Former US Diplomats Decry the US-Backed Saudi War in Yemen

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36739-former-us-diplomats-decry-the-us-backed-saudi-war-in-yemen

Despite all that, U.S. officials have done little to explain this support, have failed to explain the U.S. interests in the campaign, and have made scant mention of the humanitarian toll. In the absence of an official response, The Intercept raised those concerns with half a dozen former senior diplomatic officials, including U.S. ambassadors to Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

But rather than defend or explain the U.S. involvement, most of the former diplomats we interviewed said that the war harms U.S. interests.

“I don’t think you can restore a government, especially an unpopular one, from the air, and I don’t think the use of force in this matter does anything but create long-term enmity,” said Chas Freeman, who served as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 1989 and 1992. He noted that former President Hadi’s unpopularity was partly due to his deep ties to Saudi Arabia and the United States. Freeman is currently a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Barbara Bodine, who served as ambassador to Yemen between 1997 and 2001, directed us to recent remarks she made on the Zogby Show about the impact of the bombings on Yemen’s social fabric.

“It’s just been pushed over the edge,” she told host James Zogby. “It’s been declared a level 3 humanitarian crisis, there’s only four of those in the world. … The devastation of the physical damage, infrastructure damage, … the water system to the extent it has existed has been completely destroyed.” Bodine is currently a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University.

[bjo59]

1. Everyone should be decrying that horrific enterprise.

Hardly anyone I know cares a damn about it. I despair.