Tag: arms sales

Watch: Warton’s War on Yemen

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13 October 2021 — Declassified UK

Tomorrow (14 Oct) we launch our new film “Warton’s War on Yemen” live at 5pm on our YouTube channel followed by a Q&A at 6.30pm, registration required.

In this revealing film we investigate an arms factory in Warton, Lancashire making warplanes to bomb Yemen – the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Interviewing local residents and a former Foreign Office lawyer, our team tracks down a secretive supply flight that Britain’s largest arms company BAE Systems sends every week from Warton to Saudi Arabia, and questions whether the air war could continue without UK support.

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Britain’s role in the death & injury of Yemeni civilians

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14 December 2020 — Airstrikes (formerly Drone Warfare)

Above: typical of the destruction wrought by coalition air strikes

July – December 2020

After taking the UK government to court over its arms sales to the Saudis, the latest CAAT newsletter (Issue 258 Winter 2020) recalls that in July 2020 the Government said that it had made the required assessment as to “whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of IHL in the past, during the Yemen conflict” and its conclusion is that these are ‘isolated incidents’.

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Revealed: The Full Extent of US Arms Deals with Saudi Arabia and UAE Commercial deals tracked by arms monitor prove the US is far more involved in the Yemen war than suspected By Frank Andrews

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8 April 2019 — Middle East Eye

Mohammad bin Salman

The United States has struck at least $68.2bn worth of deals for firearms, bombs, weapons systems, and military training with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since the start of their war in Yemen – billions more than previously reported – according to data collected by an American think tank.

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MSM Blackout: Colluding in war crimes: Britain’s unreported military alliance with Israel

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15 March 2019 — True Publica

MSM Blackout: Colluding in war crimes: Britain’s unreported military alliance with Israel

By TruePublica: The rapidly declining living conditions in the Gaza Strip and occupied territories has endangered the most basic of internationally recognised of human rights, as children continue to be collateral damage in what can be boiled down to a political standoff. The difference to almost all modern countries is that Israel uses extreme force to break the deadlock.

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Yemen – Court Battle Exposes UK – Saudi Arms Trade. A Marriage Made in Hell. By Felicity Arbuthnot

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14 July 2017 — Global Research
On Monday 10th July, a ruling was handed down by London’s High Court, which should, in a sane world, exclude the UK government ever again judging other nations leaders human rights records or passing judgement on their possession or use of weapons.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) lost their case to halt the UK selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the case based on the claim that they may have been used to kill civilians in Yemen.

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Media: WaPo Fails to Note Raytheon, Saudi Funding of Advocate for Raytheon Arms to Saudis

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6 June 2017 — FAIR

Gerald Feierstein (image: Middle East Institute)

The Washington Post (3/8/17) quoted former Ambassador Gerald Feierstein on the wisdom of selling Raytheon weapons to Saudi Arabia–without noting that Feierstein’s Middle East Institute is funded by both Saudi Arabia and Raytheon. (image: Middle East Institute)

In a piece for the Just Security blog (6/5/17) about the impact of weapons industry contributions on a Saudi arms vote, Ryan Goodman notes that “money also pollutes other policy spaces that influence congressional votes”—including the news media:

In March of this year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invited former ambassador Gerald Feierstein—director of the Center for Gulf Affairs at the Middle East Institute—to speak about the situation in Yemen and about his views on the sale of US arms to the Saudis. As one might have anticipated from his interview in the Washington Post, Feierstein told the committee, “Accusations of war crimes leveled against Saudi and Coalition armed forces and threats to end arms sales to the Saudis have the potential to inflict long-lasting damage to these relationships.”

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Media: Arms Deal Stories Omit War Crimes Arms Will Be Used For

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24 May 2017 — FAIR

CNBC: US-Saudi Arabia seal weapons deal worth nearly $110 billion immediately, $350 billion over 10 yearsReports on the Trump/Saudi arm deals focused on who would get paid–and ignored who it would cost.

The Trump administration wrapped up a weapons deal with the Saudi Arabian government this week that will be worth up to $350 billion over the next ten years. News of the deal came as Trump visited Riyadh and paid fealty to one of the United States’ most enduring allies in the Middle East.

The vast majority of the reports on the topic, however, omitted a rather key piece of context—namely, whom the weapons will be used to kill.

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Mayhem! what we are we doing? Adding political to military strikes.“UN, US, UK devastation, complicity and double standards”

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8 September 2016 — Drone Warfare

syria-destruction-mother-child-2015-photos“Arms sales above flesh and blood, terror, heartbreak and humanity, every time”

These words of journalist Felicity Arbuthnot reverberated as the writer belatedly discovered Josie Ensor’s report from Istanbul that a US air strike killed nearly 60 civilians, including children, in Syria after the coalition mistook them for Islamic State fighters. Some eight families were hit as they tried to flee in one of the single deadliest strikes on civilians by the alliance since the start of its operations in the war-torn country.

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We help our sinister friends to commit war crimes in Yemen

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18 August 2016 — Drone Warfare

A Saudi-led coalition air strike hit a hospital operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres in northern Yemen on Monday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 19, the aid group said. And who is in the coalition?

US and Britain have deployed their military personnel in the command and control centre responsible for Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen, having access to lists of targets.

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