Lives don't matter much to the foreign policy makers in Washington, at least that's the case when money is involved. Money trumps lives, as a leaked memo exposed by the WallStreet Journal shows how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo chose to continue U.S. military participation with Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen because he wanted to preserve the enormous $2 billion weapons deal.
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The U.S. government pretends to care about civilians in places like Syrian, bombing the Syrian government under the false pretense that they are attacking their civilians, when it's the U.S. backed rebels who use civilians as props to overthrow Assad. If Syria was an ally, like Saudi Arabia, they wouldn't care. But there isn't money to lose by not being allied to Syria, unlike Saudi Arabia. Instead, there is money to be made by attacking Syria and overthrowing the government to install a puppet-regime in favor of U.S. policy and big oil money.
The puppet-politicians know what moves to make to keep money flowing into certain pockets. The arms trade is coupled to big oil in the Middle East. Not only in Syria to get the U.S. controlled pipeline in, but in Saudi Arabia to keep the Saudi oil flowing. Weapons manufacturers and oil giants all profit from waging war int he Middle East.
There's often a lot of junk in the mainstream media, but this is another one of those times where they have something worth their salt with a high level official admitting to how the game is played. The WSJ summarizes part of the memo:
Mr. Pompeo overruled concerns from most of the State Department specialists involved in the debate who were worried about the rising civilian death toll in Yemen. Those who objected included specialists in the region and in military affairs. He sided with his legislative affairs team after they argued that suspending support could undercut plans to sell more than 120,000 precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to a classified State Department memo and people familiar with the debate.
Humanitarian organizations inside Yemen have estimated the civilian death-toll to be near 70,000. All those deaths made possible by the thousands of bombs the U.S. is selling to the Saudis. It pays to have the U.S. as allies when you want to bomb a neighbor out of existence. When 40 children are killed in a bus hit by a Lockhead Martin missile, well, that's just a "legitimate" military operation against the pro-Iran Houthi forces.
It's not just a one time incident, as NPR has reported that the U.S. "provided targeting information, equipment and aircraft refueling to the Saudi air campaign, which has been widely criticized for being indiscriminate and killing civilians in places like hospitals, funerals and homes."
Saudis bomb homes, school, funerals, hospitals, and the U.S. just keeps providing them with bombs. It's a con-job, and Pompeo knows it when he told Congress the coalition force were working to reduce civilian causalities. The WSJ reports about insiders in the memo trying to get Pompeo to not certify a lie:
Most of the State Department’s military and area specialists urged Mr. Pompeo in the memo to reject certification “due to a lack of progress on mitigating civilian casualties.”
That included the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Their recommendation was also backed by the legal advisers who took part in the policy review.”
Pompeo ignored their disapproval and request to stop supporting the Saudi war against Yemen, instead favoring one single group that wanted to continue Saudi support:
The only group that urged him to fully support the Saudi-led coalition was the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, which argued in the memo that “lack of certification will negatively impact pending arms transfers.”
The legislative team from the State Department agreed saying "failure to certify may also negatively impact future foreign military sales and direct commercial sales to the region." So Pompeo chose to officially endorse the war against Yemen last week before Congress, just so money can keep rolling into the billion dollar weapons manufacturers in the U.S.
It's big business. We wouldn't want innocent human lives to interfere with making money, now would we? What a silly thought. It doesn't matter that the U.N. called the war in Yemen the "worst humanitarian crisis" going on right now in the world. Lives matter less than money for many corrupted individuals, certainly for U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. What a great person to have in charge of setting policy.
References:
- To protect arms sales, Pompeo favors sole voice backing renewed support of Saudis in Yemen – report
- Here’s Mike Pompeo’s Memo Justifying U.S. Assistance to Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s War in Yemen
- Leaked Memo Shows US Overlooked Mass Civilian Deaths In Yemen To Preserve Arms Sales
- Top U.S. Diplomat Backed Continuing Support for Saudi War in Yemen Over Objections of Staff
- How Global Politics Made Yemen's Humanitarian Disaster
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