Bombs Not Bread

Made in England/America: Famine

The US and the UK have now hit Yemen with well over 100 tomahawk missiles.

They are bombing one of the poorest and most malnourished countries on Earth because the Houthis, a political-military movement fighting for control of Yemen, had the temerity to disrupt global capitalism in the name of genocide prevention.

The Houthis began attacking Israel-bound and Israeli-flagged ships in the Red Sea last month in response to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. The Houthis were very clear, their demand very simple: stop the violence against Palestinians and we’ll stop targeting ships.

The US and the UK (along with a few other western countries) responded with missiles.

It’s hard to overstate the moral depravity of this response.

19 million Yemenis are malnourished.

2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, with more than half a million facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition.

Millions are, quite literally, dying of hunger.

3.5 million pregnant or breast-feeding women are also acutely malnourished.

Yet in the midst of this famine, the main food agency that distributes emergency food rations in the country - the UN's World Food Programme - is asking for website donations because rich countries won't fund them properly (a ‘funding shortfall’, as the agency euphemistically puts it).

Back to those tomahawk missiles.

Each one costs $250,000.

We know two weeks ago 60 were launched. The UK boasted of the ‘clear message’ sent in another attack yesterday, which some reported as the biggest yet.

A conservative estimate then, assuming ‘just’ 100 missiles have been launched, would put western spending on bombing Yemen in the last few weeks at $25 million.

More than enough to ensure no Yemeni child, pregnant or breastfeeding woman goes hungry.

But no.

Our enlightened leaders, defenders of freedom and beacons of morality have decided that the priority is enabling, not preventing, the death of kids.

They’ve decided the real crime is not Israeli missiles which have now killed at least 10,000 children, but the Yemeni missiles launched in defence of those children.

They’ve decided that disrupted commerce, and a tiny bit of lost profit margin from the extra shipping time to avoid the Red Sea, justifies spending tens of millions on bombs.

A famine didn’t justify it.

They never gave this money to the UN’s food programme, despite their pleas for more funding in the face of what the UN called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

They chose to defend genocide.

They weren’t sparked into action by dying kids, but when capitalist business-as-usual was threatened.

In truth it’s even worse than this.

Because the US and UK have been supporting Saudi Arabia in its bombing of Yemen over the past nine years. The humanitarian crisis in the country stemmed from this.

Aid agencies call the famine in Yemen man-made for this reason.

At least 377,000 people have been killed in Yemen since 2015. A massive 70% of the dead are children under the age of five. 60% of these children have died from indirect causes, such as disease and famine. A devastating cholera outbreak in 2017 killed thousands.

Western support didn’t just come in the form of refusing to speak out against Saudi Arabia and its attacks on largely civilian populations. It came from direct involvement.

The US air force provided aerial refuelling for the Saudi war planes - F16s - that the US had sold them in the first place. In 2016 the Saudis even said the US and UK ‘are in the command and control centre’ for airstrikes on Yemen.

In 2017, the Saudis, with western support, blockaded the entire country, a step which pushed millions towards famine in weeks.

The west, led by the US and UK, has been complicit in the Yemeni crisis and the mass death of children for years.

Fast forward to 2024 and the US and UK are not just in the command and control centre, but are now doing the bombing themselves.

All to facilitate mass death in Gaza and protect the profit margins of shipping companies and their clients.

While the hunger crisis in Yemen continues, the UN says Gaza is now the epicentre of global hunger.

Let’s reflect on what this means: the two worst hunger crises in the last decade have been facilitated politically, financially and militarily by the US and the UK.

The mask of moral superiority worn by the west, such as it was, has slipped definitively, and it has slipped forever.

The guiding principle of US-UK foreign policy is now best summarised as bombs not bread.

And the rest of the world sees this with greater clarity than ever before.

The overwhelming support shown by other countries for South Africa in its case against Israel in The Hague is proof of this.

What about us, those whose governments facilitate famine and genocide? Those who live in the belly of the beast?

Bear witness, educate, organise and continue to say: not in our name.