RNA - Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday, a day after after a high-ranking US military commander said up to a dozen civilians lost their lives late last January when special forces carried out an attack against a purported position of al-Qaeda militants in the central Yemeni province of Bayda.
US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that "somewhere between four and 12 casualties" resulted from the raid.
“Would US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel have taken full responsibility for the Yemen raid if a US Navy SEAL was not killed? Not likely. This was an embarrassment for the US military machine because it lost one of its own as well as some heavy equipment,” Hoenig said.
“The loss of civilian life is the kind of collateral damage that is always acceptable to them in such an operation. What made this different was only the death and injury to navy personnel,” he added.
“It didn’t matter that an 8-year old US citizen was killed, or that they weren’t attacking a terrorist compound but a village that had targets inside, or that every piece of livestock was killed or that they had to bring in helicopter gunships for support that shot anything that moved,” he stated.
“The survivors of this massacre are ready for the next time the Americans come to their village and they justifiably have revenge on their mind. It wasn’t that they came and attacked identified militants, but of the number of civilian murdered. Noor Al-Awlaki, the 8-year old victim, for example, was shot in the neck and left to bleed out,” the analyst said.
“This was President Trump’s first military action. We shouldn’t blame him for how it went down but for ordering it. What they did in Yemen was just a continuation of what President Obama had been doing. But the question is why is the US militarily involved in Yemen to begin with? Why is the US supporting Saudi Arabia in its war against the Yemeni people?” he asked.
“Considering that this was an Obama war, it’s also easy to see why there has been no real coverage in the media for the genocide being committed by the US and Saudi military, with the US sending in psychopathic murderers on special missions. It’s only when it goes bad and Americans are killed or injured that the Western and US media care,” Hoenig concluded.
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