Why is the US Aiding and Enabling Saudi Arabia’s Genocidal War in Yemen?

By Michael Horton, Counterpunch, October 8, 2015

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen rivals the crisis in Syria. After six months of war and the imposition of a naval blockade designed to starve the country into submission, 90% of Yemen’s population of more than 24 million are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. More than 6000 people, nearly 90% of which are civilians, are dead and most of Yemen’s already limited infrastructure is in ruins. Sana’a, the capital of Yemen and home to 3 million, is under continuous aerial bombardment by Saudi Arabia and its partners who have targeted schools, hospitals, and homes in densely populated urban areas.

The US, along with the UK, is providing intelligence and logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its partners. Both countries are also supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons. The US is equipping the Saudis with internationally banned cluster munitions which now litter large swaths of the Yemeni countryside where they will kill and maim for years to come.

Beyond arms manufacturers, the only real beneficiary of this bloody war are takfiri groups like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State (IS) which is making inroads in Yemen.

So why is the US supporting a war that has achieved little beyond further empowering groups like AQAP and IS?

Yemen and its people are being offered up as a kind of sacrifice for Saudi Arabia’s and the Gulf Cooperation Council’s support for the nuclear arms deal with Iran. Most importantly US support for Saudi Arabia’s war has ensured a steady stream of new weapons orders. US-based arms manufacturers have sold 8 billion USD worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia since it launched ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ six months ago. This is a figure that adds almost ten percent to the 90.4 billion USD worth of weapons that US arms manufacturers have sold to Saudi Arabia since President Obama was elected.

In exchange for tepid Saudi support for the nuclear arms deal with Iran–support that the US does not need given that both Russia and China back the deal–and billions of dollars in weapons sales, the US has turned a blind eye to what can only be called state sanctioned genocide in Yemen. US support for Saudi Arabia’s disastrous war in Yemen is likely to have profound and lasting consequences for not only Yemen but also for the region, and in particular for Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi led war in Yemen was launched on the pretense of re-installing the exiled government of Yemeni President Hadi. The real aim of the war is to destroy Yemen’s Houthi Shi’a rebels which Saudi Arabia views as Iranian proxies. The Houthis are Zaidi Shi’a, a sect which is doctrinally closer to Sunnis than Iran’s Twelver Shi’a. The Houthi movement is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural context of north-west Yemen and while it undoubtedly has a relationship with Iran, it has never been–and likely never will be–an Iranian proxy. The Houthi movement and its leadership are fiercely independent.

Saudi Arabia’s fears about growing Iranian influence in the region have led it and its partners into a war that will consume their blood and treasure for years to come thereby guaranteeing years of healthy profits for US and British arms manufacturers. Yemen’s mountainous terrain and complex political landscape rival those of Afghanistan. The Houthis, while at the other end of the religious spectrum, are comparable to Afghanistan’s Taliban in terms of their capabilities as guerilla fighters. In many respects, they are superior.

The Houthis will not be defeated by an aerial campaign and a limited number of ground troops. Neither Saudi Arabia nor its partners have the capability to deploy and sustain the thousands of troops that it will take to defeat the Houthis and their allies. Nor do they have enough political capital to absorb what would be an extremely high casualty rate for their soldiers. In 1962, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sent troops into Yemen for what he thought would be a quick victory over Royalist forces fighting for the Zaidi Imam who ruled north Yemen. By 1967, at least fifteen thousand Egyptian soldiers had been killed in Yemen.

By enabling Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, the US is not only ensuring the destruction of Yemen and the empowerment of AQAP and IS, it could also be inadvertently further tipping the balance of power in the Middle East in favor of Iran. The government of Iran can only be delighted as it watches Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates plunge ever deeper into the quagmire that is Yemen. The war, which, if negotiations are not pursued, could go on for years, will only weaken the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. During a period in which oil prices are low and may head lower, both governments will be forced to pour billions of dollars into a war that will have no victors beyond groups like AQAP and IS–both of which will–and have–targeted the Gulf monarchies that now view them as useful proxies.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the war has already spread across its long, rugged, and largely unguarded border with Yemen. Houthi fighters and Yemeni Army units allied with them have launched numerous successful attacks on Saudi border posts. For short periods, Saudi Armed Forces have lost control of towns and villages in the Saudi provinces of Jizan and Najran due to Houthi incursions.

Most seriously for Saudi Arabia, there are rumblings of discontent in the House of Saud with King Salman and his son and defense minister Muhammad bin Salman. Muhammad bin Salman–who at age 30 is the youngest and least experienced defense minister in the world–has broken with a foreign policy that has long been cautious and careful. The young defense minister who is also second in line to the throne is viewed by many members of the House of Saud as reckless. As Saudi Arabia is drawn deeper into what could well be its Vietnam, discontent with the current leadership will undoubtedly increase.

US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and helped erase fifty years of progress in Yemen. As the war grinds on for what could be years, it will produce blowback as significant as that generated by the US’ own ill-conceived invasion of Iraq which altered the balance of power in the Middle East and ultimately spawned the Islamic State. This is undoubtedly welcome news for arms manufacturers.

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A cry from the heart in Yemen: ‘We are a nation of bereaved’

By Zaid Al-Alayaa, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 2, 2015

In the last four months of devastating war in my country, and in my years as a journalist before this conflict began, I have seen and written about many terrible things. But nothing prepared me for this.

On July 24, my uncle, my aunt and their five children–the oldest of them 16 and the youngest 5–died in a barrage of airstrikes in the port city of Makha, in Taiz province, a bombardment that killed some 80 people in all. My aunt was six months pregnant with what would have been their sixth child.

All over Yemen there are people like me, who have suffered the loss of a loved one–or of a whole family dear to them. The air war that began on March 26, when a Saudi-led military coalition commenced its offensive against Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels and their allies, has killed more than 3,000 people, by the estimates of international groups. Many believe the real figure is much higher.

So we are a nation of bereaved, trying to make sense of our overpowering grief.

Quite often, I interview people who tell me about the losses they have suffered. It has sometimes surprised me that people are so willing–eager, even–to talk about their dead relatives. Now I understand their need to speak about these things.

I want to tell everyone about my uncle, Sadiq Qadasi, who was also my great friend. He was 49 years old. His wife, Intithar Qaid, was 37. Their children were Mohammed, Ahmed, Abdullah, Asma’a and Nusaibah.

My other uncle, Mohammed, begged the doctors for a different outcome, even when he knew they all were dead. He asked them: Can you at least save the unborn baby?

“May God bless my brother,” he told me on the phone, in tears. “Now he has died with nobody to carry his name.”

I could not go to the funeral. I knew what the bodies would look like. For months, our media have been full of scenes of carnage–bloodshed and scattered, mutilated body parts. How ugly is war! I hope that when it ends, our humanity does not end with it.

I am used to writing about events and describing them as best I can. But when it comes to this, the words are slipping from my brain. I cannot express what is in my heart.

Families here in Yemen are large but very close-knit. Everyone in mine was shattered by this news, especially my mother, facing the death of her brother. My particular role to play in this tragedy was that I was the first in my family to know of their deaths.

When I learned of the air raids that struck the area where they lived, I tried to call my uncle, but his phone was off. Later, I called my sources at the Red Cross, after a rescue team had arrived. I gave them my uncle’s name, and in an hour they told me that he and his family were among the dead.

I did not know what to do or whom to tell. I waited in tears until my other uncle reached the area. He undertook the task of informing everyone else in the family.

Every day my Uncle Sadiq either called me or sent me text messages telling me to take care of myself, because he knew my work takes me into harm’s way. “Stay away from clashes, from military sites,” he said. “There is nothing worth dying for, but so many things that are worth living for.”

He also said often: “Take care of your family.”

I have sometimes told people who lost someone close to them to be strong, to accept what fate has dealt them. But I find I cannot do this. When I received this news, I wept for hours. My strength and courage evaporated. I understood what it means to lose those who were beloved in the blink of an eye.

On my phone, I have text messages from my dead uncle that I read every day. I listen to the cassettes of songs that he gave me. I remember the foods he liked, the way he dressed, his cologne. I hear the echoes of his laughter.

I think of his wife, my Aunt Intithar, and their youngest son, Ahmed, who was just 5. I had not seen my uncle and his family recently because of the chaos caused by the war, but he had told me on the phone that Ahmed not only looked like me but acted like me too. Remembering this made me cry the hardest.

At home in Sana, I received callers who came to give their condolences. There is so much of that now, this paying of respect. So many people have dead to remember and honor.

Well-wishers told me: “Life goes on. You will overcome your pain.” I am not convinced. Sadiq was not just my uncle; he was like a father to me. Everyone in his village wept for his loss.

I think of his soul, of the soul of my aunt, of the souls of my five cousins, and the souls of so many others dead in this war.

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