The US Is Making Billions Being Warlords in Yemen

One of Biden’s promises during his presidential campaign was to immediately
move to end all support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen. In February
2021, Biden stood at
a podium at the State Department and proclaimed that the war in Yemen must end.
Biden underlined the humanitarian crisis as the key reason the United States
withdrew support. An investigation (PDF)
by the Government Accountability Office found that the United States is training
the Saudi-led coalition, and the US has troops
on the ground in Yemen. Biden confirmed that the United States has troops
in Yemen in a letter to Congress in June last year. Biden lied to the American
people when he claimed that the United States was withdrawing US support for
the war in Yemen in 2021.

On the contrary, the United States is making billions of dollars from the war
in Yemen as 200k have been killed from direct violence. Between 2015 and 2021,
the United States sent 54.2 billion dollars in weapons and services to Saudi
Arabia and the UAE, according to data acquired from the Defense Security Cooperation
Agency. In addition, the Department of Defense provided 644 million dollars
for military training to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, almost entirely through the
Foreign Military Sales program. The DoD uses acquisition and cross-servicing
agreements to bill nations for logistical support and items ranging from flying
hours, fuel, and bombs. Saudi Arabia paid the United States 157 million dollars
in flying hours, and the UAE paid 104 million for flying hours since the GCC-led
invention in Yemen’s civil war in 2015. The United States billed Saudi Arabia
and the UAE for 319 million dollars in acquisitions and cross-servicing agreements
for logistical support.

The United States sent 18.6 billion dollars in missiles, 6.2 billion in aircraft,
3.3 billion in ships, and 2.8 billion in military training to attack one of
the poorest nations in the world. As the WikiLeaks Yemen
Files prove, the United States was one the biggest supporters of the military
in Yemen. Former president Saleh of Yemen was once considered a cornerstone
in the War on Terror in the early 2000s and built the army to combat AQAP for
many years in Yemen. The United States is well aware that the GCC-led coalition
is not fighting an advanced military in Yemen from AQAP or the Houthis. Billions
of dollars have been spent destroying Yemen, killing hundreds of thousands of
people, but the Houthis still control Sanaa and AQAP is still active in Yemen.
The UN Security Council approved a resolution to blockade Yemen every year since
2015 to prevent arms from flooding the conflict; however, the embargo has only
succeeded in starving
the Yemenis into famine.

On a February 9th phone
call in 2022 with the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al
Saud president Biden assured him that the United States would continue to support
the war in Yemen. The phone call came one year after Biden lied to
the American people and announced that the US was withdrawing its support of
the war in Yemen.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s Defense Institute of International
Legal Studies conducted training at the Saudi War College that focused on the
law of armed conflict, including laws related to air-to-ground targeting, in
May 2017, April 2018, June 2019, and May 2020. The DOD claims they are not responsible
for civilian deaths because they provided the Saudis with training to avoid
civilian casualties. Despite spending millions on preventing civilian deaths,
23,627 Saudi-led coalition air strikes since March 2015 have led to over 18,600
civilian casualties, according to the Yemen Data Project.

Joziah Thayer is a researcher with the Pursuance
Project. He founded WEDA in 2014
to combat mainstream media narratives. He is also an antiwar activist and the
online organizer behind #OpYemen.