Yemen

False News: 60 Minutes Treats US As Yemen Savior

November 21, 2017 Adam Johnson, fair.org Educate! Corporate Media, Propaganda, Yemen

By Adam Johnson for FAIR - In one of the most glaring, power-serving omissions in some time, CBS News’ 60 Minutes (11/19/17) took a deep dive into the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and did not once mention the direct role the United States played in creating, perpetuating and prolonging a crisis that’s left over 10,000 civilians dead, 2 million displaced, and an estimated 1 million with cholera. Correspondent Scott Pelley’s segment, “When Food Is Used as a Weapon,” employed excellent on-the-ground reporting to highlight the famine and bombing victims of Saudi Arabia’s brutal two-and-a-half year siege of Yemen. But its editors betrayed this reporting—and their viewers—by stripping the conflict of any geopolitical context, and letting one of its largest backers, the United States government, entirely off the hook. As FAIR has previously noted (10/14/16, 2/27/17), US media frequently ignore the Pentagon’s role in the conflict altogether. Pelly did not once note that the US assists Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign with logistical support, refueling and the selling of arms to the tune of $400 billion. The US also routinely protectsSaudi Arabia at the UN from condemnation—a shield that may have vastly prolonged the war, given that it signals the support of the most powerful country on Earth.

Saudis Bomb Yemen’s International Airport, Amid Devastating Blockade

November 15, 2017 Staff, telesurtv.net Educate! Bombing, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

By Staff of Tele Sur - A Houthi statement said that the attack “is an explicit violation of international covenants and treaties, which stipulate that civilian airports are not targeted.” The U.S. and U.K.-backed Saudi coalition carried out a bombing attack on the civilian airport in Yemen's capital Sana'a on Tuesday, further cutting off crucial relief shipments to a country on the verge of catastrophic famine due to the coalition's near entire blockade. An air strike damaged parts of the runway and navigation equipment, at an airport used to deliver life-saving United Nations aid. The coalition said last week it had closed all air, land and seaports in Yemen. The war on Yemen has led it to the brink of famine, with massive shortages, and cholera epidemics tearing through the country's civilian population. “This attack is intended to cause maximum damage and deprive millions of Yemenis from receiving life-saving food and medicines,” a Houthi official said to Al Jazeera. A Houthi statement said that the attack “is an explicit violation of international covenants and treaties, which stipulate that civilian airports are not targeted.” The United Nations has also condemned the brutal blockade, saying that without all ports and airports fully functioning, the situation will progress toward one of the more severe famines in recent history.

From A Concert In Las Vegas To A Funeral In Yemen

October 6, 2017 Medea Benjamin, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Mass Murder, Saudi Arabia, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Medea Benjamin. While Americans are mourning the mass shooting in Las Vegas that so tragically took the lives of over 50 concert-goers, people in Yemen will be marking the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that took the lives of over 140 people who were not at a concert, but a funeral. The Las Vegas carnage was a crime against humanity carried out by what seems to be a crazed lone wolf. The bombing of the funeral home in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, was a war crime carried out by a close US ally, Saudi Arabia, with the indispensable help of the United States.

Left-Right Alliance Against U.S.-Saudi War On Yemen

October 5, 2017 Staff, www.accuracy.org Resist! Saudi Arabia, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Staff of IPA - Katrina vanden Heuvel just wrote the piece “Congress’s War Powers Must Be Made a Reality” in the Washington Post. She writes: “What does it take to get Congress to act on vital questions of war and peace? The catastrophe in Yemen may test whether Congress is finally prepared to exercise its constitutional responsibility. Four legislators — two House Democrats and two Republicans — have introduced a resolutionunder the War Powers Act demanding a vote in 15 days to end U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia’s devastation of Yemen. “The resolution, co-sponsored by Democrats Ro Khanna and Mark Pocan (the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and by Republicans Thomas Massie and Walter Jones, requires the ‘removal’ of U.S. forces from the war in Yemen unless Congress votes to authorize American involvement. Beginning under President Barack Obama, the U.S. military has assisted the Saudi campaign in Yemen…“As lead co-sponsor Khanna (D-Calif.) argues, the war powers resolution is long overdue: ‘Congress and the American people know too little about the role we are playing in a war that is causing suffering for millions of people and is a genuine threat to our national security.’“The resolution will force Congress to debate this truly deplorable policy that has implicated the United States in Saudi war crimes while fueling the spread of terrorism.”

Lawmakers Demand U.S. Withdrawal From Saudi-Led War In Yemen

September 29, 2017 Dan De Luce, www.foreignpolicy.com Resist! Congress, Saudi Arabia, US Imperialism, US military, Yemen

By Dan De Luce for Foreign Policy - Four lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would halt U.S. military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen on grounds that Congress has never approved the American role in the war. Two House Republicans and two Democrats submitted the bill on Wednesday evening, but other lawmakers have already conveyed their support for the measure, congressional aides told Foreign Policy. The bill requires “the removal” of U.S. forces from the war in Yemen unless and until Congress votes to authorize the American assistance. For more than two years, the United States military has provided aerial refueling tankers and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition waging war against Houthi rebels backed by Iran. “We aim to restore Congress as the constitutionally mandated branch of government that may declare war and retain oversight over it,” two sponsors, Democrats Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, wrote in a letter to colleagues that was obtained by FP. Although the bipartisan bill is unlikely to secure a majority in the House, it underscores growing concerns over Saudi Arabia’s handling of the war that is now at a stalemate on the battlefield. And it reflects growing unease at Congress over the U.S. role there, following previous attempts by lawmakers this year to rein in arms sales or other military assistance to Saudi Arabia...

Yemenis Mark 3rd Anniversary Of Ansarullah Uprising

September 22, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Uprising, Yemen

By Staff of Tele Sur - Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have converged in Sana'a to mark the third anniversary of the Sept. 21 Ansarullah uprising against foreign attacks. Demonstrators condemned the ongoing Saudi-led war against their nation and expressed support for Ansarullah fighters and other groups defending their nation, according to PressTV. A convoy of United Arab Emirates, UAE, troops detained by Yemeni forces were paraded before the crowd during the mass rally. Their military equipment had been utilized by soldiers and militias fighting on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Ansarullah movement, sharply criticized Saudi Arabia's war of aggression against his country during a televised speech on al-Masirah TV. He also warned his compatriots that Yemen's enemies, including Saudi Arabia's war sponsors — the United States, Britain and Israel — intend to foster rifts and divisions within the nation in order to win the war. In early June, the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed a US$750 million military sale to Saudi Arabia. It included U.S. made missiles, bombs, armored personnel carriers, warships, munitions and a “blanket order training program” for Saudi security forces receiving the military equipment both inside and outside of the kingdom, according to Reuters.

Half A Million People Infected As Yemen Cholera Epidemic Continues To Spread

August 15, 2017 Staff, www.oxfamamerica.org Educate! Cholera, US Imperialism, US military, Yemen

By Staff of Oxfam - "Yemen's catastrophic cholera crisis is rewriting the miserable history of this disease. Our common humanity tells us that this massive crisis demands a massive response. "This is no accidental disaster - it is a manmade disaster driven by national and international politics. All those fighting and backing this war need to stop fueling the madness and instead come to the peace table for the sake of civilian families in Yemen. Too many people have died, too many have lost everything they owned, too many have seen their futures put on hold. "In backing this war with billions of dollars of arms sales and military support the U.S. and the U.K. are complicit in the suffering of millions of people in Yemen."

At Every Door

July 23, 2017 Kathy Kelly, www.dissidentvoice.org Educate! Saudi Arabia, Starvation, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Kathy Kelly for Dissident Voice. On July 18, 2017, at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing focused on “The Four Famines: Root Causes and a Multilateral Action Plan,” Republican Senator Todd Young, a former Marine, asked officials present if ongoing war in Yemen could fail to exacerbate the catastrophe developing there – one of four countries, along with Southern Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia, set to collectively lose 20 million people this year, one third the death toll of WWII, from conflict-driven famine. Yemen is being bombarded and blockaded, using US-supplied weapons and vehicles, by a local coalition marshaled by U.S. client state Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s near-famine conditions, with attendant cholera outbreak, are so dire that in Yemen it is estimated a child dies every 10 minutes of preventable disease.

Rivers of Blood Action: We All Must Come Together to Stop War

July 18, 2017 Joy First, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Joy First for National Center for Nonviolent Resistance. The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) keeps its focus on the US wars of aggression. NCNR has been acting in resistance to the crimes of our government with its illegal wars since 2003. We are at war in seven different countries today and members of NCNR think it is critical to make the connection between war and all the other problems affecting our world today. With that in mind NCNR planned the Rivers of Blood action - noting that Rivers of Blood flow through the US Capitol as our Congress continues to vote for funding for war. We did a Rivers of Blood action 10 years ago in the crypt of the Capitol and decided to do this second Rivers of Blood action outside on the steps of the Capitol where we hoped we would be seen by more people. Members of our group spoke so eloquently about why we were there. Alice began by saying, “Senator Schumer as our Senate leader must take a stand to stop the escalating horrific warfare that the current administration is waging on some of the poorest, most vulnerable people on the planet. We are devastating entire nations, causing cholera and starvation in Yemen, slaughter of the people of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, threatening war with North Korea. The Congress must not sit by. Senator Schumer has stood up to this administration on other important issues, but we need him to raise his voice to stop these wars, these bombings these drone attacks.”

Yemen: The War That Isn’t Happening Even As It’s Happening

July 17, 2017 Luciana Bohne, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Propaganda, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Luciana Bohne for Counter Punch - Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and Britain, began bombing Yemen, the poorest country in the region, on 23 March 2015—without a Security Council resolution, as has been the tradition for launching western wars since Bill Clinton’s 1999 Kosovo War (the bombing of Serbia). The stated objective of the Anglo-American backing of the Saudi attack was the restoration of Yemen’s US-supported government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi’s, which fled to Saudi Arabia under the mounting pressure of the Houthi Shia rebels, accused by the United States of being pawns of Iran, or, dismissively, plain Iran-supported. Boggles the mind to think of the blithe moral logic that justifies the support of the United States for a (largely faked) uprising in Syria when Iran is not allowed to assist Houthis in Yemen, fighting an authentic civil war, unlike the so-called Free Syrian Army and their hordes of 80% foreign al-Qaeda and Isis allied invaders of Syria’s sovereign state in 2011. The hypocrisy of empire, one supposes: supporting rebels in one case and the legitimate government in another. For this reason—Iran’s backing—the Saudis blockade the air and the ports of Yemen to check the flow of Iranian arms shipments to the rebels, adding to the infamy of the war the infamy of an economic siege—infamy because the largest number of victims in this tactic to encircle Iran are civilians, which is another tradition respected by the sorry, deceptive War on Terror.

Yemen To Probe Alleged Interrogation Abuses By United Arab Emirates, U.S.

June 26, 2017 Ahmed Al-Haj, www.AP.org Resist! Middle East, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, US military, Yemen

By Ahmed Al-Haj for Associated Press - SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s internationally-recognized government on Saturday ordered the creation of a committee to investigate allegations of human rights violations, following reports that U.S. military interrogators worked with forces from the United Arab Emirates who are accused of torturing detainees in Yemen. A copy of the order issued by Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid bin Daghr was obtained by The Associated Press. It said the investigation would focus on areas liberated by government forces from Shiite rebels known as the Houthis and their allies. The six-member committee will be chaired by Justice Minister Jamal Mohamed Omar and include representatives from the Human Rights Ministry, security agencies and the prosecution. It will immediately start work and have 15 days to conclude its investigation and report back to bin Daghr. The reports of the abuses were revealed in an AP investigation published Thursday. The investigation detailed a network of secret prisons across southern Yemen where hundreds are detained in the hunt for al-Qaida militants. American defense officials said U.S. forces have interrogated some detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in, or knowledge of, human rights abuses.

The Never Ending US Wars

May 14, 2017 Tom Engelhardt, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Donald Trump, Drones, ISIS, Somalia, Syria, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Tom Engelhardt for Tom's Dispatch. Here’s a footnote to America’s present wars that’s worth pondering for a few moments. The U.S. Air Force is running out of ordinary bombs, smart bombs, and in some cases missiles. No kidding. The air war over Syria and Iraq that began in August 2014 and is now two-and-a-half years old has eaten through America’s supply of bombs. The usual crew of weapons makers evidently can’t produce such munitions fast enough to keep up, so the U.S. military is, for instance, cutting into its stockpiles of smart bombs in Asia to send some to the Middle East and Africa simply to keep pace with demand -- and, according to recent reports, it may nonetheless be failing to do so. Consider this a longer term problem since, in the era of Donald Trump, the generals are increasingly running their own wars, which, if the daily drumbeat of news about them is accurate, are only ramping up further. Everywhere you look, from Yemen to Iraq, Syria to Somalia, the American military is growing more assertive as civilian casualties rise and constraints of any sort, whether on special operations raids, drone strikes, or the use of the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, fall away.

In Yemen, Shocked To His Bones

May 7, 2017 Kathy Kelly, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Kathy Kelly for Counterpunch. Yemen stands as the worst-threatened of four countries where impending famine conditions have been said to comprise the single-worst humanitarian crisis since the founding of the U.N. On May 2nd, 2017, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published a grim infographic detailing conditions in Yemen where 17 million Yemenis — or around 60 percent of the population — are unable to access food. The U.S. and its allies continue to bomb Yemen. Jan Egeland, who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), says that seven million Yemeni people are on the brink of famine. “I am shocked to my bones,” said Egeland, following a five day visit to Yemen. “The world is letting some 7 million men, women and children slowly but surely be engulfed…” Egeland blames this catastrophe on “men with guns and power in regional and international capitals who undermine every effort to avert an entirely preventable famine, as well as the collapse of health and educational services for millions of children.” Egeland and the NRC call on all parties to the conflict, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, the U.S. and the U.K. to negotiate a cease fire.

Three Major Famines On Earth. Where Are They?

May 5, 2017 Jack Healey, www.alternet.org Educate! Famine, Media, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen

By Jack Healey for Huffington Post - To be an American in the world today is to be a citizen of a country rapidly losing its place as a global leader in foreign aid, foreign assistance and even what we once might have considered the moral high ground. There are crises, it seems, in every corner of the globe, including refugee camps in the center of Paris and immigrant detention centers on our own borders. Our leaders are telling us these crises are impossible to solve diplomatically, complex in nature and beyond the scope of what we can or should handle. And yet on April 6, Representative Barbara Lee along with ten other representatives, sent a letter to the Committee on Appropriations with a simple request—money for famine relief. Money for food, for people who had none. Specifically, a billion dollars. The countries they were hoping to assist were places that are geopolitically complex—namely, Yemen, along with South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. Famine in these places has its roots in everything from colonialism to climate change to U.S. foreign policy in the region. Specifically in Yemen, the U.S. has supported Saudi Arabia in its brutal campaign to stop ISIS as well as the Houthis, a Shi’ite minority fighting the Saudi-backed Sunni government.

“If You Take East-Syria, I’ll Take That Yemeni Port”

May 1, 2017 Moon Of Alabama, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Syria, Yemen

By Moon Of Alabama for Information Clearing House - Will the U.S. leave Syria if doing so prevents a Russian fleet in Yemen? The question seems weird but if Russia succeeds with its negotiations in Yemen it will soon have to be asked. A U.S. neoconservative outlet recently published an interesting but mostly unsourced bit about Yemen: Russia is mediating negotiations for a political solution to the Yemen conflict outside of UN channels as a means to secure naval bases in Yemen. Russia is pursuing political negotiations with the UAE and former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh by beginning to discuss the future consensus Yemeni government. Saleh’s support for the Houthis is critical for the al Houthi-Saleh bloc to retain its influence across northern and central Yemen. The UAE may see this settlement as a way to halt the expansion of Iran’s influence in Yemen and to limit bearing further costs associated with the Yemeni war. Saleh previously expressed willingness to grant Russia military basing rights in Yemen. This basing would allow Russia to project power into one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Bab al Mandab strait, a global maritime chokepoint.

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