Yemen - Massacres and Assassinations Trigger a New Phase of War
In mid April some 20+ of Sudanese soldiers were killed in an ambush in northern Yemen. Sudan, which sent up to 10,000 soldiers to Yemen in hope of Saudi money, is reconsidering its engagement. The Gulf states had promised investments in Sudan and the lifting of U.S. sanction in exchange for sending cannon fodder. Neither happened.
The war Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the powers behind them wage on Yemen aims to install a proxy-government that defers to them. The Yemeni people do not want that. They resist against the overwhelming forces of their rich neighbors. Especially the Zaidi people of north Yemen dislike their proselytizing Wahhabi neighbors. Their Houthi movement leads the fight. Yemeni in general regard them as 'monkeys with laptops'. To overcome the resistance the Saudi launched a genocidal campaign of blockading, bombing and starving the people into submission.
The same week the Sudanese mercenaries were killed, airstrikes by Saudi jets slaughtered dozens of Yemeni civilians:
An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, killing at least 20 people including the bride, health officials said Monday, as harrowing images emerged on social media of the deadly bombing, the third to hit Yemeni civilians since the weekend.
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An airstrike on Sunday night hit a house elsewhere in Hajja, killing an entire family of five, according to al-Nadhri.On Saturday, at least 20 civilians were killed when coalition fighter jets bombed a bus carrying commuters in western Yemen, near the city of Taiz, which has been locked in fighting for three years.
After the bombing of the wedding one boy, 3 to 5 years old, clutched to his dead father all night (video) and rejected attempts to be taken away. A graphic video taken the next morning shows that the boy is still there and the terrible aftermath of the Saudi massacre. The Onion only slightly exaggerates when it writes that the Saudi clown prince visited the child to finish the job.
The standard agency reports from Yemen, like the above one, always repeat the UN estimate that more than 10,000 have died in the war. But that UN number is at least two years old, never changes and only hides the ongoing massacre:
Elisabeth Kendall @Dr_E_Kendall - 20:28 UTC - 11 Apr 2018#Yemen war: Why does the much-quoted UN statistic of 10,000 deaths never seem to increase? @YemenData documents 16,847 air raids by the #Saudi-led coalition from 3/2015 to 3/2018 (with 423 this March) & @MSF received over 97,000 emergency patients in 1st 3 months of 2017 alone
At least 70,000 have been killed by bombing alone. That number does not include the probably one hundred thousand who starved or died from easily preventable diseases. When asked about the real numbers UN officials are evading any sensible response (vid).
The Saudi coalition strikes on civilians are not by accident. The Saudis target infrastructure, all food and people transport, health facilities and any gathering that is deemed suspicious. Other strikes are targeted assassinations.
One recent drone camera video from a United Arab Emirates owned drone, follows a car near Hodeidah port in north-west Yemen and shows a missile hitting it. The video cuts to a second drone camera, filmed from a screen in an operations room, which shows people coming to the rescue after the first strike. A second missile strike kills them all. The people in the operations room are elated.
That 'double tap' strike killed an important man and will prolong the war:
Saleh al-Samad, the president of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, was killed in the drone strike, delivering the deathblow to an already stagnant Yemeni peace process. Samad was regarded as a conciliatory figure within the Houthi rebellion and had sought to reach a negotiated settlement to Yemen’s civil war. He was scheduled to meet with Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, on April 28.
A well bribed nephew of the deceased former president of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh may help the UAE to kill his dead uncle's allies. I though suspect that U.S. intelligence, targeting mobile phones and alike, or even U.S. boots on the ground are heavily involved:
Tareq Saleh and his men were forced to seek refuge in the UAE, bringing with them a deep knowledge of the Houthis inner workings.
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Samad’s death was not an isolated incident. A number of key Houthi figures, who shared close ties to former President Saleh, have been killed recently. Mansour al-Saidi, the commander of Houthi naval forces; Salah al-Sharqai, his deputy; Nasser al-Qaubari, the major general of Houthi missile forces; and Fares Manea, a notorious arms dealer and former governor of Saada, were all killed in airstrikes over the last week.
Killing the leaders of resistance movements is not a successful strategy. Such leaders usually get replaced with smarter or more brutal hardliners who care less about collateral damage:
Samad’s successor, Mahdi al-Mashat, who was appointed Monday, is a hard-liner with extensive links to Hezbollah in Lebanon.Ali al-Bukhaiti, a former senior Houthi figure now based in Amman, Jordan, claims that there is growing puritanism within the movement. “Mashat is the polar opposite of his predecessor: He is tactless, threatens, doesn’t compromise,” he says. “He does not build relationships — he damages them.”
Tens of thousands gathered in the Yemeni capital Sanaa for the funeral commemoration for Saleh al-Samad. Saudi jets flew over the crowd and bombed nearby. The crowd was not deterred. No one ran away but the people got up on their feet (vid) and chanted (vid) Houthi slogans. They are willing to fight and far from defeated.
The United Arab Emirates has its own design on Yemen. It is in for the money. The UAE occupies the Yemeni Sakrota island, the Unesco-protected 'Jewel of Arabia', and is stealing its natural resources.
Aden, in the south of Yemen is also under UAE occupation. The UAE company Dubai Port, now DP World, wants to control Aden's port. But mothers in Aden starve themselves to death to keep their children alive. There is no state, no security and no one gets paid for their work as doctor, teacher or street sweeper. Some food is available on the markets but the people can not longer afford it.
Professor Isa Blumi of Stockholm University argues (radio) that the war in Yemen is not a civil war and not even a war by the local powers Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It is an imperial war by larger powers with a deep colonial history.
Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia could do anything in Yemen without direction and support from Britain (pdf) and the USA:
Thousands of UK and non-UK employees of UK companies work in Saudi Arabia to train, install, maintain and help operate UK-supplied aircraft and other military equipment, including the Tornado IDS fighter-bombers and Typhoon fighters that constitute just under 50% of the in-service combat aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).
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[T]he UK has made a blanket commitment to provide RSAF with UK civilian and military personnel to support and arm UK-supplied aircraft used by RSAF in an armed conflict.
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UK officials interviewed for this paper, and at least one of the government-to-government agreements governing the supply of UK weapons systems to RSAF, thus suggest that the UK MOD has detailed knowledge about the roles and activities of UK personnel both civilian and military, private and governmental, in Saudi Arabia; as well as about the use of UK-supplied aircraft and their munitions.
IHS Janes recently reported that the U.S. seeks a private company to rescue its soldiers in Yemen:
The US military is looking for contractors to provide personnel recovery, as well as airborne casualty and medical evacuation services, for special forces personnel operating in and around Yemen.
Why would the U.S. need those? And why in these weird places? (And why would the U.S. Special Operations Command ever outsource such a specialized, dangerous and important military task?) So far the U.S. had claimed that a very few of its soldiers are looking for al-Qaeda in south Yemen. These are supposed to be in-hit-out operations with direct U.S. air support.
The U.S. downplays its intelligence and aerial refueling support for the Saudi bombing of the various hospitals and weddings. In reality no Saudi plane would fly without direct U.S. and UK support. Now we learn that U.S. soldiers are also directly involved in the fighting on the ground:
[L]ate last year, a team of about a dozen Green Berets arrived on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen, in a continuing escalation of America’s secret wars.With virtually no public discussion or debate, the Army commandos are helping locate and destroy caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that Houthi rebels in Yemen are using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.
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Along the porous border, the Americans are working with surveillance planes that can gather electronic signals to track the Houthi weapons and their launch sites, ..
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They also are working closely with American intelligence analysts in Najran, a city in southern Saudi Arabia that has been repeatedly attacked with rockets, to help locate Houthi missile sites within Yemen.
The U.S. media seem to support the U.S. war on Yemen. In a recent interview on CNN Senator Rand Paul argued to at least debate the war in the U.S. congress. CNN host Wolf Blitzer dismissed (vid) that as "moral issue". He says there are "a lot of jobs at stake" and selling less bombs to Saudi Arabia might cause a "significant loss of jobs and revenues". He wonders why that is "secondary question" to Paul.
I'll leave it to a Yemeni to respond:
Haykal Bafana @BaFana3 - 19:51 UTC- 14 Apr 2018To whom it may concern: Which part is not sinking into your small-brained thick skull? Your half-fucked fuckery has been one long fuckin' orgy of disastrous self-fucking from start to now. End this humiliating porn. And stay the fuck out of Yemen. Dumb fucks.
The Sudanese seem to have understood. Others still have to learn. After the recent assassination of their leaders the Houthis promised to directly attack Saudi and UAE leaders. This will be a new phase of the ongoing war. If the war continues for long the people of Yemen turn their eyes towards the imperial powers behind those figures.
Posted by b on May 3, 2018 at 18:32 UTC | Permalink
next page »Good post.
So why r the US soldiers in Yemen? Could be that the Saudis have finally gotten them to understand that either you take care of our dirty business or enough is enough...?
Posted by: meme | May 3 2018 19:02 utc | 2
Selling arms is one thing, but sending in soldiers is totally another. Are the Brits sending in any of theirs?
Posted by: meme | May 3 2018 19:05 utc | 3
thanks b... what the imperial powers are responsible for here - usa/uk - is disgusting... there is no excuse for it.. and that probably explains why the western msm is not covering any of it, or when it does - not honestly.. 'monkeys with laptops' can now be applied to the usa/uk, who are happy to sell military gear and advice in exchange for money... they are even lower then the saudi/uae monkeys with laptops.. maybe pat lang can get a new gig?
Posted by: james | May 3 2018 19:15 utc | 4
Yemen's the unfortunate consequence of the Outlaw US Empire seeking Full Spectrum Dominance, and every death there is a direct result of that policy goal. That the carnage continues is proof of Trump's acceptance/embrace of that policy. In his rhetoric, Trump tries to separate himself from Obama's policies, while in fact he has adopted them as his own--perhaps with the exception of Iran. But I don't think the war will cease even if MbS is eliminated; he's just dancing to the Puppet Masters--they are the ones requiring elimination.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 3 2018 19:23 utc | 5
US foreign and military policy are under the control of the UK, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
The false flags, sanctions, and wars are mostly directed by those three vermin states with a very willing CIA and Wall Street (the two entities at the core of the US Deep State).
American citizens do not run US foreign policy (are they even involved in domestic policy?).
Same happened to the later Roman Empire. So goes the US as well.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | May 3 2018 19:23 utc | 6
This is simply the most under-reported war that has come to my attention in my brief life. Makes my fucking blood boil to see that kind of slaughter-by-proxy being lubed up by the Brits and the Yanks, and the worst thing is, no other countries have any excuses either. Why is this not all over the headlines in other states in Europe? So much for your freedom of press. Just cause they're poor, nobody gives a fuck. Well, I cant do much, but know this you bunch of fucking rats. There is such a thing as a soul, and Karma is a bitch. I sincerely hope that one day you choke on it.
To the MoA crowd, you guys are doing a stand up job. Keep it up.
Posted by: dan | May 3 2018 19:23 utc | 7
So the leader of the "free world" and its UK lapdog are basically happy to murder people for money. How exceptional.
Of course, this isn't anything new. What is perhaps new, or at least to a greater degree than I've observed before, is the urging/support of the corporate and state-owned western media to cheerlead such wanton murder without even acknowledging the tremendous human cost offsetting the war profiteers. They can't even consider the fact there will inevitably be blowback in the future--even their instinct for self-preservation seems to be gone.
Posted by: WorldBLee | May 3 2018 19:40 utc | 8
Monkeys with laptops... I hear Iranians refer to Saudis as sand lizards (no offense to lizards, who are actually quite interesting creatures).
Posted by: GoraDiva | May 3 2018 19:51 utc | 9
This war is about control of the Gulf of Aden for the Anglozionist Empire. I don't see any end to it.
Posted by: Bill | May 3 2018 19:56 utc | 10
So good to see Yemen dealt with and so well. The average Canadian won't likely know the difference between Syria and Yemen, but if you were to ask about the country's involvement in either place they would probably say Canada only helps with 'aid'. In fact Canada is a part of both the US-led coalition responsible for the great war-crimes in Iraq and Syria as well as a gunrunner in Yemen. There its humanitarian aid is used to distract from its military 'aid' to the Hannibal Lector that is the Saudi coalition. This is the Canadian way.
Canada's Dual Role in Yemen: Arms Exports To Saudi Coalition Dwarf Aid Sent...
"Canada has sent $65 m in humanitarian aid to help Yemenis suffering a brutal war. It has also exported $284 million worth of weapons and military goods to the countries bombing Yemen. 'It's a bit like helping pay for somebody's crutches after you've helped break their legs,' said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares..."
Posted by: John Gilberts | May 3 2018 19:57 utc | 11
@6
61% of Americans supported the recent US strike on Syria and 67% supported last years missile strike on Syria. Having imaginary enemies/enemies of choice and then attacking them is US culture.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 3 2018 20:28 utc | 12
Dan #7:
Your sentiments are spot on. The lack of attention by the MSM is, frankly, pretty repugnant. I should add that "monkeys with laptops" probably unfairly blights the good name of our simian cousins. The media/political gimps that either support these actions or make great efforts to hide them, are like some particularly noxious, antibiotic-resistant STD that has evolved to make human lives miserable.
Posted by: Glossopteris | May 3 2018 20:32 utc | 13
Thanks B for this exhaustive peace which should be distributed all around the worlds media outlets.
For more than a year now I'm writing commentaries about this ongoing genocide. And I usually mention the laughable victim numbers. It is a scandal in its own right that the UN is covering up this massacre. Even the IKRK's president Maurer is not speaking up about the understated numbers. This has nothing to do with IKRK's neutrality - on the contrary it is totally out of balance. Even a bit more critical media is repeating the obviously false numbers ad nauseam - and yes it is really sickening. Thanks again B.
Posted by: Pnyx | May 3 2018 20:37 utc | 14
"Tens of thousands gathered in the Yemeni capital Sanaa for the funeral commemoration for Saleh al-Samad. Saudi jets flew over the crowd and bombed nearby. The crowd was not deterred. No one ran away but the people got up on their feet (vid) and chanted (vid) Houthi slogans. They are willing to fight and far from defeated"
What rational, brave and patient people with an uncrushable spirit.
Posted by: Ninel | May 3 2018 20:40 utc | 15
@10 john.. thanks for that.. i sent it to my local political rep and the prime minister, justin goodie two shoes who is really full of shite... i doubt it will get a response, but it is good for them to know their role doesn't go un noticed..
Posted by: james | May 3 2018 20:50 utc | 17
To me (I confess, most of my knowledge about this country comes from this wonderful blog) this doesn't look like a war by the US and UK waged on Yemen (or Iran by proxy) but to ensure that those Saudi monarchs piss away their money on Western war toys to ensure profitability of said military industry complex in a protracted war with little to no apparent ROI for the main aggressor.
Posted by: xor | May 3 2018 20:56 utc | 18
I remember the Donald's sanctimonious face when ,accompanied by Yael , laid flowers to one American mercenary , known officially as the soldier in the "force for good". The mercenary was killed last year in Yemen ,in a confusing "fighting the terrorists" story. We have to fight them there so we don't fight them here kinda bullshit.
The Donald looked "very presidential" given his flowery appreciation to the dumb criminal f*ck killed so that the Banking Cartel ,big corporations and MIIC make some money and the Empire preserves his petro-f*cking-dollar.
I remember how the Donald sold Billions worth of weapons to our ally in crime , Saudi Arabia, so they can continue their genocide in Yemen and sending weapons to ISIS/AlQaeda in Syria , so we can have "plausible deniability". Then he danced the "sword dance and fondled the Wahhabi Globe".
The Empire is not stretched enough with all these wars overt and covert : Syria,Libya,Yemen,Ukraine,Sudan,Somalia,Afghanistan.
The Anglo-American-Zionist-Wahhabi Empire needs to protect its petor-f*cking-dollar . It prepares for new wars : Lebanon, Iran and to expend all ones ,like Syria.
I say ,give the Donald a Nobel Peace Prize , the precedent was established with Obama ( who after the Nobel bombed 7 countries). This way we can free the Donald for new wars , after all they are behind the " 7 countries in 5 years" schedule and Satanyahoo is not happy. And it's not like the Nobel was not given to war criminals masquerading as peace makers: Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Perez, Woodrow Wilson ( for whom I have a special contempt for the Federal Reserve creation,income tax and WWI ).
Posted by: veritas semper vincit | May 3 2018 20:59 utc | 19
Peter AU 1 @12--
One way to look at those disgusting poll numbers is to say awareness within USA increased almost 10% since the previous strike. Or one could say over 60% of USA populace is brainwashed. Or it could be said USA's educational system fails over 60% of its students.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 3 2018 21:49 utc | 20
Yemen's the unfortunate consequence of the Outlaw US Empire seeking Full Spectrum Dominance, ....
Posted by: karlof1 | May 3, 2018 3:23:13 PM | 5
I am not so sure. What is certain that while Empire is a resource drain, to a set of actors it is crucial. Politicians get talking points for grandstanding, military and think tankers get jobs, industrial complex gets profits. Hoi polloi have some entertainment, after all they do not live with bread alone (panem ET circenses).
Yemen by itself is a low value, low importance target, many times less important to our PTB than Syria. But fits very well into a larger scheme, converting petrodollars in hands of monarchs with questionable intelligence into huge orders for overpriced weapons -- this is the second most important profit source (the first being American taxpayers). USA basically plays the role of handsomely paid mercenary humoring the follies of the Gulfies. Think tankers and the media that takes talking point of them make at best perfunctory efforts to justify that calamity. And consider the hapless Sudan: if our leaders had any interest in an outcome in Yemen, wouldn't they do more to improve Sudanese morale?
My conclusion is that it is speculative if Yemen fits into a "global plan" (one can always pencil something, but as I said, our elite is not taking it seriously), but indisputable it is a very profitable racket.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 3 2018 22:06 utc | 21
“Are the Brits sending in any of theirs?”
To keep the Tornados flying 10,000 British servicemen are in KSA.
The caustic partner in arms is Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Emir of Abu Dhabi of the Arab Emirates, and the Supreme Commander of the Union Defence Force. The Emirates are well known for their financial support of European football clubs and stadiums.
○ Mercenaries in the Desert | The New Yorker - May 2011 |
○ Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater's Founder | The New York Times – May 2011 |
Linked from Oui’s diary -
The UAE has an alliance with the State of Israel and a strong military alliance with the UK and US. See my earlier diaries on the corporations setting up headquarters in the Emirates to boost US influence and force close cooperation in the region in opposition to Iran in the end. Blackwater of Erik Prince - US former generals in employ of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the most fortuned and powerful of the three emirate states. True, Dick Cheney's Halliburton took up residence in the UAE to avoid the stringent US regulations and sanctions for doing business with the Islamic State of Iran. There is always an urgent need for the ENEMY figure to keep the war machine rolling and the empire strong.
Or one could say over 60% of USA populace is brainwashed. Or it could be said USA's educational system fails over 60% of its students.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 3, 2018 5:49:37 PM | 20
And who dares to refer to unwashed masses? They use highest quality brain detergents*! OTH, I would be more cautious in positive evaluation of the 39% of people who do not support the strikes on Syria. This includes at least three types: (a) no opinion, admirable self-awareness of ignorance, (b) rather racist attitude that "yea, Assad is an awful dictator, but Arabs cannot be ruled in any other way" (c) oddballs that are aware that the justification for the strike is very questionable.
* uncharitably, it is not a detergent but deodorant sprayed to improve the smell but not removing the grime
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 3 2018 22:15 utc | 23
Great research b --- many thanks! You're the best!
Israel gan close Hormuz at any time, which would be a windfall to the US. The various Gulf monkeys will then need the Red Sea route that Yemen guards.
The South Pars gas field is pne milkshake with thwo straws. The Gulf monkeys remain stuck in LNG mode. If they can run enough of that through Oman/Red Sea they are still in the game and the ME gas markets remain primarily in dollars. But the capacity is not there and unlikely to be. If Iran can pipe through Pakistan (Balochistan province) or Syria, they win the sucking contest and get most of the gas, priced in non-dollars. Oh noes! This is pipelineistan 101 and the Yemenis are collateral damage.
Also, the ancient Hebrew colony in Yemen/Ethiopia may have cctually been their point of origination, not Palestine. Which gives it "my precious" status for the Golemites.
Posted by: mireille | May 3 2018 22:17 utc | 24
May I ask where this poll in which 61% of Americans approved of Donald Trump's decision to order missile strikes on Syria last month comes from? What is the news source reporting the result? Is the poll the one conducted by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, using a sample (number not known) of people via landline phone and cell phones?
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2452
The Jerusalem Post reports that an online poll conducted by Reuters / Ipsos found that 61% of Americans opposed US intervention. 10% favoured intervention but the percentage rose to 27% if Damascus had used CWs on civilians.
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Poll-Americans-do-not-want-US-involved-in-Syria-311761
Could MoA commenters please support any statements of fact with links to sources if possible? If people are quoting the results of polls and surveys, I especially would like to know how these surveys are done. Online surveys are different from phone surveys because the people sampled in online surveys are usually younger than the people interviewed in phone surveys, especially if those phone surveys include landline phone surveys. Most people still using landline phones are older people dependent on government social security.
Posted by: Jen | May 3 2018 22:26 utc | 25
Maybe with the NYT story that b refers to regarding U.S. Special Forces targeting Houthis the Senate will have another go at invoking the War Powers Act. It tallied 44 votes in March. This is a no-brainer, right? But as other commentators have noted, brains are very addled in the indispensable nation these days.
Great post b.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | May 3 2018 22:37 utc | 26
Well, if it's not for Full Spectrum Dominance, maybe it's to support the Banksters through their cross-ownership of the Merchants of Death Inc. since Yemen has no money in its central bank. Perhaps the paper Michael Hudson's delivering to a seminar in China might shed some light as to why it's the Banksters.
If it appears I'm moving into psychohistorian's School of Thought as to where the root of our main problem lies, your surmise would be correct. Humanity does have other problems, but as to why the wars and austerity rage, Banksters are clearly to blame.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 3 2018 22:49 utc | 27
@27 karlof1... psychohistorian has been absent lately...
here are a couple of articles on uae ambitions.. one from the economist from about a year ago, that i thought was informative.. and another one
from a half year ago.. the first comment to this article sums up what many here already think.. i quote it below :
"America is the real perpetrator of this war on civilians. Soddy Arabia and the UAE are the enablers (puppets manipulate by America). Sometimes people do not TELL the truth but it can be surmised from their actions. The aims of this war are simply this: 1. Kill Yemanis who do not accept American hegemony. 2. Use proxies so that America does not suffer casualties. 3. As the proxies deplete their munitions, create and expand markets for American surplus armaments. SELL, SELL, SELL; MONEY, MONEY, ARRAAABBB MONEY As the business of America is business, one could surmise that America's ultimate goal is BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES. Death and destruction inflicted is just co-incidental and peripheral to the mission."
meanwhile the masters of propaganda have a daily press briefing today.. the transcript isn't out yet, but i am sure it will be packed with all sorts of falsehoods, suppositions and worse... https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/
Posted by: james | May 3 2018 23:14 utc | 28
If Yemen have an a nuclear bomb like Pakistan they will be respected.
Posted by: OJS | May 3 2018 23:50 utc | 29
The Pentagon is providing “noncombat,” “limited U.S. military support” according to this Mar 14 letter sent by SecDef Mattis to the US Senate leader. Mattis wrote that restricting military support the United States is providing to the Saudi-led coalition “could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our partners on counterterrorism, and reduce our influence with the Saudis — all of which would further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis.”
He urged Congress not to impose restrictions on the “noncombat,” “limited U.S. military support” being provided to Saudi Arabia, which is “engaging in operations in its legitimate exercise of self-defense.”
Mattis = Queen in this Lewis Carroll quote -- Mattis, the Marine Queen!
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 3 2018 23:56 utc | 30
Great post b, to be shared far and wide. I hope Yemen becomes "The graveyard of Empires V2.0." Off topic but does anyone know what the current status is with all the princes held in hostage in Riyadh?
Posted by: Lozion | May 4 2018 0:16 utc | 31
Peter AU,
In fairness US population is probably most heavily propagandized in world with possible exception of PRNK. It would be illuminating to see a break down of that poll by age. I got to say, on the basis of nothing but anecdotal experience, that I think the kids (under 30) are mostly alright. One reason why is that nearly none of them rely on cable or network news or mainstream print publications for their news. This fact is by the way a chief motivating factor in the state's drive to weaponize (domestically control) social media. The 2016 Democratic primary scared the shit out of some VIP and that's no lie.
Posted by: WJ | May 4 2018 0:25 utc | 32
Interesting take:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/chinas-bid-assist-assad-syrian-reconstruction-security-profit.html
Maybe a bit optimistic.
Clearly china ana russia are only in it fot the chicks.
Posted by: Jared | May 4 2018 0:39 utc | 33
Lozion @ 31: AFAIK, one prince or a general who is an aide to a prince has died and 17 others had to be hospitalised.
The prince who died had a broken neck and his body also had signs of physical abuse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-corruption-mohammed-bin-salman.html
Posted by: Jen | May 4 2018 0:40 utc | 34
re: the “noncombat limited U.S. military support" in Yemen
CNN, Mar 1, 2017
Washington -- In a strikingly emotional moment Tuesday night, President Donald Trump turned to the widow of the Navy SEAL killed in a controversial raid in Yemen to laud her husband's sacrifice. Carryn Owens, the widow of Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, garnered 2 minutes and 11 seconds of thunderous, sustained applause when Trump acknowledged her during his joint address to Congress. . .here
wiki: The Raid on Yakla, or simply 2017 Yemen raid, was a United States-led Special Operations Forces operation carried out on January 29, 2017 in al-Ghayil, a village in the Yakla area of the Al Bayda province in central Yemen,[10][11] during the Second Yemeni Civil War. Authorized by President Donald Trump,[12] its goal was to gather intelligence on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and also, as claimed by unnamed sources, targeted the group's leader, Qasim al-Raymi.[7] The operation, the first high level counter-terrorism raid authorized by Trump, did not follow the rigorous planning procedures of the prior two administrations . . .here
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 1:12 utc | 35
Bravo b.
At least one UK paper is shining the light: Daily Express went off script with the headline
From the article, some snips of nuggets:
US troops SECRETLY engaged in Saudi Arabia’s vicious fight in Yemen[.]This contrasts official Pentagon statements, which note that the US military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is limited to intelligence, logistics and aircraft refuelling.
Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the Head of United States Central Command, confirmed this official line, stating: “We are authorised to help the Saudis defend their border.
“We are doing that through intelligence sharing, through logistics support and through military advice that we provide to them.”
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine and member of the Armed Services Committee criticised the action, saying: “The mission is a purposeful blurring of lines between train and equip missions and combat.”
[.]Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst for the Secretary of Defence in the US, commented on US engagement saying: “The US in Yemen is supposed to be going after Al-Qaeda.
He noted there had been virtually no public debate on the issue, and called for a new vote in Congress on the authorisation of military force in war zones, or war powers legislation, as used by the former three successive Presidents.
“Instead they got sucked in to assisting the Saudis because the claim is they’re the Houthis backed by the Iranians.
“That then makes it a slippery slope, and opens the US up to greater involvement than they intended.
“What the Trump administration lacks is a strategic plan for the Middle East. What is its ultimate goal? And that has not yet been defined.”
This comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Sunday reiterated the threat from Iran, and accused the country of supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Mr Maloof also believes Saudi Arabia’s demand for US assistance in the region is a means of shoring up Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government and avoiding internal political insecurity.
He said: “The US is helping Saudi Arabia perpetuate an external threat - namely the Houthis and Iran - in order to deflect attention away from Saudi Arabia’s domestic problem, which is the potential for a coup.”
And as always, follow the money trail. There is the need to protect KSA oil reserves. No KSA oil impacts the metro-dollar.
It is a grab for Yemen's oil to replenish KSA's depleted reservoirs. View the map. After 70 years of extraction they'd have us believe KSA's reserves remain static at 270 billion barrels. There is that Aramco IPO in cue, never mind the 2030 dream of MbS.
Posted by: Likklemore | May 4 2018 1:33 utc | 36
Totally off topic but interesting never the less.
Al Masdar News is reporting that CBS is reporting that the State Department has cut off funding to the Anglo-American propaganda black op known as The White Helmets. I suspect the British government is too poor to replace the State Department funding.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 4 2018 1:33 utc | 37
@james,#17 I emailed my own as well. In my experience MPs are told how to vote and given only information thought necessary by their minders. Most know diddly squat about international affairs. Well organized lobbies clean up with little opposition.
Posted by: John Gilberts | May 4 2018 1:33 utc | 38
Ghost Ship @37,
That's interesting because this morning Sputnik was reporting on the basis of a "source" that preparations for another false flag chemical attack are already underway.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201805031064111580-deir-ez-zor-chemical-attack-provocation/
Posted by: WJ | May 4 2018 1:42 utc | 39
@peter AU 32
On the contrary IMO. The young in the US have been subjected to intense propaganda in the government controlled schools which includes foundation and government funded universities. While they do have access to non MSM news many of them simply use their internet access to stream entertainment. Also, with social media being heavily censored and many so call alt news sites self censoring to avoid the censors at Google and FB, you sort of need to know where to go for truth since Googles not helping you much anymore.
Being young they have little frame of reference to combat the Orwellian Babble that conspiracy theories should never be entertained. Obviously, like in any age group there are those who escape the Matrix, but they have far less tools/experience to do so and most are struggling just to afford internet access while still paying off student loans and facing sky high rents, except for those still living with their wealthy parents in which case they have less of a reason to break out of The Matrix .
Maybe I am wrong but my nephew and nieces dont give me much hope of that
Posted by: Pft | May 4 2018 1:51 utc | 40
I think you're responding to me. I don't discount what you say about their being relatively checked out. (Can you blame them?) But it is significant that almost every single one of them who is at least minimally politically aware was a Bernie Sanders supporter. That is significant, and for me a faint sign of hope. (Another being that they're all mostly "over" capitalism, which is what happens when you enforce debt serfdom upon an entire generation for the privilege of earning the single most important credential for obtaining the best paying of the low-paying jobs that no longer exist.)
Posted by: WJ | May 4 2018 2:04 utc | 41
the yemeni like the syriana lebannese gaza folks is need to be removed kinder transported to scotand wales london,norway,detroit and canuckstan.
non of these people are semite they are gypsy raggle taggle.if you read the talmud it states clearly that the askhanazi of khazaria where the first peoples here hare here.
the uk and usa must move these interlopers these cookoo
oded yinon is a big idea that needs roome to grow.
the donmeh house of saud are doing great work for th real semites of eastern europe indeed my life already.
shirley you folks understand sometimes it is better to be cruel to be kind making an omelette needs cracked eggs.
the gayman running canada needs fresh meat so does rabbi terry treason may of londonistan let the yemeni be free to transport
Posted by: charles drakes | May 4 2018 2:14 utc | 42
@34 Txs Jen, I remember that from March. Wondering whats happening now considering last week's bizarre shoot 'em up drone episode in Wahabistan's capital..
Posted by: Lozion | May 4 2018 2:15 utc | 43
>>>> WJ | May 3, 2018 9:42:51 PM | 39
As far as I know the White Helmets have only been associated with "moderate" Islamists like Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo governorates while Deir Ez-zor has been ISIS territory for some years. If the White Helmets really are working with ISIS then they are desperate and the Anglo-American black propaganda op is falling apart. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 4 2018 2:18 utc | 44
a sobering article if you ever made one, b. The war in Yemen is disgracefully not reported on anymore in the MSM. Neither is the suffering of Syria.
But at least the veils have come off now, most people with an IQ above room temperature, can see the the deeper intentions of the Imperialistic states: the US, Israel and their poodles UAE, Britain and France. A change will not happen before the populations in these barbaric places recognizes that the people is not in charge.
A change is needed. Msybe they should look at Russia, 1917-1918 to get an idea, on how to do it. We the people will not attain any form of self rule, with the Hegemon US, dictating rules and terms to us. The EU might change that, not because of fluffy "red" ideas as mine, but because of pure selfish intentions and and objectives. The EU IS departing from the the US fascistic alliance, slowly but steadily, the US fascistic Empire has done nothing good since the Marshall plan, which was good in intent, but was capered into something else.
Frau Merkel is the first objectionist, although not radical enough to my taste, she still opposes the uni polar world.
We will not see change before the dimwits in above mentioned states force a regime change. The US is the first target, the populace being ever more stupid and pliable mass media can make a huge impact; imagine Kardashians declaring themselves communists, it would affect the nation..
Meanwhile we in Europe try to regain power, ejecting Blairism from our socialistic parties, sometimes substitutred by strong nationalistic parties, (Hungary)so be it!Peoples choice and all.
But I did not choose a foreign policy made the Evil Empire and I reject it and I reject the Evil Empire and its poodle or master, Israel.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe | May 4 2018 2:20 utc | 45
One tidbit I didn't see in the good as usual posting nor in the comments so far is that in September 2015, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, was elected Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council panel that appoints independent experts. Saudi Arabia is not represented on the UN Human rights Council at this time but it just shows how hypocritical the UN circus can be.
I am appreciating reading all the discussion about the core elements of our social contract, finance and money. It is also nice to see others agreeing about the beneficial effects of making all finance a public utility which I continue to assert would occur. And thanks to Grieved with his ongoing prose about the paradigm change that he is now watching occur.
I am busy getting ready to sell my home in Portland and move to a smaller college town to the South a bit and so my commenting will be lighter for a while.
Thanks again to b for his ongoing efforts to educate the masses of zombies waking up from the brainwashing and propaganda and commenters here that increase the level of knowledge and depth of understanding about the nuances of our world and its/our history.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 4 2018 2:20 utc | 46
What kind of evil has possessed the US and poodles? Seems like a killing extravaganza. Like a dog that kills his first chicken will continue to kill the rest until he is put down.
Horrible.
Posted by: ken | May 4 2018 2:23 utc | 47
@ psychohistorian 46
I don't know why you posted about Saudi and "human rights," if it referred to Yemen or not. The term when used by the U.S. in its annual human rights report describes the HR situation in various countries as Washington sees it. It has nothing to do with one country exercising its military against human rights in other countries, it's only domestic. So Saudi killing people in Yemen would not be included. And of course there is nothing in the U.S. State report about the U.S. acting against HR anywhere, domestic or international. So one could surmise from this that humans in other countries, to the aggressors, have no rights. The term "human rights" doesn't apply to them.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 2:57 utc | 48
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 3, 2018 4:28:10 PM | 12
re polls saying US citizens support war in Syria.
I would view such posts with a very large dose of salt. Keep in mind that according to CNN's recent poll, US's UN Nikki is the most admired woman in the US.I doubt that 1 out of 1000 even know she is alive.
I view most of the polls as manufacturing consent, nothing more and when they do turn up I tend to suspect that the truth is far different. Remember Trump was elected because he said he would end wars, not ramp them up.
Posted by: frances | May 4 2018 3:03 utc | 49
MSM doesn't cover this. That's not the agenda. It's kept below the radar. As to any Peace Nobel, US presidents don't deserve any. They should demand Obama return his and not consider Trump unless he changed tune in the ME.
Yep, contractors love wars. I exhausted myself reading about the contractor misdeeds in the Iraqi debacle.
Posted by: Curtis | May 4 2018 3:09 utc | 50
@ Jen
The figuers I quoted were Fox. Others differ slightly But the majority of Americans support the strikes. Hurrah for democracy.
Apologies in advance for messing up page width.
http://www.newsweek.com/majority-us-voters-backs-trumps-syria-strikes-also-think-they-wont-work-poll-891146
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-military-involvement-in-syria-2017-4?r=US&IR=T
http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/syria/
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/poll-syria-missile-strikes-237067
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 3:20 utc | 51
wj and pft, I see what you are saying, but when it comes to murder, on a large scale, this defence of people just being sheep, bleating in agreement with the rest of the mob doesn't cut it.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 3:28 utc | 52
Re: Nobel
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Norway, as chosen by the Swedish Nobel, who invented dynamite. Norway is sort of like Australia, a U.S. puppet. The U.S. has Marines there now, to maintain the status quo. Needless to say, this might promote Trump's chances over some citizen of a less fortunate country.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 3:41 utc | 53
As I started reading this post on Yemen
the question of this 10.000 deads of aging accuracy was proeminent in my mind, recently I read a 35.000 estimate also very unsatisfactory.
So thanks B for providing a much more credible death-toll: 70.000 directly killed by bombing and an estimate 100.000 by the blockade.
I kept in mind the 500.000 Iraki children 'worth it' under Bill Clinton raids and sanctions.
We all have read daily body-count in Syria tending now to 500.000 and counting.
Yemen seems to be one third of the way.
Posted by: Charles Michael | May 4 2018 4:01 utc | 54
US sheeples, who alone amongst the five eyes, have the right to bear arms, bleating in agreement with the wolves.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 4:02 utc | 55
And the cholera.
Oct 12, 2017 - Experts predict fastest-spreading cholera epidemic since records began will affect at least 1 million people by turn of year, including at least 600000 children. ... likely to be affected. The World Health Organization has reported more than 815,000 suspected cases of the disease in Yemen and 2,156 deaths.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 4:04 utc | 56
@37 ghostship.. thanks... that reminds me when the usa said they were no longer funding blackwater - maybe it was sometime after the fallujah episode.. blackwater just changed their name and i am sure the beat continues here too... it will be the same bullshit deal with the white helmets, if the story is even 1/2ways true... these con artists are always happy to sell whatever they have.. maybe the white helmets will get a new name or facelift and they will continue to be supported by the usa/uk, just the same way the usa/uk continues to support these saudi/uae monkeys with laptopd - wahabbi whackjobs in their war and murder in yemen.. the usa/uk haven't a shred of integrity and i wouldn't trust a word coming out of either of their countries msm..
meanwhile - the usa is setting this up..
"QUESTION: (Inaudible.) Thank you so much. You had a statement yesterday that the Department of State is establishing a Global Engagement Center technology series regarding foreign propaganda." too bad, they can't apply it to their own propaganda, starting with the usa 'un-daily' press briefings..
@38 john gilberts.. that sounds about right.. canucks by and large, remain ignorant of the world.. i was reading an article that linked to the globe - bill browder bullshit.. one of the comments to the article (you have to subscribe to make a comment online now!) was baffled why the article was even written.. obviously they don't know how the hate fest on russia must continue... bill browder and crystia freeland will be given a regular platform to voice their disgust at all things russian.. meanwhile, canucks will remain steeped in ignorance...
speaking of which - patrick armstrong did a good article that others here would enjoy - No, Your Intelligence Is Actually Bad. Very Bad...
Posted by: james | May 4 2018 4:04 utc | 57
@27 karlof1
Thanks for those two links. The Michael Hudson essay is totally superb, a fine distillation of economic history that is eminently readable. It culminates in his call to China to create a new accounting format to measure how well its socialist capitalism manages its balancing of economic activities to further the public good. Apparently it's to be delivered Friday-Saturday time fame. I hope it strikes a great chord.
It's off topic and I'll try to revisit the link with more summary in an open thread, but for those who wish to understand money and debt and the forces that manage these things, it would be hard to beat this: “Creating Wealth” through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road
As to the other article - why do people give such lousy headlines that don't indicate the true subject of the work? I've seen this article listed in other sites but not read it because I didn't realize it was about sovereign money - and the US bombing that ensues from a nation's attempt to create same: I Know Which Country The US Will Invade Next
~~
Maybe these articles are not quite so off-topic with regard to Yemen. Rapacious greed and plunder are at the root of the situation, perhaps playing on KSA's fear of its future diminishing revenues.
I've called the love of money the root of all evil not just because Jesus made the concept famous to everyone, but also because self-reflection persuades me that greed is the most amoral of all the emotions. Greed completely shuts off empathy for others, and neutralizes conscience, in all people - of whatever psychology - whom it gets the better of.
Angry people may kill a few others. Greedy people will kill millions. Greed is terrible, a social killer.
Posted by: Grieved | May 4 2018 4:12 utc | 58
Yemen's people have exuded this unconquerable spirit for centuries. It is why the anglo-amerikan division of the peninsular occured the way it did. The wahabist arseholes of the el-Saud clan were by far the most warlike in the North but they knew better than to include the South in the new imperialist created state.
True so-called sunni followers of Islam probably slightly outnumbered the other sects in the South, maintaining that divide was essential further North where the oil was under the traditional lands of Shi'ite families, but the englanders (at that stage were determined to hang on to the Port of Aden and its surroundings) and that tipped the balance of potential Southern wahabist recruits for Saudi in the wrong direction, so the saud arseholes conspired with england to play it differently, to divide the South with a long term tribal/civil war which ran for decades in one form or another before ordinary shitkicker Yemen citizens merged into one state and arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that all the people of Yemen had more in common with each other than they did with el-Saud & their minions or with USuk thieves & murderers.
As you can see after a quick shufti at this far from objective piece here published back in 2015, prior to Ansar Allah's largely peaceful consolidation of Yemenis opposed to colonial occupation, Yemen had more sides than a tetrahedron.
I am a big time Houthi (more correctly, Ansar Allah) supporter who like many others enjoys any YouTube clip of 'Houthis' beating Saudi troops like they were an old tin drum (it is increasingly hard to access the clips with all sorts of pop up from you-tube appearing to tell a viewer the bloody nature of the subject plus inferences one needs to be logged into a google account to access them [not true]).
The people in the North of the sovereign state of Yemen won many conflicts prior to Saudi interference. They creamed a wide range of opponents from an old school stalinist southern government to the englander arse-kissers of Aden, because they enjoy popular support, do not wantonly butcher those who have been pressed into opposing them and they strive to speak truth.
However opposition to the Saudi forces and the emirates forces encompass pretty much all of Yemen's population regardless of creed or clan because the horrific nature of Saudi/UAE butchery is there for all to see - every day this horror continues the less is the likelihood of Saudi finding a puppet regime of Yemen citizens. One who wouldn't be lynched by every other citizen. The little prince is too stupid to comprehend that reality and since the conflict is at a stalemate the swathe of distractions from the massacre of Yemen is lessening all the time.
The average human can see that the empire has been defeated in Syria and that it won't be long before that is 'all over, red rover'.
The only alternative is to crank up the israel/Iraq bizzo, but even the most aggressive neocon lacks the stomach for getting involved in yet another unwinnable war. Without direct support from amerika, israel would get knocked off the map real quick should it get into an overt blue with Iran.
The yahoo may have papered the front of the idf house with likudnutz, but I doubt many of the actual military leaders in the idf believe the zionist state can dick iran, an the attempt to paint israel into a corner where a war is inevitable is likely be obstructed by those types.
That is a pity, if one can ignore the numbers of innocent Iranians who would certainly die (I cannot) the notion of the zionist state drowning in the blood which zionists spilled over the decades, is appealing.
Yemen's pain eventually making it to the top of western lists of the most horrific example of imperial derpitude & greed is inevitable and when that happens the sauds getting their arses kicked is also certain.
For me, Yemen has always been the epitome of the cruel sickness at the heart of imperialism. I first learned of the place when I read a story about the son of one of Yemen's tribal leaders (aka 'a prince') attending Eton in an englander boys magazine (Lion or Eagle I cannot remember which) when I was a kid myself. The story was fiction but fact based. The Brits were 'encouraging' Yemen's clan leaders to send their heirs to englander public schools. If pushed about why they did this, the brits would have claimed it was for the next generation to learn about the west i.e. indoctrination, but the boys' families would have considered the arrangement to have been a hostage situation of the type empires have been visiting upon the oppressed since the days of the Roman empire, probably longer.
Fuck the fuckers
Posted by: Debsisdead | May 4 2018 4:25 utc | 59
Angry people may kill a few others. Greedy people will kill millions. Greed is terrible, a social killer.
Capitalism,greed is the embodiment of the US. It creates innovation, but it also creates what the US is today.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 4:26 utc | 60
From late last year: The Houthis: Revolutionaries Pegged as Religious Extremists
Posted by: George Lane | May 4 2018 4:33 utc | 61
@ Grieved 58
Greed doesn't necessarily involve killing, it might lead to philanthropy as with Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc. There are many entrepreneurs who are making money by providing something that people need. That's basic to capitalism.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 4:35 utc | 62
Debsisdead
I talked to a person who had worked as a nurse in Yemen. Her opinion of the people there was they were very mild and considerate. She liked Yemen.
As you say, Fuck the fuckers.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 4:40 utc | 63
It seems to be "the thing" currently to regard what used to be called patriots and freedom fighters as terrorists. It fits the format. The Houthis are resisting Saudi aggression, as they have been doing for generations, yet now they are referred to as terrorists and Iranian pawns (even worse).
In Afghanistan, the people that the US displaced from government (Taliban), who of course are resisting the US, are insurgents and terrorists.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 4 2018 4:43 utc | 64
64
AQ are US freedom fighters. Sometimes foolish islamists start to advance in the ranks of AQ but they get droned.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 5:01 utc | 65
One wonders if the recent crash of a US military plane in Georgia was a deliberately orchestrated event to hide the deaths of US servicemen in places the US would rather not acknowledge they were present, such as Yemen. The Hercules plane was to be decommissioned in Arizona so it was expendable.
Posted by: Ike | May 4 2018 5:24 utc | 66
Somewhere I have the geophysical report, like those that USGS released *after* the occupation of Afghanistan, but this wasn't USGS, it's a private international geophysics expert saying the subsurface geology of Yemen could hold a vast quantity of oil and gas recoverable with fracking.
At the time I was researching Afghanistan, and remember thinking flippantly, oh, Yemen's the Next Great Oil War.
My new job is 30 minutes commute now, instead of research from a home office, it's like those 9/11 dream sequences, looking at the dense pack of vehicles trapped in a 20mph commute, just so they can live in glued-chipboard houses and eat GMO corn byproducts and die under staggering debt and slave wages, leaving nothing for their children, who will live to see the end of oil and gas soin, after an impossible century of oil wealth *more vast than all the centuries before it, combined*, ...and where did it go?
Where did it go? The Conquest of Bread. Kropotkin. Wherevdid all that vast wealth disappear to?
"It's not under here" (mimes looking under lecturn)
APPLAUD!
Posted by: Chipnik | May 4 2018 5:38 utc | 67
@ Chipnik with his contribution of angst.
Some of us didn't make children to try and play mime to........but still believe that humanities children deserve better than we have... and share that belief with others.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 4 2018 6:23 utc | 68
I see in Syria, Russia has been able to separate the sheep from the wolves and send the wolves to amageddon in green buses.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 4 2018 6:33 utc | 69
The Yemenis are held hostages by the coalition. Since the beginning of the conflit, less than 1 plane a week was leaving Sanaa for Amman, very expensive tickets and full months in advance. After the airport was made useless, flights leave from Aden, very few too and under strict control (coming and leaving) of KSA.
All the civil servants in areas that are not considered as in full control of the KSA/UAE/Western coalition have not been paid since 3 years. These people are easy to identify and therefore they do not speak openly about it. In Sanaa people are afraid to speak on the phone because they have seen that people who participated the reconciliation conference (i.e. from different groups not only the Houthis) have started to be assassinated.
Posted by: Mina | May 4 2018 7:03 utc | 70
On the first moonless Saturday night of Trump's Presidency, an Osama-bin-Laden-assassination-style "raid" took place against 2 extended families in the tiny, unelectrified hamlet of al Ghayil Yemen (part of Yakla township)--involving the same night-vision-goggled SEAL-Team 6 who had "heroically" machine-gunned a night-blinded Osama in his pitch-black bedroom. The SEALs followed the same "Kill-them-while-they-can't-see" tactic in al Ghayil. Among those shot was an adorable, little American-Yemeni girl, Nawa al-Awlaki (see Google Images)--the 8-year-old daughter of alleged American terrorist, Amwar al-Awlaki, whom Obama had killed back in 2011--if only to establish the legal precedent that Presidents can kill anyone they please--even American citizens--without a jury trial. Just on the President's say-so. Obama then followed up that war crime by killing Anwar's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (see Google Images)--just 2 weeks later. The massive al-Ghayil "raid," by contrast, Obama cleverly planned to take place on the first moonless night of the NEXT President's term. (Go figure.) Yep. Starting in October, 2016, 4 months before his successor took office, Obama began assembling a whole vast armada of Harrier jets, AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters, and Osprey aircraft on warships off the Yemeni coast to be "on hand" when the SEALs radioed they were "pinned down," and needed an armada to wipe the tiny hamlet off the map. (Shades of Vietnam.) What's unusual about Nawa's death is that it took 2 full hours for her to bleed to death from a fairly minor neck wound. At the same time, 6 wounded SEALs were quickly medevaced out to the USS Makon Island--which boasts the finest trauma hospital and teams of trauma surgeons in the US Navy (See Google Images.) Why was Nawa not medevaced out with them? She was conscious. She spoke American-English. And she was an American. Gen. Joseph Votel, the Centcom Commander, could see her and speak to her if he pleased through multiple audio-video feeds. He had been placed in command of the mission by Trump before he retired for the night to watch Saturday Night Live. Why did Votel refuse to let the SEALS send her out to the Makon Island? Stop her bleeding even? She looked like every SEAL's kid sister. Was Votel acting on Obama's orders? Trump's? Either way, Votel clearly committed 1st degree here in refusing this sweet child all medical treatment for 2 hours straight. Yet the Intercept will not investigate. I've begged both Glen Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill repeatedly by email to look into the case. But neither will even answer me. They will pay no price. Those SEALs will pay the price. I know from working with Vets that one or more of those SEALs may someday pay "the ultimate price" for following Votel's illegal orders rather than doing what they could to save little Nawa's life--or die trying. That is the US in Yemen.
Posted by: Dr. Bill Wedin | May 4 2018 7:26 utc | 71
Dr. Bill Wedin, What is your source for this horrific report? Lots of detail!
Posted by: Quentin | May 4 2018 8:45 utc | 72
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-april-30-2018/
interview with Isa Blumi who wrote the book
Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World
Professor Isa Blumi argues that the war in Yemen today has been mischaracterized as a civil war, and instead, he says is a war over the empire and international finance, with a deep colonial history that stretches back to the Ottoman empire, the British empire and currently the American empire.
Isa Blumi is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.
Posted by: anon | May 4 2018 9:28 utc | 73
Peter AU 1 @ 51: Thanks for the links. I've looked at all four and noticed three of them (Business Insider Australia, Pew Research Center, Politico.com) are dated April 2017 so they refer to the US public response to the US firing of Tomahawk missiles after the alleged Khan Sheykhoun CW attack then. Recall then that quite a number of those missiles didn't reach their targets.
Posted by: Jen | May 4 2018 11:26 utc | 75
Just mention the nation Yemen and my blood starts to boil. I'm finding it difficult to even read any articles about it. Don't those UN bureaucrats, and their supporters, not see that their inaction will eventually invalidate the UN itself? As dan@7 stated, I can't wait for Karma come knocking on their door.
Posted by: Ian | May 4 2018 12:09 utc | 76
Ghostship @44
I hope you're right about defunding the White Helmet BS.
I think serious funding for the CIA in Syria has been cut for awhile. Looking at the massive tunnels under some of the terrorist controlled cities I think they could have held out for longer.
I see Israel/M16/CIA as being the major offenders in Syria. Not an easy trio to stand down overnight. I see the Skirpal affair and the recent Israeli air strikes as attempts to keep this trio alive.
--------------
((Interesting. Somewhat early on, the Trump presidency was seen as a battle of forces loyal to Trump (Marines) vs the deep state (CIA). What's actually happening? Syria is clearing terrorists out of East Ghouta while US and Israel basically stay on the sidelines. Peace seems possible in Korea.
To achieve similar goals on the domestic front he will have to overcome the banking and insurance industries to cancel student debt and install single payer medical care.
Posted by: financial matters | Mar 10, 2018 6:32:42 AM | 63))
Posted by: financial matters | May 4 2018 12:32 utc | 77
10,000 deaths never seem to increase
... and cholera deaths remain frozen at 2,000 for about a year.
I can understand why the UN and the other stooges keep a lid on these numbers but I don't understand how the non-profits, who are not infiltrated by USAID, aid agencies like the Oxford Group and Red Crescent don't talk about 'starvation related deaths'. Perhaps they are worried that the KSA thugs will totally cut off what little access they have to Yemen.
Posted by: Christian Chuba | May 4 2018 13:33 utc | 78
it most certainly is not mission creeps already.
the donmeh house of saud qatari emirates various other secret rabbinical sects of arabi have a pilot promlem tis all.
operational logistics crew rotations from the hard brutal slog of dropping depleted uranium bombs and missiles on yemeni gypsy requires tens of thousands of man hours.
shirley this clean up is vital why not polish,norway,canuckstan and aussie usa usa and team uk and israeli pilots already.
israeli pilot bombing ancient history erasing world heritage sites for a new bbc history of the world is vital.
iraqi,syriana and yemeni have way to much history complex and convoluted with all these folks moved to canuckstan norway dublin and detroit the ashkanazim can write a new history better improved and with full seal certification chabad
yes sir a new jerusalem already it heres
Posted by: charles drakes | May 4 2018 13:52 utc | 79
I know a few post grad students from Yemen. They are all very aggressive people with their insistence on wearing traditional daggers, but that doesn't mean that the country deserves to be ethnically cleansed.
Posted by: mischi | May 4 2018 14:04 utc | 80
it will not be ethinic cleaning it will be humaine transport of the kinder sorts bransons virgin atlantic could be used well his rothschild boeings could be.
dublin needs yemeni
like syriana the prime specimimin could be used for live organ dealings as per usual channels camp bond steel kosovo then onto hospital ships off the coast of haiti.these great and the good transplant ships are crying out for fresh living organs already.
i here madaline albright needs blood,heart and bladder replacement therapy urgent so why nots.
as barbera bush daughter of aleister the beast crowley once said if the meat is clean use it for evil
Posted by: charles drakes | May 4 2018 14:20 utc | 81
68
'Humanities children' deserve the 'free life' of the Rohinga, the 'full bellies' of the Potato Eaters, the 'happy camp' of the Ghost Dancers.
American youth are experiencing homelessness and joblessness like no time since the Panic of 1898.
When I drive my nice SUV to the manicured bike trail with my fancy mountain bike, I ride past their tent camps under every freeway overpass.
When I leave my nice beach cottage to hike the urban trails, I find their abandoned tarps, clothes, luggage, childrens toys, rotting in the sodden forest duff.
And when I walk over by the main drag, I see their broken cars lining the streets outside old ramblers converted to flophouses, 4, 5, 7 people crammed into 1000sf.
Twice I looked to rent in flophouses with no furniture whatsover, just an empty house, mattresses on the floor, and a smiling landlord, rubbing their hands.
So when I speak of the vast disappeared oil wealth, and ask wherebthevwealth of ages disappeared to, and point the bankrupt future ahead, even more bankrupt when oil rationing begins, do you doubt me? It's not angst, it's reportage. It's reality.
You need to get out of your comfort zone, and start hanging around those humanities children, for real. The future for them is Allen Ginsberg's Howl. We are doing nothing to improve that here on MoA's Gentlemen's Club.
Posted by: Chipnik | May 4 2018 14:22 utc | 83
must listen on yemen
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-april-30-2018/
Posted by: Mina | May 4 2018 14:28 utc | 84
Santions ruined the Russian economy. Deripaska, who was close to Putin, was replaced as chief of Rusal as demanded by the US.
Putin is capitulating and blocked S-300 for Syria as demanded by Israel.
Putin is giving up and now looks at mending fences with West to revive Russia’s ailing economy
https://archive.is/1Ynms#selection-1641.0-1641.66
Posted by: Sea Breeze | May 4 2018 14:36 utc | 85
>>>> Christian Chuba | May 4, 2018 9:33:45 AM | 78
Aah, USAID (United States Agency for Installing Dictators), the one that trained the Shah of Iran's SAVAK torturers
The CIA helped train the Iranian security services in torture techniques, techniques borrowed, as in the case of Pinochet’s Chile, from the experienced experts, the Nazis. Every year 350 SAVAK agents were taken to CIA training facilities in Virginia, where they learned interrogation and torture. Top SAVAK brass were trained through the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Public Safety Program. SAVAK created torture prisons that outdid Dante’s Hell. The CIA filmed techniques it had taught SAVAK to use and made them available to torture centers in other countries.
A "Public Safety Program"? Brilliant doublespeak.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 4 2018 14:42 utc | 86
chipnik @ 86
Instead of striking such a high and mighty righteous tone about poor, desperate people while flashing all your expensive bing, virtue signalling about your superiority, maybe you could tell us what you are doing to improve the lot of these people. I doubt whether you 'hang around' with them as you seem to suggest the posters at MoA should do. Or do you? Now be honest, please.
Posted by: Quentin | May 4 2018 14:56 utc | 87
chipnik @ 83 --- not 86. I made a mistake in my previous post.
Posted by: Quentin | May 4 2018 14:57 utc | 88
78
How do you know they are not infiltrated by USAID (CIA)?
77
As it stands, Trump is a trickle-downer, public ed defunder and an environmental disaster. Plus a new Gubmint Religion Committee. Tax restructuring favors the rich with school tuition expenses deductible while student loans are not deductible expenses.
Posted by: fastfreddy | May 4 2018 15:12 utc | 89
Don Bacon & Grieved @62--
I think an important distinction must be made regarding the term Capitalism primarily because it's made by Marx, Hudson, and other astute economists--There are two types: Financial and Industrial Capitalism. It is Financial Capitalism that's acting as a massive parasite on all and particularly Industrial Capitalism. The Paper Hudson's presenting in China contains a very descriptive analysis of how Finance Capitalism overthrew Industrial Capitalism that's unfortunately too long to excerpt here; so, this bit will have to suffice:
"Classical tax and banking policies were expected to streamline industrial economies, lowering their cost structures as governments replaced landlords as owner of the land and natural resources (as in China today) and creating their own money and credit. But despite Marx’s understanding that this would have been the most logical way for industrial capitalism to evolve, finance capitalism has failed to fund capital formation. Finance capitalism has hijacked industrial capitalism, and neoliberalism is its anti-classical ideology.
"The result of today’s alliance of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector with natural resource and infrastructure monopolies has been to reverse that the 20th century’s reforms promoting progressive taxation of wealth and income. Industrial capitalism in the West has been detoured along the road to rent-extracting privatization, austerity and debt serfdom."
Long ago--late 1970s--when learning about the nature of IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs and what they were designed to do to a nation--recolonize it--it dawned on me that eventually those of us in "advanced" Western nations would soon be attacked by that same beast as those behind the IMF's SAPs have greed knowing no end and comprise an Evil darker than any before imagined. It's this Evil Beast the emerging Multipolar Alliance will need to defeat for humanity to have an opportunity at a dignified future. To that end, Pepe Escobar today reports that the new government Putin will form/announce on 5 May will amount to a Stavka--a war Cabinet--apparently influenced by the John Helmer piece from 2016 he links to.
One other note, Pepe provided a link to the latest Valdai Discussion Club meet that just concluded in Shanghai.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 4 2018 16:29 utc | 90
@73
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-april-30-2018/
Just listened to the Isa Blumi interview, excellent historical survey, compares Yemen to the beginnings of vietnam, a peoples resistance nowhere close to the shia-sunni caricature...
The Yemeni situation is a human obscenity, comparable only to the Palestinian situation in the weakness of the victims and the ruthlessness of the opressors..without even the decades of hasbara obfuscation of the israeli, the US-UK complicity is blatant as is their playing of the al-Sauds. as trump said (approximately) about the Sauds - we must take their money.. or about iraq - why didnt we take their oil ?
Posted by: anon | May 4 2018 16:46 utc | 91
karlof1 and Grieved
If you like Hudson's writings (I'm a big long time fan), you might enjoy Bill Mitchell also. Here's a link to an article about groupthink and the Europhile left. Hopefully not too OT.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39212#more-39212
Posted by: spudski | May 4 2018 17:24 utc | 92
blizter is a zionist,straight from zionist land.ugh.polls smolls.
Posted by: dahoit | May 4 2018 18:02 utc | 93
spudski @92--
Thanks for that introduction. That blog post is quite good and informs in several important areas. Here's Lavrov in an interview from yesterday. You'll note the escalation in rhetorical force throughout as the initial question indicates:
"Question: Can an armed confrontation flare up between Russia and Western countries?
"Sergey Lavrov: Unfortunately, the global situation is becoming more tense and less predictable. We have repeatedly noted that this situation is, first of all, the result of never-ending unilateral US actions and those Western countries that have been subjugated by the United States. This is a small group of countries, which account for an insignificant share of the world’s population but which are trying to preserve medieval-style domination in global affairs. They are hampering the objective process of establishing a polycentric system of international relations.
"They are inciting a confrontation, creating an atmosphere of mistrust and strategic uncertainty, and freezing the channels for dialogue. They are creating situations when the price of a bluff or a mistake can assume global proportions.
"Russia would like to hope that common sense will prevail on the other side. Despite our different positions, we are jointly responsible for the future wellbeing of the entire human race and for the effective resolution of key issues facing the world today.
"But common sense implies the ability of the Western leaders to act responsibly and predictably, to unfailingly honour international law while relying on the UN Charter. We have been increasingly forced to question this ability recently."
I know a lot of hatred exists for the UN by MoA folk, but it is the only existing institution we have to work with, and its founding principles are sound, although they've been hijacked.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 4 2018 18:18 utc | 94
karlof1 @94
Thanks for the link. Lavrov's tone is refreshing, to me at least.
Posted by: spudski | May 4 2018 19:09 utc | 95
@80
I know a few post grad students from Yemen. They are all very aggressive people with their insistence on wearing traditional daggers, but that doesn't mean that the country deserves to be ethnically cleansed.
WTf ?! How does that relate to the biggest humanitarian crises in history ?
These people are better than you and me because they live in conditions you can't even begin to imagine and they still fight and have faith eventhough the whole world has abandonned them and worse you come here(supossedly informed about whats really going on ) and you judge them and degrade them.
Well how about this , its your culture "civilised western culture" thats ethnically cleansing and starving millions of people blocking any food or medicine from going in the country,you have created the apocalypse for these innocent people for no other reason than keeping the weel of your bloody repugnant economy going.
I hope you know that one day we will be judged on our acts and stands and that even after being told that your goverment has been murdering children without impunity for 3 years all you have to say is that these people are agressive and have a backwards culture and the only thing you can focus on is them being "the other" and not the fact that your own goverment has deceived you and is busy crushing a whole innocent country
Posted by: zaky | May 4 2018 21:20 utc | 96
Re White Hemet defunding --
I believe that the publicized 'defunding' has occurred because the Americans have been tipped off that the OPCW found no chlorine and therefore the 'gas attack' was faked -- a pre-emptive defensive posture.
Posted by: chet380 | May 5 2018 0:42 utc | 97
97
no no no
tipped off this is not some tv show these are honorable peoples here hare here shirley you cannot be so anti semetick about this.
the white helmets are supported by team uk,norway,qatar,the donmeh house of saud and turkey they have 100s of million in swiss bank accounts.
these are probably the greatest emergency service in the world today mayy demon and george clone e and angelina hail satan jollie are all fans
even jewish male actor julia roberts loves them.
no other group is at the cutting edge of shaping perceptions than tavistocks finest white hellmutts.
the cia will still fund if the state dept cuts it off funds in the 100s of millions have also been given to bell pottinger,anaq news and site intel groups rita katz.
every day the white helmets video tape and rescue actors adult and child move the dead around for lighting and art direction reasons.
the wite helmets should get this years peace prize along with jewish crypto guy running mi6 cia city of london owned saudi arabia
yes sir
Posted by: charles drake | May 5 2018 2:26 utc | 98
Re: 71
Thanks to all who responded to my comment #71 about the 1st degree murder of Nawar al Awlaki (see Google Images) in the predawn hours of Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, by Gen. Joseph Votel, CentCom Commander (see Google Images), to whom Trump had had delegated operational command of the al Ghayil (or Yakla) raid, while Trump watched Saturday Night Live and chugged cheeseburgers. What a happy sight! But if the buck doesn’t stop till it gets up to Trump, he could be found guilty of at least one "high crime and misdemeanor" by even a Republican Senate. Namely, 1st degree murder of an innocent, 8-year-old American girl. For the basic facts are not in dispute. Nawar was conscious for almost her whole ordeal. She spoke American-English well. And she was an American citizen. And yet she was deliberately denied all medical treatment with the clear intent of killing her (as no SEAL could be forced to shoot such a sweet child at point-blank range), instead of following the Geneva Convention and medevacing her out to the USS Makin Island (NOT "Makon" Island as I typed last night at 3 AM)--with its 6 state-of-the-art ORs, staffed by the finest trauma surgeons in the Navy. If it were further established that Nawar was on Obama’s selected "kill list" for the raid, that would certainly constitute additional evidence of premeditation. But none is needed. The very fact that it took Nawar 2 hours to die is sufficient proof of intent to commit homicide, I believe. The only real obstacle to impeachment here is whether Congress is prepared to challenge any President's right to inflict collective capital punishment on an alleged terrorist's family—even if that President is Trump. That I tend to doubt. As for what are my sources? Last night, between 1 and 3 AM, I just wrote from memory. A year ago, when news first broke of Nawar’s hideously protracted death, I read and watched everything I possibly could about the so-called “raid” and the vast armada of Navy ships and warplanes that just happened to be “on hand” (from home ports as far away as Japan) when the SEALS supposedly got “pinned down” and needed horrendous firepower to wipe out the whole hamlet, along with every sheep, goat, and donkey the people owned. (Shades of My Lai.) At that time, I found the best sources on Nawar to be: the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s 2/9/17 report, “Nine young children killed: The full details of botched US raid in Yemen;” Iona Craig’s 3/9/17 report in The Intercept, “Death in al Ghayil;” an al-Jazeera video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5C42rswmk); and a TRT World video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AkSrKzkkuc). However, none of these articles or videos deal with Nawar’s murder as murder. To the extent they touch on Nawar’s death at all, it is only to repeat the hearsay explanation offered by her paternal grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, who was in Sana’a at the time, as to how she received her neck wound: which was that she was “accidentally” shot by an Apache helicopter gunner, firing through a bank of windows at everyone in the room. (She wasn’t singled out for being Anwar’s daughter, in other words. “Now let Anwar’s other 3 children live in peace,” Nasser seems to be saying.) Or Nawar could have been wounded in a hail of bullets as a bunch of SEALs burst into her bedroom, guns blazing. What caused her death, in any case, was not her being wounded, but being forced to bleed to death over 2 long hours because none of the SEALs searching the house for intel (it’s easier when the occupants are dead) was allowed to give her first aid—let alone help medevac her out to the Makin Island, where her life could have been saved. The same is no doubt true of the unnamed, 9-month-pregnant, Yemeni woman, who got shot in the stomach when the armada gunners went selectively “berserk.” According to Iona Craig, the Yemeni woman and her fetus endured a 5-hour drive over unpaved roads to the nearest government-friendly hospital, after Votel pulled his forces out—only for both mother and infant to die on the operating table as the baby was being delivered. Votel murdered them too. Clearly. If mother and infant almost made it after all that time, they certainly would have made it if they had been quickly medevaced out to the Makin Island. They were not. Because they were Yemeni? Because they were brown? In his only Senate testimony regarding the al Ghayil raid, Votel stated on 3/9/17 that his own impartial, exhaustive investigation of his own homocidal behavior and that of his men found NO indications whatsoever of any "incompetence or poor decision-making or bad judgment” on anyone’s part—beginning with himself. And if Iona Craig found any fault with Trump or Votel or Obama, she has kept it well hidden beneath her “objective” reporting. Perhaps that’s why she won the Polk Award. After all, Bernard did warn us sometime back: “Do not trust The Intercept.”
Posted by: Dr. Bill Wedin | May 5 2018 5:52 utc | 99
@71 Dr. Bill Wedin.. thanks for one very disturbing post i just read... thanks for your source quotes @99 as well.. i am not sure how true this all is, but it sounds very possible.. i see iona craig has her own website which seems focused on yemen..http://www.ionacraig.com/
although i think you are right in what you say, getting traction to get trump impeached over this would be quite the feat.. thanks for your posts.. i agree with your comment at the end..
Posted by: james | May 5 2018 17:03 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Thank you b. From the RT version of the story on the Green Berets comes this:
"Former senior security policy analyst at the office of the Secretary of Defense, Michael Maloof, told RT that the Saudis prefer to contract out their fighting in Yemen to mercenaries, like those from Blackwater.
“The US is heavily involved in Yemen, providing armaments. But you also have the Blackwater people out of the United Arab Emirates. They have a base in Yemen and a lot of them have been killed there,” he said."
Could the IHSJanes piece be connected to the reported activity of Blackwater in Yemen?
Posted by: WJ | May 3 2018 18:50 utc | 1