This exchange between an interviewer for NPR’s Morning Edition and a spokesman for Saudi Arabia makes for depressing reading:
ASIRI: Unfortunately, today, there is no team from Human Rights Watch on the ground.
KELLY: They went. They saw it.
ASIRI: No. No one can get in Yemen without the permission of the coalition. So we don’t have single permission from the United Nations on the ground.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen may be about to get even worse. The World Food Programme is about to run short of funds and won’t be able to provide aid to the country:
After thirteen months of fighting between Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition that has left more than 6,400 dead, this would be a major blow to a population already deep in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.
Submitted by Richard Sisk via Military.com,
A small team of U.S. troops was on the ground in Yemen and Navy ships with Marines aboard were offshore to support friendly forces against an al-Qaeda offshoot as the U.S. deepened its involvement in yet another Mideast civil war, the Pentagon said Friday.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to say how many U.S. troops were in Yemen near the port city of Mukalla, a former stronghold of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula terror group, or whether they were Special Forces.
Submitted by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Although scores of us in the alternative media world have been discussing the obvious links between Saudi Arabia and the attacks of 9/11 for many years, this reality has only now started to enter the mainstream consciousness due to a recent report on 60 Minutes.