Biden bombs Yemen so Israel can bomb Gaza
Biden bombs Yemen so Israel can bomb Gaza
Polygraph | Newsletter n°232 | 26 January 2024
Situation
The last four US presidents have bombed Yemen. Joe Biden is now bombing the country in response to a string of attacks by the Houthi movement on commercial ships in the Red Sea. The State Department said the Houthi attacks have disrupted about 20 percent of global shipping, which is reportedly causing bigger supply chain problems than the early stages of the pandemic. Shipping costs are rising.
Easy solution
None of this will improve the cost-of-living crisis that has steadily gotten worse since 2022. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution Biden can execute immediately and unilaterally.
The Houthis say they’re fulfilling their obligation under Article I of the Genocide Convention and that their attacks will continue as long as Israel’s war in Gaza does.1 All Biden has to do is end Israel’s military offensive, which he could do with a single phone call, just like Ronald Reagan in 1982 and Joe Biden in 2021. Despite claims that Biden is helpless and “doing all he can,” the US has all sorts of unused leverage over Israel. This fact is openly acknowledged. After acquiescing to US demands to let a shipment of humanitarian aid into Gaza, for example, Israeli army minister Yoav Gallant said, “The Americans insisted and we are not in a place where we can refuse them. We rely on them for planes and military equipment. What are we supposed to do? Tell them no?”
Biden’s “solution”
Instead of forcing Israel to accept a ceasefire for a hostage and prisoner exchange — which most people want, especially Democratic voters — Biden has once again deferred to the wishes of Israeli leaders. The president of the United States is now bombing Yemen so Israel can continue bombing Gaza. The White House is reportedly planning an indefinite war against the Houthis.
There’s no wisdom in this plan, just cruelty. A US-backed, Saudi-led coalition just spent seven years bombing Yemen in a failed attempt to eradicate the Houthis. In 2015, the Obama-Biden White House announced the US was joining the war via press release. The US provided 70–80 percent of the weapons Saudi Arabia used during this seven-year stretch, in addition to intelligence (like targeting assistance), operational support (like in-flight refueling), and maintenance (like aircraft repair/upkeep).
By spring 2018, the war in Yemen was considered “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” It was still described as such in spring 2023. Little wonder, then, that Yemeni civilians are protesting Biden’s ongoing airstrikes in their country.
The chart below has 25,054 dots representing the 25,054 airstrikes by the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition from March 2015–March 2022. (A UN-mediated truce took effect in April 2022, which significantly reduced the intensity of the conflict.) Note that this is the minimum number of airstrikes that could’ve occurred: according to my analysis of a very large and impressive spreadsheet from the Yemen Data Project, the actual total could be as high as 78,863.2
Biden’s “solution” is — to be frank — moronic, a fact Biden himself admitted. When asked whether the airstrikes in Yemen are working, Biden replied, “Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they gonna continue? Yes.”
^Alt text for screen readers: Please stop bombing Yemen. A U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition bombed Yemen 25,054 times from 2015 to 2022. This chart plots out those 25,054 airstrikes as a running total during this seven-year stretch, showing a steady, dramatic increase. Figures reflect the minimum number of airstrikes from March 2015 through March 2022. Data via the Yemen Data Project. More at Stephen Semler dot substack dot com.
-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org). Follow me on Bluesky.
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Despite the obvious connection, the Biden administration refuses to admit the Houthi attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza are at all linked.
The reason for this is that the chart treats one air raid as one airstrike, when in reality each raid has at least one airstrike. See the Yemen Data Project’s methodology.