generalspeaking

Saturday, August 11, 2018

The Immoral Quagmire of the Bloodsoaked Middle East

"It is high time for these relapsing tragedies to stop in Yemen."
"No one should allow putting children in harm's way and making them pay such an unacceptable price."
Robert Mardini, regional director, International Committee of the Red Cross

"U.S. military support to our partners mitigates non-combatant casualties."
"Our support to the coalition consists of aerial refuelling and intelligence support to assist our partners in securing their borders from cross-border attacks from the Houthis."
"Our non-combat support focuses on improving coalition processes and procedures, especially regarding compliance with the law of armed conflict and best practices for reducing the risk of civilian casualties."
Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman, U.S. Pentagon

Whether it's a Russian spokeswoman speaking for Russia's aerial involvement in the searing conflict in Syria where President Bashar al-Assad has been responsible for almost a half million deaths, mostly of Sunni Syrians, and six million displaced Syrians, several million made refugees outside the country of their birth, or a spokeswoman for the Pentagon explaining how and why it is unblameworthy that the United States supports the Saudi-led coalition bombing civilians in poverty-stricken Yemen in its civil war, we could be looking at the interchangeability of accomplices to war crimes.

Granted, Houthi rebels lobbing rockets over the border from Yemen into Saudi Arabia calls for some response from the Saudi coalition, but one might be mistaken to believe that the Saudis' response aims for the military bastions that target it. Instead, the civilian casualty rate is soaring, and it might be difficult for anyone to believe that the bombing of hospitals in Houthi-held territory is accidental; again a situation reflected in Syria where Russian and Syrian bombers deliberately target hospitals so the injured in their bomb blasts would die instead of being treated for their wounds.

Whether it's a hospital or a bus full of children and adults returning from a day's picnic outing being targeted with a substantial loss of life, the situation is brutal, criminal and unforgivable. Yemen, embroiled in a conflict that most ordinary people have nothing to do with, as is typical in all such conflicts when sectarian forces challenge one another for primacy, is in a situation where tens of millions of people face starvation, where cholera rages, where death drops from the sky, unannounced and unselective.

A doctor treats children injured by an air strike in Saada, Yemen (9 August 2018)

Reuters The ICRC said it was sending extra supplies to help hospitals deal with the influx

And nor is it only the United States that is involved in supporting the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen back into the stone age. "This atrocity cannot be ignored. The U.K. government has been utterly complicit in the destruction. It has armed and supported the Saudi-led coalition right from the start. The death toll has spiralled and the humanitarian crisis has only got worse, and yet the arms sales have continued", stated Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade of the licensing by the U.K. of $6-billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The latest mass killing was the targeting of a bus in Dahyan district, northern Yemen, a stronghold of the Houthis, the bus heading back from a picnic and hit as it travelled through a busy market, stopped in its tracks by an airstrike. At least 50 people were killed outright, and 77 wounded. "Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten", reported Johannes Bruwer, head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen.

The coalition's response was that the strike represented a "legitimate military action", a reaction to a missile fired at the south of Saudi Arabia which wounded eleven Saudis and killed one. An ICRC-supported hospital in Saada, held by the Shiite rebels, received 28 dead children all under 15 years of age, and 48 wounded, among them 30 children. "No excuses anymore. Does the world really need more innocent children's lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?" protested Geert Cappeiaere, regional director in the Middle East and North Africa for UNICEF.

Other stills from the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV footage showed wounded Yemeni children lying on beds receiving treatment following the alleged Saudi-led airstrike Thursday.