The Saudis continue their senseless war on Yemen. Next to bombing army troops and installation and thereby hindering it to go after AlQaeda they are systematically bombing electricity plants, water supplies and food centers:

Yemen Economic Corporation, one of Yemen’s largest food storage centres, was destroyed by three coalition missile strikes in Hodeidah last Tuesday, according to the Houthi-controlled defence ministry. The corporation had enough food for the entire country.

The government’s military food storage centre in Hodeidah was also targeted and destroyed on Tuesday, according to the defence ministry.

Also in Hodeidah, country’s second largest dairy plant was hit by five Saudi missiles on Wednesday, killing at least 29 people, mostly employees, and injuring dozens of others.

Unsurprisingly even those Yemenis who do not support the Zaydi Houthi rebellion are against the Saudi attacks. They will take revenge.

The Saudis continue to get favorable press coverage in the "western" media. No one seems to speak out against their war of aggression. Obama, who ordered the U.S. military to support the Saudi campaign, is only concerned with selling more weapons to them.

The Saudis want to invade Yemen but they need foot soldiers to do the bleeding. As their own people will no appreciate Saudi casualties they asked the Pakistani government to send them three divisions of cannon fodder. They specified that those division are to be purely Sunni. The Pakistani army, in a fight with Saudi supported radical Sunnis in its own country, was not amused. Some 30% of the army personal is not Sunni and the Pakistanis certainly want to keep sectarianism out of its rows. The conflict is Yemen is not about sects or religion but the Saudis, and most "western" media, do their best to turn it into one.

The Saudis have given Pakistan several "gifts" of billions of dollars and the current prime minister Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a Saudi protege. But all parties in the parliament are against sending their troops to Yemen and Nawaz Sharif is therefore struggling to do his sponsor's bidding:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan is “not in a hurry” to decide whether to join the Saudi-led coalition against rebels in Yemen as Parliament resumed discussion on the issue.

The premier addressed a joint session of the Parliament a day after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif revealed Saudi Arabia wanted Pakistani warplanes, warships and soldiers. Not a single lawmaker has spoken in favour of sending troops.
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The premier has repeatedly said he will defend any threat to Saudi Arabia's “territorial integrity” without defining what threat that could be, or what action he would take.

Pakistan, as well as Turkey and Iran, wants to stop the war before it gets out of hands. On Friday the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, in Ankara.

That meeting is being followed by a flurry of diplomatic get-togethers: a visit to Ankara Monday for consultations by the Saudi deputy crown prince and interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef; a visit by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Tehran on Tuesday, where he’ll meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and a visit Wednesday by Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, to Islamabad. Later in the week, the Turkish foreign minister is expected in Islamabad.

The Saudis, Turks and Pakistanis want Iran involved because they believe that Tehran has control over the Houthis. I very much doubt that. Besides some minor money donations no serious material help has come from the Iranian site. The religious connections between the 12er Shia Persians and the 5er Shia Zaydis are less than those between the Zayhdis and mainstream Sunnis.

Iran did not instigate the Houthi revolt which originally started over lower fuel subsidies. It did not instigate the Saudis to bomb Yemen. But now everyone seems to want an Iranian role in a political process to end the war. While the Saudis criticize a greater role of Iran in the Middle East they themselves create the chaos that enlarges Tehran's influence.

The Saudi position reflects in the anti-Shia position of "western" media. Over the last days there were many "concerns" and hearsay reports about Shia paramilitaries looting Tikrit after liberating it from the Islamic State. It now turns out that Sunni tribes opposed to the Islamic State did the looting and that those effected were from Sunni tribes supporting the Islamic State.

U.S. media obviously believe in the immaculate conception of the current sectarian Middle East strife. It can have nothing to do with decades of U.S. wars in the Middle East or the instigation of fervent radical Saudi/Wahhabi believes. No. When in doubt, just blame Iran and who ever seems to have Iranian support. Will that ever change?

Part of my personal Easter ritual is reading out loud Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part I

The Easter Walk 

Faust. Spring's warm look has unfettered the fountains,
Brooks go tinkling with silvery feet;
Hope's bright blossoms the valley greet;
Weakly and sickly up the rough mountains
Pale old Winter has made his retreat.
Thence he launches, in sheer despite,
Sleet and hail in impotent showers,
O'er the green lawn as he takes his flight;
But the sun will suffer no white,
Everywhere waking the formative powers,
Living colors he yearns to spread;
Yet, as he finds it too early for flowers,
Gayly dressed people he takes instead.
Look from this height whereon we find us
Back to the town we have left behind us,
Where from the dark and narrow door
Forth a motley multitude pour.
They sun themselves gladly and all are gay,
They celebrate Christ's resurrection to-day.
For have not they themselves arisen?
From smoky huts and hovels and stables,
From labor's bonds and traffic's prison,
From the confinement of roofs and gables,
From many a cramping street and alley,
From churches full of the old world's night,
All have come out to the day's broad light.
See, only see! how the masses sally
Streaming and swarming through gardens and fields
How the broad stream that bathes the valley
Is everywhere cut with pleasure boats' keels,
And that last skiff, so heavily laden,
Almost to sinking, puts off in the stream;
Ribbons and jewels of youngster and maiden
From the far paths of the mountain gleam.
How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple!
This is the real heaven of the people,
Both great and little are merry and gay,
I am a man, too, I can be, to-day.

As usual, some people loathe such joy

Cont. reading: Easter Walk

Some preliminary deal has been agreed upon in Geneva that will restrict Iran's civil nuclear research and production program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

The deal is unfinished. The devil is in the details and those have yet to be agreed upon. The deal will fail when on June 30 those agreements will turn out to be unachievable.

There are many distortions and lies in the "western" reporting on the issue. Facts that are left out include:

• The whole crisis over a "nuclear Iran" is manufactured based on lies from Israeli and U.S. intelligence services. The target of the U.S. and Israeli operations was never a "nuclear Iran" but an Iranian Islamic Republic that insists on independent internal and foreign policies.
• Iranian leaders have declared that any weapons of mass destruction contradict the philosophical and religious base of the Islamic State of Iran. They have insisted on this and did not retaliate even when their cities came under chemical attacks during the Iraq-Iran war.
• All U.S. intelligence services agree that Iran does not have any military nuclear program. There is nothing to fear from a pure civil nuclear program in Iran.
• All sanctions on Iran are illegal in the very first place. They have no basis in facts or law.

There is now a very disturbing tendency in U.S. commentary, following Obama's lead, to say that the (unfinished) deal should be taken because it the only alternative is war.

But:

• Who would start and wage such a war?
• On what legal basis?
• For what purpose given that Iran clearly has no military nuclear program?

Such stupid alternative "deal or war" as argument for a deal is dangerous because the deal can still fail and the hawks will then argue that "even the lubral commentators said 'deal or war' so now it must be war."

Indeed, given Obama's very aggressive foreign policy thus far I can not exclude that war on Iran is his real aim and only hidden behind very public but sham negotiations to make a public case for it.

There is no sensible reason to wage war on Yemen.

Yemen is dirt poor. More than half of its 26 million people depend on food aid. Yemen has to import 90% of the wheat and 100% of the rice it consumes. That little water that is available for agriculture is used up for growing qat, a mild stimulant that everyone seems to be using. Growing qat is more profitable than growing wheat.

Yemen produced some oil and gas and this was the main income of the state. But with falling oil prices and increased conflicts the income was less than was already needed and has now come down to zero. Another important source of income are remittances by people working outside the country, often in Saudi Arabia.

Some 40% of the population, mostly the northern mountain tribes are Zaidi 5er Shia  who in their believes, rites and laws are nearer to some Sunni interpretations of Islam than to the 12er Shia's versions in Iran and Iraq.

The other 60% of Yemenis are Sunnis of various Sufi tendencies. There was and is no real history of sectarian strife within the Yemeni society. In the current conflict the Zaidi Houthi rebels are fighting next to some units of the Yemeni army with mostly Sunni soldiers. The Houthi are a Zaidi revival movement which pushes for the historic leading role of the Zaidis in the country.

Over the last decades Saudi Arabia sponsored Salafi schools and preachers in Yemen. These follow the Wahhabi stream prevalent in Saudi Arabia and see the Zaidi as nonbelievers and the Sufi stream as unislamic. One Salafi school with 8,000 followers was situated in Dammaj, right in the middle of the Zaidi province Saada, has been central to the current inner Yemeni conflict.

The Houthi have been fighting against the central government since 2004. After the former president Saleh was ousted in 2011 during the Arab Spring a sham election was held to put the former vice president Hadi into the top job and a process of creating a new constitution and a sham democracy was initiated. The task was left to the Gulf Clown Council under the leadership of Saudi Arabia and some UN bureaucrats who had no real knowledge of Yemen. The Houthi were excluded from the process which of course failed.

Eventually the Houthi, with the help of some army units, took over the capital Sana and pressured president Hadi to create an inclusive technocratic government to solve some of the country's most urgent problems. Over several month a hassle ensued and in the end Hadi fled to South Yemen and eventually to Saudi Arabia. The Houthi, allied with some military units under the command of the former president Saleh started to take over the country.

The Saudis and their U.S. minders want Yemen to depend on them and dislike any real Yemeni independence. They are, like the "west", a neo-colonial state while the Houthi are, like Iran or China, a post colonial entity:

Cont. reading: Why Wage War On Yemen?

US forces to hold exercises in Ukraine

The United States plans to send soldiers to Ukraine in April for training exercises with units of the country's national guard.

Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the units to be trained include the Azov Battalion, …
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Avakov said the training will begin April 20 at a base in western Ukraine near the Polish border and would involve about 290 American paratroopers and some 900 Ukrainian guardsmen.

Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis

Though the 900-member Azov Brigade adds needed manpower to repulse the rebels, members who say they are Nazis are sparking controversy, and complaints of abuses against civilians have turned some residents against them.

A drill sergeant who would identify himself only as Alex wore a patch depicting Thor's Hammer, an ancient Norse symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In an interview with USA TODAY, he admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis. He said he supports strong leadership for Ukraine, like Germany during World War II, …

The U.S. military will train east European Nazis to fight east-Ukrainian "Russians". One wonder how well that will end. The last armies trained by the U.S. military were the Georgian, Afghan and Iraqi one. All turned out to be major failures in combat. All were prone to abuse of civilians, prisoners and other crimes.

The training will start on April 20. That is Hitler's birthday celebrated by Nazi groups like Azov. The decision to train fascist Ukrainian national guard troops instead of the Ukrainian military smells like a White House interference. Who else would up with such a childish idea of needling Russia?

Then again … At least those Azov folks may in the end hurt the right people:

He vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.