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‘US making a fortune from Saudi-led war on Yemen’

Wednesday, 17 April 2019 8:06 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 8:12 AM ]

Civilians inspect the damage at a factory after an airstrike by Saudi-led coalition in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, on January 20, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

The United States is making a fortune out of the war on Yemen by selling arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia, says an activist, adding that the military aggression against the impoverished Arab nation serves Washington’s imperial interests in the Middle East.

“This serves of course primarily the US military industrial complex who make a fortune out of these wars. It also serves the US imperial interests which we have to acknowledge is [trying] to dominate the entire Middle East by force of arms and through its allies – Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Ken Stone, a member of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday.

“It is not in the interest of people of the USA; it is not in the interest of the people of Yemen; it is not in the interest of the people of the world that this terrible humanitarian crisis has been caused in Yemen. So what we need to do, people all around the world, especially in the West, is to get our governments to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia because that is really a license to continue this awful war,” he noted.

He made the comments about President Donald Trump vetoing a congressional resolution to end American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, describing it as an "unnecessary," and "dangerous attempt" to weaken his constitutional authorities.

The legislation was originally introduced in the Senate and co-sponsored by presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, invoking the War Powers resolution, a federal law that gives Congress the power to check the American head of state when committing the country to an armed conflict.

The US has provided billions of dollars worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition, which has been waging a devastating war in Yemen.

Members of Congress have expressed concern about the tens of thousands of civilians killed in coalition airstrikes since the conflict began nearly four years ago.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the former Saudi-sponsored government back to power. But Riyadh has failed to fulfill its objectives.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, puts Yemen's death toll from the Saudi-led war at about 56,000.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.

The UN has warned 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 worst global famine in more than 100 years.