Americans will remain baffled by the Middle East as long as

[annabanana]

the media consistently withholding vital information.

The rebels who took over the Yemen palace are not ISIS, not Al Qaida, not Sunni.. but Shia. Not one report I have seen on TV hasn't gone immediately from reporting that "Yemeni rebels" stormed the palace to questioning how we are progressing in our fight against ISIS...

[leveymg]

1. Yemen is KSA's backyard. Serious examination of the the Saudis is off-limits for the MSM.

The fact that the Shi'ia minority has managed to occupy the capitol of this strategically important state so close to Saudi Arabia -- while most of Yemen is controlled by Saudi-funded AQAP -- simply raises too many questions.

They don't want the American public to question our alliance with the Oil Kingdom, or its activities supporting ISIS, AQAP, and the rest of the Jihadis. The MSM doesn't look under rocks in Israel, either, for largely the same reason.

[bemildred]

2. It brings the flat contradictions in our foreign policy into stark relief, is what it does.

Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 11:49 AM - Edit history (1)

When you report all the facts, it becomes clear that our foreign policy is still not "reality-based".

We treat foreign policy like a movie and get annoyed when the other guys don't follow the script, but since it is not really a movie nobody of course does, except our minions.

[leveymg]

3. US foreign policy is almost always a balancing of contradictions. This one is off-the-scale, though

Not ready to draw conclusions, yet, but it could be that there's a shift underway in our approach to the two major players in the Sunni-Shi'ia conflict. This and the fact that the US has allowed Iran to carry out airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS certainly points to it.

[bemildred]

4. We are not alone in being out there in Wonderland.

I concur that a shift is underway, unavoidable for some time now really.

[leveymg]

6. The rise of ISIS could not have happened if we had not tolerated it.

Obviously, it was only a matter of time before it blew back in our faces. This was a cold, calculated decision by some in the USG, a toleration of the foreseeable costs of regime change in Syria and Lybia. After 9/11, and all the other instances of black operations that led to mass casualty attacks by CIA assets running around, that was an intolerable risk. Criminally irresponsible. I certainly hope that Petraeus is indicted (while I deplore the indirect charges, which probably won't stick), but that would raise its own set of contradictions in stark relief.

[JonLP24]

10. The rise of ISIS could not have happened

if the Shia Prime Minster didn't raid, arrest, & kill elected prominent elected Sunni political leaders or brutalize oppressively Sunni protests after 5 years demanding similar things the Houthis are in Yemen.

[Igel]

5. Most reports I've seen say they're Houthi.

They don't say much more than that, though.


They have not distinguished between membership in the the family/tribe, the movement named for them, or that they're fiver Shi'a instead of twelver. Any more than they've pointed out that this may ultimately be at least partially an unexpected consequence of the unification of the country that happened a number of years ago, when Sana'a and Aden joined ranks.

For most purposes, it's enough to say that it's another one of those sectarian/tribal/clain distinctions in which one small group believes it has a superior claim to lording it over everybody else and decides to inflict that claim on others by force majeure.

Which aspect of the fight gets highlighted doesn't depend on reality on the ground. It depends on what the reporter or the listeners think is important. In Sudan, it wasn't a religious dispute it was tribal; then it was religious. In Nigeria, Boko Haram was an ethnic conflict, then it was a pastoral/agrarian/urban conflict, then it became religious. In Syria, it was a case of democracy versus suppression, then Sunni versus Shi'ite, then something else. What these "are" is exactly what they "were". We just feel different parts of the elephant--now the tail, now the trunk, now the legs--but, oddly, always seem to forget that we previously had felt a different part, as though the poor animal was some sort of a demented shape-shifter.

It's worth pointing out that part of the country is also controlled/under attack by AQ-affiliated Sunnis with their own tribal affiliations and relationship to the past, so keeping the two sides separate might be a bit of a challenge.

[bemildred]

7. They are considered Shi'ia,

and differ on the fiver/twelver dogma (fiver IIRC), but they don't present themselves as religious or ideological, which is why nobody talks about that much. Iran seems to like them anyway, like the Alawites. The stuff I have seen that is supposed to be their point of view is all about good government and inclusiveness and fighting corruption.

But yeah, it's very tribal. And they seem to be doing a good job of kicking AQAP's ass. I think the Charlie Hebdo attack was partly a recruiting drive for AQAP, time to refill the ranks.

[bemildred]

9. And we don't really want to talk about Yemen at all, for several reasons,

including Obama's use of it as a good example of drone-success, but that is far from the end of reasons why we don't want to talk about it.

[JonLP24]

8. Houthis -- the media also fails to mention how corrupt the Yemen government is

[seveneyes]

11. What does ISIS, Al Qaida, Sunni, Shia etc all have in common?

How does it relate to secular democratic thinking and compassion for other humans?

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. I dunno. You tell me.

[randome]

13. 'Baffled'? I think most Americans couldn't care less.

The Middle East is a perpetual pool of atrocities. Are the rebels going to bring Democracy to Yemen? Doubtful.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]