{"id":97030,"date":"2017-08-14T12:02:24","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T11:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97030"},"modified":"2017-08-13T14:50:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T13:50:31","slug":"intl-community-recoils-as-saudi-arabia-goes-on-crusade-of-mass-killing-in-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/08\/intl-community-recoils-as-saudi-arabia-goes-on-crusade-of-mass-killing-in-yemen\/","title":{"rendered":"Intl. Community Recoils as Saudi Arabia Goes on ‘Crusade’ of Mass Killing in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Malnourished twin brothers lie on a bed at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa.
\u00a9 Khaled Abdullah \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

11 Aug 2017 – <\/em>While few will pause upon hearing that Yemen was bombed yet again by Saudi Arabia\u2019s war coalition, thus leading to many deaths, the kingdom\u2019s propensity to concentrate its firepower on civilians has become a little hard to stomach.<\/p>\n

Riyadh turned child killer this August when it sanctioned an airstrike on Sa\u2019ada under the pretense of combating those infamous \u201cHouthi rebels\u201d<\/em> many news agencies insist on labeling as political infidels to promote a binary whose foundations only exist in the mind of its maker – namely Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s rebels, those men, and women who banded together against the aggression of a foreign invader have a right to their resistance. We may not like their ideas, their slogans, or even the manner of their speech, but it does not take away from the fact that a nation\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity, in this particular case Yemen, is sanctified under international law.<\/p>\n

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It would be ludicrous for any of us to argue against self-defense when we have proclaimed our right to combat terrorism on that very premise. It would be intellectually hypocritical to deny Yemen its freedom on account its invader can afford better media coverage, and stronger political friendships to disguise its crimes under a veneer of respectability.<\/p>\n

Yemen is into the third year of a brutal conflict with Saudi Arabia, and millions of innocents stand not only in the line of fire but before death\u2019s doors for their murder was architected in Riyadh\u2019s palaces.<\/p>\n

Yemen has been made to starve so its people\u2019s will to resist could be tamed.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s civilian infrastructures<\/a>: its hospitals, water system, electricity grid, food warehouses, schools, market places, libraries, mosques, and museums were blown to the four winds so a people would be taught whose will is greater in the Arabian Peninsula and whose name [Al-Saud] deserves to be imprinted further onto the region.<\/p>\n

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Yemen\u2019s fields have been bombed, gassed and otherwise made barren. Its seaports turned to ashes and fishermen targeted so not even the sea could offer relief from hunger. Aid has been profiled<\/a> according to communities\u2019 faith so that Saudi Arabia could have its victory against those it calls \u201crejectors\u201d<\/em>: Shia Muslims.<\/p>\n

As experts continue to argue legitimacy, political necessity, and geopolitical pragmatism so that, we, the public, would not question the how and why of Yemen\u2019s war, lives are being lost. A nation\u2019s future is being crushed, and most despicable of all, children are being held hostage to Riyadh\u2019s game of thrones.<\/p>\n

Seyed Hassan Ali al-Emad, the founder and head of Yemen\u2019s new rising political party, the Future of Justice<\/a> spoke to me in an exclusive interview of the horrors civilians have been made to endure to appease al-Saud’s hunger for domination.<\/p>\n

\u201cCholera has become Saudi Arabia\u2019s latest weapon of war against Yemen\u2019s children. Communities have no recourse against the disease, no access to food, medicine or clean water.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Of course, cholera is ravaging my country. It was architected so it would. Yemen\u2019s humanitarian crisis needs not be if only food and medicine were allowed back in.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On all the above we seldom dwell. Maybe the magnitude of our impairment prevents us from looking upon the crimes we allowed to go unspoken, and unchallenged. When I say unchallenged, I\u2019m not calling for more grandiose statements from our heads of state. I would much rather our world institutions put Saudi Arabia in the booth of the accused and justice be served – anything else would be a farce and an insult to those families who lost so much more than we could ever imagine to Riyadh\u2019s military rage.<\/p>\n

Maybe we all could do with a reality check here and consider that behind every casualty lies a life, a family, and a future interrupted. Our propensity to express outrage according to socio-political factors and geography has become dangerous liabilities since they have empowered mass-murderers. What else should we call Saudi Arabia?<\/p>\n

On the kingdom\u2019s recent killing spree, the Independent wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThree women and six children from the same family were killed as they slept in the dawn airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition opposing the Houthi rebels in the Yemeni civil war.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is what Saudi Arabia\u2019s war rationale looks like from up close: the random slaughter of the innocent.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/RT_com\/status\/887756432023605248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-edge%2F399304-yemen-famine-children-war-saudi%2F<\/p>\n

UK\u2019s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick said in a statement<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile these new incidents are still being investigated by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, they are an example of the brutality in which the conflict is being conducted. All parties to the conflict continue to show a disregard for the protection of civilians and the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants in the conduct of hostilities. As I have said before, even wars have rules, and such rules must be respected.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is unlikely Mr. McGoldrick\u2019s words, however sincerely he meant them, will translate into any real actions on the ground, because Yemen does not have a powerful lobby to speak on its behalf. Yemen\u2019s Resistance Movement is stuck its back against the wall, caught in the web of a false binary that labeled and criminalized its people out of mainstream politics.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s Resistance has been branded under its invaders\u2019 narrative.<\/p>\n

This is how the Independent <\/a>puts it:<\/p>\n

\u201cYemen has been torn apart by the civil war in which the exiled government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, is fighting the Iran-allied Houthi group. The Houthi group hails from the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam and controls much of the north of the country.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How grand the arrogant pen of our media, turning truths on their heads so that people\u2019s faith and their calls for political self-determination would be made invalid by the manners of their prayers, and the origins of their kin. Why bother with facts when fairy tales can be weaved and war crimes excused.<\/p>\n

Has anyone bothered to look under Yemen\u2019s burning rubles to notice how many civilians were claimed to al-Saud’s crusade before throwing sectarian adjectives around? Is freedom a right or a privilege reserved to a certain elite? Because from where I\u2019m sitting it sounded almost as if mainstream media was trying to rationalize murder by waving religious bias and ethnocentrism.<\/p>\n

One last thing: if religious labels matter that much why have we failed to give Saudi Arabia its own? Or maybe that would be rude.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Read more: Yemen war pushes country \u2018towards the edge of a cliff\u2019 \u2013 UN <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. A regular pundit on <\/em>RT and other networks her work has appeared in major publications:<\/em> MintPress, Foreign Policy Journal, Mehr News and many others. Director of Programs at the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, Catherine is also the co-founder of Veritas Consulting. She is the author of <\/em>Arabia\u2019s Rising – Under the Banner of the First Imam.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11 Aug 2017 – While few will pause upon hearing that Yemen was bombed yet again by Saudi Arabia\u2019s U.S. supported war coalition, thus leading to many deaths, the kingdom\u2019s propensity to concentrate its firepower on civilians has become a little hard to stomach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}