Human Rights Watch said "Ukrainian government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city" despite the fact that "the use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon and may amount to war crimes."
However, the language in these reports was relatively restrained, possibly because both groups receive large donations from billionaire George Soros, who has sided with the Kiev authorities and is supporting the crushing of the eastern Ukrainian resistance. The human rights complaints also drew scant notice in the mainstream U.S. news media, which has also taken sides against the ethnic Russians and in favor of the Kiev regime.
So, although more than 5,000 Ukrainians have been killed -- the vast majority ethnic Russians in the east -- there has been virtual silence among the R2Pers about the responsibility to protect the ethnic Russians. Indeed, when the Russian government has supplied these people with weapons to defend themselves, many "liberal interventionists" have joined with the neocons in condemning Moscow and Putin, fuming about a "Russian invasion."
So, it's apparently okay for the U.S.-backed government in Kiev to engage in the slaughter of an ethnic population in eastern Ukraine -- even employing neo-Nazis to do the dirtiest work -- with many R2Pers cheering what looks a lot like ethnic cleansing.
Bombing Yemen
A similar situation is now playing out in Yemen where a long-running civil war saw Houthi rebels capturing the capital Sanaa and other major cities. President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia seeking protection and encouraging the Saudi royal family to reinstall him.
The Saudis, citing alleged Iranian support for the Houthis, began a U.S.-backed bombing campaign that has apparently killed hundreds of civilians, prompting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to denounce the airstrikes as "a crime" and "a genocide."
Though the Saudis are undeniably intervening in another nation's civil war, the Obama administration supports this intervention and doesn't seem too troubled by the large-scale civilian deaths being inflicted. Instead of restraining the Saudis, the United States is rushing military resupplies and providing logistical and intelligence support.
Rather than protest this Saudi "invasion," Secretary of State John Kerry chastised the Iranians for supposedly helping the Houthis. In one of his most clueless and disingenuous remarks -- and there is plenty of competition -- Kerry told the PBS NewsHour on Wednesday that Washington was "not going to stand by while the region is destabilized."
Kerry, of course, was one of the U.S. senators in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, a conflict that not only killed hundreds of thousands of people but gave rise to the hyper-violent "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" which has since morphed into the "Islamic State," which has spread its particularly savage brand of jihad across the Middle East and into Africa.
Another major breeder of Mideast destabilization has been the Saudi royal family, which spurred Iraq's Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980, reviving the ancient Sunni-Shiite rivalries which have escalated to the present day. Elements of the Saudi royal family also supported Saudi Osama bin Laden as he founded and built Al-Qaeda to engage in terrorism against the West. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret Saudi Ties to Terrorism."]
For Kerry to present himself and the Saudis as the protectors of Middle East stability would be laughable if there weren't so many dead and maimed innocents across the region. [See Consortiumnews.com's "What's the Matter with John Kerry?"]
Kerry also reprised his infamous fact-free-rush-to-judgment style that he used in pushing the United States nearly into a war with Syria over his dubious charge that President Bashar al-Assad's government was responsible for an Aug. 21, 2013 Sarin attack outside Damascus -- and in blaming Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014. In both cases -- still unresolved -- subsequent information suggested a different conclusion. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Kerry's Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment."]
Regarding the Saudi bombing of Yemen, Kerry justified the attacks by blaming Iran: "There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran. " There are a number of flights, every single week that have been flying in. We trace those flights, and we know this. We are well aware of the support that Iran has been giving to Yemen."
Beyond the hypocrisy of Kerry's protest -- given U.S. interference in dozens of civil wars -- there is the contrary analysis by many Yemen watchers that -- while Iran may have given the Houthis some money and possibly weapons -- Tehran exercises very little control over the Houthis who are Zaydi Shia, an offshoot of Shiite Islam considered relatively close to Sunni Islam.
The Houthis also are not anti-American -- and they are anti-Al-Qaeda. They made overtures to the Obama administration, expressing a desire to press ahead with the war against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But the Saudi intervention, with U.S. support, has damaged the Houthis' ability to continue that fight and, indeed, has allowed Al-Qaeda to capture more territory and free scores of its imprisoned militants.
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