Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched a missile at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile
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.
That contradicted a statement by the U.S. military’s Central Command, which said the Houthis fired “toward” the Carney. As it has in previous strikes, the Pentagon has said it was difficult to determine what exactly the Houthis were trying to hit.
Ever since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the U.S. has tried to temper its descriptions of the strikes targeting its bases and warships to try to prevent the conflict from becoming a wider regional war.
Hasn’t the US been bombing the Houthis already? Unsure how this would result in a further ‘escalation’.
Hey, we only bomb them a little bit… mostly, we just sell bombs to Saudi Arabia so they can bomb them - that’s got nothing to do with us!
Also not sure why firing at military vessels is worse than firing at civilians
Yup, this is definitely the worst Middle East Sea conflict in decades. These Houthis are better armed than Sadam, Sadam 2: Electric Boogaloo, Afghanistan, ISIS, Iran and Syria combined.
This. Is. Our. Doomsday.
They are lucky Sadam didn’t go after the trade routes and Wall street’s profit cow, or else they would have nuked Bagdad, instead of just bombing it to shit with no warning while hundreds of thousands of civilians were sleeping.
I’d assume we’ve lost more ships to Al Qaeda (see USS Cole) than anything the Houthis could do.
Still, this is an escalation. Last week, we were pretending that the missiles flying at our ships “might have not been aimed at us”. This week, we’re officially saying that the Houthis are shooting at us. That’s an escalation for sure. But we shouldn’t have been pretending that the 25+ missiles launched at us last week were… like… what? I don’t even know what we were trying to argue.
We’ve absolutely expended far more resources navally in Sadam, Sadam 2, Iran, Afghan and Isis then we’ve done with the Houthis… to my knowledge each of those conflicts involved some carrier born air support.
We shot like 700 cruise missiles the first day of Iraq 2003 IIRC.
I do wonder what the Houthis are thinking of here. We’re obviously holding back right now.
Calling this a “sea conflict” after a Saudi-led coalition has been committing genocide against the Houthis with weapons and other assistance from the US for almost a decade is either EXTREMELY ignorant or COMPLETELY disingenuous and gross journalistic malpractice either way.
The US media is using this sort of language to manufacture consent for yet another war in the middle east. Is this group the de facto government of Yemen? No, they’re just “Houthi rebels”, so we’re doing Yemenis a favor by getting rid of them. Is it a reasonable military tactic to fire on the warship of a hostile foreign power that’s been bombing the shit out of you? No, it’s an “escalation”! How dare these rebels strike first, we didn’t do anything to them!
The US media is using this sort of language to manufacture consent for yet another war in the middle east.
Absolutely.
Seems like attacking a military target rather than civilian targets would be a de-escalation; the US would much rather have their military ships just defending themselves rather than having to defend all civilian shipping in the area.
Better ar warships than at civilian cargo ships
