Trump’s Parting Move? Push Yemen Deeper Into Famine

130,000 dead children is not enough

“A final act of cruel collective punishment from an administration that has made a habit of trying to strangle countries to death through sanctions.”

The U.N. made another appeal to the Trump administration not to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization. The head of the World Food Program met with Pompeo to warn of the devastating effect that the designation would have on the population:

In recent weeks, officials from the United Nations and aid groups have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the potential designation, saying it could dramatically worsen already dire conditions in Yemen by reducing the amount of lifesaving aid and commercial imports moving into the country.

The people of Yemen are already facing famine. Some parts of Yemen are experiencing famine-like conditions right now. Tens of thousands will soon be in this condition, and that is before we take the effects of this possible designation into account:

The International Rescue Committee is extremely concerned by the findings of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) that classified parts of Yemen as experiencing ‘famine like conditions’, with over 47,000 people projected to fall into this category in the next 6 months. Food insecurity and hunger had increased by 60% since April of this year, and in October of this year, child malnutrition was recorded as the highest it has ever been in some areas.

Taking any action that would disrupt humanitarian aid or block economic activity in Houthi-controlled territory amounts to a death sentence for tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people. Designating the Houthis is exactly the wrong thing to be doing in Yemen right now, and it will cause enormous harm for no good reason. To do this now is to knowingly hasten and worsen the man-made famine that our government’s support for the war has helped to create.

Stephen Snyder also reports on the humanitarian disaster that would follow from a designation:

If the United States labels the Houthis as an FTO, many aid activities in Yemen will stop.

“Designation would make it generally illegal for anyone to transact with Ansar Allah armed group [the Houthis] or the government they control in Sana’a,” said Scott Paul, humanitarian policy lead for Oxfam America. “And depending on how it’s designated, it might also prohibit the provision of any form of support, anything as small as a slice of pizza at a training.”

As Paul has explained elsewhere, the reason why a Houthi designation would have much worse effects is that they control the parts of Yemen where the vast majority of the population lives. [70% of Yemenis are under the Houthi government including the capital.] There would be no way for relief organizations or businesses to operate in that territory if the Houthis were designated as terrorists.

A decision to designate the Houthis would be in keeping with the Trump administration’s indefensible support for the indefensible war on Yemen, and like their support for the war this would achieve nothing except to cause the deaths of thousands more innocent Yemenis.

Paul Pillar observes that the designation itself would be unwarranted because the Houthis do not meet the criteria for being added to the list:

Designating the Houthis as an FTO would be another abuse of the list. The Houthis are a Yemeni movement that has been fighting a civil war ignited by what the Houthis and their supporters consider to have been short shrift that past Yemeni governments have given to tribal and regional interests in the part of northern Yemen the Houthis call home.

The Houthis have shown no interest in doing international terrorism. Their only lethal activity across international boundaries has consisted of sending some rockets and drones into Saudi Arabia as retaliation for the far larger Saudi aerial assault that has been mostly responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

The Houthis also are not threatening U.S. security.

A designation would be a purely destructive move that would prolong the war and deepen the country’s overlapping crises of famine and disease. It would be a final act of cruel collective punishment from an administration that has made a habit of trying to strangle countries to death through sanctions.

The U.S. needs to be rushing more aid to Yemen, not creating additional obstacles to its delivery. Our government ought to be assisting in the efforts to stave off the famine that is already happening. If the administration doesn’t make these efforts, they will have made the U.S. complicit in one of the worst modern famines. If they designate the Houthis, they will be responsible for causing the deaths of countless innocent people.

Source: The American Conservative

26 Comments
  1. Keep playin' says

    Other countries are not our responsibility…We have starving and homeless here.. Screw the A hole leftist thats trying to put this on TRUMP.

    1. Andra Salzberg says

      “Other countries are not our responsibility…We have starving and homeless here…”

      Got it in 1!! Say it again!! And again!! Say it louder!! The only challenge is downgrading the importance of the MIC by closing all the military bases across the world, then reallocating their blackhole budgets to a peaceful America.

  2. Jesus says

    Sanctions are the extent of power projection US can afford at this point, we see the world getting together and dealing with these sanctions. The tougher life gets for the Houthis, the tougher they will be able to be defeated. Iran is a prime example, they can assist the Houthis with tangible advice and support.

    1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

      The 900 military bases that America has in 130 countries is a far sight more than any sanction.

  3. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

    I’m an American. I’m 63. I guess I’m partly responsible for the fact that most Americans, including Biden and Trump, are violent, selfish, paranoid, confused pigs. However, at least I’ve realized the truth and I’m now trying to spread the warning.

    1. Jesus says

      I am a little older than you, Trump is a dangerous wanna be dictator, a person the military despised, as Gen. Kelley said he was the most flawed person he ever met.
      Biden is a career politician, that will gravitated towards globalism and give Israel a more pragmatic approach.

      1. Keep playin' says

        You’re a MORON..

      2. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

        Trump is a textbook fascist, which is only a bit better than a textbook communist.

        1. Keep playin' says

          you’re a textbook Low IQ Moron..

      3. XSFRGR says

        Biden, like Trump, is just a different face on the dart board for the ignorant savages to love or hate. Biden, like Trump, will do whatever he’s told to do.

        1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

          Biden has been doing for 50 years what Trump has always refused to do.

          1. Keep playin' says

            Whats that ?? Actually get something done ??

    2. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

      How are you only partly responsible if you are responsible at all?

      1. Johann Schutte says

        Life isn’t b/w, fwit. There are gradients, degrees, gamuts, tolerances, partials, fractions, variations, smatterings, etc. in everything. In fact, science measures nothing finitely.

  4. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

    Is it better to die from Bill Gates’ vaccines than from starvation?

  5. voza0db says

    What’s “Yemen”?!

    1. XSFRGR says

      Yemen is a trigger that could easily end our planet.

      1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

        How so?

      2. voza0db says

        Then I really like Yemen.

  6. ke4ram says

    One thing I have noticed about humans over my life is how less human they have become.

    1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

      It is easy to become less humane, but impossible to become less human.

      1. kierandsouza says

        less humane, less human, and more divided

        1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

          What does a human become when s/he becomes less than human? A primate? Are you talking about devolution instead of evolution?

  7. 14th Troll says

    Every fire the US sets, Russia and China should extinguish.

  8. XSFRGR says

    Trump, The Big Orange Shabbos Goy, will do whatever Israel tells him to do.

    1. sarz says

      He’s not a shabbos goy. He’s a Jew. His elder brother, Freddy, joined a Jewish fraternity at Lehigh and told his frat brothers that his famous father, Frederick Christ Trump, despite the middle name was a German Jew. Trump is not just a crypto-Jew, he’s an ultra-Zionist pretending to be a heritage American.

      Who can say if it’s better for mankind that he’s getting the election stolen from him?

      Biden, by the way, voted in the American-sponsored Iraqi election of 2005, showing his grandfather’s Torah as proof of Iraqi descent. CNN covered it extensively, but has now scrubbed it. Biden is now of English and Irish descent.

      Two Judaic turds of different flavors, one ultra-Zionist the other globalist. Pick one.

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