That's not the point. What does it matter now if the Israelis were involved? Sanders has no control over that. He is trying to stop his own country's involvement.
Yemen Civil War
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Ceasefire agreed in a critical port city. A big step towards averting a true famine.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sefire-in-hodeidah-and-u-n-role-idUSKBN1OC0G4
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sefire-in-hodeidah-and-u-n-role-idUSKBN1OC0G4
Good, let’s hope we can get some aid in now.
Utter scum. Hope their electorates remember come primaries.
The GOP backdoored a rule onto the Farm Bill blocking any possible action on Yemen via Congress for the rest of the year.
So via a standard bill that ensures we get fed, they engineered an unrelated resolution that encourages a famine. Utter scum.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...ses-farm-bill-rule-with-buried-provision.html
So via a standard bill that ensures we get fed, they engineered an unrelated resolution that encourages a famine. Utter scum.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...ses-farm-bill-rule-with-buried-provision.html
So much for being pro-life the hypocritical scumbags. Abortions are a no go but thousands of kids starving to death is perfectly kosher so long as they get that Saudi money and because Iran.
are we shocked?
I'm hoping that the pressure that is being put on Saudi at the moment might lead to a wider ceasefire.
You might be shocked that more Republicans crossed party lines to vote for the right thing than vice versa.
Dems helped enable this, probably due to worries about exposure to being portrayed as going against Big-Ag and hindering the Farm Bill.
Really sad. Another notch on our belt of unscrupulous acts.
We aren't even having the debate here in the UK.
Absolutely disgusting and shameful behaviour! No other way to describe it.
Democrats are cowards
Phillip May’s investment firm is the largest shareholder in BAE, the “defence” company who sell arms to the Saudis.
The conflict of interest is nauseating.
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Welcome news if it’s true. The suffering the Yemeni people have endured is appalling.
Though it does make me question MBS’ motives. He’s not one for empathy so I’m assuming it’s either because the entire campaign has been an embarrassing military disaster for the Saudis or he plans to divert his resources somewhere else...
This deal is not really related to the campaign against the Huthis in the north - no sign of that ending. This is a deal between the Saudi-backed government and the UAE-backed southerners based in Aden who want to re-establish the independence of South Yemen. This deal just means more coordination and resources will be aimed at the Huthis.
Yemen Famine/Genocide
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/wor...s-for-eight-million-people-in-yemen-1.4805473
This is looking grim now.
Another piece from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/27/joe-biden-saudi-arabia-arms-weapons-deal
Ongoing for years and no end in sight. The rebels have largely fought quite well despite overwhelming Saudi military superiority but have no real backer in the international community except some militias (affiliated to Iran).
This is looking grim now.
Would start a new thread (it is a genocide rather than civil war at this point), but may as well put it here. Biden ran on halting the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia (the ones it uses to kill Yemenese children) but went back on this promise immediately. Now there are some in his own party urging him to take another look:
What will it take for America/West to impose sanctions upon Saudi Arabia? Not that I expect that to happen, but not selling them the guns that threaten millions of people with imminent death would be a good start. And why has this been a non-existent story in the media-scape for so long when it is amongst the worst wars of the century? This has now reached famine and genocide levels of criminality.
Another piece from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/27/joe-biden-saudi-arabia-arms-weapons-deal
Ongoing for years and no end in sight. The rebels have largely fought quite well despite overwhelming Saudi military superiority but have no real backer in the international community except some militias (affiliated to Iran).
Saudi offensive in Yemen suffers major setback
Militia having apparent success on the ground.
Iran doing well it seems. Yemen is basically a proxy war between Saudi Arabia & Iran.
Yep. Iranian militia, anyway. But then again it's a genocide that was started by SA so Iran is not really the one to blame here.
A journalist (UK based) who has been covering the conflict in Yemen is of the opinion that all proxies should get out of the way. Hard to disagree. Rare support for this idea in congress, too, just that it has not been implemented via presidential decree (or EO).
Just adding a link to your source here -Tehran Times
Is that because the news being from Tehran disqualifies the sentiment? Anyway, as noted above, no one is pretending this isn't a proxy war. Thanks anyway.
Be curious to get your view on the overall situation as you had been following this rather in depth earlier in the thread and seem to have some knowledge regarding the various actors in play.
Not the sentiment, but it might be fair to take the account of the battles in the article with a pinch of salt (also I’m a bit anal about providing sources in any case).*
My understanding is pretty shallow at this stage, and not especially original - Saudis bear most of the blame for the humanitarian crisis IMO, especially for blocking supplies reaching Huthi-held Hodeida (this was the case a couple years ago anyway, I’m not sure if the Huthis still hold the city). And their own border policies I believe helped create the conditions in the north which in turn gave rise to the Huthi movement (going back to the 90s I think). Obviously no outside nation should be assisting the Saudis in their campaign and primary efforts should be directed at Riyadh to climb down first and foremost.
I’m not up to date with the extent of the UAE’s involvement, the progress of the southern separatist movement, or the continued presence of Al Qaeda and IS affiliates in the government controlled areas to the south and east, so can’t say much there.
The Huthis are a pretty awful group as far as I understand them, like most Tehran-backed militias operating in the region. Whether some kind of compromise and peace deal might be possible with them in the event the Saudis can be persuaded to back down, I don’t know - they had launched this conflict and taken Sana’a before the Saudis directly intervened so it’s unclear to me what they’d be willing to compromise on if the Saudis left. Certainly I’m not convinced that simply abandoning the country to them is a wise way to go (not that they’d have much chance taking and holding the south and east anyway. They currently control about 70% of the population I believe, which is way beyond the limit of what we might assume to be their natural Zaidi constituency - again though I’m not knowledgeable enough on how relevant sectarian dynamics have been in this conflict).
But as with Afghanistan, right now humanitarian concerns should take priority over the unease of dealing with unsavory groups like the Huthis and Taliban. That Western politicians would seemingly rather indulge their own geopolitical impulses in the face of the suffering going on is a massive stain on Western nations in general (whatever the actual efforts of NGOs and associated governments on the ground to transcend the political and military deadlock to get aid through).
*(edit): also it helps explain the language used in the article, since “Yemeni armed forces/army” = “Huthi rebel forces” in Western media.
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They should make it "supporting Militia/rebel/seperatist/etc" forbidden for everyone.
The Houthis still control Al-Hodeida, and the UAE has recently upped their active participation in the war against the Houthis especially South of Maarib (most likely due to pressure from Saudi Arabia and the US because Maarib was about to fall in the hands of the Hourhis) and even though they made some gains at the beginning, their progress seems to have stalled in the last few weeks.
The Houthis rose against the government of Hadi because he excluded them completely from the government under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the US, the Houthis' ties with Iran weren't actually that strong at the beginning of the conflict (just like Bashar and Iran weren't actually very close allies before the war in Syria), but after the Saudi invasion they became really close because Iran was their only lifeline. And as you correctly pointed out, they control around 70% of the population of Yemen despite total blockade and 8-year of bombing and invasion by Saudi Arabia, UAE and other mercenaries with the help of the US and many European nations, which clearly contradicts that idea that it's just a small group supported by Iran that toppled a legitimate government supported by the people.
By the way, out of interest, do you think the Houthis taking Sanaa is a sufficient justification for the Saudi invasion? Within the 'international law'?
I don’t know enough about “international law” to judge whether an “invitation” from Hadi suffices to technically justify Saudi intervention. Frankly I don’t think it matters that much. It seems to me that post-2011 in Yemen there is a lack of legitimacy (as we generally understand it deriving in some way from the will of the people) on the part of all the actors involved (same can be said for certain other Arab states). Therefore “justification” or advocacy on behalf of any particular side seems essentially arbitrary and based on raw, cynical power interests. Obviously, however, we can judge the conduct of the parties involved on the ground.
I didn't know about this at all, I really need to fix the western bias in what I read about. I reckon 3 pages indicate I'm not the only one.
Well done caf
Well done caf
I didn't do my research on this and all the information that I have is on links that caf members shared here in the past.
So expertes in the matter (@2cents maybe?) Would Saudi invasion of Yemen be equally injust as the ukranian one by Russia? what parallelisms can be done?
So expertes in the matter (@2cents maybe?) Would Saudi invasion of Yemen be equally injust as the ukranian one by Russia? what parallelisms can be done?
I’m no expert on the conflict and haven’t followed it closely for a few years. However I’d say both the Saudis and Russians see and justify their missions in broadly similar terms.
Both see Yemen/Ukraine respectively as absolutely vital to their interests (e.g. “doorstep” states to use recent Cafe parlance). Both claim to be determined to deny what they see as existentially hostile powers gaining a foothold on their “doorstep” - Iran/NATO. Both would argue that in recent years these hostile powers have launched a policy of encirclement - in the case of Iran, extending its power in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana’a, in the case of NATO throughout Eastern Europe. Both would argue that the “legitimate” governments of Yemen/Ukraine were overthrown by forces hostile to them and backed by Iran/NATO in 2014.
Obviously these claims made by both the Saudis and Russians along the lines outlined above should not be accepted without challenge, there are significant reasons to question it all (e.g. the actual extent of Iranian/NATO involvement in the events of 2014).
Of course Yemen and Ukraine in 2014 were very different places and societies, and the actors involved represent very different trends in terms of the politics of their respective regions. Beyond that, the obvious major difference is that the Saudis (and the UAE let’s not forget) have enjoyed much international support for their campaign in Yemen from many of the same states now condemning Russia. And by extension, the Huthi movement finds itself a lot more isolated than the post-2014 Kiev government has. Also, it remains to be seen if the Russians in Ukraine will conduct themselves in a manner as brutal as the Saudis have in Yemen (or you could argue as the Russians have in Syria). I somehow doubt the West will be able to tolerate the sight of Ukrainians suffering to the same degree as we have Arabs in the Middle East.
Really well put.
I was going to disagree, saying that Russia isn't nearly as horrible as what Saudi as been doing in Yemen, and that Saudis campaign is being actively supported through weapons from the same countries criticizing Russia. You covered that I'm the last paragraph though.
This is why I couldn't find two shits about the commentary around Russia from the West, they're a bunch of hypocritical cnuts who cry about a white country being invaded all the while giving weapons to another to literally destroy a brown country leading to worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.
This has been my main thought about this over the last few days also. I’m not a crazy conspiracy theorist but I can’t help but wonder what the agenda is, why is Putin the new Hitler yet I never hear anything about Saudi Arabia in Yemen?
Because the Saudis will never want to or be able to invade Europe. Basically.
To add to that - oil, and the fact the Saudis are considered geopolitical allies on basis of their animosity towards Iran.
Most westerners lack the self awareness to realise this.
The west, china and russia are all dicks (with minor variations in degrees) and none will flinch to make millions homeless if it suited them or there national interest.
A lot of reasons.
Russia is a much more formidable military power and the potential for escalation makes it all the more dangerous.
People are generally more empathetic to victims that look like them. The brown people in the middle east will just never garner the same sympathy as white Europeans. They're pretty much been dehumanized in a lot of media too, especially since 9/11.
In the same sense Putin is also a more recognizable enemy and therefore the Hitler comparisons are easier to make.
The UK's historical and untarnishable involvement with the Saudi regime is not limited to weapon sales. The Saudi regime is some sort of an ISIS that managed to get respectability thanks to the UK and the US protecting it. That respectability provided by the UK alliance is one of the main reasons other countries do sell weapons to them. And there are degrees in evil, KSA is far worse than the UAE.
And if France was as involved in the massive war crimes that the UK committed in Iraq over the last 30 years. I would probably think of it as the worst power in western Europe.
Nice post.
About brutality: I remember reading about the Russian bombardment during their intervention in Syria, and how they basically reduced a town (I think the last ISIS city?) to rubble - equivalent to WW2 or Korean war style bombing. Scared they will try it again in Ukraine.