STOP THE WAR ON YEMEN! SAUDI AND US IMPERIALIST
HANDS OFF YEMEN’S REVOLUTION!
14-04-2015 – The Middle East is once again spiralling out of control as
a result of yet another US backed war. As of March 26, Saudi bombs are raining
down on Yemen, with the full political and even logistical support of the US empire.
In fact, Saudi Arabia declared war on Yemen in the United States itself. Saudi
Arabia’s envoy to the US Adel al-Jubeir listed the countries that will
participate in a criminal act of aggression against a popular revolution – the
United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco.[1]
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan are conspicuous with their participation in the
reckless act of criminal lawlessness, as they, have been arming funding and
training ultra-reactionary jihadists waging a brutal war against the popularly
elected secular government of the Syrian Arab Republic for the past 4 years at
least. But make no mistake, this war takes place under the direct patronage of
the US empire. The US and their Saudi Arabian, Israeli, Turkish and assorted
Gulf Monarchy allies have so far failed in their attempt to overthrow the
Syrian government led by President Assad. It’s almost as if this failure has
led them to simply start another war.
Above: Photo shows a rally in Aden in 2011 supporting the former
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen). The rally was also
commemorating 20 years since a secession move by South Yemen was crushed by former
dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh supported by Al Qaeda.
The bitter irony of this murderous rampage by US allies is that this is
a war to suppress a genuinely popular revolution in Yemen, led by the Ansar
Allah movement, or the Houthis. The criminal US led war by proxy on Syria was
justified in terms of supporting an
alleged “revolution” led by “rebels” fighting for “democracy” in Syria. This
“revolution” was nothing but imperialist sponsored carnage, using unhinged
jihadists who in their vast majority were not Syrian, and thus were despised by
the vast majority of Syrian citizens. The assistance to that fake revolution
jars with US and Saudi attempts to crush
a revolution which is genuinely popular, as the Houthi led rebellion certainly
is. The reasons for this are not hard to understand. The Houthis have been
consistently opposed to the US as well as Al-Qaeda, as well as being opposed to
Israel, the US lap-dog in the region – which is also backing the current Saudi
strikes against Yemen. So, for the West, a fake revolution carried out by
bloodthirsty lunatics is worth backing with all available resources. At the
same time, the West simply cannot tolerate a popular revolution in an Arab
country in the Middle East. War must be waged to put it down – even if via
surrogates such as Saudi Arabia, Israel the Gulf Monarchies, which was and is
the current modus operandi against sovereign Syria.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, in an interview with PBS Newshour,
warned Iran against “waging war across international boundaries”. Kerry stated
that “Iran needs to recognise that the United States is not going to stand by
while the region is destabilised or while people engage in overt warfare across
lines – international boundaries – in other countries”.[2]
He has got to be kidding. Accusations against Iran waging war in other
countries pale in comparison to the actual US funding and/or arming
ultra-reactionary forces in Syria, Ukraine, Hong Kong and Venezuela. Moreover,
in the same way that the US repeatedly claimed that Russia was “invading”
Ukraine without a shred of evidence, the US did not supply a shred of evidence
that Iran was overtly or covertly backing the Houthis in Yemen. It is true that
the Houthis subscribe to Shia Islam, which predominates in Iran, whereas the
ultra-reactionary Wahabism which predominates in Saudi Arabia is a branch of
Sunni Islam. Yet viewing this as a purely religious conflict misses the point
entirely.There are geopolitical alliances being made on a world scale on either
side, with the US and its allies on one side, and an anti-imperialist bloc on
the other. With the US stand Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar,
Bahrain etc – along with the UK, France and Germany. The anti-imperialist bloc
contains Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, the DPRK and
others. The alliances are not at all cemented in place, and the
anti-imperialist bloc contains forces and countries who often work with US
imperialism. It is nonetheless in the interests of workers, to side with the
anti-imperialist side without necessarily politically endorsing every ally.
US and Saudi hostility to Yemen stretches back to the days of the
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). In 1969 a leftist movement took
power, which subsequently allied itself with the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR). The USSR at that time played a progressive role of assisting
some nations as a counterweight to US imperialism. At the same time, it also
ultimately engineered the replacement of some PDRY leaders with ones more
compliant with the Soviet bureaucracy. In the end, in 1990, one of these leaders,
Ali Salim Al-Beidh, agreed to dissolve the PDRY and accede to the
pro-capitalist, pro-Saudi and US backed Ali Abdullah Saleh.[3]
It was in opposition to the pro-US Saleh that the movement which later became
the Houthis arose. In recent times, the Saudi and US leaders have stated that
their aim is to re-install Abd Rabu Mansour-Hadi, a US backed favourite who
took power in 2012, but was forced to resign and flee Yemen in the face of the
Houthi rebellion. The Houthis, being Islamic based, do not represent full
liberation, especially for women. But the victory of the US and Saudi Arabia
over the Houthis would double or triple the oppression of Yemeni men and women,
in a country which is one of the poorest in the entire region.
The government of the United States, supported by the UK and France, has
long proffered itself as an advocate and proponent of “democracy”. Yet at the
moment, the US is politically and logistically backing an alliance of
ultra-repressive absolute Gulf monarchies, against a popularly supported
political revolution, which aims to put in place a democratic constitution.[4]
The US is not really trying to hide this involvement: the Pentagon has admitted
that US Stratotankers are refuelling Saudi war-planes in mid-air, to allow
continuous bombing.[5] So on the one hand the US
arms and funds jihadists fighting a proxy war against the Syrian government,
and on the other hand refuels the warplanes that are raining death down on a
victorious revolutionary, if religiously led, movement in Yemen.
It is staggering hypocrisy for the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia to
lecture Syria about the treatment of its citizens, and then go on to fund and
arm blood-crazed jihadists in an attempt to overthrow its government. The
Washington Post, for example, reported in 2013, that Saudi Arabia’s ban on
women driving is far more extensive than preventing them from getting behind a
steering wheel. Saudi women must have a “male guardian”, a father or husband or
brother, who has material power over her as a parent has over an infant. The
women must have the permission of the male guardian to work, attend school, or
receive medical treatment.[6]
Compare this to secular Syria, where women have all the rights women in the
West have, protected and guaranteed. The Western backed Saudia Arabia, an
unelected feudal monarchy, then lectures Yemeni rebels about “legitimacy”.[7]
For all of their Western backed tyranny, the Saudis do quite rightly
fear the potential of a Yemeni revolution, complete with some degree of
anti-imperialist politics, on their doorstep. The Houthis appear to have some
political limitations, but for all of that, they are leading a revolutionary
movement against US/Saudi/Israeli domination of the region, and by extension,
are resisting the encroachments of world imperialism. They may or may not have
the backing of Iran – but the Saudis nor the US have not provided hard evidence
of this. In any case, an independent Yemen would most likely follow the course
of Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, Syria, the DPRK and to an extent Venezuela, in
opting for development outside the claws of the Washington/Paris/London/Canberra
nexus. In the eyes of Washington, this simple aim on its own is enough to be
declared an enemy of “freedom”.
Unfortunately, the anti-war movement in Australia is at a chronically
low ebb, and currently is ill-equipped to oppose another Western backed war on
a Middle Eastern country. This is partially due to the lack of a class struggle
and internationalist leadership of the Trade Unions, and partially due to the
capitulation of large parts of the left in the closely related war on Syria.
Most of the left and “socialist” parties, with some exceptions, in this
country, have lined up behind the Australian and US governments in their war
for “regime change” against the Syrian Arab Republic, under the guise of
supporting a “Syrian revolution”. This has persisted despite much evidence that
the “revolution” is in fact Western armed and funded, and the “rebels” are in
fact ultra-reactionaries with little or no political support in Syria.
Wittingly or unwittingly, most of the left has gone into battle with, rather
than against, “our own” government, as it assists the US empire in attempting
to destroy an independent state, in a similar way in which Libya was
obliterated. The left parties who provided propaganda cover for the war on
Syria also provided propaganda cover for the war on Libya.
As of April 22, the Saudi-led coalition had called a halt to the bombing phase of “Operation Decisive
Storm”. A spokesperson for the Saudi kingdom announced in a press conference in
Riyadh, that the operation will now move on to a new operation called
“Restoring Hope”.[8] Less than 48 hours later,
however, the bombing of Houthi positions had resumed. The absurdly Orwellian titling of these
“operations” hides the fact that the war against Yemen will continue using other
methods. US warships are reportedly also moving into the waters surrounding
Yemen.
The war on Yemen is not just yet another war in a far-away country, with
little relevance to workers in Australia trying to eke out a living. This war
is both an extension and an escalation of the drive towards world war which the
faltering world casino capitalist economy inevitably invokes. Currently,
Australian workers are being bombarded with a massive corporate media campaign
glorifying the Anzac story 100 years on. The purpose of this campaign is not
just to remember the fallen – if it ever was. In truth the ruling elite are
ready to sacrifice the working class yet again in the service of another empire
– this time that of the US. The Anzac campaign is part of an effort on behalf
of the ruling class to garner working class support behind current and future
wars that will be waged wherever and whenever capitalism is unable to lift
itself out of economic failure. It is the ultimate indictment of the capitalist
system – 100 years after the “Great War”, the ruling classes representing the
corporate elite stand ready to plunge the globe into another “war to end all
wars”.
The war on Yemen, and the potential world wars against Russia and China,
are directly linked to the war on working Australians at home. Workers here are
suffering high unemployment, the highest cost of living in the world, and a
continual degrading of public health, education, transport and other public
services. Those still in work frequently are pushed to breaking point with
unrealistic workloads, often unsafe working conditions, for deteriorating
wages. Class collaborationist Union leaders are repeatedly selling out their
own members, where Union members exist. It is time we fought back against not
only the war on Yemen, but the war on living conditions for working people
here, as part of an offensive against the decaying but still dangerous
capitalist system. Hands Off Yemen!
MARXIST-LENINIST GROUP
mlgroup271@gmail.com
0421 408 692
[1] https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/28/18770550.php
- Article by Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency
[2] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/kerry-warns-iran/
[3] https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/28/18770550.php
- Article by Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency
[5] http://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsus-kc-135-stratotanker-refuels-saudi-led-coalition-warplanes-for-yemen-airstrikes-4550049
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/saudi-arabias-oppression-of-women-goes-way-beyond-its-ban-on-driving/
[7] http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/13/saudi-arabias-other-war/
- by Eric Draitser
[8] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/saudi-arabia-ends-yemen-air-campaign/6410850?section=world
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