Its Foreign Greed And Delusion That
Kills Yemeni Children
By Moon Of
Alabama
February 10/11,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Moon
Of Alabama"
-
Ten-thousands, and soon hundred-thousands die in Yemen
as result of zealotry, greed and bureaucratic infighting
of foreign countries. The Wahhabi Saudis fight in Yemen
against Iranian Shia that ain't there. Under the eyes of
the CIA they nurture local al-Qaeda forces to do their
bidding. The UAE seeks new ports in Yemen thereby
disturbing Saudi pipeline dreams. The Pentagon tussles
with the CIA over budgets of special operations. The
minor local Yemeni conflicts between the various tribes
develop into a war due to foreign interference and
financing. Bombing campaigns have replaced tribal
mediation.
The executive
branch of the United Nations is under pressure from the
U.S.-Saudi coalition. It is not allowed to report on the
real consequences of the devastating war on Yemen. The
leads to rather comical assertions.
On August 31
2016 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick
said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on
Yemen:
Speaking from
the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, Jamie McGoldrick, the
UN humanitarian coordinator said the new figure was
based on official information from medical
facilities in Yemen.
The number
could rise further, McGoldrick said, as some areas
had no medical facilities, and people were often
buried without any official record being made.
"We know
the numbers are much higher but we can't tell you by
how much," McGoldrick told reporters
On January 17
2017 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick
said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on
Yemen:
"[T]he
estimates are that over 10,000 people have been
killed in this conflict and almost 40,000 people
injured", UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen
Jamie McGoldrick told reporters in the capital Sanaa
on Monday.
He did not
provide a breakdown between civilians and
combatants.
The UN numbers
did not change from August 2016 to January 2017. Despite
intense bombing and ravaging famine no one seems to have
died. But those numbers are of course mere fantasies.
The real death toll due to the war on Yemen is at least
ten times higher. The numbers the UN envoy claims are
political. He is not allowed to reveal the real ones.
In mid 2016 the
Saudis
pressured the then UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon
to take it off a list of countries that are harming
children:
Muslim allies
of Saudi Arabia piled pressure on UN chief Ban Ki-moon
over the blacklisting of a Saudi-led coalition for
killing children in Yemen, with Riyadh threatening
to cut Palestinian aid and funds to other UN
programs, according to diplomatic sources.
A UN Secretary
General with some backbone would not have relented but
would have publicly shamed the Saudis and their allies
at each possible occasion.
Not so Ban Ki-moon:
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he
temporarily removed the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen
from a U.N. blacklist for violating child rights
because its supporters threatened to stop funding
many U.N. programs.
Ban said he
had to consider "the very real prospect" that
millions of other children in the Palestinian
territories, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and many
other places "would suffer grievously" if U.N.
programs were defunded.
The United
States and Britain
actively supported Saudi Arabia in getting its way
at the UN and within the UN Security Council.
But the UN
giving in to blackmail did not save any children.
UNICEF, somewhat independent from the General Secretary,
reports much higher (though still incomplete)
numbers that come nearer to the truth:
Yemen has lost
a decade's worth of gains in public health as a
result of war and economic crisis, with an estimated
63,000 children dying last year of preventable
causes often linked to malnutrition, the U.N.
Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
...
A decade has been lost in health gains," she said,
with 63 out of every 1,000 live births now dying
before their fifth birthday, against 53 children in
2014.
...
Releno later told a news briefing that the rate of
severe acute malnutrition had "tripled" between 2014
and 2016 to 460,000 children.
"The
under-5 mortality rate has increased to the point
that we estimate that in 2016 at least 10,000 more
children died of preventable diseases," she said.
In medical
statistic terms these are "excess death". They would not
have occurred without the war waged on the country. It
is unlikely that these UNICEF numbers are complete.
The mountainous
north-west of Yemen is the core
area of the Zaidi Shia population from which the
Houthi militia fighting the Saudis and their proxies
derive. It is now mostly cut off from communication and
supply channels. Hospitals and schools in the area have
been heavily bombed and its main northern city Sadah has
been completely destroyed by Saudi air attacks. The
Zaidi comprise about 45% of Yemen's 24 million people
and up to 1962 Zaidi caliph ruled the country for over
1,000 years. For the Saudi Wahhabi zealots the Zaidi are
not real Muslims and deserve to die.
Many people in
the north west have fled to Yemen's capital Sanaa. But
even there food is running out. Hungry children roam the
streets
begging for food.
The Yemenis,
and especially the Zaidi, have always been independent
minded. They will not give in to Saudi pressure. The
Saudis can not defeat them. Together with their U.S. and
British allies they have therefore decided on a follow a
genocidal strategy. They cut off the country, which
usually imports up to 90% of its basic food needs, from
the outside world. Saudi ships patrol the coast and the
land borders are mostly under Saudi control. Only
smugglers and the few official UN convoys provide some
relief. But this is obviously far from enough. The
ten-thousands "excess death" are a direct consequence of
the U.S.-Saudi blockade.
Besides the war
on the Zaidi, geo-political conflicts are waged in
Yemen. The Saudis accuse the Zaidi of being proxy forces
of Iran. But there is no evidence for this. No Iranian
weapons or Iranian advisor have been seen in Yemen. Iran
had
warned the Houthi not to expend their rule. Contacts
between the Houthi and Iran are now few and superficial.
The U.S. navy caught a few smuggling Dau on the way from
maybe Iran to Somalia. It claims that the old and few
weapons they carried were destined for Yemen which is
already overflowing with weapons. No evidence for this
claim has been provided.
The real
geo-political fight is taking place within the
U.S.-Saudi coalition. The United Arab Emirates is
nominally part of the coalition. They have provided
forces and hired mercenaries to fight the Houthi in
Yemen. But it is
mainly interested in the southern ports of Aden
(containers and general cargo) and Mukalla (oil and gas)
and supports a southern independence movement. The UAE
owned port management company DP World had its exclusive
concessions for the ports canceled when the Houthi
kicked out the former government. First the Houthi, then
al-Qaeda took control over the ports. The UAE now
occupies the port cities with the help of south-Yemeni
mercenaries and again manages and controls the ports.
The Saudis have
their own interest in those ports. They have
plans for pipelines from their main oilfields up
north to Mukalla. The pipelines would allow the Saudi
oil exports to circumvent the vulnerable sea lane
through the street of Hormuz. But for that they need a
port on the Yemeni coast.
The Saudis have
supported and allied themselves with radical Salafi
groups in Yemen. One of these runs under the name
al-Qaeda but it is not as tightly joined to the global
al-Qaeda organization as it seems. The Saudi supported
al-Qaeda groups, originally hired to fight the Houthi,
"liberated" the southern ports. They were ordered out
when UAE supported forces arrived but intermittently
attacks the UAE occupied Aden and, as Yemeni sources
claim, also attacks Mukalla under the label ISIS or
Islamic State.
This murky
conflict is again coming to the fore because UAE special
forces took part in a
recent U.S. raid on an alleged al-Qaeda camp in
Yemen. It has been
confirmed that 25 civilians, at least 9 of them
children, were killed in the raid. The main U.S. target,
an alleged al-Qaeda big wig,
escaped. The Saudi proxy government in Yemen
protested against the raid. It
banned further U.S. ground operation in the country
(later taken back). Its ambassador
explained that al-Qaeda is part of its fight against
the Houthi and not a priority enemy. He
repeatedly said that the "highest levels" of the
U.S. government were informed of this.
The raid in
Yemen was carried out by the Pentagon, not by the CIA.
The U.S. special forces were accompanied by UAE forces.
After the raid al-Qaeda in Yemen
retook three southern towns and is again threatening
the UAE controlled port cities.
My recent
discussions with Yemeni sources developed around the
following speculative picture. In the war on Yemen the
Pentagon is mainly allied with UAE and supports its
plans for southern Yemen. The CIA is mainly allied with
the Saudis, supports their plans and condones their
alliance with al-Qaeda. The main target of the U.S.
military raid was warned by the Saudis and escaped. The
necessary information came from CIA channels.
A similar split
between the CIA which supports Jihadis like al-Qaeda and
the Pentagon which has to fight them occurred in Syria.
The CIA provided weapons, paid by the Saudis, to various
militant Islamist groups which the Pentagon knows it
will later have to fight. The Pentagon tried to
sabotage those CIA operations.
This conflict
is between U.S. Budget Title 10 (the Pentagon) and U.S.
Budget Title 50 (the Intelligence Services/the CIA)
which has been waged for years. The responsibilities and
authorities under these titles are disputed and
discussed (pdf) over and over again. Has the CIA the
lead in special operations or the Pentagon? Who will be
able to claim the victories and who can be blamed for
the losses?
The Yemeni
children, dying of hunger, are the sorry victims of such
idiotic fights. Bureaucracy infighting in the U.S. and
pissing contests of Arab sheiks over transports routes
around the Gulf are deciding their fates.
Yesterday the
New York Times editors, again
drunk on cool aid,
revealed their self-delusions to the world:
At least in
recent decades, American presidents who took
military action have been driven by the desire to
promote freedom and democracy, ...
That lie will
surely be solace for the relatives of the kids killed in
the special force raid in Yemen which was planned and
ordered by two U.S. presidents. It will nourish the
millions of children who hunger and ten-thousands who
die in Yemen due to lack of food. Freedom and democracy
will be valued by those dying from U.S. bombs dropped
from U.S. build planes by U.S. trained Saudi pilots with
the help of U.S. intelligence. The new U.S.
administration plans to
double down on such support.
As so often in
such conflicts the locals are mere pawns in games played
by foreign countries. If the foreign powers stayed out,
the local conflicts would be solved within weeks and the
healing could begin. It would, in the end, be the best
solution for all. At the end of the 30 year war in
Europe that insight was enshrined in international law.
But the valuable experience, paid with blood and
devastation, has been discarded. How can it be regained?
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House. |
