All right, y'all, the book is out, Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan by me, Scott Horton.
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On amazon.com, just stop by foolserrand.us to check out all the great blurbs and link right to the Amazon page for you there, foolserrand.us.
Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
Alright you guys, Scott Horton Show introducing Nasser Arabi.
He's a reporter living in Sana'a, Yemen.
He used to write for the New York Times back when.
And we've been talking to him for, I don't know, at least a year or so now.
Maybe a little more about the latest iteration of America's war in Yemen.
We've been fighting against Al-Qaeda there, bombing Al-Qaeda there since the beginning of the Obama years.
But in March of 2015, we launched a war for Al-Qaeda.
The Obama government launched a war for Al-Qaeda.
More specifically against the new government, the new regime that had taken over in the capital city.
A combination of the old president's forces, Saleh and his former enemies, the Houthis, the Zaydi Shia political group out of the north who had come down and they formed an alliance.
They overthrew the American and Saudi sock puppet, Hadi, who had taken over for Saleh.
And Saudi Arabia and really the United States because only with the extensive help of the United States has been bombing them ever since and has supported the United Arab Emirates and other, I guess, whichever ground forces including mercenaries to invade the country to try to restore Hadi to power in Sana'a.
And it's been almost two and a half years now of this.
So that's a little bit of the background.
Not perfect, but pretty much catchy up to date for the conversation we're about to have here.
Welcome back to the show, Nasser.
How are you doing?
Thank you very much, Scott.
Very happy to have you here.
And so I want to talk about the politics and everything.
But first of all, there have been, even in Western news, they're covering some of the atrocities that have been taking place with the airstrikes in Sana'a and elsewhere in the country recently.
Can you get us a little bit up to date on the worst of what's going on with the civilian casualties there?
Thank you very much, Scott, for your interest in Yemen.
And this is, of course, very helpful for Yemenis.
Well, let's start with the most recent Saudi massacres here in Sana'a over the last few days.
Two big Saudi massacres happened here in Sana'a against civilians, purely civilians.
The last one, the latest one, happened here in the city of Sana'a against 38 civilians in four apartments, in a building of four apartments.
And they hit them directly and they killed three full families.
And this, of course, was...
This massacre in particular drew some attention from the Western media because of the children and women who were there asleep.
They were sleeping at dawn on Friday, last Friday, and Saudis came to kill them all.
And when this drew the attention of the outside world, Saudi Arabia quickly said, it is a mistake.
It was by mistake.
This is the problem of Saudi Arabia from the very beginning of its aggression here on Yemen.
On this massacre in particular, there was one sole survivor that is a six-year-old girl who lost her father and mother and all her sisters and brothers.
And now her picture is everywhere in the world.
Actually, this girl helped us to draw the attention of this silent world.
She helped us to draw the attention to such crimes.
These crimes are always, not only now.
The one before this, the massacre before this, was only one day before, just one day before, it was against 70 workers.
That is, students who were working to earn some money in some farm in the northern outskirts of Sana'a.
They were in a motel.
They were in a small hotel, a motel.
They were just sleeping there near the farm.
And Saudi Arabia came to strike some checkpoints, as they said, because there were checkpoints.
This is a fact.
There were checkpoints.
There are hundreds and hundreds of checkpoints everywhere.
But there was a checkpoint near this motel.
And they hit the checkpoint, yes, and killed four soldiers.
And the second missile hit the motel in which 70 workers were asleep, were sleeping, destroying everything and killing everyone.
Those who were seriously injured are like those who were killed, exactly, because it's a big missile.
And on a small hotel.
So these two massacres, the most recent massacres of Saudi Arabia, draw some attention to the Saudi war crimes or the U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes that actually lasted for about three years now.
Every day, every day, when Saudi Arabia failed in the battlefronts, they come to Sana'a to kill sleeping civilians.
And this is very well known to all Yemenis here.
Of course, these massacres worsened more and more the humanitarian catastrophes, the humanitarian situation, which is very bad because of the blockade.
So now, why is Saudi Arabia doing this?
They apparently want or they expect day by day that the Yemenis would surrender, the Yemenis would surrender, the Yemenis would surrender.
This did not happen, and it would not happen as long as Saudi Arabia is killing these people, in my opinion.
All right, now, just yesterday on the show, I talked again with Clara Minera from Doctors Without Borders.
And she's up there in the north near the Saudi border.
And she said they're just treating more and more people.
She had told me about six weeks ago that there were 30,000 people infected with cholera.
And yesterday, she confirmed the Red Cross numbers that it's now 300,000.
And she said that, you know, it's easily treatable.
The body can fight off cholera if it has a few days, but it's the dehydration that gets them, especially people who are already weak, especially children.
And they basically, from the vomit and the diarrhea, they dehydrate to death.
And they're doing everything they can.
But as she put it, it's the state of war that is preventing the distribution of even just the bags of saline and the needles and salt and sugar and clean water to prevent this epidemic.
And yet the war continues.
It doesn't seem like the politics of the situation in Saudi Arabia or in the United States have changed.
Cholera is just, it's another footnote on the story when they cover it in the news at all.
They say, yeah, there's some cholera there, but it doesn't seem to be changing the calculation about whether to continue the current strategy or not.
I'm sorry, I don't know the question on the end of that, but that's the way it seems to me.
Do you have any indication that the policy's being, you know, rethought, that maybe there's a change coming soon?
No.
For the cholera, as we talked many times, it's a very clear result of the blockade.
As everybody knows, it's a very primitive disease that can be treated easily.
But the causes for this disease are there because of the blockade and the aggression.
You know, what we mean by this, simply we mean by the hospitals were destroyed.
This is something, this is a fact that can be proved by the organizations here and the experts and everyone because Saudi Arabia deliberately bombed the hospitals, including the hospitals of the Doctors Without Borders many times, and this is a fact that is known by everyone.
So Saudi Arabia is weaponizing the food, the medicine, and the water, and everything that Yemeni humans need.
They use it as a weapon to kill more.
Now they use the cholera to kill more.
They know what cholera means.
It means no hospitals, no clean water, no food.
This is what cholera means.
This is why cholera comes.
No food, malnutrition, no medicine, no clean water, so cholera comes easily.
Everybody knows this, and Saudi Arabia wants this because they want to end this war by these dirty means, unfortunately.
They want to end this war by these, but unfortunately they did not succeed.
As we see, it's now three, about three years, and they didn't achieve anything of what they wanted or of what they declared they want to achieve at all because of these lies.
That sure seems right.
I mean, it doesn't seem like the ground forces, for example, the UAE ground forces, they're no closer to Sana'a, are they?
There's not even a pretension of a threat that they could take the capital city in the next 10 years if they keep this up.
At all, at all, at all.
Do you know what's new now?
When they feel in military, when they feel in security, when they feel in economics, when they feel in humanitarian things, they are thinking of something.
They are thinking of something new, which is to make a problem between Houthi and Saleh, and this is what they have been doing over the last few weeks.
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about, too, in fact, was that, you know, the news is saying that there's a big split in the alliance there.
They did it in a very dirty way, in a very, very dirty way, in a very dirty and very funny, very funny.
They didn't even do it in a smart way.
If they did it in a smart way, they might have done something, they might have succeeded, but also they have done it in a very dirty and very stupid way, so they failed also.
All right, so explain that.
Now, remember, everybody, hang on just a second.
Remember, everybody, at the beginning I said that Saleh, back when he was the president, he went to war against the Houthis four or five times, I think, maybe six or something.
Yes.
But now they're friends, so it does make sense that there could be possibly an opportunity to exploit divisions between these former enemies who are now allies, and so you're saying the Saudis were the ones, all the recent stories that there was a split going on, this all originated with the Saudis?
Is that right?
Yes, yes, you're right.
Actually, this came to the surface only now, but we as Yemenis, we are here.
We know that Saudi Arabia was trying to use this from the very beginning, because Saudi Arabia has some people from BGC, from Saleh al-Baghdadi in Riyadh, and it has many, it has tribal leaders, Saudi Arabia has tribal leaders, has officials, has diplomats in Riyadh, and they use them, Saudi Arabia uses these diplomats and these senior officials in Riyadh to make this problem, to make this, to make the problem, or to make the dispute, or the division between Saleh and Houthi, but they could not because of a very simple thing, because they did not give an example, they did not give an example of a success in the places where they allegedly liberated, like Aden in the south.
In the south, Hadi is not in the south now.
Hadi is not in Aden.
Why?
Hadi can't go to Aden at all.
The second thing is, Hadi could not pay the salaries for the people, for his people, for the people he is ruling, for the people in the south, not for the people in the north, no.
For the people in the north, we know what they tell them.
They tell the people in the north, if you make a revolution, we will pay your salaries.
This is what they say in documents.
In documents, I saw myself.
So the people of Hadi in Aden, Saudi people and Hadi people in Aden, when the people in Sana'a ask about their salaries, because they took the central bank to Aden, and the people here, the employees, the public servants, they say, okay, you are the president.
You are the legitimate president.
Give us our salaries.
And they simply say, no, we want you to do a revolution against Houthi and Salih, and then we will pay you salaries.
So now people are dying because there is no salaries, and they don't help them.
So the people hate them.
The people would make, if the people in the north and south want to make a revolution, they would make a revolution against whom?
Against Hadi and Saudi, not against Houthi.
Houthi, yes, he's ruling Houthi, and Salih are ruling, yes, but everybody knows that the money was taken by Saudi Arabia, not taken by Houthi at all.
So this is why they could not do any problem or any division between Salih and Houthi, although they tried, as I told you.
The last, or the airstrike of the 23rd of August was to help their missionaries to go because they hit a place where there is a possibility of making this division between Salih and Houthi.
So Nasser, tell me about this story about the Houthis set up a checkpoint near Salih's son's house, and it led to a firefight and all of this.
I'm coming to it, I'm coming to it, yes, I'm coming to it.
So they tried to make this, they tried to make this first, the 23rd of August, on the eve, this is actually on the eve of Salih's anniversary, Salih's birthday anniversary.
So they failed.
They didn't do anything because they killed home, they killed only workers, farmers.
Now, only last week, only last week, what happened here in Sana'a, in Sana'a, because of salaries also.
I want your audience to know that it's because of economic things, because of the salaries.
Salaries are not here.
People are very angry, of course.
People are very angry.
So the people in Riyadh keep asking Salih people or the people in general to make a revolution, to make uprisings, to make protests and demonstrations and all these things.
So last week, a senior, a senior Salih supporter, very senior, with Salih's son actually, he was with Salih's son, and they were driving in the city, here in Sana'a.
And they stopped in a checkpoint, in a Houthi checkpoint, of course.
They are always like this.
No problem at all.
But in that day, because there was people who were making a problem, so there was a clash between these Salih people, including Salih's son, and including Salih's senior official.
At that checkpoint, people asked them for the IDs and these things.
And they showed them IDs and they told them they are Salih's people, Salih's supporters.
And they told them, why you don't go to the front, why you don't go to the front battles, why you don't go to the battles, to Saudi Arabia, to any place to fight, why you are here.
And it started.
If it was planned by Houthi seniors, of course they would have arrested them and they would have done whatever they wanted.
But it was clear, it was not planned by senior people.
It was only because of the media campaigns and the media wrangles and all these things.
So it happened, of course.
They started with hands, the checkpoint people and those Salih's people, and then with the guns, of course, because they were armed.
The Salih man, the senior, was killed.
But what you're saying is though, this started as a fist fight between basically some local toughs on the street and that really did not ever evolve into a real political crisis or a real split between Salih and the Houthis.
They just ironed things out within a couple of days and that was it.
It was not easy, of course, to happen with these people and in this place, which is only meters from Salih's son, it was very dangerous.
It was very, very, very dangerous.
But nothing happened after that.
They contained it and they also not only contained the crisis of security, but also they renewed the power-sharing deal.
Yesterday, after this crisis, or after these clashes, after this incident, Houthis and Salih became stronger.
Yesterday, they renewed their power-sharing deal.
Yesterday, and they declared everything to the people.
Of course, why?
Because they know very well that if they don't do this, it means simply that they hand themselves easily to Saudis.
Saudi Arabia would not even bother to use one bullet.
They would come easily, they would enter Sana'a and they would take them, they would arrest them, if they kill each other, if Salih and Houthis kill each other.
They know very well.
So they strengthened their power-sharing deal and they declared it to the people.
And today, only today, the President Salih Tamad and his Vice President, that is from Salih's party, the President and Vice President went today to the house of Al-Razi.
Al-Razi is the man who was killed from Salih's supporters.
They went to pay tributes and they went to show Saudi Arabia and everyone that they are one, they are united, and their stand is united against the aggressors, against the U.S.-backed aggressors, against the U.S.-backed Saudi invasion.
So now Saudi Arabia would think of something else, would think of, because Saudi Arabia hates this.
Saudi Arabia is very fed up of these things.
Saudi Arabia wants Salih to fail and he caves successfully, he caves better.
Salih and Houthis are playing much, much, much better than Saudi and their puppet here.
This is why Saudi come to kill the civilians.
They come to kill the civilians every time they fail, every time they fail to do any division between Salih and Houthis.
This is the problem.
The problem, at the end, comes to the civilians.
The civilians sacrifice themselves and the civilians suffer more and more because of Saudi's stupidity and because of Saudi's arrogance.
This is the story of Salih and Houthis and how Saudi Arabia failed to make divisions between them.
And yet what they mean by that is the Saudi-supported Hadi regime in exile and they're carved out little space down there in Aden, I guess.
But they're certainly not referring to the government in the capital city that controls the majority of the country.
And it's just the propaganda in the way that it goes without saying.
They just sort of imply that everybody knows that there's only one legitimate government of Yemen and it's down there in Aden.
It's the one that Saudi wants.
And all of that is just packed in to the one word in the headline.
That it's Yemen that blames this, the government of Yemen, the legitimate government of Yemen, blames Iran now for the war because they say that the Iranians back the Houthis.
They're sending them money and they're sending them guns and they're the reason that the Houthis are putting up such a fight against the Saudis.
And so therefore they're really mad and they say, in fact, this is a reason why Iran must be excluded from any solution.
It's because they're up to their eyeballs in the crisis is the argument here.
I don't know how that makes sense but I wonder what you think of their premise.
Their statements here about Iranian interference and influence.
I'll tell you about Iran and Saudi backed legitimate.
We keep telling from the very beginning that if we know that when they say the Yemeni government they mean the Saudi puppet.
And they keep saying that it is civil war.
So the Yemeni government, most of the people outside Yemen does not know that it is not in exile.
They don't know that it is not legitimate.
It's only legitimate by the Babers of United Nations.
Only by Babers.
Only Baber government, if they want to call it.
If they want to know, three years is enough if they want to be fair.
Three years is enough to say that at least this is not a legitimate government because it is not representing these millions of people.
A government, the so-called legitimate government is a big lie now.
It's a big lie.
Civil war is a big lie also.
There is no civil war in Yemen.
For those who want to help Yemen or for those who want to understand the situation in Yemen, there is no civil war in Yemen.
Yes, there is no state.
We agree with them.
There is no state.
There is a big curse, yes.
But there is no civil war.
Well now, I mean there are some Yemeni, there are some just regular Yemeni citizens who side with the Hadi forces, no?
I'm coming, I'm coming to it.
I'm coming to it.
There is only Saudi aggression and Yemenis who are defending themselves against these aggressions.
But who are now the forces of Saudi Arabia?
The forces of Saudi Arabia are not Saudi soldiers.
Yes, I agree with them.
They are missionaries from Yemen and from everywhere.
Missionaries, not even units.
The main groups of these people are Qaeda and ISIS.
The main groups of these fighters who are fighting with Saudi Arabia are Qaeda and ISIS.
And their leaders are in Riyadh, are based in Riyadh.
They can't even come to Yemen.
They can't even come to Yemen.
They just direct their fighters from Riyadh only.
So there is no civil war in Yemen.
We keep saying this for those who want to help Yemen.
And for Iran, there is no civil war and there is no legitimate government.
Legitimate government is a big lie because it is not a legitimate government.
It's only Saudi public.
And there is also a lot, a lot, a lot of reasons for this, but we can't talk about the reasons why.
Because it's very bad.
Hadi resigned and Hadi failed.
Hadi resigned.
Hadi escaped to Saudi Arabia.
All these things.
But anyway, it's enough for them to know that it's three years.
If there is legitimacy for Hadi, he would have won.
He would have succeeded with Saudi Arabia's support.
So for Iran, it's something else.
Iran is there.
Iran is trying to make an influence, to have an influence here in Yemen.
This is a fact also.
But its influence is very weak.
But we can say that Iran is gaining every day.
Iran is benefiting from Saudi chaos.
Iran is benefiting and gaining without losing anything.
Yes.
Iran is supporting, yes, supporting with the media, with these things.
But Iran has not even one single soldier here in Yemen at all.
This is a fact.
Weapons, of course, how can Iran smuggle weapons to Yemen?
Because all the harbors and the ports and the outposts are controlled by Saudi Arabia and airspace and everything.
So Iran is making use of it.
Iran is benefiting.
Iran is profiting from the Saudi aggression.
Nobody can deny this, of course.
But what they need to know is that Saudi Arabia is stupid and Saudi Arabia is not dealing even with its invasion in a good way to help even itself.
It depends only on starvation.
It depends only on killing civilians.
Why do they kill civilians?
They kill civilians to frighten them, to make them make uprises, to make them, or to help them make a revolution against Saudi Assad and these things.
This is why they starve them, they kill them to make anger.
So Saudi Arabia is using the dirty ways to make something that it failed using the war planes and the cluster bombs and everything.
But also Saudi Arabia failed.
Why?
Because Yemenis saw and realized that Saudi Arabia is playing dirty games against them, not with them.
For example, for the humanitarian and killing the civilians, Yemenis now know that Saudi Arabia is paying for the UN not to put Saudi Arabia in the blacklist as a killer of Yemeni children.
And Yemenis know how many children were killed.
They are their children, they are their sons, they are daughters.
And this is why Saudi Arabia always fails to make any progress in Yemen.
All right, well listen, I guess I should let you go.
Well, you know what, let me ask you one more thing here.
Can you talk about the port?
I guess it was a big controversy that there was a planned massive assault on the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea there, which is I think the major port other than Aden for the rest of the country.
This is where any and all international trade and or relief supplies come in.
And I think that international pressure really did cancel that full assault.
And yet, as you've pointed out on the show before, the Saudis have bombed all the cranes and this kind of thing and rendered the port almost useless.
But I was wondering if you could give us an update on that because I know that this is the only real lifeline to the country right now.
See, Hodeidah, Hodeidah port is not only helping the north.
It is helping, it is feeding with the goods from outside.
North and south.
Because south is not safe like north in terms of Qaeda and all these things.
You know, they can't make, they can't control their security.
So it's easier for them to import the goods from Hodeidah than to import them from Aden.
Why?
Because the ship owners prefer to go to Hodeidah than to go to Aden.
This is one thing.
The other thing is that Hodeidah is, of course, the main lifeline of Yemen where 90% of the imports come through this port.
So bombing it, or destroying it completely, because it is now destroyed partly, but destroying it completely and making it a military base would only make more and more problems to the Saudis and to the population of Yemen.
Not to help.
It would not help Saudi Arabia to control Sana'a or to make any military progress.
This is the point that made Saudi Arabia stop.
And that made also the American experts to stop them, including the U.S. ambassador who was here, Feierstein.
Because Feierstein at the beginning recommended that Saudi forces should enter Hodeidah.
And then he backed down, unfortunately, after we blamed him and a lot of people blamed him.
And he backed down and said, no, no, no, yes, yes, it is very dangerous to all of them and we would not achieve any military progress even if we entered Hodeidah.
So it's only Sana'a.
If they come to Sana'a, they might do something.
They might control, or they might even, they might kill the spirit of Houthi Ansar and the morale.
But they could not.
Sana'a is very, very, very difficult also.
So they have only, what they have to do is to come back to the talks.
But unfortunately, the talks now, because the Houthi Ansar is refusing the envoy clearly as unwanted man, so they want a new envoy because this envoy is biased completely to Saudi Arabia and they want a new one.
And Saudi Arabia is talking about that Saleh and Houthi are the ones who refused the talks because of this.
And Saleh and Houthi do not refuse, but they refuse only the envoy.
The envoy, the UN envoy, because he's biased.
And they clearly said this and UN should do something to resume the talks if they want to help Yemenis in bringing the peace.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for coming back on the show, Nasser.
Sorry once again for this happening to you.
Thank you very much, Scott, for all your interest in Yemen.
Thank you very much.
All right, you guys.
That's Nasser Araby.
He runs YemenNow, YemenAlan.com and former reporter for the New York Times.
You can read all his stuff that he wrote about al-Qaeda back before this current war started and read all his coverage of America's continuing assault on one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, one of the poorest.
All right.
That's the Scott Horton Show.
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