[Photo: Welcome to Yemen. Freedom Secular site]

=By= David Swanson

Will the Gulf of Tonkin Fit into the Red Sea? Just a geography question. Or maybe it’s a different sort of question.

Do a web search for “USS Mason” and you will find countless “news” reports about how this poor innocent U.S. ship has been fired upon, and fired upon again, and how it has fired back “countermeasures” in self-defense.

But you might stumble onto one article from CNN (don’t watch the totally misleading video posted just above the text) that says:

“Officials Saturday night were uncertain about what exactly happened, if there were multiple incoming missiles or if there was a malfunction with the radar detection system on the destroyer.”

So, was the poor wittle innocent destroyer fired at or not?

The simple but apparently impossible point to grasp is that it does not matter. The United States destabilized Yemen with a massive killing spree known as a “drone war.” The United States armed Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen with jets, supplied the jets, supplied the bombs (and cluster bombs), refueled the jets midair, provided the targeting information, provided the cover at the United Nations, and deployed its ships to the coast of Yemen as part of its effort to achieve U.S./Saudi power in Yemen through mass murder and devastation. If one group or another or nobody in Yemen fired some harmless shots at a U.S. ship the outcome is the same: zero legal or moral or practical justification to continue or escalate the killing, and zero logic in calling such escalation “defensive.”

Likewise, speculation — including in the CNN video posted just above its article — that Iran was behind the possibly fictional attacks on the U.S. ship does not matter. The conclusions that can be drawn are identical whether or not such baseless and wishful theories are true.

This is the point of my use of examples of past similar (non)-incidents like the Gulf of Tonkin Non-Incident in my book War Is A Lie. The point is not that because the U.S. military lied about Tonkin it’s likely to be lying again next time (though that’s a fair conclusion). The point is actually completely different. The point is that when you put U.S. ships on the coast of Vietnam and use them to fire on Vietnam, the question of whether anyone ever fires back is not a question of aggression against the United States of America.

Let’s recall what (didn’t) happen on August 4, 1964. U.S. war ships were on the coast of North Vietnam and were engaged in military actions against North Vietnam. So President Lyndon Johnson knew he was lying when he claimed theAugust 4 (non)-attack was unprovoked. And any ordinary person could have known he was lying without awaiting any classified leaks. One simply had to check to see which coast of the United States the Gulf of Tonkin was on. (Same with the Red Sea.)

Had the Gulf of Tonkin Incident happened, it could not have been unprovoked. The same ship that was supposedly attacked on August 4 had damaged three North Vietnamese boats and killed four North Vietnamese sailors two days earlier, in an action where the evidence suggests the United States fired first, although the opposite was claimed. In fact, in a separate operation days earlier, the United States had begun shelling the mainland of North Vietnam.

But the supposed attack on August 4 was actually, at most, a misreading of U.S. sonar. The ship’s commander cabled the Pentagon claiming to be under attack, and then immediately cabled to say his earlier belief was in doubt and no North Vietnamese ships could be confirmed in the area. President Johnson was not sure there had been any attack when he told the American public there had been. Months later he admitted privately: “For all I know, our navy was just shooting at whales out there.” But by then Johnson had the authorization from Congress for the war he’d wanted. There the parallel breaks down, of course, as President Barack Constitutional Scholar Obama cannot be bothered with Congressional authorizations. Yet he still requires a certain level of public tolerance.

In a 2003 documentary called The Fog of War, Robert McNamara, who had been Secretary of “Defense” at the time of the Tonkin lies, admitted that the August 4 attack did not happen and that there had been serious doubts at the time. He did not mention that on August 6 he had testified in a joint closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees along with Gen. Earl Wheeler. Before the two committees, both men claimed with absolute certainty that the North Vietnamese had attacked on August 4.

McNamara also did not mention that just days after the Tonkin Gulf non-Incident, he had asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide him with a list of further U.S. actions that might provoke North Vietnam. He obtained the list and advocated for those provocations in meetings prior to Johnson’s ordering such actions on September 10. These actions included resuming the same ship patrols and increasing covert operations, and by October ordering ship-to-shore bombardment of radar sites (exactly what the U.S. just did in Yemen).

A 2000-2001 National Security Agency (NSA) report concluded there had been no attack at Tonkin on August 4 and that the NSA had deliberately lied. The Bush Administration did not allow the report to be published until 2005, due to concern that it might interfere with lies being told to get the Afghanistan and Iraq wars started.

On March 8, 1999, Newsweek had published the mother of all lies: “America has not started a war in this century.” No doubt Team Bush thought it best to leave that pretense undisturbed.

When the United States was lied more deeply into the Vietnam War, all but two senators voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. One of the two, Wayne Morse (D-OR), told other senators that he had been told by the Pentagon that the alleged attack by the North Vietnamese had been provoked. Obviously any attack would have been provoked. But the attack itself was fictional, and that’s the point people seem to latch onto, missing the more important understanding that it does not matter.

Senator Morse’s colleagues did not oppose him on the grounds that he was mistaken, however. Instead, a senator told him, “Hell, Wayne, you can’t get into a fight with the president when all the flags are waving and we’re about to go to a national convention. All [President] Lyndon [Johnson] wants is a piece of paper telling him we did right out there, and we support him.”

Hell, Swanson, you can’t raise scruples about blowing people up in Yemen when traitors are failing to stand during the National Anthem and Hillary Clinton took big bucks from Saudi Arabia and Boeing into her family foundation to get those jets there and the Democrats are trying to paint Donald Trump as too dovish

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org andWarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

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Felicity Arbuthnot

Warrior for Peace and Justice

Sa’ada, Yemen “reduced to dust”. Photo: OCHA / Phillipe Kroph.

“Let me ask you one question. Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?” (Bob Dylan, b 1941, Masters of War.)

On Tuesday 6^th September, twenty-four hour monitoring by the country’s Legal Centre for Rights and Development (LCRD) recorded the bombings by the Saudi led “coalition”, armed by the US and UK and advised by their military specialists, thus collusion and co-operation of both countries render them equally culpable for the carnage.

Yemen has a population of just 24.41 million (2013 figure) and according to the Rural Poverty Portal: “ … is one of the driest, poorest and least developed countries in the world. It ranks 140 out of 182 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (2009). An estimated 42 percent of the people are poor, and one Yemeni in five is malnourished. Poverty is endemic, particularly in more remote and less accessible areas.”

In the one day and night period covered here, attacked were the capital Sana’a and Sa’dah, Marib, AlJawf, Hajjah, and Hodeidah.

Victims and damages:

Sana’a [Fourteen attacks, four air raids targeted the communications network in Nqil Yeslih in Sanhan Directorate]:

• Six air strikes targeting al Madfoon district in Nehm Directorate.
• Four strikes targeting Daboa’h in Nehm Directorate.

Sa’dah province [Sixty-nine attacks]:

• Forty-five air raids targeted areas of Mandabah, al-Magda and Asharaf and Gulal Shaibani in Baqem district.
• Airstrike targeted a government complex building led to the destruction of the building in Al-Daher Directorate.
• Another airstrike targeted a private sector stone crusher in A-Daher Directorate.
•  Two air raids targeted Malaheeth District in Al-Daher Directorate.
• Two air raids targeted the Alhesamah District in Shada’a Directorate .      Five air raids targeted Al-Boqa’ District in Kitaf Directorate.
• Seven strikes on houses and farms destroyed three houses and four  farms  in Ibad area, Baqim Directorate.
• A strike targeted a house in the area of Souda, Baqim Directorate.
• Saudi rockets and artillery shelling targeted scattered areas in Razih District .
• Five air strikes targeting Maran area in Haydan district.

Hajjah province: Seven raids targeted Midi District.

Hodeidah Province: One air raid led to a death in the area Alhemah District, al Khokhah Directorate.

Al-Jawf province [Eight strikes with a woman injured, the targeting of a house resulted in the destruction and damage to fifteen nearby houses in Al Ghayl District]:

• Twelve mercenaries loyal to Saudi Coalition were killed and nine injured by Saudi air raid targeting a house in Al Ghayl District.
• Three air strikes destroyed a house and damaged eighteen adjacent houses also in Al Ghayl District.
• Three air strikes further targeted three farms in Al Ghayl District.

Marib province: Two air raids targeting Sirwah District and an air strike on Hylan Mountain in Sirwah District.

This heartbreak, fear and destruction has been rained down in commensurate devastation nearly every twenty four hours since March 2015, Saudi Arabia is the lead culprit, but in the “coalition” are also Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.

Ironic to remember Kuwait’s “victim” status in 1990, when Iraq was threatened with being “reduced to a pre-industrial age” for taking revenge for Kuwait’s slant drilling theft of oil from Iraq’s Rumaila oil fields. Now Kuwait, population just 3.369 million (2013) is in the gang of murderous bullies decimating a poverty stricken country – no doubt as a thank you to Saudi Arabia for extending hospitality to their ruling family when they fled ahead of the Iraqi troops, leaving their subjects to face the onslaught which their theft had generated.

Those who unleashed near Armageddon on Iraq over an oil dispute are either silent on, or participating in, Yemen’s nightmare – and as ever money is talking and the US and Britain are selling the arms and the ‘planes in billions of $s.

Further, in an act of perverse irony, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, was elected Chair of a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) panel in September 2015. At the time UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said: “It is scandalous that the UN chose a country that has beheaded more people this year than ISIS to be head of a key human rights panel. Petro-dollars and politics have trumped human rights.”

In June this year Amnesty International called for Saudi Arabia to be stripped of its place on the UNHRC with Richard Bennett, heading Amnesty’s UN Office saying:

“The credibility of the UN Human Rights Council is at stake. Since joining the Council, Saudi Arabia’s dire human rights record at home has continued to deteriorate and the coalition it leads has unlawfully killed and injured thousands of civilians in the conflict in Yemen. To allow it to remain an active member of the Council, where it has used this position to shield itself from accountability for possible war crimes, smacks of deep hypocrisy. It would bring the world’s top human rights body into disrepute.”

He continued: “The strong evidence of the commission of war crimes by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition in Yemen should have been investigated by the Human Rights Council. Instead, Saudi Arabia cynically used its membership of the Council to derail a resolution to establish an international investigation … As a member of the Human Rights Council Saudi Arabia is required to uphold the highest standards of human rights. In reality, it has led a military coalition (carrying out) unlawful and deadly airstrikes on markets, hospitals and schools in Yemen. The coalition has also repeatedly used internationally banned weapons in civilian areas…” (Emphasis added.)

The double standards of the “international community” and its UN “umbrella” is ever breathtaking.

Equally breathtaking is that in July, the UK refused to rule out electing Saudi to its place in the UNHRC for a second time, in spite of Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, having stated that “carnage” caused by some Saudi coalition airstrikes appear to be war crimes.

But then, according to The Independent (1) official figures in January this year showed sales of British bombs and missiles to Saudi: “increased 100 times in the three-month period since the start of the attacks on Yemen. The sales jumped from £9 million in the previous three months to £1 billion.”

Arms sales above flesh and blood, terror, heartbreak and humanity, every time.

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-human-rights-un-united-nations-uk-british-elected-behead-a7140501.html

The writer is indebted to the LCRD for the documentation of the attacks and for the careful translation by Ameen Alharazi.

Related: Yemen: The True Face of War. Charlotte Cans, OCHA Communications Officer.

About the author

Paying the Price — Killing the Children of Iraq, which investigated the devastating effect of United Nations sanctions on people of Iraq.^[1]   Ms. Arbuthnot is a dedicated pacificist, and her work proves the adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword."

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Felicity Arbuthnot

Warrior for Peace and Justice

ICRC donated morgues (from ICRC twitter account)

“ … a landmark agreement that will save lives and ease the immense human suffering caused by armed conflict around the world. It will reduce the number of illegal arms …We should be proud of the role Britain has played to secure this ambitious agreement … that will make our world safer for all.” (David Cameron on the Arms Trade Treaty, 2nd April 2013.)

The death toll in Yemen is now so high that the International Committee of the Red Cross is donating “entire morgue units” (1) to hospitals still standing, having so far escaped the illegal Saudi assault, backed, advised and armed by the US and UK.

“The hospitals were not able to cope,” said Rima Kamal, a Yemen-based spokesperson for the Red Cross. “You could have more than 20 dead people brought into one hospital on one single day. The morgue capacity at a regular hospital is not equipped to handle this influx of dead bodies.”

“It is not that common for the ICRC to donate morgues,” she observed. “The fact that we now do is telling of the size of the human tragedy in Yemen.” The ICRC has donated body bags and refrigerated storage facilities to three hospitals with: “More in the pipeline.”

Meanwhile, according the international agency, Oxfam: “The UK government has switched from being an enthusiastic backer of the international Arms Trade Treaty into one of the most significant violators.” (2) The Arms Trade Treaty entered in to force in December 2014 and has been signed by 130 nations, 87 have ratified – including the UK – 46 have signed but not yet ratified.

“UK arms and military support are fueling a brutal war in Yemen, harming the very people the Arms Trade Treaty is designed to protect. Schools, hospitals and homes have been bombed in contravention of the rules of war.

“The UK government is in denial and disarray over its arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition bombing campaign in Yemen. It has misled its own Parliament about its oversight of arms sales and its international credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality.

“The UK government has been supplying arms to the Saudi-led coalition for use in the war in Yemen, including export licences for £3.3bn worth of arms in 12 months from March 2015 … The UK is also providing Saudi Arabia with military advice and personnel, both Ministry of Defence personnel and private contractors.”

Ironically, the UK government was an architect of the Arms Trade Treaty, which is incorporated in to British law. The Treaty aims to regulate trade in “conventional” weapons, contributing to wider global peace, reduce human suffering and generate transparency and responsible actions “by and amongst states.” For the UK government such admirable aims seemingly count for nothing.

In April, Amnesty International sent an expert team in to Yemen (3) who discovered that British made cluster bombs had been used by the Saudi “coalition.” Cluster bombs are illegal weapons and have been banned under international law since 2008.

Amnesty’s team found a: “British-made BL-755 – a particularly nasty model, which consists of a large bomb that opens mid-air to scatter 147 smaller explosive bomblets across a wide area.

“The bomblets eject a stream of molten metal as they detonate, which is designed to pierce metal armour. After this, they explode into more than 2,000 fragments killing and maiming all in the vicinity.”

Yemen: human damage from cluster bombs (source unknown – reddit.com)

If they don’t explode on impact, they remain on the ground, scattered across the area, with “hundreds of live, lethal devices” waiting to be triggered by vibration, tripped on or picked up by curious children or uninformed adults who are either killed or terribly maimed. Interviewing survivors it was found that: “These incidents took place days, weeks or sometimes months after the bombs were dropped by coalition forces in Yemen.”

Amnesty has been pressing the British government on the Saudi’s use of these outlawed weapons, only to be told sanguinely that UK Ministers have been provided with “assurances” by Saudi “of their proper use.”

Work that one out, “proper use” of illegal weapons.

However: “On 22 July 2016, the last day of Parliament before their summer holidays, the UK government admitted that they had misled MPs six times over investigations into Saudi Arabia’s conduct in Yemen.” (Emphasis added.)

Thus, having assured Amnesty repeatedly of assessments conducted  finding no breach in international law: “ … it is now apparent no investigations has been done at all.” It seems when it comes to weapons of mass destruction of all hues, British governments of whichever party contain serial liars. Iraq was destroyed on the lies that it had weapons of mass destruction, the UK government sells them, then misleads about the consequences.

This is one type of US cluster munition. You have the large outer shell which will open upon being dropped from the plane. The “bomblets” inside are the true destructive munitions and they will come down (sometimes with individual parachutes) to explode either as they near the ground, or when they hit the ground, causing significant mutilation and death.

In an another Report (4) Amnesty makes the point that: “Cluster munitions are banned by over 100 countries, including the UK, and campaigners argue that the UK has a strong moral responsibility to ensure that any cluster bombs – such as the BL-755 – sold in the past are traced and that measures taken to destroy existing stockpiles. Since the 1980s and 1990s the UK is thought to have sold large numbers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE (which is also part of the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition) and the weapon is known to be in the current ordnance stockpiles of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

UK cluster bombs being deployed. (CommonDreams)

BL-755

No doubt the British government is more concerned about being asked to repay the purchase moneys were they to demand Saudi and the UAE destroyed the cluster bombs stock, with barely a mental glance towards the lives and limbs at stake.

In northern Yemen: “thousands of unexploded bomblets litter villages”, with a goat herder telling the researchers: “In the area next to us, there are bombs hanging off trees.”

There may be even further British involvement: “The BL-755 is designed to be dropped from the UK Tornado fighter jet, scores of which the UK has sold to Saudi Arabia. Given that the UK is known to have several hundred specialist support staff working closely with the Royal Saudi Air Force, Amnesty is warning that any involvement of UK personnel – whether in Saudi Arabia or in a liaison or political role in the UK – would constitute a clear breach of the UK’s legal responsibility under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.” (Emphasis added.)

In December last year Amnesty and Saferworld commissioned a legal opinion from eminent international law experts, Professor Philippe Sands QC, Professor Andrew Clapham and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh of London’s Matrix Chambers. (5)

They concluded that: “any authorisation by the UK of the transfer of weapons and related items to Saudi Arabia … in circumstances where such weapons are capable of being used in the conflict in Yemen, including to support its blockade of Yemeni territory, and in circumstances where their end-use is not restricted, would constitute a breach by the UK of its obligations under domestic, European and international law.”

They also opined that the UK Government can properly be deemed to have: “actual knowledge … of the use by Saudi Arabia of weapons, including UK-supplied weapons, in attacks directed against civilians and civilians objects, in violation of international law”, since at least May 2015.

It should also be noted that of the over one hundred licenses to arms exports to Saudi, by value the top items are combat aircraft and air-delivered bombs.

Matthew Norman sums the whole, murderous, shameful, filthy business (literally) up admirably (Independent, 23rd August 2016.)

“Coming second to the US in the medals table at one Olympics might be a flash in the pan. Finishing second behind America year after year in the global league of net arms exporters suggests a commitment to flogging the means of death to any regime – however disgusting – with the cash to buy them.”

1. https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/the-death-toll-in-yemen-is-so-high-the-red-cross-has-started-donating-morgues-to-hospitals/
2. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/08/uk-government-in-denial-and-disarray-over-treaty-it-helped-create-to-regulate-the-arms-trade
3. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/exposed-british-cluster-bombs-used-deadly-attacks-yemen
4. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/saudi-arabia-led-coalition-has-used-uk-manufactured-cluster-bombs-yemen-new-evidence
5. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/government-breaking-law-supplying-arms-saudi-say-leading-lawyers

^a – Also Coalition Dropping  US-Made Cluster Bombs on Yemen.

About the author

Paying the Price — Killing the Children of Iraq, which investigated the devastating effect of United Nations sanctions on people of Iraq.^[1]   Ms. Arbuthnot is a dedicated pacificist, and her work proves the adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword."

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
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=By= Seth Farris

Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen with US arsenal. DemocracyNow!)

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]any thing are now happening which cannot be explained by conventional wisdom and the knowledge we have from conventional sources. One is what is happening between the US and Saudi Arabia.

There is now a serious face off between these two countries, but its cause has little to do with the Kingdom’s sordid human rights record and endemic corruption, things the US is supposed to oppose. It has more to do with what is happening in the US presidential election, and the outcome may be of global importance, a real game changer.

Who’s clean enough to dump?

The US election may boil down to who did what concerning 9/11. In the Republican race Donald Trump is gaining votes and delegates by continuing to express a willingness to expose the dark secrets of the Bush and Obama administrations’ foreign dealings. Meanwhile, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton is mired in scandal on scandal, many involving the same players.

The darkest foreign dealings of the US are outlined in the missing 28 pages of the official 9/11 report, which will undoubtedly also compromise Saudi Arabia, America’s best friend in the Middle East. At present, this report is being kept secret. In a country where you can access people’s bank records by a few clicks of the mouse, as former Vice-President Dan Quayle discovered to his cost, this is a scandal in itself.

This report is the really hot issue in the US right now, and may turn the presidential elections one way or the other. If Trump plays his hand right, it will fly back in the faces of Hillary and her erstwhile supporters. Mrs. Clinton is already embarrassed by allegations that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has been funding the Clinton Foundation, which is in effect a slush fund for distributing all kinds of political patronage under the counter. If these allegations are true, it can fairly be said that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign is being funded by Saudi Arabia, and there will be considerable fallout from this in a Western world which equates “Muslim autocracy” with “terrorism” and is allowed to get away with it, quite apart from what the 9/11 report says.

9/11 shouldn’t stay secret

The much-touted 28 pages of the 9/11 report could not only potentially collapse the House of Cards (as well as that of Saud) but see US politicians facing criminal charges as collaborators in international terrorism. Foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers is being hidden from the American people and the international community by a country which thinks it is the best and has no need to bow to anyone. It is therefore, by extension, hiding its own culpability by not taking this opportunity to put the boot into these deviant foreigners once again.

As has been pointed out, the refusal to make this report public shields state sponsors of extremism from accountability—which encourages their continued sponsorship and endangers countless lives around the world. It also prevents the American people from making informed judgments about the nation’s counter-terror strategy and foreign policy—past, present and future. Furthermore, it undermines 9/11 family members working to achieve courtroom justice against those who aided and abetted the deaths of their loved ones. That’s quite a rap sheet for the administration which won’t release them to be facing – in a country which is still filled with horror by the notorious Warren Harding administration of the early 1920s, let alone Watergate.

Former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) and other informed sources have stated publicly that the 28 pages show that the alleged 9/11 hijackers were funded by the Saudi government through its US embassy – which was headed by a Bush Crime Family “made man,” Prince Bandar, affectionately known as “Bandar Bush.” The Sunni Kingdom has since acted as paymaster for much of what has transpired in Syria, turning local and regional problems into a time-honoured conflict between the two branches of Islam for geopolitical and economic gain. Naturally this involved the never-ending power struggle with with Iran and the ensuring that clouds of smoke were sent into the wider region.

Fighting paper with bombs

It is the controversy surrounding this report which must be kept in mind when assessing the most recent events in Yemen. As previously stated, the sudden US pullout from there was not driven by military factors but the theft of documents which show the illegal transactions the US has been involved in there. These pieces of paper are so damaging that the US is getting out as fast as it can, while bombs and casualties have done nothing to persuade it to leave before.

In the light of this pullout, Saudi Arabia has moved in to bomb the Yemeni capital to smithereens. The cat is away so the mouse will play, just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan when US troops pulled out. But this bombing has nothing to do with the Yemeni conflict itself. It is all about who is going to take the fall for 9/11 – and who will go down fighting the hardest if they do.

The US has run from Yemen because the documents seized there most probably reveal that it took over the country simply to illegally sell arms to terrorists. Given their longstanding intelligence collaboration, it is inconceivable that the Saudis do not know this. It is also inconceivable that the Saudis were not involved in these operations themselves, either by shipping the weapons or paying for them, directly or indirectly.

This bombing positions Saudi Arabia as the true master of the region. It can walk (or in this case fly) in without bothering what anyone else thinks, in typical US fashion. It is also a signal that Saudi Arabia is too powerful to be brought down by what is in the 9/11 report, because it can unleash a whirlwind of its own if the US tries to blame Saudi Arabia for its contents.

This process has already begun. Details of the 9/11 report have been leaked, not to harm the US per se but to suggest that rogue elements in its government led the country astray, into the arms of a Saudi Arabia which is uniformly corrupt and criminal. That has been the level of public discourse so far, preparing the way for a cleansing operation which will protect the guiltiest Americans, only finding enough sacrificial lambs to satisfy the thirst for blood these insinuations will have created, while condemning with international sanctions every Saudi who is implicated.

Congress is now considering a bill which will suspend Sovereign Immunity for members of the Saudi royal family accused of involvement, through the Saudi state, in terrorist attacks on US soil. The Saudi government is reacting to this the same way it has in Yemen, but using different weapons: it is threatening to punitively dump $750 billion in US Treasury Bonds if this bill is passed. If you make us pay for our joint crimes, we will show you who is really boss, the Saudi rulers are saying in the best way they know how. The US knows that if it wants a fight, things will not stop there.

No way out but going further in

The threat of exposure of what is in the official 9/11 report has many in the Republican Party establishment, who are trying to stop Trump, shaking in their boots. People linked to the Bush family, Prince Bandar and a pack of other royals are closing ranks. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party don’t want any more embarrassment either, when they have promoted her to their primary voters as their best candidate despite all the well-known scandals she and her husband have been involved in.

This is one of these situations where the only damage limitation option is not to deny the offences took place but to claim that everyone is guilty and some more guilty than others. This was the tactic former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi notoriously tried, when he himself provoked the Tangentopoli scandal by letting one of his party members take the fall when he was caught taking a bribe.

When the offended member went public with how widespread this practice was Craxi defended his own revealed involvement by saying that everyone else did the same, and most were dirtier than him. It did him no good because he had set himself up as being above such things, while they were widely expected of some other politicians. But he had no other option – and neither do the parties implicated in the 9/11 report, as most are very much ready to believe the worst about them from the beginning.

The Saudis have much they can remind the US of if they are attacked in order to paint them as worse than the US members of this operation. They might, for example, point out that the US ostensibly entered Yemen to back the president who controlled the oil flow which was bankrolling several operations and had formed the basis of several slush funds. They know who they dealt with; they know whose hands were in the barrel. They know who they can bring down with them if they themselves are indicted for any crime.

After Watergate destroyed the whole US political class, not just the Republican Party or Nixon administration, by showing how dirty politicians could be US voters elected Jimmy Carter as president, because he was considered a good, honest man who was the antidote to politicians. Donald Trump could never be called a good, honest man, but he is a similar antidote to politicians. He is playing this for all it is worth, particularly as he is losing ground in other ways, the hillbillies having had their fun by shouting for Trump, not necessarily being prepared to vote for him.

But even a Trump administration would only have a brief honeymoon period in which it would be considered “outsider,” just as Carter’s had. The only way the US political class as a whole will emerge unscathed from the 9/11 report will be to pretend that the Saudis took things much further than the poor US intended. We will hear a lot about the value of the US-Saudi strategic partnership, and the things the US was prepared to overlook to keep this going. But no matter how many US politicians are implicated, the subtext will always be that the Saudis are the inherently corrupt partner, and no country with any resources is going to accept being treated like that.

Blinking obvious

This standoff does give the US and its allies the opportunity to do the right thing and abandon the Saudi regime, as this will make any subsequent actions it takes seem like sour grapes. Westerners have an ingrained notion that everyone wants to come to the West, or be a friend of the West, because it is the best place on earth. This is the assumption behind debates about migrants, for example. From this standpoint, Saudi Arabia is likely to say or do anything simply because it has been jilted by the West.

This has not happened in the past because Saudi Arabia has led the branch of the Muslim world most ready to deal with the infidel, and the inherent incompatibility of Islamic and Western value systems has made the West scared of leaving the Muslim world to its own devices. It has to be influenced somehow, and a common interest in energy and covering each other’s crimes because of who they are has maintained that relationship so far.

But now the Saudis have told the US, by taking its own actions in Yemen and reminding it what it knows about US actions there, that if the US goes for broke to get itself off the hook so will Saudi Arabia. They have said that, unlike the US, they are not going to run away because of a piece of paper but challenge any attempt to incriminate them by it. The US knows they aren’t joking, and can cut off most of the oil tomorrow, and that is why this conflict is ramping up by the day.

Who blinks first, and how, will define what happens far beyond the Middle East. The only possible victor however may be Yemen, which will at least be left alone, having served its purpose.

Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook.

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=By= Nika Knight

The market in Yemen that was destroyed by U.S.-made bombs on March 15. (Photo: Amal al-Yarisi/Human Rights Watch)

The year-long campaign of Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen reached a new low last month with a deliberate attack on a marketplace full of civilians that killed over 100, including 25 children, and a new report has found that the bombs that did the killing came from the United States.

“The U.S. and others should pull the plug on arms to the Saudis or further share responsibility for civilian lives lost.”
—Priyanka Motaparthy,

Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch released the report on Thursday. Its findings detailed how the March 15 airstrike on a civilian target was made with U.S.-supplied weaponry, and renewed calls for an embargo on weapons to Saudi Arabia.
“One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s year-long war involved US-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The U.S. and other coalition allies should send a clear message to Saudi Arabia that they want no part in unlawful killings of civilians.”

The rights group spoke to the airstrike’s victims and witnesses and showed footage of what it identified as U.S.-made bomb fragments:

The group “conducted on-site investigations on March 28, and found remnants at the market of a GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a US-supplied MK-84 2,000-pound bomb mated with a JDAM satellite guidance kit, also US-supplied,” Human Rights Watch wrote. “A team of journalists from ITV, a British news channel, visited the site on March 26, and found remnants of an MK-84 bomb paired with a Paveway laser guidance kit.”

“If confirmed, the use of 2,000-pound bombs would reflect a decision by the Saudi-led coalition that carried substantial risks for civilians,” the New York Times writes.

“The 2,000-pound general-purpose bomb, of the American standard Mark 80 series, is the largest of its class. American warplanes typically carry smaller bombs, often in the 500-pound class, in part to reduce property damage and dangers to noncombatants,” the newspaper points out.

There have been outraged calls for an embargo on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in response to its bombing campaign in Yemen, most notably from the E.U. and the Netherlands, but the U.S. has remained silent and continued to sell weapons to the Saudis.

In fact, the U.S. is deeply intertwined with Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign in Yemen, including “specific military operations, such as providing advice on targeting decisions and aerial refueling during bombing raids,” Human Rights Watch says.

Despite that involvement, the U.S. continually argues that it is not responsible for the atrocities committed in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition carrying out the airstrikes.

Indeed, a spokesperson for the United States Central Command, or Centcom, told the Times on Thursday that the “decisions on the conduct of operations to include selection and final vetting of targets in the campaign are made by the members of the Saudi-led coalition, not the United States.”

However, Human Rights Watch argues, the United States’ involvement is such that it could be culpable for the Saudis’ war crimes. The group writes, “U.S. participation in specific military operations, such as providing advice on targeting decisions and aerial refueling during bombing raids, may make U.S. forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces. As a party to the conflict, the U.S. is obligated to investigate allegedly unlawful attacks in which it took part.”

“Even after dozens of airstrikes on markets, schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods have killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians, the coalition refuses to provide redress or change its practices,” Motaparthy argued. “The U.S. and others should pull the plug on arms to the Saudis or further share responsibility for civilian lives lost.”

Critics say the United States’ lack of concern for civilian lives lost is par for the course: on Thursday another human rights group, Reprieve, called attention to the U.K.’s involvement in the United States’ covert drone program in Yemen and its killing of unknown civilians. An investigation found that “‘multiple kills’ of named targets are common in the U.S. drone program, with some 1,147 unknown people killed in attempts to target 41 named individuals,” the group reports.

“Asked about the issue last weekend,” writes Reprieve, “President Obama said that there was ‘no doubt’ that civilians had been killed by U.S. drones.”

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