After U.S. and British strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen killed 16, the Houthis announced that they'd launched a counter-attack on an American aircraft carrier. If only we had known about it.
No, seriously. The idea that the Houthis launched an attack on our military was apparently a surprise to our military, which promptly noted that not only was no damage done to the ship they claim to have targeted, but no missile was ever detected.
Talk about a crushing reprisal, at least rhetorically: The Houthis publicly assert they struck back with commensurate force and we apparently didn't even notice.
According to Reuters, the attempted counter-attack on the USS Eisenhower, which is currently in the Red Sea, came in response to Thursday attacks that killed 16 and injured 41, a spokesman for the group said on Friday.
"Strikes on the province of Hodeidah targeted the port of Salif, a radio building in Al-Hawk district, Ghalifa camp and two houses," Reuters reported.
The outlet continued: "The U.S. and British militaries said they launched strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Thursday to deter the militant group from further disrupting shipping in the Red Sea.
"The U.S. Central Command said U.S. and British forces had hit 13 targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen."
While Western forces are in the Red Sea to protect ships from attacks by the rebel forces -- which control much of Yemen, including the capital -- the Houthis insisted that the "brutal aggression" was in response to the group's backing of Hamas in its war against Israel.
Iran, the Houthis' sugar daddy, seconded the notion that this was all about Gaza.
"The aggressor U.S. and British governments are responsible for the consequences of these crimes against the Yemeni people," said Nasser Kanaani, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson.
To the extent there is a bit of truth to this, the Houthis' attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are supposedly in support of the Gazan cause. In reality, it's little more than another attempt by Iran and its proxies to expand its conflict with Israel and the West, one which has met with mixed results.
Whatever the case, one would expect that the attack should have prompted reprisal -- if the Houthis were able to manage it.
And, while they claim to have at least tried, the rhetoric sounded a bit more like one of those infamous "Baghdad Bob" media briefings during the early stages of the Iraq War -- where a spokesman for Saddam Hussein's collapsing government assured everyone that Iraq was crushing the infidel invaders.
While Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree told the media that the Eisenhower was targeted with its missiles, numerous outlets -- including Reuters, Business Insider and Al Arabiya \-- confirmed with U.S. officials that the claim was false.
Now, given the situation, it would be difficult for the United States to hide the damage to the aircraft carrier that's spearheading American response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. So, either they managed to intercept the missiles and are pretending that the attack never happened, there was some sort of malfunction after the missiles were fired and Americans weren't able to detect the incoming projectiles on radar, or it simply didn't occur.
Whatever the case, this manages to neatly sum up what the Houthi rebels are to the West: an annoyance, and a potentially deadly one, but not a match for U.S. might.
Of course, the Houthis have been an issue for America that goes back to the Obama administration, which shirked its responsibility to properly police the malignancy growing on the Yemeni body politic.
Democrats then attempted to kneecap any attempt by former President Donald Trump's administration to deal with the Houthi problem once and for all. Under President Joe Biden -- who's been reluctant to engage with any of Iran's proxies directly in the vain hope that the nuclear deal with Tehran can somehow be salvaged -- the Houthis have been more or less ignored until they started disrupting shipping lanes. That finally woke Washington up.
Let's hope that they stay awake -- and that further engagements prove the utter impotence of the Houthis' offensive power.
