Interregnum games
In an interregnum period, you see a lot of maneuvering - games without real strategic effect-- and it is hard to know what is really happening. The ball is kicked back and forth but there are no real goals scored.
So it is recently with the Houthis— who have shot off two “Palestine Two” missiles at Israel. That’s not a lot and the IDF says it shot both down. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t— the Israelis never admit to losses if they can somehow avoid it. They lie. Just as the US does. Just as the MSM does.
I ‘m not saying that the Houthis are necessarily more honest — except that when they fire off a missile they usually don’t have resources to confirm if it hit or not - except in the case of commercial vessels and Reaper Drones. They really just don’t know. Better to err on the positive side.
All Ansar Allah knows is that they are winning — at least in dollars and cents.
Dollars and sense….
So far the Houthis have shot down 11 Reaper Drones at the cost of $32 million each.
Then there are all those not-so-effective air strikes, which cost “bigly”—with little result.
And the expense incurred by US naval operations.
Did the Yemenis hit either of the two US destroyers they targeted?
The US says the Houthis say they did but actually didn’t. “He says— she says”.
What the Houthis actually said was that they targeted the ships, slightly different from “hitting them”.
CENTOM claims 8 drones and 10 anti-ship missiles, ballistic and cruise, which would have required at least 40 air defense missiles from the American side, since AD missiles are usually launched in pairs or salvos.
US air defense missiles cost anywhere between $US 2 million and $US 30 million. Pleeeaase Uncle Sam —buy me a coffee!
War is expensive.
Then there is the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Houthis say they damaged it. The Americans say nothing happened. Maybe a missile just knocked out an on-board Starbucks? That doesn’t count, right?
What really happened?
Gilbert Doctorow says it was hit and is leaving the area for San Diego.
They said they used a variety, a combination of drones and hypersonic ballistic missiles. The United States, the Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged there was such an attack, and then listen to what he said. He said, “We knocked down all their drones.” He didn’t say they knocked down the ballistic missiles. So– and the next thing we hear is the Abraham Lincoln is headed back to San Diego.
So I think that perhaps the Houthis did some damage to the aircraft carrier. And we can imagine, since they named the missile this Palestine II, we assume it was provided to them by Iran. But nobody is talking about something else. Who provided the targeting, the satellite information necessary to have precise targeting?
Now, the Mainstream Media is saying something different.
Al-Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen's Houthi movement, said that a series of airstrikes had targeted two US warships and a third vessel in the Arabian Sea.
The group's military spokesman, Yahya al-Sarea, said in a statement on X that the rebels had "successfully" bombarded the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with a number of cruise missiles.
Ryder said he was "not aware of any attacks" on the Abraham Lincoln vessel. BBC
In addition, the Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to return to San Diego before this.
Doctorow does not cite sources. But nobody cites sources. Proof? What a silly notion?
It’s all smoke & mirrors. Fun house mirrors.
So what does all this tell us?
The Houthis may or not be damaging Israeli and American military assets — but they are definitely costing them a lot of money . Oh…that’s an asset, too?
Neither the Americans nor the Israelis have an endless supply of missiles — but the Houthis appear to.
Houthis missiles have improved — obviously using Iranian technology (as I have predicted - although I have my doubts about Mach 15 and “stealth”_
American air attacks on Yemen have in no way slowed the Houthis down.
The Houthis are intimidating commercial traffic — costing Israel, Europe and the West more money. How do you spell “bankrupt” —I..S..R..A..E…L.
Remember what I wrote yesterday?
War is the continuation of economics with other means.
That’s a problem for a businessman like Trump. He may no understand geopolitics, or international relations or — but he understands bankruptcy. He has had that experience at least 6 times
This war is running the US even further into the red. Counting the expense of the Ukraine War, there comes a point when even the profits accrued by the US MIC are just bandaids for a big fiscal bleed-out somewhere down the road.
In other words, if you are losing economically, you are losing the war.
With the US economy as it is and the US no longer able to compensate by just printing dollars in the same way as before, you don’t need generals to plan a war— you need accountants.
Ichi
This used to be Ichi’s BFF’s bed. When Jet passed away, Ichi would bring Jet’s favorite toy near the bed and sleep there — waiting for Jet to come back. But Jet never die come back. But his smell is there and Ichi likes it.
Ichi likes to give gifts. So I often wake up in the morning and he has brought one of his toys to he bed - -just in case. He doesn’t want to play with it himself— it’s for me.
"War is the continuation of economics with other means."
Great quote. My other favorite is from Matthew Hoh: "War is the obscenity."
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