08/01/16 – Nasser Arrabyee – The Scott Horton Show

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Introducing Nasser Araby for, I think, his third interview on the show here.
He is a Yemeni journalist based in Sanaa.
He is the founder and the president of the media service company Yemen Alon, which means Yemen Now, and he's written for the Carnegie Endowment website and a lot of Bloomberg News Agency, foreignpolicy.com, and a lot of other places like that.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Nasser?
Fine.
Thank you.
Fine.
Fine.
Thank you.
Scott?
I really appreciate you joining us again on the show, and it seems like there's been some pretty big news out of the Yemen war, which is that the Houthis, and I guess there have been a couple of stories like this, you know, in the recent past, a few months back or so, but apparently, again, the Houthis army has invaded or, you know, at least crossed the border into Saudi Arabia and waged attacks inside Saudi.
After all these months of war, it seems like things are getting worse, not better.
What can you tell us about it?
Yes.
First of all, thank you very much for your interest, and nothing new more than I told you in all the previous interviews.
Saudi Arabia abused everything, every effort for peace, and this is the result.
You know, they spent about 90 days in Kuwait doing nothing, because Saudi Arabia is killing people, and now after 17 months of U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes here in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is saying today that it is not a part in the war in Yemen.
This is what it said, and everyone is returning home from Kuwait now.
The only thing there is the war.
That is the reality from since they started in Kuwait.
So the reality is war.
The reality is U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes in Yemen, because the international community did not understand what is there.
Saudi Arabia is lying, Saudi Arabia is misleading the international community by its money, unfortunately.
Well, and you know, we talked before about the lack of coverage of this issue, and it's ironic now that if there was any coverage of this, or to the degree there is, they can easily spin it now like the Houthis started it, and oh look, the Houthis have crossed into Saudi.
We better start bombing them now.
That's the way media works here in the U.S.
Let me give you one more point, because the first point was the war.
It was there, as I told you.
It never stopped one minute for 17 months, U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes in Yemen, continuously, for nothing.
The main point I want to tell you today is that this did not.
This big failure of U.N.-sponsored talks in Kuwait came after a turning point in the history of Yemen.
What is this turning point?
This turning point is Yemenis formed another ruling council.
That is, new leadership is born today.
New leadership, united leadership between Houthis and Salihs, Houthis and Salihs party.
When we say Houthis and Salihs party in Yemen, we mean Yemen, South and North, united Yemen.
And you can search, you can ask whoever you like.
Now the people who were there, who came from Riyadh to represent Yemen or to represent legitimacy, as they say, have nothing after this united leadership, because millions and millions of people are supporting these two groups, as everybody knows.
So the new start is from today.
The new chapter is starting from today here in Yemen, because there is a new united leadership supported by the overwhelming Yemenis.
And I hope your audience could see the people who talk to the streets today and on 26th of March of this year to understand what we mean by the two main groups.
The two main groups are Yemen, South and North.
They are united to rule Yemen according to the Yemeni constitution and also to fight the invaders, the Saudi, the U.S.-backed Saudi invaders.
So two things for this other united council is to rule Yemen according to the constitution, because they want to fill the vacuum of the constitutional vacuum, so to rule Yemen and to fight back the invaders.
Now when we talked before, you had said, and of course the background for the audience is that the Houthis are a political movement of Zaidi Shia from the north of Yemen.
But Nasser, you had told me that, hey, we're all Houthis now, the entire population of Yemen supports them, because they're rallying around their leadership, whoever they are, in the face of attack by a foreign enemy, it's simple enough to understand.
But now you're telling me, and we already knew that Saleh, the previous so-called president, the previous dictator really, had a deal with the Houthis, who he had attacked over and over again back when he was in power, that after Hillary overthrew him, he went and cut a deal with the Houthis and has been fighting with them, but now you're saying that they are really creating a coalition civilian government to really consolidate this agreement or truce between Saleh and the army factions loyal to him, and the Houthi movement who ended up driving his successor out of power in Sana'a, is that correct?
Yes, you're right.
This is why it is complicated here.
Now, it is only one thing, Scott, it is only one thing, regardless of any sectarian or political thing, it is only one thing, which is fighting back the invaders.
This is the main thing that unified Yemenis, that made Yemenis united.
Sectarian things and all these things about Saleh, Houthi, is just a Saudi propaganda.
I am Nasser al-Rabi'i who is talking to you now.
I am very well known as secular.
I am secular.
I am not believing in any of the sects at all, but I am supporting Houthi, I am supporting Saleh, I am supporting everyone who fights against Saudi invaders, against US backed Saudi invaders.
Saudi is invading Yemen for money, for wealth, for influence, for a lot of things like competing with Iran, or many silly things.
So Saudi Arabia is invading Yemen regardless of anything, and Yemenis must defend themselves, and this is what we are doing.
Alright, now Nasser, I am sorry to ask you this, because I know it is hard for you to say, but do you have a good guess as to why the Saudis, after more than a year of this, after more than a year of failure, are so reluctant to go ahead and negotiate?
When the UN is holding negotiations, why not go ahead and cut some kind of deal and cut their losses now?
I will tell you what.
Saudi Arabia is covering, Saudi Arabia is still misleading the international community.
It is misleading Obama and Clinton, unfortunately.
Saudi Arabia, by its money, is misleading the big guys, the major powers like US and UK and France, the Western powers in particular.
So Saudi Arabia is misleading them by its dirty money, and because of this misleading, it is not in a hurry.
Saudi Arabia is not in a hurry, because Saudi Arabia does not have an army to end the battle.
Saudi Arabia does not have an army.
If it had, it would have done it in weeks, but it did not have.
What it has is money and weapons, but not fighters.
This is the only reason that Saudi Arabia is just waiting, because Saudi Arabia is intensifying the blockade.
It wants to even kill the Yemenis by making them hungry and by making them ill and all these things.
So Saudi Arabia is waiting, because it feels that the international community, especially Obama, unfortunately believes what it says.
So it is waiting for the moment of surrender.
It is waiting for Yemenis to surrender, to say, okay, now you can come and kill us all.
Of course Yemenis would not say this, even if it comes to Sana'a.
It is very silly.
I mean, Saudi Arabia is very stupid to think that even if they come to Sana'a, we would resist, we would survive, we would continue.
But unfortunately, this is how it thinks.
It thinks that I will intensify the blockade, I will bomb them from the sky, and this is how they think.
The problem is how the major powers accept this, how they allow them, allow Saudi Arabia to do this.
They believe what they say.
I think 17 months of war crimes, and now you Obama or others would say, okay, so Saudi Arabia must help the legitimacy people, the legitimacy president.
This is a funny thing, that we are ready to struggle years and years until we make the international community understand what Saudi Arabia means by legitimate president.
Yeah, they're talking about Hadi, who was elected in a one-man election that Hillary Clinton threw.
Yes, he was for two years, and two years it was extended one year more.
This is something very funny.
But I mean, now after the war, Hadi now, if he had people in Yemen, if he had even, let me say, 20% of the population, or let me say 30% or 50% or whatever, he would have done something with all this money and the armies and weapons, but nothing is there.
It's just only Saudi Arabia who is killing Yemenis.
So now the United Arab Emirates has sent in some troops, and even most of those I gather were African and South American mercenaries.
But I wonder if you think, and again, this is a little bit off your beat on the Saudi end of the war here, but as you mentioned, the Saudis really don't have a field army other than the U.S. Army.
They have an internal security force, but if the Houthi movement can, I mean, you can call them a government now, but just barely, right?
And in dire straits being bombed relentlessly, if they can cross the border into Saudi Arabia and successfully attack Saudi positions inside their country, then I wonder whether you think, as someone was pointing out on Twitter I think yesterday, whether you think that that could have a real effect on the minds of the people of Saudi Arabia to see just what a paper tiger their government really is?
And if the Houthis can cross the border and wage attacks at will inside Saudi, can't the people of Saudi rise up and overthrow those princes in an afternoon if they really try?
Yes, this is the big concern, Scott.
This is the big concern of Saudi Arabia, I know.
But the more it commits war crimes in Yemen, the bigger this concern is.
I mean, now it wants to finish people.
It wants to kill everyone to be okay, to be safe.
And this is not logic.
Obama and U.S. leaders should know that if Saudi Arabia is concerned and it wants to finish people, to kill them up, so that it can get back to Riyadh and sleep, this is not applicable.
This is not logic.
Because Saudi Arabia would not kill everyone, and Yemenis would not stop defending themselves.
And Yemenis would not also stop rebelling or liberate their lands under Saudi Arabia.
I mean, it's now our time, because we don't have anything more to lose now.
What we want is to continue, what Yemenis want is just to continue, to continue fighting, to continue fighting guerrilla wars and all kinds of wars.
And we are very close to each other.
Its most advanced tanks, that is U.S.-made tanks, can't do anything, because the Yemeni soldier can go to the top of this tank, and then he waits until the crow gets out to be killed.
This is what Yemenis are doing now in the south of Saudi Arabia, and this is what they are going to do, and millions of people would do these things, of course, to defend themselves.
Not only this, Saudi Arabia is also betting on one thing, unfortunately, emboldened by U.S., unfortunately.
It is betting on making the banks bankrupt and on making the Yemeni people very hungry and have nothing to eat, have nothing to drink, have nothing.
Saudi Arabia is very stupid.
This is a big revolution against Saudis, because we are waiting for this.
We are not afraid of this.
If Saudi Arabia people are afraid, we are not afraid.
We are not afraid.
We are not afraid, because we want just to live with dignity or to die.
To die is much, much, much better than to live under Saudi criminals.
So if it wants to do this, OK, let it do this, because 30 millions would go there, would go there to eat by hook or by crook.
We'll go there.
Everybody would go there to eat.
If it thinks only of eating, we'll go there and eat.
Yes.
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All right, now let me ask you this.
Of course, America is on both sides of the war here, with the CIA and the Air Force bombing the al-Qaeda, ISIS, jihadist types, at the same time that the Air Force is backing the Saudis in their war against everybody else in the country, particularly the Houthis, but as we've been talking about, basically the alliance now of everyone else.
But so I wonder, just hypothetically speaking, if Obama changed his mind and demanded that the Saudis call the war off, and say, call both wars off, do you think that the new Supreme Political Council, the new Saleh, Houthi, and everyone else alliance, without drone war help or anything like that, would be strong enough to defeat the new rise of the Islamic State there?
Because even if the current war for the Saudis there were to end sometime soon, it seems like the drone war against al-Qaeda and ISIS is going to continue.
But what Westerners would like to hear is that the locals can handle it and we can stop making things worse there now, I think, you know, if you really agree with that.
Yes, if Obama wants to stop things from getting worse in Yemen, he should stop the war in Yemen, supporting Saudi Wahhabi regime.
He should stop Qaeda-ISIS, stop supporting Qaeda-ISIS.
Because anyone now in Aden is Qaeda, in Hazarmat is Qaeda-ISIS, in Tez now is Qaeda-ISIS, and in Beida is Qaeda-ISIS.
And they are being led by people in Riyadh, by leaders in Riyadh recognized by Obama.
They are recognized by Obama and they are in the blacklist of Obama as terrorists.
This is the simple thing that Obama should do.
I mean, making Saudi Arabia doing what it wants in Yemen, it means that the drones would be of zero value in Yemen because everybody would be then Qaeda-ISIS in a way or another.
Everybody.
Everybody.
Because this is what Saudi Arabia wants.
Saudi Arabia is saying now the people in Yemen are not Sunni and they should be Sunni by force.
And it means by Sunni, it means Qaeda-ISIS.
I know it is difficult to understand what I mean, but this is what Saudi means.
Even for you, for Americans, Saudi Arabia or the Wahhabi ideology is waiting, is waiting to the moment of also fighting everywhere because it thinks that this is the absolute truth that Wahhabi, the ideology, this kind of Islam is the absolute truth and everybody must convince it or must take it or convert to it as an absolute truth and as an absolute right and all these things.
So this is how this ideology thinks.
And why Obama is doing this?
We don't want Obama to do something wrong to Saudi Arabia.
What we want him to do is also to stop the big danger from such kind of ideology, from such kind of ideology that you see everywhere.
You see it in Dallas, you see it everywhere in your country, in the United States, in Paris, also in Nice, in Germany, everywhere.
You see how they think.
Actually, that didn't have anything to do with what happened in Dallas, but I see what you're saying though as far as the ideology.
I don't mean Dallas, I mean the other place.
There's so many mass murders now, it's hard to keep up.
But no, I understand your point though.
And for the audience who's not familiar, to say Al-Qaeda-ISIS like that may sound confusing, but if you go back to the previous interviews, Nasser really explained how by killing off all the leaders of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and in Pakistan, that what was left of Al-Qaeda in Yemen is becoming the Islamic State.
It's not so much the old rivalry as it is one kind of turning into the other there now, kind of one big Saudi-backed movement.
And again, with Obama and the U.S. Air Force flying as their air force in their war against the Houthis and the rest of the Yemenis, as crazy as that sounds, that's the situation as it stands.
And there are still drone strikes going on against them too, but that's like back in Saddam and the Ayatollah at the same time, it doesn't really make it better.
How about fighting for neither side?
But anyway, so if we could, speaking of mass murder, Nasser, if you could please get back to the humanitarian crisis here, because the United Nations says it's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.
And with the whole thing in Syria going on, for one example, that sure is saying something.
And yet there's hardly any coverage of it in the media here with the election and everything else going on in the United States.
So please help the American people, the civilian population of our country, understand what it is our government is doing to yours.
Yes.
The humanitarian situation is completely different here in Yemen from any place, from any war stricken in the world, for one reason only, for one reason.
This reason is the cover, the Saudi cover.
Saudi is covering its war crimes by, unfortunately, by United Nations resolutions and by just, I'm just helping, as they say, legitimacy and all these things.
While the reality is Saudi Arabia is depending or betting on the humanitarian situation from the first moment of this war.
Saudi Arabia is blockading Yemen.
Saudi Arabia is also is bombing the factories, the food factories, the cement factories, the farms, the farms of cereal, deliberately.
So Saudi Arabia wanted to destroy everything that makes Yemen safe and keeps Yemenis alive, everything, even the water, the water wells, the water wells.
So it uses F-16 to bomb water wells, killing the women there.
So Saudi Arabia is doing very steady things, very crazy things.
What we want is only that the world to understand what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen in its dirty war, under this cover, under this cover.
And the people, I know United States and Obama is very busy with their things, you know, but they believe.
So they believe what they say.
And of course it is covering everything with its money.
So if Yemen is not that kind of cooperative people, of course Saudi Arabia would have succeeded by using this humanitarian thing.
But you know, UN is helping in one hand and people themselves are helping on the other.
They are helping each other.
Otherwise, of course Saudi Arabia would have succeeded because it is depending on this.
Saudi Arabia wanted to defeat Yemenis by economic things, by making them hungry only.
This is what, but unfortunately it failed.
And it is failing until now.
And Yemenis are, you know, they can stand for a very, very long time because they are not that people who are, you know, who have been living in comforts and pleasures.
No, they are fighting and they like fighting.
And you know, they are now living out their lives with all these bombings.
And I hope if you can see what they were, tonight, now, just one hour ago, they were, millions were here taken to the streets in a very, very heavy rain.
And they were there in the streets in a very heavy, like swimming.
They were swimming and demonstrating against this, against U.S.-backed Saudi war crimes here in Yemen.
So Yemenis are familiar to all the hardships and to all problems, and they would defend their country to the end.
All right, Nasser.
Well, listen, I know it's not worth much, but, you know, many of us Americans, you know, would like to send our sympathies and apologies for what our government is doing to you.
There's not a damn thing we can do about it to stop it other than try to, you know, explain the truth of it as we're trying to do here.
We know this very well.
We know that there are many free people, free men and women in the United States, and we feel their sympathies, and we know what, how they help us, and we hear also, we read what they say about what Saudi Arabia is doing.
And we are very grateful.
Thank you very much for your interest in Yemen.
Yeah.
Thank you very much again for doing the show.
I really appreciate it.
You're most welcome.
Bye.
All right, y'all, that is Nasser Arby, and he runs Yemen Alon.
That's Yemen Now.
His media service company there in Sana'a, Yemen, and put his name in Google News, and you'll find quite a few different articles for quite a few different publications over the last few months.
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