Sanders calls Saudi-led war on Yemen ‘moral disaster’ for Washington

US Senator Bernie Sanders has called the Saudi-led brutal war on the impoverished Yemen a “moral disaster” for Washington, saying the military aggression has undermined counter-terrorism operations against “violent extremists” such as the al-Qaeda and the Daesh Takfiri terrorist groups in Yemen.

In an article in The New York Times on Wednesday, the 77-year-old Vermont independent also said the White House must urgently redefine its relationship with Riyadh, considering the “brutal murder” and “likely assassination” of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul and the Saudi war on Yemen.

“Saudis do not have a blank check to continue violating human rights” said Sanders, adding that their war in Yemen, which started in 2015, has “created a humanitarian disaster in one of the world’s poorest countries.”

He also lambasted the involvement of the US in aggression against Yemen as “unconstitutional” since it has not been “authorized” by the Congress, calling for an immediate end to the US support for the Saudi war.

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A report reveals the UAE hired a US security contractor to start a targeted killing program in Yemen in 2015 against figures undesired by the UAE.

Saudi Arabia and some of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan, launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, in an attempt to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the country’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has played a significant role, alongside the Yemeni army, in defending the nation and has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government.

“The United States is deeply engaged in this war. We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refueling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence,” Sanders added.

The aggression initially consisted of a bombing campaign but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen. More than 15,000 Yemenis have so far been killed and thousands more wounded.

Last month, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child announced that at least 1,248 children had been killed and nearly the same number sustained wounds in airstrikes since the onset of the imposed war.

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A UN rights watchdog has called on Saudi Arabia to halt its strikes against Yemeni civilians, including children.

One of the worst and most tragic cases of targeting Yemeni children occurred on August 9, when Saudi-led warplanes hit a school bus as it drove through a market in the town of Dhahyan in the northern province of Sa’ada. The death toll included 40 children out of 51 people, while 56 of the 79 wounded were also kids.

“In far too many cases, the bomb’s targets have been civilian ones,” Sanders said, citing an exclusive report by CNN that US-made bombs had been used against civilian targets.

Another report by CNN also showed that what hit the school bus was a US-made laser-guided MK 82 bomb.

More than 2,200 other Yemenis have also died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

PressTV-UN: 8.4 million war-hit Yemenis need urgent food aid

The United Nations humanitarian chief says the war on Yemen has rendered as many as 8.4 million people in the Arab world’s already most miserable nation needful of urgent food aid.

The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

PressTV-Daesh attack kills 14 in Yemen's Aden

Some 14 people are killed in a Daesh attack on a police headquarters in Yemen's southern port city of Aden.

Elsewhere in the article, Sanders pointed to the fact that the chaos in Yemen, triggered by the Saudi-led military coalition, “provided fertile ground” for terrorist groups such as Daesh and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to further grow in the impoverished country and “deepen” their presence there.

Some other Western countries, the UK in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.

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