AIBU - UK and US strike action for Yemen but allow what's going on in Gaza

[Itsholly]

I cannot get my head around this.

I appreciate it must be logistically very difficult, costly and time consuming to go all the way around Africa rather than straight through the Suez Canal.

HOWEVER, what is going on in Gaza is inhumane, arguably against international law and killing a mind blowing number of innocent civilians.

It just doesn't make sense to me that the Uk and US are taking strike action in Yemen and yet leaving Isreal to decimate Gaza

AIBU to ask you to make it make sense for me?

It’s big business.
Money.
Something that affects the profits and well-being of the countries involved.
As opposed to a humanitarian crisis. Might as well ask why the war in Yemen has been going for a decade with no real attempts to end it. Or Sudan.

Wars don’t happen because people pick a right or wrong side. They happen because of realpolitik.

It’s election year. Over 60% of the global population will be voting for a leader in some type of general election. War is business. The defence lobby is the most powerful there is. Only marginally behind big Pharma and big finance. Pharma and finance just had their big paydays in the last 4 years. Now it’s the turn of defence. Ukraine is getting a bit old news now. After all what are western tax dollars for?

And by the way, the UK and US have been bombing Yemen since 2013. Via Saudi Arabia. It’s nothing new.

Yeah, and all the while people bring up Oct 7th. As if, awful as that was, it justifies dropping 2000lb bombs on refugee camps, starving an entire country and putting all hospitals out of action.

Motaz Azaiza, the young photo journalist documenting the war, said something along the lines of: don't call yourself a free people if you can't influence your government one bit and I thought of his words again when we bombed a country facing famine yesterday.

I'm from a big merchant navy family. I didn't understand why we didn't get involved sooner, we can't let the suez canal go. This is a major trade route. That also includes getting aid etc through. Having to go around the gulf means that lives at sea will be lost. To put it in to perspective for every miner that died, seven lives were lost in the MN. Are all lives disposable on the red sea because of the lack of inaction years ago about the Palestinian plight? It's a shame that most in the UK have become disconnected to how goods are transported. Apart from profits there's working lives, risks to those carrying out those roles etc to consider. How are those facing famine going to fare if they have to wait another ten days to two weeks (considering climate change) for food/medical supplies?

Hm, at first thought bombing Yemen for it's own good doesn't sound like a satisfactory answer. But I will look into that, thanks.

You want us to bomb Israel?

Protecting trade routes seems to be a perfectly legitimate use of the armed forces to me 🤷🏻‍♀️

Because Israel is nominally an ally of the US and UK. Yemen isn't. They are striking rebels, not a central government. The Houthis have very limited ways of retaliation whereas Israel has nuclear weapons! There's lots of reasons, even leaving the economics aside.