Yemen Casualties Continue To Pile Up, America Must Cut Aid

A United Nations report highlighted the death toll in the current Yemeni Civil War will reach 233,000 if it continues until the end of 2019.

Of these deaths, 102,000 are expected to be combat-related and the remaining 131,000 will die because of malnutrition, cholera, and other diseases.

ZeroHedge reported that 140,000 children are expected to be killed since the initiation of this conflict in March 2015. Should the conflict continue into the next five years, the death toll is expected to reach half a million people by 2022.

What’s happening in Yemen is the standard operating procedure for the Middle East, a region plagued by religious violence and tribalism for the last thousand years. What makes this conflict more gut-wrenching is how the U.S. is subsidizing and providing military support to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.

Thankfully, the conversation is starting to shift towards a more non-interventionist approach towards Yemen Members of Congress such as Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Tulsi Gabbard have championed an exit strategy out of Yemen. Gabbard, who’s a 2020 presidential candidate had the most vociferous critic  of the Trump administration’s policies in Yemen:

“The Saudi-led genocide in Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world right now. Our alliance with SA must end. Passage of HJ Res 37, pulling US troops out of Yemen, is a victory for American values and national security. The Senate must pass and Trump must sign.”

Their efforts in denouncing the U.S. government’s support of the Yemeni government resulted in H.J. Res.37 passing out of both chambers of Congress, to later meet President Trump’s unfortunate veto.

So much for an America First foreign policy.

However, the fact that this bill passed both chambers is a good first step. The institutional inertia that the military-industrial complex has created is no joke, and it will take a considerable amount of pressure to reverse these kinds of foreign policy decisions. As more awareness of the shocking scenes of violence behind the Yemeni Civil War emerge, the more likely Americans will pressure their Congressmen to immediately pull out of Yemen. Let’s hope that the Trump administration comes to its senses and lives up to its America First campaign promises.