Since 2016, the increase in civilian deaths in Yemen, from Saudi Arabia airstrikes, continues to raise the question of war crimes from U.S. state officials. However, the legal risks increasingly expand today due to the Trump Administration’s vital foreign policy that revolves around selling weapons to “Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle East nations” (LaForgia, para. 2). This is not only a violation of human rights form Saudia Arabia but at the forefront of the State Department leaders. Ken Roth (2015), executive director of human rights, describes human rights as “what governments must do and refrain from doing to respect the basic dignity of every person” (Lecture 1). The U.S. in this situation has violated this by selling weapons and materials to the Saudi coalition, concealed information of the weapons sold, and has not stepped in to stop Saudi Arabia from killing civilians, through two presidential administrations (LaForgia, para. 17).
The article starts by discussing the first issue that initiated the U.S. infringement in human rights when the Obama Administration sold 1.3 billion dollars of “precision-guided bombs and bomb parts,” to the Saudi-led coalition (LaForgia, para. 15). This was done in hopes to counterbalance the force of Iran in Yemen. The deal, however, resulted in Saudi Arabia and its allies intentionally aiming bombs at innocent civilians, following the nonexistent actions the U.S. did not take to stop Saudi Arabia's inhumane attacks. The problem here is that the citizens of Yemen ``are not the subjects of human rights” but rather “the objects of human rights discourse” (Santos, 2013, pg. 1). Meaning, Yemen civilians are not being recognized as people but rather objects because of the lack of effort that has been done to prevent Saudia Arabia from their deliberate attack on civilians and Trump’s continuous need to push for weapon sales to the Saudis and Emiratis. Furthermore, the hiding of information about these sales and the number of the civilian death toll, promotes that the U.S. is not recognizing the Yemen civilian’s human rights. Calpham (2007) noted that “Western governments may recently dominate the discourse at the highest international level” (pg. 23). Therefore, the privilege of the U.S. has given them the power to cover up vital information and not take responsibility for their involvement in Yemen’s suffering.
Monlitism is challenging the international law of human rights for Yemen civilians because society is not recognizing them as a collective. But rather individuals who are not being granted the rights and protection universal citizens are obligated to (Santos 2013). Santos (2013) emphasis shows how the “respect from human rights is much more problematic in the Global South than in the Global North” (pg.7). The fact that civilians are continuing to die from American made weapons, the State Department withholding crucial information on this issue, and Trump’s continuous push to sell weapons to the Saudi-coalition; highlights that the U.S. is not acknowledging the loss of human dignity that Yemen is facing. Additionally, the civil rights of Yemen citizens are not being met because their country is not securing the safety of their people but rather leaving them in destroyed homes, starving and dead. As Ristovkas (2018) states, “human rights are an acute reminder of the prevalence of abuses” (pg. 313). The U.S. needs to recognize that human rights are rights of society and that everyone is responsible for respecting human dignity in the world. Yemen deserves the three universal principles of human rights; most importantly being that “rights are universal and therefore impeccable” (Ristovkas, 2020, Lecture 1). In hindsight, these criminal acts should invoke the U.S. to take responsibility for their crimes and take drastic measures to end the systematic violation of human rights.
The image that the article used was of Yemen homes and buildings that had been destroyed by an airstrike in the city of Sana, in 2018 (LaForgia, para. 52). The site of the image is presented because the image illustrates a mother and young children surrounded by rubble, fallen debris, and what very little items the victims have left (Rose, 2001). The message of the photo puts a visual perspective of the impact the airstrikes had on these civilians. The photographer's choice to include adolescent children with terror in their eyes, absorbing the devastation that surrounds them, evokes sympathy and puts a face to those who were affected. Rose (2001) states “composition modality….can produce persuasive accounts of a photograph’s effects on its viewers” (pg.33). The photographer’s decision to capture the disaster with a wider shot rather than focusing on one singular aspect from this destruction heightens the realization of the massive impact the airstrike had on that community. Moreover, the spatial structure prompts the multiple layers of meaning that can be analyzed within this image. Thus, leaving room for the interpretation of what the aftermath looked like immediately after the airstrike had hit. This creates sensory and causes viewers to think deeper about how the citizens of Yemen are being treated.
The state of the production of the image captures the impact the American-made bombs had depleted (Rose, 2001). Although this image is a representation of the Yemen war, it does not depict graphic images associated with war. Rather, it illustrates material destruction and a woman with young children gazing at the demolition of their country. This humanizes the photograph and gives the image an identity. Which is associated with loss and hardship. The picture is an observation, (Rose, 2001, pg. 31) “we peer at them from the same hidden vantage point as the photographer did.” Which exemplifies the modality of social (Rose, 2001). Within this image, we know more than the women and children that are pictured because the photographer took the image from a distance, without interfering with the subjects or surroundings. Thus, granting a raw, untampered vision of the atmosphere and now lifestyle the civilians must endure. However, the unmodernized broken buildings, abandonment of dated cars, and rubbish implanted on the ground reveal the previous state of distress that Yemen was in. Ultimately, the image sheds awareness on the culture that the Yemen society inhabits, while promoting the question of who is responsible for cultivating this lifestyle. Hence, exemplifying a visual way of knowing the experience of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world (LaForgia, para. 21).
The image is not illustrative of what the article discusses because the article briefly and vaguely touches on the Yemen crisis. The article pinpoints the legal risks U.S. officials could face and details the continuous push for weapon sales from the Trump Administration. The image, however, is a visual aid to the article because it illustrates the absence of respect and “inherent dignity and human worth” that Yemen is not receiving (Clapham, 2007, pg. 2). Therefore, the image provokes why we should care about the U.S. sales of weapons and the possible legal risk that birthed these sales. The consolidation between the text and image illustrates how the government, both the U.S. and Yemen, are not protecting the basic human rights that are universal and apply to everyone. The article emphasizes the need for justice against U.S. weapon sales, as the image depicts the harrowing effects of the American-made bombs. The notion that human rights violations do not happen in the global North is proven false from the evidence of the article and visual aid (Santos, 2013, pg. 2). In order for the suffering to end, society as a whole needs to recognize that Yemen’s human dignity demands to be represented to facilitate change.
Citations
Clapham, A. (2015) Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press (pp. 1-26).
LaForgia, M. (2020, September 16). War Crime Risk Grows for U.S. Over Saudi Strikes in Yemen. Https://Www.Nytimes.Com/#publisher. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/us-war-crimes-yemen-saudi-arabia.html
Ristovska, S. (2018). Imaginative Thinking and Human Rights. In Ristovska, S. & Price, M. (Eds.), Visual Imagery and Human Rights Practice (pp. 311-320). New York, NY: Palgrave.
Rose, G. (2016) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials (4th ed.). London: Sage Publications (pp. 24-46).
Santos, B. S. (2015) If God Were a Human Rights Activist. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press (pp. 1-9).
