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Labelling support for one as "indirect" and the other as "direct" is begging the question via rhetorical framing. The Saudis wouldn't have a functioning militar

Labelling support for one as "indirect" and the other as "direct" is begging the question via rhetorical framing. The Saudis wouldn't have a functioning military if it wasn't for US support, they receive more weapons as a percentage of their arms from the US than Israel does. I don't want to split hairs and do bean counting. But the level of passion surrounding the war in Gaza and the level of detachment surrounding the war in Yemen is a contrast that can't be explained by your hypothesis. There's a mental fixation and a level of moralizing that tells me other factors are more salient.

perihelions 2y ago
You're drastically underselling your point: the US didn't just passively sell arms to the Saudis—US foreign policy deliberately supported their bombing campaign in Yemen, since the Houthi group is a common enemy to both (and to most of the world, really). It was only very late into the Saudi atrocities that the US government started to balk—late, because, as is our topic, US domestic media narratives entirely ignored the civilian consequences of what the Saudis did in Yemen. There's an entire Wiki entry devoted to this question, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_operations_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saud... ("United States support for Saudi Arabian–led operations in Yemen") (It might be clarifying to remember that the start of this conflict, the Saudis weren't the aggressors. The Houthis (at least from the US PoV) were the aggressors. The US (and others) viewed this as a defensive war against the Houthi rebellion, in which war the Saudis were allies and partners in defending the legitimate Yemeni government against a violent, Iran-backed, terroristic insurgency. This was the context in which the US sided with the Saudi military).

perihelions 2y ago

You're drastically underselling your point: the US didn't just passively sell arms to the Saudis—US foreign policy deliberately supported their bombing campaign in Yemen, since the Houthi group is a common enemy to both (and to most of the world, really). It was only very late into the Saudi atrocities that the US government started to balk—late, because, as is our topic, US domestic media narratives entirely ignored the civilian consequences of what the Saudis did in Yemen. There's an entire Wiki entry devoted to this question, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_operations_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saud... ("United States support for Saudi Arabian–led operations in Yemen") (It might be clarifying to remember that the start of this conflict, the Saudis weren't the aggressors. The Houthis (at least from the US PoV) were the aggressors. The US (and others) viewed this as a defensive war against the Houthi rebellion, in which war the Saudis were allies and partners in defending the legitimate Yemeni government against a violent, Iran-backed, terroristic insurgency. This was the context in which the US sided with the Saudi military).