Warped realities – The impotence of the empires of old

With Ramadan 2016 well under way the United Nations has suddenly awaken to the sheer devastation its main “sponsor”, Saudi Arabia, unleashed on the impoverished Yemeni nation. Alone, shun by the high and mighty of this world, it took the holy month of Ramadan for Western nations to finally acknowledge the unbearable tragedy of being Yemeni …

Are we buying into this newfound sense of responsibility? I hope not because crocodile tears are never a good luck … not on the United Nations, not on anyone ever!

“Yemen's civilians are facing an immeasurable crisis with the onset of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,” UN officials complained to the press on early June 2016 … I would personally argue that such realisation comes a bit late in the game considering that Yemen has been at war for well over a year, and that an estimated 10,000 souls have already been claimed to Saudi Arabia’s violence. But then again it could be that the UN was playing the ostrich, and could not therefore bring itself to look to Southern Arabia … Let’s pretend such lapse of judgement was temporary, and not calculated. Let’s pretend for the sake of convenience that the United Nations actually stands for decency. Let’s play the game empires play so that their subjects would remain forever oblivious to political realities.

On second thoughts, let us not! What about we face the truth and cold hard facts head on for once. What about that?!

I was told recently that my tone of writing is often harsh, and unforgiving, and that I ought to dilute my sarcasm, to offer a friendlier face instead. While I understand the criticism … I have a very short fuse when it comes to propaganda, I will say for my defence that my sarcasm and “bite” betray my yearning for truths. 

We are owed the truth … especially when it’s not pretty.

So Yemen and its never-ending humanitarian crisis. 

Here is how al-Jazeera – the mouth piece of the State of Qatar is summing up the situation: “The Yemen conflict has killed more than 6,400 people and displaced 2.8 million since March last year.

Almost 14 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance.

The UN says food, fuel and medicines are in short supply and that has pushed prices up.

"This could be the worst year in the history of Yemen, especially with the start of the holy month of Ramadan," Abdesalam al-Mahtoury, an economic analyst, said.

"No doubt prices have gone up as a result of the siege that's been imposed for more than 14 months."

The UN says imports are still restricted and many cargo ships cannot offload at Yemen's ports. It is appealing for $1.8bn in aid for Yemen this year.

So far, it says, it has received just 17 percent of that.”

That’s an interesting analysis. 

Allow me to put things in perspective for you:

Yemen’s death toll is much higher than the UN cares to admit – the Mona Relief Organization puts this figure at about 12,000, while Sheba Rights estimated the number of deaths to be just over 9,100. By all “independent” accounts 6,400 qualifies as a euphemism for criminal cover-up.

Of Yemen’s 16 million people, about 23 million are in need of immediate assistance … almost double what the UN is willing to acknowledge. But let’s assume for a second that the UN plays by a different humanitarian rule book. What about Yemen’s food shortage? What about Yemen’s shortage everything … surely we can all agree on Yemen pandemic lack of supplies.

Not exactly!

The UN would have you believe that Yemen’s crisis is somewhat a by-product of the Resistance, an ill which Yemen’s infamous “rebels” aka the Houthis manufactured in their irresponsible quest for power. 

Remember here the words of the UN: “food, fuel and medicines are in short supply and that has pushed prices up.” Let me see here, how did Yemen end up in such a prickly situation?

Two words: Saudi and Arabia! 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen it was Saudi Arabia, the Death Star itself which single-handedly engineered Yemen’s decent into darkness, as the UN stood by keeping mum; much too preoccupied with playing silent partner to a genocide.

Yemen’s crisis did not spring out of the ether, it did not simply materialize! Yemen’s crisis has been a long time in the making. Actually it is worse than that since the United Nations has played a hand in the killing of the Yemeni nation. If not for the UN’s dependence on Saudi money, Yemen’s war might have turned out very differently. If not for the United Nation’s eagerness to please its main sponsor Saudi Arabia, millions of people might not have had to suffer the injustice of a humanitarian blockade. 

Yemen was cut off from the rest of the world under Riyadh’s order – its people were made prisoners within their own borders on account the kingdom thought best to take a page out of Israel’s little book of horrors, and wield starvation as a weapon of mass-annihilation.

In January 2016, Ben Norton, politics staff writer for Salon, cited the siege of Yemen, as well as Israel’s decade-long blockade of Gaza, when he questioned why some atrocities are condemned and others are “barely even acknowledged.” He wrote:

“All sieges are of course tragic, because they harm civilians. There should be outrage at the siege on Madaya, but there should be proportionate outrage. All of the other ongoing sieges — and the much larger blockades — that happened to be supported by the West should not conveniently be ignored.

Americans, in particular, should be concerned about the millions upon millions of people being starved in policies backed by their ostensibly democratic government, right at this very moment.”

So please spare us the outrage and the tears … spare us the calls for actions. Long gone the time of innocence and political naivety. Long gone indeed …

While such deceit will hardly shock you! I’d like to think that the public is much more plugged in than the ruling elite give us credit for; we have failed to consider one possibility. What if the UN’s chronic dishonesty is actually a symptom of its impotence, and not, a nefarious desire to cause other nation harm?

Clearly the UN, as an international entity has failed at its role of supranational regulator. I doubt anyone will disagree with me when I say that the United Nations has become irrelevant, redundant, and utterly useless. All the above adjectives address what the UN was supposed to stand for, and represent … what about its new purpose, and the new master it serves. 

We have seldom consider the possibility.

Let me put to you this way:

When the United Nations was established in 1945, its aim was to promote international cooperation, within the parameters of international law so that world nations would learn to play by certain “universal” rules and be made accountable of their actions. 

That was then, this is today!

Today the UN has become but a tool in the hands of imperial powers. In truth, the UN might have been created to serve that very purpose all along. The real irony here lies in the change of imperial leadership.

As Western powers slowly sink in their collective debts, marooned by their own convoluted greed it is Saudi Arabia which has risen a titan over world nations. The same Saudi Arabia which has forced the UN to dance to its political tune, playing funding and political access to better enslave, and co-opt to its very imperial will.

Yemen’s war as you can see had held a mirror not only to Saudi Arabia’s true imperial nature, but Western powers’ political atrophy.

It was the Saudi Foreign Minister who said in June 2016 that the United Nations was a Saudi institution. Speaking to journalists on allegations Riyadh threatened to cut off financial aid to the UN over a human rights upset al-Jubeir said it made no sense to cut off funding to the UN since the UN “is ours.”

I rest my case.