It's 1964 again in Yemen

Last week Trump's White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer accused Iran of attacking a U.S. naval vessel. There were just two problem's with that statement: 1) no U.S. naval vessel was attacked, and 2) no Iranian vessel did any attacking.

Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood confirmed to The Intercept that the attack was in fact conducted against a Saudi warship, and that the Pentagon suspects Houthi rebels. “It was a Saudi ship – it was actually a frigate” said Sherwood. “It was [conducted by] suspected Houthi rebels off the coast of Yemen.”

Some of you might be thinking, "Hmmm. That sounds familiar."
That's because it is familiar. The Obama Administration made a similar accusation last October.

The Pentagon declined to say on Monday whether the USS Mason destroyer was targeted by multiple inbound missiles fired from Yemen on Saturday, as initially thought, saying a review was under way to determine what happened.
Any determination that the USS Mason guided-missile destroyer was targeted on Saturday could have military repercussions, since the United States has threatened to retaliate again should its ships come under fire from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi fighters.

This "mistake" happened just weeks after the Houthis sank a Saudi-led coalition ship.
To an American this might sound like the Gulf of Tonkin, but if you want a Vietnam metaphor you don't need to go nearly so far abroad, or even change the year.
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One interesting element of the Saudi-led quagmire is the participation by Egypt.
The reason why that is interesting is because of any nation out there, they should know better.

In the 1960s, Egypt entered into a long, costly quagmire in Yemen. The Egyptian president at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a secular autocrat and a champion of pan-Arabism, chose to intervene in Yemen in support of a republican coup led by military officers seeking to oust the country's monarchy in 1962. Nasser himself came to power the decade prior on the back of an officers' coup which overthrew Egypt's fusty constitutional monarchy. Now, he wanted to help a neighboring Arab nation follow in Egypt's mold.
But Saudi Arabia was set against this state of affairs and sought to return Yemen's ruling Imam to the throne, and pumped in arms and money to royalist militias. Ironically, these included many tribesmen from the Shiite Zaydi sect, which now forms the backbone of the Houthi rebellion the Saudis are so desperate to quash.
The tens of thousands of soldiers Egypt sent in as an expeditionary force into Yemen soon found themselves on the front line of a civil war, taking the lead in the defense of Yemeni republicanism. What followed was a long, difficult conflict that ground on for nearly a decade.
According to one historian's account, Yemen proved to be "a hive of wasps" for the Egyptians, who were unable defeat the well-equipped and well-funded royalist forces. The Saudis, Jordanians and the British -- who were still running a colonial protectorate around Aden -- all provided assistance to the royalists. The Egyptians, meanwhile, received tacit support from the Soviet Union.

Like 1964, the Saudis are seeking to restore a corrupt, but obedient leader to power in Yemen.
Like 1964, it's a bloody stalemate.

At the peak of deployments, Nasser committed as many as 70,000 Egyptian soldiers to Yemen. After the war's end in 1970, Yemen remained a republic, but Egypt had paid a terrible price: More than 10,000 Egyptian soldiers died and the country ran up massive war debts. The conflict has been dubbed "Egypt's Vietnam," and is cited as one of the reasons why the Egyptian military suffered such a withering defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967.
Now, it serves as a cautionary tale more for the Saudis than the Egyptians, whose participation in "Operation Decisive Storm," writes Egyptian blogger Nervana Mahhmoud, "is more a simple acknowledgment that the leadership in Cairo cannot afford to say no to Saudi Arabia." The kingdom has doled out billions of dollars in aid to the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, a military officer who threw out the country's elected Islamists in 2013.

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SparkyGump's picture

Just waiting to take a "Tonkin" hit. smh

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

Big Al's picture

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/10/23/can-everyone-stop-saying-the-hou...

If I was in Iran I'd be getting ready for the shit to hit the fan.

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Pricknick's picture

@Big Al
I would have never stopped building the big one.
America. Fuck yeah.
[video:https://youtu.be/U1mlCPMYtPk]

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Roger Fox's picture

is more likely a measuring of the media by the Trump administration.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

@Roger Fox What concerns me is the absence of scrutiny of the Saudi government by any administration, past or present, or by the media.

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Pricknick's picture

can you trust anything our government tells us?
I take its truth with the grains of salt I throw over my left shoulder.
If your doG gets some in its eye.....so be it.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Credibility for this administration is in short supply.

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Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever

smiley7's picture

an effort to consolidate power into the hands of a few, no doubt.

Call it what we wish, beginning with a big F.

"Trains run on time."

Meanwhile, we struggle to find a collective consciousness; or some do.

A certain amount of opposition
is a great help to a man.
Kites rise against, not with, the wind.

~ Lewis Mumford

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Fighting for monarchy and religious imperialism since before I was born.

Let me guess--the British were instrumental in putting those people in charge of something called "Saudi Arabia" which the Brits also invented.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

a particular nation coming and blowing the shit out of more than one building and killing thousands of your civilians in your largest city, you're pretty much announcing to the world that you're scared of them.

Although, like some people, I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

But still.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

If I know it, they probably do too.

Filthy puppetmaster bastards (and I'm not talking about the Iranians).

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

is that the Pentagon has now twice disagreed and stated publicly that it wasn't our ship that got hit. They're not going along with the Gulf of Tonkin narrative. I wonder why? I keep seeing data points that suggest that the Deep State is not in agreement with itself on this whole PNAC thing.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Why don't the reporters ask for the name of the ship? That would easily put the lie to this without accusing Spicer of anything.

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Kings and princes should not be recognized in the 21st century. Despots are despots no matter what name they take.

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