US, UK know arms supplied to Saudi kill Yemeni civilians: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with William Spring, a human rights activist from London.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Now looking at this call being made by Amnesty International, is it that the US and UK are simply unaware of the fact that Saudi Arabia is using their weapons against the civilian population of Yemen?

Spring: No, the British government and the American government are fully aware that the arms supplied to Saudi Arabia are being used against civilian populations [which is] contrary to humanitarian law. Now what can we do in this situation where both the American government and the British government seem determined to ignore all the basic guidelines of international law in situations like this. This is a situation where no one should be involved anywhere, because the basic principle of international law is non-intervention in internal affairs of another state.

Now Yemen has suffered enormous intervention and deadly lethal intervention from the Saudis for months and years. As you say in your preliminary report 9,700 Yemenis have died, nearly all of those civilians, many of them children. I cannot understand British aerospace being allowed to run British foreign policy. Surely, Boris Johnson should do something about the whip hand British aerospace has on foreign policy formulation.

Press TV: There's also that excuse that is given by the US government and similar calls have been made by other US allies that have supplied arms to Saudi Arabia that maintaining and strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia and providing them with weapons helps keep the national security interest of the US intact. What would you say to that?

Spring: I think they’re actually contravening their own national security interests. It’s most interesting that as we getting narrower to the end of the Obama term the only legacy Obama seems he made to the Middle East is one of constant anarchy. We've seen this terrible event a few days ago in Syria where American forces destroyed, killed over 62 Syrian soldiers military and injured a hundred also more in an airstrike, they say it was a mistake but I never saw much of an apology from the woman, Power, who is a US delegate at the United Nations.

Now this is disgraceful conduct absolutely unbecoming to a great power to behave like this, backing up the Saudis in their vicious nasty lethal war on the civilians of Yemen while also going around the Middle East and blowing people up. We don't want this type of fantasy-land politics of the president of the United States away from when he came into power that he would actually calm things down; that he would create a new detente with Russia; that he would actually pacify the Middle East to some degree although that's obviously limited in these because of Israel, but nothing like that has happened. All that's happened is the neocons have completely taken over control. Carter, the US Defense Secretary, is a neocon tied up with Wolfowitz and these people are very serious war criminals in my view.

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