US, EU Countries Are Accountable for Saudi Atrocities in Hodeida

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TEHRAN (FNA)- With $86.7 billion in approved sales to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Arab states since 2015, European countries are indeed accountable for the ongoing Saudi-led atrocities in Yemen’s besieged port city of Hodeida.

True, European governments and the European Union publicly wring their hands about the "human tragedy" and need for "life-saving assistance" in the war-torn country. But they never walk the talk. While the Saudi-led coalition aggression against the region’s poorest country has continued over the past three years and got worse in recent days in Hodeida, the EU and European countries have instead approved the sale of more arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

No doubt the provision of Western arms has extended this unnecessary conflict and led to humanitarian disasters. The value of the licences which the EU countries issued in 2015 and 2016 - the only years for which data is available - amount to more than 55 times what the EU and European countries have donated to the UN’s chronically underfunded Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan! This is while independent researchers estimate that more than 56,000 Yemenis have been killed with the UN warning “a clear and present danger” of an imminent famine engulfing 14 million Yemenis – or half of the population. Besides, no European aid is entering Hodeida.

In addition, many EU governments have promised during the course of the war to stop or restrict sales of the weapons that are being used to murder Yemenis, and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month brought a new wave of public pressure to halt deals with the Saudi regime. But only Germany and Norway have suspended their sales – until Khashoggi’s murder is explained - while the UK, France and Spain have all signaled that they will continue business as usual.

Little wonder heavy fighting between invading Saudi-backed forces and the Ansarullah continues to escalate in Hodeida, with medics saying over 150 people killed. This is an increase of weeks of deadly fighting in and around the vital port city. This is also the irrefutable result of Western complicity and arms sales to the Saudi regime and the mere extras.

Lest we forget, Hodeida is the main aid port into Yemen. This means it is effectively the source of food for millions of Yemenis in the North, and aid groups warn the war on the port could lead to famine. The death toll is rising as the stalled fighting continues, specially due to the Saudi bombing of residential areas. The fall of the city’s main hospital over the weekend led to medical staff fleeing the area, and thousands of civilians remain trapped in the neighborhoods nearby, maimed, wounded, and unaccounted for.

The Ansarullah resistance fighters have forced back the Saudi-led invaders on many fronts, but the US-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes have been renewed, all because Saudi warplanes continue to get re-armed and refueled by the US and its NATO allies.

The international civil society wants an end to this madness – for the sake of regional and global security. There is no need for further human loss of life because this unnecessary invasion will not re-establish status quo in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a failed military campaign and the best thing the West could do is to end their military and diplomatic support, which includes halting all weapons sales and refueling Saudi warplanes.

There is no need for millions of Yemeni wives, parents, siblings, and children suffer as their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers are killed - all blatant war crimes. Western participation in the war violates International Law because it is not authorized by the United Nations. Further, US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the end to refueling wouldn't stop American training and military assistance. This has to stop too, as there is no other way for Washington to prove it has desire to end the conflict.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE claim the war as a means to limit Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula, but the claim is evidently unfounded. Iran cannot arm Ansarullah because Hodeida and the rest of the country are under a very tight siege imposed by the armies of over a dozen Saudi-led coalition member states plus the US and UK navies. Not only weapons, but also a needly cannot get through.

The time to push for a cease-fire is now. Saudi and Emirati forces, as well as their allies on the ground, should be forced to stop their renewed push for the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, through which most food and aid enters Yemen. Any disruption to the port could sever that crucial lifeline, triggering an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

Who Is to Blame for Death and Destruction in Yemen?

TEHRAN (FNA)- Washington - during both the Obama and Trump administrations - has been a co-belligerent with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the failed war on Yemen.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped Washington from blaming Iran for the death and destruction there!

Discussing the US-backed Saudi invasion of Yemen, Pompeo has just declared Iran to be to blame for the death and destruction in the country!

Pompeo’s silly narrative blaming Iran is built around Saudi allegations that Iran is secretly in league with the Houthis (Ansarullah popular movement) who are resisting their criminal invasion. In practice, Ansarullah has never had more than nominal ties with Iran, and Iranian statements of public support is mostly built on criticizing the Saudis, and calling on the US to end its complicity in Saudi war crimes which has gotten well out of hand.

One of the most visible aspects of such complicity is midair refueling of Saudi warplanes bombing the country. Washington claims this has come to an end which should be good news. But that’s not enough. The US needs to do the next best thing which is ending its diplomatic and military support, including arms sales.

After all, US officials say this is part of a “limited punishment” that the Trump administration intends to impose over the grisly murder of reporter Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2!

Worse still, Defense Secretary James Mattis says the US will continue to support the Saudi war on Yemen, and “collaborate on building up legitimate Yemeni forces.”

The policy is telling. When we remember that the US has provided the Saudi coalition with arms, refueling, intelligence, and diplomatic cover so that they can wage their war on Yemen for more than three years, it is remarkable that US officials try to keep up the pretense that they are not involved and complicit in the failed invasion.

However, the US is the reason why the Saudis and their partners invaded Yemen in the first place and why the bloodshed and the humanitarian disaster continue. This kind of unconditional support and complicity in crimes is in no way “limited” and “non-combat” in nature. It is direct and in full-scale, as it is getting out of hand.

When they are adamant that their support must never be cut off, they clearly admit that they are directly involved in Saudi atrocities against the civilians of that unfortunate nation and they will stay in the game.

When it comes to answering for Saudi atrocities, the Americans have everything to do with the war and they should be held to account. By falsely blaming Iran for the death and destruction in that country they cannot shrug responsibility. They have been directly involved in killing thousands of civilians in airstrikes and torturing detainees by helping the Saudis in this war, including their military assistance to Saudi warplanes to hit residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, jails, boats and medical facilities.

At a time when the United Nations warns that “there is little evidence to minimize civilian casualties,” it is obvious that the United States is still deeply implicated in war crimes in Yemen and the Trump administration is unwilling to constrain the war.

US & Accomplices-in-Crimes Scared to Death at Iran’s Growing Influence

Kayhan Int’l 

     The picture which has emerged of the current US president after he made a laughing stock of himself during his delusional address from the podium of the World Body on Tuesday September 25 in New York, followed by his stereotyped ranting the next day (September 27) against the Islamic Republic of Iran while chairing the UN Security Council session, is that Donald Trump is not just a deranged demagogue but a cowardly one, scared of his own shadow, as is clear by the preposterous lies he unabashedly utters.

     A characterless person who accumulated wealth through the most foul means before being propelled to the White House, he has filled his cabinet with like-minded crooks (John Bolton, Mike Pompeo), while his only allies on the world scene, in addition to the illegal racist child-killing Zionist entity, are the rootless regimes ruling Bahrain and the British created spurious states called Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – all of whom have a murderous record against the people they rule and the neighbouring countries where either their armies or their terrorist mercenaries are massacring people and destabilizing the region.        

      No wonder, while the disdain of Trump for the International Criminal Court (ICC), was on full display at the UN Tuesday, Boston the bespectacled bozo chaired a meeting in New York dubbed "United Against Nuclear Iran”, attended by senior officials of the above-mentioned entities – all of whom following failures of their plots in West Asia, cried to their hearts’ content, labelling the weirdest accusations against the stabilizing policies of Islamic Iran.  

    The Jewish-looking foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Adel al-Jubeir, along with the ambassadors of Bahrain and the UAE in Washington and the director of Israel's Mossad spy agency, Yossi Cohen, collectively called Iran "existential threat” to the fake entities they belong.

     It is obvious their fears stem from their own criminal record, and they very well know that with inspiration from the Islamic Republic the people of the region will eventually drive out the Great Satan to reclaim their rights, which means the spurious entities will simply evaporate.

      That was the reason Bolton bragged about the so-called power of the US and thundered threats at Iran in order to lift the sagging spirits of his audience, while at the bottom of his heart he knows without the least doubt that one wrong move by Washington in this part of the world and the gates of hell open to engulf him, his boss and their accomplices in crimes against the people of Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen and the entire Arabian Peninsula. 

     These hoodlums as well as their rulers should be tried by the International Criminal Court and meted out deserving punishments.

      That was the reason a scared-to-death Trump blurted at the UN General Assembly: "The United States will provide no support and recognition for the International Criminal Court. As far as we are concerned the ICC has no legitimacy or authority.”

     The Trump administration’s attacks against the ICC seek to stop the court’s investigations into US war crimes in Afghanistan and Israeli crimes in Gaza in 2014. A 2016 ICC report says the US committed serious crimes in Afghanistan, including "torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape.”

      John Bolton has also been a harsh critic of the ICC. He said earlier this month: "We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own.”

     According to Juan Cole, University of Michigan history professor, Bolton himself could be tried in the ICC for duping the American public into the 2003 launch of the US war on Iraq while he was serving in the George W Bush administration.

     In 2002, while working as the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security under Bush, Bolton said, "We are confident that Saddam has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq.” 

These claims were proved wrong, but the Bush administration got its war.

     These are grounds for an ICC investigation into Bolton, according to Cole, who explains: "The UN Charter forbids the initiation of a war except where a country is attacked and responds in self-defense or where the UN Security Council designates a government as a threat to the world order.” 

 Now we know why Bolton is jittery and quakes in his shoes at the mention of the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He wrongly thinks that the over-inflated US and its accomplices-in-crimes in the region, will succeed in undermining the growing power and influence of the Islamic Iran.

      The pendulum is in full swing and soon these hardcore thugs, criminals, terrorists – whatever you call them – will meet their deserving fate.