Pinnacle of Human Failure is Yemen

Donate Share:Twitter Facebook LinkedIn


2018 Review – Yemen, the Pinnacle of Human Failure

Donald Trump’s support for Mohammed bin Salman (MbS ) war on Yemen after its repudiation of the US puppet government in Yemen is tantamount to a criminal conspiracy.

Yemen UNHCR/Rawan ShaifPhoto credit: Yemen UNHCR/Rawan Shaif – A portion of this report is updated from FPMag ,20 September Yemen: Trump/SA/UAE War Crimes Exposed (In Depth) and from FPMag, 21 December Mattis, who helped Kill 80,000 Yemeni Kids, just quit.

by Micheal John | micheal.john@fpmag.net | with files from Behar Abassi in Yemen

The war games of billionaires and the harm they can do.

“Across Yemen, factions and militias on all sides of the conflict have blocked food aid from going to groups suspected of disloyalty, diverted it to front-line combat units or sold it for profit on the black market, according to public records and confidential documents obtained by the AP and interviews with more than 70 aid workers, government officials, and average citizens from six different provinces.” – Associated Press

Feminine Perspective:

This updated report concludes in plain language the essence of the Yemen problem and a proposed solution:

  1. In violation of the Geneva Convention, the combatant states against Yemen, particularly the United States and Saudi Arabia, and particularly by the planners James Mattis a former Defense Secretary of the US Trump administration and  also Mohammed bin Salman (MbS ) the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and former Minister of Defence for that country, have with deliberation and planning, attacked the food and medicine supply lines of Yemen; destroyed the agricultural assets and capabilities of Yemen; and starved to death thousands of civilians of Yemen. This new war crime was commenced as James Mattis came into office as Defense Secretary of the US Trump administration at the end of 2016.
  2. War criminals involved against Yemen as combatants killing Yemenis and committing war crimes are the leaders of: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Senegal, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, United States (paid mercenaries, Navy, Army, Air Force combatants) and the United Arab Emirates UAE. Iran could possibly be added to the list as a co-defendant for its role in arming Houthi fighters which also contributed to war crimes in Yemen.
  3. These war criminals have been supported by: Al-Qaeda, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Eritrea, Finland, France, Germany, Malaysia, Spain, and the United Kingdom which countries and leaders at all times had full knowledge of the crimes being committed. These co-defendants should be charged for war crimes or in the alternative, must bear witness against the accused based on the information they have as co-conspirators. In any case these nations and leaders must be shamed before the world for the extreme crimes they have perpetuated in Yemen.
  4. Because the impunity for crimes against humanity has been herewith withdrawn by the ordinary people of the world through their United Nations, America (which country according to its religious evangelical leader, Rev. Pat Robertson and its de facto [maybe elected maybe not] political leader POTUS Donald Trump have benefitted the most with according to Trump, hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of $billions in sales) with funding and contributions from the other combatants/war-criminals must send to Yemen at least 50,000 neutral troops under a UN Peacekeeping flag to fulfil an emergency humanitarian mission and clean up the human catastrophe that they made.
  5. Feed and medically treat as many Yemenis as possible before millions more die.
  6. Leaders of Yemen’s attackers including USA, UAE, Saudi & Sudan (Omar al-Bashir), in particular the accused murderer and apparent architect of the Yemen catastrophe. Mohammed bin Salman (MbS ) are human rights violators, specifically misogynistic baby-killing rapists and must be arrested and brought to the Hague for trial.
  7. Women around the world must collude to democratically unseat these monsters.
  8. The UN General Assembly should create a Yemen War-Crimes Tribunal with harsh powers.
  9. The UN Security Council should be disbanded in an effort to trim the fat and the corruption from the UN and increase the voice of its many currently voiceless nation-state members.

Editorial note:

What can a wounded woman do in Manila, Philippines or San’aa, Yemen  when troops come into her home, kill her husband and children plus her family guests? She can’t call 911, this was 911. And this happens over and over again. FPMag has published close circuit video of events like this premeditated state sponsored murder.
At some point, billionaire kleptocratic leaders of nations who slaughter innocents and exist not for the benefit of the ordinary citizen but to extract their life’s value  from the citizen for their own gain must be stopped. Leaders like Mohamed bin Salman, Omar al-Bashir, Rodrigo Duterte, Donald Trump and others who exploit citizens and slaughter others they cannot exploit must be held accountable.

General James Mattis as Defense Secretary supplied in the past two years the weapons and training to the Coalition that invaded Yemen in March 2015.  He also set policy in this American surrogate war allegedly against Iran via Houthi rebels. The Houthi had thrown out the American/Saudi puppet government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi  which had a long  record of graft and corruption with Hadi as the previous Vice President and then President.

Since he became Secretary of Defense for the USA Mattis pushed or in the alternative, supported a strategy-change in Yemen that increased the attacks on civilians and their food supplies. The strategy had been formed in 2016 by Mohammed bin Salman, then Saudi defence Minister, and approved in the USA by Ash Carter, Mattis’s predecessor who began the enormous levels of support by the US military against the poorest country it has ever encountered. At least one member of the so-called Coalition against Yemen is led by an indicted war criminal.

Feminine Perspective:

Mattis is closely tied to war criminal and accused murderer Mohammed bin Salman, the same man who, on the evidence, at 2 October, 2pm, had Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and dismembered.

“What concept forbids describing Mattis as just another two-dimensional sociopath who hangs out with and facilitates the dirty work of people like Omar al Bashir and Mohammed bin Salman?”

This concept of destroying civilians by killing off the food and medicine supply takes a page from history when the United States slaughtered more than two million North Koreans by carpet bombing farms, irrigation systems, damns, farming villages, farm implement factories, food terminals, food transportation infrastructure and the homes of the DPRK population of civilians.

A genocidal act and war crime of significant proportions,  is the deliberate destruction of the food infrastructure of a country says Behar Abbasi in Sana’a.

 

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis meets with Saudi Arabia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Photo Credit: Kathryn E. Holm; MC1; USN9 August 2018 School Bus Bombers: Defense Secretary James N. Mattis meets with Saudi Arabia’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Photo Credit: Kathryn E. Holm; MC1; USN

“How does anyone reconcile with the families of slaughtered children? How do you explain to a father, ‘We bombed your child’s school bus on 9 August because…’?, asks Abbasi from Yemen.

The United States has been asked repeatedly to compensate the families of the dead childrenbut has refused.

Did you know the USA’ Trump government is supporting not just Saudi MbS slaughtering in Yemen but Omar al-Bashir’s Sudanese army’s forays of raping & murder into Yemen? Were you told that Saudi Arabia is hiring the children of Darfur to deploy as fighters in Yemen? That a USA bomb & USA satellite-targeting hit a school bus of babies on 9 August?

Hundreds of detainees have been sexually abused at a jail in southern Yemen believed to be run by the United Arab Emirates.  –> “They strip you naked, then tie your hands to a steel pole from the right and the left so you are spread open in front of them. Then the sodomizing starts,” said one father of four. Americans have been interrogating inmates of these prisons notes Associated Press. Read The Guardian’s impeccable report.

The world received a UN report on Yemen, in late August, that a UN group was asked to create back in January. A so-called Group of Experts, was mandated in January by the United Nations Human Rights Council to carry out a comprehensive examination of the human rights situation in Yemen.

Two things stand out in its report. (You can read Human-Rights-abuses-in-Yemen-since-September-2014)

Firstly, it’s authors set out that they probably could not do their jobs because they were restricted from performing their duties owing to security concerns.

The second revelation was that the countries attacking Yemen are run by global pariahs which leadership have have taken no steps to mitigate civilian casualties of war consequently war crimes and human rights violations have left the population in such a desperate state that Yemen is declared a humanitarian calamity and millions are expected to die (paraphrased).

The primary port, Hodeidah, for humanitarian aid shipments of food and medicine for 1,200,000 cholera sufferers has effectively been shut down by out-of-control American and Saudi war planners whose bombing and missile raids slaughtered residents in Hodeidah, Yemen, closing the port

The World Food Program (WFP) said humanitarian workers, warehouses and food stocks in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah have come under attack in recent days, jeopardizing vital assistance programs. The WFP warns the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Hodeidah is threatening its life-saving operations for hundreds of thousands of people. — VOA

The war has killed at least 100,000 of  Yemenis and left more than 22 million people –three-quarters of Yemen’s population – in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

“At least 8 million Yemenis are on the brink of famine, and 1 million are infected with cholera.”  , The Guardian: The War in Yemen is Disastrous. America is only making it worse.

1.9 million Children in Yemen are dying.An estimated 1,200,000 Yemenis have Cholera (UNICEF)

Can you believe that the United States’ Trump government has been supporting the Sudanese army’s forays of raping and murder into Yemen?

This is the same army which in Sudan has burned civilians alive, run them over and swung children into tree trunks according to Amnesty International . Read also the ICC arrest status of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir. The first warrant for arrest for *Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir was issued on 4 March 2009, the second on 12 July 2010. The suspect is still at large. Read also: US War Criminals Won’t Dodge the ICC (In Depth)

US-based GQ Magazine has a theory that Trump has no interest in the lives of people who are not white. In fact he wishes there weren’t any.

Attacking the ICC the White House has launched a discrediting attack against the actual Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who are each prominent jurists from many of the 123 ICC member nations.

Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor has outrageously adduced that the United States has impunity and may commit crimes against humanity at its own will. This implies that the White House is no longer governed by the US Constitution and no longer has respect for US Congressional institutions.

US official inquires about Violations of American Federal Law While Conducting Operations in Yemen
Read the entire letter. 2018-08-13-Letter-to-DoD-IG-Fine-Yemen

Sudanese parliamentarian Hassan Othman Rizq, who has spearheaded a campaign for withdrawing Sudan’s forces from Yemen, told Reuters in May that the decision to dispatch troops to Yemen was illegal because lawmakers had not approved it.

*US-Backed Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir Charges include: five counts of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape; two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities, and pillaging; three counts of genocide: by killing, by causing serious bodily or mental harm, and by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, allegedly committed at least between 2003 and 2008 in Darfur, Sudan.

A small sampling of anecdotal accounts of UN findings.

Sidebar:

(You can read Human-Rights-abuses-in-Yemen-since-September-2014)

  • Residential areas have repeatedly been hit by air strikes, often resulting in significant destruction and civilian casualties. In 60 cases, the Group of Experts reviewed air strikes that hit residential areas, killing more than 500 civilians, including 84 women and 233 children. The Group investigated the 25 August 2017 air strikes that hit a residential building in the Faj ‘Attan area of the city of Sana’a, killing at least 15 civilians and injuring another 25, including 7 women and 11 children. It also investigated the 20 December 2017 incident in the Bab Najran area of the Sa’dah Governorate in which three coalition air strikes hit a family home, killing at least 12 civilians, including at least 3 women and 3 children.
  • In 29 incidents, the Group of Experts reviewed air strikes hitting public spaces, including attacks on targets in densely populated areas that killed more than 300 civilians. The Group investigated two incidents where air strikes hit hotels. The 23 August 2017 air strike in the Bayt Athri area of the Arhab district, Sana’a Governorate, and the 1 November 2017 air strikes that hit a hotel in Al Layl market in Sa’dah Governorate combined killed more than 50 male civilians and injured another 50. In each case, at least 12 boys were among the casualties.
  • The Group of Experts has also reviewed 11 incidents where air strikes hit marketplaces. In a particularly egregious case, on 15 March 2016, coalition air strikes on Khamees market in the Mastaba district of the Hajjah Governorate killed more than 100 civilians, including 25 children. Since the establishment of the Group’s mandate, at least five markets have been struck. The Group investigated the 26 December 2017 air strikes on the Mahsees Market in Ta’izz Governorate, which killed at least 36 male civilians and injured another 46.
  • Funerals and weddings have also been affected. The Group of Experts reviewed five air strikes involving such gatherings. The 8 October 2016 attack on Al-Kubra Hall in the city of Sana’a during the funeral of the father of a senior official killed at least 137 civilians and injured 695, including 24 boys. The Group investigated the coalition air strike on 22 April 2018 that hit a wedding celebration in Al-Raqah village, in the Bani Qa’is district of the Hajjah Governorate. At least 23 male civilians were killed, including 8 boys.
  • The Group of Experts reviewed four air strikes that hit detention facilities since the beginning of the conflict, including the 29 October 2016 air strikes on the Security Directorate Prison in the Al Zaidia district of the Hudaydah Governorate, which killed at least 63 male civilians, mainly detainees. The Group investigated the 13 December 2017 coalition air strikes on a detention facility at a military police camp in the city of Sana’a that killed at least 42 male civilians, some detainees, including 8 boys.
  • In 11 air strikes hitting civilian boats off the shores of Hudaydah from November 2015 until May 2018, of which 9 were reviewed and 2 investigated by the Group of Experts, approximately 40 fishermen were killed or disappeared. In another incident examined by the Group in which coalition aircraft targeted a boat carrying refugees on 17 March 2017, a total of 32 Somali refugees, including 11 Somali women, and 1 Yemeni civilian were killed, and another 10 persons were reported missing.
  • Despite the special protection afforded to medical facilities and educational, cultural and religious sites under international humanitarian law, many such facilities and sites have been damaged or destroyed by coalition air strikes throughout the conflict. The Group of Experts reviewed information concerning at least 32 such incidents. It received credible information that the no-strike list of protected objects was not being adequately shared within the coalition command chain.
  • Several air strikes have damaged facilities operated by Médecins sans frontières, including a clinic in the Houban district of the Ta’izz Governorate, hit on 2 December 2015; an ambulance in the Sa’dah Governorate, struck on 21 January 2016; and a hospital in the Abs district of the Hajjah Governorate, hit on 15 August 2016. All the locations of the Médecins sans frontières facilities had been shared with the coalition and the ambulance was clearly marked. On 11 June 2018, Médecins sans frontières reported that an air strike had hit a new cholera treatment centre in the Abs district of Hajjah Governorate. It indicated that the coordinates of the facility had been shared with the coalition on 12 separate occasions.
  • The specific cases investigated by the Group of Experts raise serious concerns about the targeting process applied by the coalition. The Group submitted a request to the coalition for specific information on this process; regrettably, it has not received any response to date. The brief public reports by the coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team do not provide any detail on the targeting process. Therefore, the Group has been limited to examining the results of air strikes.
  • Based on the incidents examined, and information received in relation to the targeting process, the Group of Experts have reasonable grounds to believe the following:
    (a) In the absence of any apparent military objective in the vicinity, the objects struck raise serious concerns about the respect of the principle of distinction and how military targets were defined and selected. The use of precision-guided munitions would normally indicate that the object struck was the target;
    (b) The number of civilian casualties raises serious concerns as to the nature and effectiveness of any proportionality assessments conducted;
    (c) The timing of some attacks and the choice of weapons raise serious concerns as to the nature and effectiveness of any precautionary measures adopted;
    (d) The failure to ensure that all relevant commanders have access to the no-strike list raises serious concerns about the ability of the coalition to comply with the special protections accorded to such objects;
    (e) The use in some cases of “double strikes” close in time, which affect first responders, raises serious concerns as to whether updated proportionality assessments and precautionary measures were carried out for the second strikes.
  • If there are errors in the targeting process that effectively remove the protections provided by international humanitarian law, these would amount to violations. These may, depending on the circumstances, amount to war crimes by individuals at all levels in the member States of the coalition and the Government, including civilian officials.
  • Shelling and sniper attacks by parties to the conflict have resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties in the Hajjah, Lahij, Ma’rib and Ta’izz governates. The Group of Experts focused on such attacks in the city of Ta’izz, an urban environment with some of the most intense and sustained fighting in the country. The Group could not access Ta’izz for security reasons, but obtained information from numerous reliable sources.

camp near Aden, Yemen, on 27 May. Photograph: Fawaz Salman/ReutersCurrently, more than 2 million people are still displaced in Yemen, with women and children representing three quarters of IDPs. (WHO)  “The suffering of the displaced people in Yemen is severe and unimaginable.” Internally displaced persons camp near Aden, Yemen, on 27 May. Photograph: Fawaz Salman/Reuters

Stop American War Crimes in Yemen - Photo by Felton Davis

“Bombing Children is a War Crime” – Stop American / Saudi War Crimes in Yemen. Photo Credit: Felton Davis Demonstration in New York City 2017

“Grief is the price we pay for love.” — Queen Elizabeth II.

The world is grieving for the people of Yemen and can’t help but notice that all of the attacking Coalition members have horrible human rights records.

Additional Reading:

Epic Bullying and Corruption is what the war in Yemen is about.

Today’s war in Yemen is a disingenuously claimed military intervention launched by American-backed Saudi Arabia in March 2015, leading a coalition of nine African and Middle East countries with abysmal human rights records, in response to the plaintiff calls by the Saudi puppet President of Yemen.

Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was renown in Yemen for decades of corruption, unemployment and food insecurity he brought Yemen as vice-president to President Ali Abdullah Saleh Hadi eventually ousted to get the top job. Saleh would come back and harass Hadi until his violent death.

A militia group in Yemen had been  recruited by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in addition to al-Quaeda Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  But Hadi didn’t say that, he said “The Houhtis are coming“.

“The Houhtis are coming“

Code-named Operation Decisive Storm by the Americans to mimic the publicly popular Desert Storm campaign against Saddam Hussein, the intervention initially consisted of a heavy aerial bombing campaign on Houthi revolutionaries and later saw a starvation-level naval blockade and the deployment of various ground forces into Yemen which the Yemenis summarily sent packing.

The attackers included American mercenary group, Academi (formerly Blackwater) and  Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

The American starvation-as-a-weapon-of-war campaign against the 27.58 million (2016) people of Yemen is working and they are dropping like flies.

The Houthis credibly say that they took power through a popular revolt in favour of democracy by ousting a dictator  and defending Yemen from an American-backed invasion.

Washington’s support for Yemen’s former dictatorship — and of Saudi efforts to sideline the country’s nonviolent pro-democracy movement — helped create the current crisis. — Foreign Policy in Focus

Former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was a Yemeni politician who served as President of the Yemen Arab Republic from July 1978, after the assassination of President Ahmad al-Ghashmi, to 22 May 1990, when he became the first President of a reunified north and south Yemen. He notably accepted billions in US aid to combat al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, even as he recruited its fighters to battle his rivals, probably with America’s knowledge.

Saleh’s key contributions to Yemen were corruption, unemployment and  food insecurity.

Saleh, a brutal dictator backed by the United States with Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as his vice president since 1994, led the unified country until his resignation on 25 February 2012 following the Yemeni Revolution.

Saleh’s was an unwilling resignation.

Tawakkol KarmanYemen protest leader Tawakkol Karman, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, called on the United States to “hold Saleh accountable.”

“Her involvement in demonstrations and actions critical of the Yemeni regime has led to her arrest and murder threats on several occasions. She has promoted the struggle for democracy and human rights in Yemen at the international level, including at the UN. ” Nobel Prize Org

“There shouldn’t be any place for tyrants in the free world. This is against all international agreements, laws, and covenants. The entry of Ali Saleh into America is an insult to the values of the American people. This was a mistake by the administration, and I am confident he will be met with wide disapproval in America. This will tarnish the reputation of America among all those who support the Arab Spring revolutions.” – Tawakkol Karman

America and Saudi finally pushed Saleh into a deal. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, Saleh agreed to hand over power to his Vice President in 2012. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi

After an election run by Saudi Arabia and the United States (CIA) in which there was only one candidate, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who received 100% of the vote, Saleh resigned and headed for Riyad leaving Hadi in charge. Saleh would soon come back and overthrow Hadi.

Often described as a dictator, Saleh, the puppet of Saudi Arabia, has been accused of plundering billions of dollars from Yemen during his decades in power. Hadi was his second in command all the while and a party to these crimes delivering corruption, unemployment and food insecurity to the people of Yemen.

Today, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is in the United States basking in the limelight of Trump-style-love, claiming hardship from the United Nations, and obtaining protection and “medical attention” from American doctors.

As president of the unified Yemen, Hadi now in the USA, was likened to a Saleh with a mask. He brought corruption, unemployment and food insecurity.

Like all dictators, Hadi wanted to fashion the mirage of a formidable enemy to scare the constituency but from whom he would protect the public.

Claim: It’s the Pirates

At first he used “pirates” in the Gulf of Aden. They not the blood-sucking government were the enemy of the people and the author of their mounting woes. But the pirates refused to cooperate and went silent.

The Pirates didn’t measure up even slightly as enemy of the state so Hadi named al-Quaeda, and said that al-Quaeda represented an undeclared war, one of three raging in Yemen.

Claim: No. It’s the al-Quaeda (AQAP)

That drew al-Quaeda wannabes in droves from other parts of the Middle East where the going was very tough and life-threatening to say the least. Saudi Arabia recruited these Salafi jihadists rookies later, to attack the Houthis.

But the top level AQAP are as respected in the Muslim world as the Rotary Club is respected in North America.

An Associated Press Investigation adduces: “In one conflict, the U.S. is working with its Arab allies — particularly the United Arab Emirates — with the aim of eliminating the branch of extremists known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed Shiite rebels. And in that fight, al-Qaida militants are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition — and, by extension, the United States.”A military coalition battling Houthi rebels secured secret deals with al-Qaeda in Yemen and recruited hundreds of the group’s fighters, a news report last August.

For more than two years, a Saudi-led alliance – backed by US logistical and weapons support – claimed it crushed al-Qaeda’s ability to carry out attacks from Yemen.

The Associated Press found the coalition has been paying some al-Qaeda commanders to leave key cities and towns while letting others retreat with weapons, equipment, and wads of looted cash.

Hundreds of al-Qaeda members were recruited to join the coalition as soldiers.

Key figures in the deal-making said the United States was aware of the arrangements and held off on drone attacks against the armed group, which was created by Osama bin Laden in 1988.

The deals uncovered by the AP investigation reflect the contradictory interests of the two wars being waged simultaneously in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

In one conflict, the US is working with its Arab allies – particularly the UAE – with the aim of eliminating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

And in that fight, al-Qaeda fighters are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition and, by extension, the US.

Former al Qaida commander Harith al Ezzi walks through streets destroyed in fighting in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz. AP PhotoFormer al-Quaeda commander Harith al Ezzi, allied with Saudi Arabia and supplied by the United States, walks through streets destroyed in fighting in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz. AP Photo

Claim: It’s the Houthi

Sidebar:

Who are the Houhti by Behar Abassi

The Houthis credibly say that they took power through a popular revolt in favour of democracy by ousting a dictator  and defending Yemen from an American-backed invasion.

Many Houhtis are Zaydi Shiite Muslims, or Zaydiyyah. Shiite Muslims are the minority community in the Islamic world and Zaydis are a minority of Shiites, significantly different in doctrine and beliefs from the Shiites Americans think are an enemy.

Zayd bin Ali, was the great grandson of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law whom all Shiites revere. Zayd bin Ali led an uprising against the Umayyad Empire in 740, the first dynastic empire in Islamic history, which ruled from Damascus.

Zayd was martyred, his head believed to be buried in a shrine to him in Kerak, Jordan.

Zaydis believe Zayd bin Aliwas a model of a pure caliph who should have ruled instead of the Umayyads. Zayd’s most oft-remembered biography is that he fought against a corrupt regime. Sunnis and Shiites agree that Zayd e was a righteous Muslim. The Zaydi elevate him to be an ultimate hero for the fight against corruption which dogged Yemenis since 1978.

The Houthis liken themselves to Zayd, fighting corruption in their country being the core of their past political program. Now they rule.

The Zaydi do not believe in ayatollahs like the twelver Shiites (called twelvers for their belief in twelve Imams) who are the predominant Shiite sect in Iran, and most of the Muslim world, nor do they practice the other twelver’s doctrine of dissimulation which permits members of the faith to disguise their faith for self-protection.

Arguably the Houthis have something in common with both the Saudi Arabs and the Iranian Shiites: they are highly respected Muslims.

But to claim the cause for going to war against Yemen is that there is a bond of blood between the Houthis and Iranians is more than disingenuous. It may become a self-fulfilled prophecy, antagonizing Iran, but from the outset it was an unmitigated lie to fool constituents into going along with more massive arms sales and bloodshed.

And when the Houthis in the north raised hell about the obvious transcendence from one crooked government to the next, Hadi first of all had some of their representatives murdered; then when that didn’t slow down the indigenous Houthis he named them public enemy number one.

Confused, the Yemen population swarmed to join the Houthis and another revolution began, led by ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh.

That did not last long. Saleh had bribed the Houthis with money and promises of ending corruption. After ousting his former vice-president Hadi, Saleh resumed his campaign of delivering corruption, unemployment and food insecurity.

The Houthis ended their pact with Saleh who was killed in the ensuing disagreement. (Ali Abdullah Saleh was  eventually assassinated 4 December 2017, Sana’a, Yemen.)

The Houhtis stormed Sada’a in November of 2013  and had it under their control by January 2014.

Killing Houhtis has since been difficult. The popular revolutionaries of Yemen have kicked out most attackers including the Sudanese to whom the Houhtis have delivered several bloody noses.

The Saudi Arabs backed by the United States are losing their war they brought to the Houhtis and since March of 2015 have resorted to slaughtering civilians to try demoralizing the population and disenfranchising the Houhtis.

The result, you see below in part, in four video screen captures from local media,  as children dig graves for their friends after the US and Saudi together dropped large, line-of-sight, laser-guided bombs on a school bus.

Graves for school children bombed by Saudi Arabia Air Force US / Saudi Bombing of School Bus in Yemen The American /Saudi Arabian legacy in Yemen is symbolized by a school bus load of dead children bombed on August 9th, 2018 with deliberation, planning and execution by America and Saudi Arabia in an arms-selling, greedy money-making scheme that could only have this kind of result. Photo credit: Screen Captures from Sana’a local news video.

The civil war in Yemen is about a popular uprising against a tyrannical thirty-plus-year dynasty that was so corrupt it turned Yemen into the poorest country in the Middle East despite its oil and the nation’s strategic location. That Dynasty was supported by Saudi Arabia and the United States which has no concept whatsoever of the ancient, complex political scene in Yemen.

The Houhtis by Behar AbassiThe Houhtis by Behar Abassi

Saudi Arabia lost its control of Yemen finally with the epic failure of President Hadi, as an obvious Saudi Arabian and American sock puppet assumed the strings of self-confessed scoundrel Saleh.

Hadi was  ousted in a spring 2015 revolution that had a series of violent steps after the Saudi Arabian puppet administration refused to depart. Hadi retreated to Riyad and mid-week was lurking in New York City in the United States.

Claim: It’s The Iranians

The White House claims that the revolutionaries in Yemen are backed as a proxy by Iran. The Houthis were actually on their own initially and that is an odd lie fabricated to help boast public support for selling weapons (over $90 billion USD) into another war. But having this American-sponsored slaughter on its doorstep is forcing Iran to respond and increasing tensions across the Middle East and in Africa.

It is true that Salafi Jihadists have been drawn to Yemen. It’s a country where having guns in your possession is no big deal and being a terrorist group running training camps in the hinterland goes pretty much unnoticed. It’s as common as cactus and rattlesnakes on the Alberta semi-desert.

Also true, because it is a state in turmoil, Yemen has attracted state and non-state entities for the long term. It no has now allowed the so-called Islamic State, Academi (Blackwater) mercenaries, al Quaeda, and CIA to its weakest areas. They are not welcomed.

Claim: It’s Really the West’s Corrupt Executives and Politicians Getting Rich from Arms Sales

Old rich codgers like John Bolton and Donald Trump in their 70s in the USA don’t have any significant future in politics before they rot in hell if they continue to back a holocaust in Yemen. Neither of those two ever loved anyone as is clear from their tantrums over being told they must respect human rights. They don’t feel the grief Queen Elizabeth once spoke of when she said,

“Grief is the price we pay for love”.

Ordinary people feel grief for children and their families who are being slaughtered in Yemen so these soulless two-dimensional shells can feel powerful and get rich from their share of the $28 billion per year sale of arms to psychopathic genocidal fundamentalists like the House of Saud and Omar al-Bashir.

But the leaders in France and Great Britain risk destroying their careers.

You might need women voters some day, Macron, May. Did you ever think that the slaughtering of millions of women and children in Yemen might really piss off those that see the children die. Millions of children are being killed by Trump, Macron, May, and a group of Trump-described shithole countries whose human rights records are why somebody thought the United Nations and the International Criminal Court were a good idea.  – Ed.

The following two documentaries present extraordinary work of journalists who deliver solid accounts of the historic and current Yemen crisis. Please take the time to watch and learn.

Please help save the millions of starving people in Yemen.

Please watch:

 

The Freak Show: Part I – The List

The Freak Show: Part II – The Caliphate Root

The Freak Show: Part III – Freaks attacking Yemenis

The Freak Show - A discussion of growing authoritarians, and the bizarre characters leading the worldClick the image to watch the video on Vimeo.  Art: Feminine Perspective, Rosa Yamamoto