The American Assault on Yemen is Not New

The Collective Punishment of the Yemeni People Precedes Today's Red Sea Passage

A humanitarian crisis of colossal proportions preceded the current passage unfolding in the Red Sea and Yemen. For nine years, civil strife in the nation spiraled into a full-fledged regional war, where Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen with impunity and left its population scattered, starved, and slaughtered.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis were killed, but western media coverage did not care. 4.5 million people were displaced, yet the world remained uninterested in their plight. Nearly 400,000 people died (85,000 of them children) from bombs, famine and disease - spurring little to no alarm on legacy or social media.

Yemen and the human crises that befell it, during those nine years, did not matter to the west. Apart from its impact on the proxy conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Arab nation and its people were indecipherable from the myriad of “Arab problems” in the region.

This all changed on October 7th.

Yemen began to matter in ways that it did not before as the world’s attention gravitated onto Gaza. It rose to the fore of media and popular consciousness when its presiding government, the Houthis, and population of 33 million, set aside civil fractures to stand up for Gaza. And more powerfully, leverage their geographic advantage to stifle the unfolding genocide by stopping Israeli-linked ships from traveling through the Red Sea.

Yemen, finally, mattered.

It mattered to the west because of commerce, and specifically, the maritime strategy that sunk Israeli revenue by 85% in the Port of Eliat - the only Israeli port on the Red Sea. Yemen, the poorest nation in the region, was able to bring the economic interests of the most powerful nation in the world, and its regional appendage, to its knees. In just two months’ time.

Money, not Palestinian lives in Gaza, moved the United States and its allies into swift action to stop the Yemeni intervention against the genocide in Gaza.

Starting on January 11th, the US along with its imperial predecessor the UK bombed over seventy sites in Yemen, beginning a several day campaign to put a stop to the blockade on the Red Sea.

Yemen was receiving the attention it deserved. Many states, and the public finally cognizant of Yemen because of its vocal and visible solidarity with the people of Gaza, spoke out against the American-led bombings.

Bombings that were by no means novel or aberrant. But when viewed within the broader context of American-led aggression against Yemen, in the form of proxy support of Saudi militarism or incessant drone strikes by four consecutive presidents, were actually an extension of a two decades’ long pummeling of a nation on the margins of the Arabian peninsula and the global imagination.

In order to truly understand the current American bombings driven by commerce, we have to understand how the preceding nine years of war enabled today’s unfolding events.

And the numbers speak volumes. Roughly 400,000 Yemenis have lost their lives due to the direct and indirect consequences of the conflict, a staggering toll. The indiscriminate nature of the violence has spared no one, leaving communities fractured and families torn apart. Masses of children died, while orphans across Yemen tally 2.6 million.

Beyond the immediate casualties, the war has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. A report by the United Nations estimates that a staggering 16 million Yemenis are food insecure, with millions teetering on the edge of starvation.

The blockade imposed by the coalition has crippled the country's ability to import essential goods, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation.

To make matters worst, the United Nations World Food Program cut food aid on December 5th to segments of the nation controlled by the Houthis.

The UN claims that shortages led to this decision. However, a critical lens reveals that this decision is political, intended to collectively punish an entire population on account of the west’s aversion to the presiding government.

This sounds eerily similar to the categorical indictment in Gaza, whereby the entire population is conflated with Hamas and, as a result, subjected to the unhinged and indiscriinate rage of the Netanyahu regime.

Before the US bombed Yemen directly, the armaments Made in the USA were dropped by Saudi Arabia. The web of complicity that ties the United States to the Saudi-led coalition's military campaign is intricate. The American government's military and logistical support has played a pivotal role in fueling the war. From arms’ sales to intelligence sharing, the U.S. has been a key enabler of the Saudi war machine.

The statistics are stark. The U.S. has approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia amounting to billions of dollars, providing the kingdom with the tools of war that have devastated Yemen. Precision-guided munitions, often used in coalition airstrikes, have raised concerns about the legality and morality of U.S. involvement in a conflict that has resulted in countless civilian casualties.

Moreover, the United States has provided crucial logistical support, including mid-air refueling for coalition aircraft. This support extends beyond mere military cooperation; it is a tangible manifestation of American involvement in a conflict that has perpetuated human suffering on an unprecedented scale.

The human cost of war that has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable. Children, in particular, have borne the brunt of the conflict. The UN reports that over 12 million children in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance, facing the specter of malnutrition, disease, and trauma. Private efforts, including my own fundraiser, have sought to provide food to orphans, assistance to mothers, and emergency food aid.

The targeting of civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, has further exacerbated the crisis. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), over 19,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed in direct attacks, with the majority attributed to coalition airstrikes. The very places meant to offer refuge and healing have become sites of tragedy, a juxtaposition that we see lucidly the schools and hospitals in Gaza.

This is not coincidence. Perhaps the staunch support Yemen marshaled for Gaza was, in part, driven by empathy. An empathy coupled with bloodstains from American bombs that fell atop the heads of Yemenis before they did Palestinians, for nine years and the mounting days following the Res Sea blockade.

The international community must reckon with the toll of the Yemen war and the role of the United States in sustaining it. Beyond the statistics, there lies a moral imperative to address the root causes of the conflict and hold those responsible accountable for the devastation wrought upon Yemen and its people.

Behind every statistic is a human story—a life shattered, a family torn apart, and a nation marred by tragedy long before the most recent bombs dropped days ago. The Yemen crisis not only demands our attention now, because of the spotlight Gaza and the Red Sea have placed on the nation, but did before it.

Before, from 2014 onward and until the siege in Gaza, when one Yemeni child died every fifteen minutes cholera or covid, bombs or preventible diseases. For nine years, when the Saudi strategy of starvation-by-design was sponsored by Washington, DC bills and bombs. For twenty-two years of the “War on Terror,” when American drones dropped death onto Yemeni schools and mosques, villages and towns.

Yemen mattered as much then as it does now. Perhaps even more so, given the scale of human catastrophe that few knew about, and less even cared to stop.

The present bombings are not new or novel. But tied to this modern history of American violence, which redeployed itself all over again on December 11th.

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Khaled A. Beydoun is a law professor and author. He publishes his daily insights on his socials @khaledbeydoun.