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The Wahhabis’ War On Yemen One Year On – When Will Riyadh Fall?
One year ago the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, supported by the U.S., the Brits and several Gulf states, launched a war against Yemen:
Yesterday the Houthi led rebellion had kicked the Saudi/U.S. installed president Hadi out of the country and took control over most of its cities including the southern capital Aden. The Houthi are allied with the former president Saleh, himself a Houthi and replaced two years ago with his vice president Hadi after a U.S. induced light coup. Saleh and the Houthi are supported by significant parts of the Yemeni army.
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There seems to be the idea that Saudi/U.S. selected president Hadi, out now, could be reintroduced through force. The U.S. claims that Hadi was "elected" but with a ballot like this any "election" is a mere joke. There is no way Hadi can be reintroduced by force.
A year later the Houthis are no longer in Aden. Saudi proxy troops, which include "western" mercenaries, "liberated" it. But Aden is now infested with Al Qaeda and Islamic State militants who launched several suicide attacks over the last days killing many more people than were recently killed in Belgium. It is known that at least Al Qaeda in Yemen has direct Saudi support and is fighting on its side.
But despite all its proxies, massive bombing and many announcements the Saudis did not get anywhere near the capital Sanaa. Instead Houthi forces attacked Saudi forces within Saudi Arabia and destroyed several hundred Saudi tanks and armored vehicles.
The Saudis and the U.S. and British military supporting them are guilty of war crimes willfully targeting hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure as well as many people who were not involved in the war. Haykal Bafana talked to BBC Newshour today from Sanaa in Yemen about the war and the Saudi crimes.
Shortly before the war started Pat Lang wrote:
The Houthi descendants of my old acquaintances are not servants of Iran. They are not dangerous to Western interests. They are dangerous to AQAP. Get it? Salih will return. pl
That is as right today as it was a year back. Here are some pictures from Yemen today.
A pro-Saudi demonstration in Yemen as published by Saudi media:
Half of the anti-Saudi demonstration on Sabaeen Square in Sanaa (video) today. Saleh's GPC party had called for it. Former president Saleh attended and the crowd sang the national anthem. Saleh is baaaackk!:
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A separate anti-Saudi demonstration in Rawdah Sanaa. The Houthi had called for this one. Many women attended:
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The Saudis managed to bomb the Yemenis back to Saleh! If the Saudis continue with their war on Yemen, Yemen will survive. But it will be Saudi Arabia that will at the end be destroyed. Riyadh, not Sanaa, will fall.
@35 james
Well I believe in universal health care and universal education as well. Nothing’s free, they’ll have to be payed for from taxes. So we’ll have to raise them. On the people who have the money. To paraphrase Willy Sutton. The United States spends more than too much on the MIC. Close those 1000 foreign bases, mothball those dozen nuclear carrier groups, disband the standing army, go back to state militias/national guard units to defend the USA. Defend. The so-called department of defense is clearly the department of war, and it needs to be shutdown or we’ll have more and more – nothing but – war.
The people who work in the MIC can be put to work building trains and dirigibles and repairing the US’ crumbling infrastructure. Half the 2.3 million prisoners in the US can be released and laws changed to ensure that functions like education, prisons, and the military never, ever fall into the private hands again. There’s lots to be done.
You seem to think that because I view a plute as a plute whether he/she is American, Russian, or Chinese that I’m some sort of ‘capitalist’? But my own belief is that the people are the the nation, the people are the country, the people are the capital, their own greatest resource, and the reason government exists is to see to our needs. Think of all the cash the US has gone through in my lifetime, since 1947, and look at the sorry state of the populace with regard to health, education, and independence. It’s a joke. A joke we’ve played on ourselves. There have been and there are always going to be people who want to cadge the lions’ share of public resources for themselves, and they will, too, just as long as we let them. We need to recognize reality, pull up our socks and deal with it.
Our publicly funded schools need to teach children just exactly what’s at stake, what’s to be lost to a lack of eternal vigilance. That the first duty of everyone in society is safeguarding and defending what we have, collectively, from those who would dispossess us and ensconce themselves in our place. I imagine that sounds pretty radicle, and it should, it is radicle: it’s right at the root of our existence.
But what is to be done first is to gain control of government, and then we can have any kind of society we want. Apparently we don’t want much. I paraphrase Eugene Debs there.
Democracy, democracy, democracy. It takes everyone of us to cover the bases, with people looking out for the trees and the animals and the birds and the bees as well. We need the ability to dismiss and replace errant legislators, judges and presidents whenever it suits us to do so. We ourselves need the ability to legislate, directly, and to repeal errant legislation enacted by our representatives when required as well, including bad treaties. We certainly need the ability to end wars. before they start or when they’re underway, whenever we see fit – which ought to be 99 times out of 100. We need to be able to set the cops straight, to dismiss murderers and criminals among them, chiefs of police, whenever it needs doing. We don’t have to show anyone no damned badge, we are the sovereign American, Russian, Chinese, Canadian, European, African, Asian peoples. All we need is an absolute majority of voters in a given constituency, in a given jurisdiction. This is the next step in human evolution, and the fusiliers, the financiers, and the fossil fuelers are challenging us now to evolve or to die. At least to life as we’ve known it, and imagined it could be, would be, here on our one and only home planet earth.
There are people who are willing and able to stand on our necks forever, if we let them. This is not a job for someone else, in some other country, we are the only ones here with our own interests at heart.
I guess you didn’t actually ask, but that’s what I think.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 27 2016 8:26 utc | 40
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