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US attacks Yemen as the WaPo banner changes to the next war.

Jan 13, 2024

Published: 2024-01-14

Disconnect

During the 2024-01-09 episode of Judging Freedom, Napolitano and Alastair Crooke discuss a just published article by Crooke in which he suggests that one of the reasons why 'the West' continues to issue narratives which are odds with reality is that they believe their civilization, their culture is superior.

We are, right now, seeing this narrative-reality disconnect in stark contrast in the English language MSM and its alternative, the independent media.

In response to the US' call for warships to be placed under its command to provide a 'freedom of navigation'-esque shield for commercial shipping in the Red Sea the response was No, with the exception of the UK. All other US allies, NATO or otherwise, kept their ships under their command though may have sent a few extra naval personnel to the base of the US fifth Fleet in Maramara, Bahrain. With this coalition of the two willing, the US under Operation Prosperity Guardian has now executed a second sequence of missile attacks on Yemen without any UN approval.

The UN Security Council resolution of 2024-01-10 condemns the Ansa Allah [Houti] attacks on international shipping. Attempts to make three adjustments to the resolution by Russia who wished for the link between the shipping attacks and the murderous outrage in Gaza to be mentioned, were not accepted. The resolution was passed 11-0 (with 4 abstentions: China, Russia, Algeria and Mozambique).

The resolution re-iterates that states may defend their commercial shipping, and includes balanced measures such as '“support capacity building efforts” of the Yemeni coastguard to protect the sovereignty and integrity of the country' and 'the needs to “address the root causes” of the attack that are contributing to regional tensions, to ensure a “prompt, efficient and effective response”' and 'urges continued support for the UN-led peace process to end Yemen’s long-running civil conflict.'

Make War not Love

The resolution most certainly does not authorize anyone to attack Yemen, and yet this is what the US + UK 'coalition' have been doing, repeatedly. Of course, these actions are being described otherwise in the MSM.

In the alternate media, Caitlin Johnstone, like Anṣār Allāh, connects the situation to the actual issue, the genocide in Gaza. Her everyone-can-see-this title of "Western Empire Bombs Yemen To Protect Israel's Genocide Operations In Gaza" asserts the reality which the MSM must deny.

Meanwhile, the Christmas gesture of goodwill by the Washington Post to remove its website banner item "Ukraine War", has been revoked by the Post. It has been replaced with the new ISRAEL-GAZA WAR.

[Just before the JavaScript banner slides up to obscure the article title and authors at the Washington Post. I hope you can read through the grafitti.]

Here at this newsletter, this conflict's name in the “Week in Review” series evolved from 'Israel-Palestine-Gaza' in 2023, Week 45 [2023-11-14] into 'Genocide' by 2023, Week 47 [2023-11-27]. Nobody is still waiting for the Post or the Times to get on board with this reality.

Neither the Post nor Times are describing the attacks, on the poorest nation in the Middle East still suffering from a civil war from which the US military industrial complex profited, as connected to the murder spree in Gaza. In parallel, we have just seen Israel, the US' special, “unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East” ally deny, at the International Court of Justice, the reality presented to the court in heart wrenching detail the day before by the Republic of South Africa's legal representatives, about the genocide we all know is still happening.

Chaotic

The rip in reality is continuing at the edges of the frayed fabric of news narrative, especially in Anṣār Allāh's violent protest at the genocide in Gaza. Back on 2023-12-29 this newsletter noted a report by ABC News in which was stated that two titans of international maritime logistics, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, were considering returning their shipping via the Red Sea. The article contended that some shipping or shipping insurers' representatives must have been speaking with Anṣār Allāh or Tehran because it was palpably obvious that the US' naval forces could not protect all of the commercial shipping which moves through the Red Sea because they had already failed multiple times.

Since, Ansa Allah have continued their attacks and maintained that they will desist as soon as a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Instead of working to achieve the laudable aim of peace the US has commited the universal crime of attacking yet another country without UN Security Council approval, again (in both senses)! ABC News reports that "The US military said 60 targets in 28 sites were hit", which is to say that the US just attacked Yemen, again, and on this occassion 60 times at least.

Shooting down drones or missiles is defending commerical shipping. Bombing Yemen is re-starting a war.

The tear continues with Anṣār Allāh being referred to as the Houti movement, which is another classic example used by 'the West' reducing everything to a person, as in Russia is 'Putin'. A man named Houti [Hussein al-Houthi] lead Ansa Allah. The movement is not a cult of personality but an Arab national liberation movement which even Wikipedia describes as "a Shia Islamist political and military organization". But onwards the media roll using not the name which the political organization with an armed wing gives itself but some other term. Ok, New York Blog and Washto Rag, we hear you.

These 'rebels' are firing missiles at extra-territorial targets using radars and other facilities at air bases next to the Yemeni capital, San'aa. They control the capital. There are hundreds of thousands of people on the streets in San'aa protesting the US+UK attacks on their country, Yemen, and in support of Anṣār Allāh and their Palestinian, Muslim Arab brothers and sisters in Gaza.

Now tell me who the government of Yemen is, please western media?

So far as I can see, Anṣār Allāh have control of the capital and are using it's facilities to launch attacks on foreign targets which means that the government approves of this, or that they are the government, or that there is no government. I imagine that the MIC would be rather happy with ‘no government’ because then there can be no annoying diplomacy to get in the way of expending munitions which must be restocked and killing “co-lateral damage”, non-white human as an externality.

Now, ask BRICS+ who is the government of Yemen? I don't know what their answer would be, but suggest that this block which is more numerous in population and more financially powerful than the G7 would give a different answer to the US/UK/NATO/EU block. Yet another reality tear, at the geopolitical level.

Our perception of reality is shifting. The metaphors which people use to describe their reality matter, until they become uncomfortable to use. This is an indication of 'cognitive dissonance', the model does not fit the reality. This dissonance is manifest across different scales of power, in southwest Asia, across the greater world, and in the torn metaphors of the western populace.

Shipping bound for Israel which passes the Red Sea will be damaged by Anṣār Allāh in solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters. The solution, which the whole world wants, is simple: a ceasefire. The US could achieve this with one phone call, or one piece of legislation: all aid is instantly recended and any outstanding payments are cancelled, if you fire one more piece of munition at or into Gaza or impede any UN authorized humanitarian aid mission in any way. Everybody knows that the US could achieve this instantly, and chooses not to.

Yet, The US is telling everyone it is calling for de-escalation while it is bombing Yemen, as US ally Israel is, at the ICJ, denying its running a genocide while it is bombing children and mothers in Gaza.

No tear, no problem. Everything is normal. Please turn off the news.

The US is looking for some face-saving way to say that the Ukraine war is at a stalemate when even western media are publishing articles documenting Ukrainian young women lamenting that there are no young men to marry. The US and its EU vassals and the Kiev regime have killed or expatriated an entire generation of young Ukrainians from central and western Ukraine as it and its vassals have lost the war it wont admit it provoked. There are Nazis in Ukraine who chose to attack Russian speaking people. That WWII problem has been and still is happening again. It re-started in 2014 as an 'anti-terrorist' operation run by unelected government installed by the US after the coup it supported.

No tear, no problem. Everything is normal. Please turn off the news.

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Sources

Houthi rebels vow fierce retaliation after US and British strikes against them, no author, ABC News, 2024-01-13

US carries out new strike in Yemen after Biden vows to keep pressure on, Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart & Mohammed Ghobari, Reuters, 2024-01-13

Striking Yemen From Afar Will Not Achieve Anything, b., Moon Of Alabama, 2024-01-13

Security Council strongly condemns Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, UN News, 2024-01-10

As the UK and US strike Houthi targets in Yemen, they are realising fears about a broader Middle East conflict, John Lyons, ABC News, 2024-01-12

"The Houthis publicly said they would be targeting Israeli ships, but in recent weeks have escalated their attacks on ships with no Israeli connections."
Who says so? Which ships?

Western Empire Bombs Yemen To Protect Israel's Genocide Operations In Gaza, Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin's Newsletter, 2024-01-12

U.S. (Re-) Starts War With Houthi, b., Moon Of Alabama, 2024-01-12

US and UK Bomb Dozens of Sites in Yemen, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-01-11

Something Lost, Never to be Found Again, Alastair Crooke, The Unz Review (originally published at Strategic Culture), 2024-01-08

Waiting for Israeli Hari Kari, YesXorNo, 2024-01-11

The Blockade Bites: Yemen's Compliance with the Genocide Convention Continues, YesXorNo, 2023-12-29

Christmas Spirit at the Washington Post, YesXorNo, 2023-12-21

This Ukrainian town avoided Russian occupation. But now it has a new problem: A lack of young men, Steve Cannane and Shaun Kingma, ABC News, 2024-01-11

Alastair Crooke： Does the West Believe it is Morally Superior？, Napolitano interviews Crooke, Judging Freedom, 2024-01-09