The Houthis are better than us

Houthi fighters brandish their weapons (machine guns and rifles, yes, but also knives, saws and hatchets) on March 28, 2025, in Sanaa, Yemen.  Dig the gun-toting 10-year-old boy on dad's shoulders, top center-right. 

So Pete Hegseth has been in the news again recently.  

If you've been living in a cave (which is where Thee Optimist often wishes he was living), Hegseth is the current United States Secretary of Defense, appointed by Donald Trump, and narrowly confirmed by the United States Senate. 

Indeed, so narrow was his confirmation, that Vice President JD Vance had to appear and break a 50-50 tie.  

This is because Hegseth is a chronic alcoholic and FOX News blowhard, who can't keep his dick in his pants.  

These are apparently the personal character traits that Trump believes qualify Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense.  Hegseth's actual military resume qualifies him to be a local public affairs officer.  

As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth is so far out of his intellectual depth (recall that the poorly-programmed automaton Lloyd Austin was his predecessor), that his very presence is allegedly creating chaos at the Pentagon. 

All of this is fine with Thee Optimist.  

In fact, the idea of "chaos at the Pentagon" is sweet music to Thee Optimist's ears.  Having an incompetent, drunken, bad is good, up is down, Bizarro World Secretary of Defense is the kind of comedy we need.

But what does this have to do with the Houthis?

Pete Hegseth - drunk at work, serial philanderer, accused rapist, and now classified intelligence leaker.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

During World War II, the clever monkeys at the United States War Department (later cleverly re-branded as the Department of Defense), came up with an advertising slogan that has remained in the American lexicon ever since.

Broadly speaking, "Loose Lips Sink Ships" means be careful of loose talk, because you never know who might be listening.

Since his appointment as Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has been the poster boy for loose lips.  Yes, I know he is drunk most of the time.  But even so, his behavior is hilariously beyond the pale.

From March 11 to March 15, Hegseth was instrumental in the infamous, classified-intelligence leaking group chat, using the private communication app Signal.

Yes, other incompetent boobs were on the chat, like Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard.  Gabbard told Congress she couldn't remember where she was when the chat was going on.   

And yes, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was the one who accidentally included an editor from The Atlantic magazine in the chat.  

And yes, the name of a deep cover CIA agent was mentioned.

But Pete Hegseth was the one who actually shared classified intelligence about impending American airstrikes against the Houthis of Yemen.  

Below is a partial transcript of what Hegseth shared with the group (including, as I indicated, an editor from a magazine) on an unsecured communication app, BEFORE the attacks happened. 

Yes, I know.  He was drunk.  Drunk people do things.

Please do click to enlarge.

Words fail me.

But that's not all, is it?

No.  Incredibly, in another Signal chat on March 15, Hegseth apparently shared details of the upcoming airstrikes against the Houthis with his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer.

The problem with sharing classified intelligence is you're not supposed to do that.  See, because the enemy could then get their hands on it and act to thwart these carefully laid plans.

Which leads us to the elephant in the room, and the actual point of this post.

The Houthis.

The closed and bankrupt Israeli Red Sea port at Eilat.  Repeated Houthi missile attacks over the past 18 months have made Red Sea shipping largely untenable.

Who are the Houthis? 

In American media, you will often see the Houthis referred to as "the Houthi rebels."

This is an interesting sleight-of-hand used by the media magicians.

The "Houthis" referred to in news reports are an armed Shiite Muslim group whose real name is Ansar Allah, or "Supporters of God." 

The Houthis themselves are the clan that leads Ansar Allah.  Ansar Allah are "rebels" in the sense that they are the de facto rulers of the country of Yemen, controlling the capital city, and the land mass where 80% of the country's residents live.

The United States government (and nutty media outlets like FOX) generally just refer to them as "terrorists."

For his part, The Donald tends to mock them, publicly threaten them, downplay their civilian casualties, and go on unhinged rants about them. 

 

Typical Donald J. Trump presidential anti-Houthi social media post, complete with ALL CAPS SECTION!!!

So why are we attacking them?

Since 2015, Ansar Allah has been under concerted attack by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the United States, and England.  

The territory of Yemen has been bombed by the US and these other countries literally thousands of times, leading to widespread infrastructure collapse and famine.

Indeed, until 2023, the Yemenis were generally considered the worst-off, most impoverished, most devastated by war people in the entire world.

We have been bombing them for the past decade, first of all because they are allies with Iran, and most recently, because they are attempting to defend the Palestinians from the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Since the beginning of the genocide in October 2023, the Yemenis have declared that they will put their money where their mouth is, and defend the Palestinians with everything they've got.

Mostly what they have done is attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea with missile strikes.  Red Sea shipping was an important source of revenue for Israel.  

I say "was" because Red Sea shipping is now at a standstill as a result of Houthi attacks, and the Israeli Red Sea port at Eilat has closed and gone bankrupt.  Most ships that would have gone through the Red Sea now take the long way around Africa.

The long way around.  Three thousand nautical miles and 10 extra days.

All of this is important to absorb.  Under international law, it is the duty of every country (and even non-state actors) to try to stop an ongoing genocide, by whatever means are available.

See related article:  Yemen is acting responsibly to stop genocide and the U.S. is bombing them for it

Ansar Allah is among the only groups in the world who are actively trying to stop the Israeli genocide.  As a result, they are absorbing ferocious punishment by the US military under the Trump administration.

Thing is, they've absorbed a lot of punishment already.  They are often compared to the Taliban, that other tough-to-beat ragtag Muslim militia, who somehow outlasted the US military across two decades of war. 

Most military analysts suggest that bombing the Houthis some more isn't likely to stop them for long.

Words of Wisdom

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

- Malcolm X