The Hill has a marvelously deceptive Newspeak article about the conflict in Yemen, chock-a-block with thinly disguised Pentagon propaganda pretending to be news. The US, you see, is Deeply Concerned about Iran sending warships to Yemen to supply and protect their allies, the Houthi rebels, and worse, isn’t even pretending hiding their actions. Unnamed sources in the Ministry of Propaganda are actually using the word “brazen” to describe Iran’s actions, somehow forgetting the US is supporting and arming Saudi Arabia in bombing Yemen (something which is apparently not brazen, since we are doing it.)
It gets even sillier. You will be happy to know the US is engaging in “consensual” boarding of ships in the area, to search them for possible Bad Stuff (none has been found so far). Keen observers of propaganda have probably already deduced “consensual” means “Let us search your ship or we attack you.”
U.S. officials say they are unsure why Iran is making the brazen move. One theory they have floated is that the Saudi-led coalition has effectively blockaded any air routes into Yemen and there are no other ways to resupply the Houthis.
Here’s is what the US and Saudis are probably actually afraid of, as well they should be.
Yet another theory is that Iran wants to force a confrontation with Saudi Arabia that it believes it will win, because Iran views the Saudi military as weak and suspects the U.S. lacks the willpower to support its Gulf ally.
Tell me again why a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen is any of our concern, or what we could possibly hope to gain from it, especially since we are negotiating with Iran on the nuclear deal.
So there you have it. Only our foes are brazen, we consensually board ships to search them, and support thugs because they are making the world safe for democracy. Orwell would understand this language perfectly.
The proximate cause [of bombing Yemen], it would seem, is the interruption of what US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power called the “peaceful, inclusive, and consensus-driven political transition under the leadership of the legitimate President of Yemen, Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi.” One problem with this formulation is that Hadi’s “legitimacy” derives from his being installed as president by an international diplomatic coup, followed by his election in a race in which he was the sole candidate. Essentially, there is no legitimate government of Yemen and has not been for decades at least. The present war of aggression by outside powers intervening in a multifaceted civil war relies for its justification on fiction.