By Theodore Shoebat
Over 70,000 people have been killed in the horrific war in Yemen. As we read in a recent report from the Independent:
The death toll from the war in Yemen has soared past 70,000, as rights groups warned landmines strewn across the country have caused hundreds of casualties and blocked aid.
In the past five months alone 10,000 people have been killed, nudging the death toll past 70,000, a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled) has reported.
The global mapping project added that of the total deaths, more than 7,000 civilians had been killed in direct attacks, with a Gulf-led coalition responsible for the highest number of civilian deaths. The figure of 70,000 also includes an unspecified number of collateral civilian deaths.
The United Nations refugee body said, in August 2018, that there had been more than 17,000 civilian casualties, including 6,500 killed. In 2017, the UN had said around 10,000 had been killed – without specifying whether this was a civilian death toll or an overall figure.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, warned that the “widespread use” of landmines by the Houthi rebel group, which is fighting the Yemeni government and the Gulf alliance, had killed and injured hundreds of people in Yemen and prevented aid groups reaching vulnerable communities.
Just recently, Trump had the opportunity to end the US’ support for Saudi Arabia — which has brought in so much carnage in Yemen — by signing a bipartisan bill to end America’s collaboration with Saudi. But instead, Trump vetoed the bill, thus prolonging the United States’ involvement in the sanguinary conflict. Both sides are committing evil, with the Houthis placing mines that murder civilians and blocking aid, as Human Rights Watch report:
Houthi forces’ widespread use of landmines along Yemen’s western coast since mid-2017 has killed and injured hundreds of civilians and prevented aid groups from reaching vulnerable communities, Human Rights Watch said today. Yemeni law and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty ban all use of antipersonnel mines; anti-vehicle mines have been used indiscriminately in violation of the laws of war, posing dangers to civilians long after hostilities have ceased.
Landmines laid in farmlands, villages, wells, and roads have killed at least 140 civilians, including 19 children, in the Hodeida and Taizz governorates since 2018, according to the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, a humanitarian data source.
People in Yemen are in such starvation that they look like the victims of the German Holocaust:
Approximately 85,000 children under the age of 5 have died in Yemen from severe hunger since April 2015, according to a new report from Save the Children.
Using data gathered by the United Nations, Save the Children looked at the mortality rate of children under 5 years old who were treated for severe acute malnutrition and calculated that close to 85,000 of them have died between April 2015 and October 2018.
Why is the United States backing Saudi in its genocide? Because of money. Trump himself said that he wants to continue to support Saudi because of the American arms that the Arabians purchase. “I don’t like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States,” Trump told reporters. “You know what they are going to do? They’re going to take that money and spend it in Russia or China or someplace else.” So because the money is going to go China or Russia, that means were okay with the starvation and slaughter of tens of thousands? So the US does not care about human rights as it claims. American politicians will claim about the human rights abuses of China, Iran and Syria, but when it comes to us making deals, all that hollering about human rights abuses goes right out the window to the sounds of precious metals. The slaughter of the people of Yemen is due to the advanced American and Western weaponry possessed by the Saudi military. There was a report released from France revealing how the level of killing has been dependent on US and European arms:
But a highly classified document produced by the French Directorate of Military Intelligence shows that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are overwhelmingly dependent on Western-produced weapon systems to wage their devastating war in Yemen. Many of the systems listed are only compatible with munitions, spare parts, and communications systems produced in NATO countries, meaning that the Saudis and UAE would have to replace large portions of their arsenals to continue with Russian or Chinese weapons.
“You can’t just swap out the missiles that are used in U.S. planes for suddenly using Chinese and Russian missiles,” said Rachel Stohl, managing director of the Conventional Defense Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. “It takes decades to build your air force. It’s not something you do in one fell swoop.”
The Saudi-led bombing campaign in North Yemen primarily relies on three types of aircraft: American F-15s, British EF-2000 Typhoons, and European Tornado fighters. The Saudis fly American Apache and Black Hawk helicopters into Yemen from military bases in Saudi Arabia, as well as the French AS-532 Cougar. They have lined the Saudi-Yemen border with American Abrams and French AMX 30 tanks, reinforced by at least five types of Western-made artillery guns. And the coalition blockade, which is aimed at cutting off aid to the Houthi rebels but has also interfered with humanitarian aid shipments, relies on U.S., French, and German models of attack ships with, as well as two types of French naval helicopters.
The French report also describes he Saudis as working their war “ineffectively” and refers to their efforts to secure their border with Yemen as “a failure.” Which means that the Saudis’ mass killing of the Yemenites is being done to a great extent by the weaponry utilized.
The war has also caused food prices to increase tremendously There is the heart wrenching story of Ali al-Hajaji who lost his son to starvation. While food was in the market, he could not afford it. “I can barely buy a piece of stale bread,” he said. “That’s why my children are dying before my eyes.” Aided with American bombs, the Saudis have bombed funerals, weddings, even school buses in their war against the Shiite Houthis in which those are suffering the most are the common people. Mark Lowcock, the under secretary for humanitarian affairs in the United Nations said: “There is now a clear and present danger of an imminent and great, big famine engulfing Yemen”. Alex de Waal, a researcher on the causes of starvation, said: “People think famine is just a lack of food … But in Yemen it’s about a war on the economy.”
Doctors and teachers have been, in a horrid condition of desperation, have had to sell their cars, their gold, their land, just to make some money so that they can feed their families. In the streets of Sana, the capital city of Yemen, an elderly woman was seen begging for alms with a loudspeaker: “Help me … I have a sick husband. I have a house for rent. Help.” Millions of children are close to starving to death, with tens of thousands already perishing from lack of food.
While the Khashoggi case was getting massive amounts of international, the tens of thousands of people slaughtered in Yemen has received the indifference of US politicians who see the carnage and war and only view dollar signs.
What is disturbing is the sycophancy of American conservatives when it comes to Trump supporting Saudi Arabia. When the Syrian Civil War was happening during the Obama administration, the American Right was constantly putting blame on Obama because of the US giving arms and backing rebels. When Obama’s administration was backing the rebels who were fighting against the Assad regime, Right-wingers were saying that Obama was backing Islam, backing the Jihad, or that he was a Muslim. But when Trump backs a Sharia government like that of Saudi Arabia, now these Right-wingers will say that Trump is just doing business or that he has to combat Russia, China or Iran. Yet, when the Obama administration was backing the rebels, the same types of arguments were being used to support arming the rebels, stating that an insurgency against Assad was necessary to impede Iran and Russia. But now that Trump is backing Sharia law Saudi Arabia, its okay because its Trump.
Welcome to American sycophancy.
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