The Biden administration is coddling Iran’s terrorist proxies again. Yemen’s Houthi militia, whose official chant includes the words “Death to America,” has killed Americans, attacked American-owned ships, and fired missiles into countries friendly to the U.S. The Houthis are funded by Iran, which calls America “the Great Satan.” Yet, once again, the “State Department refuses to relist the Houthis as a terrorist organization. This is astounding, considering the Houthis have been holding 13 UN staffers hostage and another 19 civilians on a shipping vessel. Not to mention the daily attacks on shipping tankers,” notes a graduate student.
“The State Department is continuing to rebuff bipartisan pressure from lawmakers to redesignate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, despite the Iran-backed group’s continued attacks on Israel and shipping lanes in the Red Sea. The Houthis struck central Israel earlier this week, using what the group described as a new hypersonic missile, after striking within feet of a U.S. diplomatic facility in Tel Aviv in July,” reports Marc Rod.
The U.S. military has repeatedly recognized the obvious: the Houthis are terrorists. As The Intercept noted earlier this month, “Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attached two oil tankers in the Red Sea on Monday with ballistic missiles and a one-way attack drone, according to the U.S. Central Command, which characterized the strikes as ‘reckless acts of terrorism.’…The Saudi-flagged Amjad and the Panama-flagged Blue Lagoon-1 struck on Monday are just the latest ships to be damaged by the Houthi rebels, who have attacked more than 80 merchant vessels since …. October 2023…The Houthi campaign has led to a 90 percent decline in shipping activity through the Red Sea.”
But the Biden State Department refuses to acknowledge that the Houthis are terrorists, despite what our military describes as “acts of terrorism” committed by the Houthis.
In January, “Houthi rebels fired a missile that struck a U.S.-owned ship Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after they launched an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea,” reported the Associated Press.
The Houthis also kill Americans. “Houthi rebels tortured and killed a Chesapeake man in Yemen last year,” reported Stars and Stripes. The “father of seven had died in captivity within weeks of arriving in the Middle Eastern country as a State Department contractor.”
The Houthis shot down an American drone worth $30 million on May 17. The Houthis are an anti-American militia that rule the most important parts of the country of Yemen in Arabia. The downing of the drone was announced in a video that chanted the Houthi slogan, “death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.” The northern part of Yemen, which contains 80% of its people, is controlled by the Houthis.
The Houthis have restored slavery in Yemen. “The Houthis have expanded slavery in the areas of Yemen they control. More than 1,800 Yemenis are kept as slaves” by Houthi leaders.
Due to their support for terrorist attacks, the Houthis were designated as a foreign terrorist organization under the Trump administration. But the Biden administration has took the Houthis off the terrorism list. That was followed by a massive increase in missile launches and attacks on shipping by the Houthis, who began attacking ships traveling in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the Red Sea (which leads to the Suez Canal).
The Houthis have a history of shooting down American drones. They are provided with the weapons needed to do so by Iran, which gives them missiles capable of high-altitude attack. The Biden administration has shown weakness toward Iran, such as paying a $6 billion ransom to Iran for 5 American hostages. That encouraged other countries like Russia to take American hostages, which they did, resulting in more Americans being held hostage than when Biden took office.
The Iran hostage deal emboldened Iran’s proxy, the Houthis. They subsequently took aim at the West, by attacking ships in the Red Sea, and seizing a Japanese ship, to keep vital cargo from passing through the Suez Canal.
The Houthi attacks have greatly increased the cost of international shipping, and delayed shipments, by making many ships take a time-consuming detour around southern Africa rather than risk being fired upon by the Houthis as they travel near Yemen toward the Suez Canal.
Al Jazeera notes that the strikes on ships by the Houthis “have forced ships to change route, causing major disruptions in companies’ chains of production. Attacks on vessels by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea have disrupted international trade on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.”
Despite their violence, extremism, and reinstitution of slavery, the Houthis have been praised by left-wing groups in America, such as the National Lawyers Guild. The National Lawyers Guild shares the Houthis’ reflexive anti-Americanism. People affiliated with the radical National Lawyers Guild have gone on to become federal appeals court clerks to progressive judges. Such left-wing law clerks draft opinions and orders for powerful Democratic-appointed judges in cases affecting the lives of millions of people, pushing the law in a leftward direction.
