On March 15th, the United States carried out drone strikes in a residential area of Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, taking the lives of at least 53 men, women and children. The attacks were directed at the Houthis’ “top missile guy” that they knew was “walking to his girlfriend’s building.” The unprovoked attack on a political leader with no regard for civilian casualties are clear violations of international law. It would be the same as the Yemeni military blowing up an entire housing complex in Washington D.C. just to kill one U.S. military leader. On March 19th, Donald Trump declared on social media that “tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians…” and that the Houthis would be “completely annihilated!” He has tried to keep his word, as military strikes on Yemen have been carried out nearly every single day since then, killing over 69 people.
This story wasn’t a major issue in the U.S. media until March 25th, when a Signal group chat, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance and others, that described plans to attack Yemen was accidentally shared with Jefferey Goldberg, an editor for the Atlantic. In the chat chain, members of the group shared up-to-date military plans and used patriotic fire emojis in childish and unprofessional ways. Goldberg had been accidentally added to a chat group called “Houthi PC small group” in the lead up to the attack, and he shared the news in an article published a few days later. This scandal has become known as Signalgate.
Much of the outcry by Democrats and media outlets has focused on the amateur recklessness in managing supposedly sensitive information. Certainly, there is some irony to acknowledge their stupidity and incompetence in light of Donald Trump and his associates’ prior obsession with the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Other politicians and talking heads denounced the resentful attitude conveyed in the group chats about strikes supposedly benefiting “our allies” in Europe as the Trump administration seeks to take a more aggressive posture in the changing world order.
Noticeably absent from the outrage was any denunciation of the attack on Yemen and the killing of civilians! Noticeably absent from the outrage was any questioning of why the United States was bombing one of the poorest countries in the world, and one that is largely defenseless. There was no questioning why the United States was attacking a country against which there has been no declaration of war. There was no questioning of why it was okay to kill Yemeni civilians.
Yemen has been engaged in a brutal civil war since 2014. But like many conflicts in the world today, to call it simply a “civil war” doesn’t give a sense of the full extent of foreign meddling. Since 2014, Yemen has been governed by the Houthis, a political Islamic organization that is more aligned with Iran. This puts them in conflict with neighboring Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival and close ally of the United States. For this, Yemen has been in the crosshairs of the United States throughout the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. The United States has given tens of billions of dollars in military support to Saudi Arabia. The United Nations estimates that the military assault and blockade against Yemen has led to the deaths of over 377,000 people and that roughly 60% of the deaths were from indirect causes such as starvation and lack of medical care, as diseases like cholera rip through the population.
Yemen has once more been caught in the crosshairs of the United States, particularly in the context of Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people since October of 2023. The Houthis proclaim themselves as being part of the Iranian led “Axis of Resistance” that includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and other forces. During this period their government has blocked and attacked Israeli ships from passing through the Red Sea (where an estimated 15% of all maritime trade travels) to protest Israel cutting off food and humanitarian aid from entering into Gaza.
While the military strikes are taking place in Yemen, the real goal is to send a message to Iran, which Trump is currently threatening with “great danger” if it doesn’t give up its nuclear power program. There are many within the U.S. ruling circles who want to push for a regime change in Iran, even if it means provoking a full-scale war.
Although the Democrats and media figures would like us to fixate on the fact that secure military communication channels were not used and a journalist was accidentally included in a supposedly secret chat, these war crimes and the entire global system of imperialism are the real scandals!
The real problem is not whether the United States empire is mismanaged or not. The problem is the United States empire itself, and its deadly effects on the peoples of the world!
