NYT pretty much says we should let the Houthis win ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, April 04, 2025

NYT pretty much says we should let the Houthis win

Here's another case where the media does the minimum possible to adhere to journalistic ethics while subtly allowing its own editorializing to dominate a news story.

The New York Times says that the renewed attacks on Houthi infrastructure and leaders are just so darned expensive:

U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success
In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions in Operation Rough Rider against the Houthi militia, officials said.

In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.

The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.

But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said.

The total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week, and the Pentagon might soon need to request supplemental funds from Congress, one U.S. official said.

So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.

War is just so hard!

To be sure, they raise legitimate points - expenses are a factor in war. But they are rarely the major factor. Achieving military goals are the primary issue - and that part of the story is buried far down.

A senior Pentagon official late Thursday pushed back on the assessments described by the congressional and allied officials.
The senior official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the airstrikes had exceeded their goal in the campaign’s initial phase, disrupting senior Houthi leaders’ ability to communicate, limiting the group’s response to a handful of ineffective counter strikes, and setting the conditions for subsequent phases, which he declined to discuss. “We’re on track,” the official said.
U.S. officials said the strikes had damaged the Houthis’ command and control structure. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement that the strikes had been “effective” in killing top Houthi leaders, whom she did not identify, and said the operation was reopening Red Sea shipping.

This shows that the NYT has no idea what the US strategy or goals are and is in no position to judge how well (or how badly) the US is doing.

Not to mention that the Times doesn't give any alternative. OK, military action takes resources and time. What else would be a better use of US resources, today, when a rogue country is disrupting trade worldwide with impunity? DEI?

Clearly the Biden approach did not achieve a single thing to deter the wonderfully resilient Houthis. So we should...give up?

The subtext of the article is that if the New York Times reporters cannot figure out what is going on, it must not be worth it.

As we've seen during the Gaza war, the amount of information publicly available is perhaps 10% of what is going on. Without any hard information, the media confidently states how effective or ineffective military actions are. They don't know the basics of the strategy or even what the military objectives are. The NYT is making completely wild guesses to fill in the gaps.

But based on lots of other NYT articles, we can guess what the NYT wants to see. It wants Trump to fail. It wants Israel to stop destroying Hamas because that is the excuse the Houthis are using for threatening global shipping.

The Times may not know the US or Israeli military goals, but it does know what its own goals are. This article is aligned with the New York Times geopolitical strategy, not that of the US government.