They weren’t. While you may disagree with US Navy hanging out in the area, they’re in international waters and not trying to go to Israel. You could argue that attacking US ships proves the blockade story is a farce
You don't get to seal off a critical global shipping route just because you happen to be living next to it and don't like where some of the cargo is going
They're attacking commercial shipping vessels passing through the suez canal that have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine or the US. If you knew how how to read or think you'd already know this.
The US is willing to kill untold number of people because otherwise the cheap shirts made by children in Bangladesh will arrive slightly late. I do hope for this evil empire to fucking die already.
No civilians died in the first strikes, and I'm not aware of any sources claiming any civilian deaths in these strikes either, which is probably to be expected given that they were against a military air base.
I'm not going to feel particularly bad about people with the slogan "Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" being killed in combat in a retaliatory military strike.
What are the demands of the Houthis? I know they are Iranian-funded and trained, and that they've been warring with the Saudis for years. But now all of a sudden they are world news for attacking global shipping. I also know they say they are supporting the Palestinians, but that seems like a fig leaf.
You write a lot of without knowing anything about the situation. Very interesting.
Please give me a different reason for the Houthis to attack shipping, it's can't be them standing up to genocide right? is it their scary religion which doesn't mass murder kids in Gaza?
I'm not sure why your first instinct is to insult me when I just tried to engage you in conversation. Why are you even here if you don't want conversation? Are you just looking for an echo chamber?
You can't seriously be partaking in this conversation when you start with "bro what do the Houthis even want they're just firing missles at ships randomly, they are an Iranian proxy fighting for no reason xddd"
Their demands were stated very clearly when they started. Stop the blockade and Genocide on Gaza.
That's not what I said, and your derogatory misrepresentation of my comment speaks to the weakness of your "argument", whatever it is. There are many people who want a ceasefire in Gaza, but they aren't firing missiles at cargo ships. I also didn't say they were fighting for no reason. It seems hard to believe that the situation in Gaza is their sole motivation for attacking international cargo vessels. The Houthis seem to be acting more like a proxy for a country that has larger geopolitical goals that benefit from chaos, like Iran or Russia. Based on your hostile "response", I'm guessing you don't know any more than I do.
They are punishing the west financially for supporting the ZioNazis. Since the west only understands the word money and lacks any basic morals this is an amazingly clean way that the Houthis retaliate in with no civilian casualties.
Would you rather they blew up the Eiffel Tower or something?
That's kind of broad since some people consider the whole conflict a slow-rolling genocide, not just the latest post-October 7 phase of the conflict. Are their demands specific to the current phase of the conflict? Like, if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, will the Houthis stop firing missiles?
I suppose I kind of get their stated motivation. I mean, Western countries are sanctioning Russia for invading Ukraine. The strange part is that the Houthis aren't targeting Israeli vessels specifically. This is more like if Malta was shooting missiles at non-Russian ships in order to convince China to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. It's weird.
The demands seem to be specific to the current phase of the conflict. They want Israel out of Gaza and for humanitarian aid to flow in accordance with international law.
The demands are limited because their goal is to have those demands met, not to be attacking ships. Demanding anything more than what they are currently doing would basically guarantee they won’t be met, and therefore counterproductive. Yemen has other issues they need resources for, a protracted conflict is not the goal. As for why they target non-Israeli ships, it seems they are willing to target ships associated with Israeli allies as well. COSCO, a Chinese shipping company, has stopped doing business with Israel and is continuing to transit the Red Sea without interference from the Yemenis, for example.
The longer route costs an additional million dollars in diesel alone. Even if you don't care about the enormous economic impact, the environmental impact alone is huge.
As far as I'm aware, there have been no reports whatsoever of non-military targets being hit in the strikes. Targeting the infrastructure being used by a non-state group to disrupt the most critical trade route on earth is absolutely proportionate.
The CEOs of those companies should be prosecuted instead, however there is not appropriate legislation for environmental damage in the UK and US.
It is what you're implying. Even in this very comment: you just assume that violence is appropriate for protecting a trade route, but we have to be very nice to CEOs of companies that destroy the environment and use slave labor. Please examine your own biases and see the consequences.
Nonono, you've decided on my behalf, based on pulling shit out of your ass, that I'm cool with companies doing environmental damage and slave labour.
If Amazon set up shop in Yemen and started blindly destroying and siezing ships in the red sea, they'd be getting bombed too.
Additionally, you've presented a false dichotomy - protecting trade in the red sea is not mutually exclusive with prosecuting corporations for climate crime.
I'm not saying you're okay with it. I'm just pointing out that one offense justifies bombs and the other simply suing the boss (while admitting it doesn't do anything). I'm simply proposing we bomb Nestle before Yemen. In Minecraft of course.
Can the US bomb anyone they can't arrest? Don't the Houthis deserve a fair trial by an independent jury? Can any country bomb another country if they feel like it?
I know the answer is that it's because the US it's powerful and doesn't give a damn about people in the global south. But this is a grave injustice and the evil American empire deserves to fall.
Cargo includes food, clothing, fuel, building materials and other necessities of life. Fucking with global trade causes inflation, which primarily affects the poorest people. Also, global trade underpins the peace and security of all 8 billion people on Earth. No one group has the right to disrupt the global system of trade over their petty local disputes. If they do, they should expect to feel the full wrath of the rest of the world. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Houthis are being handled with such a light touch so far.
The whole world watches as Israel commits genocide. The Houthis are brave to try to slow down the massacre of the Palestinian people, even though they themselves have been subject to a brutal war against them by the US and Saudi Arabia. If you care about the poorest people, then hold the capitalists responsible. They raise the prices on the poor and for any made up reason. We've seen this in the last couple years a when they pretended that it was inflation while they hoarded more and more wealth. Let them pay the skipping delay out of their own pockets first.
I do, like the vast majority of Lemmy users, hold the extremely wealthy responsible for a lot of human suffering, but this is a thread about the Houthis attacking civilian cargo ships. Both capitalists hoarding wealth and terrorists attacking cargo ships can be bad at the same time. Whatever you think of the Palestinian situation, the Houthis are currently adding to the sum total of human suffering, not subtracting from it.
Looked at a non paywall source, it was the US advising ships to avoid the area for the next couple days because they plan on doing more strikes and don’t want other ships caught in the crossfire