Yemen – ThisIsCommonSense.org

A dark cloud hangs over tonight’s debate.

Not the sex assault scandals. Not the WikiLeaks email apocalypse. Not even the banning of Gov. Gary Johnson from the debate stage. I refer, instead, to the obvious failure of American foreign policy.

Last week, U.S. warships in the Red Sea received missile fire. Not from a “policy disaster” country, mind you, but flowing from the fruits of our flagship foreign policy success!

In September of 2014, President Barack Obama spoke directly to the nation about how he would fight ISIS, pointing to the “strategy . . . we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

Roughly four months later, Yemen’s U.S.-supported government fell to Houthi rebels allegedly backed by Iran. Still, the Orwellian oasis that is the state department continued to “stand by” the president’s declaration of success there.

Then, Saudi Arabia and a number of other Sunni-run states began bombing and blockading (and then invading) Yemen. With U.S. military support. Amnesty International, aid groups and Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) allege war crimes, as the bombing campaign targets civilians and medical facilities. Barely a week ago, an errant strike killed 140 members of a funeral party.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. shoots Tomahawk missiles at Yemeni radar installations, our war department spokesman refers to the return fire as “not connected to the broader conflict in Yemen.”

Sure.

And what of Somalia, Obama’s other success? In recent weeks, al-Shabab fighters have twice attacked U.S. soldiers, and a U.S. air strike mistakenly killed 22 Somali soldiers in the country’s north.

Blindly pursuing a failed strategy, Obama’s undeclared wars go on and on. So where does the likely next president stand?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Getting kids to go to bed at night, and to stay there till morning, and not get up, again and again, is possibly life’s greatest challenge. When I had young children, I was willing to do whatever it took.

Drink of water? Sure. Okay. No more.

Drone strike? Well, as tempting as that sounds . . . no.

But according to The Washington Post, Farea al-Muslimi, a young Yemeni man, testified before the United States Senate that some parents in his country have taken to threatening their children at bedtime, “Go to sleep or I will call the planes.”

Pretty funny. Until it dawned on me that our USA is now scarier than the monster hiding underneath the bed.

“What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village,” Muslimi warned, “one drone strike accomplished in an instant: There is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America.”

Georgetown University Law Professor Rosa Brooks, a former Pentagon advisor, testified: “Every individual detained, targeted, and killed by the U.S. government may well deserve his fate. But when a government claims for itself the unreviewable power to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, based on secret criteria and secret information discussed in a secret process by largely unnamed individuals, it undermines the rule of law.”

Anything that undermines the rule of law, undermines the United States of America.

It’s long past time we put the lawlessness of the killer drone program to bed . . . and not just till morning.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.