By Walt Zlotow
Is there a bigger bully in the western world than President Trump?
Trump’s current effort is bullying the hapless innocents in Yemen. Trump will never war against anyone his own size. His No. 2 $30.5 trillion economy singled out for destruction No. 137, the $17.4 billion economy of Yemen.
Trump has launched more than 750 airstrikes against Yemen since March 15, killing and injuring over thousand innocents. His latest strike on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port in Hodeidah Province killed 80 and injured 192. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a nod to America’s all time premier warmonger Teddy Roosevelt, has dubbed the bombing campaign “Operation Rough Rider”. Ouch.
As with every US bombing campaign against innocents in weak countries, Congress simply rolls over allowing these grisly, unconstitutional wars to proceed without an iota of pushback.
Why is Trump bullying pitifully poor Yemen? Because Yemen is interfering in the ongoing Israeli/US genocide in Gaza. Yemen has largely shut down vital (tho not to US) Red Sea shipping with drone attacks to degrade Israel’s Gaza genocide campaign. Trump’s futile bombing campaign, which will never stop the Yemeni Houthis from opposing genocide, has no connection to US national security interests whatsoever.
That is unless our national security interests include enabling Israel to complete their genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza so Trump can kick off his dream real estate development, creating Trump Gaza Mediterranean to expand Greater Israel.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL
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The U.S. Commission on the National Defense Strategy issued a report a few months back that said The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II.
The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose.
“Could lose” ?
They are struggling against Yemen, they are not capable of winning any war of significance.
From Politico today —
A Navy fighter jet fell overboard Monday when the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier veered to avoid fire from the Houthis, according to two defense officials.
The military was using the $60 million jet as part of its weekslong campaign against Houthi fighters in Yemen, who have attacked commercial and military shipping in the waterway for the past two years.
One sailor was injured in the mishap, which included the loss of a vehicle used to tow the aircraft across the deck. The plane and truck sank, according to the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak about the attack.
The aircraft’s loss adds to the growing price tag in the effort against the Houthis, which has included seven MQ-9 drones shot down by the Iran-backed group over the past several weeks. The Houthis have brought down more than a dozen of the surveillance drones since October 2023, when they began attacking ships in the Red Sea to, as they said, help Hamas in its war with Israel. They cost more than $20 million each.
Some expert analysis here:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/11/21/iran-exposed-christopher-de-bellaigue/
They’re keeping their eye in on a soft target while they’re gearing up to lose the next major, own goal war.
Gotta keep those arms manufacturers on side.
Australia is committed to bombing Yemen because we are also committed to the Trump supported and enabled genocide that Israel has created in Gaza. Australia contributes to Israeli armaments just as we do Ukraine and we are also engaged in the US provocations around China and Taiwan. The AUKUS fiasco defies common sense. All very noble except that no Australian politician has bothered (or has the courage) to seek approval from the Australian electorate for this slavish adoration of all things American and Israeli. Hopefully the coming Federal Election will provide some clarity on these issues.
The ‘west’ has been trying to cleave its way into control, subjugation and theft of resources in the Middle East for more than a few centuries. With the advent of smart phones and the internet, the Arab Spring provided particularly the USA a golden opportunity to wheedle in, provoking instability by either direct bombardment, or covertly facilitating (by supply of weaponry) the rise or continuation of despots against the people.
In Yemen, it backed dictator Saleh (and his Houthi militia) against the unarmed ordinary people’s revolutionary uprising seeking democracy and peace. USA also provided massive arms to Saudi Arabia who for years raged a vicious war in the destabilized Yemen, whilst at the same time USA assigning blame on Iran for backing the Houthis. An academic’s brief history Arab Spring in Yemen causes and consquences.
As Yemeni 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, journalist and activist, Tawakkol Karman has said, the ‘west’ and particularly America could have funded the people’s bid for democracy, human rights and peace, but they chose, for greed and much more cost, to back war and the brutal despots.
See Vogue article about Karman & Yemen March 2018 Tawakkol Karman Has Not Given Up on Yemen—And Neither Should You.
As time has gone on, and the USA via its suzerain – Netanyahu’s Israel, lays siege on the Levant and Fertile Crescent, the shape of things has changed somewhat. Most particularly with Saudi Arabia now backing in the Palestinians as do the Iranians, where once Saudi Arabia and Iran were arch enemies. None the less, USA keeps trying to bomb the life out of all folk of Yemen and Saleh’s Houthis which it duplicitously backed and provided masses of weaponry to.
As usual America’s running amok results in outcomes it did not expect. See the current state of play. No surprise really, considering America’s greed, exceptionalism and military / arms sales penchant.
Yemen’s unfinished revolution.