Houthi Terrorists Still Targeting U.S. Ships in the Red Sea
The terrorists attacked the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, the 30th attack on commercial vessels since November 19th.
Houthi terrorists keep targeting U.S. ships in the Red Sea despite American strikes in Yemen last week.
The terrorists attacked the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, the 30th attack on commercial vessels since November 19th.
On Jan. 15 at approximately 4 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship. The ship has reported no injuries or significant damage and is continuing its journey.
Earlier in the day, at approximately 2 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Forces detected an anti-ship ballistic missile fired toward the Southern Red Sea commercial shipping lanes. The missile failed in flight and impacted on land in Yemen. There were no injuries or damage reported.
On Jan. 15 at approximately 4 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship. The ship has… pic.twitter.com/gixEMaUiVT
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 15, 2024
The Iranian-backed terrorists won’t stop:
They vowed again Monday to continue their campaign against U.S. and international targets in the region in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza. “Anyone attempting to hinder us from doing so will fail,” a Houthi official said Monday.
Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, later said that the Yemeni rebel group would expand its targeting of American vessels. “The ship doesn’t necessarily have to be heading to Israel for us to target it, it is enough for it to be American,” he told the Al Jazeera news network.
On Sunday, our military shot down a cruise missile aimed at one of our Navy destroyers in the Red Sea.
Most of the Houthi targets have nothing to do with Israel:
In recent days, they have targeted a vessel laden with oil from the Russian port of Ust Luga, according to shipping trackers. The vessel had previously been owned by a British company but was bought last year by an offshore entity in the Seychelles.
Before that, a Norwegian vessel that was wrongly linked to Israel in some shipping databases was struck, according to its owner Inventor Chemical Tankers.
“The shipping industry involves such a maze of stakeholders it’s difficult to assign a single nationality to a vessel,” said Ami Daniel, chief executive of maritime artificial-intelligence provider Windward.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Dear President Brandon,
Why aren’t the Houthi terrorists dead yet?
Sincerely,
The United States of America.
Technically, the Houthi’s are NOT terrorists. On February 21, 2021, as one of his first acts, the person occupying the White House revoked President Trump’s designation of the Houthi’s as being a terrorist group. Actually, I suspect that Biden rather approves of what the Houthi’s are doing.
Subotai Bahadur
Just as a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet, a terrorist, designated as such or not, is a terrorist.
The Houthi’s are, in fact, terrorists, and the Biden administrations lies to the contrary cannot change that.
This is not a difficult issue.
Take several F/A-18’s. Add numerous JDAMs. Target, fire and forget.
Problem solved.
Breaking just minutes ago, Iran has apparently fired a barrage of missile at Erbil, striking multiple targets, most if not all presumably ours; Erbil Much of our presence in Iraq is centered in Erbil, for those who may not know.
With respect to the Houthis, ending them as a problem would take a significant investment in resources and time. I just don’t think there’s any appetite to engage in that kind of campaign going into an election year.
Ending Iran would end the Houthis. The way things are going, that will not happen otherwise the Irans spill the beans about their chumminess with 0bama and Brandon. Jimmy Carter is solely to blame for all of this …up until hugs and kisses came from 1600 starting in 2009.
Iran should have been neutralized in 1979, and the have been asking for it ever since.
It’s not like their chumminess is any kind of a secret.
Attacking any civilian maritime vessel is bad. However this particular vessel is reported as registered in/flying the flag of the Marshall Islands not the United States. The owners deliberately chose not to go the expense of meeting the requirements for US Flagged Registration and chose an alternative. I fail to see why the US taxpayer should be involved in providing protection for non US flagged vessels. Let the Nations with large civilian maritime fleets, who benefit from the registry, provide it. If those Nations are unable or unwilling to do so then maybe the shipping companies should consider doing what is necessary to operate under US registration as a US Flagged vessel.
1. Shutting down normal maritime trade means higher prices in the United States of every commodity.
2. If you meant the idea that because Greece has the largest merchant marine and a Greek ship is more likely to be attacked than an American one it should be a purely Greek concern if prices in America go up due to cut off trade as a joke I strongly recommend watching genuinely funny people to improve your sense of humor. If you meant it as a serious policy proposal visit some poverty stricken areas in America and ask yourself “will raising prices on everything they purchase help or hurt them”.
4. We do have large amounts of shipping going through there. Not only that so much of that shipping is literally Indian goods for American factories going through to reach America. Raise the price of that and you raise the price of manufacturing in America.
5. Nobody benefits more from free flow of goods than the United States. It is our economy that hurts when we let it be disrupted.
I really don’t give a dam that there are more Greek than American ship captains, I don’t give a dam that some other countries will benefit more from the actions of the U.S. Navy I care what is in America’s interests and preserving our trade, and preventing artificial pirate imposed price hikes while preserving American honor abroad is 100% in our interests.
I also don’t care if the residents of an American
I really can’t understand a perspective “other nations also have the same interest therefore it can’t be an American interest”. America is by far the world’s biggest economy.
The U.S. navy was literally founded to deal with the Houthis of the early 19th century. Nobody thought to tell Thomas Jefferson “don’t do this it will benefit Naples and Sardinia more than America” because ideology had not yet infested America which still felt her interests justified her actions.
Actually I lied patriotism as an ideology was and is a positive ideology I wish America would re-adopt “Millions for defense not a penny for tribute”.
I meant to say I don’t care about the residents of an American ship paying the right amount of money to officially have the American colors on her deck to count or if it is just our explicit promise to protect the Marshall Islanders we do have an obligation of honor to those under our protection which most definitely includes the Marshall Islands.
Danny,
If prices rise for imports then that’s an incentive for increases domestic manufacturing, mining and resource development in the USA. Which in turn means more good paying full time jobs for US Citizens.
That’s the bottom line here. Make a lot more of our consumer goods at home with domestic materials and resources v importing goods from abroad made by our economic competitors who free ride on our military expenditures.
Your view seems to endorse using the US Military to protect the interests of the very same multinational corporations who closed down US manufacturing and domestic resource development.
You could only do that kind of change overnight to avoid price hikes, and shattered factories that have to pay more for the goods they need to operate overnight in a video game and even then only if you use cheats because remembering video game time in most of them it took your people a decade or so to do it.
Some of the goods being imported by the way really would not be profitable to make in America, and Americans frankly do not want those jobs. If you could make 17$ an hour bussing tables why on Earth would you want a harder more stressful job making carpets for exactly the same amount of money? There are very good reasons things manufactured in America require expertise, and are done by people who are very valuable and are very well paid. The issues that make manufacturing in America hard remain even if America is cut off from the world. What long term fixes are not going to kick in overnight, and most definitely will not be helpful for dealing with a factory that has it’s operating costs go up.
Our economy has issues. The solution is not to let it crash by neglecting current economic interests in pursuit of what it should be.
You also seem to forget that we export to India, and every ship American or not that carries goods from the East Coast to India makes stops in European port of calls first than through the Suez Canal to India.
Cutting those routes off is a direct attack on the profit of American exports.
We have economic interests today, we have economic interests in the trade lane under attack, and I am not ashamed to say so.
At best you could say we could afford the increased prices letting the Houthi Pirates do as they please would produce it is overtly in our economic interests to stop them. Again I have no hesitation to say we need to fight for our interests. That includes economic interests.
Danny
You seem to want US workers to pay taxes to build a military and then send their Sons and Daughters to fight to protect the commercial interests of our foreign competition and multinationals who abandoned US manufacturing long ago.
I disagree.
As big as the US is, if global trade is dealt a serious blow, Americans will be poorer. And if the reduction in global trade also means that world trade is no longer conducted mostly in US dollars, then no one will buy US debt. This will put the the US on an all-but-certain course for destruction–sooner rather than later. America Alone is not equivalent to America First.
Stuytown,
If so then wouldn’t every global trading partner then have an incentive to protect ‘global trade’? What is wrong with asking each Nation to provide a Naval presence proportionate to their proportion of world trade if not as a proportion of maritime fleet?
Anything less is free riding on US Taxpayers twice over. First from the taxes sent and spent on building/maintenance of US Military. Secondly in those same taxpayers sending their Sons and Daughters to harms way.
Finally, many of those Sons and Daughters you want to send into harms way to defend corporate interests had Fathers, Uncles, Cousins left abandoned and unemployed when the multinational corporations gutted US manufacturing and moved production overseas to.save on labor costs.
What happened to #3?
Because the PRODUCTS on those ships are ours. Do you want to live in a world where we’re paying 2x or 3x (or more) the cost of goods because the US won’t protect our shipping interests? If you like inflation today, you’re going to love inflation when shipping of products to America or American suppliers is significantly more expensive because of piracy.
With respect to why companies use ‘flags of convenience’ it’s a LOT more complicated than you pretend. First, the biggest reason US companies use foreign flags is because US shipbuilding doesn’t exist outside of military vessels. Why is that important? Because unlike foreign-made airplanes that can be registered in the US with no restriction, ships that are foreign-made cannot be registered in the US without incredibly restrictive operating limits. You can thank a 100+ year old law called the Jones Act for this.
Worse yet, the only way to get insurance for a US-flagged ship is to insure it yourself. Why? Maritime insurers simply do not want the hassle of insuring US crews because US citizens are too litigious. Americans are so ‘sue happy’ no one wants to hire us. There are many other reasons why US shipbuilding and US shipping has all but gone instinct and almost all of those reasons are created by Congress. In an effort to protect US shipping and shipbuilding, Congress has destroyed US shipping and shipbuilding.
extinct, not instinct.
Don’t worry you made the point very well,
The key point is that ‘OUR’ shipping interests are reflected by the less than 200 US Flagged, registered vessels out of the more than 55,000 maritime vessels registered around the world.
One component of obtaining a US Flagged registration is to operate a vessel built in the USA. Instead the multinational corporations choose to cheap out, save a buck and purchase foreign built vessels.
What you propose is unending military subsidies for our economic competitors and the multinational corporations who, more and more, seem not to give a crap about US workers or US consumers.
The same multinationals who closed down US manufacturing, mining and resource extraction with the help of ideological allies in the green movement. These are the same folks who want open borders to provide cheap labor alternatives to US born workers in what little remains of our industrial base and resource extraction/development.
Consider that in part the American Revolution was taught over this same point. That the colonies must import from British manufacturers and British Companies v domestic manufacturing.
How about we restore our domestic manufacturing base and develop/extract our own natural resources, mine our own domestic mineral deposits? International shipping costs would drop AND good paying, full time US based jobs would be created, all while stopping the military subsidy for Nations which refuse to build and fund the operating and personnel costs of maintaining a Navy to protect their interests.
A Greek ship taking American goods first to Europe than India is not competition, it is a vital lifeline American exports rely on.
The same Greek ship than doing a reverse of that ends with goods American factories need is not harming the economy it is keeping it afloat.
Long term I would love to see the American ship building industry rebuilt.
Short term we defend our economic interests.
Had you and those who share your views been committed to what you say today about domestic manufacturing we would still have an industrial base in the USA and our domestic ship yards wouldn’t have been basically shut down other than for building Naval vessels.
Tell you what you and rest of the neocons push for rebuilding the domestic manufacturing base to include revitalized US commercial ship building. Make concrete commitments to do that as loudly and as well funded as the lobbying for more corporate goodies from DC.
Do that and maybe we can come to an agreement. I don’t believe the current cabal of neocons, the multinationals, the greens and the open borders crowd will buy into it. That’s the agenda you support in your argument, certainly not US workers.
Again, the ships are carrying OUR goods including MANY raw material and component parts destined for US assembly plants.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you understand the subject here. A LOT of commercial ships are still built in Europe, particularly in Northern Europe where the standard of living is virtually identical to ours. But, for a LOT of different reasons – some of which I’ve already mentioned – there are no US shipyards that can compete (or even want to compete) with those European yards to say nothing of the much cheaper Asian yards.
The protectionist laws adopted by Congress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries produced an outcome that was perfectly counter to the goal…which is far too common in everything Congress does.
Again, this is a REALLY complicated subject and I haven’t even scratched the surface of why there is no domestic shipbuilding nor domestic shipping and will never be – can never be – without PROFOUND fundamental changes in our taxing, legal and regulatory regimes.
Absent that domestic shipbuilding/shipping industry, American manufacturers are wholly dependent on foreign shipping companies to bring materials and components to them and then return finished assemblies to international customers.
Y’all argue as if exports are the be and end all of the US economy/GDP.
1. How big a % of GDP do you believe US exports constitute? Hint, it’s way, way less than 50%.
2. What % of US exports go to either Canada or Mexico and thus don’t rely upon long ocean voyage? About 30% ish.
Now back out the substantial ‘services’ portion of exports and even less of our exports are dependent on long distance international shipping.
Then consider what is left. Is the remainder needs or wants? If they are merely ‘wants’ then the buyer can fond a substitute but if ‘needs’ then less easy to find a substitute. Largely the remainder is agricultural exports, oil, refined fuels and LNG; pretty much all needs not wants. Especially so given geopolitical realities.
Trade is important to all parties. If protection of merchant fleets was included into the equation then I suggest that more items would be manufactured domestically by multinational corporations. Just as BMW, Mercedes, Toyota and other manufacturers do.
The Jones act requires that sea traffic BETWEEN US Ports be serviced exclusively by US Flagged vessels operated by US Crews with US ownership.
Are you really arguing against the right for injured mariners to seek redress in court for the negligence of their employer? They still gotta make their case to a jury and prove it just as someone employed in a plant would have to do.
Maybe if the U.S. ships carried personnel that used pronouns correctly they wouldn’t be attacked. Isn’t that team Biden’s top priority?? C’mon man!
The supposed notion of American deterrence under witless crime boss and dotard, Biden, and the rest of the vile Dhimmi-crats, is utterly farcical and manifestly non-existent.
Wars are raging in Europe and the middle east; China’s bellicosity and malignant behavior grows, unchallenged, Venezuela threatens its neighbor with impunity, and, of course, the Iranian regime and the rest of the global, Muslim terrorist cabal are emboldened, flush with cash and enjoying the stockpile of American weapons and materiel that Biden abandoned in Afghanistan.
The destructive global consequences of electing emasculated, feckless, naive, dim-witted and self-reverential Dhimmi-crat presidents are made readily apparent by examining the bitter fruits of Biden’s and narcissist-incompetent, Obama’s, respective rotten tenures in office.
very understated
Enough is enough! Pick out an area of Yemen, a couple of square miles, and level it. Tell them that there is more where that came from if they choose to continue this foolishness. Rinse and repeat. Gaza will look like a pristine surgical operation in comparison.
Supposedly a couple of B-52’s left the States yesterday headed to the Med. Hopefully they will be well stocked with cluster bombs and your wish will come true. More likely not.
The question isn’t can we crush the pirates but will we. The B 52s are a good sign. The last thing we need is another massive round of price hikes.
Using B-52s to bomb Houthi positions is akin to tossing hand grenades into your neighbor’s house to kill mosquitos.
I agree, sometimes transfers are just a message of reassurance, such as assuring shipping that the pirates will be crushed and that they should not panic and abandon the route to them.
We have a history of sending large bombers around as a symbolic show of force (it was the main display we used between the first and second world war).
It also has an intimidation impact. A B 52 is for targeting infrastructure that Yemen is highly unlikely to be able to rebuild easily.
I am not saying it will work just explaining why I think it is a good sign.
Yeah, kinda silly stuff. We know where this ordinance is being launched from. Pinpoint it and destroy a 1 mile square around it while arming the tankers going through the ship with a company of well armed Marines to repel with force all attempted takeovers. Couple this with every Houthi Pirate attack being met with a strike on Iranian Guard installations and soon those asshats will get the idea to not do that
Price hikes are part of the economic ebb and flow. When prices for IMPORTS rise it creates an incentive for more DOMESTIC manufacturing. IOW more good paying jobs in the USA for US.Citizens.
Price hikes are also incredibly contrary to our interests which are a prosperous America.
Price hikes are things the rich could afford that crush the lower and middle class.
Furthermore domestic manufacturing will be hurt. Factories usually operate with very low profit margins, and developing a new industry is not something you could do overnight even in video games (unless you enter a cheat code).
Our economic interests are to keep the straights open.
We also export a lot to India and Europe those routes being disrupted are not in our interests.
We as Americans also make investments. American Middle Class families rely on their investments being protected from pirates.
It is rare for mainstreet and wallstreet to have identical interests but in this case they do.
Economic suffering is not in our interests.
Correction: Pick out an area of IRAN, perhaps oil facilities … every thing else the same. Iran won’t care about Yemen.
Are you ready to declare war on Iran? That’s what you’re proposing.
After all the American men and women they killed in the Sandbox, yeah. That would be nice.
Would you send your children to fight that war?
“Pick out an area of Yemen, a couple of square miles, and level it.”
You do realize that the government of Yemen has been involved in a nine-year-long war with the Houthi rebels, who are trying to overthrow the legitimate government?
Saudi Arabia has been the main target of Houthi attacks. Since 2015, the Saudi Arabian coalition has conducted over 24,000 air strikes against the Houthis. Do you think a few more raids will destroy the Houthis’ ability or will to fight?
What? No one takes Brandon seriously? It’s almost like Obama telling Putin the “knock it off”. These beta males are the downfall of the western world. You would think that after the millions Brandon and Obama paid Iran they would play ball but that is what you get for trusting a Muzzy terrorist state.
“Be nice to the bad guys and they’ll become nice” has never worked.