09/02/16 – Nasser Arrabyee – The Scott Horton Show

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Okay, introducing Nasser Araby.
He's a reporter, lives in Sanaa, Yemen.
And you can follow him at N-R-A-B, that's two R's and two E's at the end.
N-A-R-R-A-B-Y-E-E on Twitter.
And he's written for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
And he has his own news organization in Yemen called Yemen Now, Yemen Alon.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Nasser?
Good to talk to you.
Fine, thank you very much, Scott.
Good.
Very happy to have you here.
And basically, sir, just the floor is yours to let the people know the bad news.
Was the current state of America and Saudi Arabia's war against Yemen?
The situation is getting worse now, especially after the, after John Kerry visited Saudi Arabia and gave them all the political cover and all the protection, any responsibility and any accountability, unfortunately.
So Saudis now are more crazy to kill and to destroy because Kerry, unfortunately, said he would protect Saudis and he would protect the Saudi citizens because there are some attacks in the south.
So Kerry did not mention the one year and a half of war crimes in Yemen.
Unfortunately, he just said that there are some people being killed in the south of Saudi Arabia from Yemenis who defend themselves against U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes.
So I think it's a turning point now, to be or not to be.
Yemenis are still defending themselves.
And today they missiled or they started a new system of missiles, ballistic missiles, Burqan-1, that is a volcano.
And they fired it toward Taif, close to Mecca.
And they are ready to defend themselves in any way.
Yemenis are with peace, but they are defending themselves.
Unfortunately, Kerry and Obama are blind, still blind, and they are blindly supporting Saudi Arabia crimes.
And it is very dangerous to the security and stability of the world if United States does not revise the situation and does not revise its position towards Yemenis.
It's very dangerous.
Okay, now I just want to make sure I heard you right when you were saying that the Yemeni forces, the Houthi forces, are fighting back and in Saudi Arabia.
Did you say that they had even gotten near Mecca?
Taif, Taif, Taif is close to Mecca.
From the south, you have the south and you have Taif and you have Mecca.
So today they fired a ballistic missile, which is Scott, but Yemeni modified.
It's about 800 kilometers range and 8 tons.
So this is something very new and very surprised for the Saudis and for anyone.
Where did they get it?
They modified Scott, Russian Scott, very old Scott.
And they modified them and they developed them.
You're saying from the previous solid government's military arsenal?
Yes, yes, previous, yes.
They have many, they have many, but this is the most powerful one.
The one of today is the most powerful missile.
And now they've already, I know that there's a town that's just on the other side of the border from Yemen.
Is that the one that you're talking about here?
No, that is Najran.
Najran is almost surrounded from east and west and south.
It is almost surrounded now.
They are overlooked and they can fire with anything to Najran now.
Not with the clashing, with any, everybody, if you see Al Masira or if you see Yemeni TV, you will see.
That's why the Saudis blocked the Al Masira and Yemen TV last week.
Because of these things.
I'm talking about the 800 from the border.
Najran is, they are close.
They are 2 to 8 or to 10 kilometers at most from it.
And so, well, I mean, clearly the war is backfiring on the Saudis in that way.
The Yemenis are really, the Yemeni forces are making headway inside.
They have this one city under siege and you're saying that they're now shelling and firing rockets at the other.
But so, are the Saudis attacking the Yemeni forces positions in Saudi?
Let me finish.
Because of this development, the Saudis are used back then.
Used back fighters or jets keep hovering and striking in Sana'a and everywhere all the time.
They strike everything now.
They strike houses, factories, schools, mosques and everything.
They strike the head thing every time now.
But this is the war.
Yemenis will not stop because they are defending themselves.
And unfortunately, this is because of the new announcement, American announcement of war against Yemen.
Kerry came to Jeddah and made also foolish things and very dangerous things to Yemen because he protected or he biased clearly with the Saudis and he didn't say anything.
He said he had initiative but unfortunately, he didn't say he would stop the airstrikes.
Anyone who wants to make initiative or peace, he should stop the airstrikes, the blockade.
This is the most important thing because if you stop the airstrikes, then Houthis and Yemenis would not do anything because they don't have, they have only the weapons that they can defend themselves.
So you stop the airstrikes and then you can do whatever you want.
But he didn't say anything.
He just came to say he's concerned and worried about Saudis.
But he's not worried about more than 50,000 Yemenis who were killed and the infrastructure of a country of 3 million, 30 million Yemenis.
He didn't say anything about it.
Yeah, now Kerry's statement obviously was just, you know, more carte blanche for the Saudis to keep doing what they're doing.
Has there been any kind of, you know, growth or diminishment in the amount of airstrikes?
Is it pretty constant every day or kind of random?
How many airstrikes are we talking?
Are they all mostly centered on Sanaa?
Scott, we are talking about 200 airstrikes a day, at least.
200 a day?
Yes, I'm talking now, I don't want to exaggerate.
If I want to talk about the things I am hearing, I would say about 50 here in Sanaa, in my, the things, the airstrikes I am hearing.
50 a day in the capital city?
Yes.
And I'm sorry, I remember where we left off when the phone cut out.
It was about, you said 30,000 had died.
And I wonder if you could back that up, because of course the UN says it's only 10.
It's not 30,000, it's 50,000.
Now the UN now raised the number.
Yesterday, only yesterday, I was in a conference with the UN chief here in Sanaa.
He raised the number to 10,000 killed and 32,000 injured.
We are talking about civilians now.
More of half of them are women and children.
So I'm talking about more than this.
I'm talking about 60,000.
Because now from the time, from the day when Kerry came to Jeddah to today, we have about 5,000 people who were killed in their houses, hospitals, schools and farms.
So they kill, they kill people.
They want Yemenis to surrender this way.
Just by bombing.
Not by anything else.
They say, why you are defending yourself in there?
They want to, they couldn't only prevent Yemenis only from the air and from the water, I mean from the water of the rain.
And from the sun, the light of the sun.
And from the mountains.
We have a powerful weapon, which is the mountains.
So Saudi Arabia would not be able to prevent Yemenis from these things.
But Saudi Arabia, unfortunately, with the American support, they tried to prevent or to deprive Yemenis from everything now.
With the American support, unfortunately.
With Obama and Kerry's support.
Okay now, so tell me something.
I mean there is an army that Saleh has, the Houthi army combined with much of the old Yemeni army, if not most or all of it now at this point.
I don't know who is fighting for Hadi.
So are the Saudis, are you telling me they are just bombing civilians?
Or civilians are getting killed too in their war against the Houthi army?
The thing that we want the world outside Yemen to understand is that the Saudis, unfortunately, could not kill the soldiers.
Could not kill the Yemeni fighters.
Cannot kill the Yemeni fighters.
At all.
Except, you know, the random things and this and this.
But the people who fight in the south of Saudi Arabia, they are, you know, they storm the Saudi positions and towns and villages between 10 to 15 only.
Between 10 to 15.
And even the Abbasids couldn't do anything because there are mountains, there are trees.
So they just do whatever they want and they hide there.
And we see because there are reporters from there, Yemeni reporters from there with war reporters.
And we see and the world also sees, not only Yemenis.
And this is why Saudi Arabia come and kill the people randomly.
They come to San Andekel every time.
And if any operation implemented there in the south, they just come and kill anyone here.
In a hospital or in a school or in a house or every day.
Family, whole families.
They just bomb a house and go.
This is what they do.
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Follow along on paper and see for yourself.wallstreetwindow.com So Nasser, tell me about the war down near Aden.
Because that's where the Saudi forces and the UAE mercenaries and whoever have a little bit of a beachhead there trying to reinstall Hadi in power, right?
You mean in the south of Yemen?
Yes, down at the port city of Aden.
Yeah, that's okay.
What's happening there in Aden and in the south in general is Qaeda-ISIS is expanding greatly now.
It's not right that they liberated Muqallad and Jabar and Ja'ar and these cities in the south from Al-Qaeda.
Actually, Al-Qaeda is more powerful than five months ago.
The evidence for this is what happened last week.
Qaeda suicide bomber drove his car to a school where there were 500, at least, recruits and killed about 200, 200 of them.
Which is the most powerful bombing, I think, in five years in Yemen, not only in the south, to kill 200 in the same place, recruits.
I mean by recruits, jobless young people who were hired, who were told, unfortunately, by some warlords to come to be recruited for fighting with Saudi Arabia in the south.
This is something that is very dangerous.
And Qaeda-ISIS came and killed 200.
Saudi Arabia now is hiring jobless people, young people from the south to protect it.
This is why John Kerry, the foreign minister of the United States, came to Jeddah and said he would protect Saudis from Yemenis who only defend themselves from 18 months of war crimes.
So what is happening in the south is Qaeda-ISIS is winning, Qaeda-ISIS is getting more powerful and more powerful.
It is now in the city of Aden, doing whatever they want and hit whenever they want and wherever they want.
And not only this, but they are also deeply rooted in the society, in the educational system and in the social system.
This is because of what Kerry and Obama are doing.
This is because of what Obama and Kerry are doing with their support to Saudi Arabia, unfortunately.
Alright, now I'm sure you're aware that Amnesty International has said that both sides are guilty of war crimes here.
What do you know about that?
Are the Houthis killing civilians?
I'm not now denying anything.
I'm only Yemeni, I'm very angry for my country, but no problem.
What we want is international investigation, but the world, the free people in America must know that Saudi Arabia has stopped the international inquiry, the international investigation about 100 times now.
So why is Saudi Arabia stopping the international demand for international investigation about the war crimes?
Saudi Arabia with its money and with the American support, they don't want any international investigation at all.
This is not what I'm saying, but this is what the world's right groups say, including Amnesty International, Human Rights, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, only last week.
Okay, so yeah, and that's important to note, Nasser, for the audience to know that you are a real journalist here and it's your country being attacked, but you're specifically not disputing that the Houthi side may have killed civilians as well.
You're just saying, hey, let's have some peace so we can have some international investigations of war crimes committed by anyone who may have committed them.
Am I hearing you right?
Yes, yes, yes, this is the international demand and this is the Yemeni demand, but Saudi refused this.
Saudi refused this in front of the world.
Saudi refused this every time.
And you can refer to the international report what they say, and what the High Commissioner for Human Rights said only last week.
Right.
All right, now, so is there any kind of peace on the horizon?
There were some talks.
Is anybody talking now?
There will be no peace in Yemen until US, until Obama will, until Obama wants this peace to be.
It was, the war was a will of Obama and the peace will be a will of Obama, unfortunately.
The war in Yemen was a will of Obama.
Obama wanted this war in Yemen to blockade the Saudis after he made the nuclear, the nuclear deal with Iran.
Now, if Obama wants a peace, it would be in minutes.
Otherwise, there will be no peace and it will be dangerous to Obama and to everyone in the region and the world.
Yeah, no question about that.
All right, well, good luck to you out there, Nasser.
Stay safe and once again, sorry on behalf of the many Americans who do know and care about this war for what the rest of us are doing to you there.
Thank you very much.
I wanted to tell you about the political development.
Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
The development, the political development is very important.
This is why U.S. and United and Saudi are very angry and why they are, why they resumed this war, this crazy.
Yemen is now united.
The most powerful two forces in Yemen, Houthi and Saleh, they are the most, the major forces in the south and in the north.
They united themselves under one ruling council, Supreme Council.
This Supreme Council is now forming a government which will gain recognition from many countries outside Yemen.
And this happened only last week.
Last week, the parliament ratified this ruling council with constitutional quorum, with constitutional quorum.
I'm saying with constitutional quorum because Saudi Arabia is saying there was no quorum.
But there was constitutional quorum by name.
Five in these more than that constitutional quorum.
This Supreme Council now, this ruling council is forming a government.
And there were a million man administration to support this only on August 20th.
And the United States supported Saudis to come to airstrike the administrators in an unprecedented over the history.
They missiles, 24 missiles over Sana'a.
During this huge administration that was like a referendum to support the ruling council.
And they fired four missiles directly to the place of the administration.
Killing four, we know them by name.
And all the social media painstakingly documented all these things.
And everybody now knows the names of the administrators who were killed.
Four killed and 10 injured by F-16 while they were peacefully demonstrating.
So this is something that destroys the values of the world.
But Obama wants this to happen.
So Yemenis now have their own state, their constitutional president now.
Not militia, they have a constitutional president.
And a vice president from the south and constitutional president from the north.
And eight other members, it's a ruling council.
So now this government that is being formed by this ruling council the main task of this government will be to fight U.S.-backed Saudi aggression and to prepare for elections.
So what legitimacy Kerry is talking about?
What legitimacy they are talking about?
Kerry came to Qatar to say it's a minority.
So he's talking about minority because Saudi told Kerry that it's a minority.
But I want anyone in the United States to tell Kerry what minority is this.
I want him just to see one picture of the people who came from the 22 provinces of Yemen, south and north, to say yes for the ruling council.
No for the war.
No for the aggression.
So this is a very important thing and I wanted to tell you about.
Thank you very much.
If you have a question I would answer also.
Sure.
Well, I mean I would just add here that people got to remember or take note if they didn't already know that in 2012 America held a fake Soviet-style election with one man, Hadi, on the ballot.
Literally, you can just put in Yemen election in Google Images and you can see the ballot with one man, one name, and one place to put your checkmark.
And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed this as democracy and this as popular sovereignty in Yemen.
And I would add one more thing.
The millions who voted for Hadi in 2012 came on August 20, the same people, and said, OK, now we don't want you.
And the parliament where you took the constitutional oath, Hadi, also held a constitutional ceremony for the oath in the same place of Hadi for the new president, for the new constitutional president.
And they said, we don't want Hadi.
Hadi came here to swear, and now there was another one to swear.
So we are taking the same steps that the world wants us to do.
Not only people in the streets.
We are now taking the steps that the world understands.
But also Kerry didn't want it.
Kerry was still blind with the Saudi money, unfortunately.
Yeah.
All right, well, listen, thanks very much for coming back on the show to talk about this with us, Nasser.
And again, sorry for my country bombing yours.
So I would tell you something if you want to call me any time.
You can write a question.
And then if something like today happens, and I will read them one by one to help you.
No problem at all, because I am very happy you are doing this.
You are helping us.
We want to tell as much as possible of people in the world what is happening, what Kerry and Obama is doing against the stability and security of the world.
Right.
Yeah, well, I don't mind calling you back ten times if I have to.
Nobody is going to stop me from interviewing you if you are still there to answer on the other end.
So we will definitely keep doing it and keep talking about this.
Thank you very much.
And please send me the link if you do it.
Absolutely will.
All right, thank you again, Nasser.
Thank you very much.
So that is Nasser Araby.
He runs a media group called Yemen Now online there.
And he is also at the Carnegie Endowment and a few other places.
You should put his name in Google News.
It is A-R-A-B-Y-E-E.
And he has got quite a few interesting things for you there.
All right, so sorry that the interview was a bit disjointed there.
You can probably tell it is edited because there are major phone problems.
Every time he stops talking, then he can't hear me anymore and gets cut off.
And I got to call him back and whatever.
It is a hassle, but it is worth it because, you know, it is an interview about an important thing.
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