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Yemen Humanitarian Crisis Worse than Syria; with US Assistance, Saudi Starving Yemen: Porter
Gelhorn Prize-winning journalist Gareth Porter:
By February 2016, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen as a result of the Saudi blockade was already worse than Syria’s. The UN Security Council had a series of meetings about humanitarian access in both Syria and Yemen, and the members of the Council agreed that resolutions should guarantee humanitarian access — the ability to get food and other humanitarian assistance — to those in need in both countries. But once again, after the Saudis intervened with the United States and its European allies to oppose such a resolution on Yemen, the idea was dropped.
Although the UN agencies have offered no public estimate of the number of Yemenis who have died of malnutrition-related conditions, it is likely that the figure is much higher than the estimate of 10,000 killed directly by the Saudi-coalition bombing. United Nations agencies have estimated that 462,000 Yemeni children under five years of age are already suffering severe acute malnutrition, putting them at serious risk of death from starvation and malnutrition-related disease.
Both the Obama and Trump administrations have prioritized the US’s alliance with the Saudis and their Gulf allies over the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis under imminent threat of starvation.
…the Saudi-led coalition had accounted for $130 billion in US arms sales during the Obama administration alone…
The United States has [also] enabled the Saudis to pursue [this] strategy by refueling the Saudi-led coalition planes bombing Yemen and selling the bombs. Equally important, however, the US has provided the political-diplomatic cover that the Saudis need to carry out this ruthless endeavor without massive international blowback.
If Putin started bombing the US-provided military equipment Saudi dictator Salman Abdulaziz is using to starve Yemeni children (or the US equipment Israelis use to kill Palestinian children), would the US rally behind Putin for taking a stand and “doing something” to punish Abdulaziz, enforce justice and international law, and save the children?
Or is ‘humanitarianism’ just a cynical pretext for attacking countries the US is trying to conquer?
Yemen Humanitarian Crisis Worse than Syria; with US Assistance, Saudi Starving Yemen: Porter was originally published on Washington's Blog
Source: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/04/yemen-humanitarian-crisis-worse-syria-us-assistance-saudi-starving-yemen-porter.html
