Yemen:

Saudis take on more than they can chew

Rasa - The Saudi-led and US-backed war on Yemen is a desperate attempt to preserve status quo at the expense of everyone else in the Middle East.

News ID: 2388

Date: 22 April 2015 - 17:23

RNA - The delusion seeks to make state terrorism universal under the pretense of fighting it, and to make the law of the jungle instituted and regularized under the mantle of the rule of international law.

To this end, the Pentagon has joined in the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen along with several support ships, with US forces boarding cargo ships they accuse of having Iranian weapons on board. So far they haven’t found any. In fact, neither they, nor any of their Arab cronies, have been able to prove this is happening.

Along with Washington's logistical support for airstrikes deliberately targeting and destroying critical civilian infrastructure and of Saudi efforts to sideline the country's nonviolent pro-democracy movement and civil society, the illegal blockade has helped create the current humanitarian crisis. Civilian casualties are mounting and US support for this criminality does make it partly responsible for its consequences.

The blockade is illegal under international law because:

- Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United States have any right to interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs or to install their own political puppets to head the government. That is the right of the Yemeni people.

- None of the members of the Saudi-led coalition has a case for self-defense. The targets of the campaign include humanitarian supplies, schools, hospitals, homes, refugee camps, water systems, grain stores and food industries. These targets have no military value but the potential for appalling harm to ordinary Yemenis, leading to widespread famine and social collapse.

- This predatory imperialist offensive has the thinnest of pretexts. It will fail to break the legitimate hopes and enthusiastic dreams burning in the hearts of millions of Yemeni people. The savage war of annihilation won’t prevent the rise of popularly supported Ansarullah, a resistance movement that seeks self-determination.

- The House of Saud has taken on more than it can chew. It will eventually suffer a major defeat from this unprovoked incursion. Signs of impending blowback are everywhere, but they have chosen to assume that the moment of reckoning will not come soon.

As it stands, Yemen will continue to face the humanitarian catastrophe unless the international community forces the House of Saud and its cohorts to lift the criminal blockade. Rather than contributing to the destruction of the country and being in the service of war, world leaders, the United Nations in particular, are duty-bound to step up and exercise their political might to demand an immediate, unconditional ceasefire.

Under international law, they must fulfill their moral and legal duties. Failing to change policy and act decisively now will only aggravate Yemeni sufferings and endanger chances for peace, which might move the region closer to even greater conflagration and bloodshed.

The article first appeared on Fars News Agency.

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