The governments of both the United States and Britain launched a large-scale aerial assault on roughly 72 targets inside of Yemen, in what they announced was a response to attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The actions that were taken were a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty, a declaration of war without parliamentary or congressional approval, and, as always, mainstream corporate media have worked to completely butcher reality.
On October 19, the Ansarallah (Houthis) movement, joined by the Yemeni armed forces, announced that it was joining the conflict between Gaza and Israel, launching a series of drone and missile strikes against the southern Israeli-owned port of Eilat. The announcement came in what Yemeni officials, based in the nation’s Capital, Sana’a, called a response in line with the popular calls from their people; fight in defense of the people of Gaza. On November 19, following a series of other attempted attacks on Israeli territory, Yemeni naval forces boarded a shipping vessel off the coast of Yemen, announcing that all ships affiliated with Israel would be prevented from traveling through the Red Sea on route to Israel.
It was not long before Yemen’s armed forces would announce that any ship attempting to reach the Israeli port of Eilat would be prevented from doing so. Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, which leads the government in Sana’a, has stated that it is preventing all shipping to Israel, implementing a de-facto blockade, in order to prevent acts of Genocide. South Africa has formally accused Israel of committing acts of Genocide against the people of Gaza, and so, under the Genocide Convention, this is the argument as to why they are closing the Red Sea to any trade conducted with the Israelis. Ansarallah has made it repeatedly clear that its actions against Israel will cease when the Israeli military ends its war on Gaza, even beginning its blockade with the offer to allow ships to pass into the port of Eilat — that are not owned or operated by Israelis — in return for allowing sufficient aid into Gaza alone. Yemen is said to be blocking roughly 10 billion dollars (USD) in cargo per day, from reaching the Israelis.
Despite publicly issuing countless warnings and contacting ships individually to turn back, trade vessels decided to attempt to pass through the Red Sea on route to Eilat regardless, resulting in dozens of security incidents. Importantly, Yemeni naval forces have not killed a single crew member on any trade vessel in the Red Sea. Yet, the US navy, which deployed into the territory without a UN Security Council mandate to militarize the area, launched missile strikes on Yemeni boats on December 29. The US strikes killed 10 Yemeni sailors who were affiliated with the Ansarallah Movement, triggering a response in the form of missile strikes on a US ship.
On December 18, US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, announced the multi-national “Operation Prosperity Guardian“, which brought together European and Commonwealth nations, along with Bahrain, to allow the passage of ships to Israel, in order to prevent economic damage to the country while it commits war crimes in Gaza. After a number of nations decided to withdraw from the naval coalition, the US operation — funded with taxpayer dollars, without congressional request or popular demand — proved a resounding failure as Yemen’s naval forces continued to carry out operations that would prevent shipping to Eilat. It is in this context that London and Washington decided to carry out a dual attack against Yemeni territory, launching precision-guided munitions at over 70 targets that they say belonged to Ansarallah and would help in preventing them from continuing its blockade. Despite claiming that the strikes were effective at neutralising the Yemeni threat to ships destined to dock in Eilat, only 5 Ansarallah soldiers were killed and we have since seen that ships are still unable to travel to the Israeli owned port. It is said that the Ansarallah blockade has caused an 85% drop in activity at the port.
What has become clear, is that the Ansarallah Movement has proven effective in carrying out its duties towards aiding the suffering people of Gaza. Other than proving its military capabilities, the Ansarallah-led Yemeni government’s move can only be seen as having two other motivations. The first being that it is proving to the Yemeni people that it will stick to its word regarding standing up for the Palestinian cause. The second being that it feels morally compelled to take its current course of action.
Mainstream Media Disinformation About Ansarallah (The Houthis)
Although the lies, distortions, and misrepresentations of the situation in Yemen today are so numerous that books could be written on the topic, it is important to confront a few of the most prominent pieces of disinformation about the Yemeni government based in Sana’a.
To begin with, the Western corporate media are not even using the correct name for the Yemeni movement, known to its own people as Ansarallah. Across Western media they are called “the Houthi rebels”, “the Iran-backed houthi rebels” and an “Iranian-proxy group”, all of these descriptions are designed to undermine the legitimacy of the movement and rob it of its real position as the leading party in Yemen.
The Ansarallah movement emerged to power after a popular revolution against then-President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in late 2014. Months later, in 2015, Hadi was forced to resign, following the deterioration of a power-sharing agreement between Ansarallah and his government; that had been de-facto deposed as a result of the nation’s revolt. Hadi then fled the country, to Saudi Arabia, after Ansarallah militants had decided to take over by force, seizing the Presidential palace. That same year, the Saudi government later decided to form a regional coalition to launch a war against Yemen, in order to remove the newly instated Yemeni governing force, that received the backing of two-thirds of the official nation’s armed forces. In the midst of a seven-year war, the political, social, and armed movement has operated as the de-facto government of Yemen. Ansarallah and the General People’s Congress (GPC) set up what is known as the Supreme Political Council of Yemen, which then led to the formation of the National Salvation Government. This government, based out of the Capital city, has a Prime Minister and cabinet of Ministers and rules over some 80% of the nation’s population.
In the corporate media and even on X (formerly twitter) notes, you will hear/read that Ansarallah are not the internationally recognized government of Yemen. This is technically true, the United Nations has not officially recognized the Yemeni government that is based out of Sana’a as the legitimate governing authority, opting instead to recognize the ‘Presidential Leadership Council’ (PLC) that was created in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022. The PLC is without a President, has no real control over Yemen’s population, and is comprised of Saudi-backed politicians that are often languishing in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. Ansarallah has control of Yemen’s civil authority, the majority of the armed forces of Yemen, has a range of political factions including socialist, tribalist, nationalist, and Islamist elements, a real governing authority with actual functional positions, and is engaged in a civil war with the opposing factions being Saudi-backed forces, the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), the al-Islah Party (affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood) and then a range of al-Qaeda/Daesh linked groups.
Ansarallah are not a “rebel group”, they have not been a “rebel group” since 2015 and are the only governing party that has the popular support of the majority of Yemen’s population. The US and UK have actively been involved in providing Saudi Arabia with the weapons and logistical and political support to wage a regime change war in Yemen since 2015. This horrendous war has resulted in around 400,000 deaths, the majority of whom have died due to the illegal blockade that Saudi Arabia, with the help of the US, has placed on the country. The conflict is purely designed to remove the government that the people launched a popular revolution to install, so that a puppet of Washington, and ally of Riyadh, can take control of Yemen once again.
Despite having largely ignored the situation in Yemen, the Western Corporate media are now focusing in on the so-called “Iran-backed rebels” and work to undermine them as a radical tribal group who aren’t representative of anyone other than the Iranian government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Then we have the claims that the US and UK have been acting in self-defense through operating in the Red Sea and repeatedly striking targets in Yemen. To begin with, Operation Prosperity Guardian did not begin with a UNSC resolution to give it any legitimacy and a resolution that passed in the Security Council that condemned attacks on commercial shipping through the Red Sea came much later. This operation was also anti-democratic and did not occur with any consultation in either Britain’s Parliament or the US Congress, neither did the large scale missile strikes on Yemeni territory.
What truly happened here is that Washington was made to look weak, as its announced militarization of the Red Sea area turned out to be completely ineffective, unpopular, and simply an unnecessary cost to taxpayers. In light of this, the US and UK governments wanted to flex their muscles, and the strikes on mainland Yemen, hitting areas such as Sana’a City and Hodeidah Port, were meant to serve as a show of strength. Yet, again, the strikes only served to show how reckless and ineffective Washington and London truly are. Instead of choosing diplomacy and pursuing an end to Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza, the US regime has chosen the path of violent escalation and targeted a country where it is responsible for the world’s second largest humanitarian crisis. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis, post October 7 2023, is now occurring in the Gaza Strip and is also the result of a US backed war of aggression.
The US government and it’s truly awful journalist-led wing, which we call the mainstream media, are backing a genocide in Gaza and acts of war against the only nation on earth that is fighting on the side of the Palestinians. Nobody voted for, demanded or even had a chance to lobby their elected officials to prevent the strikes on Yemen. What these actions prove are that the US-led Western empire is not only morally bankrupt and will plunge itself into armed conflict to make Israeli goods cheaper during a genocide, but that it’s military power is no longer what it once was and that its capacity to resolve issues through dialogue is negligible. Virtually everything that is wrong with Western elitist rule has been exposed through its actions in Yemen, something that we should all take note of.
Humans have always engaged in fighting and wars against each other. All the great empires that have existed on earth have based their way of life on the Babylonian empires form of government. Human history going back to the ancient civilization of Babylon, created and set up by Hammurabi, is littered with uncountable numbers of dead who were involved in either serving an empire or defending themselves from an empire. Each major empire that has existed has developed ever more sophisticated and deadly weapons with which to fight, wage war and kill each other. Nothing’s changed! As the weapons technologies advanced the numbers of dead serving an empire or defending against an empire increased dramatically, all made possible by man’s industrial revolutions. Now, today, the weapons of war that have been created in the 4th industrial revolution are far more dangerous than have ever existed. The most dangerous weapon, more dangerous than nuclear weapons as Elon Musk stated, is artificial intelligence itself! Why? It thinks the same way humans do only 1,000s of times faster! Humans are in big trouble!
By the way, the most popular immersive video games humans play are WAR GAMES!
You misquoted the WaPo by claiming that the Houthis are blocking 10 billion a day in cargo imports via the Red Sea. The actual WaPo quote: “In 2021, it was a stuck ship that caused massive disruption to global trade. The Ever Given, a 1,300-foot cargo ship, had gotten stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal, blocking an estimated $10 billion of cargo every day. ” So your cargo loss claim is incorrect!
It was made known years ago THEY were going to “take out” 7 nations. The last nation on the list was Iran. The choke points for ships carrying cargo are strategic targets. That THEY will do whatever is necessary to keep them open is plain to see. Targeting and killing Iranian military leaders and those who support them has been and is ongoing. Two high ranking Iranian military leaders were “taken out” in an airstrike carried out by an armed drone in a Damascus suburb recently. More than likely that it was an AI enabled drone. Any military weapons, or transportation systems carrying weapons, or locations where weapons are stored that could be used to attack ships in the choke points are being targeted. It does not matter if they’re in a populated area either.