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.
All right, you guys on the line.
I've got Nasser Arabi, reporter out of Sana, Yemen.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Nasser?
Thank you very much, Scott.
Thank you for your interest in Yemen.
Sure, man.
So lots to catch up on here.
I guess first of all, can we start with the diplomacy?
There have been some talks and there was an agreement over the Hodeidah port.
I'm not exactly sure how well it was implemented.
But anyway, take it from there.
Go ahead.
Well, for the talks, it's now in a deadlock also.
Earlier this year, earlier this month, they started to implement the Stockholm Agreement.
When Houthi declared his withdrawal or the withdrawal of the Houthi forces from the three ports of Hodeidah, the main port of Hodeidah and the two other ports nearby the city of Hodeidah.
And Houthi did this exactly.
They withdrew and they redeployed their forces at a point of five kilometers each of these three ports of Hodeidah.
But the problem is that the other side or the Saudi-Emirati-backed forces did not do the step or the next step that they should have done it.
Because they, the Houthi, when they declared this step, they declared it unilaterally.
But by that, by doing so, they just threw the ball to the court of the Saudi-Emirati-backed forces.
The UN, the United Nations at the time, thanked Houthi for withdrawing from the three ports of Hodeidah.
And they said that this step must be followed by another step.
That's by also withdrawing of the Saudi-Emirati-backed forces from two places at the outskirts of Hodeidah, of the city of Hodeidah, that is north, that is south and east of the city.
They should have withdrawn only one kilometer away from the positions they are staying now, they are positioning now.
But this did not happen, unfortunately, until now.
But also we can say that the UN envoy and UN mission in Hodeidah, under the leadership of the Danish General Lollesjad, they didn't say anything.
They are still working something behind the scenes.
So we can't say now they have failed.
We can't say they have succeeded.
So we are still waiting what's going to happen also.
So this is the things.
The things stand at this.
Houthi withdraw from the three ports of Hodeidah, and Houthi handed the three ports to the Coast Guard, to the local Coast Guard.
The problem that you should know and your audience should know is that the Saudi-Emirati forces and their government, their Yemeni government that is based in Saudi Arabia, also say now that Houthi handed to himself, as they said the previous times.
So they say that the Coast Guards are also led by Houthi.
But the UN envoy Martin Griffiths said in front of the Security Council in New York that the step was done under close supervision and overseeing of the United Nations.
And they embraced the step and they were very happy.
Of course, the Saudi-Emirati authorities told the Yemeni-backed government in Riyadh to accuse the UN envoy of siding with Houthi.
And they sent a letter, the Yemeni government, the Yemeni President Hadi, the Saudi-backed Yemeni President Hadi sent a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accusing Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy to Yemen, of siding and biasing, siding with Houthi and biasing towards Houthi.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres responded strongly that he has a lot of confidence in his envoy and that what happened in Hudaydah was according to the agreement of Stockholm, not anything else.
And the Saudi-Emirati-backed forces should do or should implement the next step.
Otherwise, they will not move to the second stage of implementing the Stockholm Agreement, which is the withdrawing of all forces from the city of Hudaydah.
And this stage, of course, would never, ever be implemented until the second step, the second step, until the step that should be implemented by the Saudi-Emirati-backed forces is implemented.
So these are the things, the things stand here in Hudaydah at this deadlock also.
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Dave DeCamp has a piece at news.antiwar.com about what you're saying about Hadi accusing Martin Griffiths and the United Nations of siding with the Houthis.
And DeCamp says, well, if you look at the Houthis' conditions of what they were asking for, that I guess Griffiths was repeating, that they're all very reasonable.
They want their injured fighters to be able to go to Oman for treatment and they want repatriation of the fighters who've already gone to Oman for treatment.
They want them back and they want to guarantee that the Houthi delegation will be allowed to return home to Sana'a after the talks rather than, you know, being arrested or detained or kidnapped by the Saudis or some other thing to prevent them from going back home again.
And so, you know, as DeCamp puts it, it's pretty hard to argue that this is unreasonable, especially when Hadi is sitting in a hotel in Riyadh and has no actual authority in the state of Yemen at all.
Yes, this is the case.
Yes, this is the case.
It's very much so.
The Saudi emirates, the Saudis, the emirates seem, they don't want to, they don't want this to happen.
They don't want to implement the Stockholm agreement because they see that things are going in the interest of Houthi and they don't want this to happen.
So they make that justification and excuses not to implement it.
But the UN envoy is still trying, as I told you, and they didn't say anything.
They are now silent there in Hodeidah.
And of course, the battles everywhere are raging on and the war is everywhere, especially, you know, the escalation now in the south of Saudi Arabia is at its highest level.
It started earlier this month by attacking the bombing stations close to the Saudi capital Riyadh in a major operation, maybe the biggest operation ever since this war started, when Houthi sent seven drones, seven drones at the same time to, I mean, to bomb the bombing station nearby Riyadh.
And of course, this stopped the bombing of oil for days, of course.
Right.
Well, and this is getting a lot of attention, of course, because of the accusations against Iran, where the national security advisor, John Bolton, was trying to set up a, you know, a scenario, I guess, where any attack by an alleged Iranian proxy force against any American ally in the region would amount to an Iranian attack against the United States.
So now, all of a sudden, if Hamas fails to prevent Islamic Jihad from firing a rocket over the wall, or if the Houthis get off a good drone strike against a target in Saudi Arabia, then that could be, you know, considered a tripwire for war.
Luckily, I think, you know, the Pentagon and the president don't really agree with that.
But there are certainly some who are, you know, John Bolton is certainly trying to construct that narrative, you know, to set up all the premises for that.
And so, because of that, the drone strikes, the Houthi drone strikes, which are getting better and better, you know, more and more successful, I guess I should say, against the Saudis are getting a lot of attention.
In fact, I read a feature, I think, last week about just about their drone technology and how it's improved during this war, and their ability to hit the Saudis and the Saudis inability to defend from small drone attacks like this.
Yes, after such attacks, of course, what happened also from the Saudi side is that Saudi Arabia invited for three summits, Gulf Summit and Arab Summit and Islamic Summit, which are playing out now in Mecca, the holiest place of the Muslims.
And, of course, these summits, as we saw yesterday and today, they, you know, Saudis try to just blame or throw all the blame on Iran on what's happening in Yemen for five years.
They make, or they made an exhibition for the Houthi weapons or for the Yemeni-made weapons under the leadership of Houthi.
They, I'm talking now seriously, they made an exhibition inside or in the sideline of this, of these three summits.
And we saw on TV that every guest or every leader of these countries, there is six countries from Gulf and 22 Arab countries and 57 Islamic countries, every, every leader who comes or who arrives in Mecca, they just, the Saudi officials, take him and show him this exhibition, which contains some remnants of the drones shot down by the Saudi weapons and also some remnants of the ballistic missiles that hit some cities of Saudi Arabia and some strategic and some vital sites.
And they keep blaming and they keep blaming Houthi and blaming Iran and blaming for doing this.
And they forget the hundreds of thousands of people who are, or millions of people who are being now starved and tens of thousands who are already killed.
And, you know, by their bombings and by their starvation and by all these atrocities throughout the five years.
So they try, Saudi Arabia tries to cover up their crimes by doing some other things, by saying that Iran, Iran, Iran, by, you know, by these, by repeating this kind of mantra about Iran.
And not to do anything.
They should, what they should do now is that they, if they are, if they don't want to stop these things, it's very easy not, it's very easy to stop it.
It's by, it's by, by stopping the bombings and destroying Yemen, not by, by anything else, because the Yemenis now decided to defend themselves and to keep and to continue dividing, defending themselves regardless of any, any consequences and whatever costly it is.
Well, and it really should be emphasized here for people who are new to this topic that they call it the Saudi led coalition.
You mentioned the different states who were involved in this thing, but it's really the U.S. led coalition.
Barack Obama's government had a title for this kind of a strategy leading from behind where we make it look like it's a French led coalition against Libya or a Saudi led coalition against Yemen.
But USA is the world empire and Saudi Arabia is one of our satellites.
And that's about as simple as that, as far as who's whom and who Barack Obama never had to start this thing.
And he could have stopped it at any moment with a single spoken word.
And the same is true for Donald Trump.
He doesn't even need a pen.
He could simply say to the Pentagon, this Yemen thing is over right now.
And that's the end of that.
But he won't do it.
When the Congress tried to stop him, tried to force him to stop, he vetoed it.
And of course, so far they've been unable to override it.
But that's the reality here.
This is the U.S. led coalition against Yemen.
American planes, American bombs, American intel, American diplomatic support in the United Nations and the rest of it.
That's the bottom line of all this.
So just so no one's confused.
As you've told me before, Nasser, the people of Yemen aren't confused.
To them, it's the American-Saudi war.
It is.
It is.
It is, of course.
It is.
Scott, thank you very much for this, because it goes without saying now that it's American.
And at least in the view of Yemenis, of course, they know that it's American.
Now, for example, today, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, took to the streets and squares here in the capital.
Oh, really?
Today there's a giant protest, huh?
Yes, today, today, today, now, now, just now, in the late afternoon, because it's Ramadan.
Now they are blaming out now.
And they are blaming Trump in particular for the so-called the deal of century, that is the Jerd Kushner deal, unfortunately.
So they are now out crying no for Trump deal in the streets and squares.
And they also are responding to the Saudi summits, the pre-paid summits in Mecca, by saying if Saudi Arabia cares for Mecca and for Islam, and they should do something to help the Palestinian state and Palestinian people, and to do anything to rescue them from the Israeli occupation and Israeli killings and murdering for long, long, long years.
So they are, Yemenis know that the war is American, and they know also that the war can end and can stop in minutes if Trump wants.
But unfortunately, Trump wants to get his deal, he wants to get it through by using Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed, or the so-called B team, as they are called by the Western diplomats and Western politicians.
So I think this deal is not going to work because they are sacrificing 30 million Yemenis to get through this deal.
And of course, let alone the Palestinian people.
I think they will not get anything from this.
There will be only more tensions and more fragmentations and more polarization, and there will be no result at all of these things.
You know, that's such an important point, Nasser.
The only way forward for peace or for dialogue is to stop killing people in Yemen and Palestine and Iraq and Libya and all these places.
Not to continue killing people.
Yeah, well, that is such an important point.
You know, mostly Trump just says, well, they're going to buy $450 billion worth of weapons, which makes America simply a mercenary force, if that's really the policy.
And of course, that's not even true, right?
The number is far lower than that.
It's meaningless in terms of any benefit to the American people at all.
It's a joke to try to frame it that way.
But you make a very important point that they're trying very hard or they were trying very hard to push through this deal against the Palestinians, which after all, at the end of the day, everybody knew that it was a deal that was made to be rejected by the Palestinians so that they could just be blamed again for refusing another wonderful offer in the propaganda.
Nobody ever thought that they were going to go along with this.
And now all the reports are because Netanyahu's been unable to form a government that the deal is dead on arrival anyway, because by the time of new elections in Israel in September, it'll be American campaign season in full swing.
So they're not even going to really even try this thing.
And yet the Yemenis are being killed in order to keep the Saudis on board for a plan for the Palestinian Israel-Palestine.
That's not even going to be tried, much less implemented.
Yes, by the way, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, yesterday told them inside the summit in Mecca by saying this is not a deal.
This deal is dead.
This deal would not work.
This deal is completely rejected by all Palestinians.
This deal means handing over Palestine to Israel, and this would not work.
This would not happen.
And he said this, although he wanted to say something to please Saudis, but he said this in front of the people who were invited by Saudi officials to just to pave the way for that deal.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, so the question then for the Americans is, is the price worth it?
When we know that Hadi cannot ever be reinstalled in power in Sana'a.
And by the way, let me ask you this, Nasser.
Have the Saudis in all these different talks that they have had, not that they've amounted to too much, but have the Saudis indicated that they're willing to compromise in any way short of the reinstallation of Hadi in power?
Which is, as far as I understand, the avowed goal of the war.
And yet, as we all know, is an absolute nonstarter.
I think now the demands of, if Saudi Arabia is pragmatic, they would change their demands now.
They would be more reasonable now, because they were very serious this week when their spokesman, when the spokesman of the Saudi-Emirati coalition said that if the drones attacks continue, we would carry out military operations.
And it was very ridiculous and very funny to hear him saying something like this, because they have been doing military operations for five years.
But we can understand from this statement that they now want to find a way forward or a way out from this impasse and from this deadlock situation in Yemen.
Because the only thing, the only way out from, or the only way to defend themselves or to protect themselves from being attacked by the Houthi drones and Houthi ballistic missiles is only to stop.
And this is very clear, to stop their aggression and their blockade, and then come to the negotiation table.
And this is a very easy thing.
Or at least allow their mercenaries and their babbits to implement the Stockholm agreement, because even the Stockholm agreement, which was only the first step for more peace in Yemen, Saudis, Emiratis keep refusing it.
So I think now, after this, because this, what Houthi now, Houthi now, of course, declared clearly that what happened in Riyadh this month, when they attacked the oil facilities in Riyadh, is only one target.
Is only one target from one vital sites, from 300 targets that would be targeted by the Yemeni drones and Yemeni ballistic missiles.
And not only in Saudi Arabia, but also in United Arab Emirates.
And they also prove, they prove, Houthi proved that they are able and capable to hit Abu Dhabi.
And they showed the operation that they carried out on May last year.
They showed footage showing the Abu Dhabi airport being hit by drones.
This is something, I mean, they proved by hard evidence, by video, that showed the Abu Dhabi airport being hit last year on May.
This was also strong message.
Two messages, one to Riyadh and one to Abu Dhabi, that Houthis now have the deterrence to defend themselves or to push Saudis and Emiratis to come back to the negotiation table.
Not only by waiting for Houthi to be killed or to be dead or something like this, because five years is enough for them to understand that to bet on time is not working.
And they should know that Houthi now has the deterrence weapons to make this balance.
And the only thing and the only way to stop these threats from Houthi side is only to stop their aggression and their blockade.
All right.
I want to talk about this new study from the United Nations Development Program that was released in April that said that 233,000 people have been killed so far.
102,000 from fighting, that is airstrikes mostly, I guess, and another 131,000 from hunger and disease.
If anything, these are lowball estimates.
We've been talking about these things all the time with you and your show.
And now here comes the United Nations to prove what we have been saying all along.
That's right.
Now they are talking about quarter a million, about quarter a million being killed and starved.
And they say, and this should be obvious, everyone should be able to just, you know, think of this part themselves.
This is how it works.
60% of these are children under five years old.
That's who dies from waterborne illnesses, from vomiting and from diarrhea, little babies.
That's who, you know, die from hunger, from the flu.
I should have mentioned something very quickly, because Houthi now, when they got angry because of the attacks, of the drone attacks on Riyadh oil facilities, they came to Sana'a to bomb with about 50, more than 50 airstrikes, and they did nothing.
They hit only the hit places, the hit places.
Or they killed a journalist, the media, the chairman of the media, Yemen Media Union, with his family and all his neighbors.
When Saudi gets angry, when Saudi gets upset, they don't do something wise.
They don't have wisdom to deal with things.
They just come to kill a journalist with his family and his neighbors.
When I say his family is about 11 people and his neighbors is about 77 people, civilians, women and children at their homes here in Sana'a.
And I went myself to the place because, you know, and I saw everything.
And we, you know, there was nothing.
There was no military manifestation.
There was not even a police station in the neighborhood.
But so they deliberately targeted the media and because they don't want anyone to talk.
Yeah, well, and, you know, they complain.
They say, well, when the Americans help the Saudis pick their targets, then everything is great.
But the only problem is that sometimes they have what they call dynamic targets, where the pilot just picks things on the ground to bomb from what they look like from the air.
And that's how they sort of excuse this, is saying that essentially the pilots are just dropping whatever extra bombs they have after a mission on targets of opportunity.
Exactly.
This is a mantra of Bombayo and Bolton, who have been repeatedly saying all these things.
Very funny things to say that, that if they if they don't help Saudis in targeting, then what would the Yemenis would would be even worse.
The situation would be even worse to Yemenis.
But we know what would what what would happen.
What more would happen?
I mean, it is very funny things.
Yeah, these are the same people who trumpet Saudi food aid and then, you know, try to accuse the Houthis of refusing it.
And all of this when the Saudis are the whole reason that people are starving in the first place.
And they just leave that out of the story, of course.
Which which goes to, you know, essentially the media cover up of this entire war that the American people hardly know the first thing about it to oppose it.
So that also means then they're susceptible to any old explanation about what's going on here, you know, because they don't have any real facts, real grounding to compare, you know, new tropes and narratives to.
Anyway, so I guess to finish up here for the day, Nasser, can you talk about the state of trade at the airport, at the Aden and Hodeidah ports?
Are they open to commercial traffic at all at this point?
No, Hodeidah, no, no.
If you mean the airport, they are still closed.
Sana'a is still closed.
Aden is very limited to the Yemeni airline only.
Very, very limited.
The commercial ships in Hodeidah are very, very limited, very limited and under the under the tightened monitoring and intervention of Saudis and the Emiratis, because they they used this kind of of of blockade as a as a weapon of war, of course.
So it's it's located.
But, you know, because the pressure from the international community and the human rights groups and they help sometimes to ease that to ease it a little bit.
But it's it's still there.
And it's it's a weapon in the hands of Saudis and Emiratis who want to who want who are who feel embarrassed why they did not finish this this this war.
And but we would tell them I would tell them as Yemeni that they are they only they only get deeper and deeper.
And they they they will keep bogged down in this quagmire for years and years if they if they don't come back to their sins and and stop the aggression and blockade.
Right.
I mean, this is really the thing of it, right, is that there is no end in sight, essentially short of the Americans and the Saudis giving up and and recognizing that they cannot do a regime change here without sending in the infantry.
No, in fact, if no end in sight at all, if Trump does not change his policy towards the Middle East and towards Yemen in particular, Yemen in particular.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
But as far as the battlefield, nothing, it's like World War One lines on the ground.
They're not really changing other than in small degrees.
And so without a change in policy, we could stay on like this for another four years, another eight until.
Right.
Until the public of the United States of America demands an end to it, essentially.
Yes, yes.
All right.
Well, listen, I don't know what else to tell you.
I'm sorry again for my country killing years like this.
It's terribly unfair.
I know that Yemen never attacked the United States, never threatened to in any way.
You are doing a great job.
And a lot of media and free people everywhere help Yemen.
And they refuse this.
We know this.
We feel it.
We and we are grateful for this.
And we'll keep we'll keep.
We will not we will never surrender.
We will never give up because giving up to these things is giving up to war crimes, to genocide, to crimes against humanity.
This is this is something that every should everyone should fight for.
That's right.
Yes.
Hey, Texans, Americans, Californians, whoever in your same situation would would be the exact same way.
So no question about that.
All right.
Well, listen again, very sorry.
And again, thank you very much for your time on the show, Nasser.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Bye.
All right, you guys, as Nasser Araby, he's a reporter out of Sanaa, Yemen.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at Libertarian Institute dot org at Scott Horton dot org.
Antiwar dot com and Reddit dot com slash Scott Horton show.
Oh, yeah.
And read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at Fool's Errand dot US.
