Were Australian weapons used in mass killings by Saudi Arabia?
A report by Human Rights Watch on the mass killing of hundreds, possibly thousands, of defenceless migrants and asylum seekers on the Saudi-Yemen border raises disturbing questions.
MICHELLE FAHY, Undue Influence, MAY 10, 2024. Joint report with Suzanne James (Green Left)
Yemen has been mired in a nine-year civil war between the Saudis and the Houthis which has left the country’s socioeconomic systems teetering on the edge of total collapse. Some 9.8 million children require humanitarian assistance, says Unicef.
The dominant reason for the war given in media reports is that Yemen risks becoming a satellite of Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran. However, the conflict in Yemen is more complex.
The country is also important globally because of its proximity to the Gulf of Aden, a busy global shipping lane that carries an estimated US$1 trillion in goods annually.
Yemen has also been in the news recently because the Houthi government has launched drones and missiles against ships supplying Israel with weapons. The United States and Britain, with Australian government support, have conducted retaliatory attacks on Yemen.
Given these multi-layered conflicts, Yemen has proved to be an arms traders’ paradise, with the multitrillion-dollar global arms industry the biggest gunrunners of all. Australian arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) form a small part of this mix.
Australia’s Defence Department has approved 131 export permits to Saudi Arabia and 257 to the UAE in the 8½ years to January 29, according to Freedom of Information figures obtained by the author. No export applications for the UAE were denied in that period, while the five denied for Saudi Arabia were back in 2019–20 and 2020–21.
The ethics of Australian companies supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is again in the spotlight after Human Rights Watch (HRW) uncovered evidence that at least hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed migrants and asylum-seekers have been killed at the Yemen-Saudi border, allegedly by Saudi officers.
Human Rights Watch demands investigation…………………………………………………………
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier.
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier. ………………………………………………………………………………………………
EOS started exporting its weapons systems to Saudi Arabia in mid-2019. According to Dr Ben Greene, then chief executive of EOS, the equipment was being supplied for US programs to support the Saudi Ministry of Interior for its border operations (emphasis added).
…………………………………………………………….The delivery of 500 EOS weapons systems into this location at this time raises serious questions about whether any of this Australian-made equipment has been used in the atrocities documented by Human Rights Watch.
The Department of Defence did not respond to questions. Dr Andreas Schwer, chief executive of EOS, also failed to respond.
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said:
The Australian Government is concerned by the reports of violence against Ethiopian migrants crossing the Saudi-Yemen border in a HRW report released in August 2023.
Australian officials raised this report directly with the Saudi Government and with the Saudi Human Rights Commission, emphasising Australia’s commitment to international humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch has called for a UN investigation into the Yemen-Saudi borderland atrocities.
As concerns grow about Australia’s weapons exports, an urgent and transparent investigation would be appropriate, with results reported to parliament. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/were-australian-weapons-used-in-mass?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=144491858&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
‘The stakes could not be higher’: world is on edge of climate abyss, UN warns.
Top climate figures respond to Guardian survey of scientists who expect temperatures to soar, saying leaders must act radically
Damian Carrington Environment editorFri 10 May 2024 00.00 AESTShare
The world is on the verge of a climate abyss, the UN has warned, in response to a Guardian survey that found that hundreds of the world’s foremost climate experts expect global heating to soar past the international target of 1.5C.
A series of leading climate figures have reacted to the findings, saying the deep despair voiced by the scientists must be a renewed wake-up call for urgent and radical action to stop burning fossil fuels and save millions of lives and livelihoods. Some said the 1.5C target was hanging by a thread, but it was not yet inevitable that it would be passed, if an extraordinary change in the pace of climate action could be achieved.
The Guardian got the views of almost 400 senior authors of reports by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Almost 80% expected a rise of at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels, a catastrophic level of heating, while only 6% thought it would stay within the 1.5C limit. Many expressed their personal anguish at the lack of climate action.
“The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is hanging by a thread,” said the official spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general. “The battle to keep 1.5C alive will be won or lost in the 2020s – under the watch of political and industry leaders today. They need to realise we are on the verge of the abyss. The science is clear and so are the world’s scientists: the stakes for all humanity could not be higher.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/09/world-is-on-verge-of-climate-abyss-un-warns
Don’t Believe the Washington War Machine: Putin Is Not Going to Invade Another NATO Ally
May 06, 2024, By Rebekah Koffler, president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, former DIA intelligence officer. https://www.newsweek.com/dont-believe-washington-war-machine-putin-not-going-invade-another-nato-ally-opinion-1897533?utm_source=AM+Nukes+Roundup&utm_campaign=71082f760d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_25_12_19_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_547ee518ec-71082f760d-391880373
The primary reason for continuing to flow billions of dollars in cash and weaponry to Ukraine for what is clearly becoming another Afghanistan, is that if we don’t, Putin will march through Europe, invading a NATO country such as Poland or the Balkans. In this case, the U.S. would have to deploy armed forces to fight off the Russians to defend the Europeans. These are the talking points that the Washington Establishment politicians and their fellow commentariat members in the media have been using to convince the American people to continue parting with their hard-earned money. In fact, even Speaker Mike Johnson, who as a rank-and-file Right-wing Congressman opposed the funding of Ukraine’s war effort, recently signed off on another massive foreign aid package, $95 billion worth, the bulk of which is designated for Kyiv.
“I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed,” said Johnson, justifying the spending of another $61 billion on a what serious analysts assess as a unwinnable war. “I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies,” asserted Johnson.
But is it true?
Evidence indicates that this justification for depleting U.S. treasury and weapons arsenal represents a lack of understanding of Putin’s thinking and Russia’s security strategy—and the incompetence of our national security apparatus. At worst, it is a lie fed to the American people for some other reason.
Here’s why Putin is highly unlikely to invade a NATO nation:
Many in the West view Putin as a reckless dictator with imperial ambitions. As someone who spent her intelligence career studying and analyzing Putin’s thinking and Russia’s war-fighting doctrine and security strategy, I’m here to tell that while Putin is a typical Russian dictator, he is entirely rational.
Putin invaded Ukraine to enforce his version of the Monroe Doctrine, to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, and to restore the strategic buffer zone on which Russia relied for its security for centuries. No sane military commander would allow an adversarial alliance to situate itself along more than 1,000 miles of its border.
Putin never made it a secret what his goals were for Ukraine as well as other former Soviet states, such as Belarus, Moldova, and Georgia. In every public speech or official writing, the Russian strongman clearly declared that post-Soviet nations, including Ukraine, were off limits for Western influence; accepting them into NATO would be crossing Russia’s red line.
Moreover, every strategic planning document of the Russian Federation, such as its Foreign Policy Concept, National Security Strategy, Military Doctrine and the like, in every iteration since 2000 and in some cases since 1993, codify Moscow’s strategic goals of re-integrating the post-Soviet neighbors into a supranational alliance that Moscow calls The Eurasian Union.
By contrast, no plans to “integrate” or take by force a NATO member nation have been declared in any Russia’s official doctrinal documents or official speeches made by Putin or the Kremlin.
As a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and one of top three analysts on Russian Doctrine & Strategy who worked with the CIA‘s National Clandestine Service, I had access to the most sensitive intelligence—including Top Secret intelligence, with code word sub-compartments and red stripes indicating for President’s Eyes Only. There was no intelligence revealing or suggesting that Putin had designs on Europe beyond the post-Soviet states. We’ve conducted multiple wargames simulating a Russia-US/NATO war and in all of the scenarios, a local conflict between Russia and its post-Soviet neighbor escalated into a war with the U.S. and NATO. No scenario included Russia attacking a NATO country that it did not consider as part of its strategic buffer zone.
In fact, none of the Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessments that are published at the unclassified level by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including the one for 2024, include analysis suggesting that Putin would invade a NATO member.
If such intelligence existed, you can be sure that it would be declassified immediately. Wouldn’t the powers that be want the American people to be on board with continuing to fund another forever war? The intelligence agencies, in the past several years, have routinely declassified even highly sensitive intelligence if it serves the purpose of the political class. They also routinely leak intelligence to left-leaning media, such as The Washington Post and the New York Times.
To the contrary, several U.S. intelligence assessments contradict the Washington Establishment’s narrative that Putin would invade a NATO member. An invasion of a NATO country would undoubtedly trigger Article 5 Collective Defense, which would require the deployment of NATO forces to defend the invaded NATO member. Claims that Putin would want a war with NATO on his hands is unequivocally disputed by the following statement from the 2024 Annual Threat assessment by the intelligence community, that “Russia almost certainly does not want a direct military conflict with U.S. and NATO forces and will continue asymmetric activity below what it calculates to be the threshold of military conflict globally.”
The following excerpts from the 2024 assessment entirely refute the idea that Russia has the military and economic capacity to invade a NATO country, triggering a war with NATO:
“Russia has suffered more military losses than at any time since World War II—roughly 300,000 casualties and thousands of tanks and armored combat vehicles.”
“Moscow’s military forces will face a multi-year recovery after suffering extensive equipment and personnel losses during the Ukraine conflict.”
“The Russian military has and will continue to face issues of attrition, personnel shortages, and morale challenges.”
“Russia’s GDP is on a trajectory for modest growth in 2024 but its longer-term competitiveness has diminished in comparison to its pre-war outlook.”
Finally, U.S. and NATO leaders knew as early as in 2013 and possibly earlier about Putin’s plans to restore Russia’s strategic security perimeter. As a former senior official in the U.S. intelligence community, I personally briefed President Obama’s White House national security staff on Putin’s plans and Russia’s war-fighting strategy multiple times. I also briefed countless top U.S. military commanders and Pentagon officials, as well as NATO ministers and military leaders, including just months prior to Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
As vice president at the time, the go-to person on Ukraine policy, and the architect of the failed Russia “reset” strategy, Joe Biden had to be made aware of those briefings. If anyone in the U.S. and NATO senior leadership thought that Putin would invade a NATO country, why didn’t they beef up there defense spending prior to Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022? To this day, the majority of NATO nations fail to spend the two percent of GDP guideline on defense.
Putin is clearly a typical Russian dictator and a bad dude. But he is not suicidal. Invading a NATO country is not part of his agenda.
If Washington elites are hell bent on continuing to fund another forever war, impoverishing ordinary Americans, as inflation is raging in our homeland, they should pick a more clever excuse.
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