Houthis, defying U.S. strikes, attempt another attack on U.S.-owned commercial ship

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Houthis, defying U.S. strikes, attempt another attack on U.S.-owned commercial ship
cbsnews.com

The targeting of another U.S.-owned commercial ship Wednesday shows the militant group remains intent on continuing its attacks in the face of multiple rounds of U.S. military airstrikes.

The Houthis launched anti-ship ballistic missiles at the U.S.-owned, flagged and operated commercial ship Maersk Detroit as it was transiting the Gulf of Aden, according to a statement from the U.S. Central Command. The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Gravely shot down two missiles and a third fell into the water. There were no indications of damage or injuries in the attack.

The U.S. military has been conducting airstrikes against the Houthis to degrade their capabilities since Jan.11, after several weeks of attacks on commercial ships by the militant group.

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Man pinkos just really infest the fediverse. I wish reality was as simple as they like to pretend it is.

Man commies just really infest the fediverse. I wish reality was as simple as they like to pretend it is.

Man Reds just really infest the fediverse. I wish reality was as simple as they like to pretend it is.

Man herpes just really infest the fediverse. I wish reality was as simple as they like to pretend it is.

Saying that you support the Houthis in their efforts to stop genocide does not mean you agree with everything they stand for.

You don't have to unequivocally support a group to encorse one specific action.

Attacking civilian ships with civilian crews does nothing to stop genocide; it's just terrorism.

Maersk said both vessels carried cargo belonging to the U.S. Defense and State Departments, as well as other government agencies, meaning they were “afforded the protection of the U.S. Navy for passage through the strait.”

Don't fall for propaganda like a dumbass. These two ships were carrying DOD cargo.

Good point. The civilian sailors clearly deserve it. After all, they get to pick and choose which cargo they carry... just like the Palestinians got to pick their own government and chose terrorists.

If they were good little wage-slaves, they'd have quit and starved until they found a morally pure capitalist to work for.

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It'd be cool if they started doing things do stop genocide. Instead of just saying it and then doing other stuff.

It'd be cool if you weren't defending Genocide.

It’d be cool if they started doing things do stop genocide.

Defending genocide

???

The Houthis are doing stuff to stop genocide. Namely ships to nations that are committing genocide.

Here's an actual video of what's going on there https://youtu.be/sAApTUChi1g

They are attacking civilian vessels. They do fuck all to stop genocide.

Poor civilian oil tankers transporting oil to a nation committing genocide :( if only there was a way they could safely pass again. How about not committing genocide?

I am genuinely perplexed at the amount of mental gymnastics you are doing to justify attacking civilian ships from other countries that are not enemy combatants. Incredible Olympic display of psychological back-flips.

Here's a simple take , stop bombing women and children , and they'll stop attacking civilian ships , is that complicated for you? They are a militant group, do you think they care about rules in combat?, I mean they are doing way better than Israel at this point.

Ah they're attacking civilians because their feelings on attacking civilians are so strong they'll do anything to stop it. Like attack civilians.

Literally any other course of action for their "protest" would be better. What they're doing is abhorrent, like Hamas, like Israel.

They are attacking commercial ships after warning, if ships don't want to get attacked , don't go through that route or better ceasefire in Gaza simple. US and Israel has lost all moral stand on this issue at this point. So there is no need to judge what is moral right now. If the ship crew don't want to be killed don't get in the ship.

Yes cause the houthis are Bear loving kinda of Islamist militia, right. Definitely have never engaged in the same type of actions ever/s

I don't recall the Houthis ever blockading the red sea before.

Somalia had some pirates but that was just literal theft and extortion. And that's not the Houthis.

Mind linking what you are talking about?

Somalian Pirates were actually often protecting their territorial waters from foreign opportunists plundering in the collapse of the Somalian government. The framing as pirates only works in the sense that these weren’t state-driven fleets, but rather civilian driven in order to protect their livelihoods against corporate raiders.

I just checked the list of ships they attacked. You are right that they are almost all cargo but there was a cruise ship in there

Seabourn Spirit, a luxury cruise ship carrying 210 crew members and passengers, was attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia.[12] Riding in two small speedboats, the pirates fired at the ship with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but the crew drove them off with a water hose and a long range acoustic device.

Do you have any good articles or videos explaining the situation with the Somali pirates? I might be wrong about it and would love to know what the actual deal was.

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It's a militia islamic militia, do you think they haven't done the same thing as Israel does to their population, or a subset of their population?

It's just a way to grab the attention span of everyone which helps their recruitment.

You're really trying to defend israel's genocide in any possible way. "No they allowed to stop genocide, they are the bad guys!"

I'm not here to simp for whatever war crimes they did internally. Just this specific action isn't one you should denounce.

There was a Houthi spokesperson on BBC. They told him the same thing. His response was very simple.

If other groups want to enhance their popularity by stopping genocide they're very welcome to do so.

How about you go stop israel's genocide if you don't want the Houthi's to do it?

https://youtu.be/z4HguzMRW1M

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So instead of fucking off, they're still fucking around. Well, there's plenty of Find Out to go around.

Oh wait, I thought your comment was about American cargo ships. I'm like "fuck yeah! That's punk rock, they should respect the protest (mostly cause the protest comes with missiles) and go around. Never cross a pocket line, bruv" but I think I misread the situation.

Yeah because more military action is going to stop terrorism! Have people learned NOTHING from the Bush administration and the wars they started??

What's the play to stop this then?

I don't know. I don't have to in order to recognize the fact that military action only exacerbates the problem by making it easier to radicalize the people whose loved ones are killed, though.

Normally I'd agree, but the Houthis can stop all hostilities by stopping attacking international trade vessels. That isn't a difficult ask. They can even try to use this as leverage to get other things they want.

the Houthis can stop all hostilities by stopping attacking international trade vessels.

Yeah, that's bullshit. A Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the shit out of them with American weapons for several years now.

I don't in any way condone terrorism under any circumstances, but to pretend that there's not been any previous acts of oppressive violence to radicalize them is as unhelpful as it is (wilfully?) ignorant.

I don't disagree there, but this is what I meant by leverage. "We'll stop attacking if you stop helping the Saudis". It wasn't too long ago that the Houthis actually considered the US as a friendly state.

Wilfully ignorant it is.

There's no way the US government is ever going to make any such deal, much less honor it.

The Houthis are welcome to continue the current state of affairs if that's what they prefer.

Yeah because clearly they're the ones with all the power here. Next you're gonna say that Palestinians can stop the Gaza genocide any time they want 🙄

The Gaza genocide is because Israel dislikes the Palestinians existing. These attacks are because the US/UK dislike the Houthis attacking commercial vessels.

You're insulting Palestinians by suggesting there's any similarity, and actually playing into the Israeli narrative that Palestinians are being violent. Well done.

No. The reason I mentioned Gaza was because there's a genocide happening in Yemen too.

This didn't start with Houthis attacking container ships recently. It's been almost a decade of atrocities and you're pretending that it's a black and white case of a couple isolated incidents easily resolved. Well fucking done.

Not support Israel's genocide. I'd wager that'd help.

And even if you're a ghoul and think that complying with that very reasonable demand wouldn't stop the Houthis, why not call their bluff? It costs us nothing to simply stop allowing the genocide to happen, and if the Houthis continue attacking ships, then you have a much more legitimate reason to go after them.

Or are the people that are in favor of bombing Yemen just really eager to bomb?

The Saudis have been bombing it for Allah knows how long, so it's business as usual for everyone involved.

That's neither here, nor there. The answer isn't to make the bombing in Yemen worse.

If the only demand is to stop genociding Palestinians, then the US government should simply stop supporting Israel in their genocide.

If the Houthis continue attacking ships after that, then by all means, do what you need to do to handle the Houthis. But the US government can't even be bothered to call for a ceasefire, so they leave it up to militant groups to act.

They are actually in the process of calling for a ceasefire. Biden pissed off Netanyahu as well. There's diplomacy in the background to get a ceasefire and more hostages freed.

"Violence is being done to this group at such an alarming rate that it's being treated as normal. So violence is fine, they're used to it"

That's what that sounded like to me.

And were doing it with bombs sold to them by the US and UK.

I wouldn't be surprised if the serial numbers on some of the stuff the US and UK is now dropping directly on the Houtis shows them to be from the same batches as some of the stuff that was dropped on them via the Saudis.

The idea that the US and UK cutting off the middleman to keep on doing to the Houtis what has been done to them for a decade, is going to make the Houtis change their minds, is hilarious.

It CoStS us nOtHiNg

You really don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to policy. It’s not just a simple “okay let’s cut ties with Israel”.

Calling for a cease fire isn't "cutting ties with Israel", and if you think that funding a genocidal ethnostate is a necessary part of foreign policy, your foreign policy would have been very helpful for the Axis Powers, you absolute monster.

They actually might throw a hissy fit if we withhold aid and expel US diplomats or something. We'd lose a major base in the middle east, but (if you'll allow for a little American exceptionalism) they don't call the fucking shots here.

I'll allow for what you're referring to as American exceptionalism if it's reflective of reality. And, in the case of the US being a world superpower, and Israel's top (external) source of military funding, that is the reality.

So, yes. The far-right Israeli government might throw a hissy fit over the US government adopting a "genocide is a non-starter" policy for supporting them, but the US calls the shots. If Israel doesn't like it, too fucking bad.

Sure, agreed, probably. I don't believe one atrocity justifies another though (like the holocaust doesn't justify... Literally anything they've used it as justification for), and the problem is the houthis aren't just fucking with US and Israeli related ships, they're impacting global trade.

Backing down in the face of violence (even if it is the correct thing to do in this particular situation) only empowers them to cause more violence because it works. That's why the US doesn't (typically) negotiate with terrorists.

Yeah I'm not saying the Houthis are right here (they're being too indiscriminate), but giving into their demands is objectively the morally correct action. They're using a wrong method to make a correct point.

Am I mistaken, or is the situation with the Houthis and Saudis in Yemen entirely unrelated to the current conflict in Gaza? These are two separate things. The Houthis aren't disrupting international trade as a statement about Gaza... Like do you have any idea what we're even talking about in this thread?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/24/us-navy-cargo-ships-houthi-missile-attack-yemen#:~:text=The%20Houthis%20have%20said%20their,the%20Bab%20el%2DMandeb%20strait.

It's not unrelated. The Houthis have said, at every possible chance, that their actions in the Red Sea towards ships flying the American flag is because of what's happening in Gaza. Why would you not believe them?

their actions in the Red Sea towards ships flying the American flag is because of what's happening in Gaza. Why would you not believe them?

Because they've hit numerous ships not related to Israel or the US.

Related, yes, but not exclusive to the current situation, as it's a continuation of the attacks the Houthis have been carrying out for the last decade. Not to mention they don't restrict the attacks to Israeli and US ships. Besides, their "Death to Israel, Death to America" slogan betrays their motives.

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You do realize that Americans get boners from this, right? Americans LOVE getting attacked so they can use their billions of dollars worth of weapons that they've been hoarding. Then resell it.

Some do, yeah. Doesn't mean I'm not going to point out the futility of it.

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This is the best summary I could come up with:


The targeting of another U.S.-owned commercial ship Wednesday shows the militant group remains intent on continuing its attacks in the face of multiple rounds of U.S. military airstrikes.

The Houthis launched anti-ship ballistic missiles at the U.S.-owned, flagged and operated commercial ship Maersk Detroit as it was transiting the Gulf of Aden, according to a statement from the U.S. Central Command.

The  U.S. has launched multiple rounds of two different types of airstrikes — those hitting a wider range of targets, like storage sites and radar capabilities, and also preemptive strikes aiming at Houthi missiles as they're loaded onto launchers to prepare for an attack.

But again, our hope is that we can restore security and stability to the Red Sea, and we'll continue to work toward that end," Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said this week.

The Houthis began launching these attacks in November to protest the war in Gaza, but many of the commercial ships they've targeted have no connection to Israel, U.S. officials say.

These attacks, combined with the others that Iran-backed groups are launching at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria add to the widening tensions in the Middle East since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.


The original article contains 420 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Q: Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?

Biden: Well, when you say "working". Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.

Typical US anti-terrorism policy

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=33&v=Y8h2dqEIMyE&feature=youtu.behttps%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FY8h2dqEIMyE%3Fsi%3D2OC7r5ZufntZIWSI&t

The US needs to put out some "Bait Ships" where they just sail around the seas in the hope that pirates try and take it, but instead of a crew of civilians there's a military crew just waiting to strike.

Or let’s just station a flock of Reapers over where they tend to launch so the response is fast enough to catch the perpetrators

The entire city of Detroit is about to ask "The fuck you doing fuckin' with our big ass ship?"

You're telling me military action doesn't stop terrorism??

It doesn't prevent terrorism, but where the hits land it does usually stop whatever is going on.

In the very short term yeah, but in the longer term it INCREASES terrorism by making it easier for terrorists to radicalize people who lost loved ones.

Buddy, we got enough bombs here to light up every one of these Houthis.

So does Saudi Arabia, ask them how their bombing of the Houthis went. We have historical data on this.

Not without killing a shitload of innocent civilians, which is THE most effective way to create MORE terrorism.

Innocent civilians? You’re just talking out of your ass now. These strikes are on launch sites not a town square.

By hitting launch sites innocent ships can pass without being attacked and killed

Create more terrorism where? These people are in increasingly small, llittle spit of sand that nobody gives a fuck about. And if the people there want the Houthis in charge, then they can share the sand with them. The walls will continue closing in and the bombs will continue falling wherever rockets are coming from.

^This is what a villain would say

Actually a villian will subjugate women and minorites, force them to wear black robes and burkas in the fucking desert sun, and then launch rockets at civilians left and right. That's your people! You should go fucking live with them.

Why are you arguing that genocide is moral if it is done to an oppressed people?

The taliban is an evil governing party. Does that mean we can murder all Afghans? The answer is no

By that same logic, it is immaterial if Hamas is evil; that does not justify the genocide of Palestinians.

All this does is create more anti-Zionist Palestinians from the survivors and make a permanent peace deal even less likely. Which is wrong, and is grounds for the imprisonment of Netanyahu and the ban of Likud

It's funny because the Houtis are a mountain tribe, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Not even an International cohalition and over a hundred thousand "boots on the ground" managed to stop the Taliban for good and you think that "this time is different" and bombing alone a similar tribe will do it???!

Unlike the Taliban, nobody cares about "defeating" the Houthis, though. Taking away their ability to harass shipping is all that matters, and that can be done by monitoring and bombing launch sites.

If the USA didn't care about the optics, they could just flatten the Houthi launch infrastructure tomorrow, then smack down anything that they tried to rebuild. Ballistic and cruise missiles are large and hard to hide, and they have to be imported from Iran.

It's not like Hamas with their homemade unguided rocket barrages into a populated area, ships are small and the ocean is huge. You need a decent missile to actually hit anything.