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After repeated claims that Britain's reloading of the Saudi Arabian Royal Air Force's bomb bays does not mean Britain is at war with Yemen – where its ordnance are dropped – the government finally conceded that it is.
In a tense exchange with parliamentarians in a debate on the British sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, Alan Duncan, the government's Special Envoy to Yemen, said: "We are in conflict for a reason".
Duncan's admission officially confirms of what every sensible person has known since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war with an air campaign made possible by British planes and British bombs, and for which UK arms companies made £2.8bn in revenues in the first year alone.
To use the words of the UN envoy to Yemen, the "humanitarian catastrophe" precipitated by the Arab world's richest country bombing its poorest has been almost total.
[...] while NGOs and MPs in several parliamentary committees have been sharp in their criticism of the government for continuing to fuel this war, the government does nothing, meekly claiming over and over again there is no evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen and that Britain regularly "seeks assurances" from Saudi Arabia that it is not committing those crimes.
In March, the UK director of Human Rights Watch told the arms export control committee that he has personally handed evidence to the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, complete with GPS coordinates, of Saudi air strikes on civilian targets. This month Amnesty International sent photographs of British-made BL-755 cluster bombs partially exploded in recent months discovered in farmland near the village of al-Khadhra in northern Yemen.
[...] The government is wriggling because, under Britain's own arms export laws, it is illegal for it to sell arms to a state that is at a "clear risk" of committing international humanitarian crimes. Acknowledging the chorus of evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen would be tantamount to admitting Britain's complicity in them.
The truth is that the arms trade of a handful of private arms companies with Saudi Arabia is simply off limits to our country's democratic apparatus as well as its civil society.
Source: The Independent
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Friday June 10 2016, @12:33AM
The people in Yemen being killed need killing. Saudi Arabia is willing to do the killing so we should allow them to get on with it. They want to buy weapons to kill bad people with and are willing to pay good money for them. Still not seeing a problem here.
Saudi Arabia isn't a pussyfied western country that has stupid notions about playing fair in a war. Good for them if they believe their enemies should die and they shouldn't and if the locals want remain near combatants some will die, and that too is better than their own people dying. Still don't see a problem. This is how war has been waged since the first human picked up a thighbone and whacked somebody from a neighboring tribe. Some pussies say we should 'evolve' beyond that but we have seen what that sort of conflict looks like, screw that noise. Kill people, break their things, then once they are dead or have submitted you go home. Repeat as needed.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Friday June 10 2016, @12:46AM
and the cosmic ballet goes on...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2016, @12:50AM
Hello there, human. I am Zzzlort, an alien researcher visiting your world. As a social experiment, I will now teleport you to Yemen to determine whether your change of location will cause you to "need killing." My overseer requires me to inform you beforehand for ethical reasons. Ok here you go....! If you die, I wish you a nice death.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2016, @01:20AM
Don't forget that you are dropping him off in the middle of a desert with no food or water, which means if he wants to just "leave the area with combatants" (you know, where food, water, and shelter is) he will die of exposure. LOGIC IS FUN! \o/
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @01:34AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @04:52AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @05:14AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @05:23AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @05:40AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @05:50AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @06:03AM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @07:20AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @10:38AM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @03:39PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @06:01PM
I pointed you right at it and you said it's not there when clearly several other people see it. We're basically at a point right now where you either need to own up to the mistake you're making or come up with a plausible conspiracy theory about how a bunch of SN posters got together to play a surreal prank on you.
Because now the only possible explanation for your continued zero information posts is some strange paranoia on my part? I think I have an alternate explanation here. Namely, that there are idiots on the internets and you are one of the idiots at the moment. Let's hope it's just a temporary thing and not something that can only be cured by having aliens dump you in Yemen.
I'm still trying to work in the lizaroids and the Bank of England. I need more tacks to hold the yarn on the wall.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @06:23PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @06:57PM
The original post was in my opinion a heavy-handed, infantile, and very unfunny bit of fantasy (sure, sarcasm was involved in its unholy birth) which had nothing to do with jmorris's post. There is this bizarre implication that if somehow this were to happen, then jmorris would become a military target of Saudi or UK bombing and no doubt learn the error of his ways in the final few seconds of his life. It's a stupid fantasy and completely ignorant of the situation in Yemen. Sorry, that's all there is to it.
Meanwhile we're up to six posts by you where you assert things (which after the first couple, just consist of asserting what you've already asserted). You have yet to even bother to defend it. Sorry, that's stupid as well.
Apparently, it's too much to ask you to come up with an argument that doesn't suck.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 10 2016, @07:22PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 10 2016, @08:02PM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday June 11 2016, @01:20AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 11 2016, @03:30PM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday June 12 2016, @05:05AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 12 2016, @05:17AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by KiloByte on Friday June 10 2016, @01:25AM
Except that in this case it's Saudis who are the bad guys. The Houthis are moderates. Yeah, it's weird when a group whose flag says "Death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews" are the less evil side, far less oppressive than those whom the US supports.
So how do you like shipping arms to an ally of ISIS?
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 10 2016, @03:10AM
This is why we Americans need to stop voting for those warmongering Republicans and instead vote for Democrats like Hillary... oh [motherjones.com] wait. [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday June 10 2016, @11:25AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday June 12 2016, @03:05AM
Excellent link, thanks.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2016, @05:19AM
Why are you so angry and hateful?
Your cries for attention are so extreme that we all pitty you at the same time as we are disgusted by you. You should seek help rather than pollute adult conversation with your vitriole.