November 09, 2021

Biden Takes Ownership Over Saudi's War in Yemen

1 hour 5 minutes

On COI #185, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman – writer at the Libertarian Institute - cover the latest arms sales to Saudi Arabia approved by the U.S. State Department. Despite President Joe Biden’s previous pledges to end support for this war (as well as a UN warning that 400,000 children under five years old will starve to death this year if conditions do not change) Biden is happily by-lining this genocidal war. Raytheon, on whose board the current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently sat, is the primary contractor for this $650 million missile sale. The missiles will be used by Saudi Arabia’s Air Force currently bombing Yemen and killing thousands.

Kyle updates the situation on the ground in Yemen, highlighting tensions in the south between Riyadh’s backed factions and the Southern Transitional Council. Kyle also breaks down the latest news on the battle for Maarib, the last city in northern Yemen held by the Saudi backed government. Connor discusses Saudi Arabia’s increasing ties with Iran, as well as China and Russia.

Kyle reports on this past weekend’s assassination attempt against the outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi. He further elaborates on the preceding election protests in Iraq led by supporters of the Fatah faction which fared poorly and lost dozens of seats in an election some protesters have called a “fraud.” The protests reportedly saw three people killed, including a commander of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a powerful Shi’ite paramilitary group.

Connor and Kyle rip apart neoconservative spokesman and Senator Tom Cotton’s latest editorial in the Wall Street Journal calling for hostility with Moscow including more arms sales to Ukraine and increased sanctions on Russia. Cotton relies on debunked propaganda in the Washington Post and elsewhere about a supposed Russian military build-up near Ukraine which even Kiev itself has denied.