Houthis

Houthi fighters take over a cargo ship (Houthi Movement via Getty Images)

Curious story:

Why the Houthis now rule the Red Sea - America has silently admitted defeat by Malcolm Kyeyune

Excerpt: 

This should probably be huge news: one of the most important trade routes in the world is now blocked by a rag-tag group of militants, and the US Navy has thrown its hands up in defeat and sailed away. And yet, we just don’t want to talk about it.

Basically it sounds like tactics and our hide-bound military has yet to adapt. They are rightfully hidebound I might add, I mean it's tradition to be hide-bound, that is, until you start getting your ass kicked by the new kid on the block. I'm sure they will adapt, eventually, hopefully before the collapse of civilization, but whatever.

Malcolm does make the argument that maybe Europe should be doing the heavy lifting here, after all they are the ones being most impacted by these hijackings. Europe might be able to contribute more to this endeavor if they hadn't been listening to the USA telling them to quit buying cheap gas from Russia.

Note - the ship in the picture is RORO - a ship for transporting automobiles. RORO stands for roll on, roll off, and that big thing sticking up on the right rear of the ship is a ramp that folds down to enable cars to be driven on and off of the ship. My main point being that it is NOT the tanker that was recently attacked.

I'm surprised to see the helicopter in the picture. I thought all these hijackings were being done by guys in speedboats.

Djibouti

Why Every Country Has Military Bases in Djibouti
RealLifeLore

I've been reading Djibouti by Elmore Leonard. It's a novel about a middle aged woman filming a documentary about pirates around the Horn of Africa. I've been working on it for a while, it's not a page turner, but the story is interesting enough that I keep plugging away. I'll probably finish it in the next couple of days.

It seems like there has been a problem with pirates in that area for a long time. Since 2008 pirates have attacked over 200 ships. Now we have the Houthis attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea just north of Djibouti, so I'm a little curious about what's going on over there. We've got Navy ships over there and it seems like squashing the Houthis would be the an easy task for the most powerful Navy in the world, but the attacks seem to just keep getting worse instead of going away. Of course, we have Ukraine occupying our commander-in-chief's attention and everyone knows that keeping those gas pipeline tariff kickbacks coming is more important than any silly commercial shipping business, right?

It took five years for the shipping companies to get their ducks in a row and get enough security personnel to bring the piracy problem under control, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Houthis haven't been squashed yet.