Now we’ve desecrated Golriz’s political corpse – can we talk about bombing the Houthis?
Right, now everyone has had a chance to desecrate Golriz’s political corpse and felt enormously self righteous in doing so, can we get back to us bombing the Houthi?
REMEMBER:
We supported bombing one of the poorest nations on earth ostensibly for the ‘rules based order’, which is hilarious because we aren’t doing the same ‘rules based order’ demands over Israel’s ethnic cleansing war crime.
REMEMBER:
The Houthis are only attacking shipping in the Red Sea because Israel is committing an ethnic cleansing war crime against the Palestinians and have made it clear they will stop attacking shipping if Israel ceases its ethnic cleansing war crime.
So what did we gain by Luxon agreeing to this military strike?
According to The Washington Post, sweet fuck all…
What Yemen’s Houthis gain through their Red Sea strikes
But a major segment of global shipping is still skirting transit points through the Red Sea that are in range of Houthi attacks. And the Houthis themselves appear unbowed after the U.S.-led coalition’s attacks. At rallies staged over the weekend in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, Houthi supporters reportedly chanted: “We don’t care and make it a world war.” On Monday, the Houthis hit an American-owned and operated container ship in the Gulf of Aden.
Analysts contend that this new phase of hostilities may strengthen the Houthis, rather than weaken them. The aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas has seen Israel conduct an operation unprecedented in its scale and ferocity, reducing much of Gaza to rubble, killing more than 23,000 people and immiserating Gaza’s population. The Houthis are part of the so-called “axis of resistance,” a network of Iran-aligned militant groups around the Middle East. While militias like Lebanon’s Hezbollah seem to want to avoid a direct escalation with Israel, the Houthis thrust themselves into the spotlight by taking up the mantle of the Palestinian cause. They insist their actions in the Red Sea will stop when Israel ceases its bombardments.
…so this was completely counter productive!
It felt last week like it was more important to shame Golriz for shop lifting than holding the fucking Government to account for green lighting the bombing of another country!
That’s the petty spiteful malicious people we have now become.
Why has no major news outlet critiqued our decisions last week to support this air strike?
A young brown female MP who symbolises all the redneck hate was MORE important to shame than holding our Government to account for supporting a bomb strike that was utterly counter productive.
This is what we is now. A nation of petty redneck knuckle draggers fixated on cow udders, rugby and garden variety racist bigotry.
We are the sleepy hobbits of muddle NuZilind, and still NO major news network has spent any time challenging this new hard right racist Government’s decision to support a counter productive military strike that its actually escalating violence in the Middle East.
It was more important desecrate the political course of Golriz than demand to know why we are supporting the bombing of a people we have no quarrel with.
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“The Houthis are only attacking shipping in the Red Sea because Israel is committing an ethnic cleansing war crime against the Palestinians”
The article only works if you insert that idea as true. You could say that Houthis are attacking shipping – while – Israel makes lots of noise. Not everything that happens in the middle east revolves around Israel.
Which senior Houthi general said “Houthis are attacking shipping – while – Israel makes lots of noise?”
Good and timely article. The suffering of Yemen goes back a long way, especially at British hands. Michael Brenner also posts a highly informative and disturbing piece on the US’s disgusting involvement in Scheerpost and, of course, that very deserving (sic) Nobel Peace Laureate, Obomber, was a prime mover of the lady decade’s genocide there.
Last decade’s
Let’s not forget the role of the media in this horrific harassment of a leftist female MP. The front page of the NZ Herald on Thursday, January 18, was beyond the pale. It is simply unacceptable that, for the second time, Golriz Ghahraman should be featured as a front page spread for the relatively innocuous and harmless alleged crime of shoplifting (or theft).
Ms Ghahraman has become the subject of the type of media attention reserved for high profile murderers, sex-offenders or child abusers. That a staff photographer was present when the police visited her home, and then the photo was published, was already crossing the line of serious and dangerous media bullying.
It is granted that there is and should be public interest in this case, given Ms Ghahraman’s position as an MP and spokesperson on Justice, but has the media got no moral or ethical standards around an individual’s mental wellbeing as a response to such bullying or the fact we live in a country where the law presumes innocence until proven guilty?
This is a trial by media and the Herald and TVNZ are the worst offenders.
Both the Herald and TVNZ all too often reveal their political bias, and this excessive media coverage of Ms Ghahraman looks like an obvious media beat-up of a leftist MP, and to make it worse, a female MP of colour to boot.
There are many examples of far worse crimes and breaches of public trust from MPs or former MPs on the political right, but I do not recall these making the front page of the Herald, let alone twice.
Where was the front page spread on the Sam Uffindell case, in particular the National Party’s decision to not release the report on this MP by Maria Dew KC?
Where was the front page story on Barbara Kuriger using her position to influence an investigation into allegations of animal cruelty on the part of her son?
Where was the front page story on former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley when she was found to have breached the rules of her directorship of Mainzeal by allowing the company to keep trading when insolvent? This escapade was a far worse breach of public trust, as the Supreme Court said, “with potential relevance for the hundreds of thousands of company directors in New Zealand”, than Ms Ghahraman’s alleged transgressions.
And then the Herald, as though to distract attention from their own culpability, publish a fluff piece by Shayne Currie (January 18) that lays the blame for the Ghahraman ‘debacle’ on the leadership of the Green Party. This line is then backed up by a series of letters to the Editor expressing a similar sentiment, or a letter or two decrying the online abuse suffered by female MPs. One letter, by V M Fergusson, went so far as to say, “This foul intimidation is a serious problem, as it undermines our democracy”.
Absolutely typical of the Herald is this deferring to everything else but their own special brand of involvement, just as a Herald editorial, after the election, made the jaw-dropping statement, and completely without irony, that “Labour lost the narrative and big picture of what it was doing and aiming to do. It let other voices frame its story to the public. Right-wing populists tend to be better at cutting through to people and forming a connection than centre-left communicators” (NZ Herald editorial, 17 Oct 2023). Can anyone believe the sheer gall of this? The utter shamelessness of this statement is mind-boggling and so devoid of self-reflection or self-awareness it makes me wonder what drugs the editorial board of the Herald is on.
I am ashamed to be a citizen of Ms Ghahraman’s adopted country where the press is so misguided as to what they assume to be true public interest. The editorial board of the Herald, let alone TVNZ, are obviously insensitive to public revulsion and seemingly incapable of reporting on the wider and far more serious issues facing the country and the world at this critical moment in time, as, for example, the case brought against Israel by South Africa alleging genocide in Gaza. To date, not one single statement on this case has come from our National led government. Where is the media pressure on this issue? Nor has the Herald, to my knowledge, published an opinion piece on this globally relevant tragedy in its editorial pages. And now the bombing of the Houthis, as Martyn points out, is endorsed by the new right-wing government and the press is silent. Hasn’t the Herald won a bunch of awards for their journalism? What a total crock!
Agreed Paul.
We remain trapped to the Western Alliance. Like any school yard the bully will always get their way; but we have failed here by supporting the bullies. Were we told to publicly support the military action?
I can’t see the current Foreign Minister having the courage of the Lange or Clarke governments in distancing us from the bullies.
So we are sender six men and a rowing boat the assist the israelis with their genocide on Gaza.
NOT IN MY FKN NAME.