I could give examples for and against every single one of those entities. This is very much a matter of perspective - and everyone thinks he was reasonable from his own perspective.
The US has created significant ill will trying to control the middle east, and there are consequences for continuing this path. You think we can solve this problem with more fighting, you dont think that will cause more problems?
Russia never getting a friendly welcome from the rest of europe after the collapse of the soviet union has to try to work with the only other neighbors they have, and havent had nearly as many problems and incurring far less wrath from the arab world as we have.
Chinas MO is not to start wars, and to date has not started one, they try to capture countries with debt financing. Depending on whether these debts become exogenous and tools to control the political leadership, as is the case with the US, China too may face these problems, but does not currently.
We created what iran is today, and we feed it with every sanction, intentionally.
This is not to say that there are not valid criticisms of US actions. But the Arab world deserves more criticism than it typically gets.
The US, EU, etc don't have a "moral" leg to stand on when it's always a colonialist attitude they have over this region.
One of the ways we improved was an honest assessment of our faults. Not perfectly honest, but we have been improving. Much of the rest of the world powers blatantly lie on their morality. Shamefully so.
I'm open to the "glass houses" take where people should be careful leveling criticism. I have a hard time seeing how this puts any of the terrorist organizations in a position that they are putting on a good display.
Just remember that gunpowder is part of life too
I'm not certain that the people living there agree. From their perspective they bled, got betrayed, and had their entire region royally fucked over for decades.
To them we are no different from an authoritarian regime. They don't get to vote in our elections.
Maybe if the west simply kept their promises a lot of this could have been avoided. "Diplomacy" is pretty hard now, given that our word isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Norway also failed to hold the various parties that came to agreements in Oslo. Not that they had to, but it would’ve been nice to get the mediator on the record of what the agreement was and how it actually played out.
In Middle East, any given actor hates most other Middle Eastern actors. Hate is not in short supply there.
1. God is the Greatest
2. Death to America
3. Death to Israel
4. A Curse Upon the Jews
5. Victory to Islam
I'm curious what makes you want to ignore it?
Commenter you’re responding to was arguing we should have left the Nazis alone in another thread [1]. Some combination of kneejerk anti-American sentiment, a belief that every problem can be solved over a dining table and/or trolling.
But even dropping dead collectively, how can I make sure all my people get a curse and America is dead too?
Ffs, can we have someone defending Arab interests who doesn’t pivot to de facto defending the literal Nazis?
Nobody claimed we did!
People lived in ghettos and were executed before. I guess it depends how you define Holocaust tho
True. I think it’s most broadly held as the industrial liquidation of the Jewish people (alongside other undesirables). Everything else was sadly precedented.
I don't know why the Western media insists on giving them this name. Hussein al-Houthi was a Houthi, but most of his supporters are not. Would you call all Barak Obama supporters "Obamas"?
If they engaged in a rebellion under his leadership/memory separately from the rest of the Democrats, we probably would.
Not really, but if they were referred to as “Obamites” it wouldn’t be that jarring.
Are they referred to by something different in Arabic-language media?
Their demands and intentions are quite clear and solely focused on Israeli-bound ships, although it does seem like this is giving them more leverage with respect to Yemen's agenda which has seen years of war from US-Saudi aggression.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/22/beyond-gaza-ho...
Their actions haven't been, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_involvement_in_the_2023...
> On 12 December 2023, the Houthis launched an anti-ship cruise missile attack against the Norwegian commercial ship Strinda, an oil and chemical tanker operated by the J. Ludwig Mowinckels Rederi company, while it was close to the Bab-el-Mandeb. The Strinda was on its way from Malaysia to Italy (via the Suez Canal). The attack caused a fire aboard the ship; no crew members were injured. The ship was carrying cargo of palm oil. The French Armed Forces Ministry and U.S. Department of Defense reported that the Languedoc shot down a drone targeted at the Strinda, and the USS Mason also rendered aid. The Houthi attack on the Strinda was an expansion of its series of attacks against maritime shipping in the strait; the Houthis began to attack commercial vessels without any discernible tie to Israel.
Several more attacks since then, on ships with nothing to do with Israel.
It’s effectively a shut down of trade to make _basically everyone_ hurt until the world forces the US to stop vetoing UNSC resolutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Ludwig_Mowinckels_Rederi doesn't say anything along those lines.
Nah it’s a different story
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/12/12/tanker-attacke...
We don’t need to kill them. But it’s naive to think appeasement will work with folks calling for the destruction of an entire people.
I suppose if I’m going to complain about us having to learn this lesson time and again, I should learn that well-meaning but tragically-naïve people will keep trying it, time and again. (Appeasement isn’t always irrational [1]. But only if done for force conservation, not out of misguided humanitarianism.)
The former calls the latter naïve, the latter calls the former bellicose, they could well be both wrong. Maybe bin laden did just hate us, and maybe that doesnt matter, because his little empire was built on a different message that he could convince people it was worth dying for.
In Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape shows that all suicide bombings from 1980 to 2005 were the result of a people being occupied. I am not convinced that anyone actually wants conflict, not once theyve seen it and are subject to it at least, unless there is a direct incentive. You might think these people wont stop until they are dead or accomplish their most hardline public talking points, but I find it far more likely that theyd rather be home with their kids than out in the field guarding an unguardable missile launcher.
More, this completely ignores all other suicidal activities. Cults that lead people to suicide. Bullied people that are driven to suicide. Etc.
Seems far more explanatory power can be found if you use indoctrination as the primary driver in such activities. If you manage to indoctrinate people that their life would be best spent by sacrificing it for others, and a valid sacrifice is to strap a bomb to their body, then you will see a rise in that activity.
These aren’t suicide bombings. They’re helicopter-assisted seizures and anti-ship missile attacks.
> I find it far more likely that theyd rather be home with their kids than out in the field guarding an unguardable missile launcher
So would have many Nazis.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the Houthis are evil. Their domestic war is entirely justified. Escalating to a regional conflict probably wasn’t their idea; the instructions came from Tehran.
We don’t fight to kill evil people, we fight to achieve objectives. Within the narrow scope of reopening the Bab-el-Mandab, negotiating isn’t an option because there is no single group who control all the Houthis’ armed forces except Tehran, and Tehran isn’t offering terms.
Look, just, for a second consider that you are treating iran as a bogeyman, they gave us intelligence on al queda after 9/11, they held a candlelight vigil in tehran for the victims. How much do you really know about iran? Are you really so confident that you understand everything thats happened there? How well, are you confident enough to get people killed over it?
I’m not. I’m treating them as a decision maker who won’t negotiate. Which they are. That leaves few options for a quick resolution outside military ones.
> Are you really so confident that you understand everything thats happened there?
Compared to the guy defending the Nazis, yes.
Just like the war on Nazis, some wars have to be fought, especially if your goal is to save lives.
The commenter you’re responding to would have preferred we’d let the Nazis do their thing [1].
Straw man. Also, in the 1940s. We condemn them for it. Very different from saying we should have let them be today, with the benefit of hindsight.
> believe it far more likely that you would come to their defense than I
Says the person who already has.