US arms sales contribute to Saudi war crimes

Press TV has conducted an interview with SeifDa’na, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, about the United States approving the sale of more than 130 Abrams tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment worth about $1.15 billion to Saudi Arabia.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency continues to insist that these arms sales to Saudi Arabia would contribute to the national security of the US by improving the security of its regional partner. How does this arms sale protect the US?

Da’na: Well that is not really true. They are trying to mask the fact that it is actually a gross violation of the Arms Trade Treaty to which the US is a party actually and not only the US but also France, Spain, Italy and England who have been supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons.

Just in 2015, they sold Saudi Arabia or supplied Saudi Arabia with 25 billion dollars worth of weapons and most of them were used actually in the war against Yemen. And what we have been seeing basically is that they have been arming Saudi Arabia, aiding the campaign of bombing in Yemen that essentially resulted in killing and starving civilians. About 35,000 people have been killed in this confrontation and the West is responsible for supplying Saudi Arabia with these weapons.

Basically we do not even need to assess this particular sale against the strict criteria of the Arms Trade Treaty. All we have to do is just listen to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his latest accusations of Saudi Arabia committing war crimes in Yemen and being listed as a country that is responsible for killing children in Yemen.

Many human rights organizations have actually been calling on the US and the European countries to stop arming Saudi Arabia essentially because this is not only a violation of the Arms Trade Treaty, it is a violation of the international law and in some cases as it has been documented by Amnesty International for example, Saudi Arabia has been committing war crimes in Yemen.

So these parties supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons actually are contributing to Saudi Arabia’s ability to commit war crimes in Yemen and in other places, particularly in this case in Yemen. So there is no connection between the US national security and this sort of deal unless the US supports what the Saudi government has been doing in Yemen.

Press TV: Speaking of the support, doesn’t this then automatically mean that by selling these weapons to Saudi Arabia, the US is directly supporting its military action in Yemen and also even for example its support for the Bahraini regime?

Da’na: Well at the beginning of the Saudi campaign or aggression in Yemen, the US did not deny intelligence support and other sort of support to the Saudi government in its aggression against Yemen. But as the Saudis were failing to achieve their political goals in Yemen, aside from the destruction and the killing of civilians and children, they have not really achieved any political gains there, [so] the US started distancing itself from them.

But despite that, what we have here really is a kind of hypocrisy in which European countries, the United States are calling … the whole world to commit to the Arms Trade Treaty and they continuously violate it, not only … in Yemen, [but] some of these tanks, the 130 Abrams tanks, might actually go to Bahrain as well because there is a Saudi force in Bahrain that has been also responsible for committing crimes against the Bahraini people.

So again, it does not contribute at all to the US national security, it contributes to Saudi Arabia’s ability to commit more and more war crimes. So this is a gross violation of the Arms Trade Treaty, a gross violation of the international law and it just highlights the hypocrisy of these countries.

Again this is not new. Last year alone France, Italy, England and Spain, in addition to the US, supplied Saudi Arabia with $25 billion worth of weapons.

M.Wassouf