When designating a terrorist group, look in the mirror, Uncle Sam

President Biden is again considering designating the Houthis movement controlling much of Yemen a terrorist organization for their recent bombing of the Abu Dhabi Airport, killing 3. As bad as that was, it pales in comparison to America’s 7 year support of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen that has killed over 300,000 Yemenis while putting millions of Yemenis at risk of starvation and deadly illness from lack of food and medicine.

Biden began his first year taking the Houthis off America’s terrorist list so food and medicine would have an easier time reaching the beleaguered Houthis. He also signaled the U.S. would stop supporting the Saudis catastrophic war against them which turned Yemen into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

A year on Biden is simply following his predecessors Obama and Trump in continuing the Saudis grotesque war. A billion dollars in new war contracts for weapons and helicopter maintenance from the Saudis likely helped change Biden’s mind. The fact that the Saudi war on the Houthis represents a U.S. proxy war on the Houthis ally Iran is another big factor. No good opportunity to weaken Iran will go unused regardless of its carnage of innocents.

When the U.S. supports a senseless, criminal war against one of the poorest nations on earth it’s called protecting America’s national security interests. But when the folks we're destroying offer a pinprick of pushback, they’re called terrorists.

When looking to designate a terrorist group, President Biden should look in the mirror.

U.S. invasion hysteria crashing Ukraine economy

The U.S. has been warning of an imminent Russian invasion now since November. Such scare tactics are having a debilitating effect on the Ukraine economy. It's gotten so bad Ukraine presidential Chief of Staff Mykhailo Podolyak warned America and NATO, “Constant and extremely emotional messages in the media about how a big war is going to start tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow or the day after that create economic risks. This speculative stuff puts pressure on investors, creditors, and on ordinary people. And that worsens other economic indicators.”

Ukraine’s hryvnia currency has crashed, falling to its lowest value against the US dollar since February 2015.

Of course, Russia could invade Ukraine at any moment. But what would be gained by taking over a country America is pushing into economic collapse?

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming

Maybe Russia will invade Ukraine, maybe they won’t. But America’s apparent all or nothing negotiations where America wins, Russia loses, actually makes invasion more likely.

Russia has valid national security concerns going back 30 years when the U.S. promised Russia, NATO would not expand one inch into former Soviet territory once Russia pulled its troops from East Germany, allowing German reunification. Surprise, surprise. NATO went on a recruitment binge, bringing 13 former soviet republics into NATO and encouraging 2 more, Georgia and Ukraine as well.

The latter two represented a threat too far for Russia to accept. In 2008, egged on by President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, Georgia initiated military action to regain 2 Russian leaning breakaway provinces. Russia responded with overwhelming force that crushed the Georgian incursion. Realizing Georgia acted irresponsibly in goading Russia to counterattack, and that the war was of no material consequence to the West, the West did nothing.

Six years later the West did intervene in Ukraine. They inspired and supported a nationalist coup, neo-Nazi led, against the Russian leaning Ukraine president who was about to conclude an economic treaty with Russia. That was unacceptable to NATO and the U.S. which demanded Ukraine align economically with Europe, not Russia. The coup set off a civil war between Western Ukraine and the Russian leaning and speaking Ukrainians in the Eastern Donbass. Over 13,000 killed in a still simmering truce. The coup also resulted in Russian annexation of the Crimea to secure Russia’s naval base at Sebastopol. Neither of these developments would have occurred had the West had simply allowed Ukraine to set its own national policy.

In the following 7 years, Western efforts placing offensive missiles near Russia’s borders and continued floating of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, finally caused pushback the West can’t ignore: threatening invasion to force sensible negotiation of legitimate Russian security concerns.

NATO has been obsolete for 30 years. Their continued presence and threatening expansion up to Russia’s borders, including placement of offensive weaponry, does not serve the cause of peace whatsoever. It simply provoked the current crisis that could lead to catastrophic war.

The film ‘The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming’ was a comedy. American and NATO hyperbolic posturing about the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming to gobble up Europe is a farce that may lead to tragedy.