International law not applied in Saudi war on Yemen: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Lawrence Davidson, a professor at the West Chester University, in Pennsylvania, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription.

Press TV: This is not the first report by the United Nations that states the Saudi air raids have been indiscriminate and a clear violation of international law. More than 6,200 people, mostly civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed. How higher should this number raise before the international community decides to take action?

Davidson: Well, obviously, they should take action now or should have previously. It is just that, to say the truth, international law and the international norms are not being applied to this. What you have got is an invading force, using high explosives in crowded civilian areas. We all know that that is going to run up the casualty figures.

The reports about the shelling of this wedding party seem that it was not random, or indiscriminate at all. The groom was a Houthi and the opposition elements in the neighborhood knew it and they targeted it probably on purpose.

I think that we are not really dealing with a moral scenario here. The Saudis don’t care; they are paranoid about their security, they are convinced that the Houthis are in league with the Iranians and what have you, and they are out to destroy anyone in the country who they imagine might be in opposition to Saudi Arabia and I think that is the long and short of it. They will just keep going.

Press TV: So, why do you think the horrendous crimes by Saudi Arabia just go unseen by the Western media and the international community? Is it actually being granted impunity by the international community and if that is the case, why is it so?

Davidson: Well, it is a very good question.

Yes, there is a form of impunity here, just like there was a form of impunity, say, in American activities in Vietnam; or there is a form of impunity in terms of Israeli activities against the Palestinians.

No one really knows how to stop this without essentially involving themselves in a war with the Saudis. So who wants to do that? Is the United States going to go to war against the Saudis? Are the British, or the French? No! For whatever economic or diplomatic reasons, they don’t want to go that route and there is no alternative. Because the law is not going to stop the Saudis. So, we are stuck. I’m sorry to be this pessimistic but we are kind of stuck at the moment with a Saudi regime that has got just a lot of blood-lust here.

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