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Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

Your comment is either born of extreme ignorance, or is deliberate misinformation.

Lambasting SA for fighting in Yemen and then praising Iran, the other country fighting in Yemen, is beyond ridiculous.

Trashing SA for being an authoritarian dictatorship and then praising Iran, another theocratic, authoritarian dictatorship, that is just as happy to have the secret police disappear its citizens, is intellectual malfeasance.

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Clearly neither is anything you'd call a liberal democracy but Iran is still a meaningful improvement on Saudi Arabia. In Iran ultimate power is held by the Ayatolla and theocrats but the elected part of the government has substantial power. And censorship, etc, are pretty consistently less encompassing in Iran than in Saudi Arabia.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/iran

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/saudi-ara...

They're both horrible, oppressive places but if you were forced to move to one Iran would be the clear pick.

> the other country fighting in Yemen

Care to cite any reports of any Iranian bombings of civilians or starving of civilians in Yemen? Or in fact any evidence of Iranian involvement at all (beyond the usual "our confidential Saudi/US sources say")?

Iran has always fought its external wars by funding and training Shia insurgents with the Imperial Guard, in the same way the US sends Special Forces into insurgent groups to fight alongside them. Or are the Yemeni rebels building counterfeit Iranian missiles that kill civilians?

The UN put up a resolution to denounce Iran from doing this just last month, but Russia vetoed it[0].

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/middleeast/iran-yem...

Iran may be supplying some weapons, but their involvement is not comparable to the Saudi involvement. Even the arms supply is questionable. The missile attack is the only solid link given, and the proof provided does not say when the Houthis acquired the missiles or when they were used. The details are in the linked articles in your NYT piece.

The UN also tried to start an investigation into Suadi war crimes, but it was blocked by the UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/boris-j...

Wait, so your proof of claim "county A is fighting in country B" is that there were some weapons manufactured in country A found in country B? Do you realize what follows if I say county A is the US for example?

Regarding "training Shia insurgents", do you know that Houthis are Zaidis and Iranians are Twelvers? Do you have any evidence of claims you make about training with the "Imperial Guard" (are we doing Star Wars now)?

Your zeal for covering up Iranian actions betrays an extreme bias or hired mission.

The only countries even somewhat denying Iranian involvement in Yemen are its allies in the UN Security Council, and Russia isn't even really denying it, just blocking resolutions. Iranian soldiers have been killed or captured non-stop over the last 20 years in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon. They have directly supplied every Shia militant group in the Middle East for decades.

The fact that you deny this makes me believe you've been told to.

Actually I haven't even denied anything. I'm just asking you to substantiate your claims, but instead of doing that you make additional (unsubstantiated) claims, move the goalposts and use appeal to authority arguments.

And I did substantiate it by linking to a story about the UN resolution, yet you ignored it.

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