73
US military strikes Houthi targets in Yemen
(abcnews.go.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
73 points (89.2% liked)
World News
38836 readers
1782 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
No, I am making an argument based on human rights and international war crimes.
There is no justification to equip children with weapons and put them on battle lines. They do not have consent to be there.
And I am not alone on this-
The Arab Center agrees- https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/child-soldiers-in-yemen-cannon-fodder-for-an-unnecessary-war/
Human Rights Watch agrees- https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7
Amnesty International agrees- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2017/02/yemen-huthi-forces-recruiting-child-soldiers-for-front-line-combat/
ReliefWeb/OCHA agrees- https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/militarized-childhood-report-houthis-recruitment-yemeni-children-during-war-february
If all of those organizations disagree with you, maybe you should rethink your position?
I'm not advocating for the use of child soldiers. I'm advocating for the elimination of actions where children feel the need to stop becoming children and start becoming soldiers. Putting the full blame on just the Houthis who are stuck between a rock and a hard place is being very disingenuous.
Full blame? No.
Blame? Yes.
They do not have to put children on the battle lines. That is a choice and that choice is both a war crime and a human rights violation. That needs to be acknowledged.
If you're being wiped out by an invading army. Then a lot of things become necessary. This isn't some kind of political or religious battle. This is a fight for their lives.
I'm sorry... are you saying that it is necessary for them to force children to die in battle?
What force? The article you provided says recruitment, not force. They are literally telling these kids that we can help support you if you help us fight these invaders. True, they are young. But the US literally has similar recruitment tactics for the poor and the desperate as well. If you're joining some kind of military organization, you're either patriotic or desperate (usually).
Also, survival is a necessity. So yes, it is necessary. Otherwise, these kids would go play soccer instead of picking up a gun.
Unfortunately, all of that goes against what they agreed to do in 2022:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7
"In 2022, the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN to end grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children in their forces, and committed to releasing all children from their forces within six months.
Tawfik al-Hamidi, the president of SAM, told Human Rights Watch that the Houthis use their government institutions in their efforts to recruit children, including the Ministries of Education, Interior, and Defense. “All of them are working together and coordinate to mobilize children and recruit them,” he said.
Another activist, who works as a human rights researcher, said that “[recruitment] activities in schools have increased massively [since October 7], including through the school scouts. They take students from schools to their culture centers where they lecture children about the Jihad and send them to military camps and front lines.”
By leveraging official institutions, including schools, the Houthis have managed to take advantage of a far broader swathe of children. The UN secretary-general has also reported on the Houthis’ use of educational facilities for military purposes."
And what happened in 2023 that made the Houthi's much more active and aggressive? What's Saudi Arabia doing to Yemen with US made weapons currently? If you and your neighbors are being massacred indiscriminately simply because you're the wrong ethnicity, it's not a stretch to think you would choose to pick up a gun and fight.
Definitely not a stretch for adults to pick up weapons and fight, but what they're doing to the kids by propagandizing them through religious indoctrination is entirely a different matter.
This is why the UN required them to stop using kids, which they agreed to in 2022...
https://youtu.be/angi1vwUkQc
No happy child willingly becomes a soldier. They're recruiting children who have known nothing but violence their entire lives. This is what people mean when they say people are radicalized due to the wars and suffering they've endured. Where do you think these militia groups come from? People who are happy and carefree? Or people who have had violence and oppression inflicted on them their whole lives and feel the need to fight back? This isn't the result of some kind of propaganda campaign like you claim it is. This is people fighting back against systemic oppression and violence they've been enduring for decades.
No child, happy or otherwise, legally becomes a soldier.
https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/
"Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict."
You're not saying anything wrong. You'll get no argument from me if you say child soldiers are bad.You're just sidestepping my point. Which is that the existence of child soldiers is due to the inhumane conditions foreign powers like the US have created in that part of the world.
No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That's the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi "schools" run by the Houthi.
https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west
https://sanaacenter.org/ypf/curriculum-changes-to-mold-the-jihadis-of-tomorrow/
Kids aren't signing up for this, they're bullied and brainwashed into it, and any legitimate military force would reject them.
The Houthis, and their hatred of the US, didn't come from nowhere. They were part of a repressed minority by the President of Yemen at the time, who was sympathetic to the US. The group began to really take shape after their leader they are named after was assassinated for protesting. This led to the Yemeni revolution in 2012 and the civil war as well. And Saudi Arabia is attacking them with the blessing from the US and their weapons simply because their politics don't align with them. It's a startling parallel for why Iran also hates the US, and so many other developing nations. Yes, child soldiers and indoctrination is bad. And I'll agree with that until I'm blue in the face. This is a cycle of violence perpetuated by nations that have more than enough on nations that have barely anything simply because they want to. And it's been going on for decades.
I provided multiple articles.
Yes. They are manipulating people who's brains are not developed enough to make rational decisions like that. Which is why it is a war crime, a human rights violation, and not morally defensible.
I was referencing the article from this comment.
You're applying a very generous use of the word manipulate here, IMO. Yes, it's bad but the alternative is to either die by missile's or starvation. What would you choose?
No, I am not. Maybe you do not have experience with children. Telling them "fight for us and we'll give you stuff" is manipulating them. They do not understand the consequences of their actions. That's why it's illegal to convince them to have sex with you in most countries.
If someone came to a Houthi child and offered them everything they needed in exchange for sex, I assume you would be against that. And rightfully so.
I would definitely be against that. But a more accurate analogy would be if the kid ended up joining some kids group where they all prostitute themselves and some are just a bit older because they were able to survive the harsh situation. Would you not want to go against the people who made the situation where a group of kids are forced to do such things? These people have been in a civil war for a decade that has been perpetuated by western nations to re-install a leader more sympathetic to them, they're all in the same boat.
I would want to go against both the people who made the conditions possible and the people directly hurting the children. Many people here don’t seem to think the latter should be done.
You're not wrong for being angry and bitter about the situation. Children should be allowed to be children, I'll never argue against that. A lot of the Houthi's grew up with the oppression that made the civil war possible and necessary along with the civil war itself that is being continued by foreign powers. They were children too and they grew up in this environment. They are living the only way they know how.
I’m pretty sure they know how to tell a child not to take a gun from them.
You're kind of missing my point here....
Am I? Because, again, all the adults have to do is not allow the kids to fight. That's it. The kids aren't pushing past them and raiding the weapons lockers. They're being forcibly conscripted.
Again, what force? They're being recruited, not forced. I know what you said about them being young and impressionable, but no happy kid would rather go fight in a war instead of playing with their friends. So again, ask yourself here. Why do they feel the need to?
Yes, just like kids are "being recruited" for sex work.
Yet again, children's brains are not developed enough to understand the consequences of what they are doing. They are being forced to fight because they are being manipulated into doing it. That's why they "feel the need to."
It's like you don't even know what children are.
Question then. If I were to go to a group of young, impressionable kids in a developed country where they are living comfortably, how successful would I be in recruiting them to be in a militia?
Why on Earth would you think I know the answer to that? Do you think I've ever seen it happen? Experienced it?
Considering the number of young, impressionable kids who live comfortably that join cults, I'm guessing a good salesperson could be pretty successful at it.
And what kind of people do cults tend to attract? People that are in happy lives? Or the ones that are in desperate situations?
Lots of children of rich, successful people join cults.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeaky_Fromme
This person was literally a drug addict who got kicked out of her house by her parents. She was homeless when she got recruited. This only reinforces my point.
Your point:
Apparently you answered your own question now: yes, those kids in that developed country would be successfully recruited to be in a militia. Or at least do a militia's bidding.
Nah, never happens in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Rittenhouse
And do tell me about Kyle's tragic upbringing full of hardship.
You're giving me another singular example that i can probably nitpick. I'm giving you thousands. You're not familiar with the success of this strategy to recruit kids , as you said in a previous comment, because it doesn't happen where you live. It doesn't happen because people don't feel the need to, and kids don't want to do that by default. The radicalization didn't happen because someone came and said, "Hey kid, wanna get paid?". It happened over the course of decades as kids grew up with missiles flying over their heads repeatedly and their friends and families dying. What did you expect these kids to do?
And you are? How did you become familiar with it? Or is this just a guess on your part?
It's pretty obvious, man. I literally just explained why people like you and me, who live in a developed country, don't really see it happening.
Sure. Apart from the specific times I mentioned where you do see it happening. And all the other times you see it happening.
And it still doesn't make child soldiers either moral or excusable.
One. You gave me one example. I gave you thousands.
I never said it was moral or excusable. All I said is, what did you expect would happen given what we're doing to them. You have a lot of anger over the people forced to do bad things for survival but not against the ones who created the situation where they need to do these bad things. Why is this such a difficult concept for you to understand?
I gave you two actually. I can give you more.
Ah, so they are being forced. Thank you, that's what I was saying.
By the way, the idea that the only way you can survive is die on the battlefield doesn't make much sense.
No, you gave me one. I explained why the first one actually helped prove my point. Which is why you provided the second. And I'm too tired to read that person's biography to point to why he actually did it and give him some kind of justification. Unless you can give me some kind of substantive example where there are a huge number of kids in developed countries who are having happy lives you're point here is not justified.
Now you're just not even arguing in good faith here.
Is this your way of dismissing their suffering and their choices to defend themselves even in the face of overwhelming odds?
I gave you two. Squeaky Fromme and Kyle Rittenhouse.
If you're going to gaslight me, try harder.
Forgot about this, did you?
And again. I gave you thousands.
No, I didn't forget about it. But you're pretending the comment I made after that doesn't exist. It's some pretty pathetic gaslighting, I must say.
I'm really not gaslighting you. I've been doing nothing but giving you explanations on why thousands of children feel compelled to hate a nation half a world away and you're doing everything you can to dance around the topic without directly acknowledging it.
It's clear this back and forth is pointless as you don't want to acknowledge the real reason why countries like Yemen have all these militia groups who all hate the US. I'll just leave you with this to think on however. In something like 5-10 years, when you see an influx in terrorist attacks on western nations. Similar to what we say in the 2010s, which were caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were caused by 9/11, which were in turn caused by US interference in topics like Israel and the Gulf War. I'll just ask you to remember this conversation, and think on why this cycle of violence keeps getting repeated and where it keeps coming from.
You acted like I never mentioned Kyle Rittenhouse despite mentioning him twice. You even outright suggested I only gave you one name.
That's called gaslighting.
I didn't even read past that first sentence. You clearly have an honesty problem.
No, I didn't acknowledge the Squeaky Fromme example for the reasons I provided to you in a previous comment. Maybe actually read my comments before jumping to conclusions? Blindly accusing someone of something is not a good trait to have, especially from someone who's been entrusted to moderate communities like this one.
And now you're lying about the conversation.
"Forgot about this, did you?" linked directly to my Squeaky Fromme comment. Directly to it.
All I can say is you're damn lucky I'm not the moderator dealing with this thread because I'm done with your trolling and gaslighting.
Re-read your screenshot. This is just getting sad.