It seems international media and human rights organizations have suddenly “discovered” the crisis in Yemen. After more than two years of horrific war and civilian massacres carried out by the Saudi-led alliance, even CNN has found a conscience, recently publishing The images Saudi Arabia doesn’t want you to see and “Yemen is silent, forgotten… even a purposely forgotten emergency.” Yet images of extremely emaciated Yemeni children starved by the lengthy Saudi blockade on the ravaged third world country were already profuse outside of mainstream media, appearing on Yemeni activist social media accounts with regularity since the start of Saudi air raids in March 2015.

In response to CNN’s article, investigative journalist Ben Norton, who writes for liberal and progressive publications, acknowledged the following:

Trump was elected. When it was Obama overseeing the catastrophic war in Yemen, the US media had little interest. Yes, silent and purposefully forgotten by the US media from March 2015 until January 2017, when Trump entered office. Most Americans had no idea thanks to the media, which paid little attention to Yemen as the US & Saudi destroyed it. Sure, better late than never. But for 2 years the media ignored US carnage in Yemen while peddling Syria propaganda.”

As Norton suggests, the media establishment appeared less interested in digging into America’s role in Yemen under the Obama administration, but the new spotlighting of human rights abuses in “the silent war” comes amidst the historically unprecedented unraveling of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and a general tit for tat airing of the region’s dirty laundry as old allies become enemies.

 

Featured image courtesy of Wikipedia.