Friday, 22 December 2023

The Threat of Yemen

 



I have found all that is happening in the Middle East interesting. There is what is happening, and then there is the framework through which you view what is happening. For some of my fellow Christian the rise up of war in the Middle East is the first rumblings of the final tribulation and the immanent return of Christ. For others, it is just a flare up of antisemitism taking the opportunity to lash out at “innocent” Israel in whatever way it can. To still others, it’s just another Friday, that is, they have seen so much conflict in the Middle East that this conflict barely even registers on their list of cares or interests, at least until it causes them to pay more for fuel. When that happens then they are interested, moderately. Different people are looking at this all very differently.

But I think we are seeing more and more of the signs that the American Empire is in its last days. Of course, this line of thinking is not unique to me in the slightest, many have written about it. Vox Day himself has seen this day coming for a least a decade before many of us were aware of the trends. But many others are writing about it as well.

What we appear to see happening is America is being taken down by “a death of a thousand cuts.” Since the withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago we have seen the flare up in Ukraine, all sorts of low level conflicts and government change overs in Africa, then the war Israel, and now this war in Israel is spreading to Yemen and into one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Chaos appears to be increasing across the world.

In all of these conflicts the will of the United States has either been thwarted, or directly challenged. In Israel, for example, the United States has had what appears to be very little success in curbing the extent of Israel’s operations in Gaza, even though this war could have detrimental effects for the US presence in the region. In Ukraine, the backing of the United States only ensured that far more Ukrainian men died than was ever necessary. Without the US, Ukraine would have backed down a long time ago, it probably never would have even be brash enough to keep bombing in the Donbass, which is what precipitated the current war. In Africa several western friendly governments have been replaced. None of these events on their own is enough to topple an empire like the United States, but put together they show the trend towards decline is heating up. America’s ability to enforce its will is waning, and now it is being challenged on its ability to maintain order in the Gulf of Aden,

“THE leader of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels has vowed to target American warships if President Biden orders missile strikes against its forces.

Militant leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi also warned that US troops will face a warzone "harsher than Vietnam" if they dare step foot in Yemen.

Rebel chief al-Houthi said today: "We will not stand idly by if the Americans are tempted to escalate further and commit foolishness by targeting our country or waging war against it."

He continued in a televised speech: "Any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us.

"We will make American battleships, interests, and navigation a target for our missiles, drones, and military operations."

It appears to be a direct response to claims that US President Joe Biden is drawing up plans to strike Houthi sites to put an end to the erupting chaos in the Red Sea.

Biden has moved the Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to the Gulf of Aden, just off the coast of Yemen as he draws up plans to intervene directly against the group.

Yesterday, the US announced a naval task force of 10 countries - "Operation Prosperity Guardian" - which intends to gather a fleet of warships to restore order to the region.”[1]

From what I understand responding to attacks like this on international shipping lanes is one of the legitimate reasons for using military force against a nation like Yemen. But that begs the point, it matters not whether it is legitimate for the United States to respond, what matters is that the United States is being challenged in this way in the region. The US is obviously not as feared as it once was. Which means its ability to maintain order, or as the Chinese would say, maintain the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, is vanishing.  

The American government and its leaders only have themselves to blame for this, because they have lost so many wars in this region and weakened themselves so thoroughly, that it is becoming clearer to more and more people around the world that the United States is weak and vulnerable. It is likely that the enemies of the US see this more clearly than the rest of us. The rise of the economic challenges from Russia and China, and the Brics nations is showing that the US is weak on the economic front. The inability for the US to achieve its will of forcing Russia to backdown in Ukraine shows that militarily they are not to be feared as they once were. Blood is in the water and the sharks are circling. The empire is teetering, and now an already over extended American military and navy has to deal with another threat to its ability to establish order.

It has been interesting to see in the Australian media this last week conservatives criticising the left leaning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for not sending a warship to the Middle East[2] to join up with the American coalition. The conservative media establishment in Australia is as about neo-conservative as you can get. There is not a war they don’t want to be in. But I wonder if their increasingly shrill comments about China, and Russia, and other issues like this, come from a deep-seated understanding of what is happening? Are they cognizant of the fast decline of the US and are they pushing more and more for conflict, to try and reassert some semblance of power? One has to wonder.

Either way, when Russia started to succeed in Ukraine it was obvious to some of us that other nations would follow suit and assert themselves on the world stage for their own interests. The attacks in Israel show that Hamas has likely been emboldened by a weakened America. Yemen looks to have come to the same conclusion. I think this trend will continue. We will see more and more American satrapies move away from direct support of America and more and more direct enemies or challengers take this opportunity to assert their will in the world. The days of the pax-America are now behind us, or at least they nearly are. We are now in the intermediate phase between the unipolar world empire of the United States, and the rising multipolar world.

We are in World War 3. This does not mean that this war will look like what the first two did. It simply means that the world powers are colliding, through their proxies and the world order is in the process of change. Hang on to your hats everyone. The ride is very likely to get more intense from here on in. Especially if the Houthis manage to sink a significant US vessel in the Gulf of Aden.

The threat of Yemen is not Yemen in and of itself, in my view. Rather, it is the message that such a nation standing up to America and Israel sends to the world: America’s enemies spot an opportunity to break out from US control. This will mean chaos will increase for many parts of the world. As a Christian, I would encourage you to pray that peace may be maintained wherever you live.


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