Since the war on Yemen is mostly ignored, the U.S. and Britain don't have to worry about getting too much "bad PR." They can enable an atrocious war and support the Saudi-led coalition as it creates famine conditions in Yemen without facing much scrutiny at all. By helping to thwart independent inquiries into war crimes committed by all sides, the U.S. and U.K. governments work to whitewash the coalition's record and thus shield themselves from criticism for making the coalition's crimes possible. Even so, the quote gets at something important about the cynical and disgraceful policy of backing the Saudis and their allies: the effect of the war on the people of Yemen is irrelevant to the coalition's patrons so long as their despotic clients are satisfied.

The CNN article refers to Yemen as the "forgotten war" as many other reports have done in the past, but that's not quite right. The war hasn't been forgotten, since that suggests there was some point when the world was paying close attention to it.