Washington DC is an imperial city. It masks as Athenian democracy housed within Roman republicanism and underpinned by Judeo-Christian values. But behind the mask is a cold monster: the “interagency.” And the monster is committed to global domination.

The imperial agenda has met with great resistance, most stunningly in Ukraine, where Russia has been degrading Washington’s proxy forces with extreme lethality. But the most poetic resistance has come from a group of Zaidi Shi’ites in Yemen, the Houthis. Formally known as “Ansarullah (a.k.a. Ansar Allah),” the Houthis control Yemen’s central state.

DC hates them so much it continues to have its captive media refer to them as “rebels” and “militants” more than a decade after they seized the capital city Sana in downright Shakespearean style. The Houthis are the unintended consequence of previous imperial intervention in Yemen. They have been terrorizing Red Sea shipping and attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians since October 2023. And they have been withstanding (and responding to) direct U.S. counterstrikes. All this could escalate to front page New York Times blowback. There is the very real possibility that the Houthis could do massive damage to (maybe even sink) a U.S. Navy warship.

How did we get here?

DC maintains different zones of domination (domi-nation). There are the fifty states, the zone of “domestic imperialism.” As Libertarian Institute Managing Editor Keith Knight said, “The domestic population is the group that the government is at war with but has surrendered.”

There are the Federal Indian Reservations throughout the mainland and Alaska. These are “permanent tribal homelands…where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe.” So, basically museums of Manifest Destiny or imperial trophies.

Then there are the “insular area political organizations,” which is a fancy and gentler way of saying colony. Insular means “island,” which tracks with the popular and bizarre view that America only became an empire when it went overseas. Insular also means “narrow-minded” and “illiberal” which aptly describes Washington’s postmodern imperial project.

The insular areas include one “incorporated territory,” Palmyra Atoll, the only colony where the U.S. Constitution is (officially) in full effect. Thus, Palmyra Atoll, a wildlife refuge and research outpost with no permanent population, has the greatest claim to being America’s “51st state.”

But most Americans have never heard of it because DC hasn’t bombed it or helped it commit a genocide recently.

The lesser, insular areas are the unincorporated territories. These include the privileged “commonwealths” of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, the lowly American Samoa and Guam, and the military outposts of Midway and Wake islands.

Next are the vassals. There are the members of NATO (such as France and Germany) which is Washington’s version of ancient Athens’ Delian League. There are the non-NATO nations that have bent the knee to DC such as Mexico, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. And then there is Israel.

The dean of the realist school of foreign policy, John Mearsheimer, put it this way:

“We have a special relationship with Israel that bears no resemblance to any relationship between any two countries in the history of the world.”

For more than a year, DC has backed Israel’s endless slaughter in Gaza and beyond. It has brought great shame upon the conquered domestic population and also made them less safe. Afterall, support for Israel and her crimes motivated the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Israel’s rampage has been complicated by the Houthis, whose rise to power is straight out of a William Shakespeare play, specifically Coriolanus. Set during the early days of the Roman Republic, the plot of Coriolanus is as follows:

• Roman General Caius Marcius defeats the Volscians at their city Corioli, earning the name “Coriolanus.”
• Coriolanus is nominated to be a consul of Rome.
• He loses the election for consul.
• He denies the election results.
• He is exiled.
• Coriolanus joins forces with the Volscian enemy and marches on Rome, destroying everything in his path.
• His mother talks him out of destroying Rome, and he stands down.
• He is killed by the Volscians who view his withdrawal as betrayal.

In our analogy, Field Marshall and President of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh is Coriolanus and the Houthis are the Volscians, but together they actually conquer Rome (Sana):

• Saleh waged six wars against the Houthis, losing each time (more like an American general than a Roman one).
• Saleh was almost killed (and severely burned) in a bombing assassination attempt.
• While convalescing, the empire toppled him and installed Yemen’s vice president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, as president.
• Saleh recovered, took part of the Yemeni army with him, and joined forces with the Houthis.
• Saleh and the Houthis conquered Sana.
• Saudi Arabia declared war on Yemen.
• Saleh tried to double cross the Houthis and make a separate peace with Saudi Arabia.
• The Houthis killed him.

Saudi Arabia, fully backed by the empire, waged its genocidal war on the civilian population of Yemen for more than seven years. The Houthis never wavered. To think they would now bend the knee to Israel and the empire is difficult. Even if DC carpet bombed Yemen with what comedian Bill Hicks called “the new shit,” the Houthis would probably still manage to fire missiles and hit targets.

The Houthis, by the way, hate Al Qaeda even more than Washington does. Al Qaeda might be the greatest proactive threat to the American people, but DC has an empire to run. As the American literary critic Paul A. Cantor said of ancient Rome:

“In conquering the Mediterranean world, the Republic transforms into the Empire, and in the process, it reduces its once-proud citizens into the humble subjects of an imperial regime, thereby foreclosing the grand possibilities for martial heroism it originally created.”

DC has conquered approximately 80% of the globe, leaving its humble subjects reduced to funding worldwide slaughter. The Houthis have taken up the heroic project with alacrity. Don’t be surprised when something very bad happens.