Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is your host, Abby Martin. This is the audio of our show.

You can watch the episodes on our YouTube channel or at the Empirefiles.tv.

Joe Biden has made a major announcement that he's taking action to end the Yemen War. This, of course,

is encouraging news to the many anti-war organizations who have been fighting

to stop this U.S.-backed genocide.

But with so much at stake, it's important to take a careful look at what Biden actually

said.

Saudi Arabia and its allied Gulf dictatorships have been bombing the world's poorest country

since 2015 to fight the Houthi rebels that they claim threaten them.

The threat the Houthis actually posed was ousting a Saudi puppet who had been sending all of Yemen's

wealth to Saudi princes and imposing severe austerity measures on the Yemeni people at the behest of

the International Monetary Fund. As a result of the U.S.-backed war, Yemen reels from a catastrophic humanitarian crisis,

where millions teeter on the brink of starvation from a Saudi-imposed blockade.

According to the UN, 80% of Yemen's 30 million people are on the verge of famine.

So ending the war, which Biden pledged to do during his campaign, is an urgent necessity.

Let's look at how he phrased his policy change during his February 4th foreign policy speech,

paying attention to certain key words.

This war has to end.

And to underscore our commitment, we're ending all American support for offensive operations

in the war in Yemen.

That sounds like good news and a significant shift from Trump, who could have stopped the

U.S. backed carnage years ago.

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