Well, the British public now knows that its latest war is against the Houthi rebels of Yemen, whom we are assisting the Neocons of the American Empire to bomb to smithereens. This confirms the principle that when our political target is weak, we bravely bomb it (Yemen, Serbia, Syria, Iraq, Somalia etc), but where it is strong we get some other suckers to bomb it and take the bloody consequences for us (eg Ukraine – quietly sidelined now we’re losing).
But government supporters on the news point out that our lack of declaration of war is OK because the Houthi are not a government – this is merely a “police action” to remedy piracy. That might work if we hadn’t also failed to declare war on all the governments whose countries we’ve bombed or invaded over the last few decades. The man on GB news implied that declaring war, or consulting Parliament, spoils the element of surprise, so that’s OK, then. We might, though, ask ourselves who appointed us, or our American masters, as a police force for the Red Sea, with powers to use military force in bordering countries.
Now admittedly the Yemen situation is complex. It is worth remembering, though, that it has involved a largely unreported humanitarian crisis far worse than what has been happening in the Gaza strip. For the Yemeni rebels (or “freedom fighters” if we we choose to draw a parallel with the situation leading to the US-engineered Maidan rebellion in Ukraine in 2014) have been bombed by Saudi Arabia, backed by US weaponry and logistics, for many years. The main point of this blog is to draw our attention to the fact that, when we choose to wage war, we consistently bury the complexities and instead demonize those we are killing.
The Houthis, then, are just fanatical rebels who love to sink ships. Back in 2015, though, Newsweek was describing the origins of the Houthi rebellion:
The group has also exploited the popular discontent over corruption and reduction of government subsidies. According to a February 2015 Newsweek report, Houthis are fighting “for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence”. In forging alliances, the Houthi movement has been opportunistic, at times allying with countries it later declared its enemy such as the United States.
(Wikipedia, “Houthi”)
An article in The Telegraph does point to some of the complexities, but seems to major on the radicalisation that has occurred over twenty years, without really showing how it was the illegitimate American invasion of Iraq that hardened Yemeni attitudes. This invasion was rightly perceived as being motivated by the same US strategic and commercial interests that were leading them to back the Saudi onslaught on them. They were likely to become the next devastated basket-case.
Reading the Telegraph article and the Wikipedia “Houthi” entry will enable your brain to whirl in confusion at the way sectarian conflicts, humanitarian concerns, political and geopolitical interests, information and misinformation have all contributed to the mix. Incidentally, that should warn us about what is liable to happen in Western countries once the inevitable revolt against our corrupted political systems bursts its banks, unless God spares us from the common forces of history.
So, to focus on the present situation, it is scarcely surprising for a people who are being bombed for demanding an independent and non-corrupt government to find common cause with the Palestinian people against the American and British military machines (albeit it Ukraine has shown those machines to be something of the proverbial paper tiger).
But it would appear that, in reality, the US sees the Houthi as a mere proxy for their real enemy, Iran, with whom the Neocons are itching to start a hot war in the name of money democracy (though that would almost certainly quench the Christian revival going on in Iran that might well lead to the peaceful decline of militant Islam there if left alone).
So one legitimate way to view the bombing is that for its own political and commercial reasons Britain is supporting an oppressive Sunni Saudi Arabia (that flogs women for being raped and throws homosexuals off buildings) in its proxy war against oppressive Shia Iran (that flogs women for being raped and throws homosexuals off buildings), by oppressing a people that just want to live their lives peacefully.
However, that is not the only way to see the Houthi en masse, as it were. Their opposition to Zionism may be explained by their fellow-feeling for Palestinians in Gaza. But that does not explain their persecution of the tiny (Wikipedia estimates 50!) Jewish minority that has lived in Yemen since time immemorial. That, like the similar persecution of the Baha’i minority there, is pure Qu’ranic Islam, which sees the Jews (and the Christians, incidentally) as worse than animals. When “radical” imams in London interpret the prayers of cursing (said by all good Muslims 17 times a day) as meaning that Jews and Christians should be forced to convert or be eradicated, they are only saying what is taught, in Arabic, across the Middle East, not least in Gaza and the West Bank, by the best Muslim scholars. Antisemitism is a feature, not a bug, of Islam ever since the religion was manufactured by the Arab, anti-Trinitarian and anti-Judaic rulers of Jerusalem in the eighth century.
It’s also true that Islam allows for lying when the cause of Islam is at stake. That means that one must be cautious when the Houthi talk about promoting democracy, living at peace with all minorities, and so on – that is what Hamas said before they were voted into power and promptly eliminated all their opponents from the PLO and elsewhere.
Now, a true Western championing of democracy would, one supposes, involve our working to seek the reform of mainstream Islam so that it no longer aspires to become the sole religion not only “from the River to the Sea” but globally. That might prove a tall order, since it is laid out in the Qu’ran.
In local terms, one way would be to use our geopolitical influence to insist on dialogue between the Houthi and the government-in-exile (a fact that shows us the Houthi are probably as legitimate a government as William and Mary were when James II was exiled from England). What if, instead of helping Saudi Arabia to flatten Yemen, we worked towards negotiating a government of national unity with safeguards in place to protect minorities and eliminate outside manipulation by Iran or anyone else?
Instead, Britain (lapdog to America, to be sure, but charity begins at home if an Englishman is writing) accuses Iran of Islamic fundamentalism and fomenting war across the middle east, whilst it allies with Islamic fundamentalist Saudi Arabia (despite its involvement in 9/11) that foments war across the middle east, not least in Yemen. Our interference has been a major influence in destabilising and radicalising most countries in the middle east, so would it not be better for us to conserve our depleted weaponry to, you know, defend the homeland from attack? That’s what national armies do – it’s imperial armies that operate on the other side of the world.
The excuse for intervention is, as always, whatever comes to hand – in this case the risk to oil supplies and trade from China from interference with shipping. If the US waged war on China over Taiwan, some other excuse would be found. But if the West hadn’t sent warships to the Red Sea, it would not have provoked a response.
I support the right of Israel both to exist and defend itself, not least because I take seriously the evil intent of Islamists to destroy the Jews as a race. But I question whether getting embroiled in a war with Iran and its Shia allies against the Sunnis is actually to the benefit of Israel. Inevitably Israel would be left to sort their own problems out if we were fending off Iranian missile attacks on London.
Such a war, however, might benefit some of the Zionist globalists who are, to Israel, what the Neocons and the Billionaire Foundations are to us – enemies of the people and enemies of God. And that’s another complication that makes me ask why my taxes should be funding all this foreign slaughter without even parliamentary scrutiny, let alone my vote.
