A windstorm blew through our island community this week. The power flickered off about ten in the evening. We went to bed under our quilts. By next morning, power was restored, as we expected. Safe in a peaceful community, we had never doubted we would again have heat and food and hot water.

But even as we waited, securely, for normality, recent scenes haunted me from Yemen, in the Middle East, where nothing is ever normal and children die a slow death from starvation.

We have taken the side of Saudi Arabia against Yemen, war ravaged for years, though few Americans have any idea about what is going on there.

The bloodletting is part of an ancient struggle, begun in the seventh century, between different branches of Islam—Sunni and Shia. Saudi Arabia is the Sunni leader. Iran, descendant of ancient Persia, is the Shia leader.

We’re mainly interested in the oil pumped from Saudi Arabia. That and the money we make from selling arms to them. Oh, yes, also, Iran has become public enemy number one, and we want Saudi Arabia’s backing against them.

Neither side is pure, of course.

Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and imprisoned our diplomats for 444 days. They also sponsor Hezbollah, a political and militant group in Lebanon.

On the other hand, fifteen of the nineteen terrorists who attacked our country on September 11, 2001,were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia sponsors that war against Yemen.

You can blame either side, if you like.

For me, though, taking sides becomes irrelevant next to children slowly dying from starvation as helpless parents watch. Others have been bombed by weapons we sold to the Saudis.

I don’t care who you choose as your enemy, but what we have abetted and allowed is a sin against God.