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School Districts Use “Gaggle” To Monitor Students Free Speech And Social Media Posts

MassPrivateI | October 1, 2019

Today, I give you a frightening story about free speech censorship and watchlists just in time for the countdown to Halloween.

A recent article in The Tennessean reveals how the Williamson County School District (WCS) is monitoring students free speech and social media posts.

The WCS recently implemented a “threat surveillance program” called Gaggle, that is so invasive and frightening one would be hard pressed not to call it a “gag” program that limits students free speech.

When the WCS was asked to reveal specific details about what Gaggle and authorities are monitoring students speech for, they claimed they could not reveal any details “due to federal family protection laws.”

Public & private schools are joining the ranks of alphabet soup surveillance agencies like DHS, the FBI and the NSA claiming they cannot reveal surveillance details.

The Tennessean was able to shed some light on what Gaggle monitors by saying it, “operates using a mathematical algorithm to identify high risk words and phrases when students are logged into the district’s server.”

Gaggle’s video was a little more revealing, claiming that they monitor students social media posts 24/7 for things like:

  • profanity
  • insulting language
  • hate speech
  • provocative images
  • pornography 
  • drug use
  • alcohol use and much more

When school districts and private corporations start monitoring students for things like profanity and insulting language, we should all be worried because it will not end there.

Soon social media providers will monitor everyone.

Parents think school districts have crossed the line with Gaggle.

“I’m concerned about the mining of all the other student-written text, regarding bullying, profanity, or anything offensive. Aren’t kids going to be too nervous to write anything that’s potentially controversial? What kind of education will they get if they’re walking on eggshells not to offend the computer algorithm?” WCS parent Thomas Morgan said.

Gaggle’s monitoring of students is a lot more invasive than what parents are being told.

Gaggle’s “Safety Management Dashboard” allows school staff and law enforcement to identify and track individual students who have the highest number of incidents.

The Gaggle Safety Management Dashboard allows superintendents, principals and other educators who are responsible for student safety to investigate and answer the following questions:
  • Which of my schools has the highest amount of incidents?
  • What educational tools are my students using most frequently?
  • How severe are the incidents Gaggle Safety Representatives discover?
  • Has the number of inappropriate incidents increased or decreased over time?
  • How does my school or district’s incident rate compare with national averages?

Mr. Morgan was right, students will be walking on eggshells because they will be afraid of getting put on a watchlist.

Gaggle is like Alexa on steroids.

A Gaggle video called “do you know what your students are doing online?” is a damning account of exactly how invasive their threat to free speech is.

Gaggle’s Bloomington, Illinois staff, listens to and watches students social media content in real-time 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The video also revealed that at least seven school districts are using Gaggle: Oklahoma Public Schools, Cincinnati public schools, Duval public schools, Fort Wayne Community schools, Johnston County schools, Denver Public schools and last but not least the Williamson County School District.

The Tennessean revealed a horrific vision of how school board members view monitoring students free speech.

“I don’t think it interferes with free speech. I think it is just like any other employer’s authority to monitor their network,” School board member Eliot Mitchell, 3rd District, an IT executive at a computer systems company said.

When faculty and law enforcement start viewing themselves as employers and students as employees, is it any wonder their free speech is in jeopardy?

What makes Gaggle’s incident tracking system even more disconcerting is that it builds a database of each student’s infraction[s] that will follow them throughout their lives.

Allowing corporations to create databases of our kids lives in school is horrendous. Soon no one will be able to escape being put on some type of government/corporate watchlist. That terrifies me.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | 1 Comment

The international community is complicit in Israel’s torture of Palestinians

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 1, 2019

The torture suffered by Palestinian prisoner Samer Arabeed at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet interrogators has proved, once again, that the prohibition of such treatment as enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute and the UN Convention Against Torture is little more than a series of reference points used by human rights groups as reminders to the torturers.

Arabeed was transferred to Hadassah Hospital following intensive torture after being arrested for his alleged involvement in a bombing attack in August. A statement by the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, mentioned that Israel admitted to having used “extreme and exceptional techniques in interrogations that actually amount to torture.”

Israel’s Justice Ministry has announced an investigation to decide whether criminal proceedings should be instigated against the Shin Bet officials. Arabeed’s torture resulted in broken ribs and loss of consciousness. His situation is now life-threatening and he is on a life-support machine. His family and lawyer were notified belatedly of his transfer from prison to hospital.

Last July, Palestinian prisoner Nasser Taqatqa died following torture and interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet. Testimonies from former Palestinian prisoners testify to the fact that torture is used systematically by Israeli interrogators. In 2013, Arafat Jaradat died under torture while detained in Megiddo Prison.

In November 2018, Israel’s High Court ruled in favour of torture if the Palestinian detainee is a member of “a designated terrorist organisation”, involved in armed resistance or if there are no other means to obtaining information. If Israel has self-established such immunity, how is it expected that the constant referencing of international laws and conventions will be enough to halt the torture of Palestinian prisoners?

In laying down the specifics on the prohibition of torture, the international community absconded from accountability in order to make human rights profitable for the perpetrators and a labyrinth of dead ends for the victims. Between these polarities, human rights organisations have tasked themselves with upholding principles in place of governments, yet their limited potential or, in some cases, partial agendas, have failed to implement any viable system of  justice.

Israel is well aware of this dissonance and it exploits the absence of accountability to manipulate what constitute acceptable means of interrogation tactics. The international community’s complete marginalisation of Palestinians when it comes to their rights has facilitated Israel’s constant normalisation of torture, in full breach of international law, without as much as a collective condemnation.

The result is a permanent severing between information dissemination and the kind of legal recourse which would provide Palestinian prisoners with the chance of justice. Human rights organisations like Addameer are forced into an unwitting collaboration with diplomacy, navigating endless and repetitive cycles to raise awareness, which is what the international community intended in the first place when it failed to uphold accountability.

Calling for Arabeed’s release will not be the end of Israel’s predatory violence. It is a preventive step against further torture, yet behind this story there are several others which have escaped the meagre media attention that catapults the victims’ names, albeit briefly, into the headlines. Addameer alone cannot accomplish justice for Palestinian prisoners. At the very least, there must be a collective global approach to expose the international community’s complicity in torture and its fraudulent human rights agenda.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 2 Comments

Brexit isn’t David Cameron’s Legacy – Libya is

The MSM’s total disregard for the apocalyptic destruction of the most developed nation in Africa is a crime

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | October 1, 2019

“The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.”
Lord Acton

David Cameron has a book out. You’ve probably heard. There’s a lot of press coverage. The BBC did a retrospective documentary about him to coincide with it, The Guardian had a review of the book, a review of the documentary, and an interview with the man himself.

Oh, and then another article about how it’s selling less well than Blair’s biography.

This is obviously just about journalists reporting the news, you understand.

It is absolutely not at all a mass marketing strategy camouflaged as “current events”.

Shame on you for thinking otherwise.

Naturally, as is always the case when ex-Prime Ministers make appearances or churn out autobiographies, there is plenty of talk about “legacy”.

Well… what is David Cameron’s legacy?

The media are pretty clear: Brexit.

The BBC documentary is entitled The Cameron Years. It’s in two parts, somehow bloated out to two whole hours in runtime, and is only concerned with the Brexit vote. The first part is entirely dedicated to it, that’s literally all it’s about, with the second half being more general, but still very Brexit-centric.

The reviews of the book are no better. In fact they are worse.

The Telegraph liked it, as did the Times. The Guardian and Independent didn’t, as much, but still praised its “honesty”. They all talk almost entirely about Brexit. Bloomberg headline “David Cameron Wants You to Remember Him for More Than Just Brexit”, pointing out: “The former prime minister’s new memoir, For the Record, spends just 50 of 700 pages on the disastrous referendum”… before going on to review just those fifty pages.

In fact, I’ve read over half-a-dozen reviews of this book, and none of them talks about anything but Brexit.

There is not a single use of the word “Libya” in any of them. Not anywhere. Not in even in passing.

Not. One. Single. Use.

For those of you foggy on the details, Libya was a place that used to look like this:

… and now looks like this:

You would think that the total and complete destruction of the most developed nation on the African continent would warrant at least brief discussion in the “legacy” of the Prime Minister responsible but, apparently, you would be wrong.

(I know we’re only Britain, and we only do what America tells us, but “Only following orders” didn’t work for Goering and probably shouldn’t work for anybody else. Cameron included).

The press silence on Libya is on another level.

They grudgingly discuss Iraq as a “mistake” or “blunder”, they carry on their insane propaganda-war on Syria with fresh gusto every few months (or whenever they need a distraction), but Libya… Libya is the country that must not be named.

Take Jonathan Freedland. He was ALL OVER Libya back in 2011. He campaigned for NATO to do something, preaching about the West’s “responsibility to protect”. Does he mention Libya once in his review of this book? Nope.

He even has the gall to open the piece with this:

“Just as the 700 pages of Tony Blair’s autobiography could not escape the shadow of Iraq, so the 700 pages of David Cameron’s memoir are destined to be read through a single lens: Brexit.”

As if his decision to totally disregard a war crime he not only apologised for, but cheerfully encouraged, was somehow just fate and totally beyond his control.

That’s probably got something to do with the organ trafficking and open-air slave markets.

This was no accident, you understand, Libya is exactly what NATO set-out to make it – a failed state where absolutely everything is for sale. A true capitalist paradise. But discussing that would make it harder to sell “R2P” in the future.

Better to just endlessly rant on about Brexit instead.

Now, obviously, Brexit is (potentially) an important decision for the fate of the country. You can’t deny that.

BUT – let’s be real here – Even IF we leave the EU (and right now that is far from guaranteed), and even IF our leaving is as bad as the worst doom-sayers are predicting, London isn’t going to end up like this…

…. or this:

…. or this:

And at the end of the day, THAT is Cameron’s legacy.

Just as it’s the legacy of the all slimy apologists who cheered him on, and the narrow-minded, self-centred xenophobes who clean up after him.

Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he’s forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Book Review, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Why Israel is Struggling to Find a Way Out of its Political Deadlock

Likud, the Blue and White party and Yisrael Beiteinu are ideological bedfellows – but other fears have prompted a stalemate

By Jonathan Cook – The National – September 30, 2019

It would be a grave mistake to assume that the continuing political deadlock in Israel – with neither incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main rival Benny Gantz seemingly able to cobble together a coalition government – is evidence of a deep ideological divide.

In political terms, there is nothing divided about Israel. In this month’s general election, 90 per cent of Israeli Jews voted for parties that identify as being either on the militaristic, anti-Arab right or on the religious, anti-Arab far-right.

The two parties claiming to represent the centre-left – the rebranded versions of Labour and Meretz – won only 11 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Stranger still, the three parties that say they want to form a “broad unity government” won about 60 per cent of the vote.

Mr Netanyahu’s Likud, Mr Gantz’s Blue and White party led by former generals, and ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu secured between them 73 seats – well over the 61 seats needed for a majority.

All three support the entrenchment of the occupation and annexation of parts of the West Bank; all three think the settlements are justified and necessary; and all demand that the siege of Gaza continue, view the Palestinian leadership as untrustworthy and want neighbouring Arab states cowering in fear.

Moshe Yaalon, Mr Gantz’s fellow general in the Blue and White party, was formerly a pivotal figure in Likud alongside Mr Netanyahu. And Mr Lieberman, before he created his own party, was the director of Mr Netanyahu’s office. These are not political enemies; they are ideological bedfellows.

There is one significant but hardly insumountable difference. Mr Gantz thinks it is important to maintain bipartisan US support for Israel’s belligerent occupation while Mr Netanyahu has preferred to throw Israel’s hand in with Donald Trump and the Christian religious right.

Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president, has pressed the three parties to work together. He has suggested that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz rotate the role of prime minister between them, a mechanism used in Israel’s past.

But after Mr Gantz refused last week, the president assigned Mr Netanyahu the task of trying to form a government, although most observers think the effort will prove futile. After indecisive elections in April and September, Israel therefore looks to be heading for a third round of elections.

But if the deadlock is not ideological, then what is causing it?

In truth, the paralysis has been caused by two fears – one in Likud, the other in Blue and White.

Mr Gantz is happy to sit in a unity government with the Likud party. His objection is to allying with Mr Netanyahu, who is days away from hearings with the attorney general on multiple counts of fraud and breach of trust. Mr Netanyahu wants to be in power to force through a law guaranteeing himself immunity from prosecution.

Blue and White was created to oust Mr Netayahu on the basis that he is corrupt and actively destroying what is left of Israel’s democratic institutions, including by trying to vilify state prosecutors investigating him.

For Blue and White to now prop Mr Netanyahu up in a unity government would be a betrayal of its voters.

The solution for Likud, then, should be obvious: remove Mr Netanyahu and share power with Blue and White.

But the problem is that Likud’s members are in absolute thrall to their leader. The thought of losing him terrifies them. Likud now looks more like a one-man cult than a political party.

Mr Gantz, meanwhile, is gripped by fear of a different kind.

Without Likud, the only solution for Mr Gantz is to turn elsewhere for support. But that would make him reliant on the 13 seats of the Joint List, a coalition of parties representing Israel’s large minority of Palestinian citizens.

And there’s the rub. Blue and White is a deeply Arab-phobic party, just like Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu. Its only civilian leader, Yair Lapid, notoriously refused to work with Palestinian parties after the 2013 election – before Mr Netanyahu had made racist incitement his campaign trademark.

Mr Lapid said: “I’ll never sit with the Zoabis” – a reference to the most prominent of the Palestinian legislators at the time, Haneen Zoabi.

Similarly, Mr Gantz has repeatedly stressed his opposition to sitting with the Joint List.

Nonetheless, the Joint List’s leader Ayman Odeh made an unprecedented gesture last week, throwing the weight of most of his faction behind Mr Gantz.

That was no easy concession, given Mr Gantz’s positions and his role as army chief in 2014 overseeing the destruction of Gaza. The move angered many Palestinians in the occupied territories.

But Mr Odeh saw the Palestinian minority’s turn-out in September leap by 10 percentage points compared to April’s election, so desperate were his voters to see the back of Mr Netanyahu.

Surveys also indicate a growing frustration among Palestinian citizens at their lack of political influence. Although peace talks are off Israel’s agenda, some in the minority hope it might be possible to win a little relief for their communities after decades of harsh, institutional discrimination.

In a New York Times op-ed last week, Mr Odeh justified his support for Mr Gantz. It was intended to send “a clear message that the only future for this country is a shared future, and there is no shared future without the full and equal participation of Arab Palestinian citizens”.

Mr Gantz seems unimpressed. According to an investigation by the Israeli media, Mr Netahyahu only got first crack at forming a government because Mr Gantz blanched at the prospect.

He was worried Mr Netanyahu would again smear him – and damage him in the eyes of voters – if he was seen to be negotiating with the Joint List.

Mr Netanyahu has already painted the alternatives in stark terms: either a unity government with him at its heart, or a Blue and White government backed by those who “praise terrorists”.

The Likud leader might yet pull a rabbit out of his battered hat. Mr Gantz or Mr Lieberman could cave, faced with taunts that otherwise “the Arabs” will get a foot in the door. Or Mr Netanyahu could trigger a national emergency, even a war, to bully his rivals into backing him.

But should it come to a third election, Mr Netanyahu will have a pressing reason to ensure he succeeds this time. And that will doubtless require stepping up incitement another dangerous gear against the Palestinian minority.

The reality is that there is strong unity in Israel – over shared, deeply ugly attitudes towards Palestinians, whether citizens or those under occupation. Paradoxically, the only obstacle to realising that unity is Mr Netanyahu’s efforts to cling to power.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 2 Comments

Israel and the West Do Not Have the Means to Counter Iranian Technology

By Gilad Atzmon | October 1, 2019

Introduction by GA: The following is a translation of today’s Israel’s News 12 headline article. The article explores the lessons delivered by the recent attack on Saudi oil facilities. Though I, like many other commentators, am not convinced that the attack had anything to do with Iran, the attack showed that Iran’s weaponry is likely superior to the West’s ability to mount an effective defence.

Israeli writer Nir Dvori points out that the attack took place 650 km inside Saudi territory. “It proved measured Power Utilization – Sending two types of weapons that achieved accurate hits.” It also demonstrated superb intelligence capability – “both in identifying and selecting targets and in selecting the attack route and the military.” Apparently, neither the cruise missiles nor the drones were detected and no attempt was made to intercept them before the attack. Which really means that despite the Saudis’ multi- billion dollar investment in Western weaponry and air defense systems, their sky is far from protected.

In the last few years Israel has prioritized its efforts to counter Iran’s ballistic and drone projects. It seems Israel knew what it had to dread. The recent attack on the Saudi oil industry proved that the West has not developed an adequate response to Iranian precision missiles, slow moving cruise missiles or drone technology. This alone explains why, despite Israel’s persistent threats to attack Iran directly, it has been reluctant to do so. Israel knows how vulnerable it is and well understands the possible dramatic consequences of such an attack. Israel knows that although its anti missile system, which cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars, may be somewhat effective against German V2 ballistic technology, its system is ineffective against what Iran has at their disposal.

This helps explain why Israel wants America and NATO to attack Iran on its behalf. It may explain why Israel might consider doing whatever it can to provoke such a conflict- everything from intensive Lobby pressure to possible false flag operations.

Donald Trump seems miraculously to have gathered how volatile the situation is. As a consequence, he exited his prime hawk, John Bolton. Might Trump find himself booted out of his 1600 Pennsylvania Ave as a result of his reluctance to fight Israel’s war against Iran?

The character, uniqueness and success of the Iranian attack – worries Israel and the world

By Nir Dvori

The Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities was of great significance and is of particular concern [to Israel]. The attack was [the first of its kind] and proved that the Iranians are capable and possess both the knowledge and the ability to hurt and cut [Saudi] oil production by nearly fifty percent. At the same time, the Saudis have already begun to rebuild the buildings damaged by the Iranian bombing

The attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia has been a warning for the West and Israel – the effects of this attack are extremely concerning. This [technological] ability that can be used against Israel requires that [Israel] prepare its security system to respond to such a threat. Israeli officials analyzed the outcome of the attack and reached several conclusions : The attack demonstrated both impressive design and execution, the results were painful and cut Saudi oil production by 50%, and likely affected gas production as well.

The attacks were carried out with only two weapon types :The first were 7 Quds cruise missiles driven by a Czech jet engine, 3 of which fell before they reached their target; the second weapons were 18 suicide drones, an Iranian replica of the “Rafi” – an Israeli suicide drone.

The attack was significant on a few levels:

The attack was carried out at a relatively long range – at a distance of 650 km.????

It proved measured Power Utilization – Sending two types of weapons that each achieved accurate hits.

Iran has also demonstrated its intelligence capability – both in identifying and selecting targets and in selecting the attack route and its execution.

Apparently neither the cruise missiles nor the drones were detected and no attempt was made to intercept them before the attack.

Iran’s inability to penetrate the Saudi air defense system, despite the billions of dollars spent and deployed to defend the area, was shown by its failure against the small, slow-moving assault weapons.

Impressive and unprecedented impact accuracy of less than 3 meters. The fragments of the Iranian cruise missiles have been identified as among the derivatives of the 55-KH missiles that Ukraine delivered to Iran in 2001.

The nature of the Iranian attack has embarrassed the Western intelligence community. It turned out that Iran, a country with average technological capabilities, has developed medium and long range missiles that are accurate and effective. This basically undermines the very existence of the regulatory bodies which assumes that denying access to technology can impede, or prevent such technologies being obtained.

The attack is proof of Iran’s operational potential that relies on technological capabilities, intelligence infrastructure and coordination, leading to the conclusion that the Western monopoly on precision-guided armaments has evaporated. The countries of the entire region and Israel have learned a lesson: Discovery and interception systems do not provide a proper countermeasure to new regional threats.

It is necessary to deal with cruise missiles, slow drones and hovercraft. The ranges reached by Iran this time – 650 km – would allow damage to any point in Israel from western Iraq.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | 2 Comments

Yemen Is Now Saudi Arabia’s “Vietnam War”

By Paul Antonopoulos | October 1, 2019

Something does not appear right in Saudi Arabia. Although the Wahhabi Kingdom has a technological, demographical and economical advantage over Yemen, it has completely failed to break the Yemeni resistance, headed by the Houthi-led Ansarullah Movement. The Ansarullah Movement has not just been on the defensive against Saudi Arabia’s advancements, but has also taken the fight directly to them despite the Kingdom controlling the seas and the high skies.

On September 14, the Yemeni Resistance attacked a Saudi Aramco oil facility, causing billions of dollars in damage that will take months to completely fix. However, it is the capture of thousands of Saudi soldiers, including high-ranking officers, and mercenaries that has consolidated the idea that Saudi Arabia is experiencing its own so-called “Vietnam War.”

Although Saudi Arabia has the fifth biggest military budget in the world, ahead of even Russia, France and the United Kingdom, it has not been able to dislodge the Ansarullah Movement from power. With Saudi Arabia dropping bombs indiscriminately in Yemen, including on mosques, markets, schools, hospitals, wedding parties and funeral processions, the country has become the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis. Even Ansarullah leader Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi has visibly lost a significant amount of weight over the course of the war as over 10 million Yemenis are starving or on the verge of starvation.

Saudi Arabia’s state budget is fuelled by oil and the Aramco company is in the six largest corporations globally, with annual revenue of around $350 billion recently, about the GDP of Denmark. Yemen is far off from Saudi Arabia in every developmental metric, but yet, they have not been able to dislodge the Ansarullah Movement from the Yemeni capital of Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia has mobilized about 150,000 of its soldiers and mostly Sudanese mercenaries, and has used hundreds of jets with U.S.-provided weapons to attack Yemen and its infrastructure because of their defiance in not being subjugated to Riyadh’s demands. Saudi officials also went on a diplomatic mission to include Morocco, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Sudan in their war against Yemen. This was all in an effort to remove what Riyadh believes to be an Iranian proxy on its border, an allegation both the Ansarullah Movement and Tehran deny.

Ansarullah have not just remained passive as the Saudi-led coalition began its aggression, and have utilized rockets and drones to attack directly into Saudi Arabia’s southern regions, despite the Kingdom possessing the U.S.-made Patriot Missile Defense System. Although Saudi Arabia has air and naval superiority, it cannot convert this control into successes on the ground, and rather has relied on mercenaries, to fight its war against the Ansarullah Movement.

One is not motivated to unnecessarily die for the sake of money, but are willing to take the risk of dying, two very different things. It is for this reason, on Saturday, the Ansarullah Movement captured over a thousand soldiers from the Saudi Coalition, mostly low-ranking soldiers and Sudanese mercenaries, but also some high-ranking officers, when they were surrounded and ambushed. The mercenaries are willing to fight for money, but not die in vain, which is why they surrendered en masse when flanked by the Ansarullah fighters.

Well, comparisons with Vietnam can certainly begin to be drawn now. It is much deeper than the analogy of David and Goliath, as by all means, the odds should be further into Riyadh’s favor rather than Goliath’s was against David.

Saudi Arabia has used all their political leverage in the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, invested billions into a costly war that it had no reason to intervene in and suffered a dramatic defeat. How could the Ansarullah Movement with limited resources and on the verge of starvation do this? It was concluded by Riyadh that the only explanation for this embarrassment is that Iran orchestrated the attack against Aramco and captured the thousands of soldiers. This bares resemblance to when the U.S. refused to recognize that the Vietnamese were defeating them, and credited the Vietnamese victory directly to the Soviet Union and China, rather than the Vietnamese people.

Riyadh diverting attention away from the Ansarullah movement helps them save face as they can accredit the victories to a rival anti-U.S. and anti-Israel regional power, Iran. Therefore, this can help legitimize a U.S. intervention in Yemen as Saudi-Iranian relations are traditionally poor over theocratical, geopolitical and economic reasons.

More importantly, it could bait Washington to justify military aggression against Iran. However, for the U.S. and Israel, the possibility of waging a “proxy conflict” between Saudi Arabia and Iran would be preferable with their limited intervention. This is a risky gambit as Saudi Arabia produces about 15% of crude oil globally, and can significantly influence the world economy.

Although it would be in Saudi Arabia’s interest to avoid being bogged down in an endless war that drains its resources and manpower, as the U.S. had experienced in their invasion of Vietnam, there is little suggestion that it will disengage from what is the Arab world’s poorest country.

Simply comparing the military budgets of Saudi Arabia and/or the U.S.’ with Yemen or Iran, is not enough to predict a final outcome of this conflict, as Saudi Arabia is learning the hard way with the continued setbacks. With over a thousand soldiers and mercenaries captured, it shows Riyadh has a fighting force lacking motivation and willingness. This is completely opposite to the Ansarullah Movement that believes its engaged in an anti-imperialist struggle.

If Saudi Arabia is to avoid further economic risk and military embarrassments, it would be in the primary interest of Saudi Arabia to disengage in Yemen and accept its losses on this front in the wider Saudi-Iranian geopolitical rivalry. Just as the U.S. finally found the sense to withdraw from Vietnam after a long 18 year involvement that resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths, Riyadh now must find its sense, much quicker than Washington’s policy towards Vietnam, and accept the situation in Yemen is untenable and unwinnable.

Paul Antonopoulos is the director of the Multipolarity research centre.

October 1, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment