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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 14:18:52 GMT
Is anyone following the situation in Yemen? The missile attack on the US ship off the coast hit my feed this morning (thankfully unsuccessful so no casualties). I haven't really been following the situation. It sounds like we're backing Saudi Arabia - particularly with selling arms $1.2 billion to date against the Houthi rebels. As the rebels are presumed to be Iran backed,I know there's a desire to sooth Saudis over the Iran nuclear deal - but I'm not at all comfortable with our involvement. There's the high number of civilian casualties - estimated at over 3,000 from Saudi air attacks. And frankly we have a pretty rotten track record in our involvement actually creating more stability as opposed to more chaos. Was curious if others had been following more closely and had insight.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2016 15:20:49 GMT
An air strike carried out on Saturday killed 140 civilians attending a funeral. Both the US and UK have requested an urgent investigation of the Saudi's who is leading the coalition of quite a few Arab states against Yemen. There's some info in this report to some of what's going on there. |
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 15:53:44 GMT
Thanks @dottyscrapper Reuters is actually where I read about it. The situation is getting little to no airtime anywhere else in the US from what I can tell. I'm kind of embarrassed that the conflict has been going on for a year and we're supplying over a billion dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia and I pretty much knew nothing about it. I'm also a bit surprised that a foreign entity launched two missiles at one of our naval ships and no one seems to think it's news worthy.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2016 16:34:53 GMT
There's a short report in the New York Times but I haven't been able to read it as I've reached my free quota for this month. There's some more info on this LINK |
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Post by annabella on Oct 10, 2016 16:47:06 GMT
Thanks for the links, I haven't heard anything about this.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 16:52:33 GMT
There's a short report in the New York Times but I haven't been able to read it as I've reached my free quota for this month. There's some more info on this LINKSounds like some dire situations are developing. I imagine we'll now start shipping food to counteract the naval blockade that we're supporting. |
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Post by peasapie on Oct 10, 2016 17:10:04 GMT
Things come in occasionally on my AP World feed. I haven't been following it, either.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 17:13:34 GMT
I've always read a variety of things to get a more in depth view of a certain subject - but relied on CNN as the quick headline read of what's going on. I recently switched to Reuters as CNN's autoplay of videos that you can't turnoff was driving me crazy. I'm finding the news reporting, much, much better. More of a world view and less sensationalism.
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Post by snowsilver on Oct 10, 2016 17:31:16 GMT
Darcy, I've been following it to some degree. You will have to take my view with a great grain of salt as I am a little bit pro-Saudi. My son and DIL spent years in Saudi (mostly my son who headed up the English Dept. of a Saudi college--my DIL went there after she married him). Although there is plenty to complain about with Saudi Arabia, there is much to consider in this. Yemen funnels in the worst kinds of terrorists to Saudi and there is a constant effort on the part of these terrorists to overthrow the Saudi government. Again, there is much to complain about with the Saudi government, but at least there is stability in the country and although it might seem slow to Western eyes, there actually is a movement to modernity (don't get me wrong, much of Saudi is VERY modern--just go shopping in one of their malls!). I abhor the death of civilians and understand the condemnation, but the situation is very complicated. If Saudi falls, we've basically lost the ME and believe me, the threat is real. Iran targets Saudi constantly. We have backed Saudi with good reason although we've held our noses sometimes as we have done it. But there is nothing Iran and her allies would love more (other than destroying the U.S.) than to overtake Saudi and put it under the same kind of rule we see in Iran, etc. It's a many layered situation and I'm very interested in just what the story is here.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 17:55:45 GMT
Thanks for your thoughts snowsilver I understand the desire to support stability, although I am more than a little skeptical of Saudi's continued claims of being our friend when the worst extremists to hit us were funded by them. More than anything though, I often worry that we involve ourselves in an attempt to help a situation and the reality is it ends up exacerbating the issues. Yemen has been a hot mess for a while, and I can certainly understand Saudi's desire to stabilize THEIR neighbor. But with US involvement it seems to create a rallying cry for every wackadoodle to join in the fight. I have admittedly spent very little time on the current issue - which is why I'm trying to learn more. But I do wonder if Saudi wouldn't have been better off without the high powered weapony from the US that also comes with some serious drawbacks. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2016 17:59:06 GMT
There's a short report in the New York Times but I haven't been able to read it as I've reached my free quota for this month. There's some more info on this LINKSounds like some dire situations are developing. I imagine we'll now start shipping food to counteract the naval blockade that we're supporting. I'm not so sure that food or anything else will get through either as they bombed a humanitarian plane a while ago  |
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 10, 2016 18:16:43 GMT
Sounds like some dire situations are developing. I imagine we'll now start shipping food to counteract the naval blockade that we're supporting. I'm not so sure that food or anything else will get through either as they bombed a humanitarian plane a while ago |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2016 18:39:35 GMT
I'm not so sure that food or anything else will get through either as they bombed a humanitarian plane a while ago Actually I'll correct myself ..... they bombed the airport to avoid a Red Crescent humanitarian plane from landing. There are different sources of the report but they all confirm that it was a humanitarian plane that wanted to land. link |
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Post by anxiousmom on Oct 10, 2016 18:44:18 GMT
I've always read a variety of things to get a more in depth view of a certain subject - but relied on CNN as the quick headline read of what's going on. I recently switched to Reuters as CNN's autoplay of videos that you can't turnoff was driving me crazy. I'm finding the news reporting, much, much better. More of a world view and less sensationalism. Oh I am SO glad to hear that I am not the only one who is going crazy with the autoplay videos. I have all but stopped going there. I do, however, follow Reuters on twitter and click on their stories all the time. This has popped up a few times and I have been trying to follow the story, but not nearly as closely as I should. Middle Eastern politics is a convoluted circle of intertwined groups who alternately hate and support each other (sometimes at the same time with official and unofficial support) and it almost takes a flow chart to keep up.  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2016 18:47:34 GMT
Middle Eastern politics is a convoluted circle of intertwined groups who alternately hate and support each other (sometimes at the same time with official and unofficial support) and it almost takes a flow chart to keep up. So very true and the innocent get caught in the cross fire |
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Post by anxiousmom on Oct 10, 2016 19:02:48 GMT
Middle Eastern politics is a convoluted circle of intertwined groups who alternately hate and support each other (sometimes at the same time with official and unofficial support) and it almost takes a flow chart to keep up. So very true and the innocent get caught in the cross fire Oh my gosh yes. And, I have to say (as pollyannish as this going to sound) I think people forget sometimes that there is a whole world out there that has the exact same love and desire to raise their families safely as we 'first world' people do. They love their children, they worry about putting food on the table, want to provide as many opportunities as we do...and our 'separateness' kind of isolates us in a way that we (the global we) often dehumanize them to the point that we forget to see them as real people. It is only when we see a man pull an infant from a crumbled, bombed out building sobbing over the fact that she was alive that we see their humanity. We need to see it all the time (not the babies, but the humanness.) Not everyone wants to bomb the shit out of the west. Not everyone hates the west. Not everyone even cares about the west. They just want to get on with their lives without worrying that some one going to drop a bomb on their heads. |
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 13, 2016 14:55:41 GMT
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scorpeao
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by scorpeao on Oct 13, 2016 18:15:23 GMT
I heard about this this morning. NPR said we are basically now at war with Yemen. It scares the shit out of me as my dd is assigned to a fighter squadron that is likely to be deployed should this war last... |
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naby64
Drama Llama
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Post by naby64 on Oct 13, 2016 18:55:15 GMT
I saw this the other morning and it immediately caught my attention and I will selfishly say it only caught my attn due to my youngest DS just being sworn in to the Navy Monday a week ago. I catch the news in the morning on that channel that most of you hate but my DH lives and breathes it. I am and will be watching this more closely as it all unfolds. Sadly, what I typed is most of what I know or have thoughts on. I am anxious to read and watch more on this.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Oct 13, 2016 20:19:42 GMT
I heard about this this morning. NPR said we are basically now at war with Yemen. It scares the shit out of me as my dd is assigned to a fighter squadron that is likely to be deployed should this war last... I hope that the article is right and it's a limited response to the shooting of a missile at our ship on Monday. |
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