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”
All civilian trade ships are fired up on when they attempt to violate a blockade. Europe does it, Israel does it, the US does it. It’s how blockades work.
Will it effect international trade? Yes. So maybe the USA should have considered that before ruining relationships by attempting to maintain white dominance on the region. Oh right. They did consider it. And then realized they could just bomb everyone to get their way. And now, the West is experiencing the consequences of their violence - shipping delays.
Except the Houthis aren’t just attacking ships docking in Israel. They have been attacking any ship to the point that shipping companies have stopped using the canal.
And a blockade is an act of war. People subject to blockades have the international right to fight back.
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?
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 tried to negotiate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marg bar amrika
You’re more mad about the treats getting delayed than the genocide our government is enabling.
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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.
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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?
It’s a simple case of “they started it”. The Houthis are the ones who resorted to violence, against innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the conflict in any way.
Just because we have so far successfully shot down their missiles doesn’t change the intent behind the attacks, to kill civilians and cripple international shipping.
You don’t negotiate with a madman shooting wildly into a crowd, you take him down. And they did so in the most humane way they could, targeting only missile sites, basically they are trying to take the gun away from a violent idiot.
Houthis attacking ships is probably the consequence of the west fucking up with them to steal their territories and money.
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.
Ansar Allah movement controls the territory where 80% of Yemeni population lives and enjoys mass public support. The fact that burger empire and its vassals refuse to recognize sovereignty and right to self determination of other nations just further exposes the moral bankruptcy of the west.
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?
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
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.
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.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Voting might ensure that the situation might not get worse. You need to change the voting system to actually make a meaningful difference.
Voting for red and blue won’t either
That’s the thinking that have the world Joe Biden. All his voters are complicit in his crimes against humanity.
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.
Palestine: bombs, invades and terrorizes Israel, Israel fighting back is right.
Yemen: bombs ships serving the whole world, American-lead coalition fighting back is right.
ftfy
Yemen: bombs ships serving the whole world
Only ships that are zionist-owned and/or bound for Israel are targeted, Russian and Chinese ships for example are going through normally.
I know it’s not funny, but it almost seems like it’s some weird tradition at this point
I thought the same thing, the bombing is obviously not funny. But the phrasing… kind of is
Biden will go down as one of the most deplorable leaders in human history.
A silly comment. You’re aware George Bush or Andrew Jackson or Truman or Reagan or Nixon exist right? Presidents with body counts in the millions. Damn those American leaders put a whole lot of wage labor into those kill counts. A whole lot of value. Hardly compares.
The fact that US is ruled by scumbags more often than not doesn’t change the fact that Biden is one of the scumbags, also https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/
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“…one of the most…”
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A comical statement. You’re aware ghengis Khan or Marcus Aurelius or fucking Hitler or Stalin or mao exist right? People with body counts in the millions. Fuck.those ancient leaders.put a whole lot of manual labor into those kill counts. A whole lot of effort. Hardly compares.
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Burger empire murders people on an industrial scale, and has destroyed entire nations. For example, Biden voted for the invasion of Iraq where over a million people have been killed. He’s right there with the worst of the criminals to have ever lived.
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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.
That’s a way to look at it.
But what options are there? Would we rather invade like Afghanistan?
Are you literally saying the only options are invasion or bombing? How about not killing anyone. Could that be an option?
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.
Admittedly the connection is a bit distant but that one was partially owned by an Israeli businessman.
They are targeting ships flagged under 3rd party nations, which is iirc something like 70% of ships.
Yeah because the blockade is against all shipping going to or docking in Israel. Not just shipping owned by Israel.
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.
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I mean, we could give it a shot
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