Friday 12 January 2024

Defending the Realm

Today’s headlines concerned the Big Bully and his annoying little side kick picking on someone far smaller and weaker than themselves.

Or as the news would have it, the US and Britain sent aircraft to bomb targets in Yemen.  In a statement that could have been written by Orwell himself, Little Rishi claimed that dropping bombs on (what we once called) a third world country, thousands of miles away was an act of “self defence”.  The “self” we are apparently defending are merchant ships heading through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal and Europe.  Old pissy pants Joe Biden was more honest saying the action will protect the free flow of international commerce…”  What the bullies are actually defending are the interests of the super rich, it is in no way about protecting you and me. 

The people being bombed are the Houthi, a group in the war ravaged country that I know little about, except they are enemies of Saudi Arabia and are attacking ships in solidarity with the Palestinians being slaughtered by the state of Israel.  It’s a confusing world we live in, Saudi Arabia has an appalling human rights record and Israel is currently practicing genocide yet the US and Britain look the other way.  Some boats get attacked and we drop bombs on a desert state.

It’s also ridiculous that we find military action affordable yet we can’t fund our public services, what would do more to protect ordinary people?  Also we don’t have to go back very far into history to see what the result of western military action is, thousands more refugees crossing borders.  While this is going on the arms trade flourishes and a small group of people will be adding a few more billions to their personal wealth.  If you were a cynical person you might conclude that was the real point to it all.

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