Biden’s Handwringing Over the Houthis is Going to Get U.S. Navy Sailors Killed

[rangerrebew]

Biden’s Handwringing Over the Houthis is Going to Get U.S. Navy Sailors Killed
By Tim Gallaudet
June 21, 2024
U.S. Navy

This week marks the eighth month of the U.S. Navy’s combat operations against Houthi forces in Yemen. That’s four times longer than the first Gulf War. While Navy sailors have remained vigilant, fighting their ships, and eliminating a portion of their adversary’s combat capability, the Houthis and their Iranian enablers remain entirely undeterred.

Commercial mariners have gotten the message. After more than 50 attacks on shipping in the waters off Yemen, which have killed three, the marine transportation industry has all but abandoned the Red Sea. This caused one Commanding Officer of the Navy ships in the region to call the strategic sea lane a “ghost town.” One must wonder why the U.S. has a Navy in the first place.


The exodus of civilian shipping has only caused the Houthis to concentrate their kinetic effects on allied naval forces, creating the most intense combat conditions since World War II. In a sobering expose this week by the Associated Press, commanders of the U.S. Navy vessels involved described the nearly non-stop barrage of missiles and drones. In each case, the ships had only seconds to respond.

One officer said, “We only have to get it wrong once,” implying that if the Houthis succeed in executing just a single strike successfully, any of the ships could experience what occurred in 1987 when the USS Stark was struck by two Iraqi Exocet air to surface missiles during the Iran-Iraq War, which killed 37 sailors and nearly sunk the ship.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/21/bidens_handwringing_over_the_houthis_is_going_to_get_us_navy_sailors_killed_1039530.html

[PeteS in CA]

So Tim Gallaudet sees no problem with a bunch of pirates forcing commercial traffic to go around the Cape of Good Hope instead of the shorter, more cost-efficient route through the Suez Canal? And Tim Gallaudet does not think such piracy would not spread to other narrow sea lanes, such as the Gulf of Oman? Or the Mozambique Channel? Or even the Cape of Good Hope, forcing ships to give it a very wide berth?

[DefiantMassRINO]

Why is the United States placing American blood and treasury at risk to protect Europe's and Asia's maritime trade routes?

It, at least, should be a international coalition effort to distribute the costs and the risks.

[MeganC]

Why is the United States placing American blood and treasury at risk to protect Europe's and Asia's maritime trade routes?

It, at least, should be a international coalition effort to distribute the costs and the risks.

Looks to me that we're using the situation as live fire training for the Navy. To be honest, let someone else put boots on the ground to wipe out the Houthis. Egypt, which owns the Suez Canal probably has the best reason to go in and get this done. Plus I doubt they'd get all upset over dead Houthis.

[GtHawk]

Why is the United States placing American blood and treasury at risk to protect Europe's and Asia's maritime trade routes?

It, at least, should be a international coalition effort to distribute the costs and the risks.

these terrorists are attacking ships from multiple countries that have navies and air forces so why the hell don’t they get together and do something? WTF is America supposed to be everyone’s protector? Let them escort and protect their shipping.