The U.S. Is Bombing Yemen Because...Why, Again?

    Here's a quick quiz for you: 
    Where is Yemen?
​    Why are we bombing Yemen?
    Who exactly are the Houthis and why are they our enemy?
     Anybody know the answers? 
     I didn't, exactly. Like most of the country (I'm guessing), those questions weren't even on my radar until a few days ago when the SignalGate scandal broke after our country's top intelligence, security and military leaders and the Vice President used Signal, an unsecured phone app,  to chat about - and leak about -  secret plans for a bombing attack on Yemen (See previous post). 
      But after the initial question of How the heck could those guys be so dumb and careless?, ​ I found myself wondering...But wait? Why exactly are we  bombing Yemen?  And where exactly is Yemen? Somewhere in the Middle East, I know, but where? Somewhere around Egypt, right? Or is it somewhere around Saudi Arabia? And who exactly are the Houthis? And why, exactly, are we trying to kill them all?
       And so  I dove into trying to unravel and understand why the United States is bombing Yemen.
        After much trawling of the news sources,  here's what I've been able to more or less detangle:
   1.​ Where is Yemen?
    Yemen, mountainous and war-torn, its people starving,  it's economy, infrastructure, and food supply devastated by a decade of civil war so that it's now among the world's poorest countries,  is located next to Saudi Arabia and Oman, two of the world's riches countries.  

      2. Who are the Houthis?
     The Houthis are a Yemeni Islamist military rebel group formed in the 1990's for the purpose of overthrowing what they claimed was a corrupt puppet government whose strings were being pulled by Saudi Arabia. Over the years the Houthis were involved in civil unrest and government opposition and in the early 2000's the Houthis declared enmity with Israel and, because of our support of Israel, the United States.
     In 2014 a coalition of Houthis and other Yemeni opposition groups succeeded in taking control of their country's government. However this coup was not the end of unrest or government dysfunction in Yemen, but rather the start of a civil war.
         In 2015 Saudi Arabia joined the side of the ousted Yemeni leaders and launched a series of air strikes and other military interventions against the Iran-backed Houthis. And so began the Yemeni civil war that has been widely considered to be in fact an Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war. Except that it's been the Yemeni civilians who've suffered, starved, and died.
         3. Why Are We Bombing Yemen? ​
         A few weeks after the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel and the kidnapping of 250 Israelis and the subsequent death and destruction that Israel rained down on Gaza in retaliation, the Houthis, in a retaliation of their own, began launching missiles at merchant vessels in the Red Sea.      

        The Houthis vowed that the attacks against ships in the Red Sea would continue until Israel ceased their attacks on Gaza. This caused significant disruption of the global maritime commerce that cut from the Mediterranean sea through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea to Southeast Asia and vice versa.

      In January of 2024 The United States and Great Britain began bombing raids on Yemen with the purpose of hitting Houthi targets, the stated goal being that the bombing would stop the Houthis from attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea and return maritime freedom to that waterway.
    However, it appears that all the bombing has accomplished so far has been to instill in the Yemeni population, whose suffering has worsened with the bombings, a hatred of Americans.
      Nonetheless, in the months since his return to the office of President of the United States, Donald Trump has greatly escalated the American bombings of Yemen.  In fact, Trump blames the Biden administration for not wiping out the Houthis by not bombing Yemen enough.
       Meanwhile, the Europeans have for the most part gotten used to rerouting their commercial vessels around the horn of Africa, finding that in the long run it's more economical than risking an attack while cutting through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea,  and that it's not worth getting involved militarily,    

...leaving the military operations to the U.S. even though, according the information leaked by JD Vance, only 3% of U.S. trade ran through the Suez Canal/Red Sea route anyway. 

          And some of the Houthi missile strikes against ships have caused massive environmentally godawful oil spills in the Red Sea.
           And Iran keeps arming the Houthis. 
           And Israel keeps killing the Gazans.
            And the United States keeps arming Israel.
           And the Houthis care about power; Iran cares about power via the Houthis; the U.S. cares about power, shipping lanes, empowering Israel, and de-powering Iran; and Europe doesn't much care about the whole mess anymore.
        And nobody cares about the Yemenis.

​​         Which brings us back to the original question: Why are we bombing Yemen, again?

      But what's the message? And to who?

References:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/27/yemen-leaked-chat-vance-trump-waltz-bombing/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/world/middleeast/houthis-yemen-us-strikes-reality.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67614911

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3WJ-C2gpDA

https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/yemen-war-anniversary-hope-end-suffering

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/yemen/overview

https://gfmag.com/data/richest-countries-in-the-world/​