Yemen: Another Shameful United States Defeat Looms by Finian Cunningham!
(2019-09-09 at 22:58:12 )

Yemen: Another Shameful United States Defeat Looms by Finian Cunningham

An official confirmation by the Donald Trump administration of it holding discreet talks with Yemens Houthi rebels indicates a realization in Washington,D.C. that its military intervention in the Arab country is an unsalvageable disaster requiring exit.

There are also reports of the Donald Trump administration urging the Saudi rulers to engage with the Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, in order to patch up some kind of peace settlement to the more than four-year war. In short, the United States of Americans want out of this quagmire.

Quite a turnaround.

The United States-backed Saudi coalition has up to now justified its aggression against the poorest country in the Arab region with claims that the rebels are Iranian proxies. Now, it seems, Washington deems the Houthi "terrorists" worthy of negotiations.

This follows a similar pattern in many other United States foreign wars.

First, the aggression is "justified" by moralistic claims of fighting "communists" or "terrorists" as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Only for Washington,D.C. after much needless slaughter and destruction, to reach out to former villains for "talks" in order to extricate the United States of Americans from their own self-made disaster.

Talks with the Houthis were confirmed last week by United States Assistant Secretary of Near East Affairs David Schenker during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

"We are narrowly focused on trying to end the war in Yemen," said Mr. Schenker. "We are also having talks to the extent possible with the Houthis to try and find a mutually accepted negotiated solution to the conflict."

In response, a senior Houthi official Hamid Assem was quoted as saying: "That the United States says they are talking to us is a great victory for us and proves that we are right." However, he declined to confirm or deny if negotiations were being held.

You have to almost admire the effrontery of the United States of American government. Notice how the United States diplomat says "we are focused on ending the war" and "a mutually acceptable solution".

As if Washington,D.C. is some kind of honest broker trying to bring peace to a country stricken by mysterious violence.

The war was launched by the United States-backed Saudi coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015, without any provocation from Yemen.

The precipitating factor was that the Houthis, a mainly Shia rebel group aligned with Iran, had kicked out a corrupt Saudi-backed dictator at the end of 2014. When he tucked tail and fled to exile in Saudi capital Riyadh, that is when the Saudis launched their aerial bombing campaign on Yemen.

The slaughter in Yemen over the past four years has been nothing short of a calamity for the population of nearly 28 million people. The United Nations estimates that nearly 80 per cent of the nation is teetering on hunger and disease.

A United Nations report published last week explicitly held the United States, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure.

The United Nations report also blamed the Houthis for committing atrocities. That may be so, but the preponderance of deaths and destruction in Yemen is due to American, British and French military support to the Saudi-led coalition. Up to 100,ooo civilians may have been killed from the Western-backed blitzkrieg, while the Western media keep quoting a figure of "10,000", which magically never seems to increase over the past four years.

Several factors are pressing the Donald Trump administration to wind down the Yemen war.

The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washingtons mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official United States of American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue.

When the United States of American Congress is united in calling for a ban on United States arms to Saudi Arabia because of the atrocities in Yemen, then we should know that the Public Relations war has been lost.

President Trump over-ruled the United States Congress earlier this year to continue arming the Saudis in Yemen.

But even President Trump must at last be realizing his governments culpability for aiding and abetting genocide is no longer excusable, even for the most credulous consumers of United States of American propaganda.

After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels.

Not only that but the Houthis have begun to take the war into the heart of Saudi Arabia. Over the past year, the rebels have mounted increasingly sophisticated long-range drone and ballistic missile attacks on Saudi military bases and the capital Riyadh.

From where the Houthis are receiving their more lethal weaponry is not clear. Maybe from Lebanons Hezbollah or from Iran. In any case, such supply if confirmed could be argued as legitimate support for a country facing aggression.

No doubt the Houthis striking deep into Saudi territory has given the pampered monarchs in Riyadh serious pause for thought.

When the UAE - the other main coalition partner - announced a month ago that it was scaling back its involvement in Yemen that must have rattled Washington and Riyadh that the war was indeed futile.

The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden.

There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies.

Washington has doubtless taken note of the unstoppable disaster in Yemen and how its position is indefensible and infeasible.

Like so many other obscene United States of American wars down through the decades, Washington,D.C. is facing yet another ignominious defeat in Yemen.

When the United States starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the sordid game is finally up.

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