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Yemen: Fake ‘News’ in America’s Mainstream Outlets

Eric Zuesse

On Friday, August 10th, CNN headlined “Saudi-led strike kills dozens of children on school field trip in Yemen” and reported as if the United States doesn’t have any important role to play in targeting and supplying the bombs and missiles for what the news-report refers to as “the Saudi-led coalition.”

It even says at 0:15 in the video, “Saudi Arabia, through air strikes, leads the coalition, including the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Sudan” and doesn’t even mention there the main party, other than the royal Saud family — the U.S. Government itself — which provides not only detailed authorization of each target but also the weapons and the training on how they’re used. The accompanying printed CNN news-article says nothing at all about the U.S. Government’s involvement until the very end of the article, where a U.S. propagandist is quoted:

After the strike, the United States, which largely supports the coalition’s campaign, issued a statement.

“US military support to our partners mitigates noncombatant casualties,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Rebecca Rebarich, according to the statement.

“Our support to the coalition consists of aerial refueling and intelligence support to assist our partners in securing their borders from cross-border attacks from the Houthis. Our noncombat support focuses on improving coalition processes and procedures, especially regarding compliance with the law of armed conflict and best practices for reducing the risk of civilian casualties,” the statement said.

Here are more photos and videos of the air-strike’s victims, as posted to twitter by opponents of the Saudi, and UAE, and American dictatorships.

The CNN report alleges that the war in Yemen is between “the internationally recognized government in Yemen and against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.”

However, on 3 February 2018 the Washington Post had headlined “Yemen’s war is so out of control, allies are turning on one another” and reported by burying, within their article, clear evidence that that from CNN is a rabidly deceptive representation of the reality — a lie. Here are the relevant excerpts:

The three-year-old Yemen conflict has largely been cast as a war that pits an internationally recognized government against Iranian-backed rebels who ousted it. … Said April Longley Alley, a senior Yemen analyst for the International Crisis Group, “The narrative of a ‘legitimate government’ fighting the ‘Iranian-backed Houthis’ obscures a complex local reality, and it hinders efforts to achieve peace.”

[The Sauds’ chosen leader of Yemen] Hadi … has presided mostly from the Saudi capital, Riyadh…Alley added, “Now what we see is the UAE and [Saudi Arabia] scrambling to paper over differences between the two so that they can maintain, at least while the war with the Houthis continues, the myth of a unified front under an internationally recognized government.”

“The Emirates [the 7 Emirs who collectively own UAE] has ambitions in the south, and one of its most important ambitions is [grabbing] the port of Aden,” said Hassan Aljalal, a Yemeni journalist.

Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi researcher at the University of Exeter, said … “where did the money go?” … The coalition, he added, also needed to put more pressure on the government to “deliver for the people.”

That Washington Post article mentioned nothing, at all, about the U.S. Government’s role invading Yemen.

The owner of the Washington Post is Jeff Bezos, who also is the main owner of Amazon, whose web services division is the supplier of cloud computing services for the U.S. federal Government, which division — serving the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc., instead of consumers — is the only consistently profitable division of Amazon, and thus the key to Bezos’s having a net worth that’s already approximately 10% as large as is the Saudi King’s net worth.

In the United States, conflict-of-interest laws don’t pertain to the ‘news’media. However, a landmark 26 June 2017 ruling by the state of California’s Supreme Court, in the case of People v. Superior Court (Sahlolbei), could lead to a transformation of America into a democracy (which it isn’t currently), and that would mean ending the U.S. empire, including NATO, which has no democratic but only an imperial reason for existing after the end in 1991 of the Soviet Union and of its communism and of its Warsaw Pact military alliance mirroring America’s NATO military alliance.

CNN’s news-report on the Yemeni schoolbus-bombing closes:

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States did not have the “full details of what happened on the ground” but said “we’re concerned about these reports.”

“We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct … an investigation,” Nauert said.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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vexarb
vexarb
Aug 20, 2018 5:54 AM

A year ago on Off-G vexarb welcomed the New Look Pink Feminist Leftist LGB Friendly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — though I must confess to private reservations about UN appointing KSA to chair The Human Rights Council before it had proved itself. The first fruits of this New Look, Human Rights Upholding KSA, are the subject of the present Off-G thread; to which add this item:

Prominent Islamic Scholar Sheikh Suleiman Dweesh has died under torture in a Saudi Arabian jail, AlKhaleejonline.com reported on Tuesday. According to a twitter account which documents and reports news of political detainees in the Kingdom, the Sheikh was arrested on 22 April, 2016.

The fact that the full details of the treatment to which Sheikh Dweesh was exposed suggests that it was extremely inhumane. He was arrested less than a day after posting critical comments about Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman on social media.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180814-prominent-sheikh-tortured-to-death-in-saudi-jail/

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 20, 2018 5:39 AM

During the Brown regime, I read that the Royal Navy connived to enforce Israel’s blockade of Gaza; and now, under the Trump regime, the U$ Navy is enforcing Rothschild’s blockade of Yemen. From SyrPer:

“PacificNorthWest

I am pasting this tweet thread, because it is something that needs saying. The US is not just complicit by selling weapons to the Saudis and UAE and remaining silent in the war crimes against Yemen. Instead the involvement goes much deeper than this limited hang-out Narrative presents it as being. The US is directly involved even on the ground. I have been reading reports of US special forces troops on the ground hunting for well hidden Yemeni ballistic missile launchers.

Hassan Al-Haifi حسن الحيفي
@commonsense575 Aug 15

It’s about time US msm media starts to look at US involvement as much more than behind the scenes wishy-washy help. It is material and active and direct technical and logistical involvement. In other words absolute complicity in war crimes.

He retweeted:
Jennifer#YemenGenocide
@teddy_cat1
Replying to @CNN and @CNNOpinion

The silence alone isn’t what makes us complicit.

The bomb used to murder 40 Yemeni children was #MadeInTheUSA.

@usairforce refuels Saudi jets mid-air.

@USNavy enforces a blockade using starvation as a weapon.

USA intelligence is in Riyahd assisting with targets.

#USAWarCrimes #OpDeSanitize “

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 19, 2018 6:57 PM

From SyrPer, CNN has tentatively dipped a toe into the hot water of Real News (the sort we read Off-Guardian):

” PacificNorthWest

I find it very surprising that this news is actually making it onto CNN: “Bomb that killed 40 children in Yemen was supplied by the US”

The article outlines, in a surprisingly honest manner, the US MIC connection to the multiple civilian massacres that have been committed by the US, UK, Israeli backed Saudi / UAE medieval siege warfare on the Yemeni people. While it does maintain the fiction that it is only Saudis who are involved in target selection (I have seen what I feel are credible reports that US, UK and I assume Israeli military personnel are in the same command centers as the Saudi controllers that are determining targets.)… it does illustrate the US involvement in these war crimes.

Here is the link to the article (nothing really new, Syper readers are probably already better informed, but interesting in that this went up on CNN):

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 18, 2018 8:36 PM

From this map, the Yemeni resistance to NATZO looks hopeless; note the large swathes coloured in by Israel’s ally Saudi Arabia (purple), and NATZO’s AlQaida mercenaries (green). Similar to the situation in Syria 2013: stiff resistance against overwhelming odds — until Russia stepped in to keep NATZO at bay while the Syrian Army mopped up NATZO’s ISIS mercenaries. But which great power will find its interests in helping Yemen resist the AZC? Apart from Yemen’s oil, control of its Litoral is a choke point for control of marine transport from China to Africa and Europe.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 18, 2018 6:32 AM

from Daniel Rich BTL SyrPer:

51 Little Coffins: Massive Funeral Procession In Yemen For The Saada School Bus Massacre Martyrs – Link to Fort Russ

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/08/51-little-coffins-massive-funeral-procession-in-yemen-for-the-saada-school-bus-massacre-martyrs/

side note: it is rumoured that T-Rump hasn’t eaten hamburgers for days now, as he’s too devastated by such a great loss of young lives…

[Vexarb starts another rumour: U$A Commander-in-Chief and POTU$A, Trumpety Trump Trump, was so angered by Loss of Young Lives that he ordered an immediate missile strike on Saudi Arabia; but he was dissuaded by his Jewish daughter and his Jewish financial backer Adelson, who pointed out that Saudi Arabia is Israel’s only ally in the Middle East. It is rumoured that St.Theresa of Westminster also put in a plea for mercy to her major arms customer]

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 17, 2018 6:59 PM

Real news re Rothschild war on Yemen:

Saudi Arabia, a Rothschild company masquerading as an Arab kingdom allied to Israel, is spending on war in Yemen about $200 million a day. This number was revealed by Swedish professor Isa Blumi in his latest book and lectures about the Takfiri war in Yemen.

Antonyl
Antonyl
Aug 18, 2018 12:29 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Those poor Saudi royals and mullahs: they can’t do any harm in vexarb’s eyes. Wahhabism, Al Qaida, ISIS, they are innocent local bystanders. It was the Zionists from New York, London and Tel Aviv who done it. Those Rothschildts meanwhile should get the Academy awards for best script, director, actors, stunts etc. How they manage Mecca and Medina too!!
Just at Jerusalem’s wailing wall they are failing………. Crrrashh!!! Fantasy theory of vexarb comes tumbling down!

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 16, 2018 5:54 AM

More from PacificNorthWest BTL SyrPer today on the fighting, with more of Uncle $cam’s hardware in evidence:

“On August 15, the Houthis repelled the Saudi-led coalition’s attack on the district center of al-Durayhimi located on the western coast of Yemen after 72 hours of heavy clashes, according to the Yemeni al-Masirah TV.

A source in the Defense Ministry of Yemen [loyal to the Houthis] told al-Masirah that Houthi fighters killed 180 Saudi-backed Yemeni fighters and injured 136 others during the clashes in al-Durayhimi. The Houthis’ battle tank hunters also destroyed 20 vehicles of the Saudi-led coalition, including several US-made Oshkosh Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicles, according to the source.”

https://southfront.org/over-100-coalition-backed-fighters-killed-in-failed-attack-on-houthis-positions-in-al-durayhimi/

The Ansarallah resistance is also currently fighting within Saudi Arabia itself in the Jizan and Najran regions. There is fighting going within a few miles of Najran City itself. Saudi military prowess … haha!
+12

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 16, 2018 11:16 PM
Reply to  vexarb

The Sordid Barbarians are good at head-chopping, or lashing women, or crucifixion, and blowing up school-children, but fighting doesn’t seem their thing. Perhaps they should recall all the psychopaths they sent to attack Syria with Daash.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 15, 2018 5:36 PM

from Pacificnorthwest BTL SyrPer:

“Hehe… A recruitment war in action.

New element in the Qatar vs UAE/Saudi proxy war in Yemen (what the media calls the Saudi vs Iran proxy war) : Doha recruiting 10,000 southern Yemenis for service in Qatar military. Salary: A whopping 5 times more than what UAE pays. Plus Qatari nationality as a bonus.
Tweet from: Haykal Bafana

This indirectly benefits the Yemeni resistence by raising the cost of mercenaries for the Saudi/UAE adventure (or one could say brutal colonialist campaign) in Yemen… the Qatari team seems to play smarter than the UAE team,”

Antonyl
Antonyl
Aug 16, 2018 6:37 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Qatar just promised Turkey US$ 15 billion! They have a pact on many fronts, also military: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/turkey-qatar-strategic-alliance-171024133518768.html

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 16, 2018 10:06 AM
Reply to  Antonyl

Thanks for the news, Antonyl, that financial support ought to help Turkey break free at last from its disastrous seven-year alliance with EUSA, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

BigB
BigB
Aug 16, 2018 11:25 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Turkey needs it. The Turkish Lira has lost something like 45% of its value against the dollar this year. My suspicion is that Soros et al are trying to destroy the currency …though I have no way of confirming this: other than Erdogan’s claims. It’s also further evidence of the de-dollarisation myth: the Fed’s rate rises are pulling dollars from the submerging markets of the periphery back into the imperial core. Even China is tanking: money is haemorraging from the Emerging Markets, contagion is spreading, but for the credit imperialists, the dollar is still a safe haven …until GFC 2.0: when we get to pick up the unrepayable bill!

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 16, 2018 11:20 PM
Reply to  BigB

‘It’s our dollar but your problem’. The ethos of the US petro-dollar standover regime. The world is tiring of it, at last, but the ecological Holocaust will make all such machinations pointless.

comite espartaco
comite espartaco
Aug 15, 2018 5:31 PM

What is the point of this ‘article’? That the Americans are ‘bad’? That they have an ’empire’? That CNN and the Washington Post lie? That there are casualties in a war?… Once again we are faced with a scrap of leftist ‘literature’ that has no formative or informative value whatsoever, as it is not enough to say that the implements of war are supplied by such and such and that there are victims as a result of their used. What is at stake in Yemen? What are the factions? What do they want? Why do they fight? Is war justified or salutary in spite of the costs? Is America and her Arab Allies right? Is there any Iranian intervention? Is Iran right? What should be the position of the International Socialist Movement? Is the war related to Socialist partition of Yemen in the past? Should Socialist take sides or remain neutral or indifferent? Is this an Islamist, religious or ethnic conflict?… Those are some of the questions that a serious commentator on Yemen should be addressing to debunk fake news, but that, sadly, the author of this piece is avoiding.

mightydrunken
mightydrunken
Aug 16, 2018 10:22 AM

The main point is these American news reports did not mention that the US is a major player in the war. Carry on with your totally missing the point.

Denis O'hAichir
Denis O'hAichir
Aug 15, 2018 5:23 PM

Putin, Marcon, et al lined up to muggwump the shiny new prince, these people were ‘democratically’ (s)elected by a servile populace blinded by nationalism, any country or individual who deals in weapons is a despicable, I see RT, BBC, and corporate media all bang the drums of war, capitalism’s march to suicide continues.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Aug 15, 2018 10:53 AM

AKA the “Obama Doctrine” https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/yemen-saudi-arabia-obama-riyadh/501365/

the White House immediately authorized a support package that included intelligence-sharing and logistical support for military operations. That package has seen the United States deliver more than 40 million pounds of fuel to Saudi jets over the past 18 months, according to U.S. Central Command. The Saudis would be crippled without direct U.S. military assistance, particularly aerial refueling, which continues unabated.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 15, 2018 8:20 AM

To its south, Iran is proving a thorn in the flesh of NATZO by aiding Yemeni resistance. In its west, Iran has not only been a thorn in the flesh but actually defeated NATZO in Syria. To its north, Iran — together with the other 4 Caspian Litoral Nations — has declared the Caspian Sea a NATZO-free zone. No F UK USA gunboats allowed. Pepe Escobar reports:

https://thesaker.is/all-hands-on-deck-the-caspian-sails-towards-eurasia-integration/

Empire Of Stupid
Empire Of Stupid
Aug 15, 2018 1:09 AM

Rebecca Rebarich: doubleplusgood duckspeaker

Empire Of Stupid
Empire Of Stupid
Aug 15, 2018 1:11 AM

“US military support to our partners mitigates noncombatant casualties,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Rebecca Rebarich

Actually, I have no idea what this means.Which I guess is the whole point.

rilme
rilme
Aug 15, 2018 1:26 AM

It means the US is helping to reduce the number, or the proportion, of civilian casualties. It means: when Saudi bombs Yemen, they hit the bad men and miss the cooks and drivers and women and children. She’s lying, of course.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Aug 15, 2018 10:53 AM

Rebarich is saying US bombs don’t harm civilians. Just like they didn’t harm civilians in Japan Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia Libya, Syria or Yemen..

tubularsock
tubularsock
Aug 14, 2018 5:02 PM

Wow! You have got to agree that at least they are going to have a complete investigation of the incident done by a Saudi led investigating team! You know the same guys who pulled the trigger.

And Tubularsock can guarantee that they will find that it was those school children on a field trip that were to blame! Damn school children deliberately getting under those bombs like that!

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 15, 2018 12:06 AM
Reply to  tubularsock

The Real Axis of Evil-the USA, Israel and the Sordid Barbarians.

Yarkob
Yarkob
Aug 15, 2018 12:36 PM
Reply to  tubularsock

Is that the same Saudi Arabia who currently chair the UN’s commission on human rights? They seem to be eminently suitable for the job of investigating their own war crimes. I don’t know what all of the fuss is about

JJ139
JJ139
Aug 14, 2018 4:19 PM

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States did not have the “full details of what happened on the ground” but said “we’re concerned about these reports.”

A big contrast with anything Russia is alleged to have done. Then the US knows exactly what the nasty Russians have done and everything the Russians target contains innocent civilians, cute puppies and playful kittens etc.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 14, 2018 3:46 PM

Update on the recent bombing of Yemeni school bus by the US/Israeli/UK/Saudi Coalition of the Killing:

It is coming out that the bomb that murdered all these children was manufactured in the USA. The US is neck deep in the war crimes in Yemen, but the US mass media assiduously avoids mentioning that a place called Yemen even exists, let alone that their country is engaged in a war there via Saudi stooges.

The blame should fall much more on the US, Israel, the UK, Canada and France, as all these powers are deeply involved in the killing.

Yemen Observer Retweeted BREAKING NEWS: US bomb used by Saud/UAE strike on school bus, which killed 51 inc 40children
The Pentagon said on 9th August: “We may never know if the munition used was one that the US sold to them.”

So now we know, it’s a MK82 made in USA

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Aug 14, 2018 7:48 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Yes, in the words of the Russian poet YevgenyYevtuschenko: ”When truth is replaced by silence, silence is a lie.” Lies by omission are just as mendacious as outright lies. Such silence/lies is instanced in the daily inculcation of the MSM, particularly the liberal MSM. The war on Yemen is an international war crime on so many levels the it should be considered one of the great crimes of the 21st century. But note the way this dirty, squalid, business is being orchestrated out of existence by our fourth estate hoping no-one will notice what’s going on.

Sitting in his wheelchair, not far from his demise, the British playwright, Harold Pinter, gave a memorable validection of AZ war crimes and their disappearance down the memory hole.

Events – like massacres in Indonesia, East Timor and dozens of latin-american states; and every other US led coup carried out by CIA and its thug hirelings – were politically inconvenient ignored. He proceeded to reel off examples. But the clincher came when Pinter, with deadpan irony, said: “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest, never happened, and even whilst they were happening, they were not happening.”

The Yemini children, like the Palestinian children have been and are, victims, but categorized as being, in Chomsky’s words ‘ inconvenient victims’ being in the wrong country at the wrong time.

Call the AZ empire what it is: an abomination.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 15, 2018 12:11 AM
Reply to  Francis Lee

I heard a US Professor on our ABC radio a little while ago, who, when asked about the unrivaled record of interference in other countries’ internal affairs committed by Thanatopolis DC over decades (itself a rarity in our local fakestream media propaganda system) spluttered and attempted to deny its existence, but then, simply asserted that the non-existent ‘Russian meddling’ in the US election sham was ‘worse’. With lunatics like that in charge of the USA, and most of the West, really, what hope is there?

Empire Of Stupid
Empire Of Stupid
Aug 15, 2018 1:14 AM

Excellent name for the HQ of the Moronic Hegemony.

rilme
rilme
Aug 15, 2018 1:34 AM
Reply to  Francis Lee

I feel sorry for “israeli” children, born into being in the wrong country (Palestine) at the wrong time (21st century, FFS!). Their minds attacked and twisted. A tsunami of propaganda. The whole world against them. Lambs to the slaughter. Expect them to die by the sword.

Michael Cromer
Michael Cromer
Aug 14, 2018 2:56 PM

When will the UK become a proper Democracy? – Surely the UK should become a Democracy as we should lead by example – We need to catch up with the Middle East and Rwanda.

rilme
rilme
Aug 15, 2018 1:39 AM
Reply to  Michael Cromer

The Conservative Friends of “israel” and The Labour Friends of “israel” won’t allow it.
(I’m not making this up. These are two actual groups, something like AIPAC in the USA.)

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 15, 2018 10:06 AM
Reply to  rilme

The ‘Conservative Stooges aka ‘Friends’ of Israel’ and the Conservative Party are entirely congruent bodies.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Aug 15, 2018 10:41 AM
Reply to  Michael Cromer

The UK is moving away from democracy not planning to improve it. If it gives you any comfort the same is happening in Australia but more slowly. The USA has long forgotten democracy. As HL Mencken said democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard.
By the way he also said “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Denis O'hAichir
Denis O'hAichir
Aug 14, 2018 2:22 PM

Don’t forget the Brits, French, Russian support for the Saudi rulers by way of arms deals.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 15, 2018 8:24 AM

@Denis. We do not “support” Saudi Arabia; we own it. KSA is a Rothschild oil company masquerading as an Arab sheikdom. Of course this “we” is not all of “us”, it’s only the shareholders of the oil companies who do the owning and the ordering of the wars; the rest of us do the paying for the wars.