Trump’s illegal war in Yemen continues:
US strikes on a Yemeni fuel port killed at least 74 people, Huthi rebels said Friday, in the deadliest attack of Washington’s 15-month campaign against the Iran-backed group.
The latest U.S. attack killed dozens of people and injured at least another 171. Many of those killed were reportedly port workers and paramedics who came to assist the wounded. Our government is conducting a very destructive and unnecessary air war, and it is killing a lot of Yemeni civilians. The bombing must stop.
This is an attack on civilian infrastructure. Centcom can rationalize it however they like, but bombing a civilian port is excessive and wrong. Attacking a country’s fuel supplies will have serious consequences for the civilian population. Fuel shortages inevitably worsen the country’s humanitarian crisis, as a lack of fuel makes it more difficult and expensive to transport food and medicine to people in need. There is also a good chance that attacking oil facilities at the port will have caused oil spills resulting in significant environmental damage.
Like earlier Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure in Yemen, the port attack is likely unlawful. The targeted port itself is extremely important to the civilian population, as Human Rights Watch noted in its report on the Israeli attacks in January:
The Hodeidah and Ras Issa ports, however, are critical for delivering food and other necessities to the Yemeni population, who depend on imports.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
