Another two airstrikes on civilians in Yemen by the Saudi coalition - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in the nations of the Middle East.

Moderator: PoFo Middle-East Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please. This is an international political discussion forum moderated in English, so please post in English only. Thank you.
#14882154
The Saudi coalition insist that they are not targeting Yemeni civilians, even as it transpires a hospital and flour mill were recently bombed.

Another day, another airstrike on the tortured nation of Yemen at the hands of the US-backed Saudi coalition.

Two separate strikes on 22/01/2018, on a hospital and a flour mill, claimed the lives of nine civilians: five of whom were children and one a woman in the seventh month of pregnancy. No Houthi insurgents were named as victims of either strike.

A spokesman for the Saudi coalition has reiterated that the despotic monarchist state is not targeting civilians in their intervention into Yemen. However, he refused to comment on the specifics of these attacks, doing nothing to enlighten us with their thought process that led the world’s fourth largest military and intelligence apparatus to view a flour mill and small hospital in the Saada Governorate as a nucleus of militant extremism.

According to the Legal Center for Rights and Development almost 13,000 Yemeni civilians have so far been killed by Saudi airstrikes.If their claim that no civilians are being targeted is in fact true, the House of Saud should look for a refund on the £40 billion worth of BAE Systems aircraft which they have purchased from the UK since 1985, and could perhaps ensure the sights are calibrated to a higher degree of accuracy on the $350 billion worth of weapons that they will receive over the next ten years from the US, owing to a record weapons deal signed with the Donald Trump administration last May.

If, as all international watchdogs would testify, this is an intentional slaughter of civilians rather than an absurd number of missiles going stray, then Saudi Arabia’s attempt to effectively bulldoze their southern neighbours and turn Yemen into a plantation represents one of the worst genocides in modern history.
#14882642
Decky wrote:You are thinking of your Israeli masters.


You should be thinking about your own masters, who are helping Saudi troops commit crimes against humanity in Yemen. Your country is pushing arms to the Saudis, suppressing investigation of human rights violations, and helping the Saudis to commit crimes in Yemen and promote terrorism worldwide.

Two successive British governments have prevented UN investigations of Saudi crimes in Yemen. Your country can only prosper by the suffering of other people.

Image

Britain's largest trading partner in the Middle East, London has signed off on more than £3.3 billion (€3.7 billion, $4.4 billion) worth of arms sales to Riyadh since March 2015.

During that time Saudi Arabia has embarked on a bombing campaign in Yemen that has been condemned for contributing to a humanitarian disaster.

In September, a War Child report found that since the Saudi-led coalition began its intervention in Yemen in 2015, British weapons companies including BAE systems and Raytheon have earned revenues of more than $8bn from dealings with Saudi Arabia, generating profits estimated at almost $775m.

Humanitarian aid to Yemen eclipses the tax income generated from the weapons sold that are fuelling the crisis, the report also found, with weapons sales to Saudi Arabia resulting in approximately $13m in corporation tax in 2016, yet during 2017, the UK will spend $188m in humanitarian aid to Yemen.

The UN estimates that seven million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation and more than 10,000 have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015.


UK dangerously complicit in Yemen crisis

A former Tory cabinet minister has accused the UK of being “dangerously complicit” in a Saudi policy toward Yemen that is “directly promoting a famine and the collective punishment of an entire population”.


UK sales of bombs and missiles to Saudi Arabia increase by almost 500% since start of Yemen war

The number of British-made bombs and missiles sold to Saudi Arabia since the start of its bloody campaign in Yemen has risen by almost 500 per cent, The Independent can reveal.

More than £4.6bn of arms were sold in the first two years of bombings, with the Government grant increasing numbers of export licences despite mounting evidence of war crimes and massacres at hospitals, schools and weddings.

[b]The United Nations says air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition are the main cause of almost 5,295 civilian deaths and 8,873 casualties confirmed so far, warning that the real figure is “likely to be far higher”.[/b]

It has condemned the “entirely man-made catastrophe” leaving millions more on the brink of famine and sparking the world’s worst cholera epidemic, while blacklisting Saudi Arabia for killing and maiming children.

There is also fresh concern over the Kingdom’s attempt to shut all air, land and sea ports into Yemen, which it said was to stop the flow of weapons but will also halt aid imports.

British-made bombs have been found at the scene of bombings deemed to violate international law but the UK has continued its political and material support for Riyadh’s campaign.

Figures from the Department for International Trade (DIT) show that in the two years leading up to the Yemen war, £33m of ML4 licences covering bombs, missiles and countermeasures were approved.

But in the two years since the start of Saudi bombing in March 2015, the figure increased by 457 per cent to £1.9bn, according to calculations by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

Licences covering aircraft including Eurofighter jets have also risen by 70 per cent to £2.6bn in the same period.

Tom Barns, co-director of CAAT, said the Government has been accelerating sales of “equipment being used to commit atrocities in Yemen” as the pace of Saudi-led air strikes increases.

“Over the course of this year the situation in Yemen is only getting worse,” he added.

Michael Fallon outlines vision for increasing arms trade after Brexit

“At a time when the UK should at least be putting more consideration into what’s being sold they are giving more and more of these licences.”

The products being sold include Raytheon’s Paveway IV bomb, which was found at the scene of an air strike that hit vital food stores in January last year, and the Brimstone, Storm Shadow, PGM 500 Hakim and Alarm missiles.

Accelerating sales look set to continue after Brexit, with former Defence Secretary Michael Fallon telling a controversial arms fair in London that demand was going “through the roof” because of increasing war and terror.

As we look to life post Brexit and spread our wings further across the world, it’s high time we do more to compete for a share of this international export market,” he told Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) before his resignation.

Mr Barns said: “We’re being told that Brexit is a time for new opportunities and trading relationships but what that seems to point to more dodgy deals with the Middle East, propping up dictators and warmongering in the region.”

The High Court has ruled that arms exports to Saudi Arabia was legal because the available evidence did not prove “a clear risk that the items might be used in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law”, but CAAT is hoping to appeal the case.

The campaign group is launching a crowdfunding campaign to continue its legal battle, which has already cost it £40,000.

Kristine Beckerle, a Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said a “mountain of evidence” against Saudi Arabia had not been properly considered.

Explaining that international law does not require the intent to kill civilians for a violation to have taken place, she added: “What more does the UK Government need to start exerting leverage over the Saudi-led coalition?”

“The UK goes on and on about how it’s concerned about the humanitarian situation in Yemen but it seems unwilling to pressure the Saudi-led coalition to make it better.

“It’s clear that governments use arms sales as a means of leveraging political support.”

The UK has pointed to Saudi Arabia’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT), which investigates allegations of civilian casualties in bombings, but HRW and other groups say its findings are not robust or credible.

“It feels like people are looking for excuses for arms sales to continue when there is clear evidence that there is a real risk,” Ms Beckerle added.

Britain is also carrying out military training for Saudi forces, including a programme helping the Royal Saudi Air Force to “improve their targeting processes”.

But the initiatives appear to have had little effect, with the UN reporting more atrocities on Tuesday.

Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it was deeply concerned about attacks killing dozens of civilians, including children, over the past week.
[...]
“Far from defending the world from terrorism, the bombing of Yemen is also creating ungoverned spaces where al-Qaeda and similar groups are thriving.”

[...]
“These figures are a further reminder of how the UK Government is apparently more interested in the financial bottom line for the arms industry, than in the need to protect civilians.”
#14882643
You cant really expect the KSA to accept a hostile shia state at its southern borded they are rightfully trying to stop it but probably not with the best methods
the Saudi Army is not trained very well (although well equipped) so they make many mistakes which lead to civilian casualties (also they dont really care about killing civilians)
#14882672
LehmanB wrote:Saudis are extremely cunning. They have a very powerful loby, yet keeps it quiet. Know to please everyone yet spread their horrible ideology. They are masters.

What's so smart about happening to sit on the world's largest fossil fuel reserves? Considering their huge financial resources, the Saudis can be as dumb as it can get.
#14882685
Atlantis wrote:What's so smart about happening to sit on the world's largest fossil fuel reserves? Considering their huge financial resources, the Saudis can be as dumb as it can get.

They have the power, but they know to maintain their business quiet and out of public sight or debate. And they know to play with everyone- the terrorists, the west, the Russians.. they troll everyone. Making a genoside quietly and with approval, is being smart.
Assad also fought deadly terrorists, but is seen as the bad guy.
#14882692
LehmanB wrote:They have the power, but they know to maintain their business quiet and out of public sight or debate. And they know to play with everyone- the terrorists, the west, the Russians.. they troll everyone. Making a genoside quietly and with approval, is being smart.


They keep a low profile because they are considered like pariahs by about the whole world. To get yourself into such a position is certainly not very smart.

If they were smart they would use their oil revenue to build a prosperous and equitable society like Norway. Instead, the Saudis squander away their riches on corruption at home and terror abroad. The result is that everybody hates and despises the Saudis. Only those who hope to gain from Saudi riches play to their tune, for as long as the money keeps coming.

Assad also fought deadly terrorists, but is seen as the bad guy.


He is seen as the bad guy because the West wants to remove his regime. To justify toppling a foreign government you first have to portray its leader as the devil incarnate and then invent a pretext for toppling it. The US doesn't want to topple the Saudi regime because the Saudis do as their told by their American overlords.
#14882697
Zionist Nationalist wrote:Assad sponsoring and supporting terrorists thus making him a terrorist

Are you a terrorist if you defend your country against foreign intervention? Assad is no terrorists. The rebels and the Islamists fighting Assad are terrorists. And the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the biggest sponsors of terror worldwide.
#14882873
Atlantis wrote:He is seen as the bad guy because the West wants to remove his regime.

True, though chosing the right side is being smart.
And being in the right side, yet commiting anti western policy, is even greater.
The Saudis are playing with everyone and get what they want. Thats the bottom line.

Zionist nationalist wrote:basically in Syria its terrorists vs terrorists

Atlantis wrote:Are you a terrorist if you defend your country against foreign intervention?

I think ZN meant that all sides are bad.
The rebels are originally the opressed majority. Remember that Syrian borders are arbitrary and designed by Europeans, containing 10% Alawis, and 90% Sunnis which also varies. The minority of Alawis is brutally dictating the rest. Assad is defending his Alawi group, and his control.
And Assad is using tons of foreign intervention.
The only fair side is indeed the Kurds.
#14883325
LehmanB wrote:True, though chosing the right side is being smart.


In other words, choosing to be a US vassal state is smart?

If everybody who doesn't agree with US policy is dumb, then everybody outside of Trump's inner circle, for example objecting to Jerusalem as Israel's capital, is dumb. That makes 99.999... % of all people dumb.

Remember that Syrian borders are arbitrary and designed by Europeans, containing 10% Alawis, and 90% Sunnis which also varies. The minority of Alawis is brutally dictating the rest. Assad is defending his Alawi group, and his control.

Remember that all ethnic minorities groups including Sunnis, Christians, Alawis, etc., lived peacefully under the Assad regime for decades until the US of bloody A decided to incite racial hatred for the purpose of regime change so that the Islamist lunatics would create hell on Earth for everybody.

Even the Vatican has opposed the US policy of regime change in Syria because they know perfectly well that the Christian community in Syria will be wiped out after nearly 2,000 years without the protection of Assad's secular regime.
Russia-Ukraine War 2022

Are people on this thread actually trying to argu[…]

Isn't oil and electricity bought and sold like ev[…]

@Potemkin I heard this song in the Plaza Grande […]

I (still) have a dream

Even with those millions though. I will not be ab[…]