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Attached below is a stunning report describing the Saudi slaughter in Yemen and the U.S. culpability in abetting this slaughter. This story is written by Andrew Cockburn, a good friend (caveat emptor: I am biased).
Yemen has a population of almost 27 million, making it the seventh largest of the 22 Arab countries, exceeding the population of Syria (23 million). And as Andrew shows in excruciating detal, the slaughter in Yemen is on a par with that in Syria, Iraq, or Libya. Yet this catastrophe remains little known to the average American. Nevertheless, as Andrew also shows, the American government, acting in the name of the American people, is complicit in creating the Yemeni horror — which is certainly closer to a genocide than anything Colonel Qaddafi did -- while American arms manufacturers are reaping billions in profits and bureaucrats and generals are landing lucrative post retirement jobs.
I urge readers to carefully study Andrew's devastating report.
Chuck Spinney
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LETTER FROM WASHINGTON — From the September 2016 issue
Acceptable Losses
Aiding and abetting the Saudi slaughter in Yemen
By Andrew Cockburn, Harpers
Just a few short years ago, Yemen was judged to be among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 154th out of the 187 nations on the U.N.’s Human Development Index. One in every five Yemenis went hungry. Almost one in three was unemployed. Every year, 40,000 children died before their fifth birthday, and experts predicted the country would soon run out of water.
Such was the dire condition of the country before Saudi Arabia unleashed a bombing campaign in March 2015, which has destroyed warehouses, factories, power plants, ports, hospitals, water tanks, gas stations, and bridges, along with miscellaneous targets ranging from donkey carts to wedding parties to archaeological monuments. Thousands of civilians — no one knows how many — have been killed or wounded. Along with the bombing, the Saudis have enforced a blockade, cutting off supplies of food, fuel, and medicine. A year and a half into the war, the health system has largely broken down, and much of the country is on the brink of starvation.
This rain of destruction was made possible by the material and moral support of the United States, which supplied most of the bombers, bombs, and missiles required for the aerial onslaught. (Admittedly, the United Kingdom, France, and other NATO arms exporters eagerly did their bit.) U.S. Navy ships aided the blockade. But no one that I talked to in Washington suggested that the war was in any way necessary to our national security. The best answer I got came from Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from California who has been one of the few public officials to speak out about the devastation we were enabling far away. “Honestly,” he told me, “I think it’s because Saudi Arabia asked.” … (continued)
