"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spent the most time discussing the issue with me. But his answers were perplexing.
“They may be bombing civilians, which is actually not true,” McCain said, when asked about civilian casualties in Yemen.
“Civilians aren’t dying?” I asked.
“No, they’re not,” the senator replied. “Oh, I’m sure civilians die in war. Not nearly as many as the Houthis have executed,” McCain continued, referring to the Shiite militia waging an insurgency against the Sunni government in Yemen.
Asked about the recent reports of Saudi forces bombing a wedding party in Yemen, McCain said, “I’m sure in wars terrible things happen and the Houthis however are an extremist group backed by the Iranians who are slaughtering Yemenis.”
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported that more than 2,300 civilians have been killed in the Yemen conflict, and that both Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led forces share responsibility for the deaths. The UNHCHR spokesperson has told reporters, however, that the Saudi-led bombing campaign has caused most of the deaths.
I tried to ask McCain, who serves as chairman of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. government-backed human rights and democracy promotion nonprofit, if he had an opinion on the spate of executions in Saudi Arabia, which have averaged at a rate of one execution every two days.
“Of course I have always stood for human rights and will continue to keep standing for human rights,” he said."
