U.S. Attacks Houthis in Yemen

Plus: Biden staffers can’t grow a pair, AI ancestor worship, Taiwanese elections, and more…

LIZ WOLFE

For months, tensions in the Middle East have been held at bay, at least from the perspective of U.S. involvement. Now, no more.

For months, Yemeni Houthis—backed by Iran—have been targeting ships in the Red Sea, claiming that the ships are Israel-affiliated and that, out of support for Hamas, they will attack them. This has snarled global shipping and provoked smaller-scale military responses from the U.S.

Houthis are not technically designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. because, in 2021, the Biden administration removed the classification due to concerns that the label would impede aid shipments to a country torn apart by civil war.

“These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea—including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history,” said President Joe Biden in a statement. “More than 50 nations have been affected in 27 attacks on international commercial shipping. Crews from more than 20 countries have been threatened or taken hostage in acts of piracy. More than 2,000 ships have been forced to divert thousands of miles to avoid the Red Sea—which can cause weeks of delays in product shipping times. And on January 9, Houthis launched their largest attack to date—directly targeting American ships.”

“It’s not possible for us not to respond to these operations,” a Houthi spokesman said yesterday. “We are more determined to target ships linked to Israel, and we will not back down from that,” he added. Hamas called the strikes an “act of terrorism,” saying that America and Britain may experience “repercussions on the security of the region.”

Some members of Congress are appropriately raising concerns about how this was authorized:

But now, “Houthis have made significant gains in Yemen, allowing them to commit aggression beyond the country’s borders” and, in their view, American military support for the Yemeni government “is the only way to ensure the Houthis won’t consolidate their grip on the country and be able to project more power abroad.” (It’s a well-argued piece, but one that will frustrate many libertarians, especially since neither cost—financial nor human lives lost—is even mentioned.)

“So far, there have been no reports of the number of casualties caused by the US and British strikes,” writes Antiwar‘s Dave DeCamp. “The US and its allies have a history of killing civilians in Yemen, as the UN estimated in 2021 that about 377,000 people were killed by the US-backed Saudi/UAE war against the Houthis that started in 2015. More than half died of starvation and disease caused by the blockade and the coalition’s brutal bombing campaign.”

Yesterday’s strikes in Yemen “risk shattering a fragile truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition that’s held since April 2022, although the Saudis have distanced themselves from the US anti-Houthi activity in the Red Sea.”

Lawful undertakings? Not long ago, the United States seized the oil cargo—1 million barrels of crude oil, to be exact—on the ship Suez Rajan over a dispute involving sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program. Yesterday, the Iranian Navy boarded and seized the ship off the coast of Oman. The crew—18 Filipinos and one Greek—has not been heard from since. “Iran’s state-run television acknowledged the seizure late Thursday afternoon, hours after armed men boarded it, linking it to the earlier oil seizure,” reports the Associated Press.

The navy’s “seizure of the oil tanker does not constitute hijacking; rather, it is a lawful undertaking sanctioned by a court order and corresponds to the theft of Iran’s very own oil,” Iran’s U.N. mission spokesman told The Associated Press. Uh, OK, whatever you say, Iran.

Scenes from New York:

QUICK HITS

• This should disturb anyone who cares about bias in journalism:

• As if anyone cares what junior staffers think (and if they feel so convicted, maybe they should sign their damn names instead of hiding behind anonymity):

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• On Saturday, almost 20 million Taiwanese voters will head to the polls to elect their new president and legislature.
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• Speaking of: “It’s already time to think about an AI tax” declares one big-brained thinker over at Financial Times.
• Relevant to some of the Social Security chatter during Wednesday night’s debate:

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