Please stop repeating the Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Tribune News Service lie behind the phrase “Iranian-backed Houthi rebels,” which tends to diminish the main detail of the story that an Aug. 23 Saudi coalition airstrike in Yemen killed 26 civilians, including children (Dispatches, Aug. 24, Page A7).

As Thomas Juneau of the University of Ottawa has shown in a 2016 Washington Post analysis, Iranian supplies to the Houthis are minimal, and in no way turn the Houthis into proxies for Iran. The issues are local, and the U.S. should get out of this war instead of supplying the weapons that killed 40 Yemeni children Aug. 9.

Cristina Malcolmson

Portland