By Dr. T. Douglas Reilly

Yemen is one of the Arab world’s poorest countries. If you’ve followed the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, you’re aware of the worsening famine and cholera epidemic; especially as they affect children. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that it’s possible over 2/3 of the children may die of malnutrition in the next few months.

The United Nations now considers Yemen the worst humanitarian crisis, even surpassing South Sudan. Since Saudi Arabia joined the offensive against the Houthi rebels in 2015, the UN considers 17 million Yemeni “food insecure”.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an organization created by the US Agency for International Development (AID) recently warned that in three to four months much of Yemen will be suffering from famine.

The UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) consider the use of hunger as a weapon of war “a Crime against Humanity”.

You’re also aware the cause is the Saudi-led Coalition that’s bombing the capital Sana’a and other areas occupied by the Houthi Shia group they oppose. The Sunni (Wahhabi) Saudis don’t want a Shia nation on their southern border; they already have Iraq on their northern border, and Iran just across the narrow Persian Gulf. Both countries are majority Shia nations.

You may not realize the USA is part of the coalition, and is the major arms supplier to Saudi Arabia. This year Saudi Arabia surpassed Israel as the largest purchaser of US weaponry. The USA is, by far, the world’s largest arms supplier. We are providing the planes, the ammunitions, and even intelligence to the Saudis. The only things we don’t supply are the pilots and troops. We do fly with the Coalition planes on some bombing sorties.

I think you, like me, feel our country attempts to promote peace in the world. If so, how do we understand our country’s actions in Yemen?

Editor’s note: Dr. Reilly is a physicist, retired after 38 years from LANL, EURATOM, DOE and the IAEA.