The American Bombs Falling on Yemen
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2018
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
Abdulqader Hilal Al-Dabab was the mayor of Sana’a, a politician with a long record of mediating disputes in a notoriously fractious and dangerous country. Earlier in his career, he accepted a position at which his two predecessors had been assassinated; Hilal, as he was known, served in that post for seven years. By 2015, Yemen was at war and Sana’a had become the center of a brutally destructive bombing campaign by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia—with planes, arms, and logistical support from the United States. Hilal was trying to hold the city together, keeping the ambulances running and convincing parents to send their children to school. At the same time, he was trying to broker a ceasefire, using the skills he had cultivated in local government at a broader level. When the Saudis bombed a funeral gathering that Hilal was attending, he was killed and the country lost a bright hope for peace. Nicolas Niarchos talks with Hilal’s son about his father’s fate and what it says about the country’s future.
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| 0:50.7 | On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's Nicholas Nearkos discusses the ongoing |
| 0:56.5 | war in Yemen between the Saudis and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the significant role |
| 1:02.4 | the U.S. has played in the devastating Saudi bombing campaign. |
| 1:09.0 | Last week, the Senate blocked a war powers resolution that would have checked America's support of the disastrous war in Yemen. |
| 1:16.6 | But in both parties, senators and other prominent figures are asking if the time has finally come to cut off or reduce our involvement in Saudi Arabia's campaign there. |
| 1:26.6 | It's not a war in the way we normally think of it. |
| 1:29.4 | It's a relentless bombing campaign |
| 1:31.5 | with an estimated 120 airstrikes a day, every single day. |
| 1:37.1 | And the planes and bombs and logistical support for the Saudi Air Force |
| 1:40.6 | come to a very significant degree from the United States. |
| 1:45.4 | The New Yorkers Nicholas Nyarkos has been reporting on the war in Yemen for the magazine, |
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