Public Comment

The World Food Program is warning Yemen is heading towards the largest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition. Saudi war planes continue to drop their lethal US payloads on a predominately civilian population. The tight Saudi embargo is preventing fuel and food from reaching the starving population , making the Saudi’s, and the US guilty of war crimes. 

Jane Ferguson reporting for PBS Newshour and CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is a “hell on Earth.” Their courageous reporting inside Yemen describe the devastating impact of the war on civilians. The widespread fuel shortages is affecting all aspects of life. On the road to Hodeidah port, Nina witnessed hundreds of stalled food supply trucks unable to move because of the chronic shortage of fuel their cargoes rotting in the sun.The Port of Hodeidah is the supply gateway for the rest of country and was usually bustling with activity prior to the US-Saudi backed embargo. It is now eerily silent.  

Since the Yemen war started six years ago, families have been in dire financial freefall. The fuel blockade has severely impacted all civilian life.The unpaid physician at a local hospital showed Nima one of his critical patients in the therapeutic feeding center. A 10-year-old girl whose growth has been so stunted by starvation, she could no longer stand. Parents are so distraught watching their children of hunger.Busy hospitals are running out of the vital fuel that keeps its generators running. If they stop hundreds of patients will surely die. 

President Biden could use the power of the presidency to bring this insane civil war to an end. First he should apologize for decades of US interference in Iran’s internal affairs acknowledging the CIA-British MI6 theft of Iranian oil and orchestrating a coup to overthrow democratic leader Mosaddeq in 1953. He should then restore the 2015 nuclear accord with no preconditions, and immediately lift the crippling sanctions. The Iranian people should not suffer because former President Trump in a fit of pique chose to unilaterally withdraw from the 2015 nuclear treaty. Following normalization of relations with Iran, President Biden should broker a cease fire and peace treaty with the Saudis and the Iranian backed Houthis. To use soft language of recalibrating US relationship with Saudis is tantamount to maintaining the unacceptable status quo. We should NOT be allies with a nation which continues to live in the stone age relegating the role of Saudi women to a life of servitude.