One after another they stood to condemn Russia’s war on Ukraine. The hyperbole was nauseating. “Putin is a monster,” they cried. “He’s barbaric,” they said. “He’s murdering women and children,” they exclaimed.
Hmm. Maybe he is. Maybe Putin is a proper bastard. That line about murdering women and children got me though.
The Saudi’s (and their mates) have been dropping bombs on Yemen since 2015. The United Nations estimates that at least 20,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the airstrikes.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade reported last month:
UK-made weapons are being used in Saudi Arabia’s devastating attacks on Yemen, which have killed thousands of civilians and created the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe. The UK is one of Saudi Arabia’s leading arms suppliers, along with the US. It is also a major supplier of arms to the United Arab Emirates, another country in the coalition that is bombing Yemen.
The UK has continued to support air strikes by Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, providing both arms and ongoing maintenance and support, in spite of overwhelming evidence of repeated breaches of international humanitarian law by the coalition.
The UK-made equipment used in the war includes Typhoon and Tornado aircraft, Paveway bombs and Brimstone and Stormshadow missiles.
The published value of UK arms licensed for export to the Saudi-led coalition since the bombing began in March 2015 is £8.4 billion (including £7.0 billion to Saudi Arabia alone); however, CAAT estimates that the real value of arms to Saudi Arabia is over £20 billion, while the value of sales to the Coalition as a whole (including UAE and others) is over £22 billion.
The licence figures do not include the value of ongoing maintenance, training, and technical support that BAE Systems provides to the Royal Saudi Air Force in Saudi Arabia. This support is absolutely essential to Saudi Arabia’s ability to wage its war in Yemen.
How dare MP’s condemn Vladimir Putin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? How dare they talk about sending him to the International Criminal Court in The Hague? Will opposition party MP’s support sending Boris Johnson to The Hague too?
Johnson, and his predecessors David Cameron and Theresa May, licensed the sale of weapons of mass destruction to Saudi Arabia and others, knowing full well they’d be used to murder civilians in Yemen, making them accessories both before and after the fact.
20,000 Yeminis have been blown to pieces by British made bombs from British made planes. That’s the UN figure. The real number is in all likelihood much higher.
I don’t remember MP’s in Westminster wearing black, white and red ribbons for the beleaguered people of Yemen. Do you?
If Vladimir Putin is a despot, he has a friend in Boris Johnson.
The hypocrisy is nauseating.
