Posted March 31st, 2015 at 4:59 pm (UTC-4)
Make No Mistake – the United States is at War in Yemen
Micah Zenko – Foreign Policy
The Obama administration revealed that the United States was participating in yet another Middle East military intervention via a press release from the spokesperson of the National Security Council (NSC). This time, it’s Yemen … U.S. officials subsequently emphasized that aiding partner countries in their intervention into Yemen is simply “providing enabling support,” as Brig. Gen. Michael Fantini, Middle East principal director of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, told a House hearing last week. And the NSC made it clear that “U.S. forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen.”
Yet, make no mistake, the United States is a combatant in this intervention.
The United States is providing targeting intelligence, as the Wall Street Journal reported: “American military planners are using live intelligence feeds from surveillance flights over Yemen to help Saudi Arabia decide what and where to bomb, U.S. officials said.” These video feeds are being provided via U.S. drones, because American manned aircraft are reportedly not presently flying over Yemeni airspace … The aid is clearly above and beyond “logistics” and “intelligence:” The Saudi Defense Ministry announced a U.S. search-and-rescue mission by a HH-60 helicopter flying from Djibouti of two Saudi pilots who ejected from their F-15SA over the Gulf of Aden. Oh, and the United States is also reportedly providing aerial refueling for Saudi fighter aircraft.
This has become a routine pattern for a president who declared in his 2013 inaugural address, “a decade of war is now ending.” The Obama administration has initiated (in Libya and Syria/Iraq) and extended (in Afghanistan) military operations with virtually no public debate or formal role for Congress — a situation that the American people and their elected representatives have tacitly accepted in repeated interventions and in the war on terrorism more generally.
Micah Zenko/Foreign Policy
Make No Mistake – the United States is at War in Yemen
Micah Zenko – Foreign Policy
The Obama administration revealed that the United States was participating in yet another Middle East military intervention via a press release from the spokesperson of the National Security Council (NSC). This time, it’s Yemen … U.S. officials subsequently emphasized that aiding partner countries in their intervention into Yemen is simply “providing enabling support,” as Brig. Gen. Michael Fantini, Middle East principal director of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, told a House hearing last week. And the NSC made it clear that “U.S. forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen.”
Yet, make no mistake, the United States is a combatant in this intervention.
The United States is providing targeting intelligence, as the Wall Street Journal reported: “American military planners are using live intelligence feeds from surveillance flights over Yemen to help Saudi Arabia decide what and where to bomb, U.S. officials said.” These video feeds are being provided via U.S. drones, because American manned aircraft are reportedly not presently flying over Yemeni airspace … The aid is clearly above and beyond “logistics” and “intelligence:” The Saudi Defense Ministry announced a U.S. search-and-rescue mission by a HH-60 helicopter flying from Djibouti of two Saudi pilots who ejected from their F-15SA over the Gulf of Aden. Oh, and the United States is also reportedly providing aerial refueling for Saudi fighter aircraft.
This has become a routine pattern for a president who declared in his 2013 inaugural address, “a decade of war is now ending.” The Obama administration has initiated (in Libya and Syria/Iraq) and extended (in Afghanistan) military operations with virtually no public debate or formal role for Congress — a situation that the American people and their elected representatives have tacitly accepted in repeated interventions and in the war on terrorism more generally.