The Crisis Over The Attack On Saudi Oil Infrastructure Is Over - We Now Wait For the Next One

The crisis about the Yemeni drone and cruise missile attack on two Saudi oil installations is for now over.

The Saudis and the U.S. accuse Iran of being behind the "act of war" as Secretary of State Pompeo called it. The Saudis have bombed Yemen with U.S. made bombs since 2015. One wonders how Pompeo is calling that.

The Yemeni forces aligned with the Houthi Ansarallah do not deny that their drones and cruise missiles are copies of Iranian designs. But they insist that they are built in Yemen and fired from there.

President Trump will not launch a military attack against Iran. Neither will the Saudis or anyone else. Iran has deterred them by explaining that any attack on Iran will be responded to by waging all out war against the U.S. and its 'allies' around the Persian Gulf.

Trump sent Pompeo to Saudi Arabia to hold hands with the Saudi gangster family who call themselves royals. Pompeo of course tried to sell them more weapons. On his flight back he had an uncharacteristically dovish Q & A with reporters. Pompeo said:

I was here in an act of diplomacy. While the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war and to fight to the last American, we’re here to build out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution to this. That’s my mission set, what President Trump certainly wants me to work to achieve, and I hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees it the same way. There’s no evidence of that from his statement, but I hope that that’s the case.

The crisis is over and we are back to waiting for the next round. A few days or weeks from now we will see another round of attacks on oil assets on the western side of the Persian Gulf. Iran, with the help of its friends, can play this game again and again and it will do so until the U.S. gives up and lifts the sanctions against that country.

The Houthi will continue to attack the Saudis until they end their war on Yemen and pay reparations.

As long as no U.S. forces get killed the U.S. will not hit back because Trump wants to be reelected. An all out war around the Persian Gulf would drive energy prices into the stratosphere and slump the global economy. His voters would not like that.

In our earlier pieces on the Abqaiq attack we said that the attacked crude oil stabilization plant in Abquaq had no air defense. Some diligent researchers have since found that there was a previously unknown Patriot air-defense unit in the area which was itself protected by several short range air-defense cannons:

Michael Duitsman @DuitsyWasHere - 7:02 UTC · Sep 18, 2019
On paper, the point air defenses at the Abqaiq oil processing facility are rather formidable... by 1995 standards, at least.
A battery of Shahine SAMs (French system from the early 1980's)
3 or 4 anti-aircraft gun sections, each with 2 twin 35mm cannons and a fire control unit

But one Patriot system covers only 120° of the horizon. The attacking drones came from a western directions while Saudi Arabia's enemies are to its east and south. The older Patriot 2 version the Saudis have is also not of much use against low flying drones and cruise missiles.

There is also the oddity that the Patriot unit's radar system was shut off.

Putin is a Virus @PutinIsAVirus - 4:53 UTC · Sep 19, 2019No patriot radars have been active in recent months (at least not consistently) in the vicinity of the plant, not in the short range required to detect low flying cruise missiles or drones. Closest installation is in Barhain.
(using Sentinel 1 CSAR sat for detection)

Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar can 'see' the radar of Patriot and other air-defense system. None was detected around Abqaiq.

The explanation for that is likely rather trivial. Colonel Pat Lang was stationed in Saudi Arabia as a military liaison officer. As he recently remarked:

Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon to prove they are responsible.

Abqaiq was attacked on the night of Friday to Saturday. That is the weekend in Saudi Arabia.

What’s Next for the Persian Gulf Region?

Viktor Mikhin

According to a statement published on the U.S. Department of State website, Mike Pompeo, the United States Secretary of State, had a fairly long conversation with Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The website noted that both sides discussed ‘bilateral and regional developments, including countering the Iranian regime’s destabilizing activity and human rights’.

There are several noteworthy points in relation to this. The first is that all the high-level U.S. officials, including Donald Trump himself, have been increasingly communicating with Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, instead of his father, the King of Saudi Arabia, and resolving any current issues with his help, which clearly demonstrates who is in charge in Riyadh. And this is not surprising considering the fact that the Crown Prince has taken advantage of his father’s old age and ill health by concentrating more and more power in his hands with each passing day. The few responsibilities that the elderly Saudi King still has are purely ceremonial in nature and include making public appearances on occasion.

Secondly, the two sides intend to ‘promote freedom of navigation’ in the Persian Gulf and not in the Gulf of Mexico or the English Channel. Even now U.S.-British military vessels are already there, away from their home shores, and it is anyone’s guess who they are posing a threat to. In reality, Iran has, on numerous occasions, proposed to its neighboring Arab nations to sign a pact on freedom of navigation and on protection of tankers in the Persian Gulf, but Riyadh has categorically refused to become involved in this initiative. Other Arab nations that are under Saudi Arabia’s powerful influence also refused to back this plan to promote freedom of navigation in this region of global significance. Perhaps only Qatar, which has a good relationship with Iran, supported the conclusion of such a treaty. But other Arab countries did not heed this view, and instead chose protection from the USA and Britain just as before in the colonial era.

A fabricated reason used to justify the presence of American and U.K. military ships in this region to supposedly promote freedom of navigation was chosen to be the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (NEDAJA) happened to have intercepted tanker vessels in the Gulf on three occasions. And these vessels were then directed to Iranian ports, where they and their crew were thoroughly searched, and illegal oil cargo was subsequently found. Afterwards warrants were issued by Iranian courts to detain such tankers and to confiscate their cargo, in accordance with international law relating to contraband. Hence, it appears as if by sending their naval ships on request from Riyadh to the Persian Gulf, both Americans and the Brits will end up protecting not only and not so much lawful vessels, but instead tankers smuggling oil.

In other words, Washington will, as always, promote illegal transportation of not only oil but other goods too. And there is nothing surprising about this. We only need remember a striking example of all the drugs smuggled from Afghanistan by Americans. When almost 20 years ago, the United States began its occupation of the independent nation of Afghanistan on a trumped-up pretext, they were able to increase the number of poppies planted almost 40-fold (these plants are used to produce powerful drugs). CIA staff created a reliable route to transport cheap drugs from Afghanistan to the United States and Europe that relied on the use of military cargo aircraft, which were not subject to any customs control or other searches. It came as no surprise that serving in Afghanistan became an extremely popular option at the Pentagon, as American servicemen were able to quickly become millionaires during their tours and to then leave the army.

Thirdly, the issue of ‘increased tensions’, advocated by both participants of the telephone conversation, arose because of actions taken without any grounds by the Saudi Crown Prince, who chose to unceremoniously interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs. We would like to remind our readers that residents of Yemen rebelled in January 2015, as foreign leaders ruled this nation for dozens of years and were appointed by its neighbor Saudi Arabia. Yemenis forced Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the President at that time, to retire.

It was then that the Saudi Crown Prince decided to interfere in the affairs of a neighboring country, and to try and reinstall the puppet regime. Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi escaped to Riyadh from Yemen, and Saudi bombs began dropping on Yemeni people, killing more than 70,000 of them over the past four years.  In an attempt to re-establish its hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia has denied the existence of any legitimate claims that Yemenis might have. Instead, it wants the rest of the world to believe that these people are being mobilized and instigated by Iran, supposedly.  With tens of thousands dead, Yemeni’s infrastructure destroyed, Saudi Arabia’s financial expenditure of more than $100 billion and its rapidly faltering reputation on the global arena, this nation, under the leadership of the Crown Prince, has found itself stuck in a quagmire, which it will find very difficult to escape from. In the opinion of many professional politicians, all of this, in the end, will put into question the very existence of this kingdom.

The more intelligent rulers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already understood the futility of the war in Yemen, and are planning to withdraw their forces from this Arab nation in stages, according to available data. Incidentally, Qatari forces had long left the territory of Yemen. In addition, the Associated Press agency reported that the UAE and Iran had confirmed the completion of a successful round of bilateral negotiations. According to the statement issued by the two sides, the negotiations in Tehran between the representatives of the two nations focused on freedom of navigation. If they succeed, and their success is practically guaranteed, what will American and British naval ships defend then? It appears that they will end up protecting the increasing number of tankers transporting oil and other related products to China.

And while Riyadh is directing only its bombs and missiles towards its neighbor, Iran is preparing to send humanitarian aid to Yemen because of the current situation in this nation, as stated by Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister, during negotiations with Muhammad Abdul Salam, the official spokesman of the Houthi movement, Ansar Allah.

Hence, the telephone conversation between Mike Pompeo and Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud could not have had a positive outcome. Nevertheless, Washington and personally Donald Trump actively support the Crown Prince even after the international scandal in relation to the murder of the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. So one might ask: “What is the crux of the matter and why does the American President continue such an amicable relationship with the Saudi Prince, at the expense of his own reputation?”. The answer to this puzzle is actually fairly simple, Donald Trump has honestly admitted that ‘Saudi Arabia has been a great friend to the United States and is a great purchaser’ of U.S. military equipment and many other goods. Hence Donald Trump’s moral principles are based on whether American industries are profitable or not, despite the fact that some of them manufacture products which have led to unprecedented destruction and death.  Such a moral compass reflects a 180 degree shift in relation to the moral values espoused by the Quran, the Bible, the Torah or any other religious texts and philosophical teachings.  It is the moral foundation of capitalism, an economic system that remains a dominant force in certain parts of the world, and that is being managed by the United States in a centralized manner.

It is thus not surprising that, at present and in the future, American military ships are to be and will be sent to the Persian Gulf to protect its Saudi ‘golden chicken’; increasing quantities of weapons for killing Yemeni and other civilian populations will be delivered, and unlawful sanctions against Iran and any other countries that oppose the hegemony of the United States and other Western nations will be imposed. After all, this aim is the quintessence of the imperialism exhibited by the West, which is still firmly stuck in the depths of the 20th century.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Court declares UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia a breach of international humanitarian law

The court of appeal declared on Thursday that the UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia have contributed to more than 100,000 civilian deaths in the Saudi-led bombing and fighting in Yemen since 2016.

The ruling came from the challenge brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). Andrew Smith of CAAT expressed their collective concern over the UK’s dealings with Saudi Arabia’s regime, claiming that the humanitarian crisis that has come out of the war in Yemen is one of the worst in modern history:

The Saudi Arabian regime is one of the most brutal and repressive in the world, yet, for decades, it has been the largest buyer of UK-made arms. No matter what atrocities it has inflicted, the Saudi regime has been able to count on the unethical political and military support of the UK. The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. UK arms companies have profited every step of the way. The arms sales must stop immediately.”

Continuously supported by politicians such as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the UK has licensed the sales of least £4.7 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia since 2015. The result has been that since 2016, at least 100,000 civilians have been killed in Yemen from the conflict, with the numbers injured and internally displaced in the hundreds of thousands.

The court of appeal has therefore accused the UK government of licensing the sales of arms even though there was a clear risk of breaching international humanitarian law, and that future risks of breaching humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition must be assessed by ministers when deciding whether to allow arms sales.

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who was in court during the decision, made strong statements against the Conservative Party and their vocal support of the Saudi regime, claiming that “this goes right to the top of the Tory party”.

With the war in Yemen now reaching its fourth year, many are becoming increasingly vocal about the controversial support from the West towards Saudi Arabia and its brutal violation of human rights both domestically and abroad. The UK’s continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as with any support towards this repressive regime, should be immediately halted.

For fourth year Saudi barrages bring death and loss to Yemeni families on Eid

Ahmed AbdulKareem

The Saudi regime continues its all-out war against Yemeni people but the resolve of the people and selfless combatants will bring the criminal regime in Riyadh to its knees. Ahmed AbdulKareem, a Yemeni journalist, has just authored a piece on the issue titled, "For fourth year Saudi barrages bring death and loss to Yemeni families on Eid".

 “This is our Eid gift from Saudi Arabia,” a visitor to a private hospital in Hodeida said as he pulled back a blood-soaked blue plastic cover draping the lifeless body of his child. The girl, whose torso and arms were dotted with holes from high-caliber bullets, did not make it to her second birthday — she was killed in a barrage of gunfire let loose by Saudi Coalition gunmen as they peppered residential neighborhoods on Al-Shuhada Street in the al Hali directorate of Hodeida. An elderly woman and a man were also killed in the attack, which severely injured at least three other residents.

The attack on Al-Shuhada Street was one of many carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition in the first three days of Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday marking the end of the month of Ramadan. Dozens of civilians, including women and children, were also killed in the attacks.

On the first day of Eid al-Fitr, three people were killed and nine were wounded when Coalition warplanes swarmed villages in the Hasha district of Dhal’i province. That attack came less than two weeks after Coalition gunmen shelled a family home in the same province, killing two women and injuring a child.

In Hajjah, scores of civilians were killed when missiles launched by military vessels moored in Yemen’s territorial waters rained down upon the province’s residents. “That two massacres were committed by the U.S.-backed Saudi-led Coalition in Dhali and Hajjah on Eid al-Fitr proves the Coalition’s criminal bloody and brutal policy in Yemen,” Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesman for Ansarullah, said in the wake of the attacks.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in Yemen since January 2016 according to a new report by the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project (ACLED) issued last Thursday, including 10,000 people who were killed in the past five months alone. The ACLED report recorded 3,155 direct attacks that targeted civilians, resulting in more than 7,000 civilian deaths.

 For the fourth consecutive year, Eid al-Fitr has done little to bring quiet to Yemen’s war-weary residents. In Hodeida, airstrikes have been replaced with a new norm: snipers, artillery shells, and missiles. Despite Ansarullah's withdrawal from three key ports in the province under a U.N.-sponsored cease-fire deal, the Saudi-led criminal Coalition continues to hammer the strategic port city, leaving its residents increasingly pessimistic about internationally backed efforts to end the four-year war.

On June 4, Saudi airstrikes leveled Hodeida’s Zubariyah water and sewage station, which services 80% of the city’s residents. The attack fell on the same day that Saudi regime announced it was taking “humanitarian steps” to rescue an Iranian sailor from Yemen’s coastal waters “for medical reasons.” The accident was the talk of many of Hodeida’s residents, who questioned the Saudi claims and their reason for saving a stranded sailor while causing civilians in Hodeida to die of thirst.

Most humanitarian groups maintain that since the UN brokered a truce between Yemen’s Ansarullah combatants and the Saudi-led criminal Coalition in Stockholm, Sweden, the lives of thousands of civilians in Yemen, especially in Hodeida, have actually worsened. The number of internally displaced people has increased to 3.3 million according to the UN’s own figures, marking a sharp uptick from the 2.2 million people recorded last Eid.

For Yemen’s residents, Saudi-led Coalition attacks have affected their ability to celebrate Eid, as they have affected every aspect of their lives. Loved ones are no longer present, lost to the brutal war; the blockade, the diseases and the famine have all radically altered what has traditionally been a joyous occasion.

 For its part, Yemen’s army has vowed a strong military response to ongoing Saudi attacks. Ansarullah fighters recently seized more than 20 military positions in Arabia’s southern Najran province in a 96-hour period, killing 200 Saudi troops and their allied mercenary forces. Saudi military equipment was seized and at least 20 armored vehicles were destroyed. The media branch of Yemen’s Ansarullah released footage on Friday showing Saudi military locations in Najran being overrun by fighters. Saudi regime has yet to comment on the attacks.

Yemen’s Defense Minister, Mohammed Nasser al-Atifi, recently told reporters that Yemen has made great strides in its defense sector which will, “surprise Saudi regime and its allies. We have surprises that they can never see coming.” He added that Yemen is currently in the final stages of developing various air defenses.

Although Saudi regime is equipped with the latest U.S.-supplied weaponry — everything from M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley fighting vehicles to AH-64D Apache helicopters — as well as having an air force equipped with a high-tech arsenal, footage of the attacks shows Saudi troops fleeing their posts upon confrontation, leaving behind weapons caches including American-made armored vehicles and sniper rifles.

In the oil-rich province of Al-Jouf, which sits adjacent to the Saudi border, a convergence of fighters from the Yemeni army, the Ansarullah and local residents recaptured 26 military sites and an estimated 40 square kilometer area in Khab and Sha’f. The area had been used as a staging ground by Saudi regime. At least 10 armored vehicles were reportedly destroyed in the battle.

A source inside of Yemen’s military, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Yemeni forces plan to launch more military operations in a bid to control more Saudi military sites in the regions of Jizan, Asir, and Najran, as long as the criminal Coalition continues its attacks on Yemen.

In the Coalition-controlled port city of Aden, Yemen’s army launched a drone attack on a Saudi military parade at the Ras Abbas military camp on Monday. The attack was carried out using a domestically manufactured Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) drone and reportedly killed high-level Saudi -led Coalition officers. The Saudi-owned Al-Hadath television channel later quoted sources claiming that air defenses had shot down a drone west of Aden.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman for Yemeni armed forces, said of the Aden attack, “The enemy should have learned a lesson from the Al Anad Air Base incident, but taking the Yemeni wisdom and talent lightly will open the gates of hell to them.” Saree was referring to a drone strike in Lahij province on January 10 that killed several Saudi military commanders, including Hadi’s top intelligence official and deputy army chief of staff. “The bank of targets is widening day by day,” Saree added.

The attack was among 300 Saudi-led Coalition targets announced last month by Ansarullah. The targets are said to include military headquarters and strategic facilities inside Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Saudi-led Coalition military targets inside Yemen. Attacks on the 300 targets began with attacking a major oil pipeline in Arabia with explosive-laden drones on May 14.

In a bid to secure Yemen’s skies from the ever-present threat of Saudi-led Coalition drones, Ansarullah and their allies are investing heavily in the development of a nascent air-defense system. On June 7, a U.S.-made MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down in Hodeida. In Najran, a Saudi drone was downed on Wednesday. Last month a U.S.-made General Atomics MQ-1 Predator drone was shot down using a surface-to-air missile.

Saudi warplanes often target the wreckage of their own downed aircraft hoping to hinder the Ansarullah's ability to reverse engineer the highly-prized U.S. technology. The MQ-9 Reaper — which can travel vast distances, be piloted from thousands of miles away, hover in the sky for hours, and unleash a fury of Hellfire missiles — would be a rare prize for the Ansarulalh, who have had some success in reverse-engineering military technology for their own gain.

Yemen’s Defense Minister, Mohammed Nasser al-Atifi, said the country has already made great strides in its defense sector, which he vowed would “surprise” Saudi Arabia and its allies. Speaking at the gathering of troops on the Saudi-Yemen border on Thursday, al-Atifi said that the military had developed advanced weapons as well as technology that met the country’s need to defend its sovereignty, unity, and independence. He went to say that Yemeni armed forces are moving forward with manufacturing missiles as well as armed and offensive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), rockets, and other kinds of weapons.

Drones are an ever-present reality in Yemeni and Saudi Arabian skies, offering the Ansarulalh more opportunities to down them and thereby develop their own technical abilities — which the Ansarullah hope that, combined with some semblance of an air-defense system, will create enough of a deterrent to end the U.S.-backed war on their country.

White House Desperate to Rein in Saudi ‘Loose Cannon’: US Analyst

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American political analyst said the White House now views Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as a “loose cannon” who has turned into an “international liability”, adding that Washington is trying to keep a tight rein on him.

“Well, I think there is a number of issues going on. First of all, we have to 
understand the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States. 
Saudi Arabia is probably one of the United States' closest allies in the 
Middle East along with Israel. And Saudi Arabia is also a major export 
market for American armaments. Recently, there was a multibillion-dollar 
arms deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia and this is a major 
boom to American arms manufacturers. This is essentially a foreign export 
market for armaments that is underwritten by the American government. So, 
there are a lot of vested interest who want to preserve this relationship,” 
Keith Preston, the chief editor of AttacktheSystem, told Tasnim.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are connected at every level, he added.

Referring to the situation in Yemen, Preston described it as serious.

“That is now the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world. And 
it's become something bringing a lot of international criticism to the Saudis. 
It's gotten to the point even that the American media cannot ignore what is 
happening in Yemen. Until very recently, America's media almost never 
reported on anything to do with the war in Yemen not even the anti-Trump 
media. I mean much of the media in the United States is affiliated with the 
Democratic Party, which is the opposition party to the president’s 
administration, but even those networks did not report what was happening 
in Yemen. But that changed recently. Recently MSNBC, actually did run a 
story about what's happening in Yemen. So, the Yemen situation has gotten 
so bad that it can't be ignored by American policy makers or by the American 
media.

“As far as the Khashoggi incident (is concerned), he, Mohammad bin Salman, 
made a mistake of having someone killed who was actually a prominent 
American journalist. Even though he was in Saudi Arabia, he had been living 
in United States for years and actually written for some major newspapers. 
So, this is not someone that they can just hush up or sweep under the rug. 
Particularly, because of the role of the Turks in this, because the Turks 
actually may have recordings of this and that, and they have been, the 
Turks, the Turkish government has actually been providing this to the 
international media and the Turkish government I think by the way 
is being very shrewd. What they are trying to do is trying to work and 
drive a wedge between the Americans and the Saudis and they are 
playing this strategically very well. But this has gotten to be a situation 
that United States simply can't ignore and now a bill has been introduced
 in the American Senate, legislation has been introduced that would halt arm 
sales to Saudi Arabia. ... If it passes, the president, Donald Trump, would have
 to sign again the legislation. So, this is still something that is in the works.”

Noting that the prince has overstepped certain boundaries, Preston said, 
“I think the best probable solution that the Americans ultimately prefer and 
I suspect that behind the scenes the Americans are working with the 
Saudi Royal family to work to have this individual removed from power”.

Watch the full interview here: http://tn.ai/1886993

To Build a Fire in the Heart of Our Country

By George Capaccio

But for most of us, the movement was a life-giving force. To join a hundred thousand others in marches and rallies, to know that even if you felt helpless against the power of government you were not alone in your feelings—that people all over the country, of all ages, black and white, working people and middle-class people, were with you—was to be moved beyond words. … to see Mohammed Ali defy the authorities even at the cost of his championship title, to hear Martin Luther King speak out against the war, to see little children marching with their parents, carrying signs—“Save the children of Vietnam”—was to feel the best of human beings were fighting your cause. … millions of people protested the war not because their own lives were at stake, but because they truly cared about other people’s lives, the lives of Vietnamese, of fellow Americans.

– from You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Trainby historian and activist Howard Zinn.

November 27, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  When I was young and the war in Vietnam was raging, I rejected much of what I associated with a government and a society that could undertake the destruction of an entire people and still carry on as if there were nothing in the least bit abnormal about that state of affairs. In time, I saw that the way forward, at least for me, was to join those who understood just how evil the war was and how imperative it was for people to lift their voices, take to the streets, and risk their personal well being to protest the war.

Reading Zinn’s account of the Vietnam antiwar movement (in his book You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train) and how it grew from isolated pockets of opposition into a massive, nation-wide wave of resistance, I felt re-united with feelings that have languished inside me for the past decade and a half. In the winter of 2003, as the US prepared to invade Iraq, I was on the streets with hundreds of thousands of others who truly cared about preventing the needless deaths of both Iraqis and fellow Americans. For a time, I believed we would prevail over the Pentagon, the defense contractors, and the Department of Defense—each of which had its own reasons for wanting to prosecute yet another act of criminal aggression against a relatively defenseless country. This time around, however, it was conceivable that our passionate commitment to peace and its expression through movement building, rallies, and demonstrations might actually stay the hand of our “Commander-in-Chief” and his war-mongering, neo-conservative ideologues: Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, et al.

That winter afternoon stands out in my memory as the last time I felt the degree of exhilaration Howard Zinn so beautifully evokes in his description of the camaraderie he experienced during the high watermark of the Vietnam antiwar movement. A month later, on March 20, 2003, the war we hoped to prevent officially began with the much ballyhooed “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq. As someone with deep, personal connections to people in Iraq and a long-term involvement with the anti-sanctions movement, I felt profoundly demoralized by our failure to stop Bush II from attacking yet another Muslim nation under the pretext of “defending the world from grave danger.” But fellow activists reminded me that our surrender was not an option. However much defeated many of us felt, we had to keep up the struggle to bring some measure of sanity to a world in which the glorification of military power and the choice of violence over diplomacy nine times out of ten trumps international law and humanitarian considerations.On a frigid, fingertip-freezing day in February 2003, close to a million of us hit the streets of New York to make our voices heard. Together with comparable numbers of our brethren in other countries, we declared our united opposition to a war against Iraq—a war that many in the peace movement judged would be both illegal and immoral, and unconscionably destructive.

This year, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I turned to historian and activist Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, for a way to hold and live with the terrible knowledge that once again my country is putting the projection of power and the pursuit of hegemonic objectives (controlling global energy resources; maintaining ties with US-friendly regional allies, etc.) ahead of simple humanity. Instead of the Vietnamese, the latest target of the US government’s malevolent, calculated indifference to massive human suffering are the people of Yemen. Progressive writers and activists have spoken out forcefully against the genocidal nature of Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, and demanded a total suspension of arms sales to the Saudi regime and the cessation of all other forms of assistance, including mid-air refueling of Saudi war planes, targeting information, and diplomatic cover.

In this essay, I have no wish to repeat what has been said elsewhere about the conflict between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebels of Yemen. Informed readers are aware of the Kingdom’s bogus claim that the rebels are significantly supported by Iran, its greatest foe. Therefore, the war is, in effect, a battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran for dominance of the Middle East and the ultimate victory of extremist Sunni Islam over the Shia theocracy of Iran. By this line of specious reasoning, the US alliance with Riyadh is a necessary bulwark against Iran’s growing regional influence and its purported role in fomenting terror and further destabilizing the Middle East.

I leave the delineation of such matters in far more competent hands. What matters most to me are the humanitarian consequences of this three-year-conflict, which shows no sign of stopping any time soon despite the recent US decision to stop re-fueling Saudi war planes and the growing, world-wide alarm that the Saudis are condemning an entire people to death from famine, sickness, and unrelenting airstrikes on civilian targets, like markets, hospitals, schools, and mosques. Consider the following figures from authorNicholas Davies, citing data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nongovernmental organization (NGO):

ACLED now estimates the true number of people killed in Yemen is probably between 70,000 and 80,000.ACLED’s estimates do not include the thousands of Yemenis who have died from the war’s indirect consequences, such as starvation and preventable diseases like diphtheria and cholera. UNICEF reported in December 2016 that a child was dying every 10 minutes in Yemen, and the humanitarian crisis has only worsened since then.  At that rate the total of all deaths caused directly and indirectly by the war must by now be more than one hundred thousand.

An estimated one hundred thousand people killed directly or indirectly in a war that never should have begun in the first place. A war that has the blessings of Donald Trump in the form of billions of dollars of arms sales; a “bromance” with Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia; and a brazen refutation of the CIA’s conclusion that the Crown Prince “personally ordered” the killing of Saudi journalist and self-imposed exile Jamal Khashoggi. Quoting Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo, Trump told the world on Thanksgiving morning, “It’s a mean and nasty place out there.”

And thanks to people like Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Donald Trump, and his bosom buddy the Little Prince of the world’s leading autocracy and exporter of terrorist doctrine, it’s getting a whole lot meaner and nastier. According to a recent report issued by the charity Save the Children, about 85,000 children under the age of 5 have starved to death as a consequence of the civil war in Yemen. How can anyone possibly grasp the significance of that number and the scale of human suffering implicit in the deaths of so many little children. One only has to look at photos of severely malnourished Yemeni children to realize the inhumanity of this war and that of the people who either prosecute or condone the violence. Working in Yemen since 1963, Save the Children states unequivocally that “13 million people face starvation—many of them children.” Furthermore, “Over 22 million people—three out of every four—urgently need lifesaving assistance, including over 11 million children.” The following statistics are from the above-mentioned report:

• Only 55% of girls 15 and older are literate
• 29% of children are out of school, with up to 75% of schools destroyed
• 55 out of 1000 children die before their 5th birthday
• 23% of children are engaged in child labor
• 54% of people live in poverty
• 1,600 children have been killed since the start of the conflict

The US, first under Obama and now under Trump, does much more than condone the bombing of civilian, government, and military targets in Yemen. Not only do we provide the killers with bombs and guided missiles; we unashamedly support the economic war being conducted against the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners. Martha Mundy, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, has done extensive fieldwork in Yemen and other Arab countries. In her recent report for the World Peace Foundation, Mundy notes the responsibility of the US, the UK, and France—the three major arms dealers—in the commission of war crimes in Yemen as a result of the bombing. But their support for the economic war being waged is generally ignored, she says, and it is this form of violence that is “the major cause of starvation” in Yemen.

According to Professor Mundy, the war has evolved in stages, from attacks on mainly military and government facilities to “civilian and economic targets, including water and transport infrastructure, food production and distribution, roads and transport, schools, cultural monuments, clinics and hospitals, and houses, fields and flocks.” In August 2016, the Coalition launched a third stage: 

economic war with intermittent blockades of al-Hodeidah, Yemen’s major port on the Red Sea; the closure of the airport in Sana’a to all commercial flights; and the transfer of the central bank of Yemen to the city of Aden. (Southern Yemen, where Aden is situated, is controlled by forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is aligned with Saudi Arabia in its war on the Houthi rebels, based in San’a’ in the north.) On the basis of her research, Mundy concludes that the economic war is the leading cause of the tragedy that has befallen the people of Yemen:

Today Yemen is commonly described as the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world with 80% of the population requiring food assistance and with outbreaks of cholera that have affected more than a million people. The causes of that include not just the effects of the bombing campaign on the quality and quantity of food and water available … but above all the impact of the deepening economic war from late 2016.

The good news is that this crisis is finally getting the attention it deserves. During the week of December 1, the US Senate is expected to vote on S. J. Resolution 54, the bipartisan War Powers Resolution on ending US support for the slaughter of innocents in Yemen. Voters are encouraged to contact their senators and urge them to support the bill, sponsored by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT).

In my home state of Massachusetts, a coalition of peace groups—including Mass Peace Action, Veterans for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, and Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Quaker)—is undertaking a variety of actions to draw attention to the crisis and to get more people involved in working to end it. The centerpiece of our peace advocacy is an ongoing campaign to hold Raytheon accountable for its sale of deadly weapons to the Saudi-led coalition. To that end, we’ve held well-attended demonstrations in front of the company’s Cambridge office and encouraged attendees to play an active role in the campaign. Some of the tactics we advocate include organizing educational events, writing opinion pieces for local papers, and using social media to inform people about the crisis in Yemen.

The movement against that war is growing. My hope is that it will soon reach a critical mass, and that once again, as they did during the Vietnam War and in the build up to the Iraq war,  people from all walks of life, of every ethnicity and color under the sun will come together on the streets of their towns and cities, and with one indivisible voice, cry out in the wilderness, “Save the children of Yemen!”

Because the lives of those children matter every bit as much as the lives of our own children. Because our government, along with US-based arms manufacturers, is just as responsible for the bloodshed in Yemen as the Saudis and their allies. Because as members of a purportedly democratic society we are obliged to hold our leaders accountable and demand that they do everything in their power to protect and preserve the lives of the people of Yemen.

A CNN reporter once interviewed Denis Halliday about the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq by the UN but enforced by the US and the UK. A few years earlier, in 1998, Halliday resigned his post as the UN humanitarian coordinator of the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq to protest the sanctions and the devastation they caused. In response to the interviewer’s question about Saddam Hussein’s brutality and the need to keep the sanctions in place, Halliday said, “Nothing justifies the killing of children in Iraq. Nothing.”

What was true then is no less true today: “Nothing justifies the killing of children in Yemen. Nothing.”


George Capaccio is a writer, performer, and activist living in Arlington, MA. During the years of US- and UK-enforced sanctions against Iraq, he traveled there numerous times, bringing in banned items, befriending families in Baghdad, and deepening his understanding of how the sanctions were impacting civilians.

Why no global outcry over Saudi war in Yemen?

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN - On Sunday, the U.S. intelligence agency confirmed that the brazen killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was ordered by the Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman, which must have finally given some comfort to his restless soul. The truth was not hidden from the world, as it was already established by the Turkish authorities, but now we have the word straight from the horse’s mouth.

Khashoggi’s killing led to unprecedented global outcry against the Saudi regime because of its wanton disregard for human rights. It dominated newspaper headlines and primetime TV discussions for weeks as the mystery surrounding the dissident journalist’s killing grew.

To their credit, Turkish government authorities left no stone unturned to unravel the murder mystery and expose the masterminds of the most diabolical crime. The whole world waited with bated breath because suddenly something had stirred people’s conscience.

Today everyone knows about Khashoggi and everyone knows his murderer. Everyone is talking about it and tweeting about it. But, hold on, this is not the only crime his murderer has committed. His murderer has the blood of thousands of Yemenis on his hands and he is directly responsible for the starvation of millions of people in Yemen. Does the world know about it? Does it care?

A much-anticipated UN Security Council resolution calling for a cessation of Saudi-led war in Yemen and for the humanitarian aid to be allowed to reach millions of starving people was reportedly “stalled” this week after British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who had moved the resolution, met the Saudi crown prince in Riyadh.

The prince, reports say, ‘threw a fit’ about the resolution. He didn’t like the idea of food reaching the starving Yemenis because he wishes to see them killed either through bombardment or with starvation. Hunt surrendered tamely because U.K. happens to have arms trade with the Saudi regime.

Saudi-led war in Yemen has stretched into its third year now, killing more than 10,000 people and leaving the country completely devastated. The humanitarian situation in the war-ravaged country has been termed ‘catastrophic’ by aid groups. And the world has chosen to be a mute spectator.

The blockade of the country means around 18 million people don’t have access to food, which could eventually and inevitably lead to the worst famine in more than a century. Already 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished and fighting for their lives. The World Food Program warned this week that the country was “marching to the brink of starvation”.

Why has the world chosen to be silent even as warnings of famine have assumed alarming proportions? Akshaya Kumar, a senior Human Rights Watch official, says it’s because of the “sway” Saudi has over some members of the UN Security Council, which has prevented the UN in naming and shaming the regime in Riyadh. “At this point, vague appeals to ‘all parties’ to improve their behavior won’t work; Any resolution that doesn’t specifically mention the Saudi-led coalition by name and call it out for its role in the carnage in Yemen won’t have the required effect in Riyadh,” he said in an interview.

The patronage of world powers like the United States and United Kingdom has ensured that Saudi rulers escape culpability for their war crimes in Yemen. Their support for the Saudi-led coalition in the form of arms, training, intelligence, and refueling of bombers has compounded the misery of Yemenis. The two countries continue to sell billions of dollars in arms to the Saudi regime, thus are directly complicit in the war crimes being committed against the Yemenis.

While bombings by the Saudi-led coalition have devastated the country, U.S. drones have also been flying in the air. A new report by AP documenting civilian deaths in Yemen reveals that the U.S. drones have contributed to several civilian killings this year, while pretending to be fighting Al-Qaeda’s local franchise. What Americans did in Iraq and Afghanistan previously, they are now doing that in Yemen, directly and indirectly.  

Today millions of children in Yemen weigh less than an average American’s weekend lunch. One of them dies every ten minutes due to acute malnutrition and various diseases. United Nations has already estimated that 10 million people may starve to death, majority of them children, due to the Saudi-led war and blockade. Yet, there is no anger, no outrage, no vigils, no street demonstrations, no primetime TV debates, no editorials. It is a forgotten war.

Human rights have been reduced to a joke by the Saudi-led coalition and its international sponsors involved in Yemen war. The only way to end this war is to stop arms sale to the Saudi regime and to hold all parties – which includes Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan, Egypt, Jordon, Morocco, U.S. and U.K. – accountable for their war crimes.

A School Bus Named Yemen

TEHRAN (FNA)- In Yemen, a school bus driver’s job description doesn’t just include coping with inclement weather, road rage, teen angst, juvenile delinquency, and surprise route inspections from supervisors.

Those are the driver’s headaches, of course. Yemeni school bus drivers might even think it’s OK to tailgate, cut off a bus or take risks around a vehicle carrying as many as 50 children. After almost four years of war and occupation, however, the school bus drivers in Yemen have also added a new description – and a new lesson - to their jobs: A billion sorries are meaningless to parents who lost their precious bundles of joy and who are waiting in an emergency room with teary-eyed inquiries about their injured children after an airstrike by Saudi warplanes that hit their local school bus.

Sadly, on Thursday, August 9, that’s exactly what happened when Saudi warplanes attacked a school bus in northern Yemen, hitting the bus just as it was passing through a crowded marketplace. At least 50 civilians were killed in the attack, mostly schoolchildren, and 77 others were wounded.

Exact splits between children and people who were shopping at the market is not yet clear. The Red Cross, however, has confirmed that “scores” of children were killed, saying that most of the victims were under the age of 10. Reporters at the scene say it’s unclear why the bus was targeted, noting that there are no military installations anywhere near the market. They say this remote area of Sa’ada province has few hospitals, and the Saudi naval blockade has left them with no medicine, so the death toll is almost certain to rise.

It doesn’t take a strategic mind to realise why the Saudi warplanes targeted a busy market and a school bus. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, backed by the United States and some NATO members, are not fighting the resistance group of Ansarullah. They are in fact fighting a besieged population of the poorest country in the Arab world. And the Thursday incident was just the tip of the iceberg, because the Saudi-led alliance have committed far worse crimes than the Thursday attack during their four-year military campaign of terror and occupation.

And no, this is not just a human rights violation. It’s a human rights nightmare. Although UNICEF has issued a statement condemning the attack on the busload of children, saying there could be “no excuses anymore,” and that the world shouldn’t need yet “more innocent children’s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen,” the United Nations Security Council whose permanent member states include Saudi allies the United States, France and the United Kingdom will do nothing to end this human rights nightmare.

It gets worse when we hear how the Saudis have tried to defend the attack. Saudi Arabian spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki says the attack on the busload of children “was retaliation for a missile strike from the rebel Houthis. This made the attack a legitimate military action in accordance with international humanitarian law”!!!

Lest Col. Turki forgets, it was the Saudis and their allies who invaded Yemen and who have been bombing and violating the basic human rights of that country’s innocent civilians with Western weapons and bombs since March 2015. They are also the ones violating the International Humanitarian Law and not the defenseless people of Yemen. By being ignorant, Col. Turki cannot change this basic fact.

He also cannot change the fact that the Saudis and their allies are no strangers to killing scores of Yemeni children in airstrikes with no apparent military goal, and expressing comfort in that fact. At the same time, he cannot ignore the growing international outcry, as well as fury among Yemenis about Saudi Arabia’s criminal actions. The fact that this was a high-profile deliberate attack scattering the bodies of children across a crowded market is only going to make things worse.

At any rate, those who weaponize the Saudis and support their indiscriminate airstrikes are complicit in the current human rights nightmare in Yemen. The US, UK and France should hold their heads in shame because Saudi Arabia uses their bombs and warplanes to target civilian objects in Yemen. That the US, UK and France refuel planes like the ones that attacked the school bus on Thursday is also beyond dispute.

Tragic enough, many parents in northern Yemen will never see their kids return home from school on their bus anymore. Those wishing to protest this should condemn the Saudis and their allies for bombing Yemeni children. They should also call on the US, UK and France to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. Without the West’s much-needed military and diplomatic support at the UN, the Saudis cannot and will not be able to continue their human rights nightmare and strike any other school bus in Yemen.