Saudis capable of attacking Yemen due to US support: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review in California, to discuss the ongoing Saudi onslaught on Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What do you make of this bad becomes worse when we look at this Saudi onslaught on the civilians of Yemen and now we see that tanks and ground troops are actually about to initiate what obviously seems to be an exacerbation of the situation in Yemen?

What does that mean? First of all does it mean that Saudi Arabia could not succeed with their air bombings that they had to resort to ground troops and what does it mean from the international perspective of basically total silence?

Weber: These latest developments represent as you indicated a dramatic new escalation of the already very terrible conflict in Yemen when, as you mentioned, is taking thousands of lives and produced tremendous suffering in the area. It also suggests, of course, that the fighting and suffering will get much worse in weeks ahead because Saudi Arabia, which is of course fully backed by the United States is showing that it will use ever more devastating military force in an effort to try to destroy the Ansarullah fighters and their allies in Yemen.

With regard to the international scene, you touched on a very important point and that is the relative silence of the world about the conflict in Yemen which has been growing and is increasingly not just a fight in Yemen but a regional one that threatens to bring in other countries.

Press TV: What is it going to take because as I have mentioned the basic silence especially in the western media, the lack of information by many countries or many people in the world, what it then is going to take in order for the reality of what is happening in Yemen to get out in order to try to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and those who are supporting it like the United States to actually stop what basically is turning into an onslaught in this very poor country?  

Weber: It is very difficult to see what kind of pressure can be applied because Saudi Arabia like Israel has full backing of the United States. Saudi Arabia is able to carry out these attacks because for years it has been very, very lavishly, generously supplied with the most moderate military equipment by the United States that makes the Saudi military a very formidable and devastating one and the United States is certainly not only not going to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for what is doing, the United States is backing Saudi Arabia in that regard.

There is very little outcry about this in the United States because other aspects of the Middle East are overshadowed. There has been very little coverage in the American media about the conflict in Yemen. Most Americans do not want to hear about it. The Democrats support Obama in this regard and the Republicans if anything would be in favor of even more devastating military action by Saudi Arabia.

Press TV: But what does it mean exactly when the United States is staying silent and supporting what many would say as one of the most reactionary regimes, repressive regimes, to exist in the world today?

Weber: The US support for Saudi Arabia, a point that I have made and many others have made, makes a mockery of United States pretends to support democracy and freedom and so forth in the Middle East and other countries because as you and the world knows Saudi Arabia is one of the most reactionary, inflexible, bizarre countries in the world. It is the only country in the world named after a family. It hasn’t even the pretence of a constitution or any kind of normal guarantees of rights and so forth that countries of the world are used to. And again United States alliance with Saudi Arabia…, the most important Arab country is Saudi Arabia and of course Israel, just underscores the hypocrisy of the claims that the United States makes in what it says it is trying to support in the Middle East and around the world.   

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