Capitalism and imperialism
throwing the workers into crisis as it stumbles along under the weight of its corruption. Until people do something to end capitalism and the tragedies of imperialism, we have to understand and pay a diligent eye to every last bit of it.
It is in this spirit that I will now outline some particular incidents that exemplify why it is that we call the USA and western powers the imperial core, by informing and reminding us all of its practices.
Yemen summary
I want to start with Yemen, a conflict which, I think, is extremely helpful for fostering an understanding of spheres of influence. The situation in Yemen has been described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 230,000 human lives have been lost as an indirect result of the conflict, because of hunger, disease, collateral damage, with many more casualties and life-altering injuries. The infrastructure – roads, electricity, water supply, the ports, farms and food production, hospitals, particularly hospitals – has been destroyed. It is hard to convey exactly how much the Yemeni people have suffered, but I urge you all to look at some pictures. Given the extent of the calamity, why is it being so grossly underreported? To a certain extent, the situation began with the Arab Spring revolutions, prompted by anger at economic decline, corruption, and human rights violations. In short, by the crises brought about by the capitalist system, that is, the economic concentration of wealth into that very small set of hands and the administration of a nation and economy through the profit motive. Islamist rebel groups, such as the Houthis, alongside others, opportunistically rose through these protests, and Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, the nepotistic, corrupt, austere, poverty-inducing Saudi-installed president who replaced Abdullah Saleh, the original Saudi-supported dictator, was swept aside by their movement, which made slogans against US imperialism, corruption, and poverty. Iran, main rival to Saudi hegemony in the region, has played a role in funding them, offering military support, and aiding them strategically. A Saudi- led coalition alongside the USA’s former close allies in the region – Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Kuwait – then started the attack, invited by Hadi. What has been the USA and Britain’s approach? They have been meddling in Yemen for years. They worked with Saleh for over thirty years, then with Hadi, then with the Houthis against Al Qaeda, whom the USA funded to oppose the democratic Soviet government in Afghanistan, and now with the Saudis. The USA has been providing arms, and the bombs dropping on Yemen say ‘made in the USA’ on them. Britain had funded $5.3bn in arms by 2020, and Saudi Arabia is the biggest buyer from the UK arms corporati ons that fund Westminster’s political parties. According to the Ministry of Defence, there are British military advisers in the control rooms when bombing raids occur, bombing raids on civilian targets, aimed at crushing the Iran-backed Houthis at any necessary cost. We fund indiscriminate, ruthless killing in Yemen because we care about the relationship we have with the House of Saud, instrumental in setting global energy prices because of their oil and in keeping the USA’s ‘peace’ in the Middle East. We can get angry at the USA and UK for not providing enough aid, but we should really be paying attention to why the situation has come about. Restrictions on sales of weapons for the conflict have been lax enough that they’re not worth talking about, and with out western weapons, it seems unlikely that there would have been such untold tragedy. For the Saudis, a broken Yemen is better than
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