For almost two years, the United States has backed—with weapons, logistics and political support—a Saudi-led war in Yemen that has left over 10,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, 2.5 million internally displaced, 2.2 million children suffering from malnutrition and over 90 percent of civilians in need of humanitarian aid.
A recent UN report on the humanitarian crisis and near-famine conditions in Yemen (that encompassed South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia as well) has led to a rare instance of Western media taking notice of the war and its catastrophic effect. But missing from most of these reports is the role of the United States and its ally Saudi Arabia—whose two-year-long siege and bombing have left the country in ruins.
A Daily News editorial (“USA for Africa (and Yemen),” 2/27/17) called on readers to give to aid organizations helping to alleviate the crisis, but neglected to mention the US/Saudi role in the humanitarian disaster the Daily News itself insisted was “caused by acts of man rather than God.” Which men were those? The Daily News doesn’t say.
This AP report (2/21/17) notes that “in Yemen’s conflict, nearly half a million children have ‘severe acute malnutrition'”–but it doesn’t mention the US government’s contribution to that conflict.
Similarly, reports on the near-famine in Yemen in the Guardian (2/12/17), AP (2/21/17), CBS News (2/22/17) and Reuters (2/22/17) neglected to mention the US-backed, Saudi-led bombing and siege that caused the hunger crisis in the first place.
To the extent these stories cover the war in Yemen, they typically do so in a “cycle of violence” framing that gives the reader the impression the crisis is entirely domestic in origin. As FAIR has previously noted (10/14/16), while it’s common for American media to describe the Houthi-led provisional government as “Iranian-backed,” the role of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is less often highlighted, while the role of the United States (and Britain) in supporting the Saudi-led assault is frequently omitted entirely.
A separate Guardian editorial (2/23/17), while briefly mentioning the war was “fueled in part by British and US bombs” in the text of the article, insisted in the headline the UK was “sitting by” as “disaster unfolded.” The UK is, of course, not “sitting by.” The British government has provided £3.3 billion in arms sales—as well as logistical support, surveillance assistance and political cover—to the Saudi regime primarily responsible for the disaster in question.
Like the US, the UK has not been “sitting by” but actively contributing to famine in Yemen.
A UN report from last year found there had “been widespread and systematic violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and human rights norms” by the Saudi government and its allies. The US role in the humanitarian disaster was so significant, Reuters revealed last year, the State Department was sending internal emails warning of possible US exposure to war crimes prosecution.
One notable exception was the New York Times (2/22/17), which expressly mentioned the US and Saudi role in the war in its report on the UN’s findings.
Over the past six months, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen—to say nothing of the US’s role in it—has been virtually nonexistent on cable and broadcast news. NBC News, Fox News and MSNBC have all neglected to cover the story. When it was covered on TV news, as with CNN (10/7/16) and ABC News (10/28/16) last October, the role of the United States in fueling the crisis was omitted altogether.
The US’s role in the war in Yemen is even more urgent of late, with President Donald Trump ramping up support for Saudi Arabia’s harsh tactics, including possibly cutting off access to the critical port of Hodeidah on Yemen’s west coast—an act that the Huffington Post (2/22/17) insists could “spark a full-blown famine in Yemen.”
A first step to putting political pressure on Trump to mitigate the suffering in Yemen is for the US public to speak out about their government’s role—a condition unlikely to be met if corporate media never bother to mention it.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
Cry for the children
And keep quiet on the cause
This is the exact sort of absolutely criminal and immoral thing that no American will recognize our government does. This sort of behavior is why we’ve EARNED the nightmare of Trump. Because people didn’t recognize it when Obama did it for eight years . Trump-Clinton difference means nothing for 95% of the people on this earth.
American people suddenly all up in arms about the inconvenience and dangers we now face at home – suddenly worried about their discomfort and (god forbid) our heinous corporate press being called “fake news”. Meanwhile this is the kind of thing WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR that been happening for the last eight years (and much longer).
People like to scoff at the people who used to parade with NLF flags, but at least it showed they had an idea of what other people were struggling for and the hell they were going through. What do our symbols show we’re interested in now? Our private parts and nothing more I guess.
We are no longer the good guys.
Were we ever?
Well, of course if it were Russia and Iran unleashing such horrors, Johnson wouldn’t say boo.
Is this a phoenix program being played in Yemen????
Jan 17, 2017 Genocide In Yemen: Media Complicit In US-Saudi War Crimes
The people of Yemen have found themselves struggling not only for survival, but for a space in the mainstream media’s war coverage. In the shadow of the conflict in Syria, the men, women and children of Yemen are being starved by a war initiated by Saudi Arabia and aided by the Unites States.
https://youtu.be/0rgXq94VJTI
Feb 5, 2017 Trump’s New World Order
The new boss is starting to look a bit like the old bosses…
https://youtu.be/eLS5h1ZDKvE
That seems to happen every time doesn’t it?
All this and US Air Force flown tankers for aerial refueling without which the Saudi Air Force could not reach targets in Yemen from their far away bases. They do have bases quite close to Yemen but they dare not use them because the inept (and cowardly?) Royal Saudi Army is unable to defend the bases which have been successfully attacked several times by Yemenis.
The Western way of war now is to impose a siege, to run down what’s needed to support life, then send in the bombers and missiles to destroy what’s left of it, with precision. It can’t be repaired because of the ongoing siege. The bombers periodically return to destroy anything that might be fixed. If what’s needed to support life is destroyed then as night follows day, life itself is destroyed – starting at the weakest – the youngest children, the sick and the very old. A few cruise missiles destroy a water treatment plant or a pharmaceutical plant and as a result kill tens of thousands of these vulnerable human beings – quietly, while keeping initial deaths from the explosions low enough, by using precision guided weapons, to not draw outside attention to civilian deaths. There are two enormous lies: that the use of precision guided weapons, by the West, reduces civilian casualties and that sanctions, imposed by the West, are an alternative to violence.
As used by the West sanctions are a force multiplier, a violence multiplier, multiplying the violence by thousands. Precision guided weapons can avoid targeting large number of civilians directly while accurately targeting and destroying the means for their survival, killing them indirectly instead (but just as certainly), silently, without publicity, avoiding obvious blame. This was done to Iraq by Clinton, by the US and UK – reaching the level of killing 5000 children under 5 every month – what Madeline Albright infamously said was a “price” that was “worth it”. This is policy. It is deliberate. It is planned. It is mass murder.
This is what is happening in Yemen now; carried out by the US, UK and the Saudi dictatorship. Take a look at the things being destroyed. Take a look at recent UN comments on this destruction.