Let’s be clear about where we stand as a country. We support creating famines, bombing civilians and killing children for money. Our elected leaders are OK with an autocratic despot ordering the murder of an American resident working for an American company, so long as that despot promises to buy more bombs from us to kill more children. We want the money, morals and ethics be damned. We, as a country, have weighed $14.5 billion in potential arms sales against the ongoing murder of Yemeni civilians in what is currently the world’s worst humanitarian crises and we have clearly sided with the money.
President Donald Trump argues that we need to continue the arms sales to Saudi Arabia because if we don’t sell them weapons someone else will. That is a lie. The Saudi Air Force consists of U.S. made aircraft that need U.S. maintenance supplies and weapons to operate. If we stop selling them weapons and spare parts, the Saudis can’t replace the planes and bombs in any reasonable time frame, and the bombings in Yemen would end, providing an opportunity for a peaceful end to a proxy war that has left 22.2 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian aid, including 14 million at risk of famine.
It is time to ask our leaders why they are more interested in blood money than peace dividends.
Craig Wilson,
Veterans for Peace, Chapter 100
Juneau
• My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not that of the Juneau Empire.