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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
After Biden came home from his Caribbean vacation, the Deputy Defense Secretary came back from hers and the Secretary of Defense was on the verge of being released from the hospital, airstrikes were finally authorized against the Houthi Jihadis attacking ships in the Red Sea.
Biden said that the air strikes sent “a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes.”
The message was not very clear since the Houthis then struck a bulk carrier owned by an American company and spent the next two months terrorizing the Red Sea. The Iranian-backed terror group which seized control of much of Yemen due to Obama’s Arab Spring has launched even more devastating attacks on ships and has now reportedly attacked an undersea cable, after previously deploying an undersea drone and warning of further “submarine” attacks..
The Red Sea siege has affected shipping and commodities prices all over the world. The U.S. Navy ended a lot of its cargo runs in the Red Sea and so have a lot of civilian shipping firms.
Why have the Houthis been able to not only survive, but to escalate their attacks? Because the Biden administration was never serious about taking them out. The original attacks targeted less than 30 sites from a terror group that had shot off over 1,000 rockets and missiles in the previous 7 years and was clearly prepared for an extended campaign of rocket attacks.
Israel had reportedly dropped over 1,000 bombs a day in the first week of the Oct 7 war. While numbers like these were widely criticized as overkill, they worked. There had been over 6,000 Hamas rocket alerts in the first two weeks of the war. Two weeks later, the number had dropped to over 1,000 and currently stands at less than 100. Israel’s massive assault had worked.
Biden’s occasional pinprick attacks barely even slowed down the Houthi attacks.
After the first round of U.S. strikes, right before Biden flew off to Raleigh, North Carolina to promote his plan for subsidized internet, there was a remarkable exchange with a reporter.
“Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?” he was asked.
“Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes,” Biden replied.
No one in the press seemed interested in following up the very strange statement. If the airstrikes aren’t working, why carry them out? Was there a plan to step up the strikes? No.
After the initial wave of attacks, the US Navy shifted over to what it euphemistically called “defensive air strikes” against Houthi missiles or rockets that had already been launched or were being prepped for launch. The constant reports about “defensive air strikes” made it sound as if the United States were constantly bombing Yemen, when the US Navy had been allowed to do the bare minimum to prevent and survive more incoming attacks. It wasn’t enough.
Two weeks after the original raids, as the Houthis continued their attacks, Biden authorized follow-up air strikes on a mere 8 locations. A week later, a tanker had been hit and was burning. In early February, Biden signed off on a third round of attacks hitting 36 targets across 13 locations. In the coming weeks, the Houthis shot down the second of two U.S. drones
After multiple Houthi attacks and damage to an underwater cable, Biden now signed off on a fourth round of attacks that hit 18 targets across 8 locations. Will these stop the Houthis?
As Biden already admitted after the first round of attacks, they won’t. But that’s not their purpose. The goal is to maintain some sort of balance of power against the Houthis. The Department of Defense regularly issues official warnings to the Houthis that there will be consequences. But the only consequences are the occasional light air strikes on old Yemeni air defense capabilities and rocket:, some of which date back to the days of the USSR.
So far two American Navy SEALS are dead and Iran has control of the world’s shipping.
And how many of the Houthi Jihadis have been killed? After an initial naval battle in which ten of the terrorists were killed, the Houthis claimed that only five of their men were killed in Biden’s first round of airstrikes. The funerals of another 17 were held after the third round of strikes.
That would make for a total of 32 dead terrorists after two months of fighting the United States.
Are the Houthis understating their casualties? Maybe. But a New York Times article on the Biden administration’s intentions stated that the strategy represents “the administration’s attempt to chip away at the Houthis’ ability to menace merchant ships and military vessels but not hit so hard as to kill large numbers of Houthi fighters and commanders, and potentially unleash even more mayhem into a region”. As if ceding the Red Sea hasn’t done that already.
Chipping away at their arsenals while trying to minimize Houthi deaths has failed miserably.
What is the Biden administration doing wrong? Apart from scale, it’s trying to target Houthi drones and missiles, and some air bases, preferably right before they’re about to be used. This is the same approach that failed in Iraq and it’s also the same approach Israel used to use against Hamas also in an effort to deter attacks, minimize casualties and avoid escalation.
And then Oct 7 happened. Since then, the Israeli military strategy has been to destroy Hamas forces as functioning units rather than target its rocket stockpiles. And it worked. Hamas, like the Houthis, had learned to fire off rockets or drones from disposable locations before running away. Even when rocket stockpiles are taken out, the terrorists can go ahead and build more.
Rockets can be replaced, but organized forces that have trained together are harder to replace. That’s what Israel demonstrated. And it worked. Even though Israel didn’t specifically focus on taking out Hamas rockets, the rocket attacks dropped sharply because there’s no one to shoot them. When rockets are targeted, the terrorists run away and regroup, but when the terrorists are targeted, they have to keep running, so they don’t have the time and space to regroup.
(That is what the proposed hostage deal and the various calls for a ‘ceasefire’ are really about.)
Biden is unwilling to target the Houthis and so they keep attacking.
After two months and over four rounds of larger attacks, the Houthi command and control operations, and their forces, remain intact even if they lost some infrastructure along the way.
This might be excusable if, like Bush in Iraq, Biden really believed that what he was doing would work, but he admitted in a direct quote to the press that he knows what he’s doing won’t work.
Beyond the damage to shipping and the prestige of the United States, two Navy SEALS are dead because the commander-in-chief pursued a military strategy that he knew would fail.
Biden had two options in Yemen. He could either hit the Houthis hard or let them do what they wanted. Both were politically untenable. It would be too politically damaging to go into the primaries inflicting sizable casualties on an Arab Muslim terror group that his pro-terror supporters love and now chant at pro-Hamas ‘ceasefire’ rallies, “turn another ship around.”
But doing nothing while shipping slowed down and prices rose would also be damaging.
Given a choice between alienating the country and his party’s terror supporters, he chose a middle ground of ‘show’ strikes like the kind that Bill Clinton had deployed against Osama bin Laden that will avoid offending terror supporters but also will not end the Houthi attacks.
This strategy serves no one except Biden who has sacrificed the nation’s prestige, a major international waterway and the lives of two U.S. Navy SEALS to win an election.
Remember, he was against taking out bin laden.
What else do you expect from someone that’s only focused on crooked shenanigans. I mean, he did steal his partner’s wife, for one.
And he got that wife. Would any good man want such a woman?
I sure as Hell wouldn’t, even if she were attractive. It takes a weak man to marry a prostitute.
America as usual is not fighting a war, they are playing games. Enemies have to be destroyed.
Trump wasn’t kissing the rings of the Enemy like Clinton Obama and Biden have
Good point, but I’d argue that it isn’t their rings that jug-eared Barry & Sleazy Joe are kissing.
Jug-Eared Barry doesn’t have knee pads for no reason and Sleazy Joe’s lips are so glued to Xi Ping Pong’s butt he knows what Xi ate for breakfast.
Could you imagine Alzheimer Joe on vacation in the Caribbean? Sitting in the kiddie pool sipping an Imodium A-D cocktail in his waterproof diapers and yelling “hey you kids, quit kicking that sand in my face!”
I hope his nurse caregivers put off road wheels on his wheelchair to push him along the beach to look for sniffable and gropeable pre-pubescent girls. Good thing he’s too slow to catch them in or out of a wheelchair. I bet he has a bag of kiddie candy with him wherever he goes. I hear buzzards have good eyesight but he always squints so apparently he only LOOKS like a buzzard. He must have a buzzard’s famed sense of smell though, because he sure sniffs a lot of kiddies.
I mean, what does a decrepit old dementia case who can’t dive, snorkel, wind surf, fish, dance, or even walk more than a hundred feet without keeling over do there? He can’t even go on a boat trip because he’d probably fall off and drown. (If only.) All he probably did was drink Caribbean rum punch out of a sippy cup with a little umbrella in it while Commander dumped landmines in the sand and used the Secret Service agents as chew toys. Why even go on vacation if you don’t even know where you are at any given time? Fake Dr Jill could’ve just helped him shuffle around the backyard of one of his many ill gotten estates and told him he was hiking Chinese mountains with Xi Ping Pong, or turn on Sesame Street and let it babysit him until nappy time.
What a waste of a great vacation spot.
Just visualize a stage for PinocchiJoe to deliver a speech about 20 feet offshore.
Yes but chum the water first.
mke sure there are at least a few stealth “suspiciously weak planks, a few of them close together.
The Houthis are an islamic tribal issue and largely a problem for the Saudis NOT the west. The Saudis, once again, are dragging us into their tribal conflict.
Why is this happening? Because they are extremely wealthy because WE extract their oil and WE ship it and WE process it, they do NOTHING.
But hey, the military industrial complex continues to be subsidised.
Yes, for some reason the Houthis saw fit to hit the Saudi internet with their cable cutting exercise. Hopefully it will have affected BACS payments to Hamas and download of soft porn in Qatari hotel rooms. Unless of course this is a Shia/Sunni issue as well as being anti-Israel?
Using a strategy that can’t win.
In many ways the same strategy as in Viet Nam. It seemed there was never any will to win.
Vietnam was lost on the inner psychological front. The policy of military action sending messages to the enemy, instead of victory, was a failure then. Th enemy flag was flown in the US at that time as it is today.
Not to mention Aff Ghani Stan.
That’s the goal, alright.
TaliBiden is doing all he can to support Islamofascist terrorists and it is all about appearance. He is a tough as a block of cream cheese and has the same number of brain cells
Two things to reflect on.
1] These islamic thugs in Yemen saw that clumsy/cowardly abandonment of Afghanistan. It confirmed what all of America’s enemies already knew – Sleepy Grifter Joe is soft, weak, and stupid.
The ONLY resolve he’s ever demonstrated is his love for accepting bribes, and his bitter hatred for American patriots, and they see that also.
2] Bush41, B. Hussein, and Sleepy Joe imported (and continue to import) the jihadists onto our shores. They flung the gates wide open for jihadists to walk right in.
They vote for democrats.
They protest like hyperventilating infants.
They cash welfare checks (to train for bombing marathons).
They wait for the right time.
Trendy leftist idiots believe Martha’s Vineyard, Kennebunkport, Chappaqua, Malibu, & other liberal enclaves will remain safe, but as muslims like to say “you have all the watches⌚, but we have all the time.
“No one in the press seemed interested in following up the very strange statement.” The press knows that Biden is a wrinkled up imbecile and will never print anything negative about him or any Democrat. The news media is in the Democrat protection business. But if it is a Conservative, Republican, or a Christian – all of them become “journalists” and have to report all the dirt whether it is true or false.
Christians are all “Christian Nationalists” now and a dire threat. It’s the latest Dirtbagocrat campaign meme pushed by the party and its fake news media propaganda arm.
Islamopithecine jihadis are victims, of course.
If you like what Despicable Joe ‘does’ with the Sand People of Yemen, just wait until he ‘takes on’ the Chinese or Russians, if heaven forbid it ever comes to that (four our own sakes, at least!)
It’s going to be a super tough lesson for the toadies. Unfortunately, it will very heavily impact we citizens too. The real question is what will they want us to do after losing.
Citizens of foreign nations believe America is in decline especially after the 2020 election. Therein was the real message to the World.
What “they: will be wanting us to DO afer the mess is irrelevant. At that point all bets and fetters weill be off. We WILL do precisely as we want, bcause at that point we’ll have nought else to los. It will be all or nothing. All in. To the finish.
The Houthis are Iran in the way that the French foreign legion is France. Biden believes that Iran should be the hegemon in the Middle East. The isn’t much more to it than that.
Kill the HEAD of the SNAKE! That should be OUR POLICY! If you are in charge and your group attacks US then YOU will be the FIRST casualty! And then work your way down, but at the same time hitting their infrastructure and bases with a devastating attack! Make it SO PAINFUL that no one would even THINK about it! Our policy for IRAN should be to target the mullahs, the IRG, ports, airports, communications, and leave the minions to mill about looking for direction! I would bet that if the mullahas and irg were taken out the NORMAL Iranians would take care of the rest and possibly return their Nation to a CIVILIZED society! Possibly!!
There are three ways hese houthis MUST be hit:
Hard, Fast, and Continuously. Until they fight no more.
As mentioned in the piece, take a hard look at how Israel are comporting themselves. They are, after only a couple months, well along the path of destroying and breaking the enemy in their own lair. Those israelis realise they are i this game to the nd, and are playing fir keeps. We are playing footsie with the floozy across the table.
This is the consequence of a stolen election.
I can’t believe I believe this, but it’s somewhat apparent the Biden doesn’t even drop a load in his diaper without asking his Chinese paymasters what he should do next. 10% is a lot of money coming in for the “family”. And after decades of getting away with it, they ain’t stopping now.
True and good points.
And that nothing is done about it by Congress points to the ineptitude of our politicians and the lack of ability by the majority to recognize the problem and what the crook has done and continues to do to us. Nine more months to see whether enough citizens have awakened.
I wish I could believe the Congress are only inept. There is another term that ends with the same letters that I fear IS the correct term.
About that dangerous and deadly jihad group ,the Houthis . It was reported in the newspaper THE EPOCH TIMES February 21-27 page A19 that “The Houthis repeatedly targets American assets, shutting down down the Red Sea . In response, the Biden administration could only muster pinprick strikes and faux terror redesignation. The Houthi aggression continues.”
That article also reveals that the Houthi is a proxy jihad entity of Iran.
Of course that despicable fiend ,Joe Biden still strives to do everything that he is able to do to uphold and support that hostile Anti -America and anti-Israel Islamic tyrannical regime of Iran.
Walter
Yes, Jihad Joe has given the mullahs even more billions than Bareback Hasbeen Osama did, and I didn’t think that was possible.
Those malice-filled vicious and deadly savage jihadists of the Houthis are nothing but stooges of that “mullah regime” of Iran. Even though they tools of those Muslim tyrants in power of Iran, they’re nevertheless very dangerous. Therefore, the only fitting way that they should be dealt with is by a very strong power of military might. Not by the token half-hearts strike, that Joe Biden ordered.
In contrast to that fool Biden, the wise words of Thomas Jefferson are the appropriate and right way to handle the menacing problem the Houthis jihadists.
For Mr. Jefferson had, rightly, declared, “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
I’m not surprised, not surprised at all. We haven’t won a war since 1945, no, not ONE. Was Grenada a war? I don’t know what our Military is for any more.
Reagan’s little war prevented Grenada from hosting a Soviet/Cuban air base. It also got Guyana to not provide a deep water base for Soviet submarines. That was a win. Biden has provided America as an enemy base.
It now only exists to keep the military/industrial cabal in cash. The military hardware we don’t use, shooting off $1m missiles to blow up a tent with two guys in it, we give to the dummies fighting proxy wars for us. Whatever it takes to get the next years nearly a trillion dollars is what it’s really for. We’ll keep fucking around until somebody fires off the first nuke and brings this idiocy into clear focus. We citizens will pay the price with our lives while the politicians and magnates head for their bunkers.
There is obviously no interest in DC to stop this Houthi stuff at all. The only things necessary would be to bomb the Iranian oil terminal and then pull up a navy cruiser division and let the houthi have it for a few thousand rounds of 8″ ammunition. It won’t happen so you have to wonder what the pay schedule to Bush, the mulatto messiah and Brib’em is.
You’ll have to ask Ratheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, et. al for that information. While your at it, ask about the members of Congress getting checks or lucrative jobs after their terms are over.
Give credit where credit is due. At least Biden’s attacks on the Houthis didn’t land in Mexico.
not yet anyway.
Since Yemen is a failed state and no adults are in the room to control the tantrums of the Houthis, then the United States is justified in mining the harbors of Yemen. If the Houthis want to put in jeopardy civilian shipping sea lanes along with international military ships in the Red Sea, then all civilian and military shipping coming and going from Yemeni ports should also share the risk of being blown up.
Why are we losing?
Because the Biden regime is functioning like a DOUBLE AGENT.
DEMS outwardly support Israel while covertly supporting the Islamists.
It’s pretty obvious.
We have the capability to identify and track, from origin/launch to final target, anything moving. Whether from orbiting satellites, fixed-orbit craft, high and low altitude fixed wing craft (why not dust off a pair of the trusted and feared U2?) manned and unmanned, and drones deployable from land or waterborne craft.
Deploy a pair if carrier groups, one to the north, a second to the south. Any time a suspicious “event” is observed on land or in or under or from airborne sources, determine what it is, where it originated, and where it appears to be going…. if it appears to be about harming any shipping in the entire area, destroy it immediately. Since its source was already located and identified, send whatever it takes to turn it into beach sand. If a water craft of any sort, tell them to go and chat up ol Davey Jones. One way ticket. If two rockets are deployed from a neighbourhood, don’t just vapourise the actual launch sites. Be generous and spread the “love’ round the entire neighbourhood.
Will innocents die? Not really.. because that rocket launched from some guy’s garage was there with his knowledge. So it’s HIS rocket, thus HE bears responsibility.
It won’t take a month to turn the whole mess about.
Bu Dopey Joey is NOT Netanyahu. Is he?
It’s tough to win any “war” or “police action” when the leftist watch word seems to. be: Kill no enemy. Our rules of engagement focus on avoiding so much as a civilian hangnail. In a fight with irregular forces this means we can’t distinguish between combatant and non-combatant camel botherers, so we only focus on infrastructure that Iranian petro-dollars plus Obama/Biden pallets of cash can easily replace. Democrats have turned our once feared military forces into a laughingstock of professional losers.