Thinking Citizen — Yemen Re-visited — “$7 Billion In Useless Bombing” (Kristof, New York Times)
Thinking Citizen — Monday is Foreign Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Yemen Re-visited — “$7 billion in Useless Bombing” (Kristof, New York Times)
What should every thinking citizen know about Yemen? What do you know about Yemen that the rest of us should but probably don’t? Is New York Times columnist right that Trump is repeating the Biden error of fighting the Houthis? In 2018, Kristof denounced the first Trump administration for “helping to kill, maim, and starve Yemeni children.” Was he right then? Is he right now?
Today, a few notes. Is this the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet? Or is it #7 after the Sudan, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan? (ranking by “Concern Worldwide). But according the International Rescue Committee, Yemen did not even make the world’s top ten.
What sources would you trust on any of the crises above? What metrics would you use to assess relative horror?
Are the Houthis just Iranian puppets? Is the only solution taking out the puppet-master?
How would you know? What principles of international politics should frame thinking about such matters?
Total population of Yemen: 39 million versus 33 million for Saudi Arabia and 5 million for Oman.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“AFTER TEN YEARS OF WAR, YEMEN REMAINS ONE OF THE WORLD’S WORST HUMANITARIAN CRISES” (UNHCR, United Nations Refugee Agency)
1. “More than 18.2 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection services.”
2. “An estimated 4.5 million people — 14% of the population — are currently displaced, most of whom have been displaced multiple times over a number of years.”80% of the displaced are women and children.
3. “Tens of thousands are already living in famine-like conditions and a staggering five million more are acutely food insecure.”
NB: How do you weigh the cost of starving children today versus the long term cost of appeasing Iran and its puppets?
“OUR CAMPAIGN OF BOMBING AND STARVATION PROBABLY STRENGTHENS THE HOUTHIS, MAKING THEIR UNPOPULAR REGIME SEEM LIKE THE NATION’S PROTECTORS WHILE DRIVING THEM CLOSER TO IRAN” (Kristof)
1. “The US spending versus the Houthis is asymmetric. We spend $1 million on missiles to respond to Houthis’ $200 to $500 Iranian-made drones.”
2. “Starvation, dying girls and boys, weakened American security and a triumph for our adversaries, all at a cost of $7 billion in our taxes. Now, that’s a scandal.”
3. Is Kristof right? or very wrong?
SAUDI-LED COALITION INTERVENED IN THE YEMENI CIVIL WAR IN 2015 (below Abdul Malik al Houthi, the leader of the Houthis)
1. The intervention was launched “at the request of Yemeni president Adrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been ousted from the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 by Houthi during the Yemeni Civil War.”
2. The Houthis are also known as “Ansar Allah” or Partisans of God.
3. They are Zaydi Shia muslims of the Houthi tribe.
NB: The Zaydis are one of the three branches of Shia Islam which dates back to the eighth century.
About 40% of Yemenis are Zaydis. The other two branches of Shia Islam are Twelverism (160 million globally, including Iran, Iraq) and Ismailism (between 5 and 15 million globally). “Iran is the only country where Twelverism is the state religion.”
Opinion | In Yemen, $7 Billion in Useless Bombing
Opinion | Your Tax Dollars Help Starve Children (Published 2018)
Opinion | Be Outraged by America’s Role in Yemen’s Misery (Published 2018)
The 10 worst humanitarian crises to know in 2025
Thinking Citizen Blog — The Impossibility of Foreign Policy Literacy — Long Live Don Quijote!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-led_intervention_in_the_Yemeni_civil_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaydism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelver_Shi%27ism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
