But stopped short of pushing hard against the Middle Eastern kingdom…
Why?
Maybe he is critically aware of the last time the US went after the leadership of a Middle Eastern country ….
Iraq….
The toppling of Saddam Hussein led the America and its Allied into a conflict/war that still is going on….
The Iraq-Iran conflict was a buffer for the region before President Bush stepped and destabilized the power relations in the region….
Mattis is NOT gonna suggest that his boss work hard to hurt Saudi Arabia….
The Saudi’s know this and will take actions to defuse the media attention it has receive due to disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,….
This whole thing will go away with time….
America needs a strong neighbor in the region….
THAT overrides everything…
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Saturday condemned the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, warning that his slaying threatened to undermine stability in the Mideast.
Mattis renewed President Trump‘s vow to uncover the full details of the events that led to Khashoggi’s killing, adding that the U.S. would take unspecified additional measures against those found to be responsible, Reuters reported.
“With our collective interests in peace and unwavering respect for human rights in mind, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in a diplomatic facility must concern us all greatly,” Mattis said during a conference in Bahrain, according to the news outlet….
…
Trump is facing pressure from lawmakers and Turkey to punish the kingdom for Khashoggi’s slaying. His administration has revoked visas for officials identified by the Saudis as connected to the journalist’s death, and has said it is weighing sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act designed to punish human-rights violators….
What about the dirty war in Yemen ?
What°s unspeakable about the Syrian Air Force’s campaign (backed by Russia & Iran) against people in Syria is just as unspeakable for the Saudi Air Force (backed by the U.S.) against people in Yemen.
Hospitals have not been legitimate targets since no later than the American Civil War (and probably the Crimean War before that), if not much longer.
Yemen is the home of renegade ISIS and Talibsn fighters….
The US IS. Supporting efforts to keep those fighters IN Africa….
Mattis simply cannot let Trump turn his back on the Saudi’s
The Yemen is suffering from a famine that affects millions of Yemenis, and now a very serious outbreak of cholera, mainly due to the Saudi blockade of both the roads and the ports. It sure looks to me that the Saudi air force (supplied and refuelled by the U.S.) is also deliberately targeting hospitals, just as Bashir al-Assad is doing in Syria.
If this has somehow escaped you, James, watch BBC News (or ITN) and PBS some time for reports from inside the Yemen. See, for example,
Yemen crisis: Half of population facing ‘pre-famine conditions’ (Weds. 24 Oct. 2018)
The Taliban in Afghanistan were (and are) a much greater threat than the Houthis’ Islamist allies, but neither the American government nor most of the American people would tolerate doing this to the Afghanis (of any tribe or creed).
I do not condone the situation there
I only explain that the US IS loolking at one part of the picture….
Yemen is hardly alone in the dark continent as poverty stricken ….
But to be frank?
America NEVER looks seriously at the dark continent and that goes for South America
And
Under Trump?
In fact the US has formed an Africa Command to coordinate increased military action in the dark continent….
Africa leaders have always seeked US military ‘assistance’ to ‘manage’ their countries….
Yemen is hardly the last place our country will be operating in….
BTW?
A country that has began to set up in Africa
Is China….
THAT means we HAVE to be there….
James, James, oh James !!!
As someone who tries to run a well-informed blog to compare with the professional and academic ones, you somehow write as if you don’t even know on what continent the Yemen sits (hint: not Africa).
Yemen (chief port: Aden) and Oman (chief port: Muscat) are on the Arabian Peninsula (S.W. Asia) on the southern border of Saudi Arabia. Both Saudi Arabia and Yemen are on the opposite (northern) shore of the Red Sea from Africa. The southern entrance of the Red Sea separates Yemen from Somalia (in Africa) and the northern end is the Suez Canal in Egypt.
[Although I sometimes have to distinguish in my mind the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and the Persian Gulf as names, I know where they are.]
The Persian or Arabian Gulf separates Iran (Persia) and Iraq (Mesopotamia) on the north from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, etc.) and Oman on the south.
Look at a map. Yemen is nowhere remotely near Boko Haram or al-Qaeda in the African Sahel, which would be the concern of the U.S. Africa Command. I’m almost certain that Yemen would fall under Central Command.
My Bad on the Taliban…That should be ISIS and Al Qaeda vestiges….
Yemen has come under pressure to act against al-Qaeda, since attacks on its two main allies, Saudi Arabia and the United States, by militants coming from Yemeni soil. Previous attacks linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen include the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, the 2008 American Embassy attack, and several attacks against foreign tourists.
Yemen had already intensified operations against al-Qaeda in late 2009, when a Yemen-based wing of the group claimed to be behind the failed December 25, 2009 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner, itself a retaliation against an attack against a training camp in Abyan on December 17, killing many civilians. News reports have indicated substantial American involvement in support of Yemeni operations against al Qaeda since late 2009, including training, intelligence sharing, “several dozen troops” from the Joint Special Operations Command, and limited direct involvement in counterterrorism operations….
Wiki…
ISIS is present in Yemen and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. It operates small attack cells and does not control territory….
More…
And yes…
You are correct of course….
Yemen IS a Middle Eastern country on the tip of Saudia Arabia….
Thanks for the Geography points…
But I’m on point with at the ISIS and Al-Qaeda point…
And with their threats in Africa and actions by the US African Command…
…
Africa Command chief Gen. Thomas Waldhauser up at night? That remains unknown, but the analysts under his command are worried about terrorist organizations like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram combining forces and destabilizing large swaths of the African continent….
More…
This stuff DOES get complicated…
Actually, after posting that, James, I remembered that there is an Islamist group in Africa that is nearer Yemen than Boko Haram and IS in the Sahel — al-Shabab (the Islamic Courts movement) in Somalia, which as I indicated earlier is right across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.
Somalia is a very tribally based country, and al-Shabab seems to be as powerful or more powerful in the southern part (bordering Kenya where it also acts) of Somalia, as are other groups (such as the very weak official government backed by the U.S. and recognized by the U.N. & African Union) based in Mogadishu, or in the northern part of Somalia (Puntland and ex-British Somaliland) facing Yemen. And there has always been a close commercial, cultural, political and even family/tribal connection between Yemen and Somalia, or more broadly between Arabia and the Horn of Africa, all the way south to Mombasa (Kenya), Zanzibar and Dar es-Salaam (Tanzania).
Not only is al-Shabab (responsible for school and shopping-centre massacres in Kenya) a serious concern for the U.S. Africa command, but that command has been very actively, although indirectly, trying to help the governments and armies of Kenya, Somalia and other northeast African countries combat al-Shabab.
So, if not a direct responsibility for the Africa command, it would still be paying serious attention to Yemen.
¶ But that still leaves the question of policy and ethics. The aims of Saudi Arabia’s present leadership, like those of Pakistan, are just not the same as those of America and the West.
That whole two regions are a mess…
African Commend has been busy since it’s formation….
The strategy is to keep the fight engaged far away from the US shores