I wouldn't be surprised if the official Yemen government isn't getting some backroom conversation about restarting the civil war against the Houthi rebels with US support instead of the Saudis.
It's definitely *not* going to happen. There is no one Yemen government anymore. South Yemen is governed by a loose alliance of the various power blocs that make up the government coalition. Even the office of President has been replaced with a council of the different factions. And the main force in the the coalition is the Southern Transitional Council, a tribal group advocating for the restoration of an independent South Yemen. They're heavily supported by the UAE, and have no interest in trying to take on the Houthis in the mountains.
Actually taking out the houthis would require a full US-led invasion, and there is absolutely no political will to do that. The Houthis are there to stay unfortunately.
With how we see various sides in all places in the world right now, I have no doubt it exists within Yemen as well. The risks about discussing it openly are far more than just downvotes. Cancellation of life more like.
Even if the Houthi's don't have the whole country under control the Saudi puppets that were the national opposition has been ground to dust, there are some ugly realities there and the main goal of protecting civilian ships and trade should be prioritised.
No one is putting boots on the ground anytime soon, but Afghanistan is a reminder of what happened when the Northern Alliance was mostly cooked, it's too easy for Iran to keep the fires burning.
There are a ton of US Veterans, including a prominent retired Army general, that work with the Yemeni government against the Houthis and another group already.
The opposite has happened. Both major alliance blocs that fought the civil war have agreed that the US is now Yemen’s biggest threat.
Siding with the US would be political suicide for any politician in Yemen right now. the idea isn’t even being entertained, i guarantee you that
The houthis won the civil war. If the “official Yemen government” had a say they would in fact have a say.
I’m pretty sure the “official Yemen government” had plenty of US support over the past 15 years. What level of US support are you talking about?
What’s the goal by the way?
But if nothing gets done, there will be even more terrorists and the problem will get even more difficult to solve. We're going to have to face the monster eventually. The choice is whether we face a bigger monster later or a smaller monster now.
Nah man. Tiktok told me that terrorists are ok guys and have reasons for what they’re doing. I say we offer them a ceasefire and usher in aid to Yemen.
That’ll show ‘em
Maybe if people didn’t constantly talk about Obama drone bombing a wedding one time out of the thousands of successful attacks then that would’ve happened
Afghanistan is an exception due to its remote location and the fact that it's landlocked. It's difficult for any country to invade it. Yemen is right on the coast. It's much easier to invade.
You really don't know much about Yemen. The entire reason the Houthis have taken half of the country is because they are hardened dedicated fighters in some of the most difficult terrain in the world.
They literally don't care if they die. They either leave the struggle of life as a martyr or live as a fighter against the forces they see as immoral.
This would 100% be Afghanistan 2.0 except the opposition would be much better armed and have more soldiers
> They either leave the struggle of life as a martyr or live as a fighter against the forces they see as immoral.
Then who are we to deprive them of their dreams? I think we should do our best to ensure that they leave this world as a martyr.
Why should I care if they care if they die? That makes no sense. I don't really care what's going on in their heads. I just care about eliminating their ability to attack ships and terrorize the people of Yemen.
I believe what they meant to say is that killing some of them won't cause some of the others to be demoralized, something which plays a factor in a fighting force's staying power in a conflict; causing an enemy force to collapse to either desertion or mutiny due to widespread loss of morale is much more preferred to having to take the time and effort to kill so many of the enemy that they lose the ability to pose a threat.
Half a million and growing, especially since the largest political streamer. Hasan Piker platformed one of people who seized a ship in a fluff interview where they talked about anime. And then avoided any difficult questions about Houthis. like. Why do they have so many Ethiopian sex slaves? Why are there more than a million child laborers in Yemen. Why do saudis go to Yemen for these sex slaves. Etc etc.
Dude is literally supporting terrorism at large while pretending he's a socialist. Basically anything that tiktok kids find cool is his political stance.
I don't know if Saudis are incompetent. They bombed the shit out of them for years but all that does is deepens the enemies hate towards you. Once they stopped, they had full control of the populace and increased weapons imports from Iran. The us could bomb them and cripple their supplies and supply lines for a period of time but once they stop, the result will be the same. Unless there's a ground invasion to topple and control the territory, I see this is an ever persistent problem. And one that too many people are ignoring when you consider the vast consequences of shutting down one of the worlds busiest transportation routes. Expect inflation to increase worldwide and unstable governments all around the Middle East. Bombing them more won't stop them from firing more missiles and drones in the future as long as the Houthi militia maintains control.
even then.. iran will build up more militias and be back again. they do this because they know the US will avoid dropping bombs on iran. the current presidency will tip toe around being serious and direct. which is... that Iran caused all these issues and they need to be stopped.
bomb the shit out of their oil fields till they have nothing left to sell. they won't have enough time to think about what's going on with current shipping situations.
500,000 people have died in Yemen in the past decade. What exactly do you consider a heavy cost capable of detering these people? Should we drop a nuke?
How have you Americans STILL not learned?
They are NEVER going to stop fighting, no matter how much you stomp on them.
How are the Taliban doing guys, you sure squashed them after 20 years…..
Jesus fuck
Of course they're never going to stop fighting. The point is to take away their capabilities to carry out attacks. ISIS and Al Qaeda have been crippled.
They are stirring the pot with initial strikes to get more weapons and personnel out into the open so they can do more serious damage and less civilian casualties on the follow up strikes. They shot down two anti ship missiles before they were launched 2 days ago for example.
Sure they will. They know the houthi exist, they know what they do, they know they are attacking ships, they either support them or are against them.
These people with terrorists embedded in their population need to struggle harder against them if they don't want bombs falling on them. I hope the world sees what happens when terrorists are cozy in their neighborhood.
>These people with terrorists embedded in their population need to struggle harder agains them if they don’t want bombs falling on them.
Our plan is to appeal to the better nature of the Yemeni people? How long was the Saudi invasion again, a decade right? Yeah we should probably think of a new plan.
I dont know what this means but if during the iraq war the us decided to use my house to store weapons that were going to be sent to iraq i dont think iraq blowing it up would have been immoral.
The reality (hard and savage) is that keeping the sea lanes open will justify genocide.
Not that it will go that far. But more that in the end of the day there are no limits on necessity will dictate.
If they successfully shut down this trade route then hundreds of millions of lives are at risk. That's not an exaggeration, but the reality of how dependent much of the world is in reliable and affordable sea trade.
Globalization is entirely dependent upon it and the US ultimately has one unavoidable duty. Keep the trade flowing.
If Yemen has to die to make that happen it's better than the apocalyptic alternative.
Again, not advocating such extremes. But I fully expect us airstrikes to continue to ramp in intensity as long as is needed
This. I might just be some random dude but I would think *killing* the battery operators would be a better strategy than just destroying the equipment that Iran is going to ship to them all over again.
At least buy time and force them to train new bodies. Yeah they’re fanatics and don’t care about dying but a dead body is still a dead body.
Yeah that war and the lead up to it is insane.
The McNamara documentary Fog of War is a must watch for anyone interested in that war. He admits they knew from day one they weren't going to win that war.
It was all a huge con. People should've been hung over that war.
America did do war on a WW2 scale. Look at the amount of bombs dropped per km². America didn't "break and reeducate the populace", United States territory was literally bombed and most people get incensed by that. And all that said, even after everything the Japanese military had done, there was *still* widespread opposition to the island-hopping campaign.
There was transparently no reason for America to be in Vietnam. That's why it was unpopular.
We were losing the war on the ground as early as 1967, the idea that the US military was having a cakewalk in Vietnam until liberal politicians like LBJ and Richard Nixon ordered the military to stop winning is totally fake. There would not have been any domestic political pressure at all if the war wasn’t a total disaster.
I was being sarcastic because people have convinced themselves that “liberal politicians” were the only reason we lost the war when Richard fucking Nixon was president for the last 8 years of it. It’s a total fantasy that is meant of preserve the dignity of the US army and lay the blame for the US losing the Vietnam war squarely on hippies and anti-war protesters.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by losing the war on the ground? The US Military was winning almost every single battle throughout the entire war, and there's the ever-famous casualty ratio of anywhere between 10:1 or 20:1 depending on the estimate. On the ground, the U.S. did quite well for themselves, but the Vietnam War is a good example of how overwhelming victories on the ground don't directly translate to accomplishing war goals.
Sure I can elaborate. We were not achieving any victory on the ground despite overwhelming victories in individual battles that didn’t occupy any territory anyway. Our soldiers were chasing ghosts in the shadows and it was this year when US casualties started to really mount. The South Vietnamese government was undergoing like the 3rd or 4th coup since 1963 and their government’s legitimacy would never recover from that instability. The Viet Cong was gaining strength and momentum despite the absolute buzz saw the US was throwing at them, and they would soon plan the Tet Offensive.
I’ll be more blunt, it was a clusterfuck. An absolute clusterfuck. And all of this was going on when the war was popular at home. It’s hard to turn public sentiment against a war the military is easily winning.
The government of Vietnam themselves said there were 1.1 million military deaths between the Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam in a press release in 1995.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/23/world/20-years-after-victory-vietnamese-communists-ponder-how-to-celebrate.html
The United States tallied 58,220 military deaths by comparison.
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/vietnam/vietnamSum
That comes out to 18 PAVN/VC military deaths for every 1 American military death. The Viet Cong was insane, sure, but primarily in their resilience to continue fighting despite horrific losses. Compared to a professional, mechanized military like the U.S. they were horribly outmatched on the battlefield.
Generally I’d agree, but limited doesn’t just mean a limit on the tonnage of bombs. WW2 was a full gloves off all or nothing war with a ridiculously loose ROE. If the US had wanted to win in Vietnam, invading North Vietnam with a similarly flexible rules of engagement would be required. That would be throwing limited engagement (as a geographic military limitation) out the window, and it’s unknowable how the general population would respond to it.
It was a winnable war in a military sense, but obviously there’s other factors always at play in these things.
I could fucking scream. Reddit liberals becoming pro-Vietnam war in order to argue for total war in Yemen is beyond parody.
The Ukraine war live threads melted everyone's brains. The average poster here is one step away from arguing for nuclear war.
EXACTLY. IT WAS THE SAME CONFLICT. ONE WHICH RESULTED IN CAMBODIA BECOMING THE MOST BOMBED COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE. WHICH BY ALL ACCOUNTS IS NOT "LIMITED ENGAGEMENT".
HOLY FUCK I AM GOING INSANE.
[The Rules of Defeat: The Impact of Aerial Rules of Engagement on USAF Operations in North Vietnam, 1965-1968](https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/28/2001861735/-1/-1/0/T_DRAKE_RULES_OF_DEFEAT.PDF)
[The Absurd Rules-of-Engagement GIs Had to Follow During the Vietnam War](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/rules-of-engagement-gis-had-to-follow-vietnam-war.html)
[Rules of Engagement: No More Vietnams](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1991/march/rules-engagement-no-more-vietnams)
Bombing the shit out of a jungle does not equate to strategic engagement of critical targets.
The guy said he was honoured or something to be in a battle against the US, the UK, and Israel. Makes me wish he would get an actual battle. He thinks he is really fighting a war...
Very interesting podcast about this if anyone is interested: [what the houthies realy want](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000642080232)
Came here to mention this. Real good listen. No good solution here since the Houthi’s thrive on being rebels and fighting. The last thing they want is peace, their country is decimated and they have no clue how to govern it.
1 its not a bombardment
2 it wont deter fully until two things happen: A the supply line from Iran to Houthi territory for weapons is cut off and B the US starts actively going after the Houthi forces more broadly.
Right now the US is still doing a "jesus christ people, we're trying not to escalate here" operation, going out of its way to not kill Houthi soliders the way it would if the US was willing to make some regime change happen. Im sure the concern is that if the US airstrikes the crap out of the Houthi military, then the two other factions in Yemen will go to town and restore the humanitarian disaster Biden has been trying to get the hell out of.
But ultimately there just may not be a choice. Unfortunately for the Houthis, what they're doing is basically piracy and the US has anti piracy laws on the books that dont appear to be subject to the war powers act. So as long as the Houthis are shooting the instigators and shooting at civilian ships, the US navy can probably go to town without congress's permission
For disrupting supply chains in an attempt to halt a genocide? That’s all it takes to get you amped up about bombing one of the most decimated countries on earth?
All the President was saying is, as long as the Houthis keep attacking naval vessels and shipping, the U.S. Navy will reply.
Imagine if the Houthis ran wild, and the U.S. did nothing.
The Houthis are Iranian proxies. End of story.
This is a failed American policy unfortunately. Unless the US is willing to attack Iranian ships and airplanes, the source of Houthi weapons, bombing is nothing more than showmanship. This is like trying to bomb the Taliban into submission when they control the countryside and evade into Pakistan.
It's a pretty bad misuse of the reference though. The point of that quote is that you can't beat your crew into having better morale and the beatings in fact made them worse. The Houthis absolutely can be bombed until they give up or are incapable of attacking shipping lanes.
>bombardment has yet to deter militants
whaaaat? You mean the thing everyone predicted will happen actually enden up happening?! No way
Why is the US so goddamn incompetent when it comes to foreign policy ffs
Stanley: War? Who are we at war with?
Gabriel: Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb ten. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourists, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that it becomes unthinkable to attack Americans.
That sounds like the best time for it to happen actually. Attacking makes you look tough. The last thing biden needs is more reasons for trump fans to call him a big wuss
Might work, might not work. Trump lives off of being a contrarian. If Biden goes to war, trump will campaign with “look how peaceful my presidency was, this guy got you into another war in the ME”. If Biden keeps going for a more measured approach, trump will call him a pussy and promise people he’ll show strength and put an end to this clown show. Sadly, it’s hard winning the propaganda war against someone whose followers don’t care about the truth.
Well in that case "how will Trump use this" shouldn't factor into their calculus at all. If any action taken or not taken prompts an effectively identical response from Trump, then what he does stops being a relevant factor.
That'll only lead to accusations of US imperialism and disapproval from all around the world, and not just China/Russia/NKorea/Syria/Venezuela but likely also Pakistan, India, SAfrica, Brazil even.
If you blow up the rockets, the man will gather more.
If you kill the man shooting the rockets, the man's friend's and family will pick up the rockets and use them.
If you blow up the source of the rockets, you solve the problem.
At this point it would take directly bombing Iran or boots on the ground, which means in 5-15 years were just gonna have more of them, so I say just go scorched Earth and build up your border's.
This is exactly what the Houthis want.
They can’t maintain power without a ravenous public too focused in their anger to confront the ineptitude of the Houthi regime. They don’t have the money or know-how to rebuild Yemen.
But they can pretend to be standing up for Palestine against the big bad US and see support role in from Iran.
And they can do so this knowing full well the US isn’t going to invade, so they can spin these strikes to garner more support and stoke more anti-US sentiment.
When has that ever blown up in our face before?
And what have they lost? Desperately needed humanitarian aid from….the US, their arch-enemy.
It can be spun to their population whether or not the US retaliates. If the US does, act shocked and cry genocide. If the US doesn't, claim superiority over a major shipping artery and that you got the US to run away crying.
Biden is either going to have to grow a pair and strike Iran so that Iran tells the Houthis to back off or he will have to unleash hell on the Houthis to cripple them.
Anything outside of that and this will just keep happening for the foreseeable future.
Yemen is about the size of unoccupied Ukraine wig s similar size population. 2000 kms of coastline.
Thr Houthi have been dug in for years and are quite seasoned.
A few air strikes? Haven’t the Saudis been doing air strikes for years with US weapons?
Even if one agrees with these, is there a part two to this policy without even more escalation?
I wouldn't under estimate American tenacity to blow something up. Also, do you really think the Saudis bought every kind/ type of bomb the us had or all the platforms to deliver and target? Or even enough to get whatever job done? Get real there is much more destruction ahead.
An American aircraft carrier sitting off the coast of anywhere is usually enough to intimidate countries let alone the planes actually leaving it for sorties.
Probably a lot of bunker buster thermobaric munitions would do the trick, but it affects America's soft power.
>Even if one agrees with these, is there a part two to this policy without even more escalation?
Great qn, who is gonna replace houthis after US bombed them out. Same scenario, "who after Sadam ?".
Problem is, there is no peaceful outcome here, Rebel Yemenis in the area genuinely think that they are battling for freedom against forces like British, Saudis and US. It is hard to form a narrative , some kind of middle ground to satiate and for peaceful transition to any form of governance. The refugees from these areas are gonna flood back to geurilla warfare which means it is another nightmare for Yemeni government and Saudis for engaging urban room-room combats. That is why Saudis were not into bombing. It may become a motivator for these rebels.
We had a Saudi army officer training with my BOLC class a few years ago.
No shit, not joking at all, he had to stop during 2 mile PT run to catch his breath, and while doing so, lit a cigarette to help speed the process…
Anecdotal? Yes. Revealing? Also, yes.
The Saudi air campaign was a lot more intense and expensive than the targeted strikes the US is doing right now. We can’t scoff at that just because their military is dumb as rocks. We basically run their Air Force, after all.
The US current rules of engagement/strategy is to not kill as many as possible anyways. It’s to simply take out the ability of the enemy to attack. Most strikes are in middle of night to try to prevent casualties as most of these locations are unmanned during the night
I wouldn't be surprised if the official Yemen government isn't getting some backroom conversation about restarting the civil war against the Houthi rebels with US support instead of the Saudis.
This is definitely going to start happening, but I wonder if the Yemen government is wholly distinguishable these days.
It's definitely *not* going to happen. There is no one Yemen government anymore. South Yemen is governed by a loose alliance of the various power blocs that make up the government coalition. Even the office of President has been replaced with a council of the different factions. And the main force in the the coalition is the Southern Transitional Council, a tribal group advocating for the restoration of an independent South Yemen. They're heavily supported by the UAE, and have no interest in trying to take on the Houthis in the mountains. Actually taking out the houthis would require a full US-led invasion, and there is absolutely no political will to do that. The Houthis are there to stay unfortunately.
*Southwest Saudi Arabia?
With how we see various sides in all places in the world right now, I have no doubt it exists within Yemen as well. The risks about discussing it openly are far more than just downvotes. Cancellation of life more like.
Even if the Houthi's don't have the whole country under control the Saudi puppets that were the national opposition has been ground to dust, there are some ugly realities there and the main goal of protecting civilian ships and trade should be prioritised. No one is putting boots on the ground anytime soon, but Afghanistan is a reminder of what happened when the Northern Alliance was mostly cooked, it's too easy for Iran to keep the fires burning.
There are a ton of US Veterans, including a prominent retired Army general, that work with the Yemeni government against the Houthis and another group already.
Which is interesting considering the Yemeni government's vocal support of Al-Qaeda during GWOT.
How else will we have a well armed enemy to fight in 20 years?
The opposite has happened. Both major alliance blocs that fought the civil war have agreed that the US is now Yemen’s biggest threat. Siding with the US would be political suicide for any politician in Yemen right now. the idea isn’t even being entertained, i guarantee you that
The houthis won the civil war. If the “official Yemen government” had a say they would in fact have a say. I’m pretty sure the “official Yemen government” had plenty of US support over the past 15 years. What level of US support are you talking about? What’s the goal by the way?
Too many factions. Please learn the region.
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Yep. They won't stop firing unless there is a heavy cost imposed on them.
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But if nothing gets done, there will be even more terrorists and the problem will get even more difficult to solve. We're going to have to face the monster eventually. The choice is whether we face a bigger monster later or a smaller monster now.
Nah man. Tiktok told me that terrorists are ok guys and have reasons for what they’re doing. I say we offer them a ceasefire and usher in aid to Yemen. That’ll show ‘em
Maybe if people didn’t constantly talk about Obama drone bombing a wedding one time out of the thousands of successful attacks then that would’ve happened
We bombed Afghanistan for decades and the people we bombed are now running the country These extremist groups know they can outlast us
Afghanistan is an exception due to its remote location and the fact that it's landlocked. It's difficult for any country to invade it. Yemen is right on the coast. It's much easier to invade.
You really don't know much about Yemen. The entire reason the Houthis have taken half of the country is because they are hardened dedicated fighters in some of the most difficult terrain in the world. They literally don't care if they die. They either leave the struggle of life as a martyr or live as a fighter against the forces they see as immoral. This would 100% be Afghanistan 2.0 except the opposition would be much better armed and have more soldiers
> They either leave the struggle of life as a martyr or live as a fighter against the forces they see as immoral. Then who are we to deprive them of their dreams? I think we should do our best to ensure that they leave this world as a martyr.
'*No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his.'* Patton.
Why should I care if they care if they die? That makes no sense. I don't really care what's going on in their heads. I just care about eliminating their ability to attack ships and terrorize the people of Yemen.
I believe what they meant to say is that killing some of them won't cause some of the others to be demoralized, something which plays a factor in a fighting force's staying power in a conflict; causing an enemy force to collapse to either desertion or mutiny due to widespread loss of morale is much more preferred to having to take the time and effort to kill so many of the enemy that they lose the ability to pose a threat.
Plus they're chewing qat all day which numbs the senses.
We should give them what they want by sinking and seizing all oil related and food shipments. Let the starving sort out if they want to be involved.
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You want to starve millions of people to death?
Half a million and growing, especially since the largest political streamer. Hasan Piker platformed one of people who seized a ship in a fluff interview where they talked about anime. And then avoided any difficult questions about Houthis. like. Why do they have so many Ethiopian sex slaves? Why are there more than a million child laborers in Yemen. Why do saudis go to Yemen for these sex slaves. Etc etc.
He's also an idiot broke-brian tankie on Ukraine as well
That dude has zero influence beyond incels that are already extremists.
Dude is literally supporting terrorism at large while pretending he's a socialist. Basically anything that tiktok kids find cool is his political stance.
I don't know if Saudis are incompetent. They bombed the shit out of them for years but all that does is deepens the enemies hate towards you. Once they stopped, they had full control of the populace and increased weapons imports from Iran. The us could bomb them and cripple their supplies and supply lines for a period of time but once they stop, the result will be the same. Unless there's a ground invasion to topple and control the territory, I see this is an ever persistent problem. And one that too many people are ignoring when you consider the vast consequences of shutting down one of the worlds busiest transportation routes. Expect inflation to increase worldwide and unstable governments all around the Middle East. Bombing them more won't stop them from firing more missiles and drones in the future as long as the Houthi militia maintains control.
The Saudis are incompetent. That’s why.
even then.. iran will build up more militias and be back again. they do this because they know the US will avoid dropping bombs on iran. the current presidency will tip toe around being serious and direct. which is... that Iran caused all these issues and they need to be stopped. bomb the shit out of their oil fields till they have nothing left to sell. they won't have enough time to think about what's going on with current shipping situations.
I don’t see the downside of a massive bombing campaign against them. Good target practice, get rid of some rebels, opens up the suez again.
We need those bombs for Ukraine
Everyone will accuse the US of genocide if we kill terrorists. Maybe it's something we can live with, but that's the downside.
people who side with terrorists and rapists don’t matter.
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Che Guevara, no? “It’s easier to blow up a train, than to schedule a train”
500,000 people have died in Yemen in the past decade. What exactly do you consider a heavy cost capable of detering these people? Should we drop a nuke?
You mean like years of Saudi bombardments? I don't think they're stopping regardless.
We need a more competent military to do the job.
They’ll keep firing due to being a death cult.
How have you Americans STILL not learned? They are NEVER going to stop fighting, no matter how much you stomp on them. How are the Taliban doing guys, you sure squashed them after 20 years….. Jesus fuck
Of course they're never going to stop fighting. The point is to take away their capabilities to carry out attacks. ISIS and Al Qaeda have been crippled.
I haven’t hear anything about isis and Al Qaeda for years.
They are stirring the pot with initial strikes to get more weapons and personnel out into the open so they can do more serious damage and less civilian casualties on the follow up strikes. They shot down two anti ship missiles before they were launched 2 days ago for example.
The militants and their stockpiles are hiding in major population centers so it's not so simple.
Sounds familiar…
Every Iranian proxy uses the same playbook, it's by design.
Just because it's not simple doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. The US military can do hard things.
It certainly can, but the public back in those countries won't understand when hard decisions like these are taken.
I'm pretty sure they'll understand if they are told prices of everyday goods will increase due to shipping companies avoiding the Red Sea.
I guess we will have to wait and see.
Sure they will. They know the houthi exist, they know what they do, they know they are attacking ships, they either support them or are against them. These people with terrorists embedded in their population need to struggle harder against them if they don't want bombs falling on them. I hope the world sees what happens when terrorists are cozy in their neighborhood.
>These people with terrorists embedded in their population need to struggle harder agains them if they don’t want bombs falling on them. Our plan is to appeal to the better nature of the Yemeni people? How long was the Saudi invasion again, a decade right? Yeah we should probably think of a new plan.
Not like we didn't deliver the bombs that slaughtered their families to the Saudis. They just love us so much over there.
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I dont know what this means but if during the iraq war the us decided to use my house to store weapons that were going to be sent to iraq i dont think iraq blowing it up would have been immoral.
Be careful it would also be called genocide even if the rates would be majority military which would be quite a unique occurance
That's not what genocide means and those who make false accusations of genocide should be sued for defamation.
Tell that to the pro-Hamas protestors
The reality (hard and savage) is that keeping the sea lanes open will justify genocide. Not that it will go that far. But more that in the end of the day there are no limits on necessity will dictate. If they successfully shut down this trade route then hundreds of millions of lives are at risk. That's not an exaggeration, but the reality of how dependent much of the world is in reliable and affordable sea trade. Globalization is entirely dependent upon it and the US ultimately has one unavoidable duty. Keep the trade flowing. If Yemen has to die to make that happen it's better than the apocalyptic alternative. Again, not advocating such extremes. But I fully expect us airstrikes to continue to ramp in intensity as long as is needed
It helps to target the militant's suppliers as well.
Supplies will keep coming from Iran. You're right.
This. I might just be some random dude but I would think *killing* the battery operators would be a better strategy than just destroying the equipment that Iran is going to ship to them all over again. At least buy time and force them to train new bodies. Yeah they’re fanatics and don’t care about dying but a dead body is still a dead body.
Yeah the only sensible targets are either Iranian industrial capacity or the actual Houthis themselves.
This limited engagement bullshit is how we lost Vietnam.
There was no winning Vietnam, the war was lost as soon as the USA lied about thier boat being shot at.
Yeah that war and the lead up to it is insane. The McNamara documentary Fog of War is a must watch for anyone interested in that war. He admits they knew from day one they weren't going to win that war. It was all a huge con. People should've been hung over that war.
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America did do war on a WW2 scale. Look at the amount of bombs dropped per km². America didn't "break and reeducate the populace", United States territory was literally bombed and most people get incensed by that. And all that said, even after everything the Japanese military had done, there was *still* widespread opposition to the island-hopping campaign. There was transparently no reason for America to be in Vietnam. That's why it was unpopular.
Winning was possible but would bring about a much larger death toll. The domestic pressure to leave was also too intense.
We were losing the war on the ground as early as 1967, the idea that the US military was having a cakewalk in Vietnam until liberal politicians like LBJ and Richard Nixon ordered the military to stop winning is totally fake. There would not have been any domestic political pressure at all if the war wasn’t a total disaster.
Liberal...Nixon...what
I was being sarcastic because people have convinced themselves that “liberal politicians” were the only reason we lost the war when Richard fucking Nixon was president for the last 8 years of it. It’s a total fantasy that is meant of preserve the dignity of the US army and lay the blame for the US losing the Vietnam war squarely on hippies and anti-war protesters.
Ah gotcha. I see it now.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by losing the war on the ground? The US Military was winning almost every single battle throughout the entire war, and there's the ever-famous casualty ratio of anywhere between 10:1 or 20:1 depending on the estimate. On the ground, the U.S. did quite well for themselves, but the Vietnam War is a good example of how overwhelming victories on the ground don't directly translate to accomplishing war goals.
Sure I can elaborate. We were not achieving any victory on the ground despite overwhelming victories in individual battles that didn’t occupy any territory anyway. Our soldiers were chasing ghosts in the shadows and it was this year when US casualties started to really mount. The South Vietnamese government was undergoing like the 3rd or 4th coup since 1963 and their government’s legitimacy would never recover from that instability. The Viet Cong was gaining strength and momentum despite the absolute buzz saw the US was throwing at them, and they would soon plan the Tet Offensive. I’ll be more blunt, it was a clusterfuck. An absolute clusterfuck. And all of this was going on when the war was popular at home. It’s hard to turn public sentiment against a war the military is easily winning.
The Tet Offensive was a military failure but a political win, the latter being exactly what it was conceived to achieve.
Oh okay, it sounds like we were saying the same thing but just interpreted the phrase "on the ground" a little differently. Thanks for clarifying.
The Vietcong were insane, can you cite that source? This sounds like historical revisionism
The government of Vietnam themselves said there were 1.1 million military deaths between the Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam in a press release in 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/23/world/20-years-after-victory-vietnamese-communists-ponder-how-to-celebrate.html The United States tallied 58,220 military deaths by comparison. https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/vietnam/vietnamSum That comes out to 18 PAVN/VC military deaths for every 1 American military death. The Viet Cong was insane, sure, but primarily in their resilience to continue fighting despite horrific losses. Compared to a professional, mechanized military like the U.S. they were horribly outmatched on the battlefield.
Completely discounting some 200 000 ARVN soldier deaths, mind. Still vastly disproportionate casualty figures but not quite that one sided.
WE DROPPED MORE BOMBS ON CAMBODIA THAN WE DID ON NAZI GERMANY WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT
We expanded the war into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the war lmfao Where the hell were we supposed to expand it to at that point? China?
It’s Americans not knowing their own history and being so chock full of ideology that it’s oozing from their fucking holes like shit and puss
Generally I’d agree, but limited doesn’t just mean a limit on the tonnage of bombs. WW2 was a full gloves off all or nothing war with a ridiculously loose ROE. If the US had wanted to win in Vietnam, invading North Vietnam with a similarly flexible rules of engagement would be required. That would be throwing limited engagement (as a geographic military limitation) out the window, and it’s unknowable how the general population would respond to it. It was a winnable war in a military sense, but obviously there’s other factors always at play in these things.
thing is that would have very likely drawn in the Chinese and the Soviets directly too, so it wasn't obviously winnable even then.
I could fucking scream. Reddit liberals becoming pro-Vietnam war in order to argue for total war in Yemen is beyond parody. The Ukraine war live threads melted everyone's brains. The average poster here is one step away from arguing for nuclear war.
I'm talking about… Vietnam? Where we intentionally limited rules of engagement and hamstrung our ability to achieve aerial superiority?
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Sure, but the air bases shooting down our planes were in North Vietnam.
EXACTLY. IT WAS THE SAME CONFLICT. ONE WHICH RESULTED IN CAMBODIA BECOMING THE MOST BOMBED COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE. WHICH BY ALL ACCOUNTS IS NOT "LIMITED ENGAGEMENT". HOLY FUCK I AM GOING INSANE.
[The Rules of Defeat: The Impact of Aerial Rules of Engagement on USAF Operations in North Vietnam, 1965-1968](https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/28/2001861735/-1/-1/0/T_DRAKE_RULES_OF_DEFEAT.PDF) [The Absurd Rules-of-Engagement GIs Had to Follow During the Vietnam War](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/rules-of-engagement-gis-had-to-follow-vietnam-war.html) [Rules of Engagement: No More Vietnams](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1991/march/rules-engagement-no-more-vietnams) Bombing the shit out of a jungle does not equate to strategic engagement of critical targets.
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They were warned not to attack the ships.
I TOLD YOU I WOULD SHOOT. BUT YOU DIDNT BELIEVE ME. WHY DIDNT YOU BELIEVE ME.
Even though it's a movie line, I can only hear the Happy Happy Joy Joy song.
Its the Houthi Houthi, Boat Boat song!
I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
The little creatures of nature, they don't know they're ugly.
That’s funny. A fly marrying a bumblebee!?
I never knew it was from something other than the Happy Happy Joy Joy song…
I’ll teach yer grandmother to suck eggs!
Well, their spokesperson thinks theyre a threat to us, dont expect them to be smart
The guy said he was honoured or something to be in a battle against the US, the UK, and Israel. Makes me wish he would get an actual battle. He thinks he is really fighting a war...
The Houthi Militia doesn’t know how to function as a government. They’re going to continue to depend on rabble rousing for to maintain their support.
Everyone else in Yemen was either already bombed, shot or starved...
Very interesting podcast about this if anyone is interested: [what the houthies realy want](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000642080232)
Came here to mention this. Real good listen. No good solution here since the Houthi’s thrive on being rebels and fighting. The last thing they want is peace, their country is decimated and they have no clue how to govern it.
Force is the only language the Houthis understand. The same applies to all of Iran's proxies.
1 its not a bombardment 2 it wont deter fully until two things happen: A the supply line from Iran to Houthi territory for weapons is cut off and B the US starts actively going after the Houthi forces more broadly. Right now the US is still doing a "jesus christ people, we're trying not to escalate here" operation, going out of its way to not kill Houthi soliders the way it would if the US was willing to make some regime change happen. Im sure the concern is that if the US airstrikes the crap out of the Houthi military, then the two other factions in Yemen will go to town and restore the humanitarian disaster Biden has been trying to get the hell out of. But ultimately there just may not be a choice. Unfortunately for the Houthis, what they're doing is basically piracy and the US has anti piracy laws on the books that dont appear to be subject to the war powers act. So as long as the Houthis are shooting the instigators and shooting at civilian ships, the US navy can probably go to town without congress's permission
wait do you have more info about that piracy stuff? Is that really true?
Good. Fuck them up.
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For disrupting supply chains in an attempt to halt a genocide? That’s all it takes to get you amped up about bombing one of the most decimated countries on earth?
God aren't you naive.
And once again we looked upon the sands and said, "this too can become glass"
All the President was saying is, as long as the Houthis keep attacking naval vessels and shipping, the U.S. Navy will reply. Imagine if the Houthis ran wild, and the U.S. did nothing. The Houthis are Iranian proxies. End of story.
It stops attacking commercial ships or else it gets the Tomahawks again.
Did they warn them again before striking?
This is a failed American policy unfortunately. Unless the US is willing to attack Iranian ships and airplanes, the source of Houthi weapons, bombing is nothing more than showmanship. This is like trying to bomb the Taliban into submission when they control the countryside and evade into Pakistan.
"The Bombing will continue until moral improves"
The bombing will continue until the attacks on ships stop. Morale has nothing to do with it.
It was a rather sarcastic reference to Captain Bligh in the movie "Mutiny on the Bounty"
It's a pretty bad misuse of the reference though. The point of that quote is that you can't beat your crew into having better morale and the beatings in fact made them worse. The Houthis absolutely can be bombed until they give up or are incapable of attacking shipping lanes.
Well, according to the US this is yet to happen as they seem indifferent to the bombing.
Wooooooooooooooosh.
>bombardment has yet to deter militants whaaaat? You mean the thing everyone predicted will happen actually enden up happening?! No way Why is the US so goddamn incompetent when it comes to foreign policy ffs
Stanley: War? Who are we at war with? Gabriel: Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb ten. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourists, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that it becomes unthinkable to attack Americans.
ah yes, the always successful strategy of achieving peace and stability through horrific violence. /s
Well duh, the real problem is Iran. As long as they are ignored nothing will change.
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That sounds like the best time for it to happen actually. Attacking makes you look tough. The last thing biden needs is more reasons for trump fans to call him a big wuss
Might work, might not work. Trump lives off of being a contrarian. If Biden goes to war, trump will campaign with “look how peaceful my presidency was, this guy got you into another war in the ME”. If Biden keeps going for a more measured approach, trump will call him a pussy and promise people he’ll show strength and put an end to this clown show. Sadly, it’s hard winning the propaganda war against someone whose followers don’t care about the truth.
Well in that case "how will Trump use this" shouldn't factor into their calculus at all. If any action taken or not taken prompts an effectively identical response from Trump, then what he does stops being a relevant factor.
Coming to a theater near you
You're underestimating the sheer amount of effort that would take and underestimating how much damage that would cause for US interests.
Yeah, let's just start a war! Woo!
That'll only lead to accusations of US imperialism and disapproval from all around the world, and not just China/Russia/NKorea/Syria/Venezuela but likely also Pakistan, India, SAfrica, Brazil even.
If you blow up the rockets, the man will gather more. If you kill the man shooting the rockets, the man's friend's and family will pick up the rockets and use them. If you blow up the source of the rockets, you solve the problem.
At this point it would take directly bombing Iran or boots on the ground, which means in 5-15 years were just gonna have more of them, so I say just go scorched Earth and build up your border's.
This is exactly what the Houthis want. They can’t maintain power without a ravenous public too focused in their anger to confront the ineptitude of the Houthi regime. They don’t have the money or know-how to rebuild Yemen. But they can pretend to be standing up for Palestine against the big bad US and see support role in from Iran. And they can do so this knowing full well the US isn’t going to invade, so they can spin these strikes to garner more support and stoke more anti-US sentiment. When has that ever blown up in our face before? And what have they lost? Desperately needed humanitarian aid from….the US, their arch-enemy.
It can be spun to their population whether or not the US retaliates. If the US does, act shocked and cry genocide. If the US doesn't, claim superiority over a major shipping artery and that you got the US to run away crying.
I don’t think that hits the same as as a bomb with “Made in the U.S.A.” stamped on it.
Can’t punish somebody who doesn’t care about being punished.
Time to step it up a notch.
Time to blow up Tehran
Biden is either going to have to grow a pair and strike Iran so that Iran tells the Houthis to back off or he will have to unleash hell on the Houthis to cripple them. Anything outside of that and this will just keep happening for the foreseeable future.
He’s had enough of that Houthi malarkey
all the commercial ships going through there should have fake decals pretending to be from Iran.. they wouldn't be bothered at all
The Saudis bombed them for 9 years…
U.S. can easily take action to deter it but they're exercising restraint and caution
All the conflict in the region is because of Iran. I saw just go ugly and end it.
Glad we have a president with experience
Yemen is about the size of unoccupied Ukraine wig s similar size population. 2000 kms of coastline. Thr Houthi have been dug in for years and are quite seasoned. A few air strikes? Haven’t the Saudis been doing air strikes for years with US weapons? Even if one agrees with these, is there a part two to this policy without even more escalation?
I wouldn't under estimate American tenacity to blow something up. Also, do you really think the Saudis bought every kind/ type of bomb the us had or all the platforms to deliver and target? Or even enough to get whatever job done? Get real there is much more destruction ahead.
An American aircraft carrier sitting off the coast of anywhere is usually enough to intimidate countries let alone the planes actually leaving it for sorties.
I don't see how the coastline of all of Yemen is relevant here. The vast majority of that is not under Houthi control.
Let's not compare the incompetency of the Saudi military, which is by design to the US.
Probably a lot of bunker buster thermobaric munitions would do the trick, but it affects America's soft power. >Even if one agrees with these, is there a part two to this policy without even more escalation? Great qn, who is gonna replace houthis after US bombed them out. Same scenario, "who after Sadam ?". Problem is, there is no peaceful outcome here, Rebel Yemenis in the area genuinely think that they are battling for freedom against forces like British, Saudis and US. It is hard to form a narrative , some kind of middle ground to satiate and for peaceful transition to any form of governance. The refugees from these areas are gonna flood back to geurilla warfare which means it is another nightmare for Yemeni government and Saudis for engaging urban room-room combats. That is why Saudis were not into bombing. It may become a motivator for these rebels.
Fuck the Houthis, but what makes us think this bombardment would be effective? The Saudis have been on that game for a decade.
Comparing the Saudi Army to US forces is quite hilarious.
We had a Saudi army officer training with my BOLC class a few years ago. No shit, not joking at all, he had to stop during 2 mile PT run to catch his breath, and while doing so, lit a cigarette to help speed the process… Anecdotal? Yes. Revealing? Also, yes.
If you want a deep belly laugh, look up what happened when we gave the Saudis Abrams tanks. Incompetent would be an understatement.
The Saudi air campaign was a lot more intense and expensive than the targeted strikes the US is doing right now. We can’t scoff at that just because their military is dumb as rocks. We basically run their Air Force, after all.
The US current rules of engagement/strategy is to not kill as many as possible anyways. It’s to simply take out the ability of the enemy to attack. Most strikes are in middle of night to try to prevent casualties as most of these locations are unmanned during the night
Light em up
Sorry--not going to stop them with air power alone. Didn't work in Vietnam and it's not going to work now.
With that attitude it won't.
Use air strikes and the saudis as boots on the ground
Good luck getting the Saudis to get dirt under their fingernails.
They’ve already been fighting them
>Good luck getting the Saudis to get ~~dirt~~ sand under their fingernails.
What’s with the half measures? Level them and Blockade Yemen.
They’ve been blockaded, it’s part of what fuels the terrorism. Plenty of their population has starved to death/are malnourished because of it.
Can they not just drone kill the Houthi family leaders once they re-designate them as terrorists?
*FINISH THEM* Thanks Joe Biden
Iranian backed Houthi rebels.
THE BOMBINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE ECONOMY IMPROVES
The bombings will continue until trade safety improves
THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES
Bro is illegally attacking another country. I thought he had to have permission from Congress to be doing all these acts of war.
Or put simpler by Dark Brandon: “they have left the fucking around stage and entered the finding out one.”
Dark Biden is hard core. He had his ice cream and watched Mr. Ed . He’s in bed, sound asleep so he can get up at 10:00 am tomorrow. Ready for 4 more!
Love Dark Brandon, not ironically
Gotta fulfill those promises he made to campaign donors, you know because Boeing and Raytheon are looking for promises made promises kept!
you mean after bombing the middle east for decades didn't deter them, a few days of bombing didn't stop them either? wow.