Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Generational Dynamics World View
*** 21-Aug-16 World View -- US cuts military advisers to Saudis in Yemen as peace talks collapse

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Massive rally in Sanaa Yemen interrupted by Saudi warplane bombing
  • Generational history of Shia Houthis in Yemen
  • US military reduces support for Saudi coalition in Yemen

****
**** Massive rally in Sanaa Yemen interrupted by Saudi warplane bombing
****


[Image: g160820b.jpg]
Anti-Saudi rally in Sanaa Yemen on Saturday (Twitter)

An estimated 100,000 Yemenis attended a rally in Sanaa, Yemen's
capital city, on Saturday. The rally had been planned for weeks, so
people had come from many regions outside of Sanaa.

The purpose of the rally was to protest resumed air strikes by the
Saudi-led coalition following the collapse of peace talks early in
August, and to support a new "governing council" set up by the
Iran-backed Shia Houthis that had overthrown the Saudi-backed
government in a coup in 2014. Shortly after that, a Saudi Arabia-led
coalition began airstrikes with the intention of restoring the
internationally recognized government.

Although not all the protesters on Saturday were pro-Houthi, they were
all in favor of seeing the airstrikes end, supported the Houthi's
governing council as the way to do that.

There had been a three-month ceasefire while peace talks in Kuwait had
proceeded with no progress. The Saudis wanted to restore the
status quo ante with the pro-Saudi government, while the
Houthis wanted to retain control of the government following their
successful coup. Once the peace talks collapsed three weeks ago, the
Saudi-led coalition resumed airstrikes.

Saturday's huge rally was interrupted by Saudi warplanes passing
overhead and conducting bombing raids. Early stories on the BBC
reported that the Saudi warplanes had bombed the rally, as described
by a correspondent in Sanaa:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Suddenly the Saudi jets started circling on top of
> us, and as always, we thought they would just fly by, just trying
> to scare the crowd.
>
> Suddenly they started bombing and the crowd started running. I
> basically bolted out of the area. People started
> screaming... Because everybody's very well armed, they started
> shooting their AK-47s and their machine guns into the
> sky."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

However, later reports indicated that the warplanes had attacked
targets on a nearby mountain. BBC and
France24

****
**** Generational history of Shia Houthis in Yemen
****


The Houthis are a branch of Shia Islam that took hold in southern
Arabia (currently Yemen) in the century following the death of the
prophet Mohammed. In the decades following Mohammed's death, there
were conflicts as to who would succeed Mohammed as caliph of Islam.
One group insisted that any new caliph must be a direct descendant of
Mohammed himself, and they particularly selected Mohammed's grandson,
Husayn ibn Ali (626-680), often referred to as just Ali. The
partisans of Ali became known as Shia or Shiites.

Ali was killed in the seminal Battle of Karbala in a generational
crisis war that climaxed in 680, splitting the Muslim community, and
throwing the question of succession into chaos. In the following
decades, the group that won the war (the Umayyads) became known as the
Sunnis, and they selected caliphs by a variety of means, including
elections, inheritance, and wars.

The Shias formed a completely separate branch of succession, referring
to their leaders as Imams. They continued to insist that any imam
must be a direct descendant of Mohammed, and must therefore be a
direct descendant of Husayn ibn Ali. As it turned out, Ali had nine
descendants, with the last one, the 12th imam, disappearing in 873.

Today, Shia Muslims are still divided over which of these imams was
going to return as the messiah to avenge injustices to the Shia. This
belief is roughly equivalent to the Christian belief in the second
coming of Christ, or the Buddhist belief in the Maitreya -- that a new
Buddha is to appear on earth, and will achieve complete enlightenment.

One sect broke off in 740 and was known as the Zaydis, or "Fivers,"
because of their allegiance to the fifth imam. These are the Houthis
today.

Another Shia sect are called "Seveners," because of their allegiance
to the seventh imam.

Most Shias today are "Twelvers," because of their allegiance to the
12th imam, also called "The Hidden Imam," who disappeared in 873, as
described above. According to the Twelver belief, he did not die, but
disappeared, and will reappear at the appropriate time. Ayatollah
Rouhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Great Islamic
Revolution, apparently claimed that he was the 13th imam, the
Allah-appointed successor to Ali and to Mohammed himself. (From
November 2009: "Theological split in Iran widens as opposition protests continue"
)

****
**** US military reduces support for Saudi coalition in Yemen
****


Saudi Arabia has been under increasing international pressure to end
the airstrikes in Yemen, and simply let the Houthis take over. Since
the Houthis are supported by their hated enemy Iran, that kind of
solution would be a major regional victory for Iran, and I would be
very surprised to see anything like that happen.

The aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders)
on Friday announced that they were pulling their staff out of six
hospitals in northern Yemen, giving as a reason that their staff were
not safe from the Saudis' "indiscriminate bombings," which sometimes
struck the hospitals in which MSF were working.

According to MSF:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Over the last eight months, MSF has met with
> high-ranking Saudi-led coalition officials on two occasions in
> Riyadh [Saudi Arabia's capital city] to secure humanitarian and
> medical assistance for Yemenis, as well as to seek assurances that
> attacks on hospitals would end. ...
>
> Aerial bombings have, however, continued, despite the fact that
> MSF has systematically shared the GPS coordinates of hospitals in
> which we work with the parties involved in the conflict. Coalition
> officials repeatedly state that they [honor] international
> humanitarian law, yet this attack shows a failure to control the
> use of force and to avoid attacks on hospitals full of
> patients. MSF is neither satisfied nor reassured by the Saudi-led
> coalition's statement that this [August 15] attack was a
> mistake."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

International rights groups have also criticized the United States for
providing support to the Saudis in the Yemen war. According to an
analyst interviewed on Saturday on the BBC, the US became part of the
Saudi coalition in the hope of working with the Saudis to guarantee
that Yemeni civilians would be protected, but that has been
unsuccessful.

U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet spokesman Lieutenant Ian McConnaughey on
Saturday announced that the US military has been slashing the number
of intelligence advisers directly supporting the Saudi-led coalition's
air war in Yemen, because of concerns over civilian casualties. The
number of advisers has gone from 45 to "less than five." McConnaughey
said that the number of advisers could be increased again, "if the
need arises." Saudi Gazette and CNN and
AFP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Houthis,
Shia Islam, Husayn ibn Ali, Battle of Karbala, Umayyads,
Zaydis, Fivers, Seveners, Twelvers, Iran, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini,
Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Doctors without Borders,
Ian McConnaughey

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
Reply


Messages In This Thread
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 05-14-2016, 03:21 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 05-23-2016, 10:31 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 08-11-2016, 08:59 PM
21-Aug-16 World View -- US cuts military advisers to Saudis in Yemen as peace talks c - by John J. Xenakis - 08-20-2016, 09:49 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 01-18-2017, 09:23 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 02-04-2017, 10:08 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 03-13-2017, 03:33 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 03-15-2017, 02:56 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by SomeGuy - 03-15-2017, 03:13 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 05-30-2017, 01:04 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 07-08-2017, 01:34 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 08-09-2017, 11:07 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 08-10-2017, 02:38 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 10-25-2017, 03:07 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by rds - 10-31-2017, 03:35 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by rds - 10-31-2017, 06:33 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by noway2 - 11-20-2017, 04:31 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 12-28-2017, 11:00 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 12-31-2017, 11:14 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 06-22-2018, 02:54 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:42 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:54 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-19-2018, 12:43 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-25-2018, 02:18 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 07-11-2018, 01:58 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 08-18-2018, 03:42 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Galen - 08-19-2018, 04:39 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 09-25-2019, 11:12 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 03-09-2020, 02:11 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Camz - 03-10-2020, 10:10 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 03-12-2020, 11:11 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by JDG 66 - 03-16-2020, 03:21 PM
RE: 58 year rule - by Tim Randal Walker - 04-01-2020, 11:17 AM
RE: 58 year rule - by John J. Xenakis - 04-02-2020, 12:25 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by Isoko - 05-04-2020, 02:51 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by tg63 - 01-04-2021, 12:13 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by CH86 - 01-05-2021, 11:17 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-10-2021, 06:16 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-11-2021, 09:06 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-12-2021, 02:53 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-13-2021, 03:58 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-13-2021, 04:16 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by mamabug - 01-15-2021, 03:36 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 08-19-2021, 03:03 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 08-21-2021, 01:41 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-27-2022, 06:06 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-27-2022, 10:42 PM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-28-2022, 12:26 AM
RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by galaxy - 02-28-2022, 04:08 PM

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Why the social dynamics viewpoint to the Strauss-Howe generational theory is wrong Ldr 5 4,800 06-05-2020, 10:55 PM
Last Post: pbrower2a
  Theory: cyclical generational hormone levels behind the four turnings and archetypes Ldr 2 3,388 03-16-2020, 06:17 AM
Last Post: Ldr
  The Fall of Cities of the Ancient World (42 Years) The Sacred Name of God 42 Letters Mark40 5 4,660 01-08-2020, 08:37 PM
Last Post: Eric the Green
  Generational cycle research Mikebert 15 16,219 02-08-2018, 10:06 AM
Last Post: pbrower2a
Video Styxhexenhammer666 and his view of historical cycles. Kinser79 0 3,324 08-27-2017, 06:31 PM
Last Post: Kinser79

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 8 Guest(s)