The US Empire’s Proxy War in Yemen

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported, “Children in Yemen were already living through one of the world’s most grave humanitarian crises… Now, tens of thousands of families have been forced from their homes in just two weeks, many fleeing only with what they can carry.”

In Yemen, according to the New York Times, “the Houthis and Saudi Arabia spiraled back into war, opening a second front in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.” Why is it a second front in the US war of aggression against Iran? The U.S. is Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms supplier.

When Saudi Arabia launches “hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen,” those are Saudi pilots in US-manufactured fighter jets dropping US-manufactured bombs. Bruce Riedel, writing for the Brookings Institution admitted in 2021, “The war in Yemen is America’s war.” Riedel’s conclusion was an inexorable consequence of the weapons the US provides Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia buys arms from America to wage war in Yemen, which means the war in Yemen is America’s war.

The U.S. Department of Commerce admitted “Saudi Arabia historically imported nearly 80 percent of its arms from the United States.” That is true today as it was true a decade ago, between 2015 and 2022, when the US supported Saudi Arabia’s air war and naval blockade on Yemen. Between 2015 and 2022, America’s war in Yemen led directly and indirectly to an “estimated 377,000 deaths in Yemen,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

On September 28th, the Times reported, in Yemen, “838 people had died, more than 3,000 had been wounded and tens of thousands had been displaced since early August.” Washington had clandestinely reignited America’s war in Yemen.

America’s reignited war in Yemen has been disastrous for the people of Yemen. According to the International Organization for Migration “More than 145,000 people have been displaced across eight governorates in Yemen since conflict escalated on the West Coast.”

UNICEF reported, “before the latest escalation, an estimated 12.2 million children in Yemen needed humanitarian assistance. More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including over 515,000 children with severe acute malnutrition.”

In Yemen, more than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, but instead of assistance, we give the children of Yemen US-made bombs. Instead of food, we give Yemeni children destruction from above. Washington openly celebrates its sale of advanced F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia as those US-made jets drop US-made weapons on Yemen— one of the world’s most grave humanitarian crises.

The US supplies Saudi Arabia the weapons it needs to pummel the west coast of Yemen, where children face “alarming levels of malnutrition,” according to Save the Children.

A displaced Yemeni refugee told the Financial Times that “If things continue like this… we may starve to death.”

Taxpayers provide the weapons used by Saudi Arabia to create a child crisis, malnutrition, and destruction in Yemen.

Yet taxpayers are kept in the dark about an American war in Yemen they fund.

-Anton Porcari