US Doubles Down on Support for Prolonging Humanitarian Nightmare in Yemen

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TEHRAN (FNA)- In great violation of International Law and International Humanitarian Law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Washington will double down in support for Saudi Arabia to continue its devastating war on Yemen.

Pompeo's comments come days after the US Senate - in a political charade - advanced legislation to bring an end to US involvement in the illegal war, as the United Nations had warned that "Yemen is on the brink of a major catastrophe," and as a CIA assessment strongly implicated Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

In other words, despite the Senate legislation and CIA assessment, the Trump administration is still intent on arming the Saudis and prolonging their war crimes and mass starvation in Yemen. The heads of prominent aid humanitarian organizations, however, this week have all pleaded for a cessation of hostilities so that aid could get into the war-ravaged country.

Sure enough, the warmongers are ignoring the fact that more than 85,000 children have already died since their bombing campaign began in 2015. According to the US Senate, the Saudi and UAE planes have even bombed water treatment plants and other essential civilian infrastructure, leading to a cholera outbreak that has killed thousands of people. They know that the arms they have sold are being used for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, but they “knowingly” and “deliberately” keep the transfer and even say they will continue support for mass bombing.

The terrible results are out there for any decent human being to see. Thousands of people have been killed, injured or forced to flee their homes because of the US-backed, Saudi-led violence, atrocities and blockade. The majority of casualties are civilians, mainly women and children. What's more, US-made weapons such as missiles and cluster bombs continue to destroy vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, homes, markets and transport systems, pushing survivors into poverty - that’s according to numerous UN reports.

On that basis, the US government is in breach of International Law and International Humanitarian Law for its support and for allowing the export of American-made missiles and military equipment to Saudi Arabia that have been systematically used to kill civilians. The accusation comes from international lawyers, human rights groups and the United Nations as well. They are all expressing concerns about Saudi-led coalition attacks, accusing the US government of collaborating with Riyadh instead of preventing and suppressing violations of International Law and International Humanitarian Law by Riyadh as a legal duty.

By now it should readily be evident that it is American weapons and support that have been central to a bombing campaign that has turned Yemen into a failed state and inflamed tensions in the region. President Trump and his administration officials, including Pompeo, are complicit in this deliberate destruction and scorched earth policy, by continuing to support airstrikes and providing arms, logistics and intelligence, despite international condemnation as well as strong and increasing evidence that war crimes are being committed.

In that sense and no other, the US government will have to look elsewhere in legally justifying their arming of Saudi Arabia and its criminal coalition in Yemen. Until that happens, International Law and International Humanitarian Law dictates that Washington stop its support and transfer of arms to Saudi Arabia or share responsibility and international condemnation for civilian suffering in Yemen.

The Long, Brutal U.S. War on Children in the Middle East

by Kathy Kelly

 

On November 28, sixty-three U.S. Senators voted in favor of holding a floor debate on a resolution calling for an end to direct U.S. Armed Forces involvement in the Saudi-UAE coalition-led war on Yemen. Describing the vote as a rebuke to Saudi Arabia and the Trump Administration, AP reportedon Senate dissatisfaction over the administration’s response to Saudi Arabia’s brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi last month. Just before the Senate vote, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called current objections to U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia “Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on.”

The “caterwaul” on Capitol Hill reflects years of determined effort by grassroots groups to end U.S. involvement in war on Yemen, fed by mounting international outrage at the last three years of war that have caused the deaths of an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under age five.

When children waste away to literally nothing while fourteen million people endure conflict-driven famine, a hue and cry—yes, a caterwaul —most certainly should be raised, worldwide.

How might we understand what it would mean in the United States for fourteen million people in our country to starve? You would have to combine the populations of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and imagine these cities empty of all but the painfully and slowly dying, to get a glimpse into the suffering in Yemen, where one of every two persons faces starvation.

Antiwar activists have persistently challenged elected representatives to acknowledge and end the horrible consequences of modern warfare in Yemen where entire neighborhoods have been bombed, displacing millions of people; daily aerial attacks have directly targeted Yemen’s infrastructure, preventing delivery of food, safe water, fuel, and funds. The war crushes people through aerial bombing and on-the-ground fighting as well as an insidious economic war.

Yemenis are strangled by import restrictions and blockades, causing non-payment of government salaries, inflation, job losses, and declining or disappearing incomes. Even when food is available, ordinary Yemenis cannot afford it.

Starvation is being used as a weapon of war—by Saudi Arabia, by the United Arab Emirates, and by the superpower patrons including the United States that arm and manipulate both countries.

During the thirteen years of economic sanctions against Iraq— those years between the Gulf War and the devastating U.S.-led “Shock and Awe” war that followed—I joined U.S. and U.K. activists traveling to Iraq in public defiance of the economic sanctions.

We aimed to resist U.S.- and U.K.-driven policies that weakened the Iraqi regime’s opposition more than they weakened Saddam Hussein. Ostensibly democratic leaders were ready to achieve their aims by brutally sacrificing children under age five. The children died first by the hundreds, then by the thousands and eventually by the hundreds of thousands. Sitting in a Baghdad pediatric ward, I heard a delegation member, a young nurse from the U.K., begin to absorb the cruelty inflicted on mothers and children.

“I think I understand,” murmured Martin Thomas, “It’s a death row for infants.” Children gasped their last breaths while their parents suffered a pile-up of anguish, wave after wave. We should remain haunted by those children’s short lives.

Iraq’s children died amid an eerie and menacing silence on the part of mainstream media and most elected U.S. officials. No caterwauling was heard on Capitol Hill.

But, worldwide, people began to know that children were paying the price of abysmally failed policies, and millions of people opposed the 2003 Shock and Awe war.

Still the abusive and greedy policies continue. The U.S. and its allies built up permanent warfare states to secure consistent exploitation of resources outside their own territories.

During and after the Arab Spring, numerous Yemenis resisted dangerously unfair austerity measures that the Gulf Cooperation Council and the U.S. insisted they must accept. Professor Isa Blumi, who notes that generations of Yemeni fighters have refused to acquiesce to foreign invasion and intervention, presents evidence that Saudi Arabia and the UAE now orchestrate war on Yemen to advance their own financial interests.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, Blumi states that although Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman wants to author an IPO (Initial Public Offering), for the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, no major investors would likely participate. Investment firms know the Saudis pay cash for their imports, including billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry, because they are depleting resources within their own territory. This, in part, explains the desperate efforts to take over Yemen’s offshore oil reserves and other strategic assets.

Recent polls indicate that most Americans don’t favor U.S. war on Yemen. Surely, our security is not enhanced if the U.S. continues to structure its foreign policy on fear, prejudice, greed, and overwhelming military force. The movements that pressured the U.S. Senate to reject current U.S. foreign policy regarding Saudi Arabia and its war on Yemen will continue raising voices. Collectively, we’ll work toward raising the lament, pressuring the media and civil society to insist that slaughtering children will never solve problems.

Kathy Kelly is a peace activist and a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence http://vcnv.org/ . Kathy Kelly’s email is kathy@vcnv.org