U.S. backs Saudi bombing of Yemen — despite casualties
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“Once your clients have a quasi-independent mili tary capacity, you lose some control over them,” said Gregory Gause III, a military specialist at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A and M University.
Gause was referring to the saturation bombing cam paign of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its “coalition of the willing” Gulf-state monarchies. United Nations reports document that more than 1000 Yemenis have been killed to date and another 300,000 displaced in what all on-the-scene relief workers, at least those who have not been evacuated, describe as yet another humanitarian catastrophe. This one is backed to the hilt by the United States—as are virtually all of the similar assaults in the Middle East.
The Saudi intervention began on March 25 against the tribal-based Houthi rebels, a Shiite-based group ing who deposed their Saudi-imposed dictator, Abdu Rabbu Monsour Hadi, and proceeded to take over close to the entire country.
Although the Saudis were compelled to state on April 21 that the bombing had ceased, it continued with abandon the following day and thereafter. But for public consumption, the Saudi propaganda ma chine politely renamed their terror bombing “Renew al of Hope” as opposed to the original “Determination Storm,” which conjured up the image of the 1991 U.S. slaughter in Iraq, “Desert Storm.”
The Saudi oil dynasty initially projected sending 150,000 Arab oil-monarch troops to re-impose Hadi rule, but after three weeks of widely condemned hor ror, including the bombing of civilian refugee camps, public buildings, schools, and the like, the Houthis re mained essentially in control of the entire nation, mi nus small areas now occupied by al-Qaeda terrorists.
Al-Qaeda proclaims, along with the Saudis, that the Houthis received major military aid from Iran. Yet not a single source to date has confirmed any Iranian mili tary support. The Houthis received arms that were turned over to them by the defecting Yemeni army, whose ranks almost totally abandoned the Hadi dicta torship—although many troops are loyal to the previ ous dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen has been subjected to a total naval embargo, enforced by the armadas of its Gulf Cooperation Coun cil (oil monarchies) allies along with the war ships of the Egyptian dictatorship, who the Saudis previously supported when General Abdel Sisi ousted the elected of the Hadi government, to the bargaining table. But the U.S. ruling class has once again miscalculated their capacity to impose “regime change” by mere force of terror bombing and military intervention.
Thus, Psaki felt compelled to add to her proclama tion of support to the Saudi bombing, “But, again, we’re trying to redirect this to a political discussion here.” The Houthis, in turn, have agreed to UN-spon sored negotiations on the condition that all bombing raids and the naval blockade are halted.
Once again, U.S. imperialism and its clients, in this instance, the Saudi oil-monarch government, have sought to undertake whatever is required to advance their economic and political interests. For both, the al liance, overt or covert, with terrorist forces, whether they be ISIS or al-Qaeda, is subordinate to imperial ism’s greater objective—to dominate the world econ omy in the interest of the elite ruling class in power, no matter the cost in human lives and environmental destruction.
For U.S. antiwar and social justice activists, the fight to end imperialist intervention in the Middle East and everywhere else is a moral and political imperative. The right of oppressed nations to self-determination, free from all colonial and neo-colonial domination, is central to any effective antiwar strategy.
No imperialist power or their clients, or the imperi alist-dominated United Nations, has any right to nego tiate the future of an oppressed people. The demand “U.S. Out Now!” must be primary to any movement that fights for the right of the poor people of the world to decide their own destiny. n