Saagar Enjeti of The Hill TV shares his thoughts on Joe Biden’s selection of Gen. Lloyd Austin for Secretary of Defense.
Chuck Yeager on War Crimes
Chuck Yeager, a great American hero, died this week at age 97. He resided in Grass Valley, California.
Yeager is best known for being the first person to break the sound barrier. He was a major character in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 classic, The Right Stuff. Indeed, Wolfe devoted a whole chapter to the man. If you think the 1983 movie of the same name was good but haven’t read the book, you have a treat in store for you. The first few pages of the chapter on Yeager are informative – and hilarious. I enjoyed the book so much that I’ve read it twice.
I’ve been a fan of Yeager for a long time. But what does this have to do with Antiwar.com? Here’s what. I’m even more of a fan because of what I read on Wikipedia about his clear thinking on war crimes.
Here’s the crucial segment:
In his 1986 memoirs, Yeager recalled with disgust that “atrocities were committed by both sides”, and said he went on a mission with orders from the Eighth Air Force to “strafe anything that moved.” During the mission briefing, he whispered to Major Donald H. Bochkay, “If we are going to do things like this, we sure as hell better make sure we are on the winning side.” Yeager said, “I’m certainly not proud of that particular strafing mission against civilians. But it is there, on the record and in my memory.”
House Passes NDAA: More Republicans Than Democrats Vote Against Military Budget
Jimmy Dore reports:
Congress Works To Keep Troops at War: Conflicts of Interest Podcast Features Antiwar.com’s Dave DeCamp
Dave DeCamp, the assistant news editor at Antiwar.com, returns to Conflicts of Interest to talk about several of his recent articles:
The Attack on Pearl Harbor Was No Surprise (video)
Researchers about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor know that President Franklin Roosevelt had provoked a Japanese attack to justify America’s entry into World War II. Most Americans were against joining the war, but the attack on Pearl Harbor provided the excuse needed to declare war. The best book on this topic is “Day of Deceit” by former World War II Navy officer Robert Stinnett. The topics he covers are controversial because most people refuse to accept that Roosevelt and top military leaders in Washington DC failed to inform the commanders in Hawaii that a Japanese fleet was coming to attack.
Stop Pushing Yemen Deeper Into Famine
From The American Conservative:
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.
There is an increasingly alarming tone to the emails /statements/tweets/ etc from the UN and humanitarian NGOs about crisis in Yemen.
All are warning of potential famine, the likes of which the world has not seen in decades.
— Mark Leon Goldberg (@MarkLGoldberg) December 4, 2020
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.”