In all the talk about The Atlantic’s Goldberg being given access to Pete Hegseth’s little internet soiree discussing the bombing of Yemen, no one has told us why we’re doing this. You’d think that would be an important piece of background.
Long story short, it’s because the Houthis (the group being targeted) have been attacking ships associated with Israel passing through the narrow Ban el Mandeb Strait that leads to the Red Sea in an effort to get Israel to let aid back in to the suffering in Gaza.
According to al Jazeera:
So if they stopped doing it in January, why has the US been trying to kill the Houthi leadership for the past two days? According to the website Responsible Statecraft:
Biden had removed the Houthi from a listing of terrorist groups, but the Trump administration reclassified them that way this month.
I normally think that blaming war on one person is simplistic. But what we are seeing in Trump 47 is that this administration jumps to follow DJT’s orders when, in Trump 45, the people around him would have delayed or argued back.
We are bombing Yemen because Yemen is weak, and Trump thinks he can do it better than Biden did.
This is untrue (and that’s the hazard with getting your info from state media…)
The ships the Houthis have attacked and hijacked, and the crews they’ve kidnapped and held for many months, have absolutely nothing to do with Israel.
They weren’t headed to Israel. They weren’t owned by Israeli companies. They weren’t carrying Israeli cargo.
The Houthis attacked anyone who came into range of the missiles Iran gave them. It had nothing to do with Israel, any more than a guy shooting drivers in cars on the highway and saying he’s doing it to save the manatees.
as far as “why now”, the March 11 announcement by the Houthis that they will resume attacking ships to halt international trade again probably has something to do with it…
This makes me rethink my first post in this thread, where I said it was just a matter of Trump wanting to show he was tougher than Biden. That’s probably part of it. But it takes a bit more than Trump batting around his own ideas, inside his head, to explain the timing, and why the British refueled U.S. jets attacking Yemen, and why, in the Atlantic leaks of administration discussions, Vance and Hegseth complained about “Europe” not paying for the U.S. bombings. Some European leaders may have wanted this and/or told Trump that if you have to do it, this is the time.
Trump heard that Canadians were now vacationing there so he feels slighted and is going to bomb the $hit out of it. (yes, I’m Canadian so I can say that)
As far as I know, my stuff is from independent media, not state media.
Can you corroborate your statements? I see no cites.
As for whether the Houthi are terrorists or not, I have no idea. Your post is the first I heard saying that they announced that they would resume attacks on March 11.
Gee, wasn’t it the Republicans who screamed bloody murder over Hilary Clinton’s use of a non-government email system? And now we find Trump and company are deliberately using a non-government communication system and corporate media doesn’t bat an eye.
If I had to guess, I’d say Trump’s counter to this will be that the “high side” (as in the actual communication systems used for intelligence and military matters) is compromised by the Deep State so they have no other choice until they have purged these agencies of all the Obama/Biden loyalists who are actively trying to sabotage everything they do.
They don’t need to actually perform any strikes to cause devastating economic damage. The problem is that their threat alone causes insurance companies to greatly raise the cost of insuring shipping through the Straits, meaning that shipping companies are forced to rerout around the Cape of Good Hope, adding greatly to the time and cost for the journey.
The United States, in its former self appointed role as protector of international trade and seaways, would oppose this sort of thing on principle, whether it’s being done by the Houthis, by China in the South China Sea bullying its neighbors, etc - the US benefits from the world order, that world order relies in part on freedom of navigation, and so the US as the strongest beneficiary protects freedom of navigation.
In its new role as Trump’s personal bully on the world stage, the US doesn’t have principles, and so it only opposes the Houthis’ actions insofar as they cause direct economic harm. That harm impacts Europe, which ships much more stuff through the Suez Canal, a whole lot more than it impacts America, who is mostly bringing things in from Europe or from Asia, neither of which require going through Suez thanks to America’s Pacific ports. So in Trump’s worldview, the US is only doing this as a favor to Europe - and so, Europe better pay.
It doesn’t matter if the Houthis aren’t actively shooting anyone yet. If you announce that tomorrow you’ll climb back on the tower to take potshots at passing cars on the freeway again, I’m very much fine with you being taken out preemptively.
Trump unilaterally scrapping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) framework (colloquially known as the ‘Iran nuclear deal’) it pretty much convinced the Assembly of Experts and the leadership of the Iranian military to press full steam ahead with building weapons and delivery systems. Although the Iranian leadership has made mouth-noises about returning to a deal, it almost won’t be an agreement where Iran holds from building a nuclear arsenal; that proverbial ship has put to sea, and even the best negotiators in the world (which Trump and Rubio are not) will not cause it to reverse course.
If Iran had only agreed to pay off Trump…gods, he’s terrible at shakedowns. He’s like a five year old throwing a tantrum at someone else’s birthday party because he didn’t get to blow out the candles.
Whereas my guess is that Trump’s counter to this will be “purple monkey butler” and to otherwise ignore it until it gets buried by the next stupid thing his administration does.
As to why we’re bombing Yemen this time - the Signal chat seemed to indicate that it was about protecting shipping coming through the Suez Canal. The extent to which this is 1) true and/or 2) effective remains to be seen.
From a legal standpoint this security violation is pretty meaningless unless Congress elects to hold hearings. As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth can basically adjudicate disciplinary action any violation of controlling classified or CUI information within the Department of Defense, and I don’t see Bryllcreem Man holding himself to account for anything.
It’s no biggie. Just a glitch. And don’t worry, Mike Waltz has taken the blame and gotten in touch with acclaimed genius Elon Musk to ensure that it never happens again. I don’t see what all the fuss is about, truly. /s
