03/10/17 – Andrew Cockburn on Trump’s escalation of Obama’s support for the Saudi war in Yemen – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, I'll check out the audio book of Lou Rockwell's fascism versus capitalism narrated by me Scott Horton at audible.com It's a great collection of his essays and speeches on the important tradition of Liberty from medieval history to the Ron Paul revolution Rockwell blasts our status enemies profiles our greatest libertarian heroes and prescribes the path forward in the battle against Leviathan fascism versus capitalism by Lou Rockwell for audio book find it at audible Amazon iTunes or just click in the right margin of my website at Scott Horton org okay, guys, Scott Horton show Scott Horton org libertarian institute org and Follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton show and check out the questions and answers stuff and you can ask me some at Scott Horton org slash show Okay Introducing Andrew Coburn.
He's the author of Rumsfeld his rise fall and catastrophic legacy, which you guys really should read and also kill chain, and I'm sorry, I don't have the Subtitle in front of me the rise of America's high-tech Assassins something very close to that and he is the Washington editor.
I think of Harper's magazine The great Andrew Coburn the great Patrick Coburn's brother.
How do you like that too?
Welcome back Andrew.
How are you, sir?
Hey Scott good to be with you.
Yes, sir.
Very happy to have you here Now we already talked about this article before but I'm happy to talk about it with you again because I think it's so important and of course the audience is new and changing all the time and I think people are Now maybe newly again interested in this the politics of last fall are over and all that kind of thing So now we can get back to who's killing who here.
So the article is in Harper's.
It's free at Harper's org You don't have to register anything.
They'll give it to you Harper's org acceptable losses aiding and abetting the Saudi Slaughter in Yemen, so I guess maybe I'll ask you who's who and you can divide it by North south and center or by whatever political faction you want or take it from here and say what you want Okay.
Well, let's take a whack at it.
It's complicated Basically what you have in Yemen, ah is a war a civil war to a certain extent between a group the Houthis who are this group From the north sort of far north of the country close to the Saudi border Who are allied with people loyal to a former president Saleh and they're important because that Saleh support came from the army who had been paying off for years.
So so it's Houthis plus basically the Yemeni army and They are fighting with forces Allied to a guy that the Americans and the Saudis basically put in who is kind of a hopeless unimpressive general who no one thought and never thought anything much of called Hardy and what's important about him is he has the support of the Saudis and To that end as you you know, most people probably know by now the Saudis in support of Hardy who was kicked out by the Houthis a lot of H words here in March of February 2015 the Saudis intervened to put him back in power and to whack the Houthis who they accused of being allied with Iran and To that end.
They've been waging this completely horrifying genocidal disgusting air war ever since two further points on that is that the The There's not really much evidence that the Houthis are supported I mean they're you know get rhetorical support from Iran and they've had a so I've informed they've had a few sort of weapons shipments but nothing very significant they're still basically living off all the stockpiles that the Yemeni army built up over the years when mr.
Saleh was in charge okay, second point is that again as most just remind people the Saudis in turn are supported by the United States who is very happily The you know, the arms manufacturers here the Pentagon and all those interested parties have been lining their pockets corporate pockets with Immense profits due to their enormous arm sales to Saudi Arabia who need the planes and the bombs and the missiles and the cluster bombs and even the gasoline which we're also supplying with our tankers to keep this war going and The u.s.
Has been making and doing very well out of it they've sold its figures kind of out of date by now, but it's the one that sticks in my memory as of really summer of last year, they had already sold a hundred and fifteen billion dollars worth of arms to munitions and war making stuff to Saudi Arabia since 2010 on the other meanwhile in them at the same time you've had for years Based in Yemen a small contingent of al-qaeda Who were in one way or another covertly supported by with funds and support from within Saudi Arabia Elements of the Saudi government who gave protection to Important al-qaeda figures and who indeed set up an important base for jihadis Who basically became al-qaeda in the middle of Houthi territory was what helped start all this business in the first place So the al-qaeda at least theoretically is the enemy of the United States I'm not theoretically in fact and the u.s.agent the intelligence agencies particular is most specifically the well, particularly the namely the CIA and the sort of covert branch of the u.s.
Military the The special forces a Jones public special operations command Seal team six and Delta Force and all that Have been waging their own little war against al-qaeda in Yemen using drones Just to be confused people a little further I should point out that the al-qaeda in Yemen has been basically fighting against the Houthis and in support of mr.
Hardy So as you just mentioned briefly, we are fighting in effect on both sides.
We are You know, we're supplying all the stuff to attack the Houthis the Saudis are making money out of that and the same time we are attacking the Al-qaeda people who are the enemies of the Houthis so, you know, we're you know, this is logical I guess to the Pentagon and to the CIA But certainly not to me and I should think not to most Americans that we should be intervening on both sides Yemen is in the news should be in the news all the time, but shamefully it isn't because This war that we've been, you know in effect a part of has reduced what was already a very poor country to starvation I mean people are starving to death because You know, the Saudi bombing has destroyed most of the infrastructure all the bridges and you know factories and power plants and so forth and at the same time there we are assisting in the blockading and Destruction of the Yemeni ports that the Yemenis were the Houthis which dominate, you know Most of the country were getting food in through so there's millions and millions and millions of Yemenis and particularly Yemeni children that either have starved to death are starving to death or will starve to death Thanks to us and our Saudi friends so but nevertheless, you know, what are we hearing about in the news today is our attack on al-qaeda and If you didn't notice on January 29th, we Trump After or in the course of a pleasant dinner with the minister the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his daughter and son-in-law as He sort of wiped his napkin wiped his mouth whose napkin gave the go-ahead For his first big covert raid of his presidency which was to attack this, you know alleged al-qaeda figures in the middle of Yemen and It was a total bloody fiasco as Hope people realize killed at least 25 civilians at least and we have them their names and their ages and their genders because Nine were Women one of them heavily pregnant Eight were children the youngest being three months old from aging from three months to third to 13 A lot of the people killed up in the course of the raid Armed helicopters overhead Just sprayed the village with machine-gun fire.
There's an excellent report on this in the intercept by Iona Craig I urge everyone to look that up and as we know it, you know didn't look too good because You know the one of the attackers on the ground a sealed member of SEAL team six was killed three others badly wounded Well, they say a seventy five million dollar actually a hundred million dollar Osprey it's a kind of helicopter Cross between a helicopter and a plane crash landed and had to be deliberately destroyed So it was a pretty expensive business and that's a hundred million dollar plane and they claimed of course You know the White House and the military claim.
It was a huge Well, the White House certainly claims it was a huge success and they got lots of valuable intelligence and laptops and computers Laptops and cell phones, which is hard to understand because they destroyed the village.
So I'm not sure after they'd Blown it up with missiles and machine guns and cannon how they managed to find any intact laptops in there seems unlikely Since the military of course is busily covering up what a fiasco it is General Votel Who is head of Central Command, but used to be commander of JSOC.
So he has a sort of professional Interest in this kind of thing his old outfit He gave he basically said no one did anything wrong.
It was all well planned You know accidents will happen and he puts the maximum number of civilians They killed at 12 between 4 and 12, which is just a tremendous lie on his part I mean people have been there people have done, you know careful investigation including Iona Craig but also the Bureau of investigative journalism in London and you know, they've who produced the names of People the men women and children they killed.
I mean I said the women and children I mentioned I'm some of the men where there was a couple of guys who were in their 80s.
They managed to kill They managed to kill some people who'd come there were al-qaeda in the village Certainly, they managed to kill some people who'd come to the village to ask al-qaeda to release their relative I mean they were not al-qaeda people and by the way, the poor village this had been shelled a few days earlier by the Houthis, you know, just Shows what a mess it is and how what clowns the government the you know, Washington is to sort of insist This is all a good idea so That's about a that's about it anything you think I should add before I run completely out of breath Hey, I'll Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new book by Michael Swanson the war state in the war state Swanson examines how presidents Truman Eisenhower and Kennedy both Expanded and fought to limit the rise of the new national security state after World War two This nation is ever to live up to its creed of liberty and prosperity for everyone We are going to have to abolish the Empire know your enemy get the war state by Michael Swanson It's available at your local bookstore or at amazon.com in Kindle or in paperback Just click the book in the right margin at Scott Horton org or the war state comm Yeah, no, that's pretty good start man.
I got some follow-up questions for you here I mean first of all, I guess we could point out about The narrative of this botched raid is that it was botched because a seal died and So the argument is reduced to that is absolutely unacceptable that a special forces Soldier operator would ever lose their life in combat and damn incompetent Trump but then The argument to that is hey, come on, man.
It's a war and you know what?
He got shot I mean these they were there was a firefight these things happen, you know, it can't always be a hundred to nothing in every Skirmish and so in this case we lost one guy and then that's the end of the argument There is no argument about well, yeah but what about the 80 year old man and what about all the women and children and the one that Jumped out to me and the intercept piece was the woman running with the baby in her arms who got her head blown off Just like Vicki Weaver, right?
Just like George Bush senior did to Vicki Weaver that caused the whole, you know massive Ruby Ridge scandal there the baby in her arms Lon Horiyuchi the sniper and all that.
That's so that's what our foreign policy is Ruby Ridge all day long Killing women killing children killing grandfathers.
What is this?
We're supposed to just go well, you know, I don't know I did you hear that a seal died?
Oh, what a tragedy Yes, forget them, I know I'm sorry for the seal I'm sorry for his wife and all the rest But I mean, you know, this was all if you notice yeah, but hey at least he's a combatant So yeah, that's part of the game.
I'm not gloating about it either.
I'm not saying it's great or you know anything I'm sorry about it.
And he's got a family and all these things too Just like you say, but it's just hey, you know He signed up to play this game the people most seems like everybody else who died in it Just happened to be a bystander Yeah, I mean, I mean I happen to be I heard Trump's speech I happen to be in the Congress when he you know, he talked to the Congress the other night and You know, he made his you know, this kind of cheap trick that they all do I mean Obama did it Reagan started it I think of invoking some some poor fellow who'd been shot on their watch You know, thanks to orders they'd given and the whole you know, they all rose and captain captain captain clap But he never mentioned where this guy had been killed Trump didn't he never said, you know Trump killed her Owens killed in a firefight in Yemen.
It was all like You know, it wasn't even worth mentioning who cares where we are You know, we just have to worship this this this fellow and you know an American hero and as you know Mentioned the circumstances of naturally he was gonna talk about the children they'd killed or anything like that and You know clearly no one.
I will I know a few congressmen but not many You know, there's a few of them who care about Yemen but very few I didn't notice any of them refusing to stand up I must say So, yeah, it's a you know, this yeah ongoing Yemeni war crime is so very very upsetting that You know, no one really gives a damn Wasn't mentioned I don't think at all during the campaign and that's the thing about it It's I mean the genocide itself is pretty bad, but it just seems so unfair that people don't even have to know about it You know, right there was six Stray I looked I went through I did a search on all the debates and Yemen got mentioned six times now not not disguise wasn't discussed at all But they was in, you know, they'd say something would say Versa, oh, you know Iranian Iranians You know taking over Yemen or be some ignorant statement by one of the candidates That was it, you know, and there's this this war which you know, given the people we've starved to death is you know, the most bloody war Ongoing I'd say You know, maybe the Congo or you might find another one but it's certainly a high on the list and no one cares And You know that the Congress Isn't going to investigate, you know, what actually happened?
There's going to be you know, it should there should be hearings people, you know, it's an outrage that this This casual casual raid, you know sort of fixed up by Trump over dinner They go in and then they tell you know It's a fiasco and then they proceed to tell lies about it unchallenged.
Yeah One more thing sure they I mean we have this very Terrific piece piece of investigation by the intercept by Iona Craig We have and then there was a similar sort of on-the-spot investigation Authorized conducted on behalf of the Bureau of investigative journalism in London.
I That's it You know, the New York Times hasn't bothered to send anyone the Washington Post, you know, none of the big, you know fat rich media As well, they you know thought it worth following up certainly not Yeah Yeah now so To get back to the the level of war crimes here that you know beyond the wars Themselves the two different wars that you've talked about.
I really more than anything else.
It's the economic war Reminiscent of what Bill Clinton well Bush senior and Bill Clinton did to Iraq in the 1990s and Which you've also written really great stuff about by the way, everybody Andrew Coburn Iraq sanctions Google that man and anyway That's the thing of it as you mentioned the the attacking of the port and then I'm not sure if if you mentioned or not, I get it all scrambled up, but Importantly also the closing down of the central bank and Moving it from the capital of Sanaa down to Aden and that means that basically no one up in the north can do Any kind of international?monetary transfers whatsoever and so And this is right It's the kind of thing that sounds like some technical point in some business journal or something But no, in fact, this is key to everything here It's shutting down that bank means everybody in the north is what there's no more safe way You know the bank for example, I mean we probably talked about this, but the bank was you know paying Was using us for you know, it was being quite well managed and was paying the civil service now there was like one and a half million civil servants who are getting salaries and They in turn were supporting about another five or six million You know family members and friends and so forth So that was all cut off as of last August.
So suddenly, you know, it was like a It was like such a cruel thing to do.
I mean, it was a deliberate Basically, it was to starve the Yemeni middle class is what what that did When how thorough is the blockade and and what degree of American participation?
Is it really the US Navy that makes this blockade work?
Well, it's part.
No, it's there The honest about is, you know, it's the Saudi Navy and the Emirates, you know Niger Arab Emirates which doesn't get mentioned as much as it should because they've been a very active participant in this war And they were indeed, you know a component of that seal raid we were talking about earlier so they're doing it, but you know, they're backed up by the backed up by the Americans and who then that may get more intense because We haven't discussed this but General Mattis who was generally lauded in the press as this or sober moderate the one sensible fellow in the Trump administration amid all these fanatical lunatics and you know bankers that but you know the the liberal Press and so forth, you know, they put their faith in matters.
Well Mattis is completely insane on the subject of Iran And he sees contrary to all evidence and you know, like that Fellow person you interviewed, you know that who pointed out that the Houthis are not Hezbollah Mattis is definitely completely convinced that And I didn't think it's a show I've heard talk to people who've talked to him about it and he has it really in his head that Iran is you know advancing everywhere and the whole Business in Yemen the Houthis are direct agents of Iran and are you know?basically just a extension of the Iranians and Therefore, you know last I think in January or February not he actually came quite close to boarding an Iranian ship mm-hmm in the in the Red Sea under the in the conviction that This was you know that this was carrying arms to the Houthis and he had every right to do so do so Well, that's an act of war.
I mean does this lunatic really want war with Iran man?
I think he does I think he does.
Yeah, and he's the one they're all looking up to and he's the guy who The Secretary of Homeland Security and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Both used to work for him And I don't know what his relationship is with McMaster But these guys when he was the head of CENTCOM, they were his underlings in the Marines So, yeah, yeah exactly the Marines and they all I'm told that these you know generals that we have oh, yeah I guess that you're right.
You know, that means McMaster was his Subordinate even though he was in the army Mattis was the head of CENTCOM when McMaster's still mr Big shot under him in Afghanistan and so forth, too So there you go, all of them used to work for McMaster.
I mean for Mattis before Trump yeah, yeah, and they And they you know, they all I mean I'm told that all these generals they all particularly Mattis Kelly Dunford What's he called Leopold?
Kellogg Kellogg the you know, the deputy chief of staff of the National Security Agency and McMaster They they like talk a lot, but obviously They they form a block and they talk to each other all the time.
They coordinate their statements and so forth So we have a soul summit we're ruled by At least in part by this military hunter.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing when you think about it Well, I'm trying to do my silver linings.
At least it's not Hillary.
At least it's not Flynn At least it's not worse Sorta could be I guess These are severe Rationalizations as Bill Hicks would say but I'm trying yeah, you know my brother my brother Alexander used to say was if you If you go if you go for the lesser of two evils you end up with the yeah, yeah exactly All right.
So now um Now as far as the famine goes, you know when they report the casualties the UN I guess has the final say and they say 10,000 people have been killed And maybe they'd mean directly but also, you know, there's this journalist Nasser Arabi who I've talked to who he says No 50,000 people have been killed and he's been doing his you know, best journalism he can to count him up himself and That he confronted the UN about it and they said oh, yeah.
No, you're right.
Hey, no argument here I mean our ability to nail this down is severely limited under the circumstances And then of course, there's the definition of killed right?
Because if you're talking about just an entire population that was already the poorest Arab country to start off with under these Circumstances then you're just having babies stillborn at much higher rates than ever before you having people die on the way to the hospital That's not open and this kind of thing and that doesn't usually get counted as a combat death But it gets counted maybe later as an excess death From the time of the war when they compare the death rates later and that kind of do so I don't know exactly how you count it, but I Mean the UN to be the UN.
I talked to them and they get their figures from the WHO And they get their figures from the hospitals But what's not being counted is the you know, the people who don't make it to hospital and half of those Well, this is the wounded but also but you can stay you can extrapolate that to the dead You know over half of the hospitals are in Yemen are out of action I mean the UN people when I was doing that article last year, I talked to them and they they said Quite you know quite openly they said we're really no one has the faintest idea how many people have been killed or wounded you know the You know, they that they said they were saying 10,000 I mean last summer Maybe you know that was like a round number So, you know, it's many times that and that's combat deaths the 10,000 always was combat deaths And as you say that doesn't mean, you know, that doesn't apply to the war induced civilian casualties Well, and then I guess as has been emphasized by you and by others for two years now and then some About this war that this is not just the poorest country in the Middle East But they are almost wholly dependent or at least they were before people said, you know The organization said 80 to 90 percent dependent on imports for their food and yeah I had this expert Martha Mundy on the show who explained that a big part of that was because the IMF had come and Arranged a deal where instead of planting sorghum that you guys can harvest and use and is easy and whatever You should replace those crops with I forgot what it was if it was corn or some other crap for sale Right, it was the it was corn it was and coffee they wanted to buy coffee and they yeah So welcome to the global marketplace, but now you can't feed yourselves when we put a blockade on you So now yeah, so I mean then the idea is that we don't know but it could be really high numbers of people who've starved To death here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean it's already I mean it's two years into it now Andrew, right?
I mean, so yeah Is there a number do I overestimate the degree of the shutdown of international trade or there's a total shutdown international trade or it's just The Red Cross has some food aid or how's this working?
Well the UN last year the UN there was a sort of uptick the UN was getting a lot of Things improved for a while last year and But there since then it's gone sharply down partly because the Saudis are you know, they're holding up, you know, they the port I mean you we've mentioned a couple of times.
I mean they the main port is Hodeidah For the for the Houthi side and the Saudis very carefully destroyed all the cranes At the port so you couldn't unload containers anymore, you know makes it Very hard to very slow to unload shipments.
It was quite a modern, you know, relatively speaking modern port before So that you know that alone has had a sort of phenomenal effect on the degree to it and the Saudis just recently have stepped up their interception of food aid ships and are holding them for days and diverting them to One of the things they're doing is done making them go to Saudi controlled or you know, Saudi supported forces control ports like Like Arden and And so where they can then, you know, they control the food and can control the degree of widths against shipped into Houthi controlled areas So Andrea, you know just to finish up here.
It's worth pointing out I guess that Obama had his people tell the New York Times The only reason they were doing this was just to basically make the Saudis feel better in their words to placate the Saudis After doing the Iran nuclear deal otherwise The Americans have no interest really in fighting a war against the Houthis other than as you said Mattis's fantasies about Iranian power here that aren't Even really true right And I've got the money, you know, let's people in Washington always try not to talk about money You know that this is usually probably you know, as I said in the article we have this thousand or basically two thousand person Base in Riyadh side Riyadh who are there they're training and advising but their main job it's in their mission statement You can look it up on their website is to sell u.s.
Defense equipment.
Mm-hmm.
So this is you know, and this is This is great for business by the way Did you ever nail down the rumor as you put it the the single unconfirmed source that you had that said that American flyers?
Maybe active-duty maybe contractors.
We're actually riding in the back seats of these f-15s help in the side And you know because I had another rumor that of the same thing too, but anyway, yeah, I'll let you go Thank you, Andrew.
Appreciate it.
All right Alright, so that's Andrew Coburn.
He wrote kill chain about Obama's drone war and this one is acceptable losses in Harbors, it's one of the best ones obviously you can tell the background of what's going on with the American war Against and for all sides in Yemen alright, Scott Horton show check out the archives at Scott Horton org at Libertarian Institute org and Follow me on Twitter.
Sorry if I insult you At Scott Horton show.
Thanks.
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