in horror in Yemen, similar in nature, at least in outcome, to what the Nazis did? Endless decades of pursuit of them for criminal prosecution and imprisonment?
No, no, no? We're #1, including with "shock and awe" military power, so "no one tells us, or our 'leaders,' what to do?" BTW, isn't that the kind of arguments the North Koreans make for pursuing nuclear arms?
So here we are. 2018. Comparing ourselves (very legitimately) to Nazis and North Korean dictators. With one Supreme Court justice firmly ensconced, despite material allegations of sexual abuse. Another Supreme Court nominee, accused of even worse conduct, but still supported by an entire political party. And a President who shines the glare of his money to hide his own sexual abuse ("I can get away with it". - he has!). We are your beacon, world. Follow us!
3
A real-life holocaust is taking place in the full glare of the 21st century civilized world, --- in real-time, right before our eyes. And we are helpless.
And those who are in a position to stop this humanitarian disaster seem to be the ones behind it.
It seems, the "champions of human rights", the "keepers of peace on earth" have become the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity.
Do they have any shame? Do they have any conscience?
Particularly, all those "friendly, neighborly", Arab/Muslim rulers who are directly or indirectly involved in bombing, massacring, blockading food and medical supplies, causing widespread starvation and famine, and the worst man-made human disaster in generations in Yemen cannot escape the verdict of history. They are the partisans of evil.
Have they forgotten that one day they will face God where they will be held accountable for every pain, every suffering, every hunger, every disease they have caused; every pain, every suffering they have inflicted, upon the hapless, poor, starving people of Yemen?
The collective silence of Arab/Muslim nations is deafening. Shame on them all.
5
"Because we dislike Iran’s ayatollahs, we are willing to starve Yemeni schoolchildren."
And remember that the Ayatollahs took over Iran as a reaction to the brutal regime of the Shah, which was installed when the Republican-run CIA in the 1950s overthrew a democratically elected pro-American leader in Iran because he would not give a British oil company a bigger share of profits on Iranian oil,
So, the suffering of both the Iranian people and the Yemenis is a result of destructive Republican policies. Are there finally now enough Republicans to join with Democrats to stop handing the Saudis the weapons that are causing so much pain?
3
Yemen's population growth has averaged 3% in recent years, and is about 2.4% now.
At 3% growth the population doubles every 23 years. That means one must double the number of schools, the number of fields producing food, the supply of water. Yemen doesn't have enough water.
If people do not control population growth with birth control, then some other means must be found to raise the death rate to balance the birth rate.
One mechanism is starvation. Another is civil war with a large number of deaths. This is a common story in Africa and the Middle East.
Africa has 1.2 billion people. The population is expected to double by 2050.
Liberals like Kristof preach about global warming. Well I'm one of the converted. But one could argue that global warming is caused by population growth, and it is population growth that is the real problem.
We need to encourage third world countries to adopt policies that control population growth. But to give that message added weight, to avoid the charge of hypocrisy, we need to control population growth in the US as well.
In the US population growth is due mostly to immigration, and a majority of the additional humans can be attributed to illegal immigration, higher fertility of illegal immigrants, and chain migration.
We need to
1. Stop illegal immigration.
2. Provide incentives for Americans to have smaller families.
3. Provide aid to Latin America for family planning.
Unfortunately, liberals just cry racist with no discussion.
6
@Jake Wagner The Right Wing nuts have cancelled any funding of family planning, they cannot mention abortions, cannot provide birth control in desperate places-- your Republicans at work. Starvation is your solution? You would do well to inform yourself with a great website from a recently deceased Swede, Hans Rosling, called Gapminder. Watch one of his free 50 minute fact videos, that for me is very entertaining. Most of the civilized world has reached replacement growth, but now that we are living longer, we don't die off. A point to be made by the world community, however, is the idea that we are contributing to a cholera epidemic, breeding ignorant terrorists, and being extremely cruel and cavalier about life. Unmoved about starvation? Unmoved about the misfortune of others in general? Unmoved about increasing misery of others? If so, I oppose your national/international world view. Help the homeless in your city? Give to the poor through church synagog of Mosque? Loan your neighbor a cup of sugar? Where is the line for you?
3
I agree totally with you about domestic population control, which must emphasize a meaningful restriction on immigration. I also agree totally with Nicholas Kristof about our complicity in war crimes when we do not do everything within our power to end this terrible war in Yemen. In the immediate term we should cease any assistance to Saudi Arabia and put all possible pressure on the Saudis to end the bombing and the conflict. Regarding a broader issue we should cease being arms merchants to the world, and pressure our client-state, Israel, to do the same. The deaths of these children portrayed here is heartbreaking and unconscionable, and a stain on the honor of every American who does not act to stop this senseless war.
1
Must comment again b/c I have wondered about this for years - about "way we are contributing" to the misery.
In the 70's and 80's the rallying cry was 'get out' -- the US needed to get out of Vietnam and get out of South America. We were propping up dictators all over the world in Chili, Argentina, Uganda, Philippines...so many. We (I) said the US needs to get out and let people decide for themselves.
1990's Bush Somali Civil War, starvation.Bush President. UN sent food, it was stolen, international coalition sent military to protect food convoys, successful negotiations among factions except Aidid would not agree. UN resolution to arrest him. People unit against US, journalists killed, US soldiers killed, and then Black Hawk Down in 1993. Everyone appaled and furious at US Marines.
Rowanda Civil War. In 1994 Clinton knew a well organized genicide was planned. Feared repeat of Somali. People were furious at US for not intervening to save lives. Clinton now says he regrets decision not to intervene. Should US have tried to stop the genicide? Would it have worked? What woudl have happened next?
Follow the money:
US munitions manufacturer Raytheon... former BGR Group Lobbyist (and current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) Charles Faulkner... the Saudis... Trump...
The rich get richer... and children die.
13
if the NYT filled all of page 1 with these pictures maybe there might be a reaction. otherwise these are just words preaching to the choir. show some air refueling shots and name some complicit companies and pols while you're at also.
6
The New World Order.
Evangelical Americans + Likud Israels + Sunni Arabs.
As some of the folks in Yemen are finding out - if you're not in that group, life can be pretty miserable.
13
Please excuse me when I say I don't care what happens in Yemen...that's for the people of Yemen to care about; I care about what happens in Scranton and Detroit. I'll leave the worring about the entire world to the globalists.
@John you're writing this from Thailand.,,hmm.
4
@John, Please explain exactly why you "don't care" what happens to these fellow human beings on the this place we call earth.
4
@John
So you don't care if the US kills children in other countries. Does that go both ways? Should people in other countries care if their government helps murder Americans?
The West is committing war crimes again again again, and we don't care. Gotta get that oil, oil, black stuff in the ground.
Hum this to the tune of Royals by Lorde, guaranteed to lift your spirits.
1
@Jonathan Bormann "war crimes"? So, the war crimes of other nations by rape, murder, mutilation, suppression, enslavement, starvation, etc., are of no matter?
Yemen supports terrorism against the innocent. They reap what they sow.
This situation mirrors much of modern life. We abrogate our responsibility in most activities of our lives. We get in a car, use oil and don't give much thought to how it got to the gas station or what happns when we burn it. I buy an iPhone with nary a thought of how it was produced or what may happen to the old one when it usefulness has passed. We do the same thing with our governments involvement in foriegn affairs. Hopefully the guys running the drones target the Taliban and not a wedding party. I'm not sure how we are supposed to keep track of, and respond to, the avalanche of things that go on in an incredibly complex world where it is nearly impossible to tease out a single cause and effect. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't do anything, but I'm not sure what the process should look like.
3
Yes! Thank you, Nicholas Kristof.
Unchecked, the Saudis would starve 18 million Yemenis to death. That's three times the 6 million of the Holocaust.
7
Perhaps Melania Trump should tour Yemen in October instead of Africa and then report back to her husband on the fallout of U.S. ‘s contribution to the starvation of children there.
7
Your tax dollars hard at work..
dropping bombs
shame america
7
Mr. Kirstof,
Can you discuss Yemen's population issues? There are over 23 million people in Yemen- in a country that, historically, has only had about 5 million.
Could uncontrolled population growth have something to do with starvation there?
Yemen is a desert country. It is literally running out of water. There are too many people there- they have completely trashed their environment.
My point is that even if no bombs were being dropped there would be significant risk of famine in Yemen.
I know that Mr. Kristof does not believe that population has any bearing on human well-being. I wish he would pull his head out of the sand- we are allowing untold misery by letting entire societies breed without any thought of the future.
Yemen is a dead country. They will run out of resources and the population will crash- that is nature and the obvious, inescapable, result of over-population.
My best wishes to the people of Yemen. I hope this correction goes quickly. Please stop having children you cannot care for.
6
@WillT26. If you read the times with any regularity, you must have noted, population is never a cause of anything. The fact that populations of many of the most problematic parts of the world are exploding is just an odd coincidence. This same kind of illogical, willful blindness obfuscates the discussion of: immigration, the environment, conflict, social upheaval and on and on. Ex- central Americas population has grown by 4x in the last 50 years, yet the times and its readers blame the flood of migrants coming here on past u.s. intervention in those countries. A logical airing of the facts would show an exploding population on a fixed area could be involved as well. Yemen like most of the ME has a young and booming population. It has always been a precarious area for food production. It is affected by climate change. Only the PC convinced would think there is no connection.
4
@WillT26 Both Idaho and North Carolina advocating continued genocide. Why am i not surprised? Two of the country's most reactionary states would be expected to produce "reprehensibles" whose critical thought processes are so warped as to be at odds with the values held by the majority of Americans. There will be a reckoning, fellas.
1
Cali. Wow. The real reckoning will be for those who cannot clearly read the simplest sentences, follow an obvious train of logic, or do the most basic calculations. If you see us as advocating genocide by simply pointing out the elephant in the room of humanity ( universally and pointed ignored by the left) is the spectacular rise in human numbers on this finite planet, I’m glad you are not driving the same streets I am, as you clearly cannot see straight enough to have any idea where you are going.
2
The world won't be a better place with an Iranian controlled regime in Riyadh.
Yemen's tribes have been slaughtering each other for millenniums often with the help of outside powers.
If not for outside powers this horror show would have been over long ago. Somebody would have surrendered.
The U.S. wouldn't tolerate missile attacks with Iranian weaponry against it's soil for a nanosecond. Why should the Sauds?
One more reason to ditch oil for sustainable energy so as not to be drawn into these wars.
Where is the outrage against the rebels, who started the conflict and could end it in a heartbeat? These are the people who make their bases within the cities of Yemen, making them legitimate military targets for those attempting to regain the country for the legitimate government.
There is an old maxim, "If you shoot the King, be sure to kill the King". The rebels are forcing the people of Yemen to pay the price for the rebelion's failure to do so.
1
@mikecody
The people of Yemen are allowed to choose their own leaders. Thats why their is a rebellion. Its not the place of Saudi Arabia and the USA to enforce our preferred dictator on the Yemeni people and starve them into submission when they rebuke us.
7
@Joe But it is the place of Iran to enforce their preferred dictator?
@mikecody
Sorry Mike but I dont see Iranian planes flying sorties over Yemen. Iran isnt enforcing a blockade keeping humanitarian aid out of Yemen.
That would be Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iran isnt "enforcing anything." Any material support they gave to the Houthis is inconsequential to the force being used by the Arab states. There is literally no comparison.
And Iran bears no responsibility?
2
Thank you for giving the crisis in Yemen some attention and exposure. With so many in the media fixated on the Trump clown circus, it's encouraging to know that some journalists are still looking at worthwhile stories.
The pictures of the starving children are just horrible. If the U.S. is responsible for any of this, then we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. This is not what the United States is all about.
I intend to write my representatives in Congress and demand that they stop sending arms to Saudi Arabia, for whatever good that will do. In future columns, please let us know which NGOs are working to alleviate this crisis so that we can contribute whatever we can.
3
Why does the U.S. government not use its power and influence to stop this war and bring both sides to the table?
Because it can't be bothered?
Because nobody knows where Yemen is?
Because war is war and crimes against humanity are for liberals?
Because the dictator Saudi family that owns Arabia is a kindred spirit?
Because the U.S.A. has committed so many unpunished crimes against humanity over the last 60 years that it is numb to its crimes?
Because it doesn't impact their wallets?
Because Trump and the Republicans are in power?
Because there aren't any votes in it?
All of the above?
4
@William Marsden I would agree on all, except the quote about the U.S's " many unpunished crimes against humanity" remark. Yes, we have a horrible "leader" (pardon me while I choke on that word), this time around that has no heart and soul (nor mind) to comprehend much of anything except how popular he needs to be to feel good, no matter who and how it hurts, but in the past, we really did go by intelligence reports and some did lead us down misguided paths, I concur. But the U.S. does have a wonderfully inclusive side to it, as well and I think we are being punished by some mistakes by some leaders and not our overall positive human rights records.
1
@William Marsden: why doesn’t Canada do it?
2
Thank you as always for your thoughtful comments. I will never understand our "love" of Saudi Arabia. Oh wait, yes I do. Remember the Bush ties to oil & money (esp to the Bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia). And let's not forget how they treat their women... we turn a blind eye to that when in other countries we're "horrified". But since we now live in the US of Nasty Old Men, I guess Saudi Arabia would be a natural ally.
Then there's Trump's hatred of Iran... oh wait, that's just to convince the conservative jews that he's really on their team (hahaha on them, right?).
Good luck fixing it all. Maybe in 2020...
3
When any country manufactures and sells arms, we are every bit as guilty as the tobacco companies who kept selling cigarettes in full knowledge that they were killing people.
2
One look at this baby is enough to break my heart. I haven't even read the article yet, but I have to wonder: why is the United States engaged with Saudi Arabia against Yemen? What strategic benefit do we gain by allowing such starvation to happen to children, let alone adults?
This has to stop. The United States should be giving these people food.
18
In this world politicians do everything in their power to promote the idea of nonviolence to solve problems. And yet, throughout all of history, including today, they retain the right to inflict whatever violence they want to retain their positions, and they don't care how many innocent people die. In this day and age, as always, the elitist will sell their own mothers for gain. If anyone thinks that these atrocities will stop, they won't until violence in all its forms, and especially by governments, is outlawed. But then again, who is going to ask the arms industry to quit? All that we can do as decent people is to show the truth and to lend a hand to your neighbor, whether they live next door to your or across the world in Yemen. These children, like those who were kidnapped from their parents at the U.S. border, are our own as well. Yes. Contact you representative. In my case mine are Republicans and these days, they don't care at all. They just want to keep their elitist positions. I am grateful that Mr. Kristoff is focusing a lens on what is being done in our name: Make America Great Again?
3
Mr. Kristof presents a founded, forceful and heartbreaking analysis of how under geopolitical pretexts (the “grand game” of who controls the shipping lanes in the Bab-el-Mandeb straits and the fabricated urgency of stopping Iranian machinations to take over the region), America “has made itself complicit in systematic war crimes” and is enabling the continuation and aggravation of “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
The (restricting) rules of Just International Intervention should be: A. Never exaggerate the severity of the (internal and international) situation to be ameliorated in order to justify an intervention. B. Never act in such a way that the civil population which is to be saved is put in harm's way in order to provide unqualified safety for the intervening force. In other words, the rules of fighting a Just War should be extended considerably in favor of the invaded population. C. Never intervene in an oil (or any other most wanted asset) rich country unless it can be positively be proven that it's not about geostrategic hegemony or economic profits. D. Never leave the invaded country before the establishment of a self-sustainable and viable internal political and economic order.
On this basis, the Yemen internal hell is a clear case for morally obligatory international intervention. The excruciating historical irony is that this is exactly why no saving intervention is in the offing.
5
On top of the rich getting richer because of this and other conflicts, Yeman is expected to be the first country to run out of water to drink and that will be even worse. Climate change is what will doom the world.
5
One of the more useful aspects of the reality tv idiocy clogging the airwaves and fiber-optic cables is that it detracts from the actions of the real rulers of the USA: The Executive military industrial cesspool has a war addiction to feed. The Legislative pharmaceutical industry has its opioid addiction to satisfy. The Judicial media have their scandal addiction, claiming as the law of public opinion. It all has one aim for its elite member$hip. Children be damned if they get in the way.
6
And Iran is the biggest exporter of terrorism?
Does Trump even know that we have hundreds of bases around the world on other countries soil? Does he know that our weapons sales are more than double the rest of the world combines? Does he know we assassinate democratically elected heads of 3rd and even 2nd world counties and expect them to say thank you? Does he know that we've been wiping out leaders and meddling in Islamic countries for a century and they are sick of it? Does he even care????
2
thank you for this. This war is atrocious. In Europe everyone likes to have a holiday in the Emirates in winter. Or fly their airlines. Even Federer has a home there!!! We’ve fallen hook line and sinker into a basket of crabs who take our money and turn it into gold - faucets, car plates, dog necklaces!
1
Hi Mr. Kristoff:
Weren't you just lecturing your readers that we need to be appalled at the lack of assistance and intervention by the United States under President Obama afforded the 500,000 black Christian Sudanese who were murdered by the Arab ethnic Junjaweed in the Sudan?
And by the way, don't we need to be "outraged" also about Iran's role in Yemen which precipitated the reactive role of the United States?
Shouldn't we also be "outraged" by the Obama-inspired "nuclear deal" with Iran which permitted Iran, as our sanctions were removed, to divert its new found funds to buying the Houthi rebels in Yemen the bombs and weapons which caused the war which caused the famine?
I generally find your writing to be somewhat superficial but do you now intentionally ignore the entire picture to condemn Trump as be in accord with the "resistance"?
I remember when Israel rescued the ancient Yemenite Jewish community in the 1950,60s, from the surrounding hostile Muslim society, by sending El Al planes to pre-arranged locations. The Jews walked onto the airplanes, believing that the biblical prophecy of being returned to Zion on "angel's wings" was being fulfilled.
There is a terrible tragedy unfolding in Yemen but my "outrage" is not directed at the United States, but at the Mullahs of Iran.
President Trump's withdrawal from the "nuclear deal", and the new sanctions on Iran, means less money for the Mullahs. and a better chance for Yemen.
6
@Jubilee133
Iran did not cause this conflict. The Houthis are not nearly as supported by Iran as you assert. The bombs and weapons the Houthis are armed with came from Yemen.
There is a greater threat to the world than Iran. Its Saudi Arabia. Notice how Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. Saudi Arabia attacked the USA and we reward them with weapons just to guarantee our supply of oil.
2
Mr. Kristoff, how can we help?
17
The photos made this grown woman cry. Today, I am ashamed to be an American. Period.
5
The worlds worst humanitarian disaster and the US is supplying the extremist Wahhabist Saudis with weapons and air support. Our tax dollars at work.
To get an idea of the scope of the disaster read the following.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/crisis-yemen
“The people of Yemen are experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The conflict between a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf countries and the Government of Yemen against the Ansar-Allah movement (also known as the Houthis), which escalated in March 2015, has so far caused more than 16,400 civilian deaths and injuries.”
“Over three million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the bombing and fighting. 22 million people – 75 percent of Yemen population – need emergency aid, the greatest number in any country in the world.”
“Now an estimated 17 million Yemenis, 60 percent of the population, are suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition, including 8 million on the brink of famine.”
Sad that this isn’t being covered more, since the Saudis have a vast grip on our media.
2
The cause and effect is more than confused. It is insane.
There is an Arab Persian/Sunni Shia war Iran has been stoking for years playing out in in part in Yemen. See, Syria. See, Iraq Iran war. Etc etc etc.
But the holier than thou addiction epidemic is what matters. Do whatever gets you high Kristof. Blaming America works. Go at it. About time for another Potemkin village hand wringing trip to North Korea so the dunces realize there are humans there. Where would mankind be without your enlightenment if our dark? Reality is a drag. Keep it up.
1
@In deed
Iran is no more "stoking" the war then Saudi Arabia has. I havent forgotten 9/11 for which the Saudis are responsible.
Please least the best international aid groups helping in Yemen, so people know where to contribute.
We have aligned with the Saudis & the Israeli's. It's the real axis of evil. Creating chaos & death all over the middle east. It doesn't have to be this way. I hate what this country has become.
5
@Doctor Woo
It hasn't "become" this and it is not unique to the US except that we happen to be uniquely powerful in recent decades. The seeds are in all of us.
1
Thank you Mr. kristof for this article. Sauidis and Israel have found a fool in the white house they can manipulate, and they're taking maximum advantage of him, to the detriment of the long term interests of their own nations.
2
@Sha
There is indeed a fool in the White House, but this malign alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia goes back decades, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. It must be stopped.
4
Trump has no sensitivity to the misery inflicted
on Yemenis, the poorest in the region. To every
one's annoynance he praised Saudi Arabia in
his UN speech. Every day he brings shame on
America. As far as violence against the foreigners,
particularly the third world people, Obama was
Trump light. His only saving grace was his
carefulness in choosing his words.
1
It is hard to have & hold outrage at such a tragedy (the pictures of the children are heart breaking) because it leads only to a sense of helplessness. Sure, I can contact my representatives, but what then? I volunteer with refugees from Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Congo, Eretria & have heard some of their stories. There are so very many places where desperate people suffer terribly. I suspect that others, like me it seems, begin to be exhausted by the amount of need and the very severe limits of what we can personally do about any of it.
I am grateful for the reminder that the suffering in Yemen goes on throughout our current obsession with all the variety of chaos & craziness in DC. For me, it puts some of the Trump circus in perspective. It also reminds me how very much is at stake for the vulnerable around the world while we have a xenophobic, isolationist president who has little use for or concern about people from "shithole" countries.
121
@Anne-Marie Hislop
You seem to have missed the point here. Those starving children are our fault. This isn’t somebody else’s crime. We are complicit.
And as someone else said, if we are supposedly helpless under two successive Presidents to stop our government from helping to murder children, well, maybe we never did have much of a democracy or maybe we do, and this is who we are.
@Anne-Marie Hislop You give too much credit to the president. Remember his campaign pledge to get us out of these entanglements? He was put into his place (as was his predecessor) the minute he entered the White House as an occupant.
Mr. Kristof, does Yemen have a role in Yemen's misery? Don't forget that this country has insisted on having one of the world's highest birth rates for decades, despite having almost no water to support it. Should we share in their surprise that there is now trouble when those children have reached peak drinking (and fighting) age?
Or is it perhaps okay to question the "Islamic math" that says if each child costs $5,000 to raise, and you are unemployed, you can afford to have.... 10 children.
1
One of the ironies of this borderline genocide is that we hear so much about how the Russians have attacked our democracy, yet the Russians had nothing to do with this. Our democracy did this. Nobody forced us to help the Saudis and they are too incompetent to be effective war criminals without our help. Our Congressional representatives could have stopped this years ago. The issue could have been front page news, a subject of constant attention and outrage, given that we were helping to kill these children. The war was an atrocity from its inception in March 2015, and it was obvious to the human rights groups as soon as the bombs began falling that the Saudis were indifferent to civilian life. Yet the issue has gotten very little attention here compared to, say Stormy Daniels.
It was our country and our political culture which helped cause those children’s deaths. We can’t blame our actions on anyone else and we can’t even blame it solely on Trump, though of course he took a bad situation and made it worse.
1
Safeguards under Obama? What safeguards were those, pray tell?
Thank you, Mr. Kristoff. In a week full of the worst partisan bickering it's refreshing to read the truth about this reminder that our foreign policy, as practiced by both Democrats and Republicans has become untenable. Democrats won't acknowledge that Obama got us into this, and Republicans won't come to terms with the fact that Trump is the only person who can get us out of this, and that he must do it if this country has a prayer of holding up its head in the world.
1
Thank you for attempting to inform us - even to a small degree. American media had degenerated into a battle for ratings in a universe of infotainment.
1
Please! Don't try to blur or mitigate US responsiblity for Yemen by throwing in the Brits, Russia in Syria and the Chinese in Xinjiang. None of these compare remotely to the horror that the US/Saudi Arabia has perpetrated in Yemen over the last 2 years. The Brits can't tell the Saudi's what to do or cut off vital support. The US can. End of story. As for Syria the US's confused foreign policy their kept that civil war and all the related suffering going on years after it would have otherwise ended thus prolonging the suffering of all involved in a failed attempt to pursue US geopolitcal goals. As to Xinjiang and the Uighurs, to compare compulsory "education" taking place over a period of days, weeks or in some cases months depending on the case on why radical Islam and its treatment of women and non-muslims might not be a good idea topped off with some vocational traning for young men who would otherwise be spending their entire education in madrassas studying the Koran rendering them unemployable and hence likely to become "disaffected" may be problematic but it is an attempt to deal with radical Islam in a fashion that does not involve declaring war on and killing its adherents - that would be the current US model. So. No. No. No. No other UN security council member is involved in anything near as horrific as what the US is "up to its neck in" in Yemen and shame on Kristoff for bowing to a guilty national pride in trying to say so and for coming 2 years late to the table.
The public's global awareness has been de-railed, by President Trump's Twitter rants,his callous indifference to human suffering, and his inability to govern as a World Leader. The media's focus on his Twitter rants, Melania's jacket, and its hidden meaning, his indiscretions are overshadowing the importance of world events and the importance of the President and his administration to govern. I am sickened by the Supreme Court hearings, and sickened by the inability of this administration to provide aid to Yemen' s crisis, and several humanitarian crisis
unfolding.
The importance of the upcoming elections is significant, we must elect people who are capable of addressing global crisis and improving this country's many problems. Is it time to drain the swamp.
1
Trump: "We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for... higher oil prices!" Read this as an admission that what we're getting for starving Yemeni children to death is the right to take the Hummer out to the lake this weekend for some fishing without breaking the bank.
1
Mr. Trump should be reading this column, and try to bring peace to Yemen rather than abetting war on civilians. He should also be calling on Iran to give religious freedom to its citizens, rather than his breaking of a nuclear treaty. And Trump should be standing up for religious freedom for Muslims and Christians in China, rather than starting a trade war that will hurt only the United States.
1
Are the reports true that Pompeo said we wouldn’t withdraw support of Saudi Arabia’s war on Yeman because of the money we are making in arms? That’s abhorrent.
Thank you for keeping this in the news. Someone needs to speak for Yemen. This is the only article I’m going to read tonight — I already know what the other articles are about.
1
Now guess whose shores all these refugees of war are going to end up on. A) America's shores B) Russia's borders C) Europe's shores D) Saudia Arabia's. The Europeans must start working on a foreign policy and defense union very quickly, because if they don't influence the world around them, other distant powers will and they will not like the result. If the British are selling arms to the Saudis they should stop complaining about mass immigration into their country.
1
Yes it is horrible, and there are many other horrors like this but the Military-Industrial complex it seems is more powerful than our votes, and more powerful than our elected leaders.
We've got outrage fatigue, I'm afraid. We've been outraged about the waste and folly in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than fifteen years, and yet we're still there, pouring money and lives into the civil wars of backward, unstable countries, probably for decades to come, until we have no more money to throw away.
There's just too much to be outraged about these days. All we can do is vote, hope more and more people start paying attention and vote, and hope for the best.
1
I *am* outraged.
I have signed petitions and contacted my representatives in Congress expressing my opposition to US involvement in that war.
Who cares?
3
The image of the words on Melania Trump's jacket visiting Puerto Rico after the hurricane still haunt me- I DON'T CARE, DO YOU? The U.S. will have its day of reckoning for not caring in places like Yemen. Meanwhile there are those of us who do care but feel powerless to have our voices heard in a government more concerned with 'America First' than global humanitarian crises.
1
Most people in liberal Seattle are proud of one of our biggest employers, Boeing. But are we proud of their involvement in this war?
Boeing is the sole provider of maintenance support for the Saudi air force’s fleet of military jets.
https://www.heraldnet.com/northwest/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-quietly-v...
There are other ways to bring shame and affect the misery of this war other than putting pressure on our government. Maybe we should engage Boeing directly?
2
Thank you Nicholas Kristof for covering this most important story.
1
Love does not choose to live side by side with hate. We are a hateful nation because we let those who are filled with hate rise to the top.
I wonder if the world will one day hold the perpetrators of this evil to account in a war crimes tribunal? If it does, there will be an American President or two in the mix.
I went cold when I heard the part of Trump's speech to the UN that poured scorn on the International Criminal Court, for it is that body, and that body alone, that can finally bring peace to the horror that is the Middle East.
Evil sits in our White House. It is the same evil that looked at the American West and said, "let's kill and steal and ethnically cleanse from sea to shining sea". It is the same evil that looked at the map in 1945 at a place labeled Palestine, and said, "let us kill, and steal, and ethnically cleanse until we have it all".
If we are not a world of United Nations held together by a court and laws, we are the animals who are no better than those on the plains of Africa, bound to live and suffer and live short and brutal lives.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
2
It's becoming more clear as the years pass, and not just with Yemen as an example, but also Afghanistan, etc., that the most effective foreign policy would be an arms embargo and the taking in of refugees as a universal principle. We shouldn't be selling arms to anyone. We are complicit not only in the killing innocent civilians, but it's also safe to assume that almost every American soldier killed overseas is killed with an American weapon.
Why do we continue to do this? If we would only stop selling weapons the conflicts would burn themselves out. We are fueling them. Of course, the arms manufactures profit, and maybe that's the cause.
1
Thank you Mr Kristof for bringing such a heartbreaking story to the public's attention - it's been buried under the political news of the day.
We need to discontinue our support for Saudi Arabia and the relentless bombing and killing of innocent civilians. Allied bombing raids are genocidal.
The military in our Country have used propaganda to convince Americans our national security is at risk - lies. The Defense Dept. justifies its existence by dropping bombs, not making peace.
We need to leave Yemen and remove the US from Allied Forces efforts there.
1
This is an asymmetric war and the two sides do not have equivalency in brutality. The Houthi's do not have airplanes and bombs. Only the Saudis do. The Houthi's are not bombing civilian populations and driving children to starvation. The Saudis are. And the hypocrisy of the so-called 'West' is laid bare with the US and UK providing arms and armament to Saudi Arabia, and not a word of condemnation for this genocide. Those words, of course, are reserved for Iran. I applaud Nicholas Kristof calling US policy to task. There needs to be much more aggressive journalism in this regard.
3
I am outraged at what our leaders are doing in our name. And I wrote my Senators, both leading Democrats and got ZERO response.
I shouldn't have been surprised. Our last Democratic president campaigned on a platform to end America's wars in the Middle East. He inherited three when he took office. Eight years later he had expanded them to five.
Many in the media try and excuse this carnage as a "proxy war" between the Saudi's and Iran. But they do so without citing facts or evidence.
Yemen has had internal civil strife long before this current war. The Saudi's have frequently intervened, at one point even opposing the puppet president that they now support.
None of this had anything to do with Iran and other than a small shipment of small arms, the international press has not reported on any active Iranian involvement.
And even if Iran had been involved that does not justify the systematic targeting of innocent civilians.
The US supports these atrocities because the Saudis purchase billions in arms from us. We fuel their planes, provide air traffic control and "train" their pilots. We value the money from those sales over human life.
And why not? We've killed over a million people in the Middle East and displaced at least six million. We've destroyed two countries and are working on a third.
And for what? WMD's? Oil? Bibi's approval? Never have our politicians justified what they have done in our name.
We must do more than protest, we need to vote them out!
6
Would like to "vote them out," drsprock, but have not seen in past elections since Eisenhower - except perhaps w J. Carter - that the selection process for candidates ever offers opportunity for any w even slightest opposition to the dominant military-industrial complex.
Virtually all wars kill and maim more civilians than combatants. That is because they are fought on farms and towns and cities where humans are attempting to live and make a living. When the war is done, those same civilians are left to continue attempting to exist in an environment where the infrastructure, their crops and their livestock have either been killed or stolen by the combatants. Needless to say after the combatants return to their homes, the civilians in the war zone remain to suffer in their horror. The children who survive this horror will grow up with fury against those who tortured them. Also they will grow up with inadequate education, nutrition, social environment, and infrastructure with which to learn how to lead their world other than with violence.
Yemen is the latest in the centuries long parade of wondrous environments that have been razed and destroyed by the “dogs of war.” I remain wondering at age 77 what would happen if we and others were to retarget our so called defense fundings into actions directed toward building and rebuilding areas in our world that are ravaged by war, poverty, disease, and disasters.
6
Thank you for this important article.
1
If any country deserves to be taken to task for war crimes, it's the United States. Acting as a proxy, we supply death and destruction, out of sight of most Americans, fueling an ugly sectarian conflict. What is the true value of arming punk-states like Saudi Arabia? Our long presence in the hapless Middle East has contributed to endless suffering for the innocents who pay the price of this mindless brutality with their lives. I hope to see the day that the United States is hauled into the International Criminal Court, ideally with John Bolton in leg irons.
3
We normal Americans must oust the Republican perpetrators and absolutely demand that our new Democrat leaders do their utmost to stop this carnage.
Each death of a Yemeni child in the meantime should be on our consciences daily.
We should immediately start keeping a Trump Death Toll, which started during his first two weeks in office with the loss of American soldiers and a dozen schoolchildren in Chad on a failed mission he approved over dinner with a couple of generals and staffers.
2
And then there are our efforts in Afghanistan.
What an awful predicament, world leaders in charge of the Yemeni 'killings', and free to go, 'business as usual'. Have we become this callous? Is that why we have disemboweled the International Court of Justice, so not to be in it's crosshairs, in spite of our dehumanizing , if not destroying, others?
1
Why are we so helpless? because our representatives in Congress will not listen to us, the President just ignores anyone who is not among his "base."
In California, we have one martial Senator, borderline senile and she won't quit. I don't know about the other one. In my district we have the most peaceable Rep in Congress the U.S. has ever seen since at least the 90's. How do we get our military to stop assisting the Saudis and the UAE into stopping this carnage?
We have to get out of the region and stop making more enemies. How about food and medicine instead of bombs and guns? Democrats cannot absolve themselves from this quagmire, they helped the Saudis and initiated an extensive drone campaign in Yemen to "eliminate" terrorists. We forget new ones are born every day when we bomb civilians.
1
Thank you for keeping Yemen in the public eye. Savage is the only word that describes what we are doing there. Keep shining the light!
1
The US or its people are not the only ones responsible for conflicts around the world. In Africa more children have died of hunger due to wars and disasters than in Yemen, Siria or Irak. Who is responsible for them? From what I understand the war in Yemen is supported by a coalition of Arab countries, including UAR, Egypt, etc. on one side and Iran and extremists on the other. All muslim countries. Countries produce or import armaments for various reasons, one of them is for defense or if they feel threatened. Is it realistic to expect complete disarmament around the world? With the world population of 7 billion and increasing there will be more conflicts and famine
1
"The policy started under President Barack Obama, with safeguards"
This is, perhaps, the most outrage worthy aspect of this entire debacle: To imagine one can wage war with safeguards.
It is the root cause of misery.
3
And yet in our irony-free and projection-laden environment we call Iran the largest purveyor of terrorism.
3
Are there any solutions? To what extent are the rebels using this famine as a weapon and therefore closing off any possible solutions?
1
Our voting system will remain ridiculous until we switch to direct election, forgetting the electoral college and districting generally...but do not forget the outsized role that big money has subverting the will of the people even further. And since the US leads the entire history of the world in military spending, NEVER FORGE the outsized role that defense materiel suppliers have on peddled influence: diplomacy starting to work in one place, let that mess in Yemen keep devouring millions of US dollars so the investors keep it sweet.
What to do? Demand transparency (remember Deep Throat saying 'follow the money' in "All the President's Men"?) Chet if you have to reveal exactly which humans are profiting of all these things and raise the issue at THEIR church, at their workplace, at your neighborhood grocery store: too many people are exorcised from their complicity in tragedy because they just own stock; end this moral disconnect.
1
Thank you, NYT, for bringing this red-hot problem on your pages again. I had written several times to the Editor to continue with this ugly conditions.
For me this is even more a "burning theme" since I suspect already over a large time that drones and fighter jets attacking the civilian population in Yemen are being guided either from an American special department at Ramstein Air Base or from a new installed similar acting bureau at Stuttgart, both locations in GERMANY.
I think I have to tell you, too, that I am heavily opposed to the delivery of weapons produced here in Germany to Saudi Arabia, a medieval construction of a State. This is a grotesque thing.s Germany shouldn't build no weapons at all. But, as always, money talks and this German industry branch can't get
"the throat full enough". That politicians in our government don't stop these exports in times of crisis shows how rotten Merkel's political work (don't change ANYTHING!) has got. Hopefully some change seems to come now, kind of at the last moment.
2
Nick, Thanks again for a reality check. I have some advice for you -- run for office. It is clear that no amount of reporting is changing policy. This needs to be fixed from the inside.
1
Obama imposed 'safeguards' on US support for Saudi in Yemen in late December '16, lasting for about two weeks. The US provides weapons, in-air refuelling, and targetting, so the US might have selected the school bus. Saudi claimed the Houthis armed small children and sent them to attack Yemeni citizens, so the targetting was justified (it later changed that claim to saying bombing the school bus was a tragic mistake). Anyone who knows any geography knows that Saudi forces control all routes from Iran to the Yemen, so Iranian support is a well-known fact (just ask Saudi) but is geographically impossible (but don't let logic get in your way). France is involved in several of these peacekeeping missions (the US Constitution says they're not wars unless Congress votes to call them wars), so not one member of the P5 is innocent. Russia is brutally murdering the peaceful, pro-democracy activists in Syria who call themselves al-Qaeda and the ISL because Russia hates democracy, for which Russia is rightly condemned. Finally, China is 're-educating' a group (of many millions) that has sent thousands of its members to support ISIL, because the Chinese can't think of a better way to address this. Can you?
2
Bombs don’t have brains, only the people and companies that manufacture and sell them. The international weapons trade is one of the least reported phenomena of our times: very few people are aware of it except for those who happen to be on the receiving end of some of these deadly armaments, and some few groups like Amnesty International and others.
And, of the Times editorialists, Mr. Kristof is the only one who has the courage to bring up the subject on a regular basis. Thank you.
1
I just saw this article. Unbelievable that nobody says anything about it. Why do we keep coseying up to Saudi Arabia. Foolish question, we want the oil, even though we appear to have a surplus now. I couldn't avoid the quotes from Donald Trump's latest wretched United Nations speech where he brags on about America helping everybody and getting nothing back. We've set the Middle East on fire, and we're starving children in Yemeni while we continue to be allies with a vicious extremist country. We have a lot to answer for.
3
I was thinking just this morning, before seeing this article, that Yemen puts us in a moral position roughly parallel to that of Russia's and Iran's in Syria.
1
Can you please tell In which war American involvement directly or indirectly benefited mankind ? For whose freedom America fought wars ? Does it matter to American Government that a number of countries are ruined because of wars and that countless people were killed for no fault ?
This has been going on since the Obama administration. We are complicit in this by helping Saudi Arabia bomb and close the ports of Yemen. I just don't understand how we can support such a brutal country like Saudi Arabia which is the total antithesis of what we are suppose to stand for as a nation. The hypocrisy is mind blowing.
3
This is angering and distressing. This shouldn't be allowed under the aegis of the United States and its people. If America truly cared, the bombing could be halted by this time tomorrow.
1
Odd how the adults in the first photograph appear far from malnourished.
Again no mention in a NYT article of staggering population growth in a country that was always the poorest in the Arab world. Basically tripled in the last three decades.
Sometimes there are no good solutions, unless Kristof is advocating boots on the ground in Asia. Didn't work out very well in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. If we don't support the Sunni Saudis, do we basically allow Shia Iran to overtake Yemen when the Gulf has always been majority Sunni? Remember whenever you hear about the Iranians in Syria, Lebanon, or even Gaza. The only countries that are majority Shia are Iran and Iraq. Everywhere else the Iranians turn up is basically akin to an invading colonizer.
Again, to repeat, sometimes there just aren't any good solutions in geopolitics. Meanwhile look around the Arab/Muslim world and ask yourself how many of those countries one would choose to emigrate to. Zero?
This is a Shia/Sunni conflict over nonsensical theological disputes from more than a millennium ago over who more faithfully carried the torch of whatever Muhammad purportedly would have wished. Short of wishing for America to directly enter the conflict, notwithstanding that we can't be everywhere at once and the places we've been to are failures, maybe Allah will sort them out while we keep hearing about the "religion of peace."
4
You are right Mr Kristoff
"That's pathetic: Four of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security council are complicit in crimes againsst humanity "
Those four out of five represent the will of men. Selfish narrow minded men.That alone is the one thing they all have in common.
The arrogant male ego they share only knows how to kill with bombs if they are to make a profit or by starvation if they simply want to punish for the sake of their mindless cruelty.
They are doing the same here as they tie an honest woman to the stake and seek to destroy her life for speaking truth to power.
Men who seek to rule will never consider reason.
Vote this November but more than that vote for women wherever possible.
With rare exception women really are the only hope we have.
3
Please name any candidate who offers even slightest consistent opposition to military-industrial-Israel lobby complex.
That individual no matter the gender will be immediately targeted for political destruction.
1
Any information on where aid can be donated that could actually get to the starving children? Some info int he article would be helpful, after we call our congressional rep to demand change here. I tried to donate a few weeks ago and then read an article that food isn't getting to the Yemeni's because of Saudi blockage or destruction of the ports where the food would come in -
2
Yemeni Children are children of a Lesser God, the right to life does not apply to them, and we are the Civilized World.
1
Wonderful article, Mr. Kristof. Please continue to shine a light on this.
I appreciate and respect your work Mr. Kristoff, but I am afraid in this case you were a gulliable consumer of partisan PR. Take a look at your pictures. Indeed the Children are malnourited, but if they are so poor, how come the care talkers are (1) wearing nail polish, (2) wearing enough gold to feed a child for a year or two, and (3) dressed in new colorful clean clothing. How can they afford pampers?
I grew up in the middleeast and I have seen real poverty. This photo is staged.
3
One day when the war in Yemen is long over, there may be war crimes trials -- and our country will be in the dock along with Saudi Arabia.
2
Nick even worse is the fact that many of the weapons used by terrorists worldwide can be traced to the US. We taxpayers are complicit in remaining mute about our role in terrorizing people globally. America today represents all human beings from the corners of the earth, it is a representation of global migration over hundreds of years. Those who seek refuge amnesty or shelter here, inadvertently become part of the unconscionable violence that America inflicts, the strongman tactics, the display of its military industry complex. You can almost bet that the people who convinced George W Bush to attack Iraq were former Iraqis themselves..as also those who now want the US to sanction Iran, are former Iranians themselves.
2
Thank you for keeping us aware about this crisis.
1
The tragedy in Yemen is horrible. The fact that Yemenis who somehow are able to escape it are not permitted to come and seek refuge in our country is criminal.
2
We murder innocent Yemeni children by continuing to support the Saudis with arms and intel, yet that story is so far down the food chain that I would guess that only a small percentage of Americans knows or cares. Thank you, Nick, for keeping us aware of these horrors. I don't know what we can do other than vote out the corrupt and morally bankrupt we have so many of in the House and Senate. And, of course, the buffoon-in-chief is the worst of them all. And that's saying something.
I sign petitions almost every day, and I send money to causes in which I believe. And sometimes I protest when there is such an action. But I feel so powerless. What can the ordinary caring citizen do beyond this? My funds are limited, as is my time. Yet I want to do something to right some of these horrors.
With everything going on in DC, in NYC at the UN, and the circus tomorrow with the hearing, I don't hold much hope for our democracy.
1
Why are we supporting the destruction of Yemen by Saudi Arabia?
How much are Boeing, Lockheed & other American members of the military industrial complex profiting by supplying munitions to the Saudis?
Strange that the country who sourced most of the perpetrators of the 911 massacre & funded Isis is now a favorite of the Trump administration.
Congress needs to do its job and “sanction” Saudi Arabia.. no more armaments at a minimum.
1
It tells me too much about humanity's ability to prioritize that this is only comment 22 on this article after being online for 12 hours. Any third-rate Trumpathon or Kavanot hitjob of the NYT would have exceeded 100s. Sad.
Thank you Mr. Kristof for putting the spotlight on one of the worst crisis in the world. Would have appreciated a non-Trump angle but this is better than writing the 10th Kavanaugh OpEd of the day.
1
The Iran backed Houthis have launched missile attacks on Saudi cities, including Riyadh. No country can tolerate a neighbor who launches missiles on their cities and airports.
Every discussion of Yemen war must consider missile attacks by Houthis.
1
@Kevin Apte
You are worried about missile attacks to Saudia Arabia and in the process, 20 million people will starve to death. All entities involved in this war are a disgrace to Humanity including your Saudi King, UAE, Houthis, Iran, the Yemeni leadership, and Us.
1
People talk about many not paying attention to politics or the shenanigans of Trump. It's the same way with the crisis in Yemen. Trump isn't paying any attention to that or others.
3
Thank you Mr. Christof for letting us know what we did in Yemen. Whether it is directly or indirectly involving our weapons, we are responsible for the resulting consequence. I sincerely wish this kind of news can be shown in prime time TV or investigating reports.
13
@Usok
Watch the BBC. The Beeb is concerned with what is going on in the world, not just the latest Trump tweets.
3
It is horrible that we are sending weapons, intelligence and providing aerial refueling to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in order to kill the people and children of Yemen. What I find equally horrible is that yesterday the "Defense, Health, Education, and Labor Bill" which provides close to 950 billion dollars to finance our government (probably including money to attack Yemen) was passed by Congress. However, there was no money allocated for repairing our infrastructure, such as bridges, tunnels, highways, railroads, hospitals etc. In addition, there was no money provided for health care or the most popular foreign aid program in our history, the US Peace Corps. And this vast amount of money will last only until this December - less than 3 months.
We already have 700 atomic bombs. How many more weapons do we need? The world does not need more and more weapons of mass destruction. Our world needs much more peace. We need to work diligently to find ways to convince all countries with weapons of mass destruction to destroy these weapons. They will never help us have a peaceful and safe world. They will only threaten the very existence of our planet.
15
Thank you for reminding us where we should be putting our time and attention. Enough with the circus of partisan politics. We need to work together to uphold our values of freedom and justice across the world. So many good people on both sides of the aisle have so much to offer but we have become immobilized by scandals and lies. Let’s work together to make our world safe for our children and future generations.
20
"Both sides in this civil war have at times behaved brutally, and the only way out is diplomacy. "
Unfortunately, this crisis, like the crisis in Syria, has no diplomatic solution. When two side both adopt an "all or nothing" stance, diplomacy has nothing to work with.
As sad and catastrophic as what is happening in Yemen, diplomacy isn't going to fix it.
4
@David Patin unfortunately we here in the U.S.A. have had our world view formulated by second rate actors (John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, John McCain, et. al.) where all the worlds problems are bi-polar. If the US were a psych ward patient, the diagnosis might be the same. But this does not preclude diplomacy because diplomacy is not a fix but rather a process. Often used in the middle-east to pretend and delay until the truth is no longer relevant. "But let us not speak falsely now...said the joker to the thief" - R. Dylan
We need to work to help people with direct aid, but we also need to recognize that Yemen is a crisis of diplomacy. The terrible situation there is only exacerbated by our chronically feckless U.S. president, his cronies, and the unfettered greed of corporations and the hunger for power of their military sponsors.
Trump would have us believe that world leaders at the U.N. were laughing with him, not at him. Should the children of Yemen take solace in that?
Americans can hold out hope for Yemen, but it would be more productive for us to vote out those in control of our government in the interests of promoting a better world.
"Help yourself by helping others." (John Templeton)
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." (Mahatma Gandhi)
17
Obama and Trump share responsibility for this unnecessary crisis in Yemen created by the fears of a tyrannical Saudi system and the American desire for oil and profit.
21
Time to admit that our foreign policy is driven by money and oil and scripted by the military/industrial/banking complex. The Saudi relationship has been a disaster for progressive world order for decades.
Thank you, (I think ?), Mr. Kristof for this reminder that even if we get rid of Trump & Company we still have major issues to deal with if we ever want to be truly proud of our role in the new world order.
China is coming and they will made the Russians look like choir boys when it comes to regional and world hegemony. I doubt our country and our leaders have the moral integrity or stamina to protect even North America from the horror our greed has unleashed in the past 50 years.
30
@Bill Wilson
If we're going to drag our feet with green energy, and in the interim we don't want our fossil fuels coming from domestic offshore drilling or fracking, or from the Keystone Pipeline, then we're dependent on OPEC and the Saudis. We trade bombs for oil and then look the other way when they use our weapons. Then we get Yemen. So how do we want it? What do we want for ourselves? Until we figure that out, nothing will change.
10
China apparently is already winning hearts, minds and mineral contracts worldwide by building infrastructure for rather than dropping bombs on these third-world nations.
1
@Bill Wilson: The new world order? Trump, Brexit, rising fascism in Europe, total chaos in the Mideast, Venezuela, Myanmar, China preparing to take over much of the world -- Since when have we had a world in order?
2
There is a simple answer to this problem. It's not easy, but it is simple: Iran must stop funding the Houthis and must stop fighting a proxy war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Iran is a very instructive case study. When the U.S. was involved in the 1950s in installing the Shah as the ruler of Iran, we set up a friendly government that assisted in preventing the then USSR from gaining a foothold in the Middle East. When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, we lost a valuable ally and gained an enemy with the Ayatollah-led Iranians. As a result, not only do we have Iran, Syria, Yemen, etc. to deal with, we also have Russia in the region.
If Iran backed off and got out of the business of supplying the Houthis with arms tomorrow, this humanitarian crisis would end.
6
@David Ricardo, this is a very primitive post.
18
@David Ricardo
If U.S. got out of the business of supplying the Saudi's with arms tomorrow, this humanitarian crisis would end ... Ever thought of that?
What business do we have with how Iran or Saudi's treat each other? We are not their "mom". The only interest we seem to have is to sell more weapons to people who don't think twice about using them on other humans.
8
@David Ricardo You're joking, right? The US backed a coup that destroyed a democratically elected Iranian government, then installed the Shah, who brutally suppressed the (elected) opposition, used the country as his personal piggy bank, enriched himself and his family, and destroyed democracy.
The United States then supported Saddam Hussein in his brutal, 8-year war with Iran.
And you're so naive to think that, Iran is going to "back off"?
Don't they teach history in America anymore? Sheesh.
1
"The policy started under President Barack Obama, with safeguards"
Those safeguards did not work.
The Yemen policy of the US has been a disaster from Day One.
This policy is not from Obama himself, nor from Trump himself. It is The Blob, as Obama called it. It is Washington's insider national security culture run amok.
We must stop it. We must stop it not just for Yemen, but for all the rest of what it does.
53
@Mark Thomason
Is it possible when a General says Trump displays the understanding of a fifth grader the general wants to blow things up and Trump doesn't? Is Trump trying to fight the "blob"? Is the "blob" what others would call Deep State? Which doesn't exist I'm told.
I listened to the press conference yesterday he doesn't sound like a war lover. At least to me.
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Thank you for the urgent reminder, Mr. Kristof. I was fortunate enough to visit Yemen back in the '90's and found it to be one of the most staggeringly beautiful places I've ever encountered- full of antiquity, amazing landscapes and some of the most hospitable people on the planet. I try not to imagine what the country looks like now, how many of its ancient monuments must be lying in rubble and how many of the folks who looked after me are now buried in unmarked graves. The U.S. really needs to stop working with the Saudis on much of anything: their leaders can be counted on to poison everything they touch. The Iranians aren't much better, and both sides are obviously using the Yemenis as placeholders for their mutual antipathy. Whoever ultimately "wins" this conflict will be left with a decimated country as their so-called prize. Will they stick around long enough to rebuild it? Will the U.S. pitch in if the Sunnis eke out a victory? Is the Pope Jewish?
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The question is, how much are the Iranians really involved in the war in Yemen? Back in 2016, even the CIA admitted that Iran's role in Yemen was exagerated, in particular by the Saudis, who have complete control of Yemen's airspace, and most of the coastal areas around Yemen.
Iran does not share a border with Yemen. Between them is first the Hormuz Strait and then Oman, which is largely desert. The only way to provide any military assistance to the Yemeni Houthi would be via smuggling by small boat, or transport by camel over a huge desert. Mostly, this would produce small arms like AK47s only.
Iran has tried to provide food and medical aid to Yemen, but its ships have been refused entry to the harbour by the Saudis and the UAE
The beautiful city of Sana'a, a World Heritage site, has been largely destroyed by Saudi coalition bombing.
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@Katrin Mason, that is a question to which the answer is actually pretty clear. Iran had little to do with the Yemeni civil war until the Saudi invasion, and probably little now as well. But the more basic question is why any connection beween Yemen and Iran would lead to a Saudi invasion. The answer lies, at least partly, in the Saudis' repression of so much and so many including their substantial Shiite minority that they are terrified could help overthrow their system.
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@Katrin Mason
Iran is interested in Having another Hezbollah in Yemen, every child in Yemen will tell that. It is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran. Yemeni are paying the price and somebody is making a lot of money.
I am glad to read that Senators Murphy and Lee attempted to slow arms sales to the Saudis. But is it not in fact illegal, under American law, for these weapons to be used offensively? Thus shouldn't the Senators be able to mount a legal challenge to the aid/weapons sales?
Perhaps all of this is partially why Trump and friends are going after the ICC!?
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Expecting the Trump administration to care about the people of Yemen when it does not care about the people of Puerto Rico seems unrealistic.
President Obama saw what his predecessor did in Iraq and elsewhere. He left open ended conflicts around the world for his successor, when he knew that successor may be badly flawed and overly prone to initiate or sustain armed conflict. It was a missed opportunity to contract and constrain our participation in shooting wars.
The silver lining is that whoever follows Trump will have an even clearer mandate to minimize the launching of American missiles around the globe, whether from American drones or from the warplanes sold to various forms of tyrants.
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In the reporting on this issue and in the comments so many Americans confess to feeling "helpless" in the face of the US's major role in the war on the people of Yemen which the UN has described as the world's largest humanitarian emergency. They also often incidentally bemoan their country's other disastrous and bloody military adventures. But this alleged "helplessness" also importantly absolves them from responsibility for the carnage left in the wake of US foreign policy. What does it say about the American so-called "democratic" system that an overwhelming majority of the country has wanted an end to these endless wars for over three decades and they still grind on with new conflicts arising every few years? What kind of democracy is constantly at war and allies itself with a medieval theocratic gender apartheid state that beheads and crucifies student democracy protestors? It's simple. When it comes to its foreign policy the US is not a democracy. US foreign policy is run by the military industrial complex. The feelings of the general public are irrelevant. The only thing that would get the people out on the streets is a reinstatement of the draft so wealthy/middle class college kids - the kind we care about - were put at risk by all this militarism. But the MIC learned its lessons well in Vietnam. As long as their is no draft we will "weep a tear" for the people of Yemen, Libya, Iraq etc... but in the time it takes to turn the page we've forgotten and gone bowling.
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@Belasco It's worse than that. It is not only the MIC that Eisenhower feared. Citizens United has made it possible for petro-rich states to funnel unlimited amounts to Republican political campaigns. Trump campaigned on stopping wars, but once in office he gave his Generals a blank check, and the U.S. has ramped up from Niger to Afghanistan.
@Belasco Well said. I would add that the United States is not a democracy in domestic policy either. One need look no further than the lobby industry to see that the US federal government is a multi-national, fascist oligarchy. These leaders feign patriotism to fool their base, but in all honesty have no allegiance to any country. They only ally with those who advance their personal financial interests. Good luck America. Luck is all you've got to go on besides your empty thoughts and prayers.
David Miliband is wrong when he remarks, "no one is winning, except the extremist groups who thrive on chaos.” Anyone with a stake in Boeing, Lockheed or two dozen other aerospace and related weapons manufacturing companies are winning, with every share surge and dividend payment. Also winning are the hundreds of members of Congress and Parliament who welcome the political donations received, and celebrate the jobs created in their constituencies. We really have to stop calling it 'the defence industry'. Yemen has nothing to do with defence, and everything to do with wealthy people meeting the needs of other wealthy people. Ultimately, this is corporate welfare at its murderous worst.
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@Jake
Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.
@Jake
Well said.
I would suggest one minor change--from "wealthy people meeting the needs of other wealthy people"
to "wealthy people meeting THEIR OWN NEEDS AND THOSE of other wealthy people."
I don't know what to say. In this country, it's bread and circuses for the common people, while the only serious effort of our government is to further enrich the already wealthy.
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The U. S. has been on a permanent war footing since the end of the Korean War. We have become so blase with regard to our incessant military misadventures and the immense suffering they cause that our involvement in wars such as Yemen do not even register.
Yemen didn't just happen. It's been going on for at least the last two years.
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@Doolin66, much longer than two years.
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@Doolin66
The war and our complicity started in March 2015, under Obama. Trump, of course, made it worse.
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It is hard to find outrage in a country that has invaded 37 sovereign nations that has resulted in over 20 million deaths since WWII. The US foreign policy has been a mix of humanitarian leadership followed by humanitarian failures. The problem is that the examples of humanitarian leadership overshadow the times the US has fallen short. Add the lack of worldview within the US population and it is easy to see how the lack of outrage exists even without adding the issues of different religions, culture, and ethnicity.
The problem with moral outrage is that it is always tempered in the US by financial gains. They aren't outraged about Yemen because the US is making arms sales (they argue if they didn't then Russia and China would sell the arms instead). This is because these media organisations need to make ad revenues from these same companies selling arms and besides, no one in the US wants to hear about how the US foreign policy is hurting other nations, (bad for moral is the usual argument).
The problem is there is no objective scorecard on how the US is performing overseas let alone in the US. People argue that the US is not a very good world neighbour right now, but the US hasn't been a good world neighbour for decades, it is time with the nation being either directly or via proxy at war for all but three and half years of its existence to admit it has a problem with waging war.
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In my lifetime, I've been outraged since VietNam. And it never ends.
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Thank you for this article. While the current Trump circus news is critically important and requires our attention, we must also remain informed on other issues, some of which are even more pressing and dire.
The suffering in Yemen leaves me feeling heartbroken and helpless. As a mom to a chubby one year old, these photos of malnourished little ones are too much. But we mustn’t look away - the fate of these children is too important and precious.
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@Sarah Jones
The hard reality is worse than a moral failure.
Each photo of a starving child in the Middle East creates a number of new terrorists.
I appreciate this article for bringing something that we need to be reminded of. I also, really appreciate the note of when this terrible crisis truly began. It is important to not lose sight of who is to blame just due to party affiliation.
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Thank you for bringing this to our attention Mr. Kristof.
Indeed, the world (let alone the U.S.) is suffering from fatigue over the U.S. President, his administration and the tweets. I suppose we do need to walk and chew gum, while keeping apprised of global affairs. The catastrophes are ongoing as millions upon millions are displaced or are perishing after decades of war within the region.
Not only is the American Congress (controlled by republicans for over 8 years now) derelict in their duty as to what troops are sent where (abdicating their sole responsibility to declare war), but what munitions (and for what purpose) are being sent too. (and to whom)
The press can seem to follow (with very few exceptions) only 140 characters now, and even then, only for a limited time. (generally a news cycle or two) I would like to say that once we get Democrats back into power, that we will be able to grapple with all of these issues (including those of faraway lands), but as you say, it has been a bipartisan issue. (of war)
We have not even brought to justice (for war crimes) those that invaded these lands (the Middle East in general) in the first place which caused many of these dominoes to fall.
We probably never will.
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