US Special Forces this time in Yemen

The revelation that US Special Forces have been operating secretively on the ground in Yemen since December underscores once again Washington’s reckless drive towards a new regional conflagration.

Coming just a week before President Donald Trump is due to announce whether he will abrogate the 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran, the report in the New York Times that Green Berets are fighting alongside Saudi forces in their genocidal war against the Yemeni people demonstrates that US imperialism will stop at nothing to consolidate its hegemony over the Middle East. Having supplied the Saudis with intelligence and weaponry to continue their murderous assault on the impoverished country, resulting in the deaths of at least 13,000 civilians, the United States has now become a direct participant in the ground conflict.

Riyadh launched the war in March 2015 with the aim of reinstalling the US-backed puppet regime of Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was driven from power following an offensive by the Ansarullah movement and the revolutionaries, reinforced by the country’s army. The US aircraft have refueled Saudi jets, allowing them to carry out continuous air strikes with munitions supplied by the US, Britain, France, and other Western powers. American ships have helped enforce a blockade of the country, restricting the delivery of critical food and medical supplies.

The Saudi military has waged the war with extreme brutality and an utter disregard for civilian casualties. Last month, an air strike on a wedding in the north of the country claimed 33 lives, including many women and children. Less than a week later, an air strike targeted a medical facility in the capital, Sana’a. 

Washington has carried out its own air strikes in the country, allegedly aimed at the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula group. But US forces, notorious for such war crimes as the destruction of Fallujah in Iraq, the bombing of hospitals in Afghanistan, and the virtual flattening of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq and Syria, are being drawn ever more deeply into the Yemeni bloodbath.

Nobody should buy the claim by the Times that the deployment of the Green Berets—carried out behind the backs of the American people and with no knowledge of, much less authorization by, the US Congress—is merely for the purposes of operations on the border aimed at protecting Saudi territory. Something closer to the truth was revealed May 3 when reports emerged that the Pentagon is seeking contractors to provide two fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters to rescue US Special Forces “in and around Yemen.”

Similar self-serving arguments have been deployed in the past to cover up the predatory character of secret US Special Forces operations elsewhere, including in the West African country of Niger. After four Green Berets were killed in a firefight with militants last October, it was revealed that they were involved in an assassination mission when the gun battle occurred.

Washington’s involvement in the Yemen war, which was initiated under the Obama administration, is part of US imperialism’s broader agenda of securing its unchallenged predominance over the energy-rich and strategically vital Middle East. The driving force behind this is the economic decline of American imperialism, which the US ruling elite has unsuccessfully sought to offset by employing military violence.

In March, the US political and media establishment extended a warm welcome to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who, as the architect of the Yemen war, bears chief responsibility for butchering the civilian population. Trump, who called in a speech in Riyadh last May for the construction of an anti-Iranian alliance, gave flesh and blood to this proposal during bin Salman’s visit by unveiling plans to sell billions of dollars of military equipment to the despotic regime.

The central focus of US imperialist aggression in the region over the past seven years has been Syria, where Washington has waged a brutal war for regime change with the support of proxies since 2011. The Syrian conflict has increasingly assumed regional dimensions. With its efforts to expel pro-government forces from the east of the country, which is home to important oil fields, and the launching of missile strikes on the basis of unsubstantiated claims of the use by Assad of chemical weapons, Washington has proven its determination to recklessly escalate the conflict, even at the risk of a direct military clash with nuclear-armed Russia.

Such a conflict would rapidly draw in the major European imperialist powers, who are all seeking to obtain their share of the spoils as the Middle East is re-divided by means of violent inter-imperialist conflict. Washington’s aggressive actions have emboldened its allies, above all the usurper regime of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israeli aircraft have bombed a series of targets in Syria over recent months, while the Saudi regime has deepened its collaboration with US forces in the Yemen conflict in preparation for cooperation in a much broader and bloodier war. There can be no doubt that the public revelation that US forces are on the ground in Yemen will accelerate this process.

However, the main regional impediment to Washington’s predatory ambitions is the Islamic Iran. With the deadline looming for Trump to decide whether to cancel the nuclear accord, Trump appears to have rebuffed attempts by his ostensible European allies to stick with the deal. Even in the unlikely event he decides prior to May 12 to maintain the agreement, such an announcement will be tied to conditions that Tehran will not accept, setting the stage for a breakdown of the deal and may be by the Zionists’ and Saudis’ instigations, to more open hostilities sooner rather than later. Iran has always insisted a Yemeni-Yemeni negotiation table to tackle the Saudi-made and US supported crisis in Yemen; a policy that is pursued in the entire region dismissing any foreign interference.

By the way, the US ground intervention in Yemen must be taken as a serious danger to the region. The threat of a region-wide and even global war should be averted through the construction of an international anti-war movement in the United States and Europe who are opposed to another round of imperialist bloodletting in the interests of the so-called ruling elites.
Since it began in 2015, the US-backed Saudi invasion of Yemen has claimed the lives of about 14,000 people, displaced more than 2 million and driven Yemen to the verge of widespread famine. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war. The United Nations says a record 22.2 million people are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. A high-ranking UN official recently warned about the “catastrophic” living conditions in Yemen, stating that there is a growing risk of famine and cholera there.

Earlier this month, Yemen's Prime Minister Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour said Saudi Arabia would not have been able to wage a war on the impoverished country without support from the United States. This is while, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has defended US military support for the Saudi Arabian-led war against Yemen and urged US lawmakers not to end Washington’s involvement in the devastating conflict.

Mattis claimed unashamedly that the American assistance, which includes intelligence support and refueling of coalition jets, and now with Special Forces on the ground, was ultimately aimed at bringing the war toward a negotiated settlement. Yes, mass killing for the sake of a series of hollow negotiations, all in favor of the intruders with a set of preconditions that Yemenis took them disgusting and humiliating.

What you heard and read was from an article by political observer Jordan Shilton.

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