Failure in Yemen to be ‘death sentence’ of Saudi monarchy: Prof. Cavell

TEHRAN, Aug. 03 (MNA) – Professor of political science Colin S. Cavell believes that failure of Saudi Arabia “to reassert its hegemonic control over Yemen will be a death sentence on the continuation of the Saudi monarchy.”

In an interview with Mehr News Agency, Colin S. Cavell, full professor of political science at Bluefield State College in Bluefield, West Virginia, pointed to different aspects of Saudi-waged war against the Yemeni people and Western’s countries’ continued support for the aggression despite human rights concerns.

He noted that “Saudi Arabia is bogged down in a quagmire which it will be difficult to extricate itself from but instead will eventually call into question the continued existence of the Kingdom itself.”

“Failure on the part of Saudi Arabia to reassert its hegemonic control over Yemen will be a death sentence on the continuation of the Saudi monarchy.  A Yemeni victory in their war of independence from Saudi Arabia will provide hope and inspiration for the captive population of Saudi Arabia to rise up an install a legitimate peoples’ government.”

He also noted that “disparate economic interests” of various countries, including US, UK and France, are why the UN Security Council “cannot agree to stop this devastating war on the people of Yemen.” He added that “morality for Trump consists in whether US industries are profitable despite resulting in unparalleled death and destruction.”

Here is the full text of the interview:

UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a report on Friday, July 26, 2019 noting that the Saudi-led coalition has killed 729 children in 2018 in the Yemen war, deciding to blacklist the coalition for the third year for child-killing crimes. Despite all these human rights reports, we see that western countries are still providing the coalition with weaponry. Why all these reports have failed to stop arms sales of the western countries, especially the Trump administration, to the Saudi-led coalition?

Currently, there are 193-member states of the United Nations, an International Governmental Organization (IGO) set up in 1945 to prevent another world war from killing millions of people as WWII did.  While these 193 members are technically sovereign states, in truth, save for a handful of nations, most members are subservient to other, larger, more powerful states.  The UN is a three-tiered organization with the 15-member Security Council able to set policy for the entire organization with the five permanent members of this Council—the United States, China, Russian Federation, France, and the United Kingdom—having a veto on all procedural issues, with ten non-permanent members who serve on the Council for two-year terms (five elected each year), with these ten non-permanent members elected by the third-tiered General Assembly of nations that comprise the majority of the UN.  Given this organizational structure, and given the current differences between the five permanent members and their veto power, it has been near impossible for this international body to agree on stopping the reckless and deadly Saudi-UAE war on the people of Yemen.

The truth-seeking citizen will thus inquire why these five permanent members cannot agree to stop this devastating war on the people of Yemen, and the answer lies in the disparate economic interests of the various states.  Specifically, the western states, led by the United States, perceive that their national security interests, require that they have secure and reliable access to energy resources to fuel their industries, and they believe that by politically controlling the energy resources of Iraq and Iran (the two nations of the Middle East with the largest stores of such reserves) will satisfy their national security objectives.  Lacking such political control, then the US and its allies wish to deny the viability of these and other large-energy reserve countries—like Venezuela—from being able to function properly.

Given this perspective, it matters not to current US President Donald J. Trump, a quintessential representative of the capitalist economic system and default leader of the western coalition of states, whether the countries leading this assault on the Yemeni people, namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are engaged in a systematic genocide against the Yemeni people, whether their attacks exhibit any sort of proportionality or strategic logic, whether supporting such odious unelected and undemocratic regimes serves long-term US interests, or even whether US aiding and abetting this calamitous war is in violation of international law, given that the US, the UK, and France—all US allies on the UN Security Council--can prevent the UN from stopping this war.  However, what does matter to the US president is whether and how this conflict being waged by its two close allies in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and which is urged on and assisted by Israel,  the US’s closest ally in the Middle East, can benefit the United States economy.  President Trump has concluded that the US will benefit if it is able to sell as many weapons and military equipment as possible to these warring parties and thus profit US military industries, which, in turn, will fatten the campaign coffers of President Trump and his Republican Party members of Congress.

In March of 2018, Trump effusively welcomed the heir-apparent to the Saudi throne and the architect of the Saudi-UAE-led war on Yemen, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), on his first visit to the White House and promised to push through Congress arms deals worth billions of dollars in investment and additional jobs to the United States.  As Trump said at the time, “Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of equipment and lots of other things.”

Thus, morality for Trump consists in whether US industries are profitable despite resulting in unparalleled death and destruction.  Such a moral compass reflects a pole shift in direct contradiction to the morality espoused by either the Koran, the Bible, the Torah, or any other religious text or philosophical code.  It is the morality of capitalism, an economic system which currently dominates much of the world and is centrally directed from the United States.

On July 28, 2019, a gunman killed three non-white people attending an annual festival in Gilroy, California.  Earlier in the day, he posted on his Instagram account references to a fascist white supremacist manifesto from the nineteenth century which challenges the basis of all Abrahamic religions that call on us all to serve each other, to lift up the weak, the impoverished, the neglected and instead argues for the rights of the strong, the mighty, the wealthy, the powerful.  Spurred on by the cultural degeneration of President Trump, what now reigns as morality for US leaders is bullying, arrogance, bragging, excessive pride, and denigration of all those who are not white, wealthy, male, and powerful.

Given this diametrically opposed system of values, it is impossible to for the interested states to mutually recognize what the problem is, much less how to resolve the problem.

What were the main aims of Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war? And are these aims achieved up to now?

The Yemeni people rose up in January of 2015 after decades of existing under foreign rulers installed by their neighbor Saudi Arabia and forced then-President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi to resign.  When Saudi Crown Prince MbS decided to intervene into Yemen in March of 2015 in an attempt to restore their puppet, Hadi fled the country to the Saudi city of Riyadh, as the Saudi bombs rained down upon the Yemeni revolutionaries forcing them to organize against the imperial intervention that has killed over 70,000 people in the last four years.  Seeking to reassert their hegemony over the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia denies the Yemeni people have any legitimate grievances and instead wants the outside world to believe that the Yemeni people are activated and instigated by the country of Iran from across the Persian Gulf.  The United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and other western powers have traditionally relied upon Saudi Arabia as a guarantor of reliable oil and natural gas for western industries and have utilized the Saudi monarchy as a cash machine to bail out their economies from time to time, to launder their ill-gotten gains, and to police the Middle East to serve western hegemonic interests.  With thousands dead, Yemen’s infrastructure destroyed, financial costs to the Saudis now well over $100 billion, with its international reputation in tatters even amongst its allies, with MbS’s leadership credibility a running joke, with the Yemeni people stronger and more united than ever, Saudi Arabia is bogged down in a quagmire which it will be difficult to extricate itself from but instead will eventually call into question the continued existence of the Kingdom itself.

Reports indicate that the UAE is planning to withdraw forces from Yemen in several stages. Do you think this withdrawal is a real one or just a tactical strategy? Why has the UAE made this decision, and what are the consequences of such a move on the future of Yemen?

The United Arab Emirates is very worried that its participation in the Saudi invasion of Yemen will open itself up as a target of Yemeni attacks, just as Saudi Arabia is now being regularly attacked by Yemeni fighters, Yemeni missiles, and Yemeni drones.  But, as a junior partner in the Saudi-led axis war against the Yemeni people, it is, in reducing its direct troop involvement in the war, following orders from the imperial directors of this organized carnage situated in Washington and London who are orchestrating the unfolding of this imperial drama.  Thus, it appears, at present, to be solely a tactical disengagement from direct fighting in Yemen.

There are also other reports outlining that Saudi Arabia may have plans to wrap up the Yemen war by the end of 2019. Since Mohammad bin Salman strongly supported aggressive policies of Saudi Arabia, such as in Yemen, do you think that a Saudi defeat in Yemen will change the political fate of bin Salman and Saudi Arabia?

Failure on the part of Saudi Arabia to reassert its hegemonic control over Yemen will be a death sentence on the continuation of the Saudi monarchy.  A Yemeni victory in their war of independence from Saudi Arabia will provide hope and inspiration for the captive population of Saudi Arabia to rise up an install a legitimate peoples’ government.  Losing its reliable source of energy and financial launderer in the Middle East is why the western hegemons are so intent on excusing the Kingdom of its crimes from the death and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the financing of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Colin S. Cavell earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Louisiana State University in 1982, his Masters of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of New Orleans in 1987, and his Doctorate of Philosophy degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Massachusetts in February 2001. Dr. Cavell is a tenured Full Professor of Political Science at Bluefield State College in Bluefield, West Virginia, having previously served as Chair of the Department of Social Sciences.  Dr. Cavell is also an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts and has taught at the University of Bahrain in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Junior Statesman Foundation Summer Program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts, as well as at the University of New Orleans in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Interview by Mohammad Ali Haqshenas

Saudi-led coalition escalates attacks on Yemen, repeatedly violates al-Hudaydah truce

By Ramin Hossein Abadian

TEHRAN - White over a month has passed since the cease-fire agreement in Stockholm over Yemen, the aggressive Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia against the Yemeni continues to violate the cease-fire, especially in al-Hudaydah. This is despite the fact that the Yemeni resistance groups have not violated the ceasefire.

Yemeni army spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has published numerous reports on the Al-Hudaydah truce violation by the Saudi regime and allies. The latest reports suggest that the Saudi-led coalition, supported by the U.S. and the UK, has over a thousand violations of the ceasefire during this period. The Yemenis, of course, responded to the violations.

Ever since the truce, the Saudis have mostly targeted Yemenis’ residential areas as well as schools, universities and hospitals deliberately and in a well-laid plan to provide grounds for the failure of Stockholm's agreement.

The latest example of which is the artillery strikes on the al-Hudaydah University of Science and Technology. The obvious invasion took the lives of some civilians and left others severely injured. 

This crime against humanity, which is clearly in conflict with the terms of the Stockholm agreement, shows that the scope of Saudi attacks on al-Hudaydah is not limited to only air operations.

Until now, the United Nations has not provided the means, capabilities and authority to force Saudi-led coalition to keep the terms and conditions of the cease-fire agreement.

The United Nations passive reaction, has made the regime and its allies bolder in committing numerous crimes against Yemeni civilians. 

Despite all these obstacles, the Yemeni forces have adhered to the deal inked in Sweden and explicitly stated that they will remain fully committed to Stockholm's agreement in the future.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the Houthi' Supreme Revolutionary Committee has announced that his forces had committed to a cease-fire in al-Hudaydah, while the Saudi-led coalition has violated it. He also criticized the null function of the UN in regard to condemning the Saudis’ violation of ceasefire in Yemen. 

In any case, the Saudi-led coalition repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement in Yemen's al-Hudaydah is Saudi’s way of covering their defeat in Yemen. However, the Riyadh authorities are playing innocent and blame the Houthi Yemenis for the defeat in political solution in Yemen. What they seek is distract the public from their major defeats in Yemen after four years. 

War on Yemen: It’s Now About Snatching Food Aid from the Starving

TEHRAN (FNA)- The outrageous Saudi-led war on Yemen is all about starving a nation and stealing its riches, where Western aid is eclipsed by the billions brought in through the bungling, deceitful sale of weapons to Saudis and their allies.

While the world celebrates the New Year, report after report reveal that amid famine and rampant disease, food aid pouring in from across the globe, meant to curb the world's worst humanitarian crisis, is in fact "being snatched from the starving" by armed forces allied with the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition.

The warmongers block food aid from going to the besieged areas, divert it to front-line combat units, or sell it for profit on the black market. The United Nations and observers on the ground attribute the near-famine conditions in much of the country to the Saudi blockade of ports.

The UN World Food Program says it has already documented food aid diversion "at a time when children are dying in Yemen because they haven't enough food to eat; that is an outrage." Save the Children also says some 85,000 children under age five have starved to death since the brutal war began.

This shouldn’t happen at a time when peace talks and a ceasefire agreement are still in place. The talks in Sweden have led to a reduction in fighting and this should ease the challenges of getting food aid into and out of Hodeida, the port city that is a gateway to the north. Donors should be able to get more food in. But here is the smell of blood still:

- The futile bombing campaign continues apace. The Saudis and their allied forces have been killing around a hundred civilians a week for more than three years now. The harshest criticism of the Saudi-led war has focused on the airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians at weddings, funerals and on school buses, aided by American-supplied bombs and intelligence. The war in Yemen has killed upwards of 57,000 people since March 2015, left 8.4 million people surviving on food aid and created a cholera epidemic.

- International aid experts and United Nations officials say a more insidious form of warfare is also being waged in Yemen, an economic war that is exacting a far greater toll on civilians and now risks tipping the country into a famine of catastrophic proportions.

- The punitive economic measures are allegedly aimed at undercutting the Ansarullah fighters who control vast parts of Yemen. Tight blockades, stringent import restrictions and withholding the salaries of about a million civil servants have landed on the backs of civilians, laying the economy to waste and driving millions deeper into poverty.

- Infrastructure destroyed, jobs lost, a weakening currency and soaring prices are the clear results. But in recent weeks the economic collapse has gathered pace at alarming speed, causing top United Nations officials to revise their predictions of famine.

- The US government has been the key supporter of the Saudi-led coalition, providing arms, intelligence, logistics, military training and diplomatic cover. This has made the Trump administration complicit in Saudi war crimes. More recently, an attempt to push through a UN resolution calling for an end to the war was stalled by the US, reportedly after a lobbying campaign by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

- The US government claims to have one of the most rigorous arms control regimes in the world, yet evidence of attacks on medical facilities and schoolchildren in Yemen is clear. War is the primary cause of death, injury, famine and disease in Yemen; and American arms are causing twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces fighting.

Sadly, the UN is yet to hold the Saudis and their American partners to account. They bear primary responsibility for Yemen’s humanitarian disaster. They are attacking civilians, aid and humanitarian actors, and attempts to disavow their responsibility for war crimes simply don’t stand up. The time has come for the UN and the international civil society to call for an embargo on Saudi Arabia and an end to Washington’s complicity and deceit.

With Truce Already Violated by Saudis, Yemenis Ask What Peace Talks Actually Achieved

“Although [the talks in Sweden were] the first successful negotiation, an agreement without the reopening of the Sana’a International Airport, the paying of government staff salaries, and the neutralization of the Central Bank is meaningless.” — Yemeni journalist Mohammed al-Asadi

by Ahmed Abdulkareem

SANA’A, YEMEN — (Report) Last week’s peace talks in Sweden between the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s Houthis was cause for celebration for many the world-over who hoped to finally see an end to Yemen’s bloody war. But many of Yemen’s people hedging their bets and have expressed frustration over the results of the week-long talks in Rimbo, talks that leaders on both sides of the conflict viewed as a victory.

Mohammed Fayed — a 45-year-old displaced father originally from the Saada province, who now resides in Sana’a — told MintPress that the agreement reached in Sweden could not end three years of war on Yemen, especially in Hodeida.

Mohammed al-Asadi, a Yemeni journalist, said:

Although it was the first successful negotiation, an agreement without the reopening of the Sana’a International Airport, the paying of government staff salaries, and the neutralization of the Central Bank is meaningless.”

The failure to reopen the Sana’a International Airport has been a sticking point in negotiations and, according to many Yemenis, will result in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians — including children — in Yemen’s northern districts, as the airport is one of the primary conduits used by Yemenis to travel abroad for critical medical care unavailable in Yemen. The Saudi coalition has imposed a years-long blockade on the Sana’a Airport.

Before the war began, thousands of Yemenis traveled abroad — mostly through the Sana’a Airport — for medical treatment each year; 60 percent of the patients were women and children. Saudi Arabia’s ongoing blockade of Yemen includes medical supplies and means that the number of patients requiring life-saving overseas treatment will grow.

On Saturday an 11-year-old boy, Mohammed Nasser, died a result of kidney failure. He was unable to travel out of Yemen through the southern districts that are under Saudi-led coalition control. Like Mohammed, about 200,000 patients in the south districts — including cancer, heart, and renal-failure patients — need to travel outside of Yemen to seek life-saving treatment.

Saudi coalition representatives have insisted on relocating Yemen’s international airport to coalition-controlled Aden, relegating the Sana’a International Airport to local use instead of reopening it as an international airport.

For their part, the Houthis have offered to have Yemeni planes flying through the Sana’a Airport inspected in Jordan and Egypt, as they consider Saudi coalition-controlled city of Aden unsafe for opponents of the coalition. The Houthis say that reopening Sana’a International Airport is an important humanitarian objective, necessary to transport sick and wounded residents as well as food supplies.

Many civilians have been unable to return to Yemen through the coalition-controlled southern districts after leaving the country to seek medical treatment abroad. Some patients have been prevented from returning home and others have reportedly been arrested, tortured or even killed under the pretext that they supported the Houthis or oppose the presence of the coalition in Yemen.  

With agreement not reached during the peace talks in Sweden, the issue of the reopening of Sana’a International Airport was postponed until January 2019 when another round of talks is planned. This caused great frustration for many Yemenis, who hoped the talks would result in the lifting of the coalition’s blockade on the Sana’a Airport.

“The country with the biggest problem in 2019 is going to be Yemen,” said Mark Lowcock, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in a press conference in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday.  

Peace talks in Sweden also failed to produce agreement on the paying of government staff salaries and the neutralization of the Central Bank. The Saudi coalition took over the central bank in the early days of the war and has blocked the paying of salaries for Yemen’s civil servants, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, already the worst in the world.

Mohammed Jahaf — a 28-year-old civil servant employed by the Yemen Economic Corporation in Sana’a who, like two million other Yemenis, faces destitution, as his salary has gone unpaid for more than two years — saw the peace talks in Sweden as a waste of time.

Analysts and ordinary Yemenis differ of value and success of talks

Despite their unpopularity among residents in Yemen, the Rimbo talks are regarded by most Yemeni analysts as having progressed better than anticipated. These observers see Rimbo as an encouraging breakthrough after four years of deadly impasse and hope the talks will pave the way to progress on Yemen’s major humanitarian issues.

Numerous prior negotiations between Yemen’s Ansar Allah and the Saudi coalition have failed, including peace talks in Switzerland earlier this year that failed spectacularly after the Saudi-led coalition refused to allow the evacuation of wounded Houthi personnel for treatment abroad. Previous talks also broke down in 2016, when 108 days of negotiations in Kuwait failed to yield a deal.

The Houthis see the Rimbo agreement as a victory for the Yemeni nation, as the Saudi-led coalition was obliged to sit for talks with Ansar Allah, the political wing of the Houthis. Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam says the truce is a defeat for Saudi Arabia as it forces them to stop their aggression, allows existing local protectors who thwarted the Saudi offensive to be in charge of Hodeida, and allows the Yemeni nation to regain access to food, medicine, and other basic supplies.

The agreement essentially places the strategic port city of Hodeida under the military control of the UN; and, while Houthi military forces will withdraw from Hodeida city and the port, they will retain political control of the city. The Saudi-led coalition and its local mercenaries, on the other hand, must withdraw from all sites in southern Hodeida that have been occupied during the coalition military campaign that began in June.

The Houthis also see the talks as an end to international isolation, as they have for the first time been given international recognition and a seat at the table with other nations. They have also shown that they have been steadfast in the face of the military invasion from one of the most well-funded and well-equipped military alliances on earth and are still willing to extend their hands towards peace with the enemy.

Peace in Yemen may be elusive

Some Yemenis have accused the Houthis of making concessions to Saudi Arabia and abandoning Hodeida, while others believe they made sacrifices necessary to alleviate the suffering of the people. Ahmed Saif Hashed, a member of Yemen’s parliament, went so far as to accuse the Houthis of abandoning Yemen’s popular revolution in return for participation in a national government

Other Yemenis see the outcome of peace talks in Sweden as simply being confidence-building measures, the first steps to ending the dire humanitarian situation. They see the talks as actually having netted very little, as profound differences still remain. The unresolved issues of humanitarian corridors, a prisoner swap, and the reopening of the defunct Sana’a International Airport still remain and, functionally, the only breakthrough achieved in the talks was over the fate of Hodeida.

Even the agreement over the control of Hodeida has been subject to much disagreement. While both sides have agreed to a UN role in the port, they differ on who should run the city. The Houthis want Hodeida declared a militarily neutral zone, saying they retain political charge of the city, but Saudi-backed forces argue political control of the city is a matter of “sovereignty” and that they should be handed political control.

Deep-rooted political divisions also remain around the presidency, a united government, early elections, the outcome of the National Dialogue Conference (NDC), a weapons handover, the building of a single national army, and future relations with the countries currently fighting in Yemen. These multiple divisions combine to make peace elusive in the near term according to many observers.

Others say the willingness of both sides to show flexibility in Sweden reflected their zeal for ending, or at least alleviating, the suffering of Yemeni people — saying that the cooperation will open a window to further constructive talks in January and better understanding between the warring parties to end the war.  Mohammed Fayed, however, believes that peace in Yemen will be achieved only if international pressure on the Saudi alliance continues.

The starvation, death, and epidemics that are rampant in Yemen cannot be resolved without addressing the Saudi role in causing them. At a time when Yemen’s former government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi views Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as friends and allies, most Yemenis see them as an occupying enemy.

For the time being, these considerations have been put on the back burner as the fragile ceasefire in Hodeida has already been shattered. Since peace talks ended last week, the Saudi-led coalition has already conducted 50 airstrikes and Saudi artillery has fired more than 300 mortar shells into Hodeida’s residential areas, killing five more civilians.

Top Photo | A man reads al-Thawra newspaper at Souq al-Melh marketplace in the old city of Sana’a, Yemen, Dec. 11, 2018. Yemen’s warring sides agreed Thursday to an immediate cease-fire in the strategic port city of Hodeida, where fighting has disrupted vital aid deliveries and left the country on the brink of starvation in the 4-year-old civil war. Hani Mohammed | AP

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

West True Perpetrator of Yemen Genocide: Pundit

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American political commentator said the West is using the Riyadh regime as a tool to advance its political agenda, stressing that certain Western countries, which claim to be champions of human rights, are in actual fact the perpetrators of the ongoing genocide in Yemen. West True Perpetrator of Yemen Genocide: Pundit

“What is undeniable is the fact that those who ‘promote human rights’ are the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes, including the Genocide in Yemen. To deny their complicity is to deny humanity,” Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich,an independent researcher and author from Irvine, California, told the Tasnim News Agency ahead of the March 26 anniversary of the start of Saudi Arabia’s aggression against Yemen. She added, “Today, while Saudi Arabia is being armed and directed to massacre fellow Moslems, it remains deaf to the chant ‘death to Saudis’ coming from the four corners of the ‘international community’. In spite of killing and dying for the political agenda of the US and its allies, the Saudis continue to be despised, hated – set apart. They will not be protected. They are dispensable”. Sepahpour Ulrich has a Master’s in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication. She is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy. Her articles and writings on Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East developments and the US foreign policy have been published by several print and online publications. Following is the full text of the interview. Tasnim: The Saudi-led coalition has been launching deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement for two years. According to the UN, the Saudi military campaign has claimed the lives of more than 11,000 Yemenis and left 40,000 others wounded. Local Yemeni sources have already put the death toll from the Saudi war at over 12,000, including many women and children. As you know the international community has remained passive in the face of the ongoing Saudi crimes. What is your take on this? Why do you think this issue, the war on Yemen, has been less received by Western media? Ulrich: I tend to think of the “international community’ as the US and its allies and differentiate between the term ‘international community’ and global community. The indifference toward the plight of the Yemenis is owed to several factors one of which is the media. There are 6 corporations that own and dominate the media. It is important to note that what was once known as the military-industrial complex has become the ‘military-industrial-media complex’. Media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations have close links with the military industry and Washington’s foreign policy. This industry not only informs the public but frames issues. This complex fails to inform the public of the plight of the Yemenis. Since the internet has managed to curb the monopoly of the media industry (alternate news sites and social networking), from time to time, the media industry is forced to acknowledge the horrors of Yemen, but it frames it in such a way so as to change the narrative. For example, it falsely presents the conflict as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Through repeated lies, the ‘international community’ has been indoctrinated to see Iran as an aggressive country and the Yemenis resisting the invasion of the Saudi-led war as the assailants, putting the blame on the victims. In addition to the blame game, the international community is being distracted with news on its domestic front. The best example of this are the refugees in Europe and the pending elections there, and in the United States, it is the Donald Trump presidency that occupies the airwaves and censors all other news. But censorship, framing, and propaganda do not mean that the governments in these countries (international community) are not aware. They are fully complicit either through their actions or inaction. Tasnim: Certain Western countries are continuously claiming that they are champions of human rights. However, it seems that they are pursuing double standard policies on Saudi Arabia's atrocities. On March 10, 2017, the administration of US President Donald Trump approved the resumption of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia which critics have linked to Riyadh’s killing of civilians in Yemen. What is your take on this? Ulrich: Human rights is simply another tool in the arsenal of these nations used to justify their policies. (War on terror being another useful tool of theirs). Consider this and dwell on the irony of it: When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in1948 (UN General Assembly), there were less than 60 UN members while dozens of countries were colonies. How could this be considered ‘rights’? Certainly, it is not universal or ideal else there would not have been a need for subsequent declarations such The American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man (Bogota, 1948), the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (known as the European Convention for Human Rights - Strasbourg,1950), African Charter on Human Rights (Nairobi, 1981), the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (Paris, 1981) , the Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994), the European Center on Fundamental Rights (2000), and so on. What is undeniable is the fact that those who ‘promote human rights’ are the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes, including the Genocide in Yemen. To deny their complicity is to deny humanity. Tasnim: Since the start of its war on Yemen, the Saudi regime and its regional allies have failed to reach their objectives. Why are they continuing their heinous attacks on the Arab country despite their failures? How do you see the role of other regional Arab states in the ongoing war against the Arab country? Ulrich: It is important to recognize that Saudi Arabia is not solely responsible nor is it the country that is independently fueling and promoting this conflict. One country often ignored is the UAE. As the world turns its anger and hatred towards the Saudis (with help from Western media which points their fingers at the Saudis for their actions in Yemen), UAE is kept above the fray. Whereas in fact, the UAE is home to Erik Prince, the founder of notorious Blackwater. It is training a UAE-led militia force and UAE’s complicity in the crimes deserve to be discussed separately. Suffice it to say that as the Saudis fall from grace, the UAE continues to climb (in America’s plots and those of her allies). The Saudis, on the other hand, are being used by the West and sadly for them (and their victims), they continue to play the role of gladiators. As Cicero acknowledged of the Roman gladiatoria muner thattheir sponsorship was a political imperative. Even though the Roman gladiators were adulated, they were segregated and despised. The Saudis share the same fate. It is worthwhile remembering that in 2012 it was revealed that a course for US militaryofficers had been suggesting that Mecca and Medina be obliterated without regard for civilian deaths, and it even suggested "Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult status". As President Donald Trump wrote in his book Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again.: "Then look at Saudi Arabia. It is the world's biggest funder of terrorism. Saudi Arabia funnels our petro dollars—our very own money—to fund the terrorists that seek to destroy our people, while the Saudis rely on us to protect them!" Today, while Saudi Arabia is being armed and directed to massacre fellow Moslems, it remains deaf to the chant ‘death to Saudis’ coming from the four corners of the ‘international community’. In spite of killing and dying for the political agenda of the US and its allies, the Saudis continue to be despised, hated – set apart. They will not be protected. They are dispensable.