{"id":35531,"date":"2018-06-27T06:14:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T11:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35531"},"modified":"2018-06-27T06:14:36","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T11:14:36","slug":"yemeni-suffering-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35531","title":{"rendered":"Yemeni Suffering Made Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/06\/27\/yemeni-suffering-made-easy\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Yemeni Suffering Made Easy<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_103254\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-103254\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/41004836282_a831a80f8b_z.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/41004836282_a831a80f8b_z.jpg 510w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/41004836282_a831a80f8b_z-300x188.jpg 300w\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"319\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Source Felton Davis | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-yemen-security\/fighting-moves-closer-to-center-of-yemens-main-port-city-idUSKBN1JK05N\">Saudi and UAE-led operation<\/a>to retake the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah, which could jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, represents more than the latest tragic chapter in Yemen\u2019s civil war. It is the fully expected outcome of several Western nations\u2019 complicity in a multi-country assault that has made Yemen the world\u2019s largest humanitarian disaster.<\/p>\n<p>The recent attack on Hodeidah is both a function of Western arms support and a feature of longstanding Western political programming that has sustained the coalition\u2019s attack on the country since a bombing campaign began in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>For the last several years the US, UK, and France have all greenlit <u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20180323-yemen-saudi-coalition-arms-amnesty-civilian-casualties\">arms sales<\/a><\/u>, refueling missions, and <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/03\/us\/politics\/green-berets-saudi-yemen-border-houthi.html\">special forces guidance<\/a><\/u>to the coalition with few, if any, conditions. The operation in Hodeidah is no different, where <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-yemen-security-france\/french-special-forces-on-the-ground-in-yemen-le-figaro-idUSKBN1JC099\">French<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>special forces are already on the ground and the US is providing <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.ae\/world\/mena\/us-providing-intelligence-sharing-and-refuelling-for-hodeidah-1.740279\">intelligence and aerial refueling<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>to assist the coalition. Since the beginning of the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, the results of American, French, and British arms and support have led to the bombing of <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2016\/10\/13\/yemen-saudi-led-funeral-attack-apparent-war-crime\">funerals<\/a><\/u>, <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/sep\/28\/saudi-led-airstrikes-hit-yemen-wedding-party\">weddings<\/a><\/u>, <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-41830119\">markets<\/a><\/u>, <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/08\/16\/world\/middleeast\/yemen-doctors-without-borders-hospital-bombing.html\">hospitals<\/a><\/u>, <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/middle-east\/saudi-arabia-coalition-air-strikes-hit-yemen-school-civilian-deaths-sana-drones-donald-trump-a7540316.html\">schools<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>and other public spaces populated by civilians. The latest bombing of a wedding party (because there have been more than one) <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/middle-east\/yemen-airstrike-wedding-party-killed-injured-bani-qayis-saudi-coalition-latest-updates-a8317826.html\">killed twenty, including the bride herself<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n<p>Some observers equivocate as to whether these destructive acts stem from purposeful targeting or simply the negligent use of sophisticated Western weapons technology, but the frequency with which non-combatants, civilian production capacity, and <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/dec\/12\/bombed-into-famine-how-saudi-air-campaign-targets-yemens-food-supplies\">food supply chains<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>continue to be struck appear deliberate. To assume these attacks are anything but calculated is to stretch the bounds of reasonableness: within the first day of operations in Hodeidah, a Doctors Without Borders <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/06\/12\/619085964\/airstrike-reportedly-hits-doctors-without-borders-facility-in-yemen\">treatment facility\u00a0<\/a><\/u>suffered a coalition missile strike even though the GPS coordinates of the facility had been provided<u><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/msf_yemen\/status\/1006903858965221376\">twelve times <\/a><\/u>and the <u><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/msf_yemen\/status\/1006901844034052096\">roof had clear markings<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>to distinguish the building for medical purposes.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yemeni Suffering Made Easy Photo Source Felton Davis | CC BY 2.0 The Saudi and UAE-led operationto retake the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah, which could jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, represents more than the latest tragic chapter in Yemen\u2019s civil war. It is the fully expected outcome of several Western [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1319,5493,9556,20689,6273,20688,701,2428,965,901],"class_list":["post-35531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-armaments","tag-counterpunch","tag-doctors-without-borders","tag-hodeidah","tag-humanitarian-crisis","tag-kevin-schwartz","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-west","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35532,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35531\/revisions\/35532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}