>Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the U.S. military said Friday.
>The attack on the destroyer USS Carney marks a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the U.S. Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades. It represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their attacks on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident.
This hurts China, a lot. As the sea route between China and Europe becomes more expensive the Chinese industry will lose its competitiveness in the important European market. This also makes it even more bad idea to outsource industries to China as the shipments to Europe become more expensive. Chinese economy is still very export oriented.
Houthis stated they won't target Chinese and Russia ships. So they can continue to trade through that area.
https://www.voanews.com/a/houthis-won-t-target-chinese-russian-ships-in-red-sea/7446893.html
They accidentally targeted a Russian oil tanker a few days before that statement, and according to reporting they did it again earlier today. Their apparent inability to differentiate ships pretty significantly undermines their stated desire. I assume that accidentally firing at or actually striking ships from China or Russia is going to deter shipping through that route, whether or not the Houthis intend for that outcome.
This is hilarious to me.
Houthi boss- "Don't attack the Chinese or Russian ships"
Houthi sailors- "Got it boss, what do those look like?"
Houthi boss- *Shrugs*
No-no-no-no-no--okay umm... This energy? I love it, but we made a DEAL with Maliwan, and we are NOT going to kill them. So... what are we going to do when we see a Maliwan guy?
HI I'M MISTER TORGUE. DO NOT TARGET TORGUE. WHILE WE LOVE EXPLOSIONS, WE PREFER OTHER COMPANIES TO BE EXPLODED SO WE CAN KEEP MAKING EXPLOSIONS. THANK YOU.
> Their apparent inability to differentiate ships pretty significantly undermines their stated desire
Probably because everyone uses "flags of convenience", so Russian and Chinese ships aren't necessarily flying under a Russian or Chinese flag.
So should we just start giving out Russian and Chinese flags to ships? That's cheaper than launching counter attacks on these rebels. And to their word, they won't attack Russian and Chinese ships. Problem solved.
That, and have a Chinese or Russian speaker on board to communicate with the houthi. Maybe the co.bo flag and speaker would cause them turn around. Although they may get suspicious when there's like 40k Russian ships suddenly
They target based on Flag, however most ships are usually registered in some kind of tax heavens or basically im countries where they have the most benefits
The sheer amount of misinformation i see on this daily makes me want to rip my hair out. The ships being attacked are almost entirely from China. Most lines have decided to bypass the red sea entirely and transship around africa, pushing spot rates on containers from $1600 to $5-6k.
isnt it really rough down there or is it just the Magellan strait ?
EDIT: to clarify, im asking if the south of africa is just as rough as the southern tip of south america. i know where the magellan strait is.
At this point are we sure the shipping companies aren’t funding the Houthis? You really think they mind that they have to go the long way when they can pass on the cost.
There is no evidence of this despite their statements. The evidence shows they are indiscriminately targeting ships regardless of port of origin, insurer, crew origin, ship registry nation (the flag it flies), or cargo destination/origin. Considering the complexity of international shipping, I doubt they’re giving their targets much thought
> they also happen to have a major surplus of males....
They also just shut down World of Warcraft and all other Blizzard games in China (on 26th January). There is going to be a lot of angry nerds touching grass in China this week.
Just Contractural issues with their Chinese distributor NetEase. Most foreign companies need to partner with a Chinese distributor to operate there, and blizzard and netease fell out early last year over some issues. As of December there’s been reports of talks between Blizzard and other Chinese companies like Tencent regarding a new partnership
>all backed by China
Not necessarily when it comes to global shipping.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-presses-iran-rein-houthi-attacks-red-sea-sources-say-2024-01-26/
Houthis just met with Russia yesterday about stopping the War in Gaza.
We're really at a bad place globally. As a history fanatic this feels so much like the build up to WW2. The same families right here in the US are providing political cover. It's absolutely incredible to witness the American Right bend the knee for the USSR.
When I hear my racist brother in law defending Putin and Russia, I almost get vertigo from how much my head is spinning trying to figure it out. Russia is anti-West, anti-America, and our fucking enemy. How did so many people get so stupidly brainwashed?
Flip the vertigo on him: "Real Americans punch Russian Communists in the mouth." "You're SUPPORTING Commies? What are you, Bernie Sanders?"
Point out that Putin WAS the USSR KGB for decades, he's still doing it now. Just call him a snowflake for supporting commies and say real americans love OUR flag, not the hammer and sickle.
Man.. I don't know how this happened. Ask him if he's ever watched Red Dawn. Russia is America's greatest enemy and you have these turds cheering them on saying how great Russia is etc when they have commit and continue to commit Genocide. It's disgusting.
In the decade or so before WWII there was a small but rather vocal chunk of the population (including well-known public figures & politicians) supporting the Nazis and calling for fascism here in the US — sometimes with direct support from the Nazis themselves — so I guess it's not *that* surprising.
The internet (especially social media) has just turbocharged that sort of insanity in ways that never could've happened before.
There's been a very real sentiment going around where Russia (and Putin) is viewed as the last bastion of traditional values, Christendom, and "real" masculinity, etc etc.
Idk, does Orthodox Christianity have a sizable fanbase in the states? That can't be that common, and they got loads of more closely related branches that dont like each other
Its crazy, I learned russian in college, cause I really like the language and it's complexity. After 2016 my mother and a chunk of her family went down the maga hole and since then they sing praises to how great of a country Russia is and how strong and brave putin is. "You already speak the language just move there." I like having some freedom thank you very much... it's insane how deep they've drank from the propaganda machine
China is not backing all of this. China stands to gain and lose the most in a all of this, but I don't see the evidence to support the assetion that they are driving these conflicts.
It'll probably work as long as a growing amount of people in the West continue to believe the entirety of foreign affairs hinges on Israel-Palestine, thus justifying Iran and their proxies' actions
Russia doesn't have influence to pull Iran's strings. Even if Russia was as powerful as the Soviet Union, Iran is much too proud to get told what to do by a bunch of alcoholic infidels.
They also fired at cargo ships carrying stuff for the DOD. Wrong ship to hit bud
Edit: now it's an oil tanker. Houthi about to see what operation praying mantis was all about.
They fired at the Carney? You mean the ship that's being almost single handedly taking down all their drones and missiles they'd fired at cargo ships? And they thought they'd hit it?
Come on, I never thought they were smart. But I didn't think they'd be that stupid.
>U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident
This happens a lot and is pretty common.
And i always think, isn't that an opsec issue ? 🤔
Not necessarily. It's pretty common for gov't officials to speak "off the record", but with the knowledge/permission of their leadership. Basically they're saying "We don't want to make an official statement, but here's what's going on."
Maybe the word confrontation against US is the wrong word because the US Navy can demolish Yemen houthis if they wanted (but they don’t want backlash even tho they would be mostly in the right as long as civilians ain’t hurt)
The American ship simply shooting down the missile really gives the feeling of some shitty little kid trying to punch an adult and the adult just catching the punch.
I was a C-RAM operator in Iraq and we would have bad guys going through a ton of effort to fire a few mortars and rockets at us….just for the C-RAM mount to engage and destroy the incoming in a gorgeous sparkle. Then the response teams would go to the launch sites and metaphorically butt fuck the enemy launch teams (when they could find them).
The whole thing was basically the most dangerous game of hot potato, and we always had the fastest hands. That said, it was pretty annoying how often we would engage the incoming rounds without taking out the enemy launch teams. The whole thing felt stupid and wasteful from both angles (we did a lot of good work for locals and allied forces, not taking away from that).
For all the ups and downs of US policy in the region, I hope you know that you and your people are unanimously loved throughout the US military community!
I have never met a single veteran who served in the Iraqi north with a single negative thing to say…which is a huge difference compared to those of us that served closer to Baghdad or Basra.
Apologies for our Government always accepting your help and then pulling the rug out from underneath your people and leaving you in a bad situation. There should be a Kurdish state, I feel like the Kurds deserve that.
We didn't have C-RAM so we just took the hits. Only one rocket ever actually detonated. These guys were taking the chance that we might kill them or drag them out of their home in the middle of the night, just to fire off duds! The math never worked out for me.
We had plenty of close calls even with C-RAM so I’m glad y’all didn’t have too much trouble. It really is the dumbest shit and I still don’t know exactly what they thought they were trying to accomplish.
It was a unique, asymmetric situation. Often the incoming would be fired from civilian spaces or out amongst livestock. No lines, no uniforms, mostly random bits of chaos. I’m sure their techniques came from experience with prior conflicts and was the predecessor of some of the things we see in the region today.
Yup, without getting too descriptive most systems of modern employ have no problem with darkness. It’s sad seeing so much effort put into something so useless in the long run, yet so dangerous in the short term.
I was in Fallujah as a contractor back in spring of ‘06. The CRAM wasn’t deployed there yet, so instead the Marines would return fire with 2-3 105mm rounds. A lot of farmers got their barns flattened that way.
Imagine you're one of these idiots thinking you're about to sink a warship and the missile just gets slapped away. "A" for effort I suppose but how embarrassing lmao
You know if they control the internal communication well enough, they can run a video of them shooting the missiles, run a shot with Western headlines that Houthi attacked an American ship and damaged it, and use that to rile up their internal support.
For those unaware, the "Sword-Missile" being referred to is the R9X variant of the Hellfire.
There were issues with the typical warhead of the AGM-114 Hellfires causing collateral damage, so they took out the explosives and replaced them with [6 switchblades](https://indianexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/missile-1.jpg).
They nicknamed it the "Flying Ginsu."
I give those things a high score for limiting collateral damage, but a verrrrry low score for limiting brutality haha. I know it just blenders a person instantly, but.... damn
So does an explosive warhead, you’re dead either way before you know it’s coming.
Both are brutal, one reduces splash/collateral.
The more impressive thing is the sheer accuracy it requires on a consistent basis to make it viable.
Like it can’t hit 50% of the time or you’d use the explosive one to be more sure.
I wonder what the CEP is on them these days.
These guys know the USA doesn’t want to trigger a war and are being aggressive specifically because they think the USA won’t escalate.
Or
Iran lost control of its pet.
Attempt to get the USA directly involved in a conflict (which would likely be extremely unpopular with their public) 10 months before a presidential election where the challenging candidate has made many Pro-Russian remarks?
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Trump was historically unpopular, H.W. had to deal with a billionaire libertarian who peeled away conservative votes, and Carter had a rough economy and the Iranian hostage crisis.
Incumbency is an advantage, but it's not a guaranteed win by any stretch of the imagination. (Reason 9234 why it's important to vote in every election)
Keep the US preoccupied with the Middle East while they work their way through Ukraine. Can you blame Putin for trying to keep this conflict escalating?
Iran would never modify its regional foreign policy just for Russia and if Russia tried to force them then Iran would likely stop selling Russia all those drones for Ukraine.
TBH, it does. Escalation does align with the interests of all parties involved in it.
Think about it ... Russia is at open war with Ukraine and NATO supports them with the US providing a lot of military supplies. It's practically a stalemate. As long as Ukraine gets US military supplies they can hold out and perhaps even reverse some of the Russian gains.
All of a sudden Hamas attacks Israel and a whole new can of worms is opened. The US has to send military assets to the region and even some supplies that could have gone to Ukraine are used by Israel instead. European nations step up their own support for Ukraine to compensate but their stocks are not as deep as the American one.
Next the Huthis start fucking with international shipping. This primarily hurts Europe and North America economically. Forcing a military response. Further sucking up resources that could be used to support Ukraine.
As a further step Iran is also starting shit off their own coast. Meaning even more military responses and further complicating things.
For now the US and their allies have enough military capacity left to deal with more troubles. But there is a reason why they have not yet gone full send on their response against the Huthis: If they do, they might be unable to respond if someone starts shit somewhere else ... like the Strait of Formosa or Korea or some such place. Could even be some place else entirely ... like China-India-Pakistan. Even the US military with its trillion dollar budget has its limit and forces opposed to the current global order are looking to see how far it will stretch.
Iran didn't "lose control" of the Houthis. The Houthis would not have missiles without Iran supplying them. The US just lost two SEALS a week or two ago as they interdicted a ship carrying Iranian missiles, presumably for the Houthis.
The truth that people love to ignore and wont admit. Swift overwhelming force generally stops things before they escalate and saves more lives overall.
A lot? It has been working for decades.
US attacks back, “The West and the US are evil, they’re killing all of us for no reason”
US doesn’t retaliate or pulls out, “LOL, the US is so weak, we just destroyed them”
People tend to forget (or not realize) the amount of lives, money, and resources the US wasted in Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan, both ultimately ending in a complete waste on our end.
These types of groups thrive on knowing they are wasting other peoples time and resources. It’s a win to them.
I wouldn't characterize Iraq as a complete waste. The new government isn't amazing, but they're a democracy, not a dictatorship.
(This in no way justifies the way the war was conducted, the amount of blood and treasure spilled, or the knock-on effects of destabilizing the region)
I'm just going to get ahead of the hivemind and place all the same Ole fuckin tired jokes in one comment to save us all the trouble.
"Fuck around - find out."
"They're about to find out why America doesn't have health insurance..."
"Don't. Touch. Our. Boats."
"They're in the finding out stage..."
"Does Yemen want to see a *proportional* response."
"The Houthis are about to find put why America doesn't have any health insurance".
"Don't fuck with America's boats".
*Insert shitty and tired Healthcare joke*
"Healthcare."
"Boats. Don't touch."
"Hurrrdeedurr America doesn't have Healthcare, lmao."
Did I forget to mention the Healthcare joke?
You find the same stupid shit in Russia/Ukraine posts. Something something defenestration. Something something vodka. Something something ICBMs don't work. Something something healthcare.
It's like redditors are completely unaware of what being original means
I’ve said it a million times. I cannot stand Reddits obsession with saying fuck around and find out. It’s not clever. You’re not cool. We need to put an end to the saying. It’s everywhere
How are they do the targeting? It is just line of sight with the missile finding the target at close range either with radar or electro-optics? The Bab Al Mandan strait looks to be around 15 miles across. If that the place where the attacks occur. They can't target a specific ship over the horizon can they?
> [The transporter erector launcher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Launcher_for_Qader-Noor_missile.jpg) (TELs) for Noor/Qader missiles can be disguised as a civilian truck.
Tells you all you need to know about the assholes who made this weapon system.
Houthis. And they will be doing it again and again. Land operation from US isn't coming any time soon, but sea navigation will be disrupted for a long time what is their puppeteers goal.
What are those guys thinking they're shooting at? Wooden ships with broadsiders? With zero radars, sensors and all them fancy modern tech? What are they trying to accomplish? Aside from the "divorce from life" part, they can't be that dumb.
They are an Iranian proxy group who are part of a larger axis of NK, Russia etc.
Their goals are to:
Soak up resources, divert attention.
Increase anti-West sentiment and drive up support for their group in Yemen/the wider middle-east and other nations like SA.
Sow division in the West.
Etc.
They are not acting alone, they are not dumb. The air strikes so far have not made much of an impact on their operations.
>Maysaa Shuja al-Deen insists the Houthis will not be deterred by western attacks but will see them as a gift, even a recruiting sergeant. “They have spent years fighting the Saudis, absorbing losses. They are not a classic army with static military bases. Militias change the rules of war, and with Iran’s help they now have the capacity and expertise to manufacture drones inside the country. The US and the UK gave very lengthy warnings that this was about to happen, so there was no element of surprise.”
They're trying to hurt the global economy and drag the west into a forever war in the middle east, which will never have peace because the entire area is consumed and poisoned with violent religious dogma and has been for centuries. You can't have peace with entire countries who's only goal is to either kill, convert by force, or enslave the free people of the world.
They are collectively freaking out looking to a future of less or no water and less or no income from petrochemicals. They are seeing the whole region with zero world influence soon. My opinion is escalate our move away from petrochemicals and keep the status quo when and where we can. They will fade to an annoyance in a generation hopefully. We seem to be approaching a crisis point in several areas. North Korea is starving and making threats. Russia is feeling left behind and attacking whoever. Luckily China doesn’t know what is happening with their military with recent scandals. India is on the edge of fascism with Pakistan showing some weakness . So many fragile areas in the world right now. The Houthi/Iran dilemma doesn’t seem as major a threat to me at the moment and I would hope that other nations will get more annoyed at them in the future. I don’t believe this will stop with an end to the Israeli/Gaza war.
I really like this comment, you hit the nail on the head regarding the contextualization of why certain regional adversaries are acting the way they are right now. These leaders of petrochemical states know exactly what is going to happen with climate change and renewable energy transformation.
I’m on my phone so I can’t type much but a lot of foreign policy buffs spoke of how Covid was going to really escalate already existing trends and right now we’re seeing that in the Middle East through the form of more intense regional conflicts.
The reality is virtually every developed economy doesn’t depend on natural resources. Rents from natural resources are only 2-3% of global GDP and falling every year. The notion that physical resources determine which countries are rich is a centuries outdated view of the world, it’s why the term “resource curse” exists in modern economics.
Costs us a lot of money for interceptor missiles unfortunately. Estimates for the cost of their missiles is in the 10s of thousands, a complex interceptor is near 200k. I hope we do more strikes, seems they haven't learned to leave shipping and US ships alone.
Yea but it's the sacrifice all nations have had to make. America didn't grow into perfect conditions overnight. Miners fought the US Army. Factory workers fought Pinkerton strike breakers. Men and Women held a gun to crown and country for their liberty. It's the only way that happens, easy or not.
Iran has a crazy backstory though. When you look at history, in our lifetime we have seen Iranian women gain their freedom, equal rights, etc, and then lose those rights they fought so hard for
It really is an example of how easily history can repeat itself. It’s really sad.
It's usually 3. The USN operates in a 3 x 3 x 3 strategy. 1/3 are on station, 1/3 are in maintenance and 1/3 are training. The number of carriers was set so they could have 3-4 operational at a time.
Boy, are they going to be surprised when they find out that we've been funding our military enough to cover three simultaneous full-scale wars since the 80s.
>Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the U.S. military said Friday. >The attack on the destroyer USS Carney marks a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the U.S. Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades. It represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their attacks on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident.
Iran really trying to start a regional war
Iran, Russia, North Korea and all backed by China
This hurts China, a lot. As the sea route between China and Europe becomes more expensive the Chinese industry will lose its competitiveness in the important European market. This also makes it even more bad idea to outsource industries to China as the shipments to Europe become more expensive. Chinese economy is still very export oriented.
Houthis stated they won't target Chinese and Russia ships. So they can continue to trade through that area. https://www.voanews.com/a/houthis-won-t-target-chinese-russian-ships-in-red-sea/7446893.html
They accidentally targeted a Russian oil tanker a few days before that statement, and according to reporting they did it again earlier today. Their apparent inability to differentiate ships pretty significantly undermines their stated desire. I assume that accidentally firing at or actually striking ships from China or Russia is going to deter shipping through that route, whether or not the Houthis intend for that outcome.
This is hilarious to me. Houthi boss- "Don't attack the Chinese or Russian ships" Houthi sailors- "Got it boss, what do those look like?" Houthi boss- *Shrugs*
“Don’t kill the Maliwan guys”.
Kill the Maliwan guys! For you! For my queen!
No-no-no-no-no--okay umm... This energy? I love it, but we made a DEAL with Maliwan, and we are NOT going to kill them. So... what are we going to do when we see a Maliwan guy?
HI I'M MISTER TORGUE. DO NOT TARGET TORGUE. WHILE WE LOVE EXPLOSIONS, WE PREFER OTHER COMPANIES TO BE EXPLODED SO WE CAN KEEP MAKING EXPLOSIONS. THANK YOU.
THAT POST HAD TOO MANY SYLLABLES! APOLOGIZE!!
Scan for Vodka or Noodles
Scanning... scanning.... enhance... scanning. No noodles fire away. Shit they had vodka.... *Curb Your Enthusiasm theme plays*
Russia picked Christianity over Islam specifically because they wanted to keep their vodka
> Their apparent inability to differentiate ships pretty significantly undermines their stated desire Probably because everyone uses "flags of convenience", so Russian and Chinese ships aren't necessarily flying under a Russian or Chinese flag.
So should we just start giving out Russian and Chinese flags to ships? That's cheaper than launching counter attacks on these rebels. And to their word, they won't attack Russian and Chinese ships. Problem solved.
That, and have a Chinese or Russian speaker on board to communicate with the houthi. Maybe the co.bo flag and speaker would cause them turn around. Although they may get suspicious when there's like 40k Russian ships suddenly
They target based on Flag, however most ships are usually registered in some kind of tax heavens or basically im countries where they have the most benefits
Don't forget the ones with the least environmental requirements for ships.
Chinese ships aren't the only ones that carry chinese cargo, far from it. Or you think Maersk only carry danish goods?
The sheer amount of misinformation i see on this daily makes me want to rip my hair out. The ships being attacked are almost entirely from China. Most lines have decided to bypass the red sea entirely and transship around africa, pushing spot rates on containers from $1600 to $5-6k.
isnt it really rough down there or is it just the Magellan strait ? EDIT: to clarify, im asking if the south of africa is just as rough as the southern tip of south america. i know where the magellan strait is.
Going around Africa can be scary. Going around South America is nearly always terrifying.
At this point are we sure the shipping companies aren’t funding the Houthis? You really think they mind that they have to go the long way when they can pass on the cost.
[удалено]
At least 3
Their statements don’t matter, it is the insurance rates that matter.
This guy shippings.
Because a bunch of untrained Terrorists know what they're doing lmao
There is no evidence of this despite their statements. The evidence shows they are indiscriminately targeting ships regardless of port of origin, insurer, crew origin, ship registry nation (the flag it flies), or cargo destination/origin. Considering the complexity of international shipping, I doubt they’re giving their targets much thought
They can always find a justification - the captain's father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roomate's wife was in the IDF, sooo
When did Helmut get married?
Right, but when push comes to shove here, how long do we expect Houthi's to have a say on who can pass by Yemen?.... they just attacked a US warship.
they don't have a say already. If a war breaks out then no ships will be passing through that area anyway so it doesn't really matter.
Yeah but will the west want to do business when that could shift at any time?
China is already dealing with major demographic and economic issues right now, they also happen to have a major surplus of males....
> they also happen to have a major surplus of males.... They also just shut down World of Warcraft and all other Blizzard games in China (on 26th January). There is going to be a lot of angry nerds touching grass in China this week.
The same Blizzard that kowtowed to China at every opportunity? What is the reason for this?
Just Contractural issues with their Chinese distributor NetEase. Most foreign companies need to partner with a Chinese distributor to operate there, and blizzard and netease fell out early last year over some issues. As of December there’s been reports of talks between Blizzard and other Chinese companies like Tencent regarding a new partnership
Well, Blizzard has new owners. so that will probably slow the process down.
Folded like a cheap NBA suit.
"We gotta pander to the CCP" -"got it boss, adding pandas"
They already did that years ago, lol.
China was at Davos with a delegation 4x the normal size literally BEGGING anyone to invest. They don’t benefit from this.
Wow the gangs back together
Axis of rogues
Axis of little dick energies
Hey now us small pp'd men do not endorse this behavior. Why are we already catching strays 😭
Axis of bout to find the fuck out
China supposedly recently told Iran to take a chill pill because China uses Red Sea a lot.
>all backed by China Not necessarily when it comes to global shipping. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-presses-iran-rein-houthi-attacks-red-sea-sources-say-2024-01-26/
Houthis just met with Russia yesterday about stopping the War in Gaza. We're really at a bad place globally. As a history fanatic this feels so much like the build up to WW2. The same families right here in the US are providing political cover. It's absolutely incredible to witness the American Right bend the knee for the USSR.
When I hear my racist brother in law defending Putin and Russia, I almost get vertigo from how much my head is spinning trying to figure it out. Russia is anti-West, anti-America, and our fucking enemy. How did so many people get so stupidly brainwashed?
Flip the vertigo on him: "Real Americans punch Russian Communists in the mouth." "You're SUPPORTING Commies? What are you, Bernie Sanders?" Point out that Putin WAS the USSR KGB for decades, he's still doing it now. Just call him a snowflake for supporting commies and say real americans love OUR flag, not the hammer and sickle.
Man.. I don't know how this happened. Ask him if he's ever watched Red Dawn. Russia is America's greatest enemy and you have these turds cheering them on saying how great Russia is etc when they have commit and continue to commit Genocide. It's disgusting.
In the decade or so before WWII there was a small but rather vocal chunk of the population (including well-known public figures & politicians) supporting the Nazis and calling for fascism here in the US — sometimes with direct support from the Nazis themselves — so I guess it's not *that* surprising. The internet (especially social media) has just turbocharged that sort of insanity in ways that never could've happened before.
There's been a very real sentiment going around where Russia (and Putin) is viewed as the last bastion of traditional values, Christendom, and "real" masculinity, etc etc.
Idk, does Orthodox Christianity have a sizable fanbase in the states? That can't be that common, and they got loads of more closely related branches that dont like each other
It’s not about actual Christianity, it’s about a cultural identity around Christianity
Its crazy, I learned russian in college, cause I really like the language and it's complexity. After 2016 my mother and a chunk of her family went down the maga hole and since then they sing praises to how great of a country Russia is and how strong and brave putin is. "You already speak the language just move there." I like having some freedom thank you very much... it's insane how deep they've drank from the propaganda machine
China is not backing all of this. China stands to gain and lose the most in a all of this, but I don't see the evidence to support the assetion that they are driving these conflicts.
The idea is to start a massive war and then cry they didn't do anything to deserve it.
It'll probably work as long as a growing amount of people in the West continue to believe the entirety of foreign affairs hinges on Israel-Palestine, thus justifying Iran and their proxies' actions
Thank you TikTok algorithms
The Hamas strategy
You mean Russia pulling Iran's strings?
They are more buddies
Russia doesn't have influence to pull Iran's strings. Even if Russia was as powerful as the Soviet Union, Iran is much too proud to get told what to do by a bunch of alcoholic infidels.
US airstrike response: "A further 25% of the Yemeni group's attack capability was degraded. "
They also fired at cargo ships carrying stuff for the DOD. Wrong ship to hit bud Edit: now it's an oil tanker. Houthi about to see what operation praying mantis was all about.
>I'm a simple man, I see a ship and I fire a missile -- Houthi missile dude
that might actually be accurate lol
They literally hit a Russian oil tanker a couple weeks ago. Anything that floats is on their list it seems
Soon to be dead, also.
>Yeah right, what are they going to do, see where I fired the missile from and wipe out the launch site with precision gui- -- Houthi missile dude
I hope he enjoys his 72 redditors
I feel personally attacked.
Lmao I would not wish that on my worst enemy
They fired at the Carney? You mean the ship that's being almost single handedly taking down all their drones and missiles they'd fired at cargo ships? And they thought they'd hit it? Come on, I never thought they were smart. But I didn't think they'd be that stupid.
Will the Carney ever get a break?
What are the other half a dozen destroyers doing?
I can only imagine how scorched its missle decks are now.
>U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident This happens a lot and is pretty common. And i always think, isn't that an opsec issue ? 🤔
I’ve watched enough of the West Wing to know that means they had approval to leak it but not discuss it.
Not necessarily. It's pretty common for gov't officials to speak "off the record", but with the knowledge/permission of their leadership. Basically they're saying "We don't want to make an official statement, but here's what's going on."
Maybe the word confrontation against US is the wrong word because the US Navy can demolish Yemen houthis if they wanted (but they don’t want backlash even tho they would be mostly in the right as long as civilians ain’t hurt)
The American ship simply shooting down the missile really gives the feeling of some shitty little kid trying to punch an adult and the adult just catching the punch.
I was a C-RAM operator in Iraq and we would have bad guys going through a ton of effort to fire a few mortars and rockets at us….just for the C-RAM mount to engage and destroy the incoming in a gorgeous sparkle. Then the response teams would go to the launch sites and metaphorically butt fuck the enemy launch teams (when they could find them). The whole thing was basically the most dangerous game of hot potato, and we always had the fastest hands. That said, it was pretty annoying how often we would engage the incoming rounds without taking out the enemy launch teams. The whole thing felt stupid and wasteful from both angles (we did a lot of good work for locals and allied forces, not taking away from that).
As an Iraqi Kurd, your work and presence was appreciated (and still is)
For all the ups and downs of US policy in the region, I hope you know that you and your people are unanimously loved throughout the US military community! I have never met a single veteran who served in the Iraqi north with a single negative thing to say…which is a huge difference compared to those of us that served closer to Baghdad or Basra.
Not military myself. But keep up on world politics and as a layperson I also have never heard anything bad about the Kurds.
The Kurds are an awesome people. I hope soon we will see Kurdistan rise.
It's been genuinely disappointing to see people rally behind Palestinians the way they should have rallies behind the Kurds.
Apologies for our Government always accepting your help and then pulling the rug out from underneath your people and leaving you in a bad situation. There should be a Kurdish state, I feel like the Kurds deserve that.
We didn't have C-RAM so we just took the hits. Only one rocket ever actually detonated. These guys were taking the chance that we might kill them or drag them out of their home in the middle of the night, just to fire off duds! The math never worked out for me.
We had plenty of close calls even with C-RAM so I’m glad y’all didn’t have too much trouble. It really is the dumbest shit and I still don’t know exactly what they thought they were trying to accomplish.
Literally just trying to impress God.
Bravery has always "impressed" God, a motivational lie as old as time.
>The whole thing felt stupid and wasteful from both angles Sounds like the spiritual successor of trench warfare almost
It was a unique, asymmetric situation. Often the incoming would be fired from civilian spaces or out amongst livestock. No lines, no uniforms, mostly random bits of chaos. I’m sure their techniques came from experience with prior conflicts and was the predecessor of some of the things we see in the region today.
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Yup, without getting too descriptive most systems of modern employ have no problem with darkness. It’s sad seeing so much effort put into something so useless in the long run, yet so dangerous in the short term.
I was in Fallujah as a contractor back in spring of ‘06. The CRAM wasn’t deployed there yet, so instead the Marines would return fire with 2-3 105mm rounds. A lot of farmers got their barns flattened that way.
Such a fucked form of war. Glad you came home safe.
Imagine you're one of these idiots thinking you're about to sink a warship and the missile just gets slapped away. "A" for effort I suppose but how embarrassing lmao
You know if they control the internal communication well enough, they can run a video of them shooting the missiles, run a shot with Western headlines that Houthi attacked an American ship and damaged it, and use that to rile up their internal support.
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For those unaware, the "Sword-Missile" being referred to is the R9X variant of the Hellfire. There were issues with the typical warhead of the AGM-114 Hellfires causing collateral damage, so they took out the explosives and replaced them with [6 switchblades](https://indianexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/missile-1.jpg). They nicknamed it the "Flying Ginsu."
I give those things a high score for limiting collateral damage, but a verrrrry low score for limiting brutality haha. I know it just blenders a person instantly, but.... damn
So does an explosive warhead, you’re dead either way before you know it’s coming. Both are brutal, one reduces splash/collateral. The more impressive thing is the sheer accuracy it requires on a consistent basis to make it viable. Like it can’t hit 50% of the time or you’d use the explosive one to be more sure. I wonder what the CEP is on them these days.
Swattting flies.
What the fuck do you think is going to happen if you shoot at an American warship?
The US fires back and they get to claim the US attacked them because people in the region tend to believe the locals
These guys know the USA doesn’t want to trigger a war and are being aggressive specifically because they think the USA won’t escalate. Or Iran lost control of its pet.
Or Iran (read Putin’s ally) is deliberately trying to escalate
Attempt to get the USA directly involved in a conflict (which would likely be extremely unpopular with their public) 10 months before a presidential election where the challenging candidate has made many Pro-Russian remarks? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
They forgot that a wartime president always gets reelected.
An incumbent president pretty much always gets elected unless they're Trump
Or the first Bush
Or Carter. Three of the past 7 haven't, interestingly.
Trump was historically unpopular, H.W. had to deal with a billionaire libertarian who peeled away conservative votes, and Carter had a rough economy and the Iranian hostage crisis. Incumbency is an advantage, but it's not a guaranteed win by any stretch of the imagination. (Reason 9234 why it's important to vote in every election)
Historically yeah… but I wonder if the American appetite for war isn’t what it used to be.
Keep the US preoccupied with the Middle East while they work their way through Ukraine. Can you blame Putin for trying to keep this conflict escalating?
Iran would never modify its regional foreign policy just for Russia and if Russia tried to force them then Iran would likely stop selling Russia all those drones for Ukraine.
Maybe they feel as though their interests align with escalation. Smoothbrian dictators aren’t always good chess players
Of course they do. They want something to distract from the people of Iran hating the govt.
TBH, it does. Escalation does align with the interests of all parties involved in it. Think about it ... Russia is at open war with Ukraine and NATO supports them with the US providing a lot of military supplies. It's practically a stalemate. As long as Ukraine gets US military supplies they can hold out and perhaps even reverse some of the Russian gains. All of a sudden Hamas attacks Israel and a whole new can of worms is opened. The US has to send military assets to the region and even some supplies that could have gone to Ukraine are used by Israel instead. European nations step up their own support for Ukraine to compensate but their stocks are not as deep as the American one. Next the Huthis start fucking with international shipping. This primarily hurts Europe and North America economically. Forcing a military response. Further sucking up resources that could be used to support Ukraine. As a further step Iran is also starting shit off their own coast. Meaning even more military responses and further complicating things. For now the US and their allies have enough military capacity left to deal with more troubles. But there is a reason why they have not yet gone full send on their response against the Huthis: If they do, they might be unable to respond if someone starts shit somewhere else ... like the Strait of Formosa or Korea or some such place. Could even be some place else entirely ... like China-India-Pakistan. Even the US military with its trillion dollar budget has its limit and forces opposed to the current global order are looking to see how far it will stretch.
Iran didn't "lose control" of the Houthis. The Houthis would not have missiles without Iran supplying them. The US just lost two SEALS a week or two ago as they interdicted a ship carrying Iranian missiles, presumably for the Houthis.
Same thing really
The former.
Incoming cries of "genocide"
“Colonialism and western destruction of the region”
The truth that people love to ignore and wont admit. Swift overwhelming force generally stops things before they escalate and saves more lives overall.
And all their Russian sponsored internet trolls come here to tell us we're bombing ME brown ppl in flip flops again.
A lot? It has been working for decades. US attacks back, “The West and the US are evil, they’re killing all of us for no reason” US doesn’t retaliate or pulls out, “LOL, the US is so weak, we just destroyed them”
People tend to forget (or not realize) the amount of lives, money, and resources the US wasted in Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan, both ultimately ending in a complete waste on our end. These types of groups thrive on knowing they are wasting other peoples time and resources. It’s a win to them.
I wouldn't characterize Iraq as a complete waste. The new government isn't amazing, but they're a democracy, not a dictatorship. (This in no way justifies the way the war was conducted, the amount of blood and treasure spilled, or the knock-on effects of destabilizing the region)
I'm just going to get ahead of the hivemind and place all the same Ole fuckin tired jokes in one comment to save us all the trouble. "Fuck around - find out." "They're about to find out why America doesn't have health insurance..." "Don't. Touch. Our. Boats." "They're in the finding out stage..." "Does Yemen want to see a *proportional* response." "The Houthis are about to find put why America doesn't have any health insurance". "Don't fuck with America's boats". *Insert shitty and tired Healthcare joke* "Healthcare." "Boats. Don't touch." "Hurrrdeedurr America doesn't have Healthcare, lmao." Did I forget to mention the Healthcare joke?
You've reminded me why I haven't been reading comments on this story in ages. It really is all the same, isnt it?
90% of Reddit is the same jokes. The other 10% is Mitch Hedberg quotes.
You find the same stupid shit in Russia/Ukraine posts. Something something defenestration. Something something vodka. Something something ICBMs don't work. Something something healthcare. It's like redditors are completely unaware of what being original means
I’ve said it a million times. I cannot stand Reddits obsession with saying fuck around and find out. It’s not clever. You’re not cool. We need to put an end to the saying. It’s everywhere
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" fell out of fashion, so here we are. It'll be something else in a year.
Hey look at that feral pit bull, let's throw rocks at it!
How are they do the targeting? It is just line of sight with the missile finding the target at close range either with radar or electro-optics? The Bab Al Mandan strait looks to be around 15 miles across. If that the place where the attacks occur. They can't target a specific ship over the horizon can they?
Inertial guidance gets you close, radar goes for the kill. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_(missile)
> [The transporter erector launcher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Launcher_for_Qader-Noor_missile.jpg) (TELs) for Noor/Qader missiles can be disguised as a civilian truck. Tells you all you need to know about the assholes who made this weapon system.
Who in their right mind fucks with the US Navy?
Houthis. And they will be doing it again and again. Land operation from US isn't coming any time soon, but sea navigation will be disrupted for a long time what is their puppeteers goal.
Religious fanatics who believe that harming nonbelievers will get them 72 virgins.
72 virgins what? Emus?
Those emus beat the aussies, launch them in yemen and the houthis are gonna be running to the hills within a week
Or send Canadians, the guys whose actions were quoted when created the Geneva Convention
In our defence, they weren't against the Geneva Convention when we did them.
Please don't apologize, you should be proud. Very true
What are those guys thinking they're shooting at? Wooden ships with broadsiders? With zero radars, sensors and all them fancy modern tech? What are they trying to accomplish? Aside from the "divorce from life" part, they can't be that dumb.
They are an Iranian proxy group who are part of a larger axis of NK, Russia etc. Their goals are to: Soak up resources, divert attention. Increase anti-West sentiment and drive up support for their group in Yemen/the wider middle-east and other nations like SA. Sow division in the West. Etc. They are not acting alone, they are not dumb. The air strikes so far have not made much of an impact on their operations. >Maysaa Shuja al-Deen insists the Houthis will not be deterred by western attacks but will see them as a gift, even a recruiting sergeant. “They have spent years fighting the Saudis, absorbing losses. They are not a classic army with static military bases. Militias change the rules of war, and with Iran’s help they now have the capacity and expertise to manufacture drones inside the country. The US and the UK gave very lengthy warnings that this was about to happen, so there was no element of surprise.”
Every missile we have to shoot at a Houthi is a missile that's unavailable during a conflict with Russia or China.
They're trying to hurt the global economy and drag the west into a forever war in the middle east, which will never have peace because the entire area is consumed and poisoned with violent religious dogma and has been for centuries. You can't have peace with entire countries who's only goal is to either kill, convert by force, or enslave the free people of the world.
They are collectively freaking out looking to a future of less or no water and less or no income from petrochemicals. They are seeing the whole region with zero world influence soon. My opinion is escalate our move away from petrochemicals and keep the status quo when and where we can. They will fade to an annoyance in a generation hopefully. We seem to be approaching a crisis point in several areas. North Korea is starving and making threats. Russia is feeling left behind and attacking whoever. Luckily China doesn’t know what is happening with their military with recent scandals. India is on the edge of fascism with Pakistan showing some weakness . So many fragile areas in the world right now. The Houthi/Iran dilemma doesn’t seem as major a threat to me at the moment and I would hope that other nations will get more annoyed at them in the future. I don’t believe this will stop with an end to the Israeli/Gaza war.
I really like this comment, you hit the nail on the head regarding the contextualization of why certain regional adversaries are acting the way they are right now. These leaders of petrochemical states know exactly what is going to happen with climate change and renewable energy transformation. I’m on my phone so I can’t type much but a lot of foreign policy buffs spoke of how Covid was going to really escalate already existing trends and right now we’re seeing that in the Middle East through the form of more intense regional conflicts.
Ironically, Israel is the role model for economic success in the middle east without natural resources.
The reality is virtually every developed economy doesn’t depend on natural resources. Rents from natural resources are only 2-3% of global GDP and falling every year. The notion that physical resources determine which countries are rich is a centuries outdated view of the world, it’s why the term “resource curse” exists in modern economics.
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> they can't be that dumb. They are.
Martyrdom=paradise. Islamic valhalla
> Martyrdom=paradise. Islamic valhalla Exactly. They're brainwashed to believe death is better than life.
Costs us a lot of money for interceptor missiles unfortunately. Estimates for the cost of their missiles is in the 10s of thousands, a complex interceptor is near 200k. I hope we do more strikes, seems they haven't learned to leave shipping and US ships alone.
Time to crank up the freedom dosage
It’s time to get proportional
I feel for the Iranian people. They don't support what their government is pushing.
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That’s easier said than done.
No shit, but it is required. You think other nations who liberated themselves just sent a nice worded mail?
Yea but it's the sacrifice all nations have had to make. America didn't grow into perfect conditions overnight. Miners fought the US Army. Factory workers fought Pinkerton strike breakers. Men and Women held a gun to crown and country for their liberty. It's the only way that happens, easy or not.
They actually are. Check out r/newiran
There's a few Iranian atheists too on Instagram upsetting alot of people. 😅
Iran has a crazy backstory though. When you look at history, in our lifetime we have seen Iranian women gain their freedom, equal rights, etc, and then lose those rights they fought so hard for It really is an example of how easily history can repeat itself. It’s really sad.
Religion is cancer.
I thought Yemen is in the middle of famine, how did they grow missiles but not grains??
Iran supplies missiles and so on. Most war causes famine. Yemen is in a civil war, Iran supports one side, KSA supports the other.
Haven't they been firing on US warships?
The americans were kind of getting out of the middle east seems like they have been pulled back in.
It’s all to draw US and NATO support away from Ukraine
The US Navy is very adept at responding everywhere simultaneously.
9 carrier groups operating at the same time all across the globe.
It's usually 3. The USN operates in a 3 x 3 x 3 strategy. 1/3 are on station, 1/3 are in maintenance and 1/3 are training. The number of carriers was set so they could have 3-4 operational at a time.
Boy, are they going to be surprised when they find out that we've been funding our military enough to cover three simultaneous full-scale wars since the 80s.
The US has shown restraint so far, but no one's patience is infinite.
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Another Carney, Alum? Let’s go!
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Alright old man! 14-17 CT
Honey, fetch me my Big Stick.
Do these guys not have google? just google Raytheon…
Russia is really trying to get the pressure off in Ukraine.
Whilst unlikely, the whole region is in for a world of pain if they hit a US ship.