"Drone Attack" on Saudi Oil - Who Benefits?

September 16, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Huge blazes were reported at two oil facilities in Saudi Arabia owned by Aramco. While Saudi authorities refused to assign blame, media outlets like the BBC immediately began insinuating either Yemen's Houthis or Iran were responsible. 

The BBC in its article, "Saudi Arabia oil facilities ablaze after drone strikes," would inject toward the top of its article:

Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen have been blamed for previous attacks.

Following an ambiguous and evidence-free description of the supposed attacks, the BBC even included an entire section titled, "Who could be behind the attacks?" dedicated to politically expedient speculation aimed ultimately at Tehran.

The BBC would claim:

Houthi fighters were blamed for drone attacks on the Shaybah natural gas liquefaction facility last month and on other oil facilities in May.

The Iran-aligned rebel movement is fighting the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen has been at war since 2015, when President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was forced to flee the capital Sanaa by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia backs President Hadi, and has led a coalition of regional countries against the rebels. 

The coalition launches air strikes almost every day, while the Houthis often fire missiles into Saudi Arabia.

Deliberately missing from the BBC's history lesson are several key facts, leaving readers to draw conclusions that conveniently propel the West's agenda versus Iran forward.

The US and Saudi Arabia vs. MENA

The war in Yemen was a result of US-backed regime change operations aimed at Yemen - along with Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Syria, and Egypt - starting in 2011.

Major hostilities began when the client regime installed by the US was ousted from power in 2015. Since then, the US and its Saudi allies have brutalized and ravaged Yemen triggering one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century.

The UN's own news service in an article titled, "Humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world, warns UN," would admit:

An estimated 24 million people – close to 80 per cent of the population – need assistance and protection in Yemen, the UN warned on Thursday. With famine threatening hundreds of thousands of lives, humanitarian aid is increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions across the country.

The cause of this catastrophe is the deliberate blockading of Yemen. Reuters in its article, "U.N. aid chief appeals for full lifting of Yemen blockade," would report:

The United Nations appealed on Friday to the Saudi-led military coalition to fully lift its blockade of Yemen, saying up to eight million people were “right on the brink of famine”.

Essentially - the United States - with the largest economy and most powerful military in the world - along with its allies in Riyadh - are attempting to erase an entire nation off the map through bombings, starvation, and disease.

Saudi aggression carried out on behalf of Washington isn't confined only to its war on Yemen. Saudi Arabia has played a key role in radicalizing, arming, and funding US-backed militants attempting to overthrow the government of Syria as well as extremist groups bent on destabilizing Iraq and even Iran itself.

Likewise, the militants who overran Libya in 2011 were drawn from extremist networks funded for decades by Riyadh. Thus, Saudi Arabia is not merely menacing neighboring Yemen, it is menacing the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and even beyond.

Saudi Arabia the Victim?  

The BBC's recent article attempting to portray Saudi-Yemeni hostilities as a tit-for-tat conflict rather than Yemen's desperate struggle for survival is yet another illustration of not only the West's hypocrisy in terms of upholding or in any way underwriting human rights, but also the Western media' complicity in advancing this hypocrisy.

Saudi Arabia is no victim.


If the US can predicate the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of its government on deliberately false claims of possessing "weapons of mass destruction," wouldn't Yemen and its allies be justified in using any means possible to attack and undermine Saudi Arabia's fighting capacity as it and its US allies openly carry out a war of aggression unequivocally condemned by the UN itself?

Houthi fighters or Iran would both be well within their rights to strike at the economic engine driving what even the UN has repeatedly declared as an illegal war of aggression waged by Saudi Arabia and its Western sponsors against the nation and people of Yemen.

Unfortunately, provoking such attacks - however justified - is key to US machinations toward igniting an even wider and more destructive regional conflict.

Two Possibilities 

The alleged attacks on Saudi oil facilities mean one of two things.

Either it is indeed retaliation against Saudi Arabia for its criminal activities across the region - showcasing new military capabilities raising the costs for Riyadh to continue down its current foreign policy path - or it was a staged provocation that will be used by the US to station yet more military forces in Saudi Arabia and to ratchet up tensions with both Iran to the east and Yemen's Houthis to the south.

The recent departure of US National Security Adviser John Bolton led many to believe the US may be changing tack on its foreign policy - particularly toward Iran. However, it was much more likely a means of portraying the US as a "peacemaker" ahead of another round of attempts by the US to escalate tensions with Iran and if at all possible, trigger a wider conflict long sought by US special interests for years.

The US already used recent and highly questionable incidents in the Persian Gulf to justify sending hundreds of troops to Saudi Arabia. The New York Times in its July 2019 article, "U.S. to Send About 500 More Troops to Saudi Arabia," would report:

The United States is sending hundreds of troops to Saudi Arabia in what is intended as the latest show of force toward Iran, two Defense Department officials said Wednesday. 

The roughly 500 troops are part of a broader tranche of forces sent to the region over the past two months after tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated. 

Since May, a spate of attacks have left six oil tankers damaged in the Gulf of Oman, with Washington accusing Tehran of inciting them. Iranian officials have denied that claim. The downing of an American drone in June by an Iranian surface-to-air missile only heightened tensions, prompting President Trump to approve military strikes against Iran before abruptly pulling back.

With a growing number of US troops in Saudi Arabia, the US will be well positioned to launch offensive attacks against Iran in any future war, as well as carry out defensive operations to protect Saudi Arabia and essential infrastructure from retaliation.

This most recent alleged attack, along with a series of questionable incidents in the Persian Gulf have afforded the US justification - however tenuous - to further build up its military presence along Iran's peripheries it otherwise would have had to carry out in an openly provocative and unjustified manner.

It was just these sort of provocations that were described for years by US policymakers who sought to "goad" Iran into war with the West.

For example, in a 2009 Brookings Institution paper titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran," US policymakers would openly admit (emphasis added):

...it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it.  

However beneficial this campaign of provocations may be for US foreign policy objectives, neither possibility - a provoked reaction from the Houthis or Iran or a staged attack organized by the US - bodes well for those ruling in Riyadh.

For Washington's allies - the fact that they are just as likely - or more likely - to receive a devastating attack from the US itself than from their actual enemies - all to trigger an even more devastating war they will find themselves in the middle of - is added incentive for nations like Saudi Arabia to take the extended hands of future potential allies like Russia and China, and begin walking down a new and different path.   

Only time will tell how far Saudi Arabia is willing to go down its current path, and how much they are willing to risk doing so, before they join the growing list of nations departing from America's unipolar global order and choosing a more equitable multipolar future.

Whether the US and Saudi Arabia finally provoked genuine attacks from nations they've purposefully goaded for years, or staged the attacks themselves, a dangerous course toward war has been set - and a course the rest of the world must now work hard to steer away from.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Yemen: US "Accidentally" Arming Al Qaeda (Again)

February 15, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - US weapons are once again falling into the hands of militants fighting in one of Washington's many proxy wars - this time in Yemen - the militants being fighters of local Al Qaeda affiliates.

CNN in its article, "Sold to an ally, lost to an enemy," would admit:

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found.

The article also claims:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN.

Weapon transfer included everything from small arms to armored vehicles, CNN would report.

 The article would include a response from Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael, who claimed:

The United States has not authorized the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates to re-transfer any equipment to parties inside Yemen.

The US government cannot comment on any pending investigations of claims of end-use violations of defense articles and services transferred to our allies and partners.

Despite obvious evidence that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both violating whatever agreements the Pentagon claims to have with both nations, the US continues fighting their joint war in Yemen for them in all but name.

The US role in Yemen includes not only arming Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also training their pilots, selecting targets, sharing intelligence, repairing weapon systems, refuelling Saudi warplanes, and even through the deployment of US special forces along The Saudi-Yemeni border.

Because of this continued and unconditional support - Pentagon complaints over weapon transfers it claims were unauthorized ring particularly hollow. More so when considering in other theaters of war, US weapons also "accidentally" ended up in the hands of extremists that just so happened to be fighting against forces the US opposed.

(Repeated) Actions Speak Louder than Pentagon Excuses 

An entire army of Al Qaeda-linked forces was raised in Syria against the government in Damascus through the "accidental" transfer of US weapons from alleged moderate militants to designated terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda's Al Nusra affiliate and the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS).

And while this was presented to the public as "accidental" -  years before the war in Syria even erupted, there were already warning signs that the US planned to deliberately use extremists in a proxy war against both Syria and Iran. 

As early as 2007 - a full 4 years before the 2011 "Arab Spring" would begin - an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published in the New Yorker titled, ""The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" would warn (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

From 2011 onward, admissions throughout prominent Western newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post would admit to US weapon deliveries to "moderate rebels" in Syria.

Articles like the New York Times', "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," and "Kerry Says U.S. Will Double Aid to Rebels in Syria," the Telegraph's,  "US and Europe in 'major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb'," and the Washington Post's article, "U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels," would detail hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons, vehicles, equipment, and training funneled into Syria to so-called "moderate rebels." 


Yet even as early as the first year of the conflict, Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra - a US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization - would dominate the battlefield opposite Syrian forces. 

The US State Department in its own official press statement titled, "Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa'ida in Iraq," explicitly stated that: 

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

If the US and its allies were admittedly transferring hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons, equipment, and other support to "moderate rebels," who was funding and arming Al Nusra even more, enabling them to displace Western-backed militants from the Syrian battlefield?

The Western media had proposed several unconvincing excuses including claims that large numbers of defectors to Al Qaeda and its affiliates brought with them their Western-provided arms and equipment.

The obvious answer - however -  is that just as Seymour Hersh warned in 2007 - the US and its allies from the very beginning armed and backed Al Qaeda, intentionally created its ISIS offshoot, and used both in a deadly proxy war they had hoped would quickly conclude before the public realized what had happened.

It had worked in Libya in 2011, and the quick overthrow of the Syrian government was likewise anticipated. When the war dragged on and the nature of Washington's "moderate rebels" was revealed, implausible excuses as to how Al Qaeda and ISIS became so well armed and funded began appearing across the Western media.

Accident or Not - US Military Intervention is the Biggest Threat to Global Security 

As the alternative media now attempts to shed light on the ongoing US proxy war in Yemen, a similar attempt to explain how Al Qaeda has once again found itself flooded with US support is being mounted. Just as in Syria - the obvious explanation for Al Qaeda forces in Yemen turning up with US weapons is because the use of Al Qaeda and other extremists was always a part of the US-Saudi-Emarati strategy from the very beginning. 

CNN's revelations were not the first. 

An Associated Press investigation concluded in August 2018 in an article titled, "AP Investigation: US allies, al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen," that (emphasis added):  

Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West. 

Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.

That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.

While the US pleads innocent and attempts to blame the arming of Al Qaeda in yet another of Washington's proxy wars on "accidental" or "unauthorized" weapon transfers, it is clear that Al Qaeda has and still does serve as a vital auxiliary force the US uses both as a pretext to invade and occupy other nations - and when it cannot - to fight by proxy where US forces cannot go.

The US - which claims its involvement in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen is predicated on containing Iran who the US accuses of jeopardizing global security and of sponsoring terrorism - has aligned itself with actual, verified state sponsors of terrorism - Saudi Arabia and the UAE - and is itself knowingly playing a role in the state sponsorship of terrorism including the arming of terrorist groups across the region.

Iran and the militant groups it has backed - accused of being "terrorists" - are ironically the most effective forces fighting groups like Al Nusra and ISIS across the region - illustrating Washington and its allies of being guilty in reality of what it has accused Syria, Russia, and Iran of in fiction.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.     

US-Saudis Enlist Al Qaeda For Yemen War

August 22, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Associated Press has revealed that the US-backed, Saudi-led war against Yemen includes the use of Al Qaeda as a mercenary force against Houthi rebels.

This confirms as fact what was widely dismissed by Western politicians and a complicit Western media as a "conspiracy theory" since 2011.

Evidence that the US and its allies enlisted Al Qaeda and other extremist groups to wage serial proxy wars across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), from Libya and Syria to Yemen, has piled up into a mountain emerging high above the fog of disinformation behind which these wars had been fought.

The AP article titled, "AP Investigation: US allies, al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen," would report (emphasis added):

Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West. 

Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.

That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.

AP would also link the Muslim Brotherhood directly to Al Qaeda militants, stating:

In some places, militants join battles independently. But in many cases, militia commanders from the ultraconservative Salafi sect and the Muslim Brotherhood bring them directly into their ranks, where they benefit from coalition funding, the AP found.

This is further evidence exposing the Muslim Brotherhood's role in preparing the grounds for the US-engineered 2011 "Arab Spring" uprisings and the planned violence that accompanied them.

Of course, while Western leaders and the media attempted to deny complicity in the dominant role Al Qaeda played in conflicts across MENA for years, a look at any conflict map - be it in regards to Syria or Yemen - reveals that pockets of extremists operating in both nations are adjacent to US-Saudi-controlled supply lines and US-Saudi controlled territory - not because the US or Saudi Arabia are fighting Al Qaeda and its affiliates - but because they are protecting and using these extremists to fight their various regional wars on their behalf.

As to why the US and Saudi Arabia might be aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, AP would quote Michael Horton of the Jamestown Foundation. AP would report:

“Elements of the U.S. military are clearly aware that much of what the U.S. is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that,” said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. analysis group that tracks terrorism.

“However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the U.S. views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen,” Horton said.

However, the US has failed to make a case as to what threat Iran constitutes that is equal or greater to the threat posed by Al Qaeda. It was supposedly Al Qaeda, not Iran that hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in 2001 - tipping off a now nearly two decade-long "War on Terror." In fact - Iran has invested blood and treasure in fighting and defeating Al Qaeda and its proxies, including the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" in both Syria and Iraq - contributing directly to both terrorist organizations' defeat.

It would appear that if Iran is involved in Yemen, it is also clearly fighting against Al Qaeda there as well.


And while the AP investigation presents a coalition of convenience between Al Qaeda and the US-backed Saudi-led coalition - the truth is that Saudi Arabia itself is the original "Islamic State," having sponsored the perversion and abuse of Islam via Wahhabism since its inception, the recruitment and indoctrination of extremists through a global network of madrases funded by Riyadh sine the Cold War, and the direct arming and backing of terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda as they wage war in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

The US for its part, also - knowingly and willingly - is aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, using them as auxiliaries to fight where US troops cannot either for political or practical reasons.

This is not merely a recent arrangement wrought from stark realism, this was a plan that has been developed over the course of at least three US presidencies - George Bush, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump.

It was in Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker piece titled, "The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" which revealed (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Hersh's article too made a clear link between Al Qaeda extremists, the Muslim Brotherhood and the US and Saudi sponsors preparing both for what his sources claimed was a "cataclysmic conflict."

Thus Al Qaeda forming the backbone of the US-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, or Al Qaeda fighting Washington's proxy wars in Libya or Syria is no mere coincidence or accident, or even just a recent phenomenon emerging from growing Western desperation to "contain Iran," but part of a long-planned geopolitical gambit aimed at eliminating Washington's competitors and establishing itself as sole hegemon over the MENA region.

The revelations should further bolster the moral imperative of Iran and its allies - including Russia, Syria, and Lebanon's Hezbollah. It should also further undermine the credibility of both the US and its allies, as well as the "international order" they presume dominion over.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.    

America's War on Yemen Exposed

August 14, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - As atrocities and scandal begin to mount regarding the US-backed Saudi-led war on the impoverished nation of Yemen, the involvement and hypocrisy of the United States and other Western backers is coming to full light.

Global condemnation of Saudi airstrikes on civilian targets has brought public attention to Washington's role in the conflict - a role the Western media has attempted to downplay for years. It is ironic, or perhaps telling, that alternative media outlets targeted as "Russian influence" are leading coverage of Yemen's growing humanitarian catastrophe.

US Denies Role in Proxy War That Couldn't be Fought Without It 
In a recent press conference, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis - when asked about the US role in the Yemeni conflict in regards to Saudi atrocities - would claim:

We are not engaged in the civil war. We will help to prevent, you know, the killing of innocent people.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Mattis himself would lobby US Congress earlier this year to continue US support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen.

A March 2018 Washington Post article titled, "Mattis asks Congress not to restrict U.S. support for Saudi bombing in Yemen," would admit:

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made a personal appeal to Congress on Wednesday not to restrict the United States’ support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, as the sponsors of a privileged resolution to end Washington’s involvement announced that the Senate would vote on the matter next week.

Support includes US intelligence gathering for Saudi operations, the sale of of US weapons to the Saudi regime, and even US aerial refueling for US-made Saudi warplanes dropping US-made munitions on Yemeni targets selected with the aid of US planners.

In essence, the US is all but directly fighting the "civil war" itself.

Abetting War Crimes, Sponsoring Terrorists to What End? 

As to why the US believes it must continue supporting a proxy war Saudi Arabia is fighting on its behalf - beginning under US President Barack Obama and continuing in earnest under current US President Donald Trump - the Washington Post could conclude (emphasis added):

The war in Yemen has inspired much controversy in Congress, as lawmakers have questioned why the United States has involved itself so closely on the Saudi-backed side of a civil war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel forces. Successive presidential administrations have presented the campaign as a necessary component of the fight against terrorism and to preserve stability in the region. As Mattis put it in his letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, “withdrawing U.S. support would embolden Iran to increase its support to the Houthis, enabling further ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatening vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea, thereby raising the risk of a regional conflict.”

However, Mattis, his colleagues, and his predecessors have categorically failed to explain how Iran constitutes a greater threat to either US or global security than Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is a nation admittedly sponsoring Al Qaeda worldwide, including in Yemen as revealed by a recent Associated Press investigation, and the nation which both radicalized the supposed perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City and Washington D.C. and from which most of the supposed hijackers originated from.

If Iran is indeed waging war against Saudi Arabia and its terrorist proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, the real question is - why isn't the United States backing Tehran instead?

The obvious answer to this question reveals the crumbling moral authority of the United States as the principled facade it has used for decades falls away from its hegemony-driven agenda worldwide.

The US and its allies created the "War on Terror" and intentionally perpetuated it as a pretext to expand militarily around the globe in an attempt to preserve its post-Cold War primacy and prevent the rise of a multipolar alternative to its unipolar "international order." It has done this not only at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives across the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, it has done it at the cost of trillions of taxpayers' dollars and the lives of thousands of America's own soldiers, sailors, aviators, and Marines.


Canada Too 

A recent row between Canada and Saudi Arabia over supposed "human rights" concerns appears to be a vain attempt to salvage the credibility of at least some nations involved in the now 7 year long war - the last 3 years of which has seen direct military intervention by Saudi Arabia, its partners, and its backers - including Canada.

The Guardian in an article titled, "‘We don’t have a single friend’: Canada’s Saudi spat reveals country is alone," attempts to portray Canada as taking a lone, principled stance against human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia - abandoned even by Washington.

The article would claim:

The spat appeared to have been sparked last week when Canada’s foreign ministry expressed its concern over the arrest of Saudi civil society and women’s rights activists, in a tweet that echoed concerns previously voiced by the United Nations. 

Saudi Arabia swiftly shot back, making plans to remove thousands of Saudi students and medical patients from Canada, and suspending the state airline’s flights to and from Canada, among other actions.

The Guardian would also claim:

...the US said it would remain on the sidelines while Saudi officials lashed out at Canada over its call to release jailed civil rights activists.

Canada's feigned concern for "human rights" in Saudi Arabia comes at a time when the Canadian government continues approving of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms sales to Riyadh. This includes small arms and armored personnel carriers Saudi forces are using in their ongoing invasion and occupation of neighboring Yemen.

The feigned divide between Ottawa and Washington over Saudi human rights violations is overshadowed by years of commitment by both North American nations in propping up the Saudi regime, and aiding and abetting the very worst of Riyadh's human rights abuses unfolding amid the Yemeni conflict.

Canada's apparent role is to help compartmentalize the worst of the West's decaying moral authority, containing it with the US, and taking up a more prominent role in the West's industrialized "human rights" and "democracy" leveraging racket.

While Canadian armaments help fuel genocide in Yemen - Canadian diplomats around the world fund agitators and directly meddle in the internal political affairs of foreign nations predicated on promoting "human rights" and "democracy."

In Thailand for example, the US has receded into the shadows, allowing Canada, the UK, and other European nations to openly engage in political meddling on their behalf. US funding and support continues, but the public face of Western "outrage" is increasingly becoming Canadian, British, and Northern European.

However, Canada faces the same problem that has permanently eroded American credibility. And as its role in perpetuating real human rights abuses worldwide continues to be exposed, its feigned concern over token or even manufactured human rights concerns will increasingly appear hypocritical and hollow, undermining the West's collective ability to leverage and hide behind human rights and democracy to advance their self-serving agendas.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.    

Who is Responsible for the Suffering of Yemen?

January 23, 2016 (Martin Berger - NEO) - As noted by numerous commentators on the Middle East, the situation in Yemen remains very grave. The country has been devastated by the armed conflict being waged between the Houthis and the troops of ousted President Mansour Hadi, which in turn are being heavily supported by the air forces of the so-called Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

The ongoing airstrikes claim civilians lives, leave districts in ruin, and destroy the country’s infrastructure. Earlier this month at least three people were killed in an air raid on the hospital of Doctors Without Borders in the governorate of Saada. It’s been reported that hospitals are closing their doors, unable to operate under the current circumstances.

This is not the first medical facility to be bombed in Yemen – the so-called Arab coalition has even destroyed the Center for Care and Rehabilitation of the blind in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Moreover, the international Human Rights Watch organization reported that the coalition was using cluster bombs to destroy certain facilities in Sana’a back in January.

One should note that massive civil unrest began in Yemen in 2011 as the direct result of so-called the Arab Spring, orchestrated by the US and its allies. In 2014, Shia tribesmen that are known today as the Houthis started fighting government forces and consequently managed to capture a significant part of the country due to the massive support that was shown for them by the Yemeni population. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched its first airstrikes against the Houthis, which were, according to various human rights organizations, badly coordinated and resulted in massive civilian casualties.


Concerned by the grave state of affairs in Yemen, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein announced at a meeting of the UN Security Council back in December that it is the so-called Arab coalition that is responsible for the absolute majority of attacks on residential areas and civilian targets in Yemen. According to Reutres, the UN High Commissioner announced that he:

...observed with extreme concern heavy shelling from the ground and air in areas of Yemen with a high concentration of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools.

It is curious to note that in pursuit of its criminal goals in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been using weapons that were bought from the UK in 2012. Moreover, it keeps on restocking its supply of deadly British-made weapons. For this reason, at the end of last year, leading British diplomats and lawyers warned David Cameron that he was running the risk of facing an international tribunal for war crimes due to the fact that the weapons that his government supplies to Saudi Arabia are being extensively used against civilian targets in Yemen.

According to The Independent:

Advisers to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, have stepped up legal warnings that the sale of specialist missiles to the Saudis, deployed throughout nine months of almost daily bombing raids in west Yemen against Houthi rebels, may breach international humanitarian law…

…thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed, with schools, hospitals and non-military infrastructure hit. Fuel and food shortages, according to the United Nations, have brought near famine to many parts of the country.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other NGOs, claim there is no doubt that weapons supplied by the UK and the United States have hit Yemeni civilian targets. One senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) legal adviser told The Independent: “The Foreign Secretary has acknowledged that some weapons supplied by the UK have been used by the Saudis in Yemen. Are our reassurances correct – that such sales are within international arms treaty rules? The answer is, sadly, not at all clear.”

Yet, The Guardian notes that Saferworld and Amnesty released a legal opinion from Professor Philippe Sands QC and a number of other lawyers, according to which the sales of British arms to Saudi Arabia in the light of its military intervention and bombing of Yemen violate national, European and international laws. The lawyers are pointing out that in the period of 9 months before July 2015 the UK supplied 9 million pounds worth of rockets and bombs, while in the next three months this number hit a staggering one billion pounds. Additionally, there’s clear evidence that those weapons were used against hospitals, schools, markets, warehouses, ports, and camps for displaced persons, turning Yemen into a nightmare. The Saferworld human rights organization is convinced that there’s a direct link between the increase in sales of ammunition and bombings in Yemen.

Many British observers, including those from The Guardian, have been pointing out that days after David Cameron’s statements about his attempt to “initiate a political process in Yemen,” and remarks that “there could be no military solution in Yemen,” the data released by the government showed that UK officials approved the sale of a billion pounds worth of bombs to Saudi Arabia.

Under these circumstances the only natural question is: Will international human rights organizations and the international community as a whole, all those who failed to say a resounding “NO” to Western military interventions in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, that were only profitable for arms sellers, carry on watching silently the destruction of Yemen? How many Yemenis do we need to see die before we start solving conflicts within a political framework? How many lives should be spared? Do we ever bring to justice those responsible for such massacres? Or will we rather allow politicians, the likes of Cameron, to call for peace, while selling huge amounts of deadly weapons behind our backs with impunity?

Martin Berger is a Czech-based freelance journalist and analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook."

Total War in Yemen Totally Ignored by Western Media

August 27, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - With almost a whimper, the Western media reported that the US-backed regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their auxiliary fighters drawn from Al Qaeda have begun carrying out what is the ground invasion of Yemen. Along with an ongoing naval blockade and months of bombing raids, the ground invasion adds a lethal new dimension to the conflict - for both sides.

Landing at the port city of Aden on Yemen's southern tip, it is reported that an "armor brigade" consisting of between 1,000 - 3,000 troops primarily from the UAE are now moving north, their ultimate destination Sana'a, the capital of Yemen.

Columns of the UAE's French-built Leclerc main battle tanks were seen moving out of the port city though their numbers are difficult to establish. Reports claiming that the UAE unit is brigade-sized might indicate as many as 100 tanks involved - a third of the UAE's total armored force.

The bold move comes after months of frustrating failures for the two Arabian regimes. Their Yemeni proxies - loyalists of the ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi - have proven all but useless in fighting Houthi fighters across most of Yemen despite air superiority provided to them by their Arabian allies. And while it appears the well-equipped Arab forces are able to concentrate firepower, overwhelming Houthi fighters in pitched battles, the ability for Saudi, UAE, and Al Qaeda forces to actually hold territory they move through is questionable at best.

Opportunity 

The Roman Empire throughout much of its reign was feared as invincible. After suffering several major defeats, the veneer of invincibility began to peel and along with it crumbled inevitably their empire. Likewise, Western hegemony has been propped up by the illusion of military superiority on the battlefield. By carefully picking its battles and avoiding critical defeats, the West, and the US in particular, has maintained this illusion of military invincibility

As the US moves against nations with larger, better equipped and trained armies, it has elected to use proxies to fight on its behalf. Thus, any humiliating defeat could be compartmentalized.

However, by most accounts the war in Yemen is not only a proxy war between Iran and the Persian Gulf monarchies, it is one of several such conflicts raging regionally that constitutes a wider proxy war between the US and its regional allies on one side, and Iran, Syria, Russia, and even China on the other.

With the presence of Western main battle tanks in Yemen attempting to move north, the opportunity now presents itself to punch holes through this illusion of Western invincibility. Yemen as the graveyard for an alleged brigade of French-built Leclerc main battle tanks would be one such hole. It would also set the UAE's extraterritorial military ambitions back, if not overturn them entirely, and finally, would leave whatever fighting was left in Yemen to the Saudis who have thus far proven incompetent.

Perhaps this is one of the many reasons the Western media has decided not to cover the events unfolding in Yemen.

Yemen Vs. Ukraine 

One might ask how - in the context of international law - it is possible for unelected absolute autocracies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to intervene militarily in Yemen with naval blockades, aerial bombardments, and now an overt ground invasion including armor columns to restore an ousted regime. This is done with seemingly little concern from the United Nations and with the enthusiastic support both politically and militarily of the United States.

The answer to this question becomes more confounding still when considering Western condemnation of Russia for any attempt to support or defend the ousted government of Ukraine, a nation now overrun by NATO-backed Neo-Nazi militias who in turn are backing a criminal regime in Kiev which includes foreigners assigned to cabinet positions and even as governors. Saudi and UAE military aggression in Yemen makes it increasingly difficult for the West to maintain the illusion of moral superiority regarding Ukraine.

Russia's relative restraint when compared to US-backed aggression on the Arabian Peninsula exposes once again the pervasive hypocrisy consuming Western legitimacy.

This may be yet another reason the Western media refuses to cover the events unfolding in Yemen.

Responsibility to Protect...? 

After NATO's attempt to invoke the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) as justification for the destruction of Libya, it became clear that NATO was merely hiding behind the principles of humanitarian concern, not upholding them. And while it may be difficult to believe, there are still those across the Western media and policy think-tanks attempting to use R2P to justify further military aggression against nations like Syria.

However, R2P is conveniently absent amid what little talk of Yemen that does take place in the Western media. US-backed blockades and months of aerial bombardments have tipped Yemen toward a humanitarian catastrophe. Not only does both the UN and the West fail to demand an end to the bombings and blockades, the West has continued to underwrite Saudi Arabia and the UAE's military adventure in Yemen.
 

The carnage and injustice visited upon Yemen serves as yet another stark example of how the West and its institutions, including the United Nations, are the greatest dangers to global peace and stability, using the pretext of defending such ideals as a means to instead undo them.

Considering this, we discover yet another potential reason the Western media's coverage of Yemen is muted.

It remains to be seen how the Houthi fighters react to the ground invasion of Yemen by Emirati troops. Dealing severe losses to the UAE's armor while continuing to weather aerial bombardment may see the stalling or even the withdrawal of this latest incursion. Not unlike the 2006 Lebanon War where Hezbollah fighters expertly used terrain to negate Israeli advantages in airpower and armor, forcing an early end to the fighting, the Houthis may yet answer this latest move by US-backed proxies operating in Yemen.

Perhaps this possibility above all, is why the Western media would rather the general public knew little of what was going on in Yemen. It would represent yet another conventional Western-equipped proxy army defeated by irregular forces in yet another failed campaign fought in the interests of Wall Street and Washington. While the Western media refuses to cover the events unfolding in Yemen with the attention and honesty they deserve, the conflict is nonetheless pivotal, and may determine the outcome of other proxy wars raging across the Middle East and North Africa, and even beyond.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.   

Might Makes Right? US Can Save Fleeing Presidents, But Russia Cannot

Yemen, Ukraine, and the Hypocrisy of ‘Aggression’ 

March 30, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The military intervention in Yemen by a US-backed coalition of Arab states will undoubtedly inflame the conflict both in Yemen, and throughout the region. It is likely to be a protracted war involving many actors, each of which is interested in furthering its own political and geopolitical agenda.

However, it is the international reaction to this new regional war which is of particular interest; specifically, the way in which the United States has reacted to this undeniable aggression by its Gulf allies. While Washington has gone to great lengths to paint Russia’s reunification with Crimea and its limited support for the anti-Kiev rebels of eastern Ukraine as “aggression,” it has allowed that same loaded term to be completely left out of the narrative about the new war in Yemen.

So it seems that, according to Washington, aggression is not defined by any objective indicators: use of military hardware, initiation of hostilities, etc. Rather, the United States defines aggression by the relationship of a given conflict to its own strategic interests. In Crimea and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor because, in defending its own interests and those of Russian people, it has acted against the perceived geopolitical interests of the US. While in Yemen, the initiation by Saudi Arabia and other US-backed countries of an unprovoked war with the expressed goal of regime change, this is not aggression as it furthers Washington’s interests.

Language Versus Reality

On March 25, 2015 a coalition of Arab states initiated an aerial bombardment (as of writing there has yet to be a ground invasion, though it is expected) of Yemen for the purposes of dislodging the Houthi rebel government which had weeks before toppled the US and Saudi-backed puppet government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The war initiated by Saudi Arabia, along with its fellow Gulf monarchies and Egypt, was motivated purely by Saudi Arabia’s, and by extension the United States’, perceived interests.

Within hours of the commencement of the bombardment, reports from Yemen indicated that dozens, if not scores, of Yemenis had been killed in the airstrikes. Despite the immediate loss of life, to say nothing of the destruction of infrastructure, buildings, homes, and communities, the United States praised the operation as necessary for regional security. Indeed it has been confirmed that, while not providing direct military support in the form of troops or air support, the United States has been intimately involved in the operation.

Speaking directly on behalf of the White House and the Obama administration, the National Security Council spokesperson announced:

Saudi Arabia, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, and others will undertake military action to defend Saudi Arabia’s border and to protect Yemen’s legitimate government…In support of GCC actions…President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to GCC-led military operations. While U.S. forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen in support of this effort, we are establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate U.S. military and intelligence support…the violent takeover of Yemen by an armed faction is unacceptable and that a legitimate political transition…can be accomplished only through political negotiations and a consensus agreement among all of the parties.

So, in Washington’s own words, the aggressive military intervention into Yemen is both legitimate and supported by the US. Moreover, the US has openly acknowledged their direct participation in the campaign in the form of intelligence and logistical support. Exactly what is entailed in “intelligence” and “logistical support” is certainly open to interpretation. Undoubtedly, the US has its covert forces involved in the operation, likely on the ground in Yemen, to say nothing of its vast presence throughout the region.

In fact, it is universally recognized that the CIA has been intimately involved in Yemen for at least the last several years, with CIA Director Brennan having been integral in fostering the relationship. As the NY Times reported in 2012, the Obama administration’s approach in Yemen was “to employ small numbers of Special Operations troops, Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary teams and drones.” It should be further remembered that Hadi himself was handpicked by Washington in the wake of the fall of former President Saleh’s government, and that Hadi, described by the US as the “legitimate” president ran unopposed in a farcically described “democratic transition” sponsored by the US.

Taken in total then, it is objectively true that the United States has been involved militarily in Yemen since at least 2012, propping up their man in Sanaa in order to bolster their geopolitical and strategic position in the region, naturally under the aegis of “fighting terrorism.” So it stands to reason that the White House would refer to the Saudi aggression as legitimate, and praise it as such. It is equally true that the so called “legitimacy” of the military operation, and the Hadi government itself, is dependent on US interests, nothing less.

Now compare the language employed by the US vis-à-vis this war against Yemen, with the talking points endlessly repeated by all US officials, and nearly all media pundits, regarding Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine. Everyone from Republican warmongers like John McCain, to State Department spokesperson (and unwitting comedic icon) Jen Psaki, have all described Moscow’s moves as “Russian aggression.” Indeed, it seems that phrase alone has become something of a mantra in Washington, and on the airwaves of its servile and compliant corporate media, framing the narrative as “clear and unmistakable aggression against Ukraine’s territorial integrity” and other such vacuous phrases.

But consider for a moment the objective facts. Russia’s direct military interests in Crimea, not to mention the safety and freedom of Russian-speakers, was under direct threat after the US-sponsored coup in Kiev toppled the corrupt, but democratically elected, government in February 2014. In response, Russia launched a limited military operation to secure Crimea and its interests. This is critical because this operation was carried out with no bloodshed, no airstrikes, and not a single shot fired. While this aspect may be forgotten amid the din of belligerent shouts and incredulousness from Washington, it must not be forgotten by keen political observers. In point of fact, Russia’s “aggression” in Crimea was entirely peaceful, and as is self-evident, entirely defensive.

On the other hand, the “legitimate” actions of the US, Saudi Arabia and its allies do not constitute aggression. Well, it is clear that the dozens (by now likely far more) of families who have lost fathers and sons, wives and daughters in the airstrikes would certainly call it aggression.

It should also be noted that, unlike in Crimea where the people were given the opportunity to decide their own fate democratically, the people of Yemen are being given no such opportunity. There has been a domestic insurgency for years in the wake of the civil wars and reunification of North and South Yemen, and whatever stability might have been provided by the new Houthi-led dispensation has now fallen by the wayside. Moreover, the notion that Yemen was a functioning country under Hadi would be like saying that France was a functioning country under the Vichy regime. The overthrow of Hadi opened the possibility for a truly independent nation to emerge. This Saudi Arabia and its allies simply could not abide, as it would set a dangerous precedent for its own domestic opposition which, quite correctly, sees the House of Saud as little more than a proxy of the US and Israel.

Consider also the rhetoric of “aggression” regarding Russia’s very limited support for the anti-Kiev rebels of Donetsk and Lugansk. Listening to western media, one would think that Russian military had invaded en masse in those regions and was fighting a war against Kiev’s military. The reality is that, despite dozens of accusations and hundreds of news stories, there is still no evidence of any direct Russian military presence in eastern Ukraine. It is true that there are Russian volunteers and some Russian hardware, but these are hardly evidence of any invasion, let alone even military support of the scale that the US has just authorized sending to Kiev. Even a Russophobic perspective would have to admit, however reluctantly, that Russia’s presence in eastern Ukraine is minimal and indirect.

Now compare that to the outright bombardment using massive military capabilities being carried out by the Saudis and their allies in Yemen. In a matter of hours, this US-backed alliance has employed more military hardware, and wreaked more devastation, than Russia has in more than 12 months. The question of scale is critical. Russia quite correctly perceives a threat to its own borders and interests from the US-sponsored Kiev regime, and it has acted with a great degree of restraint. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, which also perceives a Houthi-controlled Yemen as a threat to its borders and interests, has unleashed a massive military campaign to destroy the movement and effect its own regime change to reinstall Hadi.

It could not be clearer the level of hypocrisy from the US, its allies, and the compliant media. Russia is an “aggressor” while Saudi Arabia is a “defender.” Iran is sponsoring regime change in Yemen, while the US merely supported “democratic forces” in Ukraine. Assad must go, but Hadi must stay. Not to belabor the point, as it is obvious on its face, but legitimacy and illegitimacy is conferred by the US based on its interests, not international law or objective facts.

That this is well known in the non-Western world is undeniably true. However here in the US, and in the West more broadly, the narrative is shaped by those in power who seek to further their own agendas. They choose the words, and they dictate what is and is not acceptable. They are the Ministry of Truth, and the thought-criminals who question their narratives are dangerous subversives and propagandists. In truth however, those who question those narratives are the ones who have consistently been on the right side of history, from Vietnam to Iraq to Libya, Syria, and Yemen. And I, for one, am proud to count myself among them.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City, he is the founder of StopImperialism.org and OP-ed columnist for RT, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US-Saudi Blitz in Yemen: Naked Aggression, Absolute Desperation

March 27, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The "proxy war" model the US has been employing throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and even in parts of Asia appears to have failed yet again, this time in the Persian Gulf state of Yemen.

Overcoming the US-Saudi backed regime in Yemen, and a coalition of sectarian extremists including Al Qaeda and its rebrand, the "Islamic State," pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi militias have turned the tide against American "soft power" and has necessitated a more direct military intervention. While US military forces themselves are not involved allegedly, Saudi warplanes and a possible ground force are.

Though Saudi Arabia claims "10 countries" have joined its coalition to intervene in Yemen, like the US invasion and occupation of Iraq hid behind a "coalition," it is overwhelmingly a Saudi operation with "coalition partners" added in a vain attempt to generate diplomatic legitimacy.

The New York Times, even in the title of its report, "Saudi Arabia Begins Air Assault in Yemen," seems not to notice these "10" other countries. It reports:

Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had launched a military campaign in Yemen, the beginning of what a Saudi official said was an offensive to restore a Yemeni government that had collapsed after rebel forces took control of large swaths of the country.  

The air campaign began as the internal conflict in Yemen showed signs of degenerating into a proxy war between regional powers. The Saudi announcement came during a rare news conference in Washington by Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.

Proxy War Against Iran 

Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in.

Iran's interest in Yemen serves as a direct result of the US-engineered "Arab Spring" and attempts to overturn the political order of North Africa and the Middle East to create a unified sectarian front against Iran for the purpose of a direct conflict with Tehran. The war raging in Syria is one part of this greater geopolitical conspiracy, aimed at overturning one of Iran's most important regional allies, cutting the bridge between it and another important ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

And while Iran's interest in Yemen is currently portrayed as yet another example of Iranian aggression, indicative of its inability to live in peace with its neighbors, US policymakers themselves have long ago already noted that Iran's influence throughout the region, including backing armed groups, serves a solely defensive purpose, acknowledging the West and its regional allies' attempts to encircle, subvert, and overturn Iran's current political order.

The US-based RAND Corporation, which describes itself as "a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis," produced a report in 2009 for the US Air Force titled, "Dangerous But Not Omnipotent : Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East," examining the structure and posture of Iran's military, including its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and weapons both present, and possible future, it seeks to secure its borders and interests with against external aggression.

The report admits that:

Iran’s strategy is largely defensive, but with some offensive elements. Iran’s strategy of protecting the regime against internal threats, deterring aggression, safeguarding the homeland if aggression occurs, and extending influence is in large part a defensive one that also serves some aggressive tendencies when coupled with expressions of Iranian regional aspirations. It is in part a response to U.S. policy pronouncements and posture in the region, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Iranian leadership takes very seriously the threat of invasion given the open discussion in the United States of regime change, speeches defining Iran as part of the “axis of evil,” and efforts by U.S. forces to secure base access in states surrounding Iran.

Whatever imperative Saudi Arabia is attempting to cite in justifying its military aggression against Yemen, and whatever support the US is trying to give the Saudi regime rhetorically, diplomatically, or militarily, the legitimacy of this military operation crumbles before the words of the West's own policymakers who admit Iran and its allies are simply reacting to a concerted campaign of encirclement, economic sanctions, covert military aggression, political subversion, and even terrorism aimed at establishing Western hegemony across the region at the expense of Iranian sovereignty.

Saudi Arabia's Imperative Lacks Legitimacy 

The unelected hereditary regime ruling over Saudi Arabia, a nation notorious for egregious human rights abuses, and a land utterly devoid of even a semblance of what is referred to as "human rights," is now posing as arbiter of which government in neighboring Yemen is "legitimate" and which is not, to the extent of which it is prepared to use military force to restore the former over the latter.

The United States providing support for the Saudi regime is designed to lend legitimacy to what would otherwise be a difficult narrative to sell. However, the United States itself has suffered from an increasing deficit in its own legitimacy and moral authority.

Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed.

In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess.

Saudi Arabia's Dangerous Gamble 

The aerial assault on Yemen is meant to impress upon onlookers Saudi military might. A ground contingent might also attempt to quickly sweep in and panic Houthi fighters into folding. Barring a quick victory built on psychologically overwhelming Houthi fighters, Saudi Arabia risks enveloping itself in a conflict that could easily escape out from under the military machine the US has built for it.

It is too early to tell how the military operation will play out and how far the Saudis and their US sponsors will go to reassert themselves over Yemen. However, that the Houthis have outmatched combined US-Saudi proxy forces right on Riyadh's doorstep indicates an operational capacity that may not only survive the current Saudi assault, but be strengthened by it.

Reports that Houthi fighters have employed captured Yemeni warplanes further bolsters this notion - revealing tactical, operational, and strategic sophistication that may well know how to weather whatever the Saudis have to throw at it, and come back stronger.

What may result is a conflict that spills over Yemen's borders and into Saudi Arabia proper. Whatever dark secrets the Western media's decades of self-censorship regarding the true sociopolitical nature of Saudi Arabia will become apparent when the people of the Arabian peninsula must choose to risk their lives fighting for a Western client regime, or take a piece of the peninsula for themselves.

Additionally, a transfer of resources and fighters arrayed under the flag of the so-called "Islamic State" and Al Qaeda from Syria to the Arabian Peninsula will further indicate that the US and its regional allies have been behind the chaos and atrocities carried out in the Levant for the past 4 years. Such revelations will only further undermine the moral imperative of the West and its regional allies, which in turn will further sabotage their efforts to rally support for an increasingly desperate battle they themselves conspired to start.

America's Shrinking Legitimacy 

It was just earlier this month when the United States reminded the world of Russia's "invasion" of Crimea. Despite having destabilized Ukraine with a violent, armed insurrection in Kiev, for the purpose of expanding NATO deeper into Eastern Europe and further encircling Russia, the West insisted that Russia had and  still has no mandate to intervene in any way in neighboring Ukraine. Ukraine's affairs, the United States insists, are the Ukrainians' to determine. Clearly, the US meant this only in as far as Ukrainians determined things in ways that suited US interests.

This is ever more evident now in Yemen, where the Yemeni people are not being allowed to determine their own affairs. Everything up to and including military invasion has been reserved specifically to ensure that the people of Yemen do not determine things for themselves, clearly, because it does not suit US interests.

Such naked hypocrisy will be duly noted by the global public and across diplomatic circles. The West's inability to maintain a cohesive narrative is a growing sign of weakness. Shareholders in the global enterprise the West is engaged in may see such weakness as a cause to divest - or at the very least - a cause to diversify toward other enterprises. Such enterprises may include Russia and China's mulipolar world. The vanishing of Western global hegemony will be done in destructive conflict waged in desperation and spite.

Today, that desperation and spite befalls Yemen.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Yemen’s Tattered Reality After 'Fairytale' Revolution

Photographic perspectives.

Nile Bowie
RT- NileBowie.blogspot.com
November 3, 2012

A year on from the Arab Spring, supposed to usher in a new era for Yemen, for most it is a perilous time. With no clear direction, it is plagued by instability and lawlessness, allowing it to fall prey to further US military expansion.
 
­The unrest brought about by the Arab Spring triggered numerous political transitions throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. In Yemen, the only state in the Arabian Peninsula to have a republican form of government, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed after 33 years in power, and replaced by his deputy, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
 
After nearly a year since this political transition, Yemen continues to face food insecurity, impoverishment and the threat of violent extremism from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other Islamist militias. Guns are everywhere in the country’s capital, Sana’a, and several government ministries are abandoned and riddled with bullet holes. Once frequented by foreign tourists, political instability has left Yemen’s rich historical sites abandoned.

In the country’s sparsely-populated and oil-rich south, formerly known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen, citizens of the once-communist state advocate separatism and independence from unified Yemen.
While many argue that 2011’s political transition failed to produce any tangible change in direction, the United States has backed the new administration and continues to implement a program of drone strikes in Yemen’s rural areas, despite reports of substantial civilian causalities. While the country continues to be plagued by instability and lawlessness, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Yemen as Washington eyes to further increase its military presence in the Arab state.
 

 

A portrait of deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs from an abandoned government ministry in the Hassaba district in downtown Sana'a. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Worshipers pass time in an alleyway nearby a mosque in the old city of Sana’a below flyers depicting Yemen’s current President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Property in downtown Sana’a has been deserted since being damaged in fighting between government forces and tribal militias during 2011’s unrest. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Former President Saleh remains a revered figure among many the poor and merchant classes, as his photograph and propaganda can be seen hung in small businesses throughout the capital. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Yemen’s derelict Ministry of Industry & Trade in ruins following the Arab Spring. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Life has returned to normal in inner city communities almost a year after the ouster of President Saleh. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

The destruction of Yemen’s state-run Public Corporation for Agricultural Services and other institutions like it pose difficult challenges for Yemeni leadership in providing services and steering economic activity. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

The sale of Khat, an amphetamine-like stimulant and appetite suppressant, is the backbone of Yemen’s economy; users often chew leaves until their cheeks become enflamed. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Economic activity in rural areas relies almost entirely on the cultivation and sale of Khat; an elderly man walks to the local Khat dealer in Wadi Dhahr. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Scenes of urban poverty are commonplace in Sana’a, one of the oldest populated places in the world, as the Hadi administration struggles to enforce order. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Beggars live in abandoned automobiles on the outskirts of Sana’a. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

The pristine Saleh Mosque, the largest and most modern mosque in the country, was constructed by Yemen’s former president and holds 40,000 people. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Yemen’s Saleh Mosque has come under criticism for its apparent size and opulence; $60 million was spent on the mosque’s construction despite the nation’s austere poverty. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

A Yemeni solider examines photographs of victims of a suicide bombing that killed 90 people at a military parade rehearsal in Yemen's capital in May 2012; Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is accused of carrying out the attack. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Customers sit outside a fish market on Socotra Island waiting for the day’s catch. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

A Socotran fisherman converses with a customer in Soqotri, an ancient unwritten language of pre-Islamic origin. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

In 2010, Yemen’s government allowed the United States to militarize Socotra Island to combat Somali pirates, despite the area being recognized by (UNESCO) as a World Natural Heritage Site for its biodiversity. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Socotra has experienced the near-collapse of its tourism industry since 2011’s unrest; the island is located at the crossroads of strategic naval waterways and major oil transit routes through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

The flag of the Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen painted on a roadside in Socotra reading, “Yes to the South!” (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

Socotra is historically known for its rare and spectacular plant species, many with no equivalents available anywhere else in the world, such as the Dragon Blood tree. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

 

 

A nomadic girl sells sap from the Dragon Blood tree, which is used as a medicine among a variety of other things. (Photo by Nile Bowie) 

 

­Nile Bowie for RT