The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
nytimes.com
The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
1–10 of 51 posts
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#2In 30 years from now, the US, Canada and UK selling billions of dollars of military equipment, support and training to the saudi regime will be seen as morally equivalent to when the US dropped thousands of tonnes of munitions on Cambodia. Or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, My Lai massacre, etc.
Worthy of war crimes prosecution in The Hague.
How hard is it, really, to take a principled stand and say that the most technologically advanced products of the NATO military-industrial complex should only be sold to similarly democratic countries? The Netherlands or Italy wants to buy some current generation air superiority fighters, gps guided bombs or surface to air missiles, sure. Saudi Arabia? Nope. Pakistan? No way. The Erdogan government in Turkey? Negatory.
In the particular case of the saudis' war against the Houthis, the US doesn't give a fuck, because you know who supports the Houthis? Iran. Anyone who's spent time researching the history and reasons for the last 50 years for the poor relationship between the US and Iran will immediately understand why. Basically, it's "fuck Iran, they've got what was coming to them".
It's a proxy war where they're using US munitions to attack things the US can't politically stomach attacking directly. If the Saudis started open warfare against Hezbollah (again, Iranian supported), I'm sure the US and UK would be just as keen to look the other way.
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#3I always wondered why Germans in the 2nd world war didn't do anything to stop Hitler from committing genocide against the jews and others. But now I understand. Perhaps the biggest genocide of this century is happening now in Yemen. Not only we aren't trying to stop it, but we are sponsoring it and profiting from it. History will not be kind to us.
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#4In 30 years from now, the US, Canada and UK selling billions of dollars of military equipment, support and training to the saudi regime will be seen as morally equivalent to when the US dropped thousands of tonnes of munitions on Cambodia. Or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, My Lai massacre, etc. Worthy of war crimes prosecution in The Hague. How hard is it, really, to take a principled stand and say that the most…
Trouble is if we don't sell them weapons then they buy them off Russia and China and we have even less influence.
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#5In 30 years from now, the US, Canada and UK selling billions of dollars of military equipment, support and training to the saudi regime will be seen as morally equivalent to when the US dropped thousands of tonnes of munitions on Cambodia. Or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, My Lai massacre, etc. Worthy of war crimes prosecution in The Hague. How hard is it, really, to take a principled stand and say that the most…
Pakistan and Turkey are democratic countries. Just saying. But I get what you meant.
Anyway, I don't have a simple solution to this complex problem. Should US sell weapons to India? China?
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#6I'm hoping that after the bad press over killing Khashoggi, the US tells the Saudis to back off on the Yemen war. They are really the only people in a position to do much.
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#7[deleted]
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#8I always wondered why Germans in the 2nd world war didn't do anything to stop Hitler from committing genocide against the jews and others. But now I understand. Perhaps the biggest genocide of this century is happening now in Yemen. Not only we aren't trying to stop it, but we are sponsoring it and profiting from it. History will not be kind to us.
They didn't because most of them didn't know the details/the scale of what was happening and the extermination on the camps was only "discovered" after the camps were broken up by the opposing armies (depending on the camp)
"Discovered" because there were some reports of it, by one or two people, but I'm not sure how seriously they were taken.
I guess people concluded/knew some of this was happening, but the breakup of the camps was important for validation of the story.
(Edited given the responses)
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#9I always wondered why Germans in the 2nd world war didn't do anything to stop Hitler from committing genocide against the jews and others. But now I understand. Perhaps the biggest genocide of this century is happening now in Yemen. Not only we aren't trying to stop it, but we are sponsoring it and profiting from it. History will not be kind to us.
US involvement is much larger then simply selling weapons.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/us/p...
Re: The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War
#10In 30 years from now, the US, Canada and UK selling billions of dollars of military equipment, support and training to the saudi regime will be seen as morally equivalent to when the US dropped thousands of tonnes of munitions on Cambodia. Or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, My Lai massacre, etc. Worthy of war crimes prosecution in The Hague. How hard is it, really, to take a principled stand and say that the most…
I understand what you're saying, and agree to a certain extent. But given enough time, all of this will just be statistics. And given even more time, it will be history. I've been reading a lot of history recently, and so much of it is pure analysis, all the emotions and morality removed. Perhaps the concept of humanity is closely tied to chronocentrism. Now think about what we did to survive 100k years ago..
Just a thought.