In Yemen, the civil war that has continued since 2015 is a proxy war between Iran, which supports with weapons and money the Shi’a Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, which not only supports with money and weapons the Sunni Arabs who control the ever-shrinking national government, but has sent 100 planes and 150,000 soldiers to fight the Houthis directly. Saudi Arabia is eager to bring about a negotiated settlement; the Crown Prince wants to end this wasteful distraction from his plans to build a series of futuristic cities that will cost an estimated $500 billion, as part of his grandiose Vision 2030, which is intended to turn the Kingdom into a technology and tourism hub.
Among those demanding an end to the Yemeni war are such anti-American and anti-Israel figures as Ilhan Omar in the United States and the former leader of the Labour Party in the U.K., Jeremy Corbyn. They have directed most of their anger not at Iran and Saudi Arabia, that keep the conflict going, but at the United States, whose crime is allowing Saudi Arabia to buy weapons that it then uses in Yemen. And it is America, these left-wingers believe, that should be held accountable, and made to pay to help rebuild Yemen. The fact that the Saudis bought weapons from the Americans, and used them in Yemen in which they wantonly killed civilians, is not America’s fault. If the Saudis have helped to devastate Yemen, it is the Saudis, not the Americans, who should pay.
The Chinese-brokered landmark diplomatic deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran may have enhanced the prospect for an end to the war in Yemen, but there will be no peace, Omar, Corbyn, and others claim, until the US ends its support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war efforts. And once the war ends, the perpetrators should be held “accountable.” More on these would-be peacemakers demanding an end to the Yemen Civil War, and insisting that the perpetrators, including the United States, be held “accountable,” can be found here: “Jeremy Corbyn, Ilhan Omar join hundreds calling for an end of war in Yemen,” by Umar A Farooq and Azad Essa, Middle East Eye, March 25, 2023:
This was the overwhelming message of an online rally organised by activists from several countries on Saturday [March 25] that marked eight years since the beginning of the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. The rally also called for a permanent end to hostilities in a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 and left the Middle East’s poorest country in tatters.
Hundreds of people including anti-war activists and politicians, came together to build momentum after a recent bill was introduced in Congress that would require President Biden’s administration to report on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and possibly cut off all US security assistance to the kingdom.
The ultimate goal for the groups, however, is to put an end to American support for the war in Yemen altogether.
“Make no mistake: there must be consequences for any war crimes, for any atrocities and any targeting of civilians in this war.” This statement by US congresswoman Ilhan Omar is not just directed at Saudi Arabia, but even more at the US, which Congressman Omar thinks should be helping to pay for the reconstruction of Yemen.
“As the US-supported Saudi-led war on Yemen enters its ninth year today, we are demanding that our lawmakers listen to their constituents and end US support for the war. They should not be granting the wishes of brutal foreign governments and arms industry lobbyists,” Aisha Jumaan, president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, told Middle East Eye.
“Millions of Yemeni civilians have endured horrific atrocities and hardships due to the war and the imposed blockade on Yemen.”
Keynote speakers included US Representative Ilhan Omar, former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and anti-war activist Chris Nineham, a political activist and founder member of the Stop the War Coalition.
Several other US lawmakers, like Representatives Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, and Rashida Tlaib, sent in pre-recorded messages expressing their commitment to helping end the war in Yemen.
For all of these people, “ending the war in Yemen” means ending Saudi Arabia’s role in the conflict, which would ensure the victory of the Shi’a Houthis, allies of the world’s greatest terrorist state, Iran. Bad as Saudi Arabia is, Iran is far worse, and a threat – as the Saudi Kingdom is not – both to Israel and to American interests in the region.
In her remarks, Omar said the path to justice was predicated on accountability for the crimes committed and also for the United States’s own role in the conflict.
“Make no mistake: there must be consequences for any war crimes, for any atrocities and any targeting of civilians in this war,” Omar said.
“We know that without justice there can never be peace,” Omar added….
Ilhan Omar believes that the United States should be held accountable for the “war crimes” of Saudi Arabia, because the Saudis use American weapons. But the Americans had no way to dictate to the Saudis how they use the weapons they purchased, and it is unfair to hold Washington responsible for the sins of Riyadh.
“As long as Yemen is not free from occupation, and Yemenis are not free to choose their own destiny, we have the obligation to continue fighting against the injustices imposed on them,” Shireen al-Adeimi, a Yemeni American academic and assistant professor at Michigan University, said during Saturday’s rally.
What “occupation” is Al-Adeimi referring to? Not that of Iran, which has not sent its own men, but supported the Houthis as its proxy. She must have in mind Saudi Arabia, which has sent 150,000 men to fight in Yemen, on top of the weapons and money it sends to the Sunnis of Yemen.
The United States had begun [in the first years of the civil war] to offer support for the Saudi-led coalition by providing weapons, offering mid-air refuelling for Saudi planes, and offering targeting assistance for coalition air strikes.
Soon after coming into office in 2021, President Joe Biden announced the US would end support for offensive operations in the coalition’s war in Yemen, but lawmakers have since raised questions and concerns about what the term offensive means.
Meanwhile, a recent report in January by the charity Oxfam found that Saudi-led coalition air strikes using US and UK-supplied weapons were responsible for killing 87 civilians in Yemen between January 2021 and the end of February 2022.
Any killing of civilians is regrettable, but how small a number – 87 in an entire year – from Saudi airstrikes, in a country of more than 20 million, suggests that the claims of extensive “war crimes” by the Saudis have been greatly exaggerated.
Jeremy Corbyn noted that the lack of attention Yemen has received in the media demonstrated how central the arms trade played in the concerns of the western world.
“Challenging the whole narrative about Yemen we also understand we have to challenge the whole narrative about arms sales and the notions of leadership in the world,” Corbyn said.
The UK has licensed at least £7.9bn ($9.6bn) in arms to Saudi Arabia across 547 licenses since 2015, while the US currently has about $126bn in active government-to-government arms sales with Saudi Arabia.
Anti-war groups, activists, and lawmakers have been pushing legislative efforts to end support for the Saudi-led coalition for years, and multiple war powers resolutions have been introduced with varying degrees of effect.
These groups are not just anti-war, but anti-Saudi and pro-Iranian. Isn’t Iran, with its nuclear program, more of a threat to peace in the region than Saudi Arabia? It is Iran that is aggressively trying to build a “Shi’a crescent” that will extend from the Houthis in Yemen to the Katai’b Hezbollah militia in Iraq, to the Alawite Army in Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Saudis are merely trying to prevent the emergence of a Houthi-dominated Yemen, which could allow Iran to build bases on its soil, and thereby threaten the Kingdom all along its southern border. And of course, such bases in Yemen would also threaten Israel. That would not bother Jeremy Corbyn or Ilhan Omar one bit.
There is another theme in the leftist call for an end to American support for the Saudis in Yemen. That is the demand for “accountability,” which, I suggest, means that these people want neither the Iranians nor the Saudis to pay the lion’s share for the destruction they both have wrought over the past eight years in Yemen, in order to rebuild that devastated and impoverished country, but the Americans, whom they have pilloried for selling arms to Riyadh. This grotesque attempt by the enemies of the United States, including Ilhan Omar and Jeremy Corbyn, to make America pay tens or hundreds of billions for the crimes of Muslim states, has to be stopped in its tracks. It’s a preposterous idea, but nothing is too preposterous for the omars and corbyns of this world.
somehistory says
i. elmi, alias i. omar….her terrorist father changed his and her names to protect their guilt, and to enter the country illegally….should be in prison…stripped of her “rape her-not me” rag and her title of “representative” and her big paycheck.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ilhan-omar-hit-with-ethics-complaint-over-alleged-abuse-of-government-resources/ar-AA19h84U
There are a lot of reasons i.elmi should be going to prison and that article on FOX details many of them.
commonsense says
+1
Westman says
Only one point that Omar suggests is true, the supporters of proxy wars are actually at war with the other side. That they pay their proxy fighters through machines of war and money does not release them from being participants.
Otherwise, Omar is a bit short on logic. With her “reasoning”, gun dealers are responsible for bank robberies in which guns were used. It’s definitely not the same as giving someone a gun and paying for that person to rob a bank which is more analogous to the supporters of proxy war, in this case, Iran and SA.
John Smith says
Not in the least surprised that Ilhan Omar and Jeremy Corbyn are in agreement, they have a lot in common. Both are antisemitic, both are jihadi supporters, and they are both truly horrible people who are completely unaware of this fact.
somehistory says
Arrogance blinds their minds to the Truth, John
John Smith says
So true Somehistory
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Not remotely surprising. These are the same thugs who believe that gun manufacturers or gun stores should be held responsible for violent crime, rather than the actual perps
Also, I may have sympathized w/ the Houthis had they been simply fighting sunni persecution. Instead, they’re busy condemning the US and Israel – the latter whose cooperation w/ the Saudis is limited to Iran
somehistory says
“Wisconsin Republican introduces OMAR Act to prohibit campaign compensation for candidate spouses”
”
FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin Republican congressman has introduced a new bill to increase federal oversight of familial campaign contributions, including for spouses.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., introduced the Oversight for Members And Relatives (OMAR) Act Thursday, named after “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to prohibit campaign compensation from certain committees from going to candidates’ spouses.
The OMAR Act would also require the disclosure of campaign compensation to candidates’ immediate family members.
ILHAN OMAR’S CAMPAIGN CASH TO CONSULTANTS DIPPED BY MILLIONS AFTER HALTING PAYMENTS TO HUSBAND’S FIRM
“Regardless of political party, we should all be able to agree that running for political office shouldn’t be part of a family enrichment scheme,” Tiffany said in a press release shared exclusively with Fox News Digital.
Public officials should serve their constituents; they shouldn’t be serving up a plate of campaign cash to their spouse,” he continued. “The OMAR Act will help restore public confidence in Congress and prevent politicians from pocketing their campaign funds.”
Several of Tiffany’s GOP colleagues in the House joined him on the bill, including Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.
“Members of Congress should not be able to enrich themselves by paying their spouses with campaign money,” Gallagher said in the press release.
“It’s crazy this is even legal in the first place,” he continued. “This bill puts an end to this despicable practice and is a common-sense way to restore trust in government and ensure people don’t profit off running for Congress.”
Mace said in the release that the “American people want honesty and transparency in campaign finance, and a start to this is ensuring members of Congress don’t funnel campaign money to members of their family.”
“The OMAR Act is a good step in preventing any potential conflicts of interest, such as a Member paying their husband’s consulting firm $2.8 million,” Mace said. “Public officials should always act in the best interest of their constituents, and this bill will help show the American people we’re serious about enforcing this principle.”
The bill addresses a loophole in American politics where candidates can hire their spouses or other relatives and use campaign funds to pay salaries and cover other campaign-related expenses.
Lawmakers, such as Omar and House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and others, have taken advantage of this loophole to pay family members from their campaign coffers.
ILHAN OMAR HIT WITH ETHICS COMPLAINT OVER ALLEGED ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT RESOURCES
According to the release, the OMAR Act is based on a bipartisan 2007 bill led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that passed the House but did not make it through the Senate.
“There have been too many reports of corruption and abuse in Congress over the last few years, and the passage of this bill with bipartisan support marks an important step forward in restoring the public’s confidence that elected officials are working in the public’s interest and not their own,” Schiff said in 2007.
“Candidates run for federal office to serve the public, not to financially profit from the campaign,” he continued.
Omar has been scrutinized for years over her campaign’s hefty payments to the E Street Group, a consulting firm co-owned by her husband, Tim Mynett.
The Minnesota Democrat’s payments to consultants fell by millions of dollars after she removed her husband’s firm from her payroll, a Fox News Digital review of federal filings has found.
The Minnesota lawmaker dished out millions of dollars from her campaign’s coffers to the E Street Group during the 2020 election cycle. Mynett’s group had raked in half of Omar’s total expenditures, making it the committee’s largest vendor during that election.
But after facing increased scrutiny over the payments, Omar abruptly changed from her once-defiant stance and cut off the cash flow to the E Street group shortly before the 2022 cycle. Now, her campaign pays far less for the same services to various other firms, calling into question the large payments to the E Street Group.
Following her husband’s firm’s removal, Omar’s expenses towards similar services fell by around $2 million, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings.
Rick says
One learns the most amazing things when following jihadwatch. I did not know of this OMAR bill. Did this bill pass both houses in Congress and actually signed into law by President Biden? Ilhan Omar seems to be a trail blazing woman’s libber for Islam which allows 4 wives to each man as she has about that same number of husbands. It seems we can thank Ilhan Omar’s nepotism for this bill which addresses family enrichment by politicians, . Usually the issue of competence is bought up as the chief danger in practices of nepotism but the enrichment of family members is actually the real danger. The family member(s) who provide a service are paid for that service in such fantastic amounts that they can subcontract the job to an outside firm which has the competence to actually do the work and pocket the rest of the money.
Sherry C Miller says
Amazing how Omar/Elmi is concerned about Yemen, but has not mentioned the slaughter that is going on in her own country of Somalia. Also amazing is that as a Representative in the United States’ Congress she is the most concerned about issues in the Middle East, most often concerning Israel directly or indirectly instead of issues concerning the people in her State of Minnesota, who are majority Somali. An evil snake.
Rick says
For Ilhan Omar, destabilizing Israel is a far more important task than, say, creating jobs for her own constituents in Minnesota. Firing her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee was a necessary action considering her continued anti-Semitic rants or comments belittling the Holocaust. She is an Islamic “fighter” to advance the politics not of the United States but of Hamas and other terrorist organizations whose aim is to destroy Israel and who are not friends of the United States as well so her objective is to aid and abet enemies not only of Israel but of the US. Not what the credentials of a member of Congress are supposed to be.
OLD GUY says
Omar is anti-American to begin with, so no surprise. We will see more islamic anti-American politicians in Washington as the migration invasion of America continues.