After years of backing Saudi Arabia’s atrocities in Yemen, the U.S and U.K. bombed the poorest country in the Middle East for trying to stop a genocide. This is the U.S. empire.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with reporters in Cairo on Thursday during his trip through the Middle East. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
The U.S and U.K. have reportedly struck over a dozen sites in Yemen using Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, backed by logistical support from Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands.
U.S. President Joe Biden, in a statement, asserts that the strikes against “targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels” are a “direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.”
What Biden does not mention in his statement about his administration’s “response” to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea is that those Red Sea attacks are themselves a response to Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Also unmentioned is that the strikes took place after the first day of proceedings in the International Court of Justice in which Israel stands accused by South Africa of committing a genocide in Gaza.
So the U.S and the U.K. just bombed the poorest country in the Middle East for trying to stop a genocide. Not only that, they bombed the very same country in which they just spent years backing Saudi Arabia’s genocidal atrocities which killed hundreds of thousands of people between 2015 and 2022 in an unsuccessful bid to stop the Houthis from taking power.
US and UK Bomb Dozens of Sites in Yemen
The Houthis have warned of a major response
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Yemen #Houthis #Gaza #RedSea #Biden https://t.co/B6FIwy85UL pic.twitter.com/OiKAdmSICG— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) January 12, 2024
The Houthis, formally known as Ansarallah, threatened ahead of the attack to fiercely retaliate against any strikes from the U.S and its allies. Abdulmalik al-Houthi, who leads the Houthi movement, said that the response to any American attack “will be greater than” a recent Houthi offensive which used dozens of drones and several missiles.
“We, the Yemeni people, are not among those who are afraid of America,” al-Houthi said in a televised speech. “We are comfortable with a direct confrontation with the Americans.”
BREAKING| Al Houthis' Supreme Political Council: All American and British interests have become legitimate targets for the Yemeni armed forces in response to their direct and declared aggression against the Yemeni Republic. pic.twitter.com/JQx5b29Ooq
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 12, 2024
An unnamed U.S official who informed Huffington Post’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed about the imminent strikes on Yemen shortly before they occurred complained that the airstrikes “will not solve the problem” and that the approach “doesn’t add up to a cohesive strategy.”
Ahmed has previously reported that behind the scenes, officials in this administration have been getting increasingly nervous about the risk of Biden igniting a wider war in the middle east. This latest escalation, along with the Houthi pledge to retaliate, adds a lot of weight to this concern. [Some U.S. lawmakers and rights groups have condemned the strikes as unconstitutional.]
And all for what? To protect Israel’s ability to conduct a months-long massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
This is what the U.S empire is. This is what it has always been about.
These people are showing us exactly who they are.
We should probably believe them.
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This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
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British politicians of all stripes are without exception bought and paid for and blackmailed whores of Zion, shabbos puppets of the Israeli embassy and Board of Deputies.
People like Corbyn, who adopted a moderate and principled approach on Palestine, are invariably subjected to vicious lavishly funded smear campaigns supported by the lying whore media, to destroy their careers. The Zionist Lobby announced that they would drive Corbyn out of public life, and that is precisely what they did.
American politicians– notably Lindsey Graham, Hillary and Nikki Haley– are foaming at the mouth for a war with Iran (to protect our “ally” Israel). What’s wrong with these women? Others are only slightly more measured in their support for killing, maiming and destroying homes and infrastructure. They call the process “American Democracy!”
What the US does abroad always comes home to domestic policies.
Genocide Joe has never embraced anything but incarceration and slaughter ; he also knows War-time Presidents are ALWAYS re-elected.
So there we have it. The imperial behemoth – the US and its camp followers, bestrides itself and the world revealing itself in full view, it can do no other. That was in 1856. It is worth examining the current model 2024.
”The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked.”
Written by K.Marx
Letter, October 30,1856
Published in the New York Tribune
Number 4904 , January 7 1857.
No doubt read by Abraham Lincoln.
British aircraft bombed Yemen on behalf of Israel from Akrotiri in Cyprus.
To do so, they flew over Egypt/ Jordan/ Saudi Arabia.
So the quisling Arab whore dictators opened up their air space for western bombers to attack Yemen, and ensure that thousands more children are slaughtered in Gaza.
These whores always sell themselves out to foreign imperial interests.
None of these whore dictators brought a case before the ICJ – but South Africa did.
South Africa, a country of mainly black non moslem people thousands of miles away.
Moslem Ummah?
Don’t make me laugh!
I understood that Saudi Arabia had made a peace agreement with Yemen, due to come into effect at the end of 2023, but have heard nothing about it since. The years of war by Saudi/US/UK were to finish by now.
Does anybody here know about this???
Well, Genocide Joe, you’re asking for it. The Iranians have cruise missiles capable of sinking a carrier. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
But then we might get Hillary’s US can “totally obliterate” Iran.
hxxps://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN22243327/
If Blinken is standing within the green triangle, his words must be accepted as truth. That’s international law. But note his egregious toes. He must be toeing the line.
Biden, the chicken hawk, never met a war to which he would not send other people’s children, spouses and fathers to die or to suffer mayhem. As evil as it gets.
Shame on you Joe Biden for participating in mass murder…
Participating yes, but even worse, he’s the prime facilitator, one who could stop it in a heartbeat. Without our dollars and missiles, this “war” (actually a shooting gallery) would stop immediately.
I often find Johnstone’s comments get right to the point faster and more succinctly than lengthy essays by others – she doesn’t beat around the bush :)
I completely agree. She is one of my Must-Read authors whenever she posts anything. And I love that she has the courage to call out evil.
The US at least could as well be bombing Yemen out of habit, they’ve done it so much.
Yes, supposedly it was Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen–and yes, the Saudis did so, too. But when you bomb with American bombs, American planes, and at least sometimes American pilots, calling it a Saudi operation is mostly a public relations gesture.
So, lo and behold, here’s another drawback to bombing people constantly and arbitrarily: after some certain point, you cannot really bomb them as a deterrent because they–reasonably enough–assume that you will bomb them anyway. And, of course, the US attacked Syria, and Libya, and Iraq, and Pakistan, and created a civil war in Ukraine, and has committed acts of war against Iran, and threatens China, and has bombed Somalia for getting too close to the Red Sea.
It’s not as though the Houthis need to feel alone. And it’s not like they have much reason to imagine that their policy determines whether they get bombed or not. At some point, it starts to feel like earthquakes or very bad weather: the US just sort of gets that way sometimes.
There is one nation on the planet with morality. And America just bombed them for it. So, Boom! Your tax dollars at work.
Meanwhile, Biden is negotiating real cuts to domestic spending to pay for all the death and destruction, and also sending a ‘delegation’ to Taiwan to spread more gasoline and fan the flames there.
Don’t forget to vote Four More Years …. because ain’t this all just soooo wonderful.