Greetings Hivers!
It has been an insane week for me, and I thought, what is a better way to celebrate my 6th Hive Birthday and announce my feature plans here in the Hive Ecosystem than a new post?
Some of you may know that I have been reporting on the conflict in Yemen since 2015, and I was lucky enough to have my work picked up by sites like Antiwar.com and ActivistPost.com. I submitted my article to both outlets and told them that I did not want anything in return; my only reward was the information being public. Hive, or Steemit, as it was called when I started until the greatest community-driven revolution in the blockchain era shook the crypto world, offered an opportunity to ensure that the information I publish is secured forever and can never be erased. People who have never been persecuted for their thoughts cannot understand how important Hive is to people who live in places where free speech doesn't exist or, worse, can get you killed.
Earlier this week, I had the oppurtunity to begin a written interview with an Ansar Allah's (Houthis) political bureau member, not to be confused with their military wing. When this interview is complete, I plan to publish it here on Hive in full, and I think it will offer a unique perspective into Yemen's blockade of the Red Sea. Also, I believe it is important because in times of war, we forget the age-old line "know thy enemy." This phrase was made popular during the Vietnam War by the antiwar movement after the Pentagon Papers came out, and it revealed that the majority of the victims in Vietnam were women and children. It resonates today as the "War on Terror" rages into its twenty-third year.
This year, I plan on using the full Hive Ecosystem, with the blueprints being drawn up in my mind for a weekly show on 3Speak called Dissentopia. In this show, I will discuss geopolitical issues independently to expose informational propaganda that often misleads the public about war and conflicts. It is said that the first death in war is the truth. What we often hear or see from mainstream media publications and broadcasts is brought to us by five companies that have their own agendas.
Part three of my plans for Hive this year will be investing more in Hive and the Hive Ecosystem. I want to make sure my vote mana is used every day to curate the work of my fellow community members. I will post on Hive daily about vital news and my thoughts on the implications of these events. So without further delay...
Welcome to the first edition of WEDA's Weekly News Round-Up
The first story I will cover comes from Dave Decamp, the News Editor for Antiwar.com.
US Prepares for Open-Ended War Against the Houthis in Yemen
Publication date: January 21, 2024, at 12:47 pm ET
Antiwar.com has been an anti-interventionist news outlet since the Bosnian war in the 1990s. Dave Decamp is one of the best real-time news journalists of our time. Unlike me, Dave will not give you opinions or innuendoes; he is just about reporting the facts surrounding a breaking news situation. That is why I like his articles; not only are they quick, reader-friendly pieces, but Dave packs an enormous amount of information into these short articles. Now let's dissect what Dave is talking about in his article titled US Prepares for Open-Ended War Against the Houthis in Yemen.
In the byline, Dave writes that the US has bombed Yemen seven times in just over a week. For those who are unaware, Ansar Allah is also known as the Houthis. I do not call them the Houthis because this is the last name of the leader of the group, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, and what people in the Western world call Ansar Allah. Ansar Allah means supporters of God or partisans of God. The group was founded as a Zaidi revivalist youth group in 1994 and remained an unarmed political group until 2004. Now, they control northern Yemen, including the capital city of Sanaa, which they have controlled since 2015.
Starting on October 19, Yemen launched a naval blockade of Israeli ships, denying them access to the Red Sea and, more importantly, the only Israeli port in the Red Sea, the Port of Eilat. Yemen has repeatedly stated that they have launched this blockade to prevent Israel from conducting a genocide in Gaza. Since the blockade was initiated, Ansar Allah has launched over 25 attacks on separate ships with surface-to-sea missiles and one-way drones. Ansar Allah contends that each of these ships was destined for the port of Eilat, thus contributing to the ongoing war crimes in Gaza.
In response to Ansar Allah's naval blockade of Israeli ships, insurance rates for ships set to sail in the Red Sea rose 250% overnight, and all six global shipping companies announced that they would sail around Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar instead of risking going through the Red Sea. The Yemeni blockade of Israeli ships and alleged disruption to maritime traffic prompted the US to launch a ten-nation naval coalition dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian. Despite the presence of an international maritime coalition, Ansar Allah remained firm in what they contend is their moral duty to uphold the Geneva Convention, which states that all signators must take action to prevent genocide from taking place. The same agreement, the Geneva Convention, also states that blocking a crucial economic strait is a prohibited act of war.
The United States and Europe claim Ansar Allah's actions are an act of terrorism and that the group is a threat to disrupt global commerce. However, it must be noted that Ansar Allah has not killed or injured a single person during their four-month blockade. The US/UK airstrikes that Dave Decamp refers to in his article have killed six civilians and hit Yemen's international airport in Sanaa and the port of Hodeidah, where Yemen gets over 80% of its goods.
Now, as Dave writes about, the US and the UK are planning on launching a full-scale military operation in Yemen to destroy Ansar Allah's ability to attack. The issue with this is that remember when I mentioned before that Ansar Allah has controlled the capital of Yemen since 2015? Well, they endured eight years of war with the GCC-led coalition, which sent an untold number of troops and over 100 warplanes to bomb a country that didn't have any air defenses. The blockade in Yemen killed an estimated 277,000, that is, not people who were killed in the violence; 277,000 men, women, and children succumbed to starvation, or what the UN called severe-acute malnutrition.
The United States sold 54 billion dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE between 2015 and 2021, including the laser-guided missile made by Lockheed Martin that Saudi warplanes fired at a school bus carrying over 50 children, killing everyone on board. Before a truce was signed in April 2022, Saudi Arabia dropped an average of forty airstrikes on Yemen per week for forty consecutive weeks. Over 50% of the hospitals, schools, and universities have been destroyed. Over 80% of the population does not have a plate of food or a glass of water to drink as you read these words. Twenty-four million out of a population of just over thirty million suffer from malnutrition.
Source: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-105988.pdf
Dave Writes:
When asked by a reporter if the attacks were working, Biden said, "Well, when you say 'working' — are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes."
Reporter: Are they working? (the airstrikes and cruise missiles strikes on Yemen)
US President Joe Bidden: "When you say 'working' — are they stopping the Houthis? Bidden answers his own question. "No. Are they going to continue? Yes."
How did Einstein define insanity again?
Know thy enemy.
By Joziah Thayer
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