US, Saudi Arabia Guilty Of War Crimes In Yemen: US Navy Veteran

Both the United States and Saudi Arabia should be held accountable for war crimes, a U.S.-based peace activis claims. Leah Bolger, a U.S. Navy veteran who is president of Veterans For Peace, accuses the two nations of human rights abuses.

Bolger served in the Navy for 20 years before retiring in 2000. The full-time peace activist said the global community should not ignore instances when governments violate international norms and values.

“It’s really been quite some time that the U.S. has been violating international laws and committing war crimes and now Saudi Arabia is doing the same thing,” Bolger said, as Iran's Press TV reported. “I’m afraid that because Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of the United States, it is not receiving the critical attention and response that it should receive and would receive if another nation committed the same kind of acts.”

Bolger added that the entire global community must insist that every country abide by international law. She hailed a Human Rights Watch report that blamed the U.S. government for being involved in Saudi aggression against Yemen. According to the report, the U.S. may be accountable for illegal military strikes in Yemen. It added that the U.S. military was refueling warplanes and supplying Saudi authorities with relevant information.

The HRW report asked U.S. authorities to investigate the horrifying effects of Saudi airstrikes against the people of Yemen. It accused Saudi authorities of committing war crimes in Yemen by killing civilians and destroying markets, schools and houses.

Bolger wrote on Common Dreams in 2012 that the U.S. and Israel had violated Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, which prohibits the use of force and threats against a country that poses no imminent danger.

Bolger referred to the time when leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement sought U.S. support for launching a military attack against Iran. She wrote that Israeli leaders believed Washington’s support would be guaranteed as the U.S. election was due Nov. 6 that year.

According to U.N. records, Saudi attacks in Yemen have killed more than 2,600 people and injured at least 11,000. The Saudi airstrikes since March 26 have not been authorized by the U.N.