Yemen. Pretty much ignored for years in favor of sexier human suffering. Near or at the bottom of every global index of poverty and starvation.
Houthis are not Palestine supporters, they are the Iranian backed group that unseated the Yemeni government and it's been a proxy civil war since then with the people ground up in the middle.
They are the baddies, FFS. I don't like the expansion of hostilities, but the Houthis are not some noble cause to defend.
The proxy war here is Saudi Arabia backing the recognized government, wanting access to the Indian Ocean to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is backing the Houthis.
The people are third in global starvation, only behind the conflict famine in the Central African Republic and the drought famine in Madagascar.
Just realised I'm somewhat subtweeting the news.
Some members of Congress have not read the War Powers Act and are flipping shit over the coalition that bombed the Houthis over attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Here's a #GiftArticle
Houthis Vow to Respond After U.S. Leads Strikes in Yemen https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/11/world/israel-hamas-houthi-yemen-news
@Cosmichomicide If he does something, they'll say he's a warmonger and abusing his power, and if he doesn't, they'll say he's a coward. We've seen this one before.
Indeed we have. Very smart coalition he assembled though. No local actors other than Bahrain, which has a clear and obvious geographic threat as an archipelago.
Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Sorry, that's not in the article. Notably Mike Lee, Cori Bush, and Rashida Tlaib have posted to the Bird that they needed to be consulted. Ro Khanna has also chimed in.
It's a sad day for civics (or maybe not) when War Powers Act is trending.
I can grab some quick screenshots. There are more, but it's a theme.
Here's Mike Lee, agreeing with Ro Khanna, in a startlingly clean example of Horseshoe Theory.
@Cosmichomicide @AskTheDevil IIRC, Congress has not declared war since WWII and the WPR was initially meant to restrain the executive during the Vietnam era. If we were to always follow the Constitution explicitly, we couldn't respond quickly enough to asymmetric warfare. Of course the perils include ceding more and more power to the executive as Congress has done over the last 5 decades (to the point where the a unitary executive theory is no longer fringe). 😥
The WPA specifically addresses this situation and limits the time of an action. This wasn't a random act of executive aggression, this was a formed coalition that acted with a proportional response.
Like I said, I'm not happy, but the Houthis are not the good guys.
@Cosmichomicide @AskTheDevil I didn't find the reference to congresspeople flipping out.