Sunnis and Shiites Fight, Children Starve in Yemen
by John Lawrence
It's the same old story. Two different religious factions are at war with each other, and children starve as a consequence. The Protestants and the Catholics fought decades long wars in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Two sects of Islam - Sunnis and Shiites - have been fighting for more than a thousand years. The latest version is the war in Yemen between the Shiite minority (the Houthis) and the Sunni majority. Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia which is Sunni, so naturally the US-allied Saudis are using their American supplied military might to fight the Houthis, who took over the government in 2015, and restore a Sunni led government.
Iran which is Shiite supports the Houthis and in general Shiites wherever they are located like in Iraq which now has a Shiite government whereas before the US invasion, they had a Sunni government. So the result of the US led war in Iraq was to change the government from Sunni to Shiite, not exactly the US' intention since the US is effectively allied with Sunnis because of their alliance with Saudi Arabia, which beheads non-violent violators of its laws in public. Then the US goes around the world accusing other nations of being human rights violators. Hypocrites.
If there is ever to be peace in the Middle East, the nut that has to be cracked is the Shiite-Sunni conflict which is at the heart of all the wars in the region. But nobody is concerned about that. Each side is concerned about winning. The US is allied with one of the biggest human rights violators in the world, Saudi Arabia, which makes it effectively allied with the Sunnis while Russia is allied with Iran which makes Russia effectively allied with the Shiites. Instead of creating peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia - between Sunnis and Shiites - both sides are intent on subsidizing the conflict.
The two sides in the conflict and all their proxy groups are just like two teen age gangs fighting each other. Rather than being the world's policeman, the US is being the world's protagonist. If the US and Russia got together as friends and allies, a lot of these problems could be solved. But that's the last thing the US military-industrial complex wants. Peace would cost them too much money. So they continue to promote and subsidize war.
Meanwhile, children continue to starve to death because of Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen. The Saudis cannot tolerate a Shiite led Yemen because then they would have Shiites to their north and Shiites to their south. The Muslims need to get their act together and make peace like the Protestants and the Catholics eventually did. That's what the US initially stood for - a refuge from the religious wars in Europe. In that spirit the US should be cooperating with the United Nations to bring peace to the Middle East. Until they do, we will have perpetual conflict in that part of the world combined with a widening refugee crisis and children starving to death beset by disease combined with terrorism. Death and destruction is the price to be paid for continuing conflict. We need more adults in the room.
