[autonomous]

In a recent speech Hezbollah Secretary General al-Sayyid Hassan calls out the Saudis for starting a war based on the false pretext of a non-existent Yemeni threat to Saudi Arabia, and says that Arab countries are sending their sons to die for nothing other than the purpose of maintaining Saudi hedgemon over the people of Yemen:

The second pretext is that the new situation in Yemen is threatening the security of Saudi Arabia, the security of the Gulf States, and the security of the Red Sea. To avoid using many names, I will only say, the new situation in Yemen- in that, I mean this overwhelming popular revolution headed by the Ansarullah Movement with the cooperation and the assistance of the Yemeni Army and many of the Yemeni people, sections and tribes, regardless of their trends and sects.

This is the new situation. Is it true that the new situation in Yemen is threatening? Do you have evidence to give to Muslims, the Islamic peoples, the scholars, and the Muftis who provide you with their legal opinion for your doing so? Do you have decisive proof? Well, you are waging a war in which blood is shed. If you want to call people to account for their intentions which you are supposing, you would be acting in an inhuman way that has nothing to do with Islam. This is rather the religion of George Bush who calls to account according to intentions. Do you have proof that the new situation in Yemen is threatening Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states? There is no proof.
...
Well, has this Yemen done anything that indicates that it threatens the security of Saudi Arabia or the security of the Gulf? Moreover, it is to my knowledge- and I do not know if that was circulated in the media or not- that the brethrens in the Ansarullah Movement had contacts with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Gulf states. There were contacts and negotiations. In fact, on the eve of the decease of King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, there was a delegation from Ansarullah in Riyadh. They met and held talks with the Saudi intelligence.

O Arabs! O Muslims! O peoples of the world! O Yemenis! O Saudi people! O Arab peoples whom some of your countries want to send your sons to fight! The true reason is that Saudi Arabia flopped in Yemen and lost Yemen. It lost its control and hegemony over Yemen. It felt frustrated from its internal choices and its men in Yemen and from the Takfiri groups in Yemen. It felt that Yemen has become the ownership of its people and the ownership of truly national, independent, and sovereign groups that do not succumb to anyone’s patronage. Saudi Arabia can’t tolerate this. The goal of the war is to restore control and hegemony. That’s it, and we are ready to argue with anyone who has anything else to say. These are the goals of the war.

http://thesaker.is/speech-delivered-by-hezbollah-secretary-general-his-eminence-sayyed-hassan-nasrallah-on-friday-march-27-2015/

[Timo]

If they didn't have so much oil over there in that part of the world, would we even care if they were intent on killing each other?

Western powers have continuously saved many nations in the Middle East from their own autonomy for most of the 20th Century. When autonomy starts to return to the peoples of these nations, are we really that surprised that they start fighting again to establish their own controls over their own nations? They're pissed at the western world for decades of suppression. They couldn't give two bits for western values or democracy. They couldn't care less if we buy their oil. In fact, they'd rather we didn't, thus forcing us to crumble, as well. As far as i'm concerned, the US should not be the policing power for their domestic or regional conflicts any more. They'll eventually establish a new order for themselves. We may not like it, but neither did the British during our own War of Independence. Attempting to control and influence one side over another only serves to stengthen the divisions, and lengthen the timeframe of conflict.

[Cid_Yama]

There are many reasons why Pakistan is not joining the Saudi alliance, although the Western Media continues to misrepresent and portray it as a done deal. The joint military exercises had been going on for a week prior to the Yemen crisis.

Pakistan Army spokesman Asim Bajwa said that the pre-scheduled joint military exercise "Samsam-5" was being held since March 19 in the Saudi Arabian city of Taif, Xinhua reported.
He said that the drill, however, did not involve an operational deployment. The Pakistan-Saudi Arabia joint military exercise assumes significance in view of the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen against the Shia Houthi rebels since March 26.

"The exercise is not related to any current military operations," the Saudi Press Agency quoted a senior Saudi commander, Fares bin Abdullah, as saying.

Bajwa said that a group of 292 Pakistani military personnel were participating in the drill.
The joint war game between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is held every year and last year, it was held in Pakistan's Punjab province.

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on Monday that Pakistan would not become part of the Arab coalition involved in the military operation in Yemen. Asif had said on Friday that Pakistan would not take part in any conflict that would divide the Muslim world.

A top adviser to the Pakistani government also dismissed as false and misleading, reports of Pakistani fighter jets taking part in airstrikes in Yemen. "No Pakistani aircraft has gone out of Pakistani airspace," Tariq Fatemi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, said.

link


Pakistan is set to join the SCO in July along with Iran and India. The West has been working hard to undermine this.

Federal Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in the National Assembly elucidated Pakistan's role in the Yemen conflict, "We will not take part in any conflict that could result in differences in the Muslim world, causing fault-lines present in Pakistan to be disturbed, the aggravation of which will have to be borne by Pakistan," he asserted.

The request from Riyadh comes at a time when the Pakistan military is engaged in an operation against terrorists in North Waziristan. Asif's reference to 'fault-lines' hints at Pakistan's widespread sectarian conflict, as a result of which Shia and other religious minorities are targeted in tit for tat killings by extremist groups.

The defence minister's statement comes a day after Saudi Arabia said that Pakistan will join its operation against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen, for a conflict that is rapidly escalating into a murky civil war. The minister's announcement today apparently rules out Pakistan's participation in the Yemen conflict.

link

Saudi Arabia has been funding the Taliban who are Sunni and other Sunni extremist groups in Pakistan. Something the West obviously doesn't like to talk about. Just as the Saudis funded the Sunni ISIS. Saudi Arabia also funds the Sunni political parties in Pakistan and helped end the previous pro-Iran PPP government.

Pakistan is currently involved in a gas pipeline deal with Iran and also a North-South Transport Corridor project.

Pakistan has turned to the East for it's future.

Pakistan has sent a Peace Delegation to Saudi Arabia seeking to mediate an end to the conflict.

[ROCKMAN]

“If they didn't have so much oil over there in that part of the world, would we even care if they were intent on killing each other?” You mean like the world’s attitude of the Hutu slaughtering the Tutsi in Rwanda? Well, that was really shorted sighted for the Tutsi to not have oil reserves, wasn’t it?

“When autonomy starts to return to the peoples of these nations, are we really that surprised that they start fighting again to establish their own controls over their own nations?” And that leads to the obvious problem: those regions were nations per se in the first place. Many of those “nations” originated as the result of some old white guys drawing lines on a blank map. There’s no basis for re-establishing control over a “nation” that didn’t exist in the first place. What had existed were semi-autonomous regions that were more or less tribal controlled. Control that was periodically challenged by some nearby “tribe”. So in essence that’s what’s returning to the region…or at least that’s what some groups are trying to do. That’s what happening now that the old white guys and their minions are losing that control.

[Synapsid]

Keith,

Your maps look an awful lot like maps of the old Persian empire, the one Alexander conquered.

Let's see: Had he not lived the Romans would have faced the Persians in western Anatolia not in Mesopotamia, might still have taken Egypt but there'd have been no large Christian region to be invaded by the Arabs in the 600s (the Persians would have been there)...

A really fun novel awaits its author.

[autonomous]

A lot of really pissed off Yemeni fighters can be seen in these videos:
https://youtu.be/FHCs35vdvps
https://youtu.be/ulRRbPfNnXg

If the coalition takes the fight to the ground in Yemen, the consequences could be severe. Houthis are battle-hardened guerrilla fighters and could cross into Saudi Arabia. They've already threatened suicide bomb attacks inside Saudi Arabia…

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have both talked about the possibility of putting boots on the ground. On Saturday, Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen said he expected coalition troops to be in Yemen within days.

Saudi leaders have said that if troops do go in, they won't leave until they have degraded the Houthis' ability to fight. The Houthis are apt guerrillas. A fight on the ground could prove bloody and lengthy.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/30/middleeast/yemen-saudi-arabia-intervention/index.html
Despite airstrikes delivered by Saudi air forces and their Gulf allies, the Houthis are continuing their offensive against the dwindling loyalists of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The heaviest exchange of cross-border fire since the start of air offensive was reported on Tuesday, with Saudi troops clashing with Yemeni Houthi fighters. Hadi-allied officials have remained hopeful that Riyadh would send ground troops to turn the tide for the ousted official.

“We are asking for that [Saudi ground operation in Yemen], and as soon as possible, in order to save our infrastructure and save Yemenis under siege in many cities,” the president’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yasseen said an interview with al-Arabiya Hadath TV channel.

[M_B_S]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/i ... 01826.html


Medical supplies reach southern port city as Saudi-led coalition jets continue to strike suspected Houthi positions.

09 Apr 2015 06:37 GMT |

************************************

WAR!

The Huthis must bomb vital Saudi Oil infrastructure to counter the air strikes !

M_B_S

[Keith_McClary]

U.S. Double Standards in Ukraine and Yemen

We read in the news that a revolution in a foreign country has gained control of its capital and most of its territory. The country's president is forced to flee, while his supporters fight on from their regional base, insisting that the new rulers have no legitimacy. How should the U.S. respond?
...
The scenario above could equally describe Ukraine in 2014 or Yemen in 2015. The U.S.'s conflicting responses to these two crises highlight the wide gulf between image and reality in U.S. foreign policy, and illustrate how the actual decision-making of U.S. political leaders invariably leads to greater violence, bloodshed and chaos.

After the coup in Ukraine, the U.S. and its European allies immediately recognized the new government in Kiev, treating the self-styled People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as outlaws and terrorists, or even as foreign invaders in their own country. Thousands of people have been killed, parts of Eastern Ukraine have been reduced to rubble and Ukraine's economy may be in free fall. Diplomacy by France, Germany and Russia has finally achieved a fragile ceasefire.

Appearing to view the ceasefire mainly as a setback in its economic and proxy war against Russia, the U.S. has responded by sending military aid to Ukraine, along with troops to train the new forces that Ukraine's new leaders recruited from neo-Nazi militias and Ukrainian nationalists when they realized they could not count on the Ukrainian military to wage and win a war against its own people.
...
Meanwhile in Yemen, ex-president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi has fled the country and taken refuge in Saudi Arabia, just as President Yanukovych took refuge in Russia in 2014. But in sharp contrast to its posture on the crisis in Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies still recognize Hadi as the legitimate President of Yemen, despite the awkward facts that his term expired in 2014 and that he formally resigned as president in January 2015. A U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition now seems committed to destroying as much of Yemen as necessary to restore him to power.

The coup in Ukraine seemed to be unconstitutional, relying on a vote in parliament that fell 10 votes short of the 338 required for impeachment, after many members fled the invasion of the parliament building by Svoboda and Right Sector militias. President Yanukovich has always insisted that he never resigned as President.

[Cid_Yama]

Thank You.

[M_B_S]

Saudis bombing of the Jemen Capital Sanaa

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/y ... 15770.html

Handy Video shows huge explosion!

The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV channel said at least 15 people were killed, including a presenter for another TV network.
"This was by far the strongest explosion witnessed in Sanaa so far. Hundreds, if not thousands of homes have been damaged, sending thousands of people to flee the area," Hakim al-Masmari, the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Post, told Al Jazeera.
*************************************

War Crimes .........



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/a ... -coalition

The explosions were the most powerful seen in the city since a Saudi-led air campaign against Iran-allied Shia rebels, known as Houthis, began last month. The blasts deposited a layer of soot on the top floors of residential buildings in Sana’a and left the streets littered with glass. Anti-aircraft fire rattled across the city in response.

[onlooker]

Terror being unleashed by what Noam Chomsky states is the biggest terrorist nation being the US. What is troubling is how this terror begets a terrorist backlash as those people who feel aggrieved and attacked wish to enact vengeance. Whatever the ultimate objective of the US is in this region, it seems to have created a hornet's nest of radicalism and potential terrorists. Or maybe US ascribes to a type of 1984 scenario whereby you have war for the sake of war to distract, to control, to attain support for Big Brother etc. here is link to Chomsky video speaking among other things about Yemen campaign , US status in Western hemisphere, US-Russia relations ,European Union status and the uprising against Neo-Liberalism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyUX7e7g_Zs

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

I hate youtube discourses and never watch them.

I believe the wide adoption of video and audio to be one of the problems with our muddle headed society . . . in order to truly understand what is being related and inferred you need to be able to read it, that's the way I'm wired anyway.

Cheers.

[Sixstrings]

Well..

The reality is that places that fight terrorism a lot less than we do, actually have gotten themselves into a more dangerous situation, regarding islamic terrorism.

France. Great Britain. Belgium. Australia. They've all had terrorist attacks.

So I don't think the answer is to fight them less, and be more understanding. That didn't work for the Aussies, nor the Brits, nor the French.

Yemen was already a terrorist "hornet's nest." The issue is, you just can't have some safe haven for foreign fighters to flock into from all over the world and be free to make their basecamps and all that.

Let's not forget the attacks in France came from those terrorists in Yemen.

So now here comes Iran, on their own geopolitical expansion that's separate from the terrorist thing. So they push out the pro-American government in Yemen. So now you've got Iran getting it's fingers in there, which pisses the Saudis off -- they're not going to let themselves get surrounded by Iran, and Israel won't either.

So -- separate from the US and without approval or even notification -- KSA launched it's air war. Then the US has kind of joined in a little bit with some support, after the fact.

So that's the situation. Onlooker -- I'm sorry, it's not so simple as the "Iranians are the good guys, Americans bad guys," it's not so simple as just ISIS terrorists, or just Iranian-supported Hezbollah terrorists. It's a sunni shia larger war as well; it's really not all about America or the West, and it's not like if we all do nothing we'll get left alone. Again -- ask Australia if they got left alone, ask France, ask all these other Western nations that have a much bigger muslim terrorist problem than we do.

[davep]

It's a sunni shia larger war as well; it's really not all about America or the West, and it's not like if we all do nothing we'll get left alone.

Which has got significantly worse since we got rid of secular leaders and left power vacuums for the various factions to fight it out.

[Sixstrings]

Which has got significantly worse since we got rid of secular leaders and left power vacuums for the various factions to fight it out.

You're right. Though hindsight is always foresight.. I don't remember ANYBODY way back when, being a Saddam Hussein booster.

But yeah, you're right. Secular tyrants rule with cruelty and an iron fist, but it's better than ISIS / Ayatollah tyrants.

Dave -- here's another power vacuum to think about. The vacuum created when the USA BACKS OUT of all these things. This is what you guys always said you wanted to see happen.. Uncle Sam not having his finger in things anymore.. well congratulations, now it's Iran on the march and the ayatollah just stuck his finger in where America's used to be.

And Putin does likewise, and China.

I've said this many, many times before. Be careful what you wish for. America pulling back in the world does not mean the world gets better, it means what fills that vacuum is far worse.

[onlooker]

Six you make some valid points. I am not saying US is the demon of this world everyone else has their nasty attributes as well. In fact in the video with Chomsky he points out that Russia has and is doing some rather reprehensible stuff. Also, I see your point about having a deterrence against terrorism by striking it swiftly and strongly. Also, the situation in the Middle East is very complicated. I am just sorry that regular people are situated in a perfect storm of chaos over there. Yet I do reiterate that US, Britain and Israel have had culpability in having interfered over there and created situations ripe for extremism and terrorism. We can debate about Israel's rights to have a homeland over there in another thread, but the fact is Israel has been very heavy handed in it's policies over time. I remind everyone that the West basically carved out the Middle East around the time of the first WW. They did so without any clue as too what people were mixed together. So like you said Shia and Sunnis do not like each other. As for Iran they do seem aggressive but then again you can make a claim that they are sort of defending themselves from the belligerence of the West as well as KSA and Israel. So no actors are innocent and the region was destined to be a hot spot because of its oil.

[Keith_McClary]

You're right. Though hindsight is always foresight.. I don't remember ANYBODY way back when, being a Saddam Hussein booster.

But yeah, you're right. Secular tyrants rule with cruelty and an iron fist, but it's better than ISIS / Ayatollah tyrants.

A lot of people predicted that these invasions would destabilise the Mideast.

[M_B_S]

WAR!

Fierce fighting grips Yemen's Aden as residents flee
Houthi fighters clash with Popular Resistance Committees for control of Aden's main airport as families flee the city.
30 Apr 2015 22:13 GMT | War & Conflict, Politics, Middle East, Yemen, Houthis

Yemen's besieged city of Aden has seen one of its worst days of violence yet, as Houthi fighters clashed with forces loyal to the country's president for control of the city's main airport.
Sources told Al Jazeera on Thursday that fighting was raging at Aden's international airport as Popular Resistance Committees and local residents traded tank and mortar salvos with Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.


Women and children have been burnt in their homes, civilians have been shot in the streets or blown up by tank fire
Ahmed al-Awgari, local activist

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/f ... 08849.html
*******************************

Dispite useless Saudi bombings the Huthis will win the war.

M_B_S

[Keith_McClary]

A Saudi war going badly wrong
Bill Law
Wednesday 22 April 2015

What began as a military adventure for Mohammed, son of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and the world’s youngest minister of defence, is turning into a major fiasco
It must have seemed a very good idea at the time. The young, ambitious son of an aged king launching a war against a rebellion in a troubled country to the south.

Ignore the fact that the tribe you are attacking is in fact a useful buffer against an even greater threat. Ignore that this tribe badly beat your country’s forces just a few years previously. Ignore the disquiet of old friends because it’s your moment and you have just been appointed the minister of defence.

You are bristling with new weapons, billions of dollars’ worth of them, you have a powerful older rival and you need to prove your mettle both to your supporters and to him. Go to war, young man, go to war and win a quick, decisive victory that confirms your stature as a great military leader.

And so when Mohammed bin Salman, sixth and favourite son of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, launched Operation Decisive Storm on 26 March, and orchestrated an air war against the Houthis of Yemen, he did so no doubt convinced of an easy win.

This would be a breeze, especially as the Egyptians would commit ground troops and if not them than the Pakistanis. After all, both countries have received billions of dollars in aid and interest-free loans from the Saudis over the years. But the Egyptians proved to have long memories. In the 1960s, 20,000 of their soldiers died in Yemen fighting a futile war that came to be known as Egypt’s Vietnam.

And Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan who, it is frequently said, owes his life to the Saudis, proved shrewd in referring the matter to parliament that then universally rejected it. No doubt the MPs were annoyed that the Saudis had previously and rather pompously announced Pakistan had joined the fray, without bothering to ask them.

However, the Saudi-led bombing campaign, which was supposed to break the Houthis resistance and drive them from the cities, seems to have failed miserably. Despite what the Saudi-led coalition has said, the Houthis remain in control of the capital Sanaa and much of the key southern city of Aden.
...
The United States, which had supported the air war with some reluctance while still providing the Saudis and their allies with data on targets, got decidedly cold feet as civilian casualties mounted. And their alarm grew, especially with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) making huge gains in the south of Yemen. They seized key infrastructure in the port city of Mukalla and took over military bases as units of the Yemeni army melted away.
...
And so it has come to pass that the eager young warrior Mohammed bin Salman - who had made himself very available for photo ops in the early days of the campaign - has gone to ground and left it to his underlings to attempt to explain the latest cock-up in a war that, as Saad al-Faqih rather ominously claims, has thus far only one clear winner: al-Qaeda.

Saudi’s young pretender failing at war, leaving Yemen in tatters
Bill Law
Saturday 2 May 2015

The failing war in Yemen could lead to conflict between Saudi royals and heirs to the throne Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Nayef
...
Saad al-Faqih, a conservative critic of the House of Saud who lives in exile in London, calls that 2009 Houthis invasion an example of “escaping forward”. The Houthis then as now were being heavily bombed from the air. The push into Saudi territory ended the bombing campaign and the money paid out to the Houthis to leave Jizan worked to save Saudi blushes.

“The skirmishes are the prelude to a larger offensive,” al Faqih argues. “There is one story in the air where the Saudis and their allies have complete supremacy, and another on the ground. On the Saudi side the troops are quite weak.”

Al-Faqih mocked Saudi television accounts showing people in the border region giving what he said were tents, food and cash to the army. “Can you imagine a general in the British army receiving gifts like that? This is not an army, this is a joke.”

He says that Mohammed bin Salman who is leading the war against the Houthis will never commit ground troops to the conflict, knowing full well that his soldiers would come out second best against hardened Houthi fighters. That would cause embarrassment and a huge setback for an ambitious young man who is in a hurry to establish his credentials. The air campaign launched in March had seemed a quick way to do so.
...
And while the Americans continue to supply logistical support – Faqih claims they are “running the war ops room” – they are increasingly uneasy about the absence of a Saudi exit strategy. Because if history teaches anything in Yemen, it is that the Houthis will not be bombed to the negotiating table. And should Mohammed bin Salman continue along his reckless path, the Houthis may indeed seize the opportunity to “escape forward” and push into Saudi territory in order to force his hand and halt the aerial campaign.

[Cid_Yama]

Well, good. Hopefully this time they will get their comeuppance.