This photo of the aftermath of an airstrike in Sana, Yemen, accompanied a New York Times story (6/24/15) that provided a detailed account of the human toll of the air war—but made no mention of the US’s responsibility. (photo: Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters)
The New York Times (8/30/15) reported on the deaths of civilians in a military assault in Yemen. Wrote reporter Saeed Al-Batati:
Airstrikes by a Saudi-led military coalition killed at least 13 civilians working early Sunday at a water plant in northern Yemen, the plant’s owner said.
The bombings appeared to be the latest in a series of airstrikes by Saudi Arabia or its Arab coalition partners that have hit civilian facilities with no apparent military target nearby.
The Washington Post (8/30/15) briefly covered the story too, using a Reuters wire report that gave a higher death toll:
An airstrike by warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition, which said it targeted a bomb-making factory, killed 36 civilians working Sunday at a bottling plant in the northern Yemeni province of Hajjah, residents said.
Noting that another airstrike had killed four people in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, the piece continued:
The attacks were the latest in an air campaign launched in March by a Saudi-led alliance in support of Yemen’s exiled government, which is fighting Houthi forces allied with Iran.
Both of these reports left out the information that made this news particularly relevant to the papers’ mostly American readership: The US government is actively backing the air war in Yemen that killed those civilians, as the Times and Post have both reported. The Times (3/26/15) wrote at the start of the Saudi assault:
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said Wednesday night that the United States was providing intelligence and logistical support for the campaign in Yemen, and that President Obama had authorized a ”joint planning cell” with Saudi Arabia to coordinate American support for the military offensive.
The Washington Post provided a photo of the kind of jets the US had sold to Saudi Arabia—but when such jets were used to kill civilians, they were out of the picture. (photo: Fayez Nureldine/AFP)
And the Post, in a piece headlined “How US Weapons Will Play a Huge Role in Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen” (3/26/15), noted that the weaponry involved largely comes from the US:
US officials said they will offer intelligence and logistical support to the Saudis, but that’s really only a piece of it: The Saudi military is equipped with billions of dollars in advanced American-made weapons.
But that “huge role” often disappears when the the leading papers are discussing the carnage that results from the air attacks that the US is supporting and supplying. Thus when the Times‘ Rick Gladstone (8/22/15) reported that “Saudi-led airstrikes on a residential district in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz had killed more than 65 civilians, including 17 people from one family,” according to Doctors Without Borders, and that the death toll in the war included “hundreds of civilians killed in airstrikes,” Washington’s role in facilitating those deaths went unmentioned.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org.
It’s war …. war in a very complicated messed up section of the world run by thugs and strong men who are anti-democratic, but who produce needed oil for the world economy.
I am so sick of these slanted articles. Allowing Islamic terror groups to steal, murder and destroy is not an option. The counter-measures are difficult, and are at least being taken by US allies and people of the region, but still we hear this kind of complaints that have no basis in reality and apparently only seek sympathy for the bad guys.
A simple task to keep your hands clean
When the corpress provides the sanitizer
When historians search for the Obama Legacy, they’ll have a hard time beating the combination of U.S. unmanned drone terror with the outsourcing of major troop occupations to our good friends, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
All the death with almost none of the casualties that might lead Americans to question what the hell is going on in their names.
Win-Win!!!
Brux, perhaps this article will change your mind. Yemen is in crisis, the Saudi blockade of food and humanitarian aid to Yemen will make thousands of Islamic terrorists. These people are not stupid when it comes to who provides arms to the Saudi’s. http://www.mintpressnews.com/more-than-1000-children-killed-injured-in-brutal-yemen-conflict-u-n/208753/
Brux: “Allowing Islamic terror groups to steal, murder and destroy is not an option.” Oh yes it is: the “allies” you’re talking about, mainly Saudi Arabia, are Islamic terror groups, and they’re stealing, murdering, and destroying with weapons we’ve given them. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic fundamentalist state with a terrible human rights record. And aside from the fact of the US’ comfortable relationship with the House of Saud for so many decades, they’re not alone. The US also fostered and aided gangs of Islamic terror groups all over the Middle East, from the Afghan mujahaddin to MEK, the Iranian terror group that so many in our government support and hope to see taking power in Iran. Not only that, but General David Petraeus has urged the US to ally ourselves with “moderate” members of Al Qaeda in Syria to fight ISIS. The reality bears no resemblance to your fantasies about what the US and its proxies — not really allies — are doing in Yemen and elsewhere.
The Saudi-led coalition forces are equipped with US-made armaments are going after Houthis rebels in an effort to rstore Yemen’s exiled government. In a war, Sometimes civilians get killed; duh?