By suporting Saudi Arabia's attacks on Yemen, U.S. Now guilty of War Crimes!

Just why do we have to stay in bed with King Salman? The Saudi air attacks on Yemen (aided by U.S.A.) are targeting civilian factories, villages, etc. And these attacks are War Crimes.

Why do we keep kissing the ass of the Saudi monarch?

See:
http://www.alternet.org/world/us-continues-unquestioned-support-saudi-arabia-despite-mounting-war-crimes?akid=14440.260394.nF368E&rd=1&src=newsletter1060124&t=16

http://www.mintpressnews.com/whats-really-driving-the-saudi-led-attacks-on-yemen/203879/



What’s Really Driving The Saudi-Led Attacks On Yemen?

Oil.

By Catherine Shakdam | April 2, 2015



SANAA, Yemen — "On March 25, King Salman decided to engage the Saudi military against the Houthis of Yemen, after the latter marched on Aden, the capital of the former South Yemen, where former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had sought refuge after escaping from house arrest in February.

The Saudi intervention in Yemen came with the support of a broad Arab alliance — Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt — plus Pakistan, as well as foreign powers including the United States and the European Union. Its stated goal is to re-establish stability in the region and address the security threat which the Houthis had come to represent.

Salman made his position clear on March 27, when he announced, as reported by The Independent: “A Saudi Arabia-led alliance is willing to wage a military campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen for as long as it takes to defeat the Iranian-backed group that has forced the country’s president to flee.”

Speaking at a press conference, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel al-Jubeir confirmed that Saudi Arabia, alongside ten other countries, launched a military operation in Yemen against the Houthis, rebel tribal faction organized under the leadership of Abdel-Malik al-Houthi.

“At the time Ambassador Al Jubeir already warned that the ongoing airstrikes will involve other military assets, leaving the door wide open to a potential ground invasion,” said Ali al-Amad, a leading figure of Ansarallah, the Houthis’ political arm, to MintPress News.

“Saudi Arabia took it upon itself to declare war on Yemen, arguing national security, claiming to want to restore Yemen’s legitimate president, Hadi, to the presidency in a bid to safeguard Yemen’s democratic transition, when really it seeks only to assert its imperialistic ambitions upon the Arabian Peninsula,” he added.

Sheikh Mabkout Nahshal, a tribal leader from the northern Yemen province of Hajjah, who in the space of four years saw his country teeter on the verge of civil war more times than he cares to admit, told MintPress that this war Riyadh is waging against the Houthis and, thus, against Yemen has nothing to do with Hadi, democracy or national security — or, at least not Yemen’s national security. It’s about oil and geopolitical maneuvering.

“Al Sauds have always viewed Yemen as a threat to their hegemony, both militarily and geostrategically. Ibn Saud actually told his sons that for Al Saud to survive in the region, Yemen would have to be tamed,” Nahshal said. “This war is about restoring control over a Saudi colony, this war is about putting Yemen’s freedom under lock and key.”

“Everything else, all these talks of sectarianism and democracy, legitimacy and national security, are shiny lies thrown out at the public to hide the truth.”..."

(more)

*****************

It's rumored that the Saudis are running out of oil, but there are also the sectarian differences...and the all important trade route.

I realize that didn't answer your question.

This one might:

http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-us-wraps-saudi-arabia-and-its-human-rights-atrocities-in-its-cloak-of-exceptionalism/212913/

The US Wraps Saudi Arabia — And Its Human Rights Atrocities — In Its Cloak Of Exceptionalism

U.S. dependence on oil prevents Washington from opposing Saudi Arabia’s repeated human rights violations and support for terrorist groups like ISIS or Boko Haram.

By Catherine Shakdam | January 20, 2016

WASHINGTON — "In his eighth and final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea against religious bigotry and sectarianism. Keen to underscore his commitment to social cohesion and tolerance, he rejected “any politics that targets people because of race or religion.”

Referring to past fears and lapses in judgement U.S. society experienced in the face of “wars and depression, the influx of new immigrants, workers fighting for a fair deal, movements to expand civil rights,” Obama noted: “We did not, in the words of Lincoln, adhere to the ‘dogmas of the quiet past.’ Instead we thought anew, and acted anew.”

Though perhaps a powerful call against racism and bigotry, it ignores the grim realities of U.S. foreign policy. Explaining that his speech “essentially exemplified America’s exceptionalism,” Vanessa Beeley, an investigative journalist and expert on military maneuvering behind a veil of humanitarian assistance, noted: “His statement stands [as] a reminder of America’s double-standards and political posing.”

“If the White House still wants to claim the moral high ground, its ties with some of the world’s most repressive and reactionary regimes in the world — Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar — have somewhat eroded any assumption the public might have as to the U.S. position vis a vis human rights and, of course, democracy,” Beeley told MintPress News in an interview.

Saudi Arabia’s “special friendship” with the U.S., as officials have been keen to highlight over the years, has allowed for U.S. officials to pick and choose when to show outrage and when to denounce human rights violations, manipulating international law to the tune of their own political agendas, rather than objectively defending the rule of law. And, in perhaps the most ironic turn of events in the world looking the other way on Saudi human rights abuses, the kingdom was given a chair on the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013.

Despite Obama’s open rejection of bigotry, it would appear that Washington has blanketed Riyadh under its own exceptionalism — all in the name of economic pragmatism. Indeed, the nations’ interests are so intertwined that Saudi Arabia remains instrumental to U.S. economic stability through the petrodollar system.

The petrodollar system that was created in the 1970s has served America well, both economically and politically. What began as a way to drive more demand for the U.S. dollar in the wake of a move away from the international gold standard in 1971, it’s provided benefits that few could have ever imagined, including the solidification of the U.S. dollar as the global currency of choice. This was important, especially following a temporary loss of dollar credibility after President Richard Nixon’s decision to close the gold window.

This “dollars for oil” system has greatly enriched the nation. But this national prosperity has come at the expense of other nations and their potential prosperity, notwithstanding America’s moral credibility in the world over its selective blindness to Riyadh’s human rights violations..."

(more)

****************

The same reason this is happening:


Cheney, Rothschild, and Fox News’ Murdoch Begin Drilling for Oil in Syria — a Violation of Int’l Law


Claire Bernish June 15, 2016 19 Comments




After concluding the flow testing phase, Afek Oil and Gas will now begin analyzing samples drawn from the Ness-2 drilling site, euphemistically dubbed “Deborah’s Well,” in the Israeli-occupied region of Syria known as the Golan Heights. New Jersey-based Genie Energy, Ltd., Afek’s parent company, claims a dubious cadre of investors cum war profiteers, including Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, Lord Jacob Rothschild, James Woolsey — as well as a number of current and former U.S. politicians.

Prior testing at a separate Afek site did not meet expectations, so the company sought other “sweet spots” in the area. Analysis of samples from additional wells will be performed by Afek scientists in conjunction with “external international experts.”

To understand U.S. involvement in the quagmire in Syria, Afek’s oil exploration is of critical import.

Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights region violates international law — thus, Israeli permits granting Afek the ostensible right to perform exploratory tests of a possible “large reservoir” of natural gas and light oil is also illegal. But in a world where Big Oil remains powerful enough to drive foreign policy of the U.S. empire, this direct violation of the Geneva Convention might not even be worthy of a footnote — except to the people of Syria.

In fact, as The Free Thought Project’s Justin Gardner previously reported, the unsavory character heading Genie Oil is none other than Efraim “Effie” Eitam, an Israeli military commander and former Knesset member who once called for the expulsion of the “cancer” of Arabs from Israel.

“Expel most of the Judea and Samaria Arabs from here,” Eitam arrogantly asserted during a soldier’s memorial service in 2006. “We cannot be with all these Arabs and we cannot give up the land, because we have already seen what they do there. Some of them may be able to stay under certain conditions, but most of them will have to go.”

In addition to the eyebrow-raising cabal of Eitam, Murdoch, Cheney, and Rothschild, Genie Oil and Gas appointed new members to its Strategic Advisory Board last September, including:

“Dr. Lawrence Summers, 71st Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under Pres. Obama; former Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, who is credited with helping pass the U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Bill while she chaired the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who became an energy insider after serving as the Clinton administration’s Energy Secretary; and former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, who co-founded the U.S. Energy Security Council.”
At stake is a 153 square-mile region in the Golan Heights, demarcated by Israeli authorities as exclusive territory for Afek to perform exploratory testing, which began in 2015, through early April 2017.

However, even beyond the not-at-all-minor issue of legality, Afek’s drilling in the region has stirred another, perhaps more imperative, concern. A large aquifer supplying the entire region’s drinking water is positioned uncomfortably close to the stores of fossil fuel — raising contamination concerns sufficiently serious that an Israeli high court issued a temporary restraining order in 2014, though it was quickly dismissed.

But none of this bothers Murdoch, Cheney, Rothschild, and the others, as the Golan Heights to Big Oil represents little more than an exploitative business opportunity. Syria, in fact, has been systematically torn apart primarily because foreign powers and radical groups seek to protect their varied oil interests.

While the Afek ilk set their sights on Golan Heights oil and natural gas, Turkey, the U.S., Russia, Daesh, and a spate of others have been fighting over Syria’s geostrategic location for major oil pipelines under the cover of religious and civil strife.

“[W]e may want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology and focus on the more complex rationales of history and oil, which mostly point the finger of blame for terrorism back at the champions of militarism, imperialism and petroleum here on our own shores,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., intoned in an April editorial for Ecowatch.

As Kennedy astutely noted, U.S. interventionism in the Middle East, and particularly Syria, has little to do with fighting terrorism and far more to do with the region’s rich petroleum reserves — as in the case of Genie’s magnates. And such insistent international meddling at the behest of corporate oil interests so destabilized the entire region, it led to the formation of Daesh (ISIS) and similar radical groups.

Of course, oil exploration certainly benefits the ongoing push by Israel to expand its occupation and settlements, since U.S.-backed Big Oil operates under the premise the manufactured nation’s encroachment on Syrian territory is perfectly legal. Often, as is the case with Afek and Genie, the Golan Heights is dismissively referred to as “Northern Israel.”
Environmental and humanitarian groups vocally criticize Afek’s exploratory drilling, but despite growing international outcry, have not succeeded in halting ongoing tests.

Considering the notoriously powerful, monied warmongers backing Afek’s petroleum plans, outrage and violation of international law wouldn’t factor one iota in matters concerning the Golan Heights.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cheney-rothschild-fox-news-murdoch-drilling-oil-syria-violation-intl-law/#81qhscTrAY57KJAe.99

Nice pro iran propaganda. Nothing quite as reaffirming as reading what you desperately want to believe... amiright?

I have to disagree. Syria participated in a preemptive attack on Israel which almost allowed Syrian tanks to flood Israel in 1973. The Golan heights were taken in a war they did not initiate. It is their land and they will not release the same and put their nation at risk. If they decide to drill oil on their land, so be it. The United Nations sanctions are absurd on the Golan Heights.....no sovereign nation would give up their self defense to be once again attacked by a hostile neighbor. Of course we should give back Southwest territories taken from Mexico.......right? Was not oil drilled in our Southwest?

This is a complicated subject. I will only say that the 1973 war was preceded by the 1967 war and that other countries played major roles. To me, Israelis today have become the oppressors, just like the Nazis did to them in the Holocaust.

I've posted this before:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
This is a complicated subject.  I will only say that the 1973 war was preceded by the 1967 war and that other countries played major roles.  To me, Israelis today have become the oppressors, just like the Nazis did to them in the Holocaust.

I've posted this before:  

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html

Are you trying to bait PaceDog to return to the forum? If he saw this thread, he would be calling you an 'antisemite' like he (repeatedly) called me.

I am just glad I am not the only anti-Zionist who posts here. Teo was also one, and he is no longer with us.

BTW, I read Alison Weir's book in 2014--it is in my Kindle library.

I try to imagine a rabbi friend of mine being on board with Zionism. He moved to Philly, I think, but I knew his whole family, and he did preach in some of the local churches. I had a short discussion with him one day...I really didn't know about the Rev. Hagee and that group of what I consider Christian crazies...so I asked him basically where could the harm be in unifying his message with a Christian one. I see now that I was mistaken...obviously considerable harm can be done. But I can't imagine that man embracing Zionism in any way...like I can't imagine my German family as Nazis...I'm pretty sure those ancestors left Germany before WWI. I'm certainly not anti-Semetic...have had several Jewish friends through the years. There was a man here named Kaiman...I asked him to speak at our sales meeting once on the future of the port...nice man and very knowledgeable...this would have been in the early '80's.

If you're looking for a balanced viewpoint on this subject, it's hard to find in the US. I miss Teo's viewpoint...could care less about having PeeDog back here. He's, IMHO, one of the people that would have attended Rev. Hagee's church.