Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today: 5 million children starving, school buses and hospitals being bombed, the worst cholera outbreak in history and 130 children dying every day.
Our country has provided military support for Saudi Arabia in that war without any authorization from Congress since 2015. As the atrocities committed by Saudi Arabia on Yemeni civilians have become known, the reason why our country would continue to provide that support has been unclear.
Well, now the reason is clear. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo backed continued U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen over the objections of staff members after being warned that a cutoff could jeopardize $2 billion in weapons sales to America's Gulf allies …"
In short, our country continues to provide military support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen so that weapons dealers can continue to reap massive profits by selling more arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which will be used with our military support to kill more Yemeni civilians.
Shocked and disgusted by that? It gets worse. In another example of President Donald Trump "draining the swamp" directly into his own administration, the warning to not "jeopardize $2 billion in weapons sales" came from a State Department team led by a former Raytheon lobbyist and the $2 billion worth of weapons to be sold are air-to-ground munitions produced by Raytheon.
Alaskans can help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. They can contact Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young today and tell them to do something to end our military support for Saudi Arabia's immoral war in Yemen, and to block the sale of arms that are used to slaughter civilians in Yemen.
—Douglas Pengilly
Kodiak
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