They got a pass for taking pot shots at Israel, because that’s an internal regional conflict. Shooting at civilian trade ships in one of the most important shipping lanes on the planet is a completely different thing. We’re not watching gas prices skyrocket, a resurgent Russia, a global economic downturn, etc. just because some religious fanatics are throwing a temper tantrum.
The Houthis were warned repeatedly to cut that shit out, and they didn’t listen. These are the consequences.
As Germany and Japan can tell you, “Don’t fuck with the boats”
Houthis attacking ships is probably the consequence of the west fucking up with them to steal their territories and money.
Ansar Allah have said explicitly that they are attempting to enforce a Naval blockade in the Red Sea against Israel. They have also stated that they believe under international law they are obligated to do whatever they can to prevent genocide.
I don’t see any reason why they can’t be negotiated with. Calling them “religious fanatics” that are “throwing a temper tantrum” is just a silly way to dismiss non violent solutions to the conflict.
Biden’s decision to threaten and subsequently bomb them is just plain arrogant belligerence. The US backed campaign to bomb and starve out the Houthis didn’t work previously so why does Biden think it’ll work now?
Firstly, the Houthi flag includes the words, “Death to America.” These are not rational actors. They are fanatic jihadis and all attempts to reason with them have failed. Acting like the Houthis are the same as a regular nation state is borderline intellectually dishonest.
If they have a problem with Israel, keep firing at Israel. If they want a problem with the rest of the world, keep firing at our CIVILIAN ships. Firing at those ships is an act of war, and it was going to provoke a response.
Biden waited a very long time to act, which emboldened Iran to take an oil tanker. That move virtually guaranteed a response, and it’s good that the response was limited to Yemen. Biden is playing the cards he’s been dealt, and he’s playing them reasonably.
Also, it should be mentioned that the Houthis themselves said the casualties were ~5 dead and 6 wounded. Warming was given far in advance so they could evacuate and minimize casualties. If Biden had wanted to play dirtier, he could have. A deliberate decision was made to minimize civilian casualties. If the positions were reversed, the Houthis would nuke Tel Aviv, DC, and every other major city in both the US and Israel.
You do realize that the US supported a campaign of bombing and a blockade against Yemen for the better part of the past decade? It’s not irrational of them to hate the US. They certainly aren’t more or less religious fanatics than Israel or the Christian Zionists in the US that support Israel.
Why is it that every time that you’re confronted with information that proves you wrong you always just pivot back to
“Well what does it matter anyway, America is worse”?
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I explained why the Houthis have reason to hate the US after their hate was cited as a reason why they must be irrational. That’s not a pivot. It’s a very direct response. You should work on your reading comprehension.
They certainly aren’t more or less religious fanatics than Israel or the Christian Zionists in the US that support Israel.
The world would be a great place if everyone behaved rationally. It’s sad that they don’t.
20 years of bombing as the title of this thread implies is probably the cause they are angry with america. Ironically by taking position against israel genocide they are doing more than the west at preventing fanaticism as it has been said over and over that the indiscriminate bombing of gaza can only breed more terrorists. Whoever leads them is probably a scummy individual but just as much as Biden or the other 3 presidents that bombed them.
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Surely that would only make sense if America had a history of funding coups, arming terrorists, overthrowing governments and indiscriminately bombing the region right?
Fortunately that’s not the case so the Houthis are clearly just insane. That is a much easier explanation.
Their country has been fucked up by said parties. It has nothing to do with religion.
You’re comparing someone who fights back against a bully and then says he would be even worse than the bully if he were in that position.
Marg bar amrika
You’re more mad about the treats getting delayed than the genocide our government is enabling.
The Houthis are the ones attacking civilians and American warships alike. The international community tried to get them to stop for months before resorting to retaliation.
What do you think enforcing a naval blockade looks like?
Also as far as I can tell, the only attempts at negotiation were just open threats telling them to stop or else.
A blockade is an act of War. As is firing upon military and civilian ships. Whine about almost certain consequences all you like, they’ve no one to blame but themselves.
Yes a blockade is an act of war. Ansar Allah declared war on Israel. What’s your point? The US is still solely responsible when it decides to bomb a country instead of negotiating.
And they got War in return as they were repeatedly warned would happen. What’s your point? And the US has bombed crap tons of people into the stone age for being threats to its monied interests. Why would anyone be stupid enough to think a different outcome would occur? Why would anyone be stupid enough to think after all the people the US has had killed, killing these really really self important fools would be a bridge to far?
Do you really think Ansar Allah thought the US wouldn’t retaliate militarily? Of course they did. The US has been complicit in committing war crimes against Yemen for the better part of the last decade. Frankly that’s probably a significant reason why they felt the need to do whatever they could to stop the US backed genocide in Gaza. Maybe just maybe bombing them isn’t the answer here.
The time for negotiating with these silly people is over.
The US never negotiated, and they probably wouldn’t listen considering we tried to genocide them by blockade since 2015 until Saudi Arabia decided they wanted to keep their oil refineries.
The only silly person here is the one that expects a people we tried, and failed, to genocide would be afraid of the people that did it.
The US never tried to negotiate.
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So how does bombing them change any of that? Their immediate demands are that Israel ends their genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. If Israel complies and the Houthis continue their attacks the world is still better off so why not try that before resorting to violence?
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And this is relevant to indiscriminately firing into international shipping lanes how?
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Can someone explain to me how this is “A Breach of Yemeni Sovereignty”? It seems like these actions are supported by the internationally recognized government in Yemen. (I’m not asking about the validity of these actions, or the horrendous effects of them. Just the sovereignty question)
Also, is this the interviewee? It appears she is a language and literacy assistant professor who happens to be Yemeni American, not an expert on the Yemen war, international law, or anything else relevant to these events.
It is in no way a breach of Yemeni authority. th government has no control over the territory in question, and it is being used to make repeated military strikes against US military and international civilian targets. This is entirely legal and justified under both US and international law. I’m just surprised it took this long.
If a government has no control over the populated regions of a country how can anyone reasonably consider it a legitimate government?
There are plenty of legitimate governments - and to be clear, by “legitimate” we usually mean the government recognized by the international community, whether or not any given people think they’re good guys or whatever - who do not control all of the territory they claim.
The point is that if a territory is under control of a foreign or rebel group and is attacking international civilian or military assets, then the international community can respond if the country that has claims to the territory cannot. I’m not even sure that the Yemeni government is in a position to coordinate strikes at this point, but that would be the standard approach otherwise.
If the Proud Boys took over south Texas and started launching military attacks against Mexican military facilities, and the US government was unable to stop them, Mexico and the international community would be within their legal rights to stop them.
It’s the US and the UK that are carrying out the bombings here. They alone do not constitute the international community. They do not have the right to determine what entities are sovereign or not.
As far as Ansar Allah goes, they control most of Yemen including the capital. It’s a farce to pretend they’re some breakaway rebel group and not the de facto government.
The civilian shipping lines that were attacked without provocation were and are part of the international community, so I have no idea what you’re talking about. In addition, US military vessels were directly and repeatedly attacked, which international law permits as deserving of a military response. The US would be within its rights to start an attack using tomahawks as well as loitering drones over the territory to hit vehicles and personnel.
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The US and Saudi Arabia tried to just that for the last decade and failed while killing thousands of civilians in the process. Maybe it’s time to try actually negotiating.
Yemen doesn’t control the Houthi territory.
Houthi territory is in green. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_civil_war_(2014–present)#/media/File%3AYemeni_Civil_War.svg
these actions are supported by the internationally recognized government in Yemen.
Do you mean the US attacks are supported by tye Yemen government? Do you have a source for that handy?
And great investigation into the interviewee, that kind of critical thinking is extremely important.
The internationally recognized government does not have control over the populated regions of the country. It’s a farce to pretend they represent the Yemeni people.
That’s not really an answer to my question. “Control” does not get you sovereignty, and neither does “representing the people”. It comes down to governance and international recognition. Mexican cartels control large areas of the country, but no one is arguing they have sovereignty. Similarly, there are many repressive regimes in the world that do not represent their people, but they maintain their sovereignty.
The issue is that the sovereignty of nation states is a somewhat nonsensical idea that has little to no solid philosophical backing. Nations aren’t living things and shouldn’t have rights in the same way people have. They are imaginary constructs, and the consequences of this are inevitable debates over what is or is not a nation. But there is no clear dividing line or definition—and in this ambiguity, powerful nations are free to recognize or ignore nations as they choose.
If you support the US action, you can claim that the Houthis are not a sovereign nation, the action was at the invitation of the legitimate government of this region against an terrorist organization, and was entirely legal and justified.
If you oppose the action, you claim that Houthis are a group of freedom fighters who have established a new separate nation that should be recognized, and this action was an illegal violation of that newfound sovereignty.
Neither can be said to be completely correct or incorrect because there is no solid basis for this idea of sovereignty.
I look at it more like this.
If you treat the Houthis as a non-sovereign entity, they can be attacked freely under international law by the international community as pirates.
If you treat the Houthis as a sovereign entity, they can be attacked under international law by affected nations as the attacks can be interpreted as an act of war.
So it doesn’t really matter if they are sovereign or not.
It matters because if the Houthis are a non-sovereign entity, then POTUS can order an attack under prior congressional approvals. However, if they are a Sovereign State, then attacking them would be an act of war, requiring congressional approval.
If the issue is with American law instead of international law, then you need to use the American list of recognized sovereign nations. Does the USA recognize the Houthis as leading a sovereign nation?
That doesn’t answer my question either. I wasn’t the one who brought up sovereignty, it was the article. It seems to ridiculous to say, this is “A Breach of Yemeni Sovereignty” but no one seems to able to assert the Houthis have sovereignty to start with.
None of which matters as the Houthis committed Acts of War and were idiots not to accept this would be the response when flat out told it would be.
Your analogy falls flat because, while powerful, cartels are rarely looking to supplant state control. Instead they seek state complicity which is a different thing altogether.
Ansar Allah on the other hand has set up its own governance structures. As I said, most of the populated regions of Yemen are governed under these structures. That’s despite a US backed campaign to bomb and starve them out over most of the last decade.
If the US doesn’t want to recognize the sovereignty of the Ansar Allah led Yemeni government then the US concept of sovereignty is effectively meaningless.
No matter how hard you stamp your feet, you don’t get to redefine terms already in use.
I’m not? The US is using an incoherent notion of sovereignty that just so happens to align with their geopolitical interests. Sorry if that’s a hard truth for you to accept.
And they reaped what they sowed. Sorry if that’s a hard truth for you to accept.
You’re acting as if the US just has to bomb people like it’s a law of nature. So absurd lol
Your analogy falls flat because while powerful cartels are rarely looking to supplant state control. Instead they seek state complicity which is a different thing altogether.
Okay, what about IS? Did they have Sovereignty?
If the US doesn’t want to recognize the sovereignty of the Ansar Allah led Yemeni government then the US concept of sovereignty is effectively meaningless.
If you/anyone else thinks sovereignty is meaningless, that’s fine but it’s not what I asked about. My original question was how is this “A breach of sovereignty”? You don’t seem to be arguing why it is a breach of sovereignty.
Again that’s a terrible analogy. ISIS was an international insurgency that went so far as to explicitly reject the very concept of modern day nation states. Of course they didn’t deserve to be treated as a sovereign power.
Conversely Ansar Allah is a domestic organization. It’s commonly referred to as the Houthi movement because it has many leaders who are Houthis, a Yemeni tribe. They rose to power after the previous Yemeni government faced a crisis of legitimacy during the Arab spring.
Even if you are right, which doesn’t look like you are, then the Yemeni “government” started war with the US and other countries by attacking their ships.
I mean the US has basically at war with them for the better part of the last decade already. Also Ansar Allah did declare war on Israel.
I think you meant Saudi Arabia. There’s nothing interesting there in Yemen for the US government. They only decided to provide a response after one of Iranian/Houthi rockets was fired at their ship.
The US supported Saudi Arabia in their bombing campaign and also participated in the blockade of Yemen.
This is the same “international recognition” that doesn’t consider Taiwan to be a legitimate government?
International recognition isn’t worth shit. Ansarallah has de facto control over the vast majority of Yemen’s territory. Just as the ROC is the government of Taiwan, Ansarallah is the government of Yemen.
Thank you for providing a good example! I’m really not sure what the status of Taiwan’s Sovereignty would be, but it’s definitely something to think about.
Sovereignty carries with it responsibilities, these include exerting conrol over territory claimed, and maintaining territorial integrity. If some external or internal force operates with impunity in your territory, you lose sovereignty over that territory. It doesnt nessecarily mean they gain sovereignty though, although that can be one posdible outcome.
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It should be a no-brainer to not fund and ship weapons to a state committing a genocide, and yet here we are.
How many of the attacked cargo ships were transporting weapons? And what, cargo ships transporting Russian oil are just fair game for NATO to blow up now because they’re funding genocide?
yes, but the Russians have nukes so actually no. If you have nukes you basically get to do what you want and the other great powers don’t get to attack you. If you don’t have nukes you don’t get that privilege
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So, a genocide doesn’t count unless it’s complete, and if the Palestinians in Gaza knew what was good for them they’d self-ethnic-cleanse?
they have genocidal leadership who are clearly intent on attacking their neighbors until they’re all dead.
What you’re implying is that Hamas is bringing down genocide on their own people via the IDF. Since Hamas is in control of, and responsible for the IDF, why don’t they use it to attack Israel? Are they stupid?
Some Mesoamerican groups saw population growth under early Spanish occupation, too.
We should drop informative pamphlets about the history and creation of the US navy.
“No brainer” is exactly how I would describe a person who think this is a good idea.
The Houthis do not care about Palestine. They are incited by Iran and Russia to disrupt global trade, but are saying they’re defending Palestine just for PR points.
The Houthis… Who have been bombed for literally a decade by US-backed and US-funded forces with US weapons in the Arabian Peninsula…
Are we talking about the same Houthis?
Yeah sure bro. It’s all a giant PR stunt. In fact the Houthis are the ones orchestrating israel to commit genocide on the Palestinians. Most of those kids beneath the rubble are just photoshopped in there. They have Michael Bay on the special effects!
Actions speak louder than words. While you pay lip service to Palestine the Houthis actually undertake action.
Who said the kids are Photoshopped lol
Idk seemingly it’s a giant propaganda campaign right?
The Houthis said it best themselves in this 2 minute BBC interview. https://youtu.be/z4HguzMRW1M
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/z4HguzMRW1M
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Let me guess what the other 3 were: W Bush, Obama, Trump. This is hardly surprising.
Almost like the US has a hard on for the Middle East. Coinciding with the end of the Cold War.
I wonder why…
Israel: bombs and invades Palestine
Palestine fighting back is wrong.Yemen: bombs ships serving Israel
America fighting back is... right?I feel bad for American voters. The last time military action was taken without congressional approval it led to a 20 year war resulting in a million dead Iraqis and the Taliban government back in power in Afghanistan (among other completely preventable atrocities, like this).
The hypnotism of American exceptionalism is requiring an almost lethal dose of ignorance to continue to work.
Edit: Wrong. Congress approved military action against Afghanistan and Iraq. They were lied to by the Bush administration but they did in fact approve both.
Wrong. Congress approved military action against Afghanistan and Iraq. They were lied to by the Bush administration but they did in fact approve both.
That’s right, thanks for correcting me.
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Hahaha omfg Palestine invades Israel read history bro
If you’re going to make a low-effort comment asking someone to read, at least make an effort to cite something for them to read.
My take on it:
Powerful nations almost inevitably sponsor terrorist groups to be a thorn in the side for other nations. These terrorists target civilians to ensure a disproportionate response. There is no end to these conflicts because the primary fighters have no desire to negotiate and are willing to sacrifice any civilians around them as meat shields.
The U.S. does it (Taliban v1, many coups). Israel does it (Hamas). Iran does it (Hamas, Hezbolla and Yemen). Russia does it (Taliban v2, many coups).
Can’t remember hearing about China or India doing it though? But they care about a different part of the world and so I’m not sure I hear about it as much in western media.
Yes, and even within a country there are often various factions taking action at the same time but with different aims, like when American president JFK wouldn’t send reinforcements for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the coup was foiled.
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Two USN sailors reportedly went “missing” off the coast of Somalia (which, coincidentally, is also off the coast of Yemen).
Yemen hasn’t gotten a single Israeli ship so far…
Who is arguing that Israel fighting back is wrong? Almost everyone recognizes that Israel has the right to self defense, but most people who think that also believes their response is at least disproportionate.
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Who is arguing that Israel fighting back is wrong?
Most of the world thinks that. They would also take issue with you characterizing what Israel is doing as “fighting back” and “self defense”. Self-defense is when you steal land, ethnically cleanse the inhabitants, force them into a small area, then besiege them there for decades, and then blow the whole place up. Because some of them dared take up arms and broke out. You know, self defense!
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would also take issue with you characterizing what Israel is doing as “fighting back” and “self defense”.
Literally in the next sentence I make it obvious I don’t believe this is the case. And this is upvoted. Amazing how irrational people can be.
Self defense he says lmao.
Are you arguing that they weren’t attacked? And you’re laughing at me. Lmao
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The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto also attacked those poor Nazis right
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You’re right their entire world revolves around how cool and edgy you are 😎
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You keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.
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I know it’s not funny, but it almost seems like it’s some weird tradition at this point
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maybe if yemen actually did something about the houthis…
Oh people tried to do something about the Houthis. In fact, they starved Yemeni children to death to hurt the Houthis. Turns out that only made them more popular.
Ansarallah is, for all intents and purposes, as legitimate a government of Yemen as the ROC is of Taiwan.
which is my point
What kind of solution are we talking?
“Yemen has been targeted by U.S. military action and bombings over the last four American presidencies — of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, now Joe Biden.”
Red and blue are the same party, stop voting for them.
stop voting for them
What awful advice. So don’t vote and continue the slide, or vote for a third party sock puppet like the Greens?
No idea who the greens are, vote for someone that isn’t a fascist or a genocide supporter, do not give them your support, they feed on your vote.
If they’re not supporting this tier of “not even hiding it” genocide it’s better to vote for a cum sock.
The American Overton Window is certainly fairly narrow, voting for change is the way to go. Join the Democrats and vote in the primary.
Push the window left.
This thread is about a blue president doing exactly what the 3 presidents before him have done and two of them were red. How exactly is keeping vote for either red or blue going to change anything? If you want anything to change at all the best option to do it within the system is to vote for a third party or to not vote at all, the more votes red and blue lose the more they will have to adapt and change their policies. Voting for fascists or genocide supporters who are pushing the window right by increasing military spending and enriching the rich is not pushing the window anywhere toward justice.
Because the American political system is a joke and there is more chance of an American President making a positive impact in the middle East than there is of one being unaffiliated with one of the two major parties.
So change who comprises the parties, the Republicans already did it to theirs and have successfully moved the Overton Window further right.
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Red wants my friends dead, I have little choice but to ensure blue wins the presidency while I work for local change. Not voting is not an option.
Both red and blue wants people in the middle east dead. Instead of picking a group of dead people over another what about voting for someone that isn’t a fucking murderer?
I’m not going to morally grandstand, I’m going to look out for the people I care about. You wanna throw your vote away to make a point, be my guest.
Voting might ensure that the situation might not get worse. You need to change the voting system to actually make a meaningful difference.
Edit: wtf are the downvotes for?
I don’t know, that sounds like hard, thankless work that will take years of consistent effort, dealing with countless setbacks and losses but not giving up, before finally achieving our goals of making real and meaningful change. What if instead if that I just don’t buy Starbucks, will that work?
Voting for red and blue won’t either
Ignorant statement of the century.
If you were from Yemen and the past 4 red and blue presidents bombed your country who would you vote for?
That’s a way to look at it.
But what options are there? Would we rather invade like Afghanistan?
The alternative is to first pressure Israel to end the genocide they’re carrying out in Gaza. Second, negotiate with Ansar Allah to ensure shipping not associated with Israel can safely pass through the Red Sea.
From what I know they’re allowing shipping to pass as long as it doesn’t dock through Israel. The US just isn’t liking that.
Did not check other ships, but the very first ship they hijacked did not dock in Israel, it wasn’t registered in Israel and it did not have an Israeli crew.
That one was owned by an israeli businessman.
Israeli officials insisted the ship was British-owned and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.
There was also the bio fuel tanker, initially claimed to not go to israel but Italy so everyone said that the Houthis failed again. But then it came out that after the stop in Italy, it had a stop in israel planned.
From the article I linked above:
All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.
Admittedly the connection is a bit distant but that one was partially owned by an Israeli businessman.
Yeah and they knew that from miles away that the company who owns that ship is owned by another company where Israeli businessesman have some ownership.
The Russian tanker they recently hit must have been owned by Netanyahu himself, and the US Navy they targeted earlier must be owned by Larry David. /s
Yeah and they knew that from miles away that the company who owns that ship is owned by another company where Israeli businessesman have some ownership.
I mean these things probably have schedules to them so yeah? You only need to look up the ship’s name to know who owns it.
The Russian tanker they recently hit must have been owned by Netanyahu himself, and the US Navy they targeted earlier must be owned by Larry David. /s
As they themselves admitted, the Russian tanker was a mistake. And the US navy has been helping Saudi Arabia blockade Yemen for 9 years, not to mention they’re helping blockade violators and actively bombing Yemen. The Houthis are well within their rights to shoot them.
They are targeting ships flagged under 3rd party nations, which is iirc something like 70% of ships.
I believe a majority of ships actually fly “flags of convenience” which is where the owner of the ship registers it in a different country than the one they are from. It’s done as a way for owners to avoid regulations and taxes.
Yeah because the blockade is against all shipping going to or docking in Israel. Not just shipping owned by Israel.
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I mean, we could give it a shot
War is always wrong. It is not, however, always avoidable.
This one was though. The US is bombing Yemen for daring to oppose US hegemony in the region. The US could have just not bombed them.
false. The were bombed for being stupid and attacking commercial interests of better equipped militaries.
I think you misunderstand. People are responsible for their own actions, broadly speaking. The only people at fault for the US dropping bombs on Yemen are the people who chose to do so, and every military member “just following orders” beneath them who actually executed it.
The responsible parties acted responsibly by blowing the hell out of the irrational idiots. So, yup 100% responsible for keeping the shipping lanes safe. Glad you understand. Now go explain it to the idiots and such totally expectable results may be avoided.
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