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US warship and multiple commercial ships attacked in the Red Sea
- newsclues 3y ago[flagged]
- kevindamm 3y agoRestraint is not necessarily a show of weakness. The rebels behind the attack claimed only to have attacked two Israeli vessels but did not claim (possibly did not know) an intended attack against the US ship. Retaliating in this case would definitely escalate the fight, there are many good reasons to avoid doing that.
- newsclues 3y agoIf showing restraint leads to repeated attacks, it's weakness. This has been going on and escalating in the region for years, including the attacks on Americans in Iraq and Syria. It's not just "rebels" it's groups sponsored by Iran, which is a formidable foe, but clearly restraint is just passive permission to carry on. As someone that would have deployed to region, maybe I tolerate leadership weakness less than people who would be sitting comfortably at home.
- feedforward 3y agoWell the US Navy has already been attacking pirates there, in addition to weapons and military advisors to the Ukraine, patrols in the South China Sea and paying for (for the first time since Nixon visited China) weapons to Taiwan, plus occupation costs in Guantanamo Bay against the Cuban government's wishes, troops stationed on the North Korean border, naval patrols off the Venezuelan coast as New sanctions are considered, and the navy also sending more ships to the Persian gulf recently - there are still those (like yourself) who want even more money given to the military industrial complex in pursuit of US worldwide imperial goals. Of course they monetarily benefit from.this (as you yourself said you do). Myself I would rather the money go to fix bridges and schools in the US than bomb Gazan children etc.
- newsclues 3y ago"there are still those (like yourself) who want even more money given to the military industrial complex" I didn't say that. It doesn't cost anything for the Commander in Chief to authorize the troops to defend themselves. The weapons are already bought and paid for. Pretty dishonest to put words in peoples mouths.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sampo 3y ago> Restraint is not necessarily a show of weakness. But that is how those people read it, nevertheless.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jjtheblunt 3y agoOne might argue that a covert response at an unpredictable delay is a more impactful deterrent
- newsclues 3y agoGenerally deterrence is most effective when acted upon immediately. Nations are like children or criminals, if they do something wrong, you need to immediately act, in proportion to the action, to punish the bad behaviour. If you wait, people think they get away with it, and then when the eventual punishment catches up with them, they take it personally rather than attributing it to their actions. Please read up on the theory of punishment.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoAnd you, please read a few things beyond the "theory of punishment". Read some things about international relations. Read some things about game theory. And read what a Pyrrhic victory is.
- dun44 3y ago[flagged]
- katmannthree 3y agoIt certainly makes sense at first glance. Have you read the houthis flag?
- dun44 3y ago[flagged]
- brap 3y agoLet me translate their flag for you, literally: “Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse be the Jews. Victory to Islam”
- WJW 3y agoFYI, the Houthi flag literally says "death to America" on it. They've made their position pretty clear.
- dun44 3y agoAnd North Korea is actually a Democratic People's Republic. I wonder if you believe TV commercials honestly reflect their company's views too?
- hh3k0 3y ago> Not really, no. Well, perhaps have some basic knowledge of the topic at hand before oversimplifying the matter by simply paraphrasing "cui bono", effectively hinting at heinous Jewish scheming being the crux of the matter.
- dun44 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
- LiquidPolymer 3y agoThese are the kind of events that may lead to a greater expansion of the Israeli/Hamas war. These Iran-backed Houthi rebels are increasing bold as is Iran's military actions around the region.
- dun44 3y agoCalling it an Israeli-Hamas war is a manipulation. Israel isn’t fighting against Hamas, it’s fighting against civilian population (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1210831466/death-toll-gaza-israel-hamas-conflict https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1210831466/death-toll-gaza-is...) which happens to include some Hamas members. Hamas wouldn’t exist if not for continued Israeli occupation and genocide.
- godzillabrennus 3y agoIranian backed Yemen military forces shooting an Iranian missile into American ships means the USA needs to respond. The question is how proportionally. Last time Iran attacked a US warship they lost half their navy in eight hours. This time we seem to be trying to de-escalate and not trying to pull them into a larger war. Not that Israel and Saudi Arabia would hate to see the military capability of Tehran neutralized…
- IAmGraydon 3y ago>Last time Iran attacked a US warship they lost half their navy in eight hours. It’s truly weird how much I see this mindless comment exactly duplicated with zero context. Context: the Iranian Navy consisted of very few ships.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoSource please? I'd like to read more about this. Because according to wikipedia- 5 Iranian ships were sunk during Operating Praying Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
- ceejayoz 3y agoThree of those are "speedboats" (these sorts of things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashura-class_speedboat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashura-class_speedboat), and one's a "gunboat". Only one of the five vessels (the frigate) lost would typically be called a "ship".
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoYeah. It also says that the US showed mercy after hitting the other frigate with a 500lb bomb and allowed it to limp away. They've edited their post- they originally claimed Iran had two ships in their navy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hersko 3y agoThey've done this several times now, has there been any significant retaliatory strikes? Isn't this a threat to international shipping? How is this not a bigger deal?
- f6v 3y ago> They've done this several times now, has there been any significant retaliatory strikes? Against who? Some guys in the the Yemeni desert? Saudis have been trying that for years.
- EA-3167 3y agoIt is a big deal, but what do we do in return? Iran is using their Houthi proxies to carry out these attacks. So do we attack Iran? Attack the Houthis who are pretty much living in similar circumstances to people in Afghanistan? Without turning this into a regional, all-out war, how do we respond? Now if something like the USS Cole attack happens it will be out of our hands, we'll have to respond and damn the consequences, but until then we'll probably do things covertly.
- throwawayqqq11 3y agoHave you forgotten about the US backed saudi bombings of yemen? Maybe this is just their retaliation. This self rightousnes ... as if the us main land was bombed.
- sgift 3y agoIn Yemen Saudi-Arabia leads - with help from the US - an intervention supporting the internationally recognized government against a terrorist group backed by Iran. So, who should retaliate here? The government that asked for help? Terrorists can not retaliate, at least not rightfully. They can gtfo of Yemen though.
- f6v 3y agoI don’t know if this is a joke or not. But let’s assume you were serious. Was it Houthi who bombed weddings/funerals?
- solardev 3y agoThis article has better info: https://news.usni.org/2023/12/03/carney-shoots-down-two-drones-in-red-sea https://news.usni.org/2023/12/03/carney-shoots-down-two-dron... > While downing the first drone – believed to be launched by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen – [the destroyer USS] Carney saw a ballistic missile land near MV Unity Explorer, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier. The destroyer then sailed to the bulk carrier once it put out a distress call. According to an initial account of the incident, several hours later, Carney was evaluating the damage to the carrier when it shot down another drone.
- berserk1010 3y ago[flagged]
- bushbaba 3y agoThat would lead to China facing an existential threat, with more instability in Southeast Asia. A better approach might be to encourage the world to move more quickly to renewables and nuclear power, reducing the need for oil backed energy.
- berserk1010 3y agoUS and Europe are already very much in the process of detaching from China. We as conscientious consumer just have to help speed it up. China is also already retreating into itself. China won't matter in 20 years.
- jmyeet 3y agoThere's a lot of overly simplistic and just plain wrong thinking by WEstoids when it comes to the US. Most notably, Muslims and Arabs in particular are viewed as a monolith. This is Islamophobia and racism, pure and simple. For example, there is the Sunni vs Shia split. There's also the Arab (Saudi Arabia) vs Persian (Iran) split. It's dangerous to make policy decisions on this basis. Here are some things worth considering: 1. US support for Israel by itself creates negative sentiment and blowback in the Middle East. This is actually by design. The US seeks to destabilize the Middle East. It's one of America's "unsinkable aircraft carriers" [1] but it's more than that. Biden is on record as saying "If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one." [2]; 2. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are also of key strategic importance to the US. Turkey is in NATO and is a key force against Syria, Iraq and Iran. The US placing nuclear missiles on Turkish territory also instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis; Saudi Arabia is a key counter to Iran's influence in the region; 3. US arms were used with the blessing of the US in a genocide in Yemen against these same Houthi rebels. The point here is that the Houthis have their own reasons to be mad against both Saudi Arabia and the US that have nothing to do with Iran; 4. Iran is not an irrational actor. They seek both to counter US influence in the region and increase their own influence. They're doing nothing that the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia aren't guilty of doing. Iran is used a bogeyman by US propaganda to deflect away from atrocities committed by the US and its allies in the region. Iran wants normalization of relations but won't become a client state to do it. Nor should they have to. Let's not forget, the US played a huge role in the creation of the fundamentalist government of Iran by supporting the 1953 coup. It seems like the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have no concept of the idea of blowback. Committing and supporting genocide is always going to have huge negative consequences. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier [2]: https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-u-s-would-have-to-invent-an-israel-if-it-didnt-exist-why-210172 https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-u-s-would-have-to...
- bushbaba 3y ago> Committing and supporting genocide is always going to have huge negative consequences. Lets not down value the meaning of Genocide. There’s not a genocide ongoing in Gaza or Yemen. War sucks, and the civilian casualties are roughly in line with other conflicts. You do realize significantly more civilians have died per militant death in ww2, Vietnam, Korea, Mosul, afghan/iraq, etc? The Israel-Gaza conflict has a fairly low Civilian-casualty ratio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
- bushbaba 3y agoThese events make you appreciate just how great we have it, and how fragile it is for us to loose it. Thank you to the U.S. soldiers and all others who risk their lives to allow us in the west to live in relative peace.
- stormdennis 3y agoWestern meddling in the ME is the cause of much/most of the instability there, not least Britain's enabling of the settler colonisation of Palestine by European Jews. Today America is supplying the munitions for Israel to indiscriminately bomb the people earlier displaced by that colonisation. Yes, thanks a bunch America.
- loeg 3y agoI don't buy that. Without western intervention, after eliminating Israel, the arabs would just continue fighting amongst themselves with more Iran and Saudi funded proxy wars.
- stormdennis 3y agoIran isn't Arab and anyway what gives America the right to decide who rules where?
- throwawayqqq11 3y agoThe "mission accomplished" afterwards. That how history is written (for the dumb).
- yread 3y agoBut Iran is funding the Houthis who are
- gedy 3y agoI'm not sure why/when "anti colonialism" became a free pass to kidnap, rape, and slaughter innocent civilians, but if that's what it means now, I'd prefer it to even be a British colony than whatever the "anti colonialists" want.