"Drone Attack" on Saudi Oil - Who Benefits?

September 16, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Huge blazes were reported at two oil facilities in Saudi Arabia owned by Aramco. While Saudi authorities refused to assign blame, media outlets like the BBC immediately began insinuating either Yemen's Houthis or Iran were responsible. 

The BBC in its article, "Saudi Arabia oil facilities ablaze after drone strikes," would inject toward the top of its article:

Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen have been blamed for previous attacks.

Following an ambiguous and evidence-free description of the supposed attacks, the BBC even included an entire section titled, "Who could be behind the attacks?" dedicated to politically expedient speculation aimed ultimately at Tehran.

The BBC would claim:

Houthi fighters were blamed for drone attacks on the Shaybah natural gas liquefaction facility last month and on other oil facilities in May.

The Iran-aligned rebel movement is fighting the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen has been at war since 2015, when President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was forced to flee the capital Sanaa by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia backs President Hadi, and has led a coalition of regional countries against the rebels. 

The coalition launches air strikes almost every day, while the Houthis often fire missiles into Saudi Arabia.

Deliberately missing from the BBC's history lesson are several key facts, leaving readers to draw conclusions that conveniently propel the West's agenda versus Iran forward.

The US and Saudi Arabia vs. MENA

The war in Yemen was a result of US-backed regime change operations aimed at Yemen - along with Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Syria, and Egypt - starting in 2011.

Major hostilities began when the client regime installed by the US was ousted from power in 2015. Since then, the US and its Saudi allies have brutalized and ravaged Yemen triggering one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century.

The UN's own news service in an article titled, "Humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world, warns UN," would admit:

An estimated 24 million people – close to 80 per cent of the population – need assistance and protection in Yemen, the UN warned on Thursday. With famine threatening hundreds of thousands of lives, humanitarian aid is increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions across the country.

The cause of this catastrophe is the deliberate blockading of Yemen. Reuters in its article, "U.N. aid chief appeals for full lifting of Yemen blockade," would report:

The United Nations appealed on Friday to the Saudi-led military coalition to fully lift its blockade of Yemen, saying up to eight million people were “right on the brink of famine”.

Essentially - the United States - with the largest economy and most powerful military in the world - along with its allies in Riyadh - are attempting to erase an entire nation off the map through bombings, starvation, and disease.

Saudi aggression carried out on behalf of Washington isn't confined only to its war on Yemen. Saudi Arabia has played a key role in radicalizing, arming, and funding US-backed militants attempting to overthrow the government of Syria as well as extremist groups bent on destabilizing Iraq and even Iran itself.

Likewise, the militants who overran Libya in 2011 were drawn from extremist networks funded for decades by Riyadh. Thus, Saudi Arabia is not merely menacing neighboring Yemen, it is menacing the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and even beyond.

Saudi Arabia the Victim?  

The BBC's recent article attempting to portray Saudi-Yemeni hostilities as a tit-for-tat conflict rather than Yemen's desperate struggle for survival is yet another illustration of not only the West's hypocrisy in terms of upholding or in any way underwriting human rights, but also the Western media' complicity in advancing this hypocrisy.

Saudi Arabia is no victim.

Yemen: US "Accidentally" Arming Al Qaeda (Again)

February 15, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - US weapons are once again falling into the hands of militants fighting in one of Washington's many proxy wars - this time in Yemen - the militants being fighters of local Al Qaeda affiliates.

CNN in its article, "Sold to an ally, lost to an enemy," would admit:

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found.

The article also claims:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN.

Weapon transfer included everything from small arms to armored vehicles, CNN would report.

 The article would include a response from Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael, who claimed:

The United States has not authorized the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates to re-transfer any equipment to parties inside Yemen.

The US government cannot comment on any pending investigations of claims of end-use violations of defense articles and services transferred to our allies and partners.

Despite obvious evidence that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both violating whatever agreements the Pentagon claims to have with both nations, the US continues fighting their joint war in Yemen for them in all but name.

The US role in Yemen includes not only arming Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also training their pilots, selecting targets, sharing intelligence, repairing weapon systems, refuelling Saudi warplanes, and even through the deployment of US special forces along The Saudi-Yemeni border.

Because of this continued and unconditional support - Pentagon complaints over weapon transfers it claims were unauthorized ring particularly hollow. More so when considering in other theaters of war, US weapons also "accidentally" ended up in the hands of extremists that just so happened to be fighting against forces the US opposed.

(Repeated) Actions Speak Louder than Pentagon Excuses 

An entire army of Al Qaeda-linked forces was raised in Syria against the government in Damascus through the "accidental" transfer of US weapons from alleged moderate militants to designated terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda's Al Nusra affiliate and the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS).

And while this was presented to the public as "accidental" -  years before the war in Syria even erupted, there were already warning signs that the US planned to deliberately use extremists in a proxy war against both Syria and Iran. 

As early as 2007 - a full 4 years before the 2011 "Arab Spring" would begin - an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published in the New Yorker titled, ""The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" would warn (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

From 2011 onward, admissions throughout prominent Western newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post would admit to US weapon deliveries to "moderate rebels" in Syria.

Articles like the New York Times', "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," and "Kerry Says U.S. Will Double Aid to Rebels in Syria," the Telegraph's,  "US and Europe in 'major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb'," and the Washington Post's article, "U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels," would detail hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons, vehicles, equipment, and training funneled into Syria to so-called "moderate rebels." 

US-Saudis Enlist Al Qaeda For Yemen War

August 22, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Associated Press has revealed that the US-backed, Saudi-led war against Yemen includes the use of Al Qaeda as a mercenary force against Houthi rebels.

This confirms as fact what was widely dismissed by Western politicians and a complicit Western media as a "conspiracy theory" since 2011.

Evidence that the US and its allies enlisted Al Qaeda and other extremist groups to wage serial proxy wars across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), from Libya and Syria to Yemen, has piled up into a mountain emerging high above the fog of disinformation behind which these wars had been fought.

The AP article titled, "AP Investigation: US allies, al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen," would report (emphasis added):

Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West. 

Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.

That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.

AP would also link the Muslim Brotherhood directly to Al Qaeda militants, stating:

In some places, militants join battles independently. But in many cases, militia commanders from the ultraconservative Salafi sect and the Muslim Brotherhood bring them directly into their ranks, where they benefit from coalition funding, the AP found.

This is further evidence exposing the Muslim Brotherhood's role in preparing the grounds for the US-engineered 2011 "Arab Spring" uprisings and the planned violence that accompanied them.

Of course, while Western leaders and the media attempted to deny complicity in the dominant role Al Qaeda played in conflicts across MENA for years, a look at any conflict map - be it in regards to Syria or Yemen - reveals that pockets of extremists operating in both nations are adjacent to US-Saudi-controlled supply lines and US-Saudi controlled territory - not because the US or Saudi Arabia are fighting Al Qaeda and its affiliates - but because they are protecting and using these extremists to fight their various regional wars on their behalf.

As to why the US and Saudi Arabia might be aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, AP would quote Michael Horton of the Jamestown Foundation. AP would report:

“Elements of the U.S. military are clearly aware that much of what the U.S. is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that,” said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. analysis group that tracks terrorism.

“However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the U.S. views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen,” Horton said.

However, the US has failed to make a case as to what threat Iran constitutes that is equal or greater to the threat posed by Al Qaeda. It was supposedly Al Qaeda, not Iran that hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in 2001 - tipping off a now nearly two decade-long "War on Terror." In fact - Iran has invested blood and treasure in fighting and defeating Al Qaeda and its proxies, including the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" in both Syria and Iraq - contributing directly to both terrorist organizations' defeat.

It would appear that if Iran is involved in Yemen, it is also clearly fighting against Al Qaeda there as well.

America's War on Yemen Exposed

August 14, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - As atrocities and scandal begin to mount regarding the US-backed Saudi-led war on the impoverished nation of Yemen, the involvement and hypocrisy of the United States and other Western backers is coming to full light.

Global condemnation of Saudi airstrikes on civilian targets has brought public attention to Washington's role in the conflict - a role the Western media has attempted to downplay for years. It is ironic, or perhaps telling, that alternative media outlets targeted as "Russian influence" are leading coverage of Yemen's growing humanitarian catastrophe.

US Denies Role in Proxy War That Couldn't be Fought Without It 
In a recent press conference, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis - when asked about the US role in the Yemeni conflict in regards to Saudi atrocities - would claim:

We are not engaged in the civil war. We will help to prevent, you know, the killing of innocent people.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Mattis himself would lobby US Congress earlier this year to continue US support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen.

A March 2018 Washington Post article titled, "Mattis asks Congress not to restrict U.S. support for Saudi bombing in Yemen," would admit:

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made a personal appeal to Congress on Wednesday not to restrict the United States’ support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, as the sponsors of a privileged resolution to end Washington’s involvement announced that the Senate would vote on the matter next week.

Support includes US intelligence gathering for Saudi operations, the sale of of US weapons to the Saudi regime, and even US aerial refueling for US-made Saudi warplanes dropping US-made munitions on Yemeni targets selected with the aid of US planners.

In essence, the US is all but directly fighting the "civil war" itself.

Abetting War Crimes, Sponsoring Terrorists to What End? 

As to why the US believes it must continue supporting a proxy war Saudi Arabia is fighting on its behalf - beginning under US President Barack Obama and continuing in earnest under current US President Donald Trump - the Washington Post could conclude (emphasis added):

The war in Yemen has inspired much controversy in Congress, as lawmakers have questioned why the United States has involved itself so closely on the Saudi-backed side of a civil war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel forces. Successive presidential administrations have presented the campaign as a necessary component of the fight against terrorism and to preserve stability in the region. As Mattis put it in his letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, “withdrawing U.S. support would embolden Iran to increase its support to the Houthis, enabling further ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatening vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea, thereby raising the risk of a regional conflict.”

However, Mattis, his colleagues, and his predecessors have categorically failed to explain how Iran constitutes a greater threat to either US or global security than Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is a nation admittedly sponsoring Al Qaeda worldwide, including in Yemen as revealed by a recent Associated Press investigation, and the nation which both radicalized the supposed perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City and Washington D.C. and from which most of the supposed hijackers originated from.

If Iran is indeed waging war against Saudi Arabia and its terrorist proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, the real question is - why isn't the United States backing Tehran instead?

The obvious answer to this question reveals the crumbling moral authority of the United States as the principled facade it has used for decades falls away from its hegemony-driven agenda worldwide.

The US and its allies created the "War on Terror" and intentionally perpetuated it as a pretext to expand militarily around the globe in an attempt to preserve its post-Cold War primacy and prevent the rise of a multipolar alternative to its unipolar "international order." It has done this not only at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives across the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, it has done it at the cost of trillions of taxpayers' dollars and the lives of thousands of America's own soldiers, sailors, aviators, and Marines.

Who is Responsible for the Suffering of Yemen?

January 23, 2016 (Martin Berger - NEO) - As noted by numerous commentators on the Middle East, the situation in Yemen remains very grave. The country has been devastated by the armed conflict being waged between the Houthis and the troops of ousted President Mansour Hadi, which in turn are being heavily supported by the air forces of the so-called Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

The ongoing airstrikes claim civilians lives, leave districts in ruin, and destroy the country’s infrastructure. Earlier this month at least three people were killed in an air raid on the hospital of Doctors Without Borders in the governorate of Saada. It’s been reported that hospitals are closing their doors, unable to operate under the current circumstances.

This is not the first medical facility to be bombed in Yemen – the so-called Arab coalition has even destroyed the Center for Care and Rehabilitation of the blind in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Moreover, the international Human Rights Watch organization reported that the coalition was using cluster bombs to destroy certain facilities in Sana’a back in January.

One should note that massive civil unrest began in Yemen in 2011 as the direct result of so-called the Arab Spring, orchestrated by the US and its allies. In 2014, Shia tribesmen that are known today as the Houthis started fighting government forces and consequently managed to capture a significant part of the country due to the massive support that was shown for them by the Yemeni population. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched its first airstrikes against the Houthis, which were, according to various human rights organizations, badly coordinated and resulted in massive civilian casualties.

Total War in Yemen Totally Ignored by Western Media

August 27, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - With almost a whimper, the Western media reported that the US-backed regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their auxiliary fighters drawn from Al Qaeda have begun carrying out what is the ground invasion of Yemen. Along with an ongoing naval blockade and months of bombing raids, the ground invasion adds a lethal new dimension to the conflict - for both sides.

Landing at the port city of Aden on Yemen's southern tip, it is reported that an "armor brigade" consisting of between 1,000 - 3,000 troops primarily from the UAE are now moving north, their ultimate destination Sana'a, the capital of Yemen.

Columns of the UAE's French-built Leclerc main battle tanks were seen moving out of the port city though their numbers are difficult to establish. Reports claiming that the UAE unit is brigade-sized might indicate as many as 100 tanks involved - a third of the UAE's total armored force.

The bold move comes after months of frustrating failures for the two Arabian regimes. Their Yemeni proxies - loyalists of the ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi - have proven all but useless in fighting Houthi fighters across most of Yemen despite air superiority provided to them by their Arabian allies. And while it appears the well-equipped Arab forces are able to concentrate firepower, overwhelming Houthi fighters in pitched battles, the ability for Saudi, UAE, and Al Qaeda forces to actually hold territory they move through is questionable at best.

Opportunity 

The Roman Empire throughout much of its reign was feared as invincible. After suffering several major defeats, the veneer of invincibility began to peel and along with it crumbled inevitably their empire. Likewise, Western hegemony has been propped up by the illusion of military superiority on the battlefield. By carefully picking its battles and avoiding critical defeats, the West, and the US in particular, has maintained this illusion of military invincibility

Might Makes Right? US Can Save Fleeing Presidents, But Russia Cannot

Yemen, Ukraine, and the Hypocrisy of ‘Aggression’ 

March 30, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The military intervention in Yemen by a US-backed coalition of Arab states will undoubtedly inflame the conflict both in Yemen, and throughout the region. It is likely to be a protracted war involving many actors, each of which is interested in furthering its own political and geopolitical agenda.

However, it is the international reaction to this new regional war which is of particular interest; specifically, the way in which the United States has reacted to this undeniable aggression by its Gulf allies. While Washington has gone to great lengths to paint Russia’s reunification with Crimea and its limited support for the anti-Kiev rebels of eastern Ukraine as “aggression,” it has allowed that same loaded term to be completely left out of the narrative about the new war in Yemen.

So it seems that, according to Washington, aggression is not defined by any objective indicators: use of military hardware, initiation of hostilities, etc. Rather, the United States defines aggression by the relationship of a given conflict to its own strategic interests. In Crimea and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor because, in defending its own interests and those of Russian people, it has acted against the perceived geopolitical interests of the US. While in Yemen, the initiation by Saudi Arabia and other US-backed countries of an unprovoked war with the expressed goal of regime change, this is not aggression as it furthers Washington’s interests.

Language Versus Reality

On March 25, 2015 a coalition of Arab states initiated an aerial bombardment (as of writing there has yet to be a ground invasion, though it is expected) of Yemen for the purposes of dislodging the Houthi rebel government which had weeks before toppled the US and Saudi-backed puppet government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The war initiated by Saudi Arabia, along with its fellow Gulf monarchies and Egypt, was motivated purely by Saudi Arabia’s, and by extension the United States’, perceived interests.

US-Saudi Blitz in Yemen: Naked Aggression, Absolute Desperation

March 27, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The "proxy war" model the US has been employing throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and even in parts of Asia appears to have failed yet again, this time in the Persian Gulf state of Yemen.

Overcoming the US-Saudi backed regime in Yemen, and a coalition of sectarian extremists including Al Qaeda and its rebrand, the "Islamic State," pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi militias have turned the tide against American "soft power" and has necessitated a more direct military intervention. While US military forces themselves are not involved allegedly, Saudi warplanes and a possible ground force are.

Though Saudi Arabia claims "10 countries" have joined its coalition to intervene in Yemen, like the US invasion and occupation of Iraq hid behind a "coalition," it is overwhelmingly a Saudi operation with "coalition partners" added in a vain attempt to generate diplomatic legitimacy.

The New York Times, even in the title of its report, "Saudi Arabia Begins Air Assault in Yemen," seems not to notice these "10" other countries. It reports:

Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had launched a military campaign in Yemen, the beginning of what a Saudi official said was an offensive to restore a Yemeni government that had collapsed after rebel forces took control of large swaths of the country.  

The air campaign began as the internal conflict in Yemen showed signs of degenerating into a proxy war between regional powers. The Saudi announcement came during a rare news conference in Washington by Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.

Proxy War Against Iran 

Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in.

Yemen’s Tattered Reality After 'Fairytale' Revolution

Photographic perspectives.

Nile Bowie
RT- NileBowie.blogspot.com
November 3, 2012

A year on from the Arab Spring, supposed to usher in a new era for Yemen, for most it is a perilous time. With no clear direction, it is plagued by instability and lawlessness, allowing it to fall prey to further US military expansion.
 
­The unrest brought about by the Arab Spring triggered numerous political transitions throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. In Yemen, the only state in the Arabian Peninsula to have a republican form of government, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed after 33 years in power, and replaced by his deputy, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
 
After nearly a year since this political transition, Yemen continues to face food insecurity, impoverishment and the threat of violent extremism from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other Islamist militias. Guns are everywhere in the country’s capital, Sana’a, and several government ministries are abandoned and riddled with bullet holes. Once frequented by foreign tourists, political instability has left Yemen’s rich historical sites abandoned.

In the country’s sparsely-populated and oil-rich south, formerly known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen, citizens of the once-communist state advocate separatism and independence from unified Yemen.
While many argue that 2011’s political transition failed to produce any tangible change in direction, the United States has backed the new administration and continues to implement a program of drone strikes in Yemen’s rural areas, despite reports of substantial civilian causalities. While the country continues to be plagued by instability and lawlessness, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Yemen as Washington eyes to further increase its military presence in the Arab state.
 

 

A portrait of deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs from an abandoned government ministry in the Hassaba district in downtown Sana'a. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Worshipers pass time in an alleyway nearby a mosque in the old city of Sana’a below flyers depicting Yemen’s current President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

 

Property in downtown Sana’a has been deserted since being damaged in fighting between government forces and tribal militias during 2011’s unrest. (Photo by Nile Bowie)

 

Syria, Yemen, and America’s Quest for Imperial Dominance

Neo-Imperialism by Faux-Democracy, Terrorism, and Propaganda.
 guest post by Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.com,

May 25, 2012 - At the G8 summit last week, President Obama and other officials in his administration, began utilizing the talking point of Yemen being a model to be emulated in Syria. Ostensibly, they were referring to the “peaceful” transition of power in Yemen as an example of what they would like to see in Syria. However, the comparison goes much deeper than simply this superficial connection. The truth is that Yemen represents, in more ways than one, the blueprint that the US imperialist ruling class would like to see applied to the escalating conflict in Syria.

Puppet Regimes and Faux Democracy

The “transition” of power in Yemen, from Saleh to Hadi, is a prime example of the hypocrisy of US policy, touting it as a victory for democracy while concealing the obvious fact that it was the creation of a puppet regime. Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has been presented as the legitimate leader of Yemen, despite the fact that he was the U.S. choice to govern that country. His legitimacy depended on the myth of a democratically elected regime; the US propagates this myth wantonly, pretending that people won’t remember that Hadi ran unopposed in February.

If the purpose of democracy is to create forms of governance accountable to the citizenry and to establish a government that is truly representative of the people’s desires, then it would be an outright lie to call the Hadi administration anything close to a democracy. In fact, as recent developments in Yemen have shown, his regime is nothing more than a puppet government, put in power by the United States in order to allow the CIA and other shadowy entities free reign to use drones, Special Forces, and other covert operations in what is supposedly a sovereign nation.

Not only is Hadi, the former vice President under Saleh, not democratically elected, he is the antithesis of progress in a country that was on the front lines of the Arab Spring. The people who marched through the streets of Sanaa and other cities across Yemen did so with the intention of effecting change in a country which, in the eyes of many, was seen as a backwards dictatorship. However, despite all the rhetoric about hope, change, and progress from the US State Department and the White House, President Obama and his minions, including John Brennan (counter-terrorism advisor and frequent representative of Obama in Yemen), immediately lent their support to Hadi. The betrayal came as no surprise to any informed observer as the United States was only interested in its own strategic interests in the region.

US Tactics and the Geopolitical Imperative in Yemen

US interest in Yemen is certainly not rooted in altruism or a desire to promote democratic ideals. On the contrary, it is the application of a long-standing geopolitical strategy to control international trade through the Mandab Strait and Suez Canal, access to African raw materials, and most specifically, block the expansion of Chinese economic influence in both the Middle East and Africa. For these reasons, the United States has a keen interest in both Yemen and Somalia, desperate to maintain chaos in those countries so as to prevent stable, nationalist leaders from emerging. In so doing, Washington once again shows itself to be an imperialist aggressor, interested only in maintaining and expanding the empire.

The tactics of this strategy are myriad. First and foremost, the US, in accordance with long-standing policy dating back to the Carter administration, uses the red herring of “Islamic extremism” and terrorism, to justify any actions it deems necessary for the advancement of its own agenda. In places like Afghanistan and Yemen, the enemy is Al-Qaeda which must be fought with US military might, while in Libya and Syria, Al-Qaeda is an ally fighting against the oppressive regimes of Gaddafi and Assad. This duplicity should come as no surprise since Washington’s foreign policy is based on expanding US hegemony rather than promoting any ideals.

The second aspect of America’s imperialist strategy is the fomenting of ethnic, tribal, and other sectarian conflicts. In doing so, Washington is able to prevent the emergence of any form of nationalism that, by definition, would stand in opposition to US imperialism. One must simply look across the Mandab Strait for an example of this strategy: Somalia. A nation of strategic and geographical importance, Somalia has been effectively destroyed by US policy over the last twenty years, having been transformed from a proud nation to a loose collection of tribal groups dominated by repugnant warlords with no regard for national identity.

In Yemen, we’ve seen this strategy employed vis-à-vis the Huthi rebellion, the propagandistic use of tribal groups as proxies of Saudi Arabia, Iran, or whomever the US wants to demonize, and countless other examples of these sorts of divisive tactics. In this way, the imperialists are able to keep Yemen fragmented, using it as a pawn on the geopolitical chessboard.

A Connection Between Yemen and Syria?

With all this talk about Yemen, the question might be, “So, what’s this got to do with Syria?” The answer to this question can be found in an analysis of the social movements of the two countries. In Syria, just as in Yemen, there is a real, pro-democracy opposition that took to the streets in hopes of forcing reforms. Both movements began with high-minded ideals and sought to end what they perceived to be the outdated rule of dictatorial leaders. However, unlike Yemen, Syria has been under assault by West-sponsored, foreign mercenary terrorists who have usurped the title of “opposition”, thereby making the real opposition into a mere irrelevancy on the international stage. The United States and its proxies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, and elsewhere are responsible for this reprehensible turn of events.

And so, when the Obama administration claims that the Yemeni model is the best course of action in Syria, what they mean is that their tactics of subversion through terrorism are simply a means to an end. Just as in Yemen, the United States seeks to topple Assad and install a puppet government, one that would be comfortable under the thumb of the imperialist ruling class. The US has no interest in protecting the rights of the ethnic and religious minorities or the real opposition (namely the National Coordinating Committee and the Popular front) in Syria, just as they had little interest in furthering the democratic aspirations of the people of Yemen. Rather, Obama and those who control him, seek regime change in Syria in order to use that nation as a geopolitical chess piece against Iran, Russia and any other nation unfortunate enough to be deemed an “enemy” of the United States.

Syria & Yemen: Tying up Globalist Loose Ends

by Tony Cartalucci

Once again, "claims" and "allegations" herald broader western meddling in the Middle East under the guise of the suspiciously ubiquitous "Arab Spring." As the global corporate-financier oligarchy directs US, British, and French planes to bomb yet another Arab nation, their media tentacles are searching for sensationalism and sympathy in Syria to bolster destabilization efforts on the ground. Indeed the "Otpor fist" that heralded unrest from Tunisia to Egypt is now being "raised" in Syria.

In a recent TIME magazine article titled, "Arab Spring: Is a Revolution Starting Up in Syria?," it cites "descriptions" of protests, "claims" of government brutality, and "alleged details" of protesters rising up against the Syrian government, long slated for removal by the global corporate-financier oligarchs.

Yemen as well, cited as an example of Western hypocrisy for not garnering it's own UN "no-fly zone" in reality doesn't need one, as the British created and managed Muslim Brotherhood and elements within the Yemeni army are already on their way to ousting President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Mohammed Qahtan, Yemen's Al-Islah (Muslim Brotherhood) leader, is leading the calls to oust Saleh from power, not "the people of Yemen." In a March 23, 2011 Reuters report, Qahtan was quoted as warning Saleh, "We will arrive where you are and we will remove you." In the same report, the US gives yet another shocking display of feigned surprise over the Middle East upheaval, voicing concerns that Saleh's ouster would be a blow to their fight against "Al Qaeda." As we will soon see, such upheaval has been in the works for 20 years, and this dishonesty now being portrayed since the unrest began in Tunisia is yet another look into the bottomless well of depravity from which our "leadership" reigns.

The Greater Middle East

Concurrently the US is providing Al-Qaeda linked militant extremists in Libya with air support in their bid to oust Qaddafi. A recent US Army report aired by geopolitical analyst and historian Dr. Webster Tarpley shows the US Army noticed in 2007 that many of the Al Qaeda operatives sent to destabilize Iraq were from Libya. More specifically, these operatives were from the current eastern rebel strongholds of Benghazi and Darnah, now under the protection of a US led no-fly zone.

While this may seem to defy all reason, it only does so if measured against the now discredited official narrative peddled since the "War on Terror" began on September 11, 2001. If America is truly waging global war against Al Qaeda, indeed, nothing about the current crisis in the Middle East makes sense, officially or unofficially. If however, Al Qaeda represents a militant force still as armed, supported, and directed by the West as it was during its US-backed inception during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980's, it makes perfect sense.

Al Qaeda has made it possible for the US to not only justify its own military adventures in the Middle East, but has given them a militant force to badger target regimes as an alternative to the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood and the US State Department's armies of youth activists. That America and Al Qaeda appear as "mortal enemies" helps the global corporate-financier oligarchy exert military force while circumventing the untidy anti-Western sentiment that accompanies each Western intervention.

The broader plan, of course, is to overrun the entire Middle East, erase entire civilizations and build a servile homogeneous regional block to be rolled into a greater global government. While this sounds like the stuff of wild conspiracy theories, former NATO commander Wesley Clark stated that in 1991, Paul Wolfowitz was already determined to use US military might to conquer the Middle East.

CFR and International Crisis Group member Wesley Clark, makes a shocking confession confirming the imperialist designs of the corporate-financier oligarchy. Before Bush was even put into office in 2000, the plan to seize the Middle East was already well underway, with 9/11 the opening act. It has more to do with global domination than simply "oil."

Considering the irrefutable evidence that the current unrest in the Middle East is a result of a premeditated Western plot given the full support of the US State Department, Department of Defense, globalist corporations and now the US military in Libya, it is quite clear the plan Clark described back in 2007 is being rushed through to conclusion. The culmination will be war with Iran.

Clark specifically cites as the architects of this decades spanning plan, the "Project for a New American Century (PNAC)." PNAC is a "Neo-Con" cadre within the globalist combine that has been recently peddling cartoonish propaganda to incite war with Iran. Their serendipitously timed propaganda film "Iranium" focusing on aggressive support for another "Green Revolution" in Iran, just so happened to be released in January 2011 at the height of the unrest sweeping the Arab world. These same "Neo-Cons" are also complicit with supporting the various uprisings via an extensive network of NGOs funded and supported by the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The Rest of the World

Clark's prophetic words in 2007 also shed light on the Russian factor - unwilling or unable to stop US military aggression against their own allies back in the 1990's, and with the recent failure to vote down UNSC r.1973 regarding Libya, they embolden the West to continue their march toward Tehran.

Of course, both Russia and China are dealing with a myriad of destabilization efforts both on their borders and within. Russia, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been struggling against Western-aligned oligarchs including the likes of Mikhail Khodorkovsky who attempted to erect a George Soros-style "Open Russian Society" network of NGOs, complete with Jacob Rothschild and Henry Kissinger sitting on its board of directors. Khodorkovsky was eventually stopped, and now resides in a Siberian prison cell courtesy of Vladamir Putin.

To this day, Khodorkovsky is being supported, and his imprisonment leveraged by the West to create tension within Russia via globalist lobbying firms like Robert Amsterdam's Amsterdam & Peroff. Ongoing destabilization efforts in neighboring Belarus, openly backed by the US State Department and creatures like Joe Lieberman, are also taxing Russia's ability to confront the West's encroachment elsewhere.

Joe Lieberman misappropriates the American people's time by
obsessing over Belarus' internal affairs while his own nation teeters
on economic collapse, ironically caused by imperialist pursuits.

China has been the subject of encirclement and meddling for over two centuries. The US currently occupies South Korea, Japan, and Afghanistan, with a concerted and ongoing effort to destabilize relations within and between India and Pakistan, as well as efforts to stoke color revolutions in Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. All of this is aimed at disrupting China's ability to challenge Anglo-American hegemony in Asia.

China is no stranger to the effects of foreign, imperialistic
meddling. Its recent history is more or less a continuum of
fending off the ill-effects of foreign occupation and foreign
backed regimes including the devastating "Great Leap
Forward" by Mao Zedong.

Domestically, a "Jasmine Revolution" was averted by Chinese officials on the back of January's Egyptian unrest. The US State Department and the BBC are now pledging to assist "activists" inside China (and Iran) with circumventing measures put in place to prevent another attempted uprising. Creating instability inside a nation of over a billion people with regional diversity rivaling that of Europe will undoubtedly result in thousands, perhaps millions of deaths (see the rise of Mao) and gives us another instructive look into the motivations and "values" of our alleged leadership.

As reported previously, this current globalist blitzkrieg signals the largest geopolitical reordering since WW2. It is but one step, albeit a large step, toward a unipolar one world government centered around the global corporate-financier oligarchy. Considering that it is a gambit 20 years in the making, we should not wonder why operations in Libya have taken precedence over the unfolding disaster in Japan. We should however be outraged, as the men that lord over us and dominate our nations financially and industrially are irrefutably committing real crimes against humanity through aggression and criminal negligence.

For more information on alternative economics, getting self-sufficient and moving on without the parasitic, incompetent, criminal globalist oligarchs:

Naming Names: Your Real Government
The Lost Key to Real Revolution
Boycott the Globalists
Alternative Economics
Self-Sufficiency