Saudi Arabia killing hope for peace in Yemen

Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, VT editor, author and political commentator from Madison, about the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen amid the Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How optimistic are you about the outcome and the positive outcome of this ongoing round of talks in Kuwait?

Barrett: Well, it’s good they’re having the talks but I’m not that optimistic. It doesn’t seem that the Saudis are willing to admit their mistake. They told the Americans when they first proposed this war on Yemen that it would be over within a few weeks. And it was on that basis apparently that the Obama administration agreed to back them.

And now they’re falling into a Vietnam-style quagmire. One would expect them to cut their losses and be willing to seek some kind of face-saving settlement that could unify the country especially since in the areas with the people they support, they’re facing al-Qaeda insurgencies and so on that they may be supporting or they may be opposing, it’s hard to tell, maybe both, I don’t know.

But it’s a chaotic situation and the Saudis have led this coalition of the bribed into Yemen into this ever deepening quagmire. And I would hope that at some point they would finally say enough is enough, let’s do something more productive.

The problem though is I think that they have profited from this not so much by having any success in the war, which they haven’t had, but rather by creating the smoke-screen sectarian strife to camouflage the fact that they are committing all kinds of crimes, atrocities that they’re robbing their own people, they’re robbing the people of the region, they’re acting as a puppet state for the imperial cabal out of Washington, DC and the other banksters behind them.

So, I think that they really are not yet ready to pull out, because they’re basically using this whole situation to camouflage their own bad actions elsewhere.

Press TV: Kevin, you did touch on the economics as well as politics behind the ongoing conflict in that country and Saudi Arabia’s push for the military actions, it is conducting on a daily basis. But should Saudi Arabia carry on with its offensive, being criminal and inhumane as said by many various human rights organizations already, which will eventually result in the collapse of the talks by the way. Will it get them essentially? Where is it going to lead?

Barrett: Well, it’s getting them condemned by all of the human rights groups all of the world including in the Western countries that support their barbarism. The United States and the United Kingdom in particular are helping Saudi Arabia drop cluster bombs on the people of Yemen.

All of the human rights groups agreed that the great majority of casualties and people being killed, being wounded with these horrible weapons are being killed by the Saudis. They’re dropping bombs on mosques and markets. They’re apparently flying so high that they can’t target whatever they think they’re going to target. The Saudis are not very well known for being particularly courageous warriors.

So, they’re gaining all kinds of condemnation from human rights groups in the countries that they themselves are supposedly the allies of. So, I think they’re actually continuing because there for instance they’ve got this relationship with Israel and Egypt now. They’re on the road to getting back key islands in the Red Sea. That’s actually going to be probably given to Israel. They’re working with other countries in these devious underhanded ways and this bogus alliance that they’ve created is to blow up this big sectarian smoke-screen. It’s allowing them to get away with all sorts of things around the world.

So, I think that this war for them is not really in pursuit of any strategic objective. I think it’s really more about trying to cement their role in this sectarian crisis that they themselves are creating.