US Support for Saudi Coalition Remains Steadfast, Despite Growing OutcryBy Dierdre Fulton Following a week that saw the Saudi-led coalition killsignificant numbers of Yemeni civilians, including in an attack on a school and the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders facilitywhich led the charity to announce it was pulling its staff from the northern part of the country Reutersreported exclusively on Friday that the Pentagon in June withdrew military personnel who were involved in planning the campaign from Saudi Arabia. Fewer than five U.S. service people are now assigned full-time to the Joint Combined Planning Cell, which was established last year to coordinate U.S. support, including air-to-air refueling of coalition jets and limited intelligence-sharing, according to the news service, which citedLieutenant Ian McConnaughey, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Bahrain.Thats down from a peak of 45, he said. However,Reuterscontinued: U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reduced staffing was not due to the growing international outcry over civilian casualties in the 16-month civil war that has killed more than 6,500 people in Yemen, about half of them civilians. Anda spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asseri, said:The U.S. may move its assets, but that doesnt have any impact on the bilateral relationship between the countries. Indeed, the average of two refueling sorties every day and provision of limited intelligence support to the coalition will continue, Pentagon officials confirmed toReuters. Thats on top of more than $100 billion in arms deals with Saudi Arabia between 2010 and 2015, and recent deals madeexplicitly to replenishstockpiles spent in Yemen, Samuel Oakford wrote at theNew York Times on Friday. In a piece charging the U.S. with looking the other way as Saudi Arabia kills civilians with impunity, Oakford continued: Many in Washington see support for the Saudi-led coalition as necessary for maintaining American-Saudi relations after the nuclear deal with Iran last year. Saudi Arabia has used this leeway to carry out its Yemen campaign with abandon. Each fatal strike and subsequent implausible Saudi denial should test the limits of the Obama administrations support. Instead, a spokesman for United States Central Command, which oversees American operations in the Middle East including support for the coalition, told me last week that the United States is not conducting a single investigation into civilian casualties in Yemen. The recent uptick in airstrikes and fighting across Yemen follows the collapse of United Nations-brokered peace talks that were being held in Kuwait. The possibility of a resumption of full-scale war and all the suffering that accompanies it could have been an opportunity for the Obama administration to reflect on its axiomatic support for the Saudi coalition. But even after last weeks string of outrageous bombings, the White House has still not done that. Indeed, Trevor Timm arguedthis week in theGuardian: Put simply, the US is quite literally funding a humanitarian catastrophe that, by some measures, islarger than the crisis in Syria. As the New York Times editorial board wrote this week: Experts say the coalition would be grounded if Washington withheld its support. Yet all weve heard is crickets. Not only are Obama administration officials hardly ever asked about the crisis, Timm added, but [b]oth the Clinton and Trump presidential campaigns have been totally silent on this issue despite their constant arguing over who would be better at stopping terrorism. And he went on: The fact that the Obama administration has allowed the Saudis to continue committing war crimes should be a full-fledged scandal. Officials should be resigning over this and shouting from the rooftops. Instead, for months, weve heard almost nothing from the administration beyond a couple boilerplate, lukewarm expressions of concern as the death toll has mounted over a year and a half. Finally, after prodding from reporters last week, the US state department condemned the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders (AKA Mdecins sans Frontires) hospital thatkilled at least 15 people. But then, thestate department spokesman refusedto say whether the U.S. would stop supplying the Saudis with the weapons they are using. In fact, argues independent journalist Marcy Wheeler on Saturday, misleading stories like the Reutersexclusivewhich seems to suggest the U.S. is not as involved in this war as it really is, she sayswill make the necessary task of limiting arms transfers all the more difficult. Meanwhile, an estimated 100,000 Yemeni citizens demonstrated in the capital of Sanaa on Saturday, in support ofa new governing council announced by Houthi rebels and in opposition to the renewed Saudi airstrikes. According tonews outlets,bombs were reported to have been dropped nearby by planes of the Saudi-led coalition, though no casualties were reported. Haykal Bafana (@BaFana3) August 20, 2016 Peace group CodePink is circulating a petition calling on Secretary of State John Kerry to make clear that the U.S. will not continue to support Saudi Arabias war against Yemen and demand that the ceasefire is resumed when he meets with Saudi leaders this Thursday and Friday. Top Image Caption and Credit: Tens of thousands reportedly rallied in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Saturday, in support of Houthi rebels. (Photo: Reuters) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Dierdre Fulton writes for CommonDreams.org, where this article first appeared. The exiled Yemen president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had been a very compliant UN globalist stooge. Then he was routed out and the global elite have been hellbent on installing another puppet. Yemen is a poor fractured country and its wealthy middle east neighbors Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Omar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia (as well as Jordan, Israel, etc) are all kowtowing to the UN and implementing Agenda 2030 along with Orwellian biometric electronic tracking. What chance do the poor Yemenis have against this juggernaut? Theyre a last man standing. Hopefully a miracle will happen and they can gain their independence. As the leading terrorist country in the world for many years the US must continue to support its lesser 