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Alright, introducing Nasser Arabi.
He is a journalist, a Yemeni journalist based out of Sanaa, Yemen, covering the terrible wars, plural, going on there.
Welcome back to the show, Nasser.
How are you doing?
Thank you very much.
I'm okay.
Okay, good.
I appreciate you joining us on the show again here.
So, I apologize.
I'm actually not up on the latest news.
The last I heard was the Saudi American-backed, Saudi and allied invasion of the, I don't know how to pronounce it, port there on the Red Sea is imminent.
Is that still the case?
Has it already begun?
Can you give us an update?
I think this is the most important point of what is going on now in Yemen.
The U.S. and the Saudis try to close the last entry point of food to tighten the establishment and the blockade.
But I think now there is some kind of retreating because of many things.
The first thing is that many law makers from the Congress sent letters last week to the White House, to Trump, and to the Defense Secretary, and to the Assembly General, that they could not do, that the U.S. could not get involved, further involved in Yemen without the approval of the Congress.
And the lawmakers said that it is very dangerous to think of attacking the last harbor, or the Hodeidah Harbor, which means that they would not do this, and they would not attack this.
And there is also a signal from the Saudis that the cost will be big in terms of human beings, soldiers and civilians, and it is not easy.
And it is not the end.
It will not be the end of the war.
It will not be the end of the conflict at all.
Gaida Isis wants this to happen.
Gaida Isis is waiting, can't, actually can't wait for this to happen.
Gaida Isis wants this to happen.
So I think this will not happen, and if it happens, it will be a big catastrophe.
Yeah, and they had him talking about, you know, basically what it's like to be fighting in alliance with the Saudis, and therefore the U.S., and how useful our force has been for their goals in fighting against their true enemies, the Houthis, they say.
The Houthis in alliance with the former president there.
Yes, this is the point that helps us and clarifies what we are always saying about this.
The top leader of Al-Qaeda openly and explicitly said this week that he is fighting, that Gaida Isis are fighting alongside the U.S.-backed fighters, which is Saudi missionaries and Saudi soldiers.
And this is now the most clear message from the top leader, Qasem Araini.
He said, we fight alongside all Muslims.
He said all Muslims and all groups.
He means the Sunni people.
He means the Saudi soldiers.
He means the Saudi allies.
And it's as we always say, Saudi has only the Qaeda and Isis who are fighting for her in Yemen.
And he said this very clearly.
And I think this is what made the congressmen and women make their strong statements and their strong letters to the White House to stop supporting and to stop going to war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Of course, Al-Qaeda, when they say something like this, they say, they mean that when they said we are fighting alongside all Muslims, they consider that Houthi and Saleh and all others who are defending Yemen are not Muslims at all.
So they made it clear that everyone who is now fighting with Saudi Arabia in Yemen is Qaeda or the majority of them, of course, because Saudi Arabia has no allies from the other parties or from the other groups.
It's only a Muslim brotherhood.
And Muslim brotherhood is the incubator of Qaeda-Isis.
This is why he said something like this.
And I think if we talk now of what is happening in the south, your audience will understand clearly what is happening exactly in Yemen.
Sure, go ahead.
Okay.
What is happening now in the south is the legitimacy of the Saudi puppet party is buried now.
It is nothing now.
United Arab Emirates, that is the second largest partner of what is the so-called Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
They refuse heavy legitimacy and they declare a president for the south.
His name is Zubaydi.
So why they did this?
Because Hadi, before this decision, last week, attacked the leadership of the south, the leadership of the south that is supported by the United Arab Emirates and replaced them with people, with a man linked to al-Qaeda-Isis, linked to brotherhood.
And the brotherhood is the enemy of the United Arab Emirates.
And it is, of course, the brotherhood is the incubator of Qaeda-Isis.
And this is why the Emirates refused, completely refused, by organizing a million-man demonstration, and they declared leadership for the south.
And this leadership said that they are in their way to declare the independent state of the south.
Because they don't want Qaeda-Isis to control and to rule in the south.
So now we are in a very critical state.
Now, the world should now realize that the legitimacy they were talking about was a big lie.
Because Hadi now is only legitimate in the luxury hotel in Riyadh.
He is not legitimate in the south.
He is not legitimate in the north.
He can't do anything at all.
Even the man who was appointed by him, he's not in the south, he's not in the north, he's still in the luxury hotel in Riyadh.
So now I think that if there is help for Yemen, I think the world should know, including the United States and the lawmakers and everybody, that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were only lying about legitimacy, and they wanted only to destroy and to kill the Yemeni people for their influence only, not anything else.
All right, now let me make sure I understand you right about this guy.
You're saying that here we have this coalition, the U.S. backs Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in this endeavor, and the UAE has decided that the Saudi puppet Hadi, who Hillary Clinton maneuvered into power back in 2012, that he was just, this is going nowhere, we need to give up on him, and now they've decided that this guy Zubaydeh should be the new leader that they're trying to install in power.
Which, one, you're saying goes to show the complete bankruptcy of the policy, how wrong the policy was to even try to put Hadi in there when he had no legitimacy at all.
I think that is clear.
But you're also saying, did I understand you right, you're saying that this guy Zubaydeh that they're replacing him with is no better than Hadi.
And that in fact, I think the way you're saying it is, well, he comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, which means he might as well be from Al-Qaeda.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm not certain I buy that, but I don't know anything about the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen either.
Yes, this is the point that everybody should know.
This conflict did not start last week or last month.
We were observing it for one year now, at least, between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
So Hadi replaced Zubaydeh with someone linked to the Al-Qaeda ISIS and his Muslim Brotherhood.
And he's still now in Riyadh.
He's not in Yemen at all.
They just tried when the people got angry here in the south, they just tried to meet with the Saudi king and with the U.S. ambassador in Yemen, who is in Riyadh, to give him some legitimacy.
But this is very funny because they are, all of them are in Riyadh.
And the millions in the south are refusing them completely.
Not only refusing them, but the UAE officials said that Hadi, they said publicly, Hadi must be fired.
Hadi must be cut.
Hadi must be deboned.
This is what they said after his last decision.
One of them is the head of the police in Dubai, Zahi Khalfan.
He said that Hadi must be deboned.
Hadi will never ever be a solution for Yemen, not for the south, not for the north.
So he is not liked by anyone.
He has no stability in the south and not in the north.
So he's just someone who is being used by Saudis for their agenda, unfortunately.
Okay.
Now, also, I think if I understood you right, you were saying you think that because of the congressional opposition and because of outcry from other places saying that if they do invade the port, if it's Hodeidah, am I saying it right there, that the consequences would be so dire for the civilian population that at least for now that invasion has been cancelled, you're saying.
Is that right?
Yes, everybody now knows.
Let me tell you why.
Now we have one child dies every 10 minutes.
This is according to the UN statement.
Actually, the UN Secretary General, Antony Getrich, who said this in Geneva, one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen for or because of hunger-related reasons, because of hunger-related illnesses, which means about more than 4,000 children die every month.
Now we have about more than 3 million Yemeni children who are suffering malnutrition, and this number is increasing day by day.
The only entry point for food is Hodeidah now.
So you can just imagine if this Hodeidah is closed, what will happen?
The lawmakers in the U.S. Congress know this fact very well, and I think even Trump now started to realize what it means to go to war in Yemen.
He understood because of what he did last January in his field operation, in which about five U.S. soldiers were killed and two helicopters and these things, and many Yemeni civilians.
So he knows what it means.
The more he gets involved in Yemen, the more al-Qaeda gets strong, because everything, the money and the weapons, is going to al-Qaeda, ISIS, because it's the only ally of Saudi Arabia in the ground in Yemen, not anyone else.
All right, now I know that you've been keeping your own count separate.
You talked before about how you had confronted a United Nations spokesman and said your numbers are low, more people than that have died, and he conceded to you that, hey, sure, I'm not saying otherwise, all I'm saying is this is as good as I know, but if you have higher and worse numbers, then by all means, sir.
And I know, well, people can take this for what it's worth, but I found you through the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, you wrote at least a score or something of stories for the New York Times before you're a professional journalist, not just some provocateur here, and you say you've been keeping your own count of the dead in this war just in the last two years, is that right?
Yes, yes, yes, and we discussed this number even this week here.
This number used by the UN is a shame on the world to say that it's only 10,000 Yemeni civilians who were killed.
This is not right.
It's more than 60,000 civilians who were killed.
And I told you now, I told you about what the UN General Secretary said, one child every 10 minutes, you can just imagine, one child every 10 minutes because of this war, because of this starvation, because of this hunger.
And now you can just imagine, even 60,000, 60,000 is not much.
It's even less than what we see, what we think here in reality.
But anyway, they are now using the starvation as a weapon in front of the world.
They are, and in Saudi Arabia, using the starvation as a weapon to kill.
They want to starve Yemenis either to death or to submission.
This is what Saudi Arabia wants.
The UAE has even given up on that now and have this other guy that they also can't hope to possibly install in power in Sana'a.
The Houthis apparently and their alliance with Saleh, the former US-backed president, is as far as I understand, Nasser, completely entrenched in the capital city of Sana'a now.
They are the government of Sana'a and at least everything north of that in the country and they're not going anywhere.
And so what's the point, actually?
As you're saying, okay, well, the Saudis can starve kids, but other than just sadism, what the hell is even going on here?
Where is the pressure, international or otherwise, for some kind of ceasefire here?
Since obviously neither side can win.
Neither side can defeat the other and dictate terms.
So what are we going to do?
Are we just going to keep this thing going on?
And I'm sorry, I don't mean we because it isn't you, but it isn't me.
But it doesn't even seem like they have a plan other than, well, just keep dropping bombs and buying bombs if that's their plan.
Let me tell you one thing.
The problem is Saudi Arabia only.
The king, the would-be king, Mohammad bin Salman, he's really the actual king.
He said, if we want, we can crush Sufi and Salih in Damascus.
But the problem is that there will be from every house in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia, there will be at least one death from every house.
There will be a funeral in every house in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.
This is what he said exactly, which means that he started to realize the cost of this war after about two years, more than two years now.
Yes, we know.
We know that if he wants to come to Sana'a, it will be very, very, very expensive.
But then he should think of something else.
What he might think of?
He thinks he knows this bin Salman who went to this war only to be a king, only to make himself a very powerful king because he has rivals inside the family, the royal family.
So his father wanted him to be the most powerful one, the sober man, and the one who can't be defeated.
So now we know that any political solution, any political solution would be a defeat for him.
And any continuation for this war is only more and more problems.
And just drowning deeper and deeper in this quagmire.
So he is now in two problems.
Ending, continuing the war is a problem.
And political solution, whatever conditions, whatever conditions from the Yemeni side, will be also a defeat because he said he would only end the war at the beginning.
He would end the war in Delhi.
So this is the problem now.
He should think of something else.
He's talking about now taking the war inside Iran, as he said last week in his statement.
So if he can take the war into Iran, as he said, by supporting people in Iran, I don't know what he means, but this is what he said.
If he is talking about this and talking about the heavy, the big cost of this war in Yemen, so he should now, I mean, he would find or he may find a solution for Yemen.
Because it's very clear, I mean, he knows how many, he knows how many scenarios for this solution, but he didn't want, he just wanted the complete surrender and the complete defeat, which is impossible now because it's very clear for the Yemenis.
I mean, that they would not, Saudis would not end this war, even if they arrive into Sana'a.
If they arrive into Sana'a, they would not end this war to their favor at all.
It's only bigger and bigger and more losses to them.
Yeah, well, I mean, so if we take it the other way around, too, if the Saudis and the UAE and the USA weren't involved here, would the Houthis be able to conquer Aden and all the south?
They would have to come to an accommodation anyway.
Maybe there would be a more federal divided system of power or even a separation of north and south.
What do you think?
Let me tell you something, Scott.
This is not a matter of concern.
More than 50% of the people of Aden are in Sana'a, leaders and normal people, and they are here in Sana'a, and they have their own momentum, they have their own movement, and they are with us, they are with the Yemenis, at least the Saudi aggression.
And they have now statements now.
Yesterday, they have statements.
This movement in Sana'a has a statement against what happened in Aden.
So it's not easy.
I mean, the people now who are with United Arab Emirates are not all the south.
They are people who hate the brotherhood, the Muslim brotherhood.
And the people who are here in the south and the north also hate the brotherhood, of course, but those people in the south, they, the people who are now with United Arab Emirates, are not all the south.
They are some groups who were convinced by United Arab Emirates to be with the separation, because they are separated.
The people in Sana'a, the southern people who are in Sana'a, they are with unity.
They don't want separation, because they know that separation is not a solution for the south, and it is not a solution for the north.
Unity is the solution.
But unity should be corrected.
Unity should be rectified.
Unity should be reformed.
This is right, in the south and in the north.
But United Arab Emirates is thinking now of how to expand its influence, how to control on the Aden board, and they are thinking of just themselves.
And there is also one point, I think it's important for your audience, that United Arab Emirates is not doing this without the approval of Trump.
No, United Arab Emirates is doing this by order of Trump, because Trump wants to make a balance.
Trump knows, the U.S. administration and U.S. intelligence knows, that Saudi Arabia has only Kaida ISIS who are aligned with her, with Saudi Arabia, only on the ground.
And United Arab Emirates, the Muslim Brotherhood and Kaida ISIS, they want United Arab Emirates to play this role, to make some kind of balance.
I am sure of this point.
Yeah, well, there you go.
They'll fight for and against both sides.
I guess they can keep that going for a long, long time.
I'm sorry to say.
But it looks like that's what they're going to do.
If the U.S. administration, if Trump wants to end it, he can end it easily, because this continuation of the war of any kind is in the favor of Kaida ISIS.
This is something that should be understood by any observer who wants to understand the reality here.
Right.
Yeah, and this is such, you're right.
I mean, that is, even if nothing else was part of this, that's the part that matters the most.
And that's, you know, we always start in the middle of the story because we're so late into the intervention here.
But the real story going back was that Obama's war, his drone war, CIA and Air Force drone war against Al Qaeda grew them up and made them more and more powerful.
At the same time, he was bribing and arming Hadi, I mean, pardon me, Saleh, the previous dictator, with all these guns and money that he was using to attack the Houthis, which just made them more and more powerful as they kept winning against him and gaining in power.
They ended up driving, helping to drive him out of power and then aligning with him.
And now here we are fighting, in essence, for Al Qaeda against Saleh and the Houthis, his former enemies who are now allies.
And at the same time, we're still bombing Al Qaeda, which is, on the face of it, it hurts them because it kills them, but actually just makes them grow, as we've seen this whole time since Obama came into power in 2009.
It's just like pouring water on a plant.
It just makes them more and more powerful and drives up their recruitment bigger and bigger.
So on one hand, when we fight them, we make them more powerful.
On the other hand, when we fight for them, we make them way more powerful.
And this entire strategy is just absolutely crazy.
I mean, if the story of American intervention in Yemen isn't enough to get people to want to just call off the whole terror war, then I don't know what to tell you, man, other than I'm sorry.
Exactly, exactly.
This is the point.
The point is that the people who are being killed by drones now are fighting alongside Saudi Arabia.
They are fighting now and they got angry.
They made a statement here, why you are doing this?
They are fighting with us.
They were taking money from us.
They were taking weapons from us.
This is what Saudi Arabia is saying now every time when Trump kills one or two here or there by drones, because they are fighting now directly with them.
They are fighting in Aden, in Beirut, in Marib, in Tehran.
And in Tehran, it's the Qaida Isis who's ruling now.
No one else at all.
Hadith is zero in Tehran.
It's only Qaida Isis.
In Aden, there is some United Arab Emirates, but in Tehran, there is no one at all, and in Marib.
It's only Qaida Isis.
Trump should understand what's going on, because they say they are the only Sunni.
We are Sunni.
We are Sunni.
And Qaida is Sunni.
Isis is Sunni.
Saudi is Sunni.
Okay, so it's one thing.
Maybe at the end, Trump would be Sunni with them or what.
So they are Sunni.
Now they are all parties.
But they are thinking this way, unfortunately.
And by the way, I think we discussed this back when we first started talking, but we haven't since then.
You're not a Zaydi, Shia, or a Houthi from the north.
You're not from their side.
You're just a regular plain old citizen of Sana'a stuck in the middle here.
Is that right?
See, I am publicly secular.
It is very sensitive word to say here such a word in Yemen.
But I am publicly stated day and night.
I am secular.
And the secularism is the solution here for us.
So I am not Zaydi.
I am not Sunni.
But I am against those who invade my homeland.
And Saudi Arabia is not, unfortunately.
Saudi Arabia is just a terrorist regime now.
I can't agree with them that they are Sunni or whatever they say.
No, they are not fighting here in Yemen for Sunni.
They are not fighting for Yemen for Islam.
They are not fighting in Yemen for anything else, unfortunately.
So it's just political.
Why do they say this?
Yeah, and in fact, going back, I think if we go back two years, Patrick Cockburn, the great reporter from The Independent, said that this is really all about domestic politics in Saudi Arabia.
The king has died.
There's a new king.
He's a senile old man.
The crown prince really runs the country.
And under him is the deputy crown prince, this 29-year-old young man who has absolutely everything to prove if he's going to be the king of Saudi Arabia one day.
And so he has to have this war to prove what a macho man he is.
Simple as that.
And that's their interest in it more than any other thing.
Again, they know they can't have Hadi back.
It's amazing that we're going along with this stuff.
He's already the king of Saudi Arabia.
He has now all the powers in his hands.
All the powers in his hands.
He came to the White House as a king, not as a deputy crown prince.
Everybody knows in the U.S. this fact.
He's the king now.
But why did he do this to Yemen?
Also to be a powerful king, unfortunately.
This is the problem.
So it is politics.
It is injustice.
It is terrorism, unfortunately.
It is.
And it is so unfortunate.
And I don't know what to say other than I'm sorry.
Again, I really appreciate you coming on the show and helping spread the news about this.
It's all we can do, you know?
Yes, thank you very much, Scott.
And I hope we, you know, there are a lot of things to talk about.
But, you know, we try just to say the most important things.
Sure.
Well, you know what?
I actually have time.
I'm in no hurry.
If you want to go on, I don't even, I admit forthrightly, I don't even know which questions to ask you.
So feel free to, you just say anything you think Americans need to understand about this.
I have one point.
I have one point about the humanitarian thing.
Very, very important thing.
Last week they were in Geneva.
The donors were in Geneva with the United Nations, right?
To help Yemen from being stuck.
To rescue Yemen, to save Yemen from the starvation.
And the United States said that Yemen needs $2.1 billion for this year to rescue 20 million Yemenis or 19 million Yemenis from being hunger or from being stuck, let me tell you frankly, from being stuck by U.S. Saudis.
So they, who came, you know who came to Geneva to give this money?
Those who came to Geneva to donate, to give money to Yemen, are the people who killed Yemen, unfortunately.
Saudi Arabia was the first one who donated $150 million, which is not equal even to the cost of one day of this war.
Not even the cost of one day of this war that kept now for more than two years.
So the people who killed Yemen and destroyed Yemen came to Geneva to pay some money for Yemenis or to save Yemenis from death.
Unfortunately, they collected, or they bled actually, they bled to give Yemen about $1.1 billion.
That is about half of what the United Nations said Yemen needs.
So this was just a public relation.
This was just a big lie.
This was just to make Saudi Arabia a bit okay and good, unfortunately.
They are not going to pay the money because they have a lot of conditions, like the conditions of the Haber, of Hodeidah.
The same conditions.
So why they did this?
They did this only to make Saudi Arabia a bit good and to make Saudi Arabia commit more crimes, unfortunately.
And this is the problem of the misleading and misinformation and the fake media, unfortunately.
Well, and in fact, that one sounds like it was probably cooked up by an American public relations firm in the first place.
Here's what we'll do.
We'll pretend that we're the ones who are swooping in to be the humanitarians.
Now that'll confuse them, at least, you know.
It's a trap.
Yes, exactly.
So they try now, they try to use, as I told you, the salvation and the economy as a weapon, but it is not in their favor at all.
Because we say Yemen has nothing to lose more.
Yemen has nothing left to lose now.
So Yemen will continue to defend itself.
Yemen will continue to refuse such crimes of Saudi Arabia and will defend itself and will not ever, never, ever surrender.
All right, Nasser.
Well, thank you very much again for coming on the show.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much, Scott.
Goodbye.
All right, you guys.
That's Nasser Araby.
Yemen now, Yemen hyphen now, Yemen dash now.
Yemen Alon is the website, his news site.
And you can check out his archives at the New York Times and just put his name in Google News there, Nasser Araby, and you'll find a lot going back over the years and learn a lot of background about the war in Yemen there.
And check the archives.
I've interviewed him, I don't know, 10 or 15 or 20 times now or something the last couple years, so check that out.
Nasser Araby, everybody.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, scotthorton.org, slash interviews.
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