by Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture:

The U.S.-Saudi-UAE “Operation Restoring Hope” has become their plan to bomb the food-supply route that the residents in the Shiite Houthi area of Yemen rely upon in order to receive food, and thereby for the U.S.-Saudi-UAE alliance to win their war against the Houthis — who are Shiites — and to take full control over Yemen, by forcing this Houthi population to either surrender to the Sauds’ strict Sunni rule, or else starve to death. Saudi Arabia, on occasion, bombs its own Shia areas; so, doing it in its neighbor Yemen is no stretch for them. However, the Shiites inside Saudi Arabia aren’t also being starved to death. Starving Shiites to death is something new for Saudi Arabia’s troops. And, therefore, the troops who have this assignment, seem to be, perhaps, squeamish about it; but, in any case, they evidently need some ‘moral’ guidance, in order to do it.

On July 10^th, the owner of Saudi Arabia, the royal Saud family (by means of the Crown Prince), issued a proclamation providing absolution in advance for any bloodshed, torture, rape, or anything else, that their troops perpetrate in their “Operation Restoring Hope.” Now, whatever the troops of Saudi Arabia do, to conquer Yemen, has been officially approved in advance. These soldiers won’t need to fear any repercussions against themselves. Whatever they do, is officially okay — it’s been authorized in advance.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman al-Saud — who will inherit ownership of Saudi Arabia when the current King Salman al-Saud dies — issued the July 10th decree, and this decree will be presented here, in full.

For some reason, which the decree doesn’t state, this decree was viewed by Prince Salman to be necessary, in order for the U.S.-Saudi-UAE alliance to carry “Operation Restoring Hope” to a successful completion — victory. (“Restoring Hope” to the victors.) And, once victory is achieved, the royal Saud family, who are the world’s largest purchaser of U.S.-made weapons (other than the U.S. Department of Defense) and thus are the U.S. Government’s chief global ally, will control that adjoining country, too, no longer just control Saudi Arabia.

The seven royal families who own UAE are followers of the Sauds (the world’s richest family) and are also followers of the Sauds’ fundamentalist-Sunni form of Islam, which was founded in the 1700s by Muhammad ibn Wahhab and so is called “Wahhabism.” Outside Saudi Arabia, however, it’s called “Salafism.” (Egyptian clerics in the 1800s who agreed with what Wahhab wrote, started calling themselves “Salafists,” instead of “Wahhabists”; thus, the “Salafist movement” started.) U.S. military firms such as Lockheed Martin supply their products to both of those Wahhabist-Salafist nations’ markets, which means selling to the Sauds and to the seven Emirs or Kings in UAE. And, of course, America’s oil and gas corporations, and oilfield services firms such as Halliburton, likewise could increase those Wahhabist-Salafist (i.e., fundamentalist-Sunni) markets, by building oil-pipelines through conquered countries, etc.

This is the U.S. alliance to conquer Yemen. They all are at war against Shia Muslims, and especially against the most-Shia country, which is Iran. Of course, the Houthis, as Shia, support Iran and are rejected by the Sauds. So, this is a religious war, and not merely a war between nations, and also not merely a war between national economies or aristocracies.

The apartheid theocracy, the Jewish government in Israel, is, furthermore, allied with the U.S.; and, so, whereas the Sauds and UAE are at war against Shia Muslims, the Sauds and UAE aren’t at war against either Christians or Jews. Moreover, Israel isn’t participating in the alliance’s war to conquer Yemen. Israel has no interest in Yemen — neither to participate in controlling the land, nor to sell weapons to kill Houthis.

Terrorism, likewise, isn’t an issue in this war. Al Qaeda, which is exclusively a fundamentalist Sunni organization, is funded entirely by the U.S.-allied Muslim aristocracies, all of which are Sunni — none are Shia. Al Qaeda, and ISIS (an Al Qaeda spin-off) are entirely in the Sunni-controlled part of Yemen, none in the Houthi-controlled part, because Shia and fundamentalist-Sunni groups are enemies of one-another — never (except in Israel) allies of one-another.

Shia, furthermore, don’t participate in terrorism against Christian-majority countries, except, rarely, on occasions when those countries’ troops are (in order to protect Israel or the Sauds or other allies) fighting, or are stationed in, Muslim-majority countries. Virtually all of the Islamic terrorism that The West experiences, comes from America’s fundamentalist-Sunni allies (these monarchies and their respective aristocracies), all of which are in a long war against Shia and especially against Iran after the fall of the U.S.-installed Shah occurred in 1979. The Shia faith is built upon rejection of monarchies; and, so, that overthrow of the U.S.-installed hereditary monarch, the Shah, in Shia Iran in 1979, frightened the Sunni monarchs and heightened their hatred against Shiites. The anti-Houthi war is a reflection of these monarchs’ fear of Shia.

Islamic terrorism, otherwise known as jihadism, is done entirely by fundamentalist Sunnis (Salafists and Wahhabists) except in Israel, where both fundamentalist Sunnis and fundamentalist Shia sometimes participate in it.

Therefore, the war against the Houthis in Yemen isn’t anti-terrorist: it has nothing to do with the U.S. alliance’s relationship to either Al Qaeda, ISIS, or any similar group, since those groups are part of the U.S. alliance’s war against Shia. Al Qaeda and ISIS both are strongly anti-Houthi. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia produces more suicide-bombers than any other country. And the bagman who picked up, in person, each one of the million-dollar-plus cash donations to Al Qaeda prior to 9/11, said, “without the money of the — of the Saudi, you will have nothing” of Al Qaeda; and he listed then some of the Saud Princes, such as Bandar, Salman (now King), Waleed, and Turki, from whom he had picked up such huge cash donations.

So: the alliance is to serve and protect the aristocracies, not to serve and protect their respective publics. The aristocracies determine the alliances; the publics do not. The publics are merely to be fooled, so as to pay taxes, and to fight (as “cannon fodder”) for their aristocracy, against the nations this aristocracy wants to conquer.

Thus, the pressures from the aristocracy are to get the public to support higher ‘defense’ spending (expenditures which benefit the billionaires) and lower domestic spending (expenditures which benefit the public). Getting the public to support increased ‘defense’ spending is achieved by demonizing certain ‘dictators’ while praising even real dictators who are allied with one’s own aristocracy. One’s allies are, for example, ‘the free world’, while one’s targets to be destroyed are ‘dictators’; and, so, that’s one way of fooling the public. Increasing the hate against ‘the enemy’, while praising ‘the allies’ (whomever endorses that hate), is part of this standard ancient aristocratic business-plan. Another part of this business-plan is advocating ‘small government’ and cutbacks in government-spending for health, education and welfare, in order for the government to be able to raise ‘defense’ expenditures (taxpayers’ subsidies to the aristocracy’s warfare-industries). And, if fooling the public about a given matter fails, then the government just ignores what the public wants (since none of these countries is actually a democracy). Getting the job done is all that really matters, if and when push comes to shove; and aristocrats know how to get the job done. It’s a team-effort, first on the part of each alliance, and then by each team (such as the PR team, the aerospace team, etc.) that each aristocracy which is in the alliance controls; and, ultimately, by each employee or other agent of each organization that’s within each team. They all are business-partners; and Operation Restoring Hope is just one of its many operations.

Shortly after Donald Trump became the U.S. President, he finalized a global all-time-record weapons-sale, which was to the Sauds, for $350 billion in U.S.-manufactured weapons. To Trump and official Washington, Shiite Iran is “the number one terrorist state” and that’s just about as false an assertion as is imaginable. In fact, Robert Mueller, James Comey, and the Sauds themselves (especially Prince Bandar), were crucially involved in originating that charge against Iran in order to shift blame away from the Sauds themselves, for the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist incident inside Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Government represents the U.S. aristocracy, not the U.S. public.

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