In Yemen, there is more of Trump’s “peace through strength” policy being carried out, for all the world to see.
Yemen, a small country and one of the poorest in the Arab world, is doing all it can to stop Israel from carrying on its genocide of the Palestinians.
The United States and all of the West, both of which claim for themselves the label of “civilized,” supply the weapons and the cash to help Israel get the killing done more efficiently.
And then the United States, with everything it has, is attacking Yemen—to make sure it cannot stop Israel’s genocide. What a twisted world we live in! From this we are to understand that when the West carps on about “our values,” this must include genocide. Killing massive numbers of people, mostly women and children, is part of Western “morality.”
It used to be that Americans always stood up for the little guy. Not Trump.
The policy and approach of Yemen is simple and logical—use geography to best advantage and control the Red Sea, so no ship supplying Israel can get through. Without supplies, Israel is a lame/dead duck. In fact, Yemen has severely damaged, even crippled, Israel. Hence, America’s fury. And Yemen says that it will stop the blockade as soon as Israel stops killing Palestinians. In fact, it did just that when Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire.
Actually, the Houthi attacks have inflicted significant economic damage on Israel by disrupting trade, increasing costs, straining defense systems, and prompting emigration, while also creating broader global economic repercussions.
Cleverly, the Houthi have targeted shipping routes in the Red Sea, a critical passage for global trade. This has led to a slowdown in traffic through the Suez Canal, driving up the cost of goods and affecting Israel’s import-dependent economy. The Israeli port of Eilat has been largely inactive, forcing goods to be rerouted to Mediterranean ports like Haifa and Ashdod, which has increased transportation costs and consumer prices.
Israel has reported several monthly budget deficits exceeding the government’s target of 6.6 percent of GDP due to the economic strain from the attacks. The consumer price index reached its highest level since October 2023 in August, reflecting the inflationary pressures caused by the disruptions. Additionally, Israel’s ambition to become a regional hub for liquefied natural gas production has suffered a setback because of the complications and expenses associated with accommodating large tankers at its ports.
So far, the Houthis have launched over 200 ballistic missiles and 170 drones at Israeli targets, severely testing Israel’s defense capabilities. Although many attacks have been intercepted, the sheer volume and sophistication of the assaults have strained Israel’s air defense systems, including the much-vaunted Iron Dome. This has led to increased military expenditures and a focus on countering the threat, further impacting the economy.
The extended military operations and economic pressures have prompted thousands of middle-class Israelis, including skilled professionals, to emigrate. This represents an additional cost of the conflict, as it leads to a brain drain and further economic instability.
The Houthi campaign has not only affected Israel but also created global economic disruptions. The attacks have led to expensive detours for shipping, increased supply chain costs, and a selective strategy that disproportionately affects countries with links to Israel, such as those in the EU and Egypt.
Most important of all— Israel’s reliance on maritime trade has been exposed as a strategic vulnerability, about which Israel can do nothing, other than to get the USA to bomb.
But what about the United States?
To begin with, the United States has been fighting Yemen for over a decade, with its military engagement intensifying in 2015. The U.S. initially launched a counterterrorism campaign against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen in the early 2010s, following the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in 2009 by AQAP. In March 2015, the U.S. began providing logistical and intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition’s military operations against the Houthis, marking a significant escalation in its involvement. Despite President Biden’s announcement in 2021 to end “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen,” the U.S. continued to provide defensive support, including logistical and intelligence assistance. In this decade long war on Yemen, the U.S. has failed spectacularly.
And most conveniently, few now seem to/want to remember Operation Prosperity Guardian.
This was a U.S.-led multinational naval coalition launched in December 2023 to secure maritime trade routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Twenty countries sent their brightest and the best to finally finish off Yemen—and got their proverbial backsides handed to them. It was hyet another spectacular failure.
But for the Trump camp, this failure is easily explained—Prosperity Guardian failed because, well, because Biden was involved. But now that Trump is again attacking Yemen, there will be final victory, because Trump is the greatest commander-in-chief in the history of the galaxy and for all eternity. No human being can ever again be more brilliant in military matters than Trump. Ergo, the Houthis are toast.
But recalling that wise adage, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” few seem to want to remember that Trump was going to finish off the Houthis during his try as president—from 2017 through to 2020, he was in constant war with Yemen. And got his backside handed to him. We do not know how much all this cost (likely billions), and a large number of civilians were killed—again, we do not know how many because the U.S. will not release such figures, especially of how many civilians it kills in its many international misadventures.
But it seems that Trump learned nothing in those years of bombing the Houthis, because he is back trying it again. All indications say that he failed yet again.
So far, the Houthis have shot down 10 Reaper Drones, each of which costs anywhere from $30 million to $50 million. These drones are the most sophisticated tech that the U.S. has, and yet these “goat-herders,” as Senator Tom Cotton calls the Yemenis, can easily shoot them down. They’re quite good at it, actually. The USA admits to only two drones being shot down. Who are you going to believe?
And the Houthis are also firing drones and missiles at the USS Harry S. Truman, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, which Trump has sent down. There is only problem. The carrier has a The Mk 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) is a modular, below-deck missile launcher. Once the VLS is empty, it cannot be reloaded at sea due to several design and operational limitations. It has to be taken to the nearest port and reloaded. And this likely why the USS Carl Vinson has been sent in, because it has the VLS; the logic being that Truman and go to port and get reloaded, while Vinson covers up. The Houthis, no doubt, know this well.
The Americans who like to scoff at “goat herders” seem not to understand a crucial point. The Houthis are a highly sophisticated military force, capable of challenging powerful nations like the USA. Their military prowess stems from years of conflict, strategic alliances, and advanced weaponry. They are also dismissed as “Iranian proxies,” which is far from the truth. Although they have Iran’s support, they act independently, and get much of their arms supplies from others (such as China).
In fact, while Trump 45 was busy fighting them, by 2017, the Houthis demonstrated the ability to independently launch medium-range ballistic missiles like the Burkan-2H. This suggests that they developed operational autonomy in missile deployment. The Houthis have manufactured drones such as the Qasef-1. These drones have been used extensively. The evolution of the Houthi arms industry highlights their transition from reliance on external support to a more independent war machine capable of sustaining prolonged conflict.
Most important of all, the Houthis have mastered asymmetrical warfare. For example, they deploy armed drones worth a few hundred dollars against expensive Patriot interceptors costing over $1 million each. This asymmetry has made their counterattacks increasingly effective, and thus devastating for the Americans, and their proxies, the Saudis.
This is the reason why the Houthis are not easily intimated by American attacks, and the air raids that Trump is conducting on them are war crimes, because of the high number of civilians being killed. American bombs are never precise.
The Yemenis will win, because they stand against the most horrific crime of our times—the genocide of the Palestinians by the Israelis.
One of the smallest and the poorest countries is now the moral center of the world, doing all it can to stop the genocide of the Palestinians. The world is seeing such, crimes, killings and torture by the IDF again on social media, enabled by the might of the United States. This scream comes because the killing of Palestinians is widely understood as the collusion of Israel and the United States.
Perhaps Trump should read the story of David and Goliath, despite his Vice President’s prayer for “victory.”
