Kids were killed but the chat leak was funny and that’s what has been the people talk about instead.
Imagine being the poor family, who is stuck living in Yemen because they cannot afford to relocate, whose kid has died by Trump’s bombing. Then all you see in the news about how they joked with emojis in chat killing your kid. “Oh your kid was killed in that emoji airstrike.” Tell me why the fuck you would grow up anything but radicalized.
That’s because anyone who has been paying attention to geopolitics over the last two years knows why the US is bombing Yemen…
Yeah, just to be clear. One of the targets hit was a residential high rise building. Local authorities are reporting over 50 people killed.
The target was one, alleged, terrorist and the building, according to the Houthi PC small group message log, was the building of the target’s girlfriend.
So, the US just killed at least 50 civilians in order to kill a single target. Just to give you a rough idea of the kind of ‘collateral damage’ that is acceptable.
Houthis are the only international actor acting in open military opposition to the genocide in Gaza. They are doing their best to enforce a shipping blockade pending a cessation of Israeli war crimes. The US obviously wants the genocide to continue, as well as all shipping trade through the area.
No one is surprised by America indiscriminately bombing and leaving 150 casualties.
My dude this war in Yemen has been going on for like 10 years. If the idea of bombing Yemen sounds out of left field to you, then you are woefully uninformed.
I had the opportunity to live in Berlin for a year. I made friends with a group of Yemen students. All of these people had friends, family or relatives bombed to death. Over the course of 2 weeks, one person lost 3 relatives to the bombings…
These people were sent to Germany to study and be as far away as possible from the horrors at home. Away from friends, family, everyone.
I was told that after flying to somewhere near Yemen, it would have taken another 16 hours to travel by road to get home. Their parents refused them coming to visit because it was just too dangerous.
I don’t know how they managed to hold their shit together and carry on even as their families were getting bombed back home.
It broke my heart and I felt powerless to even attempt to comfort them. I’m sure they felt a sense of powerlessness that’s beyond anything I could understand at that time.
It’s crazy when you realize, “oh, shit, they’re just people.” I don’t mean it in an insulting way. I had that experience, too. Travel certainly helps. It’s not even necessarily that you don’t believe that before, just maybe that you didn’t know or hadn’t even thought about it, because who can know everything. But then what was previously vague/unfamiliar words in sporadic headlines in the background is suddenly very real and personal, standing in front of you. It’s a gut punch.
I love living in a multicultural place. I think I’ve personally met someone from almost every country on earth.
I realized I very much do, too, as I got older and had more say in the matter, but I didn’t grow up like that.
Me neither. Makes me appreciate it more, I think.
To think, we can have all that right here in the US of A.
Thanks MAGA!
Sounds par for the course in the USA.
People are literally surprised when somebody reads out actual policy which was signed into law and who voted for it.
Because our entire election cycle isn’t spent on policy, but character attacks.
To be fair, there’s plenty of material to attack, so I guess they get distracted.
Yeah I blame the citizens over the candidates at this point. Everybody should be educated on what they’re voting for, not whom.
Agreed that everybody SHOULD be educated. It’s definitely POSSIBLE to become informed, but holy fuck man, it shouldn’t take this much effort.
Blaming the citizens is insane. If you think that a large enough percentage of the voting population is capable of even FINDING digestible unbiased information… I don’t know what to tell you. I’m more informed than the general public and I didn’t even have a reliable source. I want something that doesn’t just explain the contents of every piece of legislation, but also the impact, knock-on effects, and true underlying motivation. Getting a full picture that I trust involves cobbling together multiple sources and attempting to filter out biases and conspiracy theories.
Who has that kind of time? Most of us out here are trying to keep our head above water and not spiral into unrecoverable debt. There are centuries of people in power molding their constituents into complacency through systemic oppression to ensure this is the case. The average person has a government sponsored education and is religious. They’ve been indoctrinated with a pledge of allegiance and a set of values that everyone around them seems to follow. Few folks have the disposable income or the desire to travel outside their bubble of comfort and develop empathy for someone unlike them. People who are informed know that the root cause is capitalism, which has been peaking in the last few decades with lobbyists and citizens united. The average person wants to ignore politics, if they do vote, they vote like the people in their community. For them, a vote isn’t something that’s done to better the country, it’s something that prevents them from being ostracized.
Congress has every bill ever introduced and its current status, every roll call, all of the contents of it all, etc listed online for all to see.
Wikipedia has summaries of every major political event in the last 3 centuries in great detail and citations to their sources documented.
Finding information is as easy as taking a simple look. Literally everybody can be educated about medical care, citizens united, immigration statistics, election fraud statistics, etc. They’re not trying.
Oh, yeah, let me just read entire fucking hundreds or thousands of pages long pieces of legislation in my free time so that I may be an informed voter… smh
You just need to look at a few important ones. Hypothetically, a rural american might be incredibly distressed by Republican economic and healthcare policy. An urban third party voter might be flabbergasted that the things they fight for all these years were actually core DNC platforms constantly called to vote and filibustered by the GOP. Etc.
It’s a problem that was fixable 40 years ago. I think it’s too late. We’re too stupid and too drama thirsty to care about boring things such as public policy.
Anyway, I hear Jane Kardashian has a new bracelet! Did you see it?
Plenty of blame to go around.
Because they “didn’t vote for that”. They voted for lesser evil, which includes bombing Yemen for a decade. The spoiler effect is obvious to fellow voters, but incomprehensively arcane to lawyers.
God I fucking wish we voted for the lesser evil.
For the record, in 2014 Yemen began a civil war and the Obama administration backed the GCC intervention into Yemen, fighting against the Houthi revolutionaries, in 2015 alongside the UN Security Council issuing an Arms Embargo on the Houthis. The US support was logistical and intelligence. This has unfortunately continued to this day, although the previous Biden Administration did publicly announce a withdrawal of that support, but continues sale of armaments to Saudi Arabia who leads the GCC due to condemnation of their strikes on civilians. (The Houthis also strike civilians, mind you).
TBH I think maybe a more forceful approach, a direct intervention to establish a governance complete with minimal casualties and to provide welfare, to the situation at the end of Obama’s term or the start of the Trump term might have been better than just pussyfooting around and letting Saudi’s commit the warcrimes instead. Either that or doing nothing at all and allowing them to kill each other all on their lonesome so as to keep our own hands clean.
Another thing I’m not taking into account with this retelling is the whole proxy-war angle wherein Houthis and Saudis gaining support from various outside influences impacts their own allegiances in economic policy and that by not participating it would leave a gap for another world power to establish a different governance in the region that explicitly supports said world power. The whole region is an important economic position for oil and gas as well as shipping between Europe and Asia.
Specifically the war stats when The Houthi Militia pulls out of a coalition government and attacks the capital.
The Houthi Militia are not the innocents in this war. They started it.
Also, the Houthis are being armed by Iran who is financially supported by China in exchange for oil, and I hate China so that’s another negative in my book.
10 years? since 90s more like
What’s your point? The 90s were only 10 years or so ago…
It restarts in 2014. There was a coalition government that the Houthis withdrew from. They started the civil war.
I thought it was like surplus bomb housing country for old USA bombs to retire?
/s
They’re bombing the Houthi’s in Yemen because the Houthis have been launching Iranian missiles at ships in the Red Sea since 2023? Including the US navy (don’t touch the boats) and Israel. The houthis are currently holding hostage a number of crews of merchant ships
They leveled a building to hit 1 target
The MAGA movement have no care about what the administration does, especially when it comes to non-americans in a country literally none of them coudl identify on a map. But if you show them “look how poorly this bombing was planned and carried out” then maybe they will listen.
The Houthis, is a Zaydi Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaydi Shias, with their namesake leadership being drawn largely from the Houthi tribe. The group has been a central player in Yemen’s civil war, drawing widespread international condemnation for its human rights abuses, including targeting civilians and using child soldiers. The Houthis are backed by Iran. The Houthis emerged as an opposition movement to Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they accused of corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Both are really serious problems in their own right, one’s just a little closer to home
Are you actually asking?
The Houthi’s are an Iranian controlled terrorist organization that have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November 2023.
The Houthis have sunk two vessels and killed four crew members, forcing a lot of shipping to Europe to be diverted around the South of Africa.
The US and allies have been fighting the Iranian-backed Houthis for over a decade, this is just a recent resurgence following the war in Israel.
You know, I don’t question what you have said; however, this group chat has put many asterisks on this whole situation. I believe one person in that chat has said something to the effect of: “remember the narrative, Biden’s fault and Iran backed.” Makes me less sure about the whole story and motivations.
I mean I’m sure the Trump admin has alternate motives, since they lie about everything, but the US has definitely been bombing the Houthis in Yeman since at least 2016.
Here’s an article from the Guardian dated in late 2016 announcing the US first strike on the rebel group.
If you’re not sure about the story and motiviations, did you spend any time on looking up what actually happens in Yemen?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/22/every-shot-fired-are-yemens-houthis-a-proxy-force-for-iran
It’s always going to be Bidens fault, and Obama’s fault, and Clinton’s fault. Whether it’s terrorism or egg prices or the economy or <insert whatever issue here>
But that doesn’t excuse Iran’s behavior either.
The country that is constantly bombed by Isntreal or harrassed by the US?
Exactly, also Houthi attacks on ships flared up when Israel started the Palestinian-genocide. Of course no party is innocent, but people always blaming Iran is rather bizarre.
even the Arab press concludes that Iran is illegally backing the Houthi
I have no doubt in my mind that they do.
The question is, is it the fault of “evil Iran”. Or is it multiple parties fighting eachother, and they all share blame. Obviously Iran sides with the Shia minority in Yemen. What do you suggest they do, leave the entire Middle East to the US/Israel/Saudis? If the response here is “evil Iran”, then we’re missing the bigger picture. The Saudis, the US, Israel, Iran, everyone backs all sorts of groups wether it’s in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen. The frame of Iran as an evil agrssor country and for instance Israel as an innocent victim is in fact, rather bizarre. And why do we NEVER talk about the Saudis? Perhaps because it happens to be our ally and we like their oil? Oh no but Iran is evil, so they are and always have to remain our enemy. They all share blame for the mess that’s been created in the Middle East. As long as the frame is “the enemy is evil” we’ll never find common ground, move beyond all these proxy wars. Of course Iran is also to blame, but Iran is also protecting legitimate Shia interests.
the Saudis are the problem
their oil, IS the problem
their strangle hold on their religion is why they are fighting with Iran. It’s the Troubles on a much higher scale.
stupid rich assholes fighting over the religion while ganging up to throw shots at the mutual ancient enemy religion of the region
The “funny” thing is always when Saudi and Irani diplomats at some point go “hey at the moment this whole proxy war thing really isnt working for us, could we please work together for a while?” and then most of the pointless killing and attacking in the middle east stops for a while.
And you realize once again that they are not actually enemies to death or anything like that. For them, it’s just a “power struggle” for influence in the region.
And Vance said something to the effect of, he didn’t want to do it because it would benefit Europe more than it would benefit America.
Sure bro.
That justified blowing up the apartment building the target’s girlfriend lived in.
Because it doesn’t just make more Houthis every time.
I never said the attack itself was justified. I only answered the question.
A more targeted strike was possible, and it’s reprehensible that one was not chosen.
The target himself was a legal target even by the most strict interpretation of armed conflict international law.
That may be true, but there is one consistent lesson we can learn from US history.
Don’t. Touch. The. Boats.
That is an amazing event.
Why are you responding to tragedy with a fucking meme
Because it’s a great way to summarise this ridiculous situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
Iran did something similar in the late 80’s. Iran began to mine the Persian Gulf, international waters, as part of the Iran-Iraq war threatening oil shipments passing through.
An Iranian mine struck an American warship escorting an oil tanker. Prompting the Americans to bomb the fuck out of the Iranian navy. Don’t want to be bombed? Don’t attack American warships in international shipping lanes.
Especially with this racist and blood thirsty regime that doesn’t give a fuck about silly things like “civilian casualties”.
Claiming that the Houtis are Iranian controlled is sheer missinformation.
Yep and it’s much easier and cheaper just to send in a bunch of drones that end up killing a few hundred innocents than to send in special forces that find the target with precision. And that in turn would be a lot easier than to stop actively funding regional genocide and try to calm the situation down diplomatically.
A targeted strike was absolutely possible. So many innocents did not need to die.
It’s to make us forget about the “group chat” (see how familiar and nice it sounds too, group chat). Damage control.
Someone else can probably explain better than me why the “group chat” is not just a group chat but a massive abuse and illegal thing to do.
The Federal Records Act was violated several times due to the disappearing messages feature of Signal they were utilizing for their plans. Jeff Goldberg took screenshots of the messages before they were automatically deleted when all Federal Records are legally required to be preserved for archiving and may not be destroyed except under specific parameters that they obviously did not follow.
https://www.ed.gov/about/ed-overview/required-notices/federal-records-act
Also, by using Signal, which is a secure end to end encrypted messenger, the vulnerability that is built into the desktop sync feature where messages aren’t locally encrypted can result in enemy and adversarial nation states collecting these messages due to them being stored on an infected device which can compromise the mission and risk lives.
They could also have their accounts and subsequently their messages hacked with their information widely publicly available to hackers.
Firendly reminder that this was the real issue with buttery males/but her emails: that Hillary Clinton was using a private email server to circumvent these laws.
And every other US government employee that knowingly emailed to or from that server is also complicit.
Yet another legitimate problem tossed out with the bathwater because it got associated with the maga crowd. Very handy, that.
Point of order. These laws were written because of Mrs. Clinton’s server. She wasn’t circumventing shit, because the law hadn’t caught up to technology, technically it still hasn’t, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.
The reason it got “forgotten” is that after they wasted years and tons of money trying to find something to charge her with, they came up empty handed, since it really was just a mistake.
This is bullshit. I’m old enough to remember when the Bush administration setting up their own email servers to avoid these very same exact laws was a big issue for the Democratic Party.
They updated the laws since then. The Clinton administration was the one that passed the laws that W Bush was flirting with breaking. As far as I remember, they also didn’t actually break the established law, they just got close enough that the Dems started screaming about their precious rules and norms.
HWBush didn’t actually have much in the way of laws binding him, but his administration didn’t bother with the Internet. Whitehouse.com was a porn site until '97-'98
The Houthi’s are enforcing their ban on ships headed to or from Israel to enter Yemen’s water territory. They did this as a sanction on Israel because Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people. When the US and European countries started bombing Yemen for enforcing their law, they also banned US and some European ships from entering their waters. During the ceasefire they lifted the blockade, and since Israel ended the ceasefire they started banning ships again.
This is simply false.
The Houthis are not a state. There are a rebel faction in a civil war in Yemen.
Even if it were the Yemen government banning ships from it’s waters it’s can’t do that by international law. They don’t own the whole strait.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bab-el-Mandeb
Lastly, a UN resolution passed that outlaws this behavior.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_2722
This is like calling the US now a rebel faction in the civil war in the British Empire.
We won.
America is its own country.
Ansarallah won. The conquered basically all of the territory except for a few towns held by another faction with whom Ansarrallah made peace with.
All of this while under continuous air attacks from Saudi Arabia w/ US intelligence, refueling and weapons. Meanwhile the US supported a complete blockade, including food, into a country that at that time imported 90% of its food.
Once they are recognized by the UN, they can legally act as the legitimate government of Yemen.
The UN isn’t the world police, in case you didn’t know
No, they are the world legislative body.
Of course no country can be forced to follow the UN’s laws, but they are what we call “international law”.
If the UN don’t recognize you, you may be the only government in your country, and you may even be the legitimate one, nationally speaking.
But you won’t be internationally recognized as legally in charge of things like shipping lanes.So that means that for a country to be legitimate, it has to be accepted by every member of the security council? You’re not a legitimate country unless Russia, China, and the US all like you enough? That’s BS.
If the Houthi’s are going to enact a shipping ban then I assume they’re willing to accept the consequences of enforcing the ban.
If the US and UK are going to support genocide, then I assume they are willing to accept the consequences
The Houthis are a tribe. The majority (though not all) represented tribe within the government of Ansarrallah, a government that formed during and won the civil war when Saudi Arabia tried to steal Yemen.
Calling them Houthis is racist and makes as much sense as calling Americans ‘Kennedys’
They have not been attacking shipping. They have been enforcing a naval blockade of a country committing genocide, something that is a legal requirement under international law. When Israel was “abiding” (or abiding as much as Israel ever abides) during the peace treaty, Ansarrallah dropped their blockade. If this is about shipping, the easiest way to stop this would be to stop applying arms to a state engaged in ethnic cleansing.
America has never been at war with Yemen. We got sucked into supplying Intel and support and weapons to Saudi Arabia under Obama because of all three weapons purchases from Saudi Arabia.
Finally, Iran has done very little in support of Ansarallah, in comparison to other countries that are majority Shia.
Calling Ansarrallah Iranian controlled is about as accurate as calling Israel American-Controlled. It’s just another racist way to try to justify the murder of civilians. You know, the unjustifiable except to fascists like the person I’m responding to.
How do we feel about the Houthis killing civilians on trade vessels not bound for Israel?
I wouldn’t know, since a single tribe (a good amount whom aren’t members of the government) hasn’t done that.
Oh cool. OK, how do we feel about the armed combatants from Yemen repeatedly attacking civilian trade ships not connected to Israel?
I’m genuinely surprised it took this long for the US to retaliate.
The US and international allies have been frequently attacking Houthi rebels since January 2024.
There were even memes about it.
The memes may have started in 2024. We started attacking the Houthis in 2016-2017
Definitely, but I was more referring to this recent bout.
It didn’t. It just took this long for people like you to realize it’s been happening.
They have been bombing them since they started. It just didn’t stop the blockade, just like how this one won’t.
The amount of times Republicans said “we killed terrorists” during the congressional hearing, without even once considering that the 53 fatalities from an indiscriminate air strike likely included innocent civilians, is revolting.
With US track record a majority if not all of those 53 people were civilians
This is why the US and Israel get along so famously 👍
If you kill 1 terrorist and 52 civilians, um no you didn’t, they were all terrorists. Problem solved.
#murder #justkillin
You’ve also just cemented the idea that the West is evil in the families and friends of those 52 innocent people, thereby ensuring a steady supply of fresh new “terrorists”.
And the global war on terror continues forever, and “defense” budgets increase forever. All as planned.
Killing 52 civilians to get one terrorist seems like a bit of a fuck up though.
yeah that’s because that’s not what happened, there were multiple targets, not just one. that signal chat directly mentions “mutliple targets”, it could be 5 it could be 15. if goldberg stayed in this chat maybe we’d know how many exactly
weapons mix suggests that at least some of these were chosen to limit collateral damage (two F18 sorties, Tomahawks launched - these could be used against hardened targets, like bunkers or caves, and targeting shifted from weapons to leadership, but probably not completely - but also drones, and drones can’t carry heavy weapons like F18 can)
In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US labeled any “military aged male” casualty as an “enemy combatant” even if there was absolutely zero evidence they were.
As proven by the fact that the young men related to those 52 people all joined terrorist organizations after the fact.
