Yemen becoming Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam: Kevin Barrett

Press TV has interviewed Kevin Barrett, editor of Veterans Today in Morocco, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV:  Well, we continue to see the Saudi onslaught on Yemen. What is it going to take at this point in time to stop it? We are looking at now something that started, this onslaught started at the end of March. Now, we are at the beginning of November but we still are not hearing a whole lot about this crisis in Yemen out of Western media nor political officials?

Barrett: Well, that is true. This is becoming Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam but unlike in the Vietnam era when there was still a reasonably independent international media that informed the world about what was happening, today the international media especially the big western media has been brought up and controlled by a tiny number of very, very wealthy plutocrats who work with the Western governments. So we are not hearing about this slaughter in Yemen. It just keeps going on and on and on.

If you go to the websites of groups like Amnesty International, you will find that Saudi Arabia has been using cluster bombs repeatedly in Yemen and they have been caught going back to last spring, in August they were caught again, now they have once again been found using Brazilian manufactured cluster bombs. These are munitions really designed to just slaughter everybody within a very large area, shrapnel gets thrown all over the place and civilians get very badly hurt and killed and then a lot of them do not explode. So for years and years people in Yemen are going to be blown up by these cluster munitions that are lying around like landmines and this is just one aspect of the series of horrific self-destructive policies that we have seen coming out of Saudi Arabia.  

Press TV: Well, you made an interesting point. You talked about Yemen is Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam except that we do not have as much of an independent media that we did back in the 60s. So then what is the responsibility for whom at this point in time?

We have people dying on a daily basis; they’re being bombed, we have people starving to death, there is a blockade against Yemen and yet as you said because of a lack of independent media, especially in the West, nothing is being said and then on the other side of this spectrum when you have independent media, for example like Press TV and others, basically they try their best that our word, our voices do not get out.

What is the key in your perspective of getting the truth out in dealing with this situation in Yemen and the suffering of the Yemeni people and the slaughter being done by the Saudis?  

Barrett: Ordinary people have to take more responsibility now than ever. Back when there was more independent media, it was easier to just relax and sit back and watch television and watch the corpses coming back from Vietnam and you know there is something wrong. Today you actually have to go out and seek out the truth by looking at a wide range of media, especially the foreign media like Press TV that covers events from a perspective that is not dominated by a handful of Western corporations and the rest of the independent media as well. And then once you have gotton informed, inform other people. The Internet has given us this amazing apparatus for help each other get informed and get active.

So ordinary people need to stand up and use social media and use their voices to say this is not right. We have current government in Saudi Arabia that is suspected of all sorts of atrocities from the false flag chemical weapons event uprooted in Syria that was designed to trigger US invasion, to this horrific stampede at the Hajj that may have been caused by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s motorcade to the recent shoot-down of the Russian airplane over Egypt that many are suspecting might have something to do with the Saudi-Israeli coalition that has been developing.

So we are seeing incredibly irresponsible policies from Saudi Arabia, we are seeing this hecatomb in Yemen getting worse and worse, the mainstream media will not cover it so ordinary people need to step up and spread the word, tell each other, use social media and try to put an end to this.

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