Abby Martin explains what President Biden really means by the duplicitous language in his major Feb. 4 foreign policy speech on ending the Yemen war.

Transcript

Joe Biden has made a major announcement that he is taking action to end the Yemen war. This, of course, is encouraging news to the many anti-war organizations who have been fighting to stop this US backed genocide. But with so much at stake, it’s important to take a careful look at what Biden actually said.

Saudi Arabia and its allied Gulf dictatorships have been bombing the world’s poorest country since 2015 to fight the Houthi rebels that they claim threaten them. The threat the Houthis actually posed was ousting a Saudi puppet who had been sending all of Yemen’s wealth to Saudi princes, and imposing severe austerity measures on the Yemeni people at the behest of the International Monetary Fund.

As a result of the US-backed war, Yemen reels from a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, where millions teeter on the brink of starvation from a Saudi imposed blockade. According to the UN, 80% of Yemen’s 30 million people are on the verge of famine.

So ending the war, which Biden pledged to do during his campaign, is an urgent necessity. Let’s look at how he phrased his policy change during his February 4th foreign policy speech, paying attention to certain keywords:

“Ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen.”

That sounds like good news, and a significant shift from Trump, who could have stopped the US backed carnage years ago, but instead opted to veto a resolution that would have ended US weapons shipments to Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, one of his last acts was expediting MORE weapons to the coalition bombing Yemen.

But the keyword used by Biden here is “offensive” operations. Why did Biden need to add the qualifier “offensive,” rather than just say he was ending support for military operations? See, according to Saudi Arabia and its allies, the entire war is defensive! In fact, the word “defensive” was used to justify the US getting into the war in the first place under the Obama/Biden administration.

Up until now, the US has been providing training, logistical, tactical support for targeting and more. But by the Pentagon’s logic many, or even all, of these actions could be considered “defensive.”

In the same speech he said this:

“At the same time, Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian supplied forces in multiple countries. We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty, and it’s territorial integrity and its people.”

Ok, hold on. This leaves the door open for a lot. It could mean the same exact operations against Yemen will continue, but reframed as “defending Saudi sovereignty.”

Let’s look at more of Biden’s statement:

“Ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales.”

Ending arms sales to the Saudi coalition, used to relentlessly bomb poor Yemenis and commit countless war crimes––Like the Lockheed Martin bomb that struck a school bus in 2018, killing at least 26 children and wounding 19 more--would be a very important policy shift.

Biden says he has only “paused” such shipments--implying it’s temporary. But why did Biden announce he would be ending “relevant” arms sales, not arms sales in general? Because he knows the US will continue to sell the same weapons to the war coalition, as long as they are officially not “relevant” to the “offens...