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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Here's an article from Jacobin, and here's an article from The Nation. If you want a deep-dive on how the US Empire functions, Super-Imperialism by Michael Hudson is a good read.
Why would the US Empire give so much aid? To further its imperialist ambitions by solidifying a class of compradors and puppet states.
Cowbee the GOAT back at it again
🫡 thanks comrade!
Okay: while I'm not arguing that it definitely happens, or arguing that if altruism can even exist, I'd like to point out that both those articles are written to present the perspective about why it happens, they do not present evidence for either how it happens nor it's effectiveness in furthering imperialist goals.
It's a bit of a gotcha question on my part, I admit - the evidence you would need to present to conclusively prove those claims doesn't exist (or, rather, it does exist and it's not reported). There's many reasons for that, the first ones people arrive at being usually "that would prove it and the US obviously doesn't want it proved" (legit) and "reporting which NGOs have cash on hand would make them targets" (also legit but a lot more complicated, leat of all because imperialist countries generally use the turmoil/"lawlessness" that created the problem itself as a tool of imperialism).
You can read the book I linked if you want more depth than internet articles can provide. This is a well-documented process.
Sure, and I quite agree that it happens - the only thing I've claimed is that the claim you've made (that it's "usually just given to compradors as bribes") is unsubstantiatable. You can't prove it because nobody can, and what you provided me to support that claim is not actually evidence. It's theory, not analysis, but it's still important to be discussed.
Regardless of that though, I think you've misunderstood my initial point - That eventually there are sacks of grain with comedy US flags printed on them given out and that the existence of those grain sacks, or how they are used, does nothing to negate the myraid of crimes the US has committed. Much as how the Yemeni government joining a military coalition with a noble goal does nothing to erase the three decades of human rights abuses that has followed Yemeni unification.
If we are to hold ourselves over our enemies as morally superior, we have to hold ourselves to the same standards we condemn them with. Otherwise, we're just the hypocrites so many people accuse us of being.
The US Empire isn't giving out true aid, though. Even if we can find minor instances of aid, it's done in the purposes of perpetuating imperialism, which aligns with the genocide. The centuries of human rights abuses by the US Empire, domestic and foreign, are aligned on that.
Yemeni human rights abuses are in the context of victims of imperialism, and the strong nationalism that springs in resistance to that. Yemen has every reason to improve socially as imperialism falls, their social conservativism isn't intrinsic to being Yemeni but is a consequence of nationalist resistance to imperialism. Once free of imperialism, social progress can continue at far faster a pace.
I'm curious what you consider 'true' aid - not within the context of the US' behavior, but because you appear to have given this a great deal of thought and I'm curious about your thoughts on how the "idealized" (for lack of a better term) way to distribute aid should work. I have long opinions of my own I'll spare you (in short NGOs are not in of themselves inherently bad to work with, especially when the government in question is dubiously moral), but I am quite curious about your thoughts on this.
Yes, absolutely. But while that does make them understandable, it does not make them justifiable. You yourself use gender neutral pronouns, which in many countries would see you subject to at best social persecution. While I can understand the reasons why they may persecute you for that, much as with the hyper-religious 'christofascists' of the US conservative movement, I cannot condone their actions nor agree that their justification is acceptable. That victims of abuse may themselves become abusers isn't disputed, but it also does not make their victims any less victimized, or them any less guilty of that abuse.
Often, material the US Empire reports as "aid" is in the form of money supposedly earmarked for development, but in practice ends up in the pockets of pro-US politicians and very little ends up doing anything. The Empire calls it "aid," but really it's bribery, and impacts very little in a positive direction.
Secondly, I find it disgusting that you'd use the fact that I'm fine with using they/them pronouns as a means to bludgeon my point. I'm pansexual, and consider myself cisgender. I am queer, and a number of movements I support would oppose that, such as Palestinian liberation. At the same time, I also understand that the path to progress is ending imperialism, not punishing these otherwise progressive movements. By cedeing the narrative to imperialists, you morally justify any terror they inflict, because the Empire has labeled them "bad" and you've agreed with them.
The path to liberation for queer Yemenis is made far easier when they have ended imperialism. Progressive social movements in Yemen should be supported regardless, but to try to foster the narrative that Yemen is socially conservative, therefore they are "bad" and thus the imperialists are justified is wrong.
I'm not stupid, and I'd rather you not treat me as such.
I don't believe I've made any such claims about yemen being "bad" nor that that would somehow justify imperialism. I referenced your use of pronouns to point out that you also can understand that supporting a cause is more complicated than simply ticking a box labeled "Support/Depose", because you have a vested personal interest in the multifaceted nature of the topic.
My point throughout this has been that we should not excuse the bad things just because good things exist - that was the entire reason I called the US "The paragon of humanitarianism" or somesuch. It's undeniably true that they give out more humanitarian aid than any other country, but that simple claim is both clearly not the full picture, nor does it somehow mean we should ignore their crimes.
If we're going to support progressive social movements in Yemen, we must inherently accept that there is a state that warrants us progressing from. They are a socially conservative authoritarian nightmare, who tortuously put to death people extremely similar to both you and I. And yet despite that I still support their actions here. We should not hail them as a paragon of human rights, because they clearly are not, and doing so would invalidate the work of so many people who stand their lives against the social order in their country to try and secure a better life for people who have done nothing wrong. But we should also praise that "conservative authoritarian nightmare" regime's actions here, because they have done something undeniably good.
The world is too complicated to have true paragons, and doing so oversimplifies reality to the point where we become comfortable with tragedy just because the binary says we must be.
The problem with your framing, and the disconnect between you and I, seems to be that you look at progression/regression as simply personal choices, and to be weighed out on scales of positive and negative. You have to analyze the actual underlying systems, ie US Imperialism vs a nationalist country under siege by imperialism. These movements aren't to be weighed up on a scale, but the overarching forces at play have to be recognized and analyzed. Yemen's path to progress socially is most accelerated by assisting them against imperialism, liberating queer Yemenis from US imperialism and making their social progress easier.
Well... yes.
That's pretty much exactly what I've been saying this entire time. To borrow your langauge: Reducing the situation to a simple binary (good/evil, "peak"/"struggling", etc.) itself reinforces an imperialist narrative that removes the realities of the situation. By ignoring the actions they take that are negative, we allow that binary narrative to be forced upon them, removing any semblance of agency and reducing "conservative authoritarian nightmare" from a criticism of their government to a criticism of the country as a whole.
They cannot free themselves from imperialism if we use imperialist ideas like "Good vs. Evil" to quantify them.
Framing their government as "conservative authoritarian nightmare" follows the imperialist narrative. It's a progressive nationalist country resisting imperialism, they would be thrown backwards with regime-change. It's not about binaries, but about forces at play.
Absolutely! It's not about binaries, and I'm not and never have been advocating for a regime change.
You yourself have described them as socially conservative:
And I continue to agree - and the reality is that right now, as a consequence of the imperialist system they're forced to exist within, they are a socially conservative government that supports authoritarian actions as a consequence of outside pressures. I don't think either of us think they intrinsically are that way, but they are that way right now - and the result is a situation I am absolutely comfortable describing as a "nightmare" for queer people to live within.
I don't think that every aspect of Yemen is a nightmare, nor that it is a nightmare for every Yemeni citizen. But it is for some of them, and carrying that through as a description since the originating topic was based on the plight of queer yemeni is not particularly unreasonable.
For the queer Yemeni, liberation comes from opposing imperialism first and foremost. This is clear, and is why I take issue with framing the government as a reactionary nightmare. Rather, in resisting imperialism, it's more common for social progress to accelerate. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, and trying to frame it as an "authoritarian nightmare" just cedes the narrative to imperialists.
Yemen is progressive in the global context, and socially has a long way to go, but in that it already fights imperialism, is capable of progressing socially more expediently. This is the problem with trying to use moralistic terminology and loaded phrases like "authoritarian nightmare," it makes it seem like Yemen needs outside intervention to progress, rather than internal progress.