Did I miss something? My memory is not great anymore, but did the Houthis fire on US warships 174 times during the Biden administration? Were the Houthis allowed to seal off the Red Sea, forcing ships to spend billions more to sail around the Horn? Did we have severe supply shortages because of this?
Now, we have a magazine editor whose circulation is built on creating hoaxes made a claim. Is it real? It jolly well could be.
However, the bottom line is how effective the attacks on the Houthis are??? If commercial ships can go through the Red Sea within a few months, we must give Hegseth an A+, even if the Atlantic turns out accurate. If the submission of the Houthis also leads to a Middle East truce, we have to raise Hegset's grade.
From the 100% pro-Trump Daily Mail:
"Trump is privately furious, raging in colourful language at the 'stupidity' of Waltz and others. I called a close aide of the President for a heads up on the situation.
'The President is on the rampage,' I was told. 'It's not safe to talk. I'm keeping my head down.' He then hung up.
Nor will it have escaped Trump's attention that his vice president, for all his public displays of loyalty, is developing policies of his own. The Signal texts show, beyond doubt, that Vance was skeptical of the need to strike the Houthis.
Yes, they've been attacking shipping in the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal for over a year. But, argued Vance, very little US trade passes through the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, whereas '40 percent of European trade does'.
So, attacking the Houthis would benefit Europe far more than America.
'I am not sure the President is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,' Vance said, adding that, while he would support the consensus of the other top officials in the chat, 'I just hate bailing Europe out again.'
In the end Vance was placated by a suggestion that Europe could be sent the bill for the military action (good luck with that) and the insistence of Stephen Miller, a senior White House aide, that the attack was the President's will.
In the end JD Vance was placated by a suggestion that Europe could be sent the bill for the military action (good luck with that) and the insistence of Stephen Miller, a senior White House aide, that the attack was the President's will.
In front of a congressional committee on Tuesday, a nervous Tulsi Gabbard refused even to confirm she'd participated in the chat.
Trump will be fine with Vance's visceral anti-Europeanism, which we've seen before but never in such raw and stark terms.
But he will be suspicious of Vance's freelancing on foreign policy, especially since the reason for attacking the Houthis is not to do the Europeans a favour but to cripple the one Iranian proxy group left in the region (after the demise of Hamas and Hezbollah) which is still a military threat to America's interests.
Vance's forays into foreign policy often reveal him to be out of his depth in complicated matters. But in his distaste for Europe, he is very much in sync with the rest of the Trump administration.
Even Hegseth got in on the act, telling Vance on Signal that he 'fully' shared his 'loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC.'
Long after the row over security breaches dies down, what we have learned about the Trump administration's unvarnished attitude to Europe could well turn out to be the most significant feature of the Signal scandal. It has gone from mere animosity to outright hostility.
If Europe's leaders still don't realise, they're now on their own – after the revelations from the Signal chatroom, they cannot be in any doubt.
BY THE WAY: If Trump is furious and privately raging at Hegseth and Waltz? That is absolutely warranted and well-done by Trump. It would be far better though, if he did not appoint sycophant amateurs like Hegseth in the first place. And both Hegseth and Waltz are lying and counter-accusing as a reaction, which is a TERRIBLE reaction. Hegseth even said that nothing texted was classified. So would he be okay with The Atlantic printing the entirety of what was mistakenly texted to Goldberg?
www.theatlantic.com
www.spiegel.de
