US, UK ‘main protagonists’ in war on Yemen: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Tony Gosling, an investigative journalist from Bristol, to get his take on calls by over a dozen aid organizations for a permanent ceasefire in Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Many aid and rights groups see similarities between the Saudi aggression against Yemen and Israel’s war on Gaza. Now, why do you think the West and the United Nations, in particular, have done nothing to stop this war?

Gosling: Well, it’s not really actually a war between two equal sides, is it? Because on the one hand, you’ve got the incredibly super rich Saudi state with its British and American weapons, these Tornado bombers Britain-supplied, and the F-15 which was also used for bombing by the Saudis versus what is actually the poorest country in the Middle East and it’s been absolutely devastating.

I think what we’re seeing really is a kind of matter of performance by the new Saudi ruling family and an attempt to prove themselves ‘who’s going to be the tough guy’ in the power struggle as there always is in the succession to the death of a king. But the main protagonist here are not the Saudis themselves, they’re the British and Americans mainly who have been supporting them particularly the Americans with their intelligence they’re getting from their satellites to help targeting and also of course the British. I’m absolutely devastated that our Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is not saying any more about this, because this is an absolute crime against humanity, but not least thousands of people have been dying in Yemen with no good reason. Because what they’re doing is they just simply try to prop up a Western-backed president, Hadi, who’s also working with al-Qaeda, by the way, and ISIS (ISIL). So that’s why there’s been so little coverage of this battle in the Western media, because it doesn’t fit with their lies about what they’re really trying to do in the Middle East because it fits with the lie which is pedaled to most of the people over here in the West. What they’re doing by supporting Hadi, supporting al-Qaeda and an illegitimate regime which is just a puppet regime for the West, the people obviously had enough.

Press TV: The Saudis haven’t reached their objective so far by crushing the Yemeni people’s resistance in the face of all these brutal attacks. Who do you think will finally win?

Gosling: Well, it sounds amazing, doesn’t it? But possibly the pressure from Save the Children, Oxfam and these other organizations pointing out that this blockade for example, it means half of people in Yemen, I mean, we’re talking about something like five million people, are now going hungry because of the blockade and the bombing. And the bombings made another half a million homeless desperately in need of aid…and it is actually the pressure from these aid groups and from the public in the West here not from governments, the public is beginning now to put pressure on our governments through these charities, because we can see that this is really drawing attention to the utter hypocrisy of the British government in supporting this regime, I mean, also the hideous attacks just recently today, yesterday actually, on this 10th century UNESCO site as well. The reason Britain is involved in all this ... and why it is so important the people in Britain do get engaged in British charities get involved is that Britain was the colonial power here for 130 years. And really this is our problem…and what we are doing is weighing in on the side of the bad guys.

I mean it would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to see if Saudi Arabia will actually try to send their ground troops in because many of them actually born in Yemen…might actually revolt, maybe that’s one of the reasons that the Saudi royal family have decided they want to do this cowardly bombing from the air with the help of Americans, because their troops, if they would send them into Yemen, might decide actually ‘we’ve had enough with this Saudi regime altogether.’

ABN/MKA

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk