If Our Close Allies Do It...

Surely it can't be a crime. "It" is the now infamous "double tap." The Americans like to do it with Hellfire missiles delivered from their drones. The Saudis do it with airstrikes.

It works like this. First you hit a designated target - an enemy emplacement, a wedding, a funeral, a hospital, whatever.  Then you sit back and wait for people nearby to come running to help the original victims. Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, not when you're around, you then drop another weapon or two to clean out the rescuers too.

Which leads us to this finding by a UN panel investigating the Saudi airstrikes on a funeral in Yemen believed to have slaughtered over a hundred mourners and their rescuers:

IHL, international humanitarian law, not sure that cuts much ice with our allies especially our really good allies, the United States, the Saudis, or the Israelis. What's the point of having all that expensive hardware if you can't slaughter civilians, including medical personnel when the opportunity arises?

So What's Our Excuse?

Amnesty International is urging Britain's Cameron government to stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  Amnesty claims the weapons are being used to deliberately slaughter civilians in Houthi-rebel controlled parts of Yemen.

Amnesty said it found a pattern of “appalling disregard” for civilian lives by the Saudi-led coalition in an investigation of 13 air strikes in north-eastern Saada governorate during May, June and July: these killed some 100 civilians – including 59 children and 22 women and injured a further 56, including 18 children.

Since last March coalition air strikes have hit homes, schools, markets and other civilian infrastructure, as well as miltiary objectives. Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been badly hit. Thousands who remain in the governorate “live in constant fear of the airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions”, Amnesty says.

Canada is also on the Saudi weapons of indiscriminate destruction/war crimes gravy train with Harper having inked a $15-billion deal for the sale of light armoured fighting vehicles (light tanks) presumably for democracy suppression patrols. The deal supposedly gags Harper from discussing (having to explain) the sale but seemingly leaves him quite free to excuse it on the basis that, if we didn't sell Saudis its instruments of carnage then some other nation would.

For the radical Sunni Muslim House of Saud, being a Shiite Muslim is enough to qualify you for live-fire target practice.  Fortunately, that exempts the devoutly Sunni al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS terrorists/insurgents from Saudi bloodlust. Yemen's Houthi rebels daily fight ISIS and al Qaeda forces while the Saudis, with the active support of Canada, Britain and the US, wage a ground and air war against the Houthis.

If you're interested in this curious murderous mess, check out this episode of VICE TV. The Houthi segment begins at the 17:00 minute mark. It's an eye-opener.



Keeping with the theme of "So What's Our Excuse?" let's talk bitumen and the armada of supertankers that may soon ply British Columbia's coast.  Roger Annis has written an important report, "The Canadian Election and the Global Climate Crisis," for CounterPunch that should be required reading for every British Columbian before they vote in the federal election.  The only party that's even partly standing up for this province and our incredibly fragile ecosystems is Elizabeth May's Green Party and even May is a bit wobbly on bitumen trafficking.

Which brings us to the first segment of the VICE TV episode above concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and how BP used a highly toxic chemical, Corexit, that, instead of dispersing the oil as promised simply made it far more lethal and sank it to contaminate the bottom and the marine life that is found there. Watch it. It's a genuine call to arms.

h/t Northern PoV

Deliver Us From Evil

Why do we tolerate Saudi Arabia when the kingdom, and its Sunni state allies, seems determined to deliver Yemen into the control of ISIS and al Qaeda?

Gwynne Dyer writes that, while we wage an air war against ISIS, the Saudis are undermining our effort with their war on the Yemeni Houthi.

They’ve all shown up for this war. Saudi Arabia and the other monarchies of the Arab world (Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and even Morocco) have all committed aircraft to bombing Yemen. Egypt, Jordan, Sudan and Pakistan have offered to send ground troops. And the United States (which just pulled the last American troops out of Yemen) promises to provide “logistical and intelligence support.”

In practice, however, this coalition of Sunni Arabs and Americans is unlikely to commit large numbers of ground troops to Yemen: the country has been the graveyard of foreign armies from the Romans to the Ottomans. But if they don’t do that, the (entirely unintended) result of their bombing may be to facilitate the take-over of most of Yemen by al-Qaeda and/or ISIS

Sunni paranoia about the rise of Shia power has its roots in the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. So long as the Sunni minority ruled Iraq, it limited the influence of Iran, the paramount Shia power, in the Arab world. With the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the destruction of Sunni supremacy in Iraq, Iran’s power automatically soared – and so did its influence in Shia parts of the Arab world.

Iran didn’t have to do anything particularly aggressive for paranoia to take off in the Sunni countries of the Gulf. Of the 140 million citizens of countries that border on the Persian/Arabian Gulf, about two-thirds are Shias. With a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Sunni Arab monarchies felt terribly exposed and began to see Shia plots everywhere.

...The “coalition” is now bombing the Houthis all over the country. How intensively and how accurately remains to be seen, but if they really succeed in breaking the Houthi grip on central and southern Yemen, they will create a power vacuum that will NOT be filled by the “legitimate” president of Yemen, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, whom they are allegedly trying to restore to power.

Hadi’s forces have utterly disintegrated, and Houthi fighters now occupy the temporary capital that he established in his home city, Aden. (The real capital, Sanaa, has been in Houthi hands since September.) Hadi left Aden by boat on Tuesday, which suggests that he has left the country entirely – unless he plans to create another provisional capital on, say, the island of Socotra.

So if the coalition bombs the Houthis out of Aden, but does not commit ground troops of its own, the real winners will be the al-Qaeda forces that wait just outside the city. Much the same goes for Taiz, the third city, and even for Sanaa itself: it is al-Qaeda or ISIS jihadis who stand to profit most from a Houthi retreat.

Perfect, Mr. Harper.  Just what in hell have you gotten us stuck into?  One thing is sure, if you really do intend to "defeat ISIS" as your supposed defence minister claims, you're going to need a lot more than a sixpack of CF-18s.  And don't forget to bring your chequebook.

That Burnt Smell, That Hissing Sound? That's the Fuze.

Ready to Rumble

\Well, if nothing else, Stephen Harper might just have earned Canada a ringside seat to the outbreak of a Middle East regional war.  The way the International Crisis Group sees it, the Saudi air war on Shiite Yemeni rebels might just be the burning fuze that explodes the Sunni-Shia powder keg.

Obama and the Euros are trying to calm the situation, urging a negotiated peace between Yemen's Sunni government and the Houthi rebels but, according to the ICG, the mixed up gaggle of players aren't in the mood for talking.

No major party seems truly to want to halt what threatens to become a regional war. The slim chance to salvage a political process requires that regional actors immediately cease military action and help the domestic parties agree on a broadly acceptable president or presidential council. Only then can Yemenis return to the political negotiating table to address other outstanding issues.

The Huthi-Hadi divide is the most explosive, but it is not the only conflict. Tensions are also unsettling the recent marriage of convenience between the Huthis and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who, after being deposed in 2011, has taken advantage of popular dissatisfaction and tacitly allied himself with the Huthis against their common enemies to stage a political comeback through his party, the General People’s Congress (GPC), and possibly his son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh. Divisions in the south, which was an independent state prior to its 1990 union with the north, are rampant as well. Southern separatists are internally split and suspicious of Hadi, a southerner who supports continued unity with the north. Then there are al-Qaeda and a nascent Islamic State (IS) movement, both determined to fight the Huthis and take advantage of the state’s collapse to claim territory.

...GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council - the Sunni Arab states] countries have lost faith as well and are increasingly committed to reversing Huthi gains at virtually any cost. Saudi Arabia considers the Huthis Iranian proxies, a stance that pushes them closer to Tehran. Throwing their weight behind Hadi, the Saudis moved their embassy to Aden and reportedly bankroll anti-Huthi tribal mobilisation in the central governorate of Marib and the south. They lead efforts to isolate the Huthis diplomatically, strangle them economically and, now, weaken them militarily. In turn, the Huthis denounce Hadi as illegitimate and offer $100,000 for his capture. They have conducted military exercises on the Saudi border and likely will harden their position in response to Saudi military intervention. They are less dependent on Tehran than Hadi and his allies are on Riyadh, but on today’s trajectory, their relative self-sufficiency will not last long. They are already soliciting Iranian financial and political support.

...Without minimum consensus within and beyond its borders, Yemen is headed for protracted violence on multiple fronts. This combination of proxy wars, sectarian violence, state collapse and militia rule has become sadly familiar in the region. Nobody is likely to win such a fight, which will only benefit those who prosper in the chaos of war, such as al-Qaeda and IS. But great human suffering would be certain. An alternative exists, but only if Yemenis and their neighbours choose it.

This is a perfect example of what's being called "new war."  It's a furball of state and non-state actors.  Governments, including outside nations, rebels, insurgents, militias, terrorists and criminal organizations.  It's a very fluid type of warfare that commonly features shifting alliances among the parties and widely differing and at times irreconcilable political and territorial objectives.  In the context of a negotiated peace, it really is the equivalent of herding cats.

We're not built for this stuff.  We like our combat "old war" style.  Good guys versus bad guys; winners and losers; war and peace.  We don't know what to do when peace is not a realistic option, certainly not an outcome we can dictate. That's when we do what we Westerners have been doing since Algeria and Viet Nam.  It's what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq and it's partially responsible for the hot mess that is the Middle East today.  We go into a place, toss it over, hang around for a decade or so and then leave.  We cannot accept, despite our persistent lack of success, that we're on a path to near certain failure.  It's right there in the user guide - our side gets to win.  End of story.  What, can't these people read?

UPDATE - The United Nations has thrown in the towel, pulling all UN personnel out of Yemen, a measure that's seen as dashing all hopes of a negotiated deal of any sort.

One other thought.  If this business in Yemen is the opening salvo in a grand, Sunni versus Shiite regional war, let's hope Harper has plans to get our people out of the Middle East on short notice.  If this thing blow up, everyone might start looking like the enemy.

Even Diplomats Admit Our Middle East Policy is a Mess.

Of course it's a mess bordering on schizophrenia.  We can't figure out which side we should be fighting, Sunni or Shia.  We're bombing Sunnis on behalf of the Shia in Iraq and, soon enough, Syria but we're backing the Sunnis in their air war against Shiite rebels in Yemen.  Next year we might switch sides again.

What's going wrong here, what's missing?

I think I know.  We're succumbing to a messed up foreign policy because we haven't yet accepted that we've become unwitting warriors in a religious civil war underway in the Muslim world.  It's Saudi Arabia versus Iran, Sunni versus Shiite, and we're reduced to proxies, muscle for one side against the other.  Why should they do the heavy lifting when we'll show up to do it for them?

800-front line jet fighters sitting in the hangars of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States, all of them within easy striking distance of ISIS, so why are we sending a six pack of aging CF-18s 10,450 kms, the distance from Cold Lake, Alberta to Kuwait?  Their kit is mainly newer than ours and often better.  These Arab states are literally awash in F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Eurofighter Typhoons, Panavia Tornadoes and Mirages of all varieties.  So, why us?



"We’re not taking sides against a Shia faction [on behalf of] a Sunni faction,” insisted a State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke. “We’re trying to promote a dialogue process in which the views of all Yemenis can be taken into account, and it’s the Houthis who have refused to engage in that dialogue.”

This, of course, is pure bullshit.  The Saudis have been dropping American and Israeli-made ordinance, including cluster bombs, on Yemen's Houthis for months now as discovered by Vice News.  Everybody wants to pretend this just started. That's nonsense.

The US has also denied it is overtly working in concert with an Iranian-backed assault on Islamic State militants in Tikrit, arguing that their interests only temporarily overlap.

But Rathke revealed the conflict in Yemen had been raised at a meeting between John Kerry, the secretary of state, and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif during talks in Lausanne that are separately aimed at reaching a treaty with Iran over its nuclear programme...

“Yes, it is messy. It is contradictory. That’s foreign policy,” a former US ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, told the Guardian.

“As opposed to seeing it as ad hoc … I would prefer to see it as tailored to local circumstances,” she added. “I would be more concerned if we had some sort of overly rigid policy. I think that would do us less good.”

Hey, I've got just the idea to sort this out.  Wednesdays and Thursdays and every second Monday we'll bomb Shiites.  The other days we'll bomb Sunnis.  There, perfect.

I've Got Just the Thing - Let's Go Fight in Yemen!

We've already got a crew in the neighbourhood, we could probably cut'em a sweet deal.

Yemen asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to back military action by "willing countries" to combat an advance by Shi'ite Muslim Houthi militia, according to a letter from President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi seen by Reuters.

Hadi wants the 15-member body to adopt a resolution to authorize "willing countries that wish to help Yemen to provide immediate support for the legitimate authority by all means and measures to protect Yemen and deter the Houthi aggression."

Hey, when it comes to whacking Muslims, what says "willing country" more than Canada?  And this time we'd get to whack some Shiites .  We've been ripping up Sunnis for almost 15-years and bombing Shiites for once might be a nice change.  Who knows, we might just like it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/middleeast/al-anad-air-base-houthis-yemen.html?emc=edit_na_20150325&nlid=25999106&_r=0

Here's some background on Houthi from Vice TV's Ben Anderson that aired several months ago.

Those Airplane Bombs - Something Doesn't Add Up

The story coming out about two bombs air freighted from Yemen, destination Chicago, doesn't make a lot of sense.

We're told the bombs were very sophisticated, even sniffer dogs couldn't detect the explosive charges.  One was rigged with a cell phone detonator, the other a timer.   Both bombs were supposedly to detonate while the aircraft was over the Atlantic.

It seems the bombs were detected, and disarmed, before the aircraft left Europe for the United States.  The Brits were apparently onto the plot.   Yet both aircraft were allowed to continue to the United States with the presumably disarmed bombs still aboard.  That's hard to understand.

What about the Canadian F-18s sent up to escort the aircraft to the U.S. border?  Why?  Were officials afraid the flight crews of those freighters were up to no good?

But what really gets me is the description of the packages in which the al-Qaeda bombs were allegedly secreted.  Printer cartridges.   Printer cartridges being shipped, by air, from high-tech Yemen to the United States.   Coals to Newcastle?  Printer cartridges being shipped from Yemen, that hotbed of Islamist radicalism, addressed to synagogues in the States?  Synagogues?   Packages in Yemen addressed to American synagogues.  Wow that won't draw any attention at all, will it?

Now I'm no terrorist but it strikes me that an Islamist terrorist wanting to air freight a bomb onto a jet freighter in Yemen would never, absolutely not ever, address the packages to a U.S. synagogue.

This just doesn't add up.  What gives?   What do you think?