A leading peace group on Monday said a new report detailing the depth of US support for Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen – hundreds of which have been called war crimes by international legal experts – shows the need for Congress to pass a recently introduced measure to end American complicity in the one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
According to The Washington Post – which along with the Security Force Monitor (SFM) at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute analyzed thousands of news reports and images to identify warplanes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that have attacked Yemen – “a substantial portion of the air raids were carried out by jets developed, maintained, and sold by US companies, and by pilots who were trained by the US military.”
This, despite a February 2021 pledge by President Joe Biden to end US support for “offensive operations” in the Saudi-led war – a promise that has been repeatedly sidestepped via arms sales and a $500 million maintenance contract.
“This is an absolutely devastating analysis of US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen,” tweeted the Quaker peace group Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). “Our ongoing complicity is a stain on our nation’s soul. Just further reason for Congress to pass the newly introduced Yemen War Powers Resolution.”
As so many of us have documented for nearly 8 years, US-backed Saudi air strikes have been nonstop war crimes. The siege has been eased, but it’s still a war crime. https://t.co/2Pl4H5gzgg
— Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) June 4, 2022
Last week, a bipartisan group of 48 House lawmakers introduced a War Powers Resolution directing “the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”
“It’s critical that the Biden administration take the steps necessary to fulfill their promise to end US support for the disastrous Saudi-led war in Yemen,” explained Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), one of the resolution’s lead sponsors.
“We should not be involved in yet another conflict in the Middle East,” he added, “especially a brutal war that has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, and contributed to the deaths of at least 377,000 civilians.”
Writing for Just Security, Priyanka Motaparthy, director of the Counterterrorism, Armed Conflict, and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, and SFM’s Tony Wilson noted Saturday that “during seven years of war, coalition airstrikes have killed nearly 9,000 civilians in Yemen.”
“Human rights groups and the United Nations-mandated Group of Eminent Experts have documented more than 300 airstrikes that are likely war crimes or violations of the laws of war,” they continued. “These strikes have hit hospitals and other medical facilities, markets, a school bus filled with children, and a funeral hall filled with mourners.”
“Independent human rights groups, journalists, and U.N. monitoring bodies have found US weapons used in many of these attacks,” the pair added.
Following the introduction last week of the Yemen War Powers Resolution, we wanted to bump up this excellent and thorough resource. Learn more about congressional war authority and how it can be leveraged to advance peace—in Yemen and beyond. https://t.co/BbJfuAXmyR
— FCNL (Quakers) (@FCNL) June 6, 2022
The Post-SFM investigation comes amid widespread US and Western condemnation of alleged and documented Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
“Thousands of similar strikes have taken place against Yemeni civilians,” the reportnotes. “The indiscriminate bombings have become a hallmark of the Yemen war, drawing international scrutiny of the countries participating in the air campaign, and those arming them, including the United States.”
The report also comes as Biden prepares to visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks in a bid to boost relations with the oil-rich kingdom amid record fuel prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – despite a campaign promise to make the nation’s leaders “pay the price” for their role in the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The president’s decision to visit the fundamentalist kingdom, one of the world’s worst human rights violators, stands in stark contrast to the US exclusion of Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan leaders from the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles – purportedly due to the lack of democracy and respect for human rights in those countries.
Don’t you think it’s funny that Biden won’t invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the Summit of the Americas because they are “not democratic,” but will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet the barbaric butcher MBS? Hmmmm.
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) June 3, 2022
Annelle Sheline, a Middle East research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, last week called the introduction of the War Powers Resolution “a key factor in why the warring parties in Yemen decided to extend their ceasefire,” which is now in its third month.
Speaking of the resolution on Al Jazeera last week, Sheline said that “if this were to pass, two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s air force would be grounded, because they cannot operate without US military contractors, spare parts, and assistance.”
“It very clearly shows,” she added, “that the Saudis… don’t want to be in the position of losing the ability to fly their own planes if the US does withdraw support.”
Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
Biden was Obama’s VP, you could count on Obama to break his promises and you can count on Biden to break his promises. Saudi Arabia is having a forever war in Yemen just as the US is having forever overt wars in Syria and Iraq and forever covert wars in Somalia and other places.