The Jordan Harbinger Show - 934: Houthis in Yemen | Out of the Loop

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Who are Yemen's Houthis, and what threat do they pose to us here in the West? Intelligence analyst Ryan McBeth brings us in from Out of the Loop. Welcome to what we're calling our "Out of the Loop" episodes, where we dig a little deeper into fascinating current events that may only register as a blip on the media's news cycle and have conversations with the people who find themselves immersed in them. On This Episode of Out of the Loop, We Discuss: Though the group from which they originate has been around for thousands of years, why are the Houthis in Yemen suddenly making headlines and drawing attention from the West? How Iran benefits from (allegedly) arming the Houthis to fight a proxy war against Saudi Arabia's influence in the region. Why Yemen is a crucial link in the global supply chain — and how it enriches whoever is able to control it. Why the well-funded Saudi military has a difficult time keeping the Houthis in check. Possible global consequences of the recent Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. And much more! Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on an Out of the Loop episode, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/934 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Iran can't afford an aircraft carrier. Iran can't afford battle groups. Iran can't send multiple divisions of troops overseas, but they can fund terror and they can fund proxies. And if you can fund a proxy that will do that stuff for you, then maybe you don't need an aircraft carrier. Iran is pulling the strength. Welcome to the show.

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You've probably heard about the ships, the cargo ships, that are being hit with random missiles from Houthi rebels. We're going to talk about why Houthi rebels are shooting cargo ships with missiles, why they're landing helicopters on them and hijacking them, why they're launching missiles over Saudi Arabia at Israel, why Yemen and Saudi Arabia are in conflict. We're talking today with my friend Ryan Macbeth. You might recognize him from the episode we did about Hamas. a couple of months ago. Here we go. Out of the loop, Yemen, with Ryan McBeff. First of all, thanks for agreeing to do the show. Again, I know you're super busy flying all over the place now. Now your substack is so big. You're kind of a big deal around here. I guess. I don't feel like a big deal,

but substack actually invited me out to their offices in San Francisco, where I talk to them about how they could do video better. Yeah, tell me a little bit about what you're doing. I know this is like a shameless plug, but it is interesting. It's substacks like a, what would you describe it. Like, if you're a journalist and you don't work for a major newspaper, you can write stuff that's good and people can subscribe to you and you get distribution without just having to scream into the void. It's giving people voice that they maybe wouldn't have gotten to have otherwise. You're absolutely correct. That's basically what Substack is. It allows people who are independent journalists to put out what they call newsletters. Well, that's a very 90s kind of term,

right? But recently, Substack pivoted into video. And one of the problems that I get on YouTube is that YouTube, they've changed a lot of their policies to the point where you can barely show anything anymore. Yeah. If there's violence or even a little bit of nudity, that can be questionable. Or even just talking about sensitive subjects, because, you know, what are they trying to do? Well, they're trying to sell makeup, right? They're trying to sell Ridge wallets, you know.

You probably shouldn't. No, that's fine. They used to sponsor the show. And you can find their code on our website at Jordan Harbinger. slash deals. It probably doesn't work anymore, but you could try it. Now, the thing that I find disturbing about YouTube, and we won't go too far down this rabbit hole because we have a show to do, but like, I did a show with Mossab Hassan Yousef, the Green Prince of Hamas. It got one point, I don't even know, three million views and counting, and of course it got demonetized. And I was like, why? And the

answer is because it showed graphic depictions of violence. Wait, how did two dudes talking on a webcam show graphic depictions of violence? Oh, it didn't, but a bunch of A-holes who, who like didn't like that guy's message, just reported it and got it demonetized. You're absolutely right. There is brigading that's involved. My video about the 101st Airborne got demonetized for violence, even though we're shooting blanks on these exercises. So, you know, there's not a lot you can do. But substack is kind of the saving grace because people can watch for free, or if you want, give me five bucks. And I've built an audience around that. And people trust the intelligence. And also it allows

people to, let's say you're in the military, when I do an intelligence assessment, I put all of my receipts up online. So any PowerPoints that I do, any satellite footage. So if you're a soldier and your first sergeant says to you, hey, I need you to give me an intelligence assessment on the Houthis tomorrow, you can either run around like a chick with your head cut off, where you can go on to Ryan Macbeth's substack, Ryan Bettsubstack.com, type on Houthis, and boom, now you have a PowerPoint, now you have a briefing, they have all this awesome stuff that you can use. And it's saves you a lot of time. There you go. Yeah, so it's a little bit of a plug, but I do, I mean, the reason you're here is because of your substack, so it's only fair. Speaking of Houthis,

I would love to learn more about this because I know Yemen's a mess. I know a few people who've been there and they can't go there anymore, or they left there and they can't go back anymore. And I have asked many a cab driver in New York City about, whenever they're from Yemen. I mean, it's just like, take me to the airport and back because I want to hear about Yemen. And a lot of them, surprise, surprise, don't have a lot of love for the Houthis, and some of them do. So it's obviously not just a very black and white obvious situation. Like I never talked to anybody who's like, ISIS is great, right? So there's obviously a little more nuance here. But the Houthis, aside from being in the news here and there about the Yemen war with Saudi Arabia and all this

stuff, now they are suddenly taking over cargo ships in the, in the, what is it, the Red Sea? That's correct. And I'm thinking, wait a minute. These guys are like, I envision them living in corrugated metal huts and now they're landing a helicopter on a moving ship. What's going on here? Not quite. So the Houthi rebellion basically started in 2014. But if you want to get technical, we can go all the way back to the year 1632, which was the year the Prophet Muhammad died. This really does go back that far. So essentially, the Prophet Muhammad passed away in the year 632. There were two schools of thought. There was one school of thought that the Caliphs, literally a ruling council, they should be the rightful heirs of Islam.

And then other people thought that Ali, who was the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali should take over. It should be a lineage of the Prophet Muhammad. So the people who believed in the caliphs, they became the Sunni Muslims. The people who believed in Ali became the Shia Muslims. And there was this group called the Zaidis. well, there was a gentleman named Ali bin Zaidi, who was the son-in-law or the great, great-grandson of Ali. And he actually went to the Kaliq's in Saudi Arabia, I think it was in the years 740.

And he said to the Kaliaths, like, I think you guys are corrupt. This isn't right. We think that the true inheritor of Islam should be someone from Muhammad's family. They disagreed. There was a civil war, and he was killed. So the Houthis are actually from a small tribe in the northwestern part of Yemen, and they call themselves the Zaitis. And they have a strong anti-corruption bent to them. They hate it when they see corruption.

And they are Shia Muslims. And Shia represents roughly 10 to 20 percent, depending on how you talk to, of the Islamic world. Is that Iran also? Iran is mostly Shia. That's correct. And some small parts of southern Saudi Arabia are Shia as well. Iraq is, at least the southern part of Iraq is mostly Shia. And a lot of people, when they look at Shia and Sunni Islam, they make the mistake of equating it to Catholics and the Protestants fighting.

And it's not quite true because for the longest time, Sunni and Shia, they would live peacefully side by side with each other. They would intermarry. So what we're seeing now isn't necessarily a conflict between Sunni and Shia. It's a conflict between Saudi Arabia who wants to maintain power in Iran, who is a growing power. So Iran kind of corrupts that Shia ideology to get people to do their bidding. Okay. But why Yemen? Because when I think, okay, I'm Iran, I'm Saudi Arabia. I want to maintain or gain power in the region. I'm going to go after one of the poorest countries in the entire world. that's completely fallen apart, and I'm going to die on that hill. It's not the hill that you're dying on. It's the Bob Al-Mandem Street. If we look at Yemen, I'm trying, yeah, I know a lot of people are listening to this, not viewing it. Yeah.

Think of Yemen as a Hershey-Bore. And you turn Yemen 30 degrees, and that's roughly Yemen. They're at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula. Oman is to their right, or it's to their east, and Saudi Arabia is to their north. to the west is the Red Sea and to the south is the Gulf of 80. And right in the middle, between Djibouti and between that tip of the bottom left of the Hershey bar that we turned. Desperately resisting making a joke.

Desperately. 30 degrees. Yeah. Is the Babel Mandab Strait. And that is a crucial part of world commerce. I think it was 30% of world sea traffic, transatl, it's that straight. So it's a very strategic location. So if Iran can influence actors that can influence the Red Sea and the Babel and end up straight, now you have control over a significant part of global

commerce. I see. It's almost like Yemen is kind of a like Turkey, how we put up with so much crap in NATO from Turkey because, well, they control the Bosphorus and we really don't want them to let the Russian Navy through, so to the Black Sea. So we're kind of kind of let them. harbor Hamas terrorists and like just not dredge up drama because we want them to let Sweden into NATO and play ball with us. Absolutely. It's a highly, highly strategic location. If Iran can control that area, then Iran can dictate terms to the rest of the world. And right now, the Houthi movement, it's been going for quite a while. It was actually started by a guy named Hussein Al-Hufi and taken over by his brother Abdul al-Houthi after Hussein Al-Hufi.

died. And this was sort of like a political anti-corruption movement among the Zedi tribe. And once Yemen fell into a civil war after the Arab Spring, the Uthis, which were well funded and well-motivated, they're highly motivated soldiers. They took over a good part of Western Yemen. And if you imagine taking a bite out of the corner of that Hershey Bar to the bottom left of that Hershey Bar, That's essentially the area they control, which is roughly 30% of the population of Yemen. I know you mentioned the Gulf of Aden. Did we not have a U.S. ship that was bombed in a harbor in Yemen? This might be totally unrelated, but maybe it's not.

It is sort of related. So that was the USS Cole. I believe 17 sailors were killed in that bombing, and it used to be the Gulfles, or actually the city of Aden, was a stop for the U.S. military. The U.S. military would use that as a refueling station. I believe it was in 2000 to kind of rewind a little bit. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the Saudis, of course, they built up their military because they thought that they were going to be invaded next.

The government of Yemen under Al-Saliyah, they basically, they didn't side with Saudi Arabia. And so Saudi Arabia got extremely angry at Yemen, and they kicked a lot of, of Yemenis workers out of Saudi Arabia. And again, the Zaidis, they don't like corruption. They thought that Saudi Arabia was being corrupt, that they were under Western influence, they were under U.S. influence. And so that kind of started this animosity. And that level of animosity and poor government control allowed organizations like Al-Qaeda to function well in Yemen. And so if you always see U.S. ships going into the port of Aden, and there's not a lot of security around those U.S. ships, why not put an explosive on a small boat, push that right up

to the dock, and blow that right up in front of the coal, which is exactly what they did. And you mentioned that the Houthis, we call them the Houthi rebels, right? So that, I assume, means they're different from the Yemeni government, who is what, allied with the United States and Saudi Arabia? I'm confused on that, too. Sort of. It's extremely confusing. If we actually go back in time a little bit, there used to be two Yemenans. So if you, take that Hershey Bar, there used to be a Republic of Yemen, and that was sort of in the left west corner of the country. And the right west corner was the Democratic Republic of Yemen, which was mostly a communist. Yeah, I was going to say, Democratic Republic sounds like they have

a very, whenever you do that, that means you are very restrictive. Like North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, or of Korea is like, whatever you want to out yourself, is it a completely totalitarian regime, you've got to add Democratic in front of your name, just so people know that you're lying about that. Absolutely. So they were mainly supported by the Soviet Union. And when the Soviet Union fell, they basically lost a lot of their funding. So there was a little bit of oil in the Democratic Republic of Yemen, and there were

ports and terminals in the Republic of Yemen. So the two countries decided to unify into one Yemen. I lasted about four years until there was a major Civil War there. So that kind of descended into chaos. And there were several smaller Civil War since. It was Salia, who was the president of Yemen, who was in power during this entire time. In fact, he was in power all the way up into, roughly 2012 in the Arab Spring. Okay.

Thank you for that. And now Iran is also engaging in a proxy. war with Saudi Arabia, you mentioned there are rising power, and they're doing this, among other ways, probably via Yemen, via the Houthis. Is that accurate? The proxy war is occurring because Salea left power. Hadi took power. The militia didn't like Hadi, so they tried to push him out. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia wanted to reinstate Hadi into power because he was a Saudi ally. And Iran started funding the Houthi militia so they could have influence over Iran. Okay. And so this is Iran fighting a proxy war with Saudi Arabia who's fighting an actual war

in Yemen against the Houthis, because aren't we selling a ton of weapons to Saudi Arabia to then blow down to F-16s that we also sow them and then shoot missiles at Houthis from those planes, etc? For the most part, yes, not just, well, Saudi Arabia doesn't actually have F-16s. they have F-15s and they have Eurofighters and they have typhoons, which are sold to them from England from the United Kingdom. And actually, one of the big issues that we've seen is that the United Kingdom sold cluster bombs to the Saudi military, which were then used somewhat indiscriminately against not only Houthi rebels, but against civilians. Yikes. By this constant war, what we've seen is a good portion of Yemen has descended into famine. And the other thing

that actually a lot of people don't talk about is the production of a drug called Kot. And this is a natural plant. And in Yemen, it is very common that you work into lunch. And then after lunch, you and your friends, you have a long lunch and you chew Kot. And Kot is this sort of stimulant. It's very popular in Yemen. It's popular in Saudi Arabia. I tried it. It's absolutely disgusting. Have you tried it? I have never tried Kot. It is disgusting. It's not only vile, but also it's incredibly addicting, and I think it's reasonably expensive. Well, it is, and it's very profitable. So a lot of Yemeni farmers have stopped growing things like fruit, and I believe 90% of their agricultural production today is cot. I mean, to be fair, who needs to eat when you're all effed up on

cut? So supposedly, that's one of the reasons that Houthi rebels are such good fighters. They take caught, and it turns them into Superman. These guys, they want to go fight. I guess the problem arises when you want to do something boring, like raise a successful family, and you can't feed them only eating and drinking cot. So you need food for that as well. You're absolutely right. And one of the issues that the Houthi rebels have had, they've had a collar outbreak. Now, it's very easy. Everyone wants to be a rebel until you actually have to wool. So there was a massive collar outbreak relatively recently, I believe it was in 2016 in Houthi-controlled areas because they weren't taking out the trash. They weren't providing clean water or sanitation.

It's really easy to take over a government. It's not so hard to provide services to your people once you actually do so. Right. It's not so easy to do that. Yeah, exactly. It's far easier to blow something up than to go, hey, we need to rebuild that dam and that water treatment plant. It's usually, no, we actually need to buy more ammo to blow up some more stuff instead. Or they get that ammunition from Iran. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. This is out of the loop on Yemen with Ryan McBeath. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show, these authors, creators, thinkers, it is because of the group of people that I know like and trust, otherwise known

as a network. And I know network is a yucky word these days. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at six minute networking.com. This course is about improving your relationship building skills and inspiring other people to want to develop a relationship with you. And the course does it in a non-cringey, non-gross way. It's just practical stuff that's going to make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, a better peer in just a few minutes a day. It's all it really takes. And many of the guests

on the show, subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Now, back to out of the loop with Ryan Macbeth. So Saudi Arabia bombing the crap out of these guys with cluster munitions and other things sold to them from the West, which is not great. It's a real, are we the baddies moment, I suppose. but they're also not doing that well. Because Houthis, I don't know what it is if they're getting kick-ass weapons from Iran or whatever, but Saudi Arabia is kind of wet in the bed

when it comes to beating them because this has been going on for a long time. And if they have F-15s and Houthis are launching sort of whatever kind of rockets, what's the problem here? There's a number of problems, and a lot of it goes back to kind of how the Saudi Arabian military is structured.

With the Saudi Arabian military, what you have are, they like to buy a lot of toys. You take a look at Saudi Arabia. It is a coastline that's roughly 1,600 miles long on both sides of Saudi Arabia. You'd think they'd have a great Navy, right? I think they got seven frigates, about 20 or so patrol boats or corvettes and some smaller boats. And you would think, like, oh, we should invest that Navy.

But you can't really show off a frigate to your friends, right? So you buy fighter planes. Fighter planes are cool. And most of the pilots in Saudi Arabia are part of the ruling families. Right. How you got to tell a ruling family, no, no, we want your son to be a ship captain or serve on a ship, not a fighter pilot. So they put a lot of their money into toys, into F-15s, into Eurofighters, into the tornado. And they didn't really concentrate on the simple stuff like giving night vision devices to all their soldiers.

So Saudi Arabia, they do have, at the low level, they have highly motivated soldiers, but they don't really know how to use them, and those soldiers are as well equipped as their air force. Well, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Right. So we're going to use the Air Force to hammer the heck out of the Uthis, but unfortunately you can't bomb an ideology.

You have to go in with infantry and stop them. And the Saudis were in a coalition with the UAE, Sudan, Egypt. I believe Syria was part of that coalition at one point. But for the most part, it's the UAE and it is Saudi Arabia. And the UAE has actually done much better on the ground. And a lot of that is due to the leadership in that country. They're a little more serious about having a good ground force. Wow, you definitely don't think, well, one, I should say, I don't think of the UAE as a military force. You know, I think of Dubai. And I'm like, oh, it's like, if you told me Las Vegas had a kick-ass special forces group, I would be, I wouldn't even know what to do with that. No, they have a fairly good military. And they have a lot of foreign contractors that come in. and they teach them Blackwater, when whatever name they call themselves now.

I think they were Zee for a while. Then they're Akamai and I don't know what Blackwater calls themselves now, but they all call themselves Blackwater. They often teach in the UAE. And so they have a pretty good ground force. But Saudi Arabia, like I said, they push a lot of their money into their Air Force. And you just, like I said, you can't bomb an ideology.

So they're not doing well in Yemen. And the Houthis seem to be gaining some steam one of the earliest things that I'd seen from them in a few years, because I didn't follow the war super closely, was they just started shooting missiles over Saudi Arabia at Israel. So why are they doing this? Are they just sort of like solidarity with my Muslim brothers or what? Because they're, I don't know if I would, I mean, look, I'm not a rebel army commander, but it seems like a really bad idea to pull someone else into the conflict who also has an effective military by shooting over another country that's already bombing me. You would think that, but who pulling the strengths. Right. Iran is pulling the strength. Now, they're getting these missiles, both cruise missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles. They're getting those from Iran. And I believe Iran's goal here is to get the Uthis to shut down the Red Sea. If you shut down traffic in the Red Sea, maybe there will be world pressure on Israel to stop what they're doing in Gaza. Iran can't afford an aircraft carrier. Iran can't afford battle groups. Iran,

can't send multiple divisions of troops overseas, but they can fund terror and they can fund proxies. And if you can fund a proxy that will do that stuff for you, then maybe you don't need an aircraft carrier. That makes some sense. I suppose it's probably cheaper. What is this part of asymmetric warfare? Like when you hack something, you're just like also, hey, we'll fund this proxy military with stuff because we don't need to really suffer the cost if they die and we can just basically arm these guys and train them. Are they going to Iran to train? Or does Iran send people there to train them like Green Beret style? It goes, it goes both ways. Iran will send people over, they'll send people to Iran. Another thing that the Ufis have as a capability is cyber warfare.

Iran has launched cyber attacks against Saudi Arabian oil interests, trying to shut down terminals or trying to shut down pipelines or trying to shut down production centers. They perform those actions with Huthy rebels and with teams in Iran coordinating together. So we have this dual-prong cyber capability. It's interesting. You don't think of a rebel army going all in on cyber, especially. It must not be as rag tag as people assume a lot of rebel armies are, right? I'm not thinking these aren't like dudes in the jungles of Laos with flip-flops. No, no. These are some pretty motivated people. Yemen had colleges. So I guess if you took the Zayidi, sect of Shia Islam, they're almost like the Jesuits. They actually believe in political action and

education. They're not like a rebel, rag-tag militia. They are people who believe in education and political action to fill a goal. And for them, their goal is to have an Islamic state in all of Yemen. What about Oman next door? I feel like Oman, you hear good things about it. Aren't they a little concerned that their next door neighbor is basically a crack house if we're going to keep the neighbor road analogy? I'm sure they are, but Oman really doesn't have the military to deal with that. And honestly, a lot of the smuggling routes that are through the Gulf of Aden, they go through Oman. If you're an official in Oman and someone offers you a couple of thousand dollars to look the other way as a weapon shipment gets pushed through your country, what are you going to do?

The other way weapons are getting in is Iran will actually set a freighter to Somalia. And then when it gets close to Somalia, small boats will come out from Yemen. They'll pick up the weapons and equipment, and they'll bring that right back. So, you know, if you look at an inspection bill of lading from Iran and you stop them on the high seas and say, hey, I want to see what's on this ship, oh, all this stuff is going to Somalia. When no other ships are around, bring up small boats, offload them, and they go right over to Yemen. Wow. Although it seems also bad if Iran is selling weapons to Somalia, but maybe they're, are they allowed to do that? I guess they are, right?

International trade. It's something something. international trade, right? And as long as it's not against a UN embargo, then you're absolutely allowed to do that. And the U.S. Navy is not interested in being like, you can't ship these weapons over there. The U.S. Navy does intercept Iranian shipments,

but they're all so busy. Yeah. Just, you know, the U.S. Navy has a limited number of ships, and it's a really big ocean. And every once in a while, you'll see the Navy you'll put out a report, the Department of Defense will put out a report. and they'll have the deck of a destroyer covered with AK-47s.

This is what we recovered that was going into Yemen. So they are doing what they can to stop the flow of norms. But it's a big ocean. There's a lot of ships. And you also have Elman smuggling routes. Yeah. It sort of looks to me, when I see those, it looks to me like when customs in border patrols, like we seize three tons of cocaine.

And the cartels are like, yeah, that was what we sent in before lunch on that Tuesday. And you got it. Good job, guys. And it can also be a situation where, you know what, let's tip the U.S. Navy off that there are these weapons on this ship. And meanwhile, another ship is going through with even bigger weapons or with rockets. Oh, that's interesting. Hadn't thought about that. Pretty slick. So recently, the Houthis took over a ship. And this is a cargo ship. But what was particularly interesting about this was they landed a helicopter on the ship. So it's not just like they popped out of boxes and got these totally unaware guys on a shipping on a container ship.

I mean, they pulled off a special forces operation, which shows me that Iran had definitely trained these guys, the pilot, and the operators. But why take over a cargo ship? What's the point? What was on there? Well, so that cargo ship operation was absolutely fascinating to watch. The soldiers who actually landed on the cargo ship, they weren't exactly surgical. They made some mistakes during that actual takeover.

They're pointing their weapons at each other. I know one guy hit their weapon against a wall by accident. So they weren't the best of the best, but they were pretty good at pulling this off. Also, don't forget that during the Civil War, about 60% of the Yemeni military went over to the side of the Houthis. So you have pilots, and those pilots have training. Actually, one of the planes that they had, or one of the helicopters they had was an MI-17. The helicopter actually landed on that ship. And that's a relatively new Russian helicopter, at least newer than the MIA, which it superseded.

So that could have come from Iran. There could have been training from Iran. But it's certainly possible that the Yemenis military owned that particular MI17 and use that against a ship. And if you're a good helicopter pilot, you can land on a ship. It's just a matter of going, all right, well, I have to keep moving forward because the ship is moving at 17 knots. So I got to keep moving at 17 knots and slowly descend. That disset was very deliberate. If you watch, you know, that guy lined it up to the start of the ship and that ship, they just waited until they were right over the correct spot and they landed. So that was a fairly slow descent. If that was the U.S. Navy, it probably would have been a lot faster, a lot more dynamic. But these guys,

they definitely did have practice when they did that. But it's not that hard for helicopter pilots, claim of a ship. And then why do it? Because this wasn't, at first I was like, oh, they took over an Israeli cargo ship because of course all the Reddit headlines were that. And then it was like, oh, well, it's not exactly Israeli, but it's an Israeli company. Well, it's not exactly an Israeli company. It's a company that has Israelis working for it. Well, actually, they don't. They were from Japan or something. But an Israeli guy invested in one. Actually, he was just on the board. And I'm like, way to be as removed from the actual country you think you're targeting as possible. So I almost, I was thinking like, did you not know that it's like attacking some company because one of their

investors is Israeli. And it's like, well, you sure showed them. I mean, it's a completely pointless move from the sound of it. Well, from the politics of it, it made its goal, right, by creating headlines of saying we are fighting an Israeli ship. So it's easy to create that level of disinformation. But why did they do it? Only did it because of Lloyds of London, right? Every time they take over a ship, the price of insuring ships going through the Red Sea increases. Now, the cost of global shipping increases because of what they're doing. Now that's world government is putting pressure on Israel saying, hey, you need to knock off what you're doing in Gaza because this is costing us money. The only problem with that logic that I see is the Houthis were fighting before the Gaza thing

started. So how do, even if it was like, okay, we're going to stop as long as though fighting in Gaza stops, how do we know that? And also, maybe it's easier to put pressure on other countries and arm them up against the Houthis than it is to get Israel to stop doing what it's doing. So how do they know that calculation is going to work in their favor? Because it seems like it could just as easily result in world pressure going, you know what? I was going to let these Houthi guys do their thing. But now that they're making my Amazon Prime more expensive, send a bunch of rockets and missiles to whoever's fighting those guys because they're pissing me off. Well, if you weigh the calculation, it's because war is hard. And there are very few countries that have the kind of expeditionary military

capability that could actually make a difference in that region of the world. Essentially, it's the United States, Great Britain, France, to a lesser extent, Russia, and they're not going to do anything. And maybe China, they might have the expeditionary capability to actually put troops on the ground and stop the hoodies from doing what they're doing. And I've actually Actually, I said in one YouTube video I did that if China were smart, China really wants to take over Taiwan, they should probably get some practice at shooting down incoming anti-shipnesses. So it would make a lot of sense for China to send a bunch of destroyers into the Red Sea and help out in a coalition shooting down these Houthi missiles. But they probably won't do that because China is allied with Iran and Iran is alive with the Houthis. and even though it affects Chinese shipping, they might be willing to roll the dice with that.

I was just going to say, if a country is being hurt by more expensive shipping, China is at the top of the list of countries that needs international shipping to be cheap, safe, and plentiful. So their allies over there in Yemen slash Iran are doing them no favors by making the insurance costs go through the roof. Oh, they're playing the long game, right? They're playing the long game on this. So then in terms of other expeditionary military forces, doesn't the U.S. or maybe even other countries, isn't there a base in Djibouti, which I know is not like right there? But isn't there a base in Djibouti that's a bunch of special forces and maybe even from different countries? I know some friends were stationed there. I don't know much about that place. Absolutely. So there's Camp Lemieux and that is in Djibouti. There's an airfield there. It's a navy base. Ships can dock there and they have an airfield there. And there's a number of countries that are in Camp LeMontie. And actually several miles away, there's a actually a Chinese base as well. Djibouti invited the United States in. We set up a base there and the only old Camp Leamingier and we improved it. Then they gave leasing rights to China, the base, I think about eight or ten miles to the northwest of that base, which may a lot of Americans, mad, but what do you got to do? It's their own, Djibouti is their own country. They can choose

to give leases to whoever they want. Sure. Yeah, I'm just imagining two bases with a bunch of antennas pointed at each other now. That's essentially what that Chinese base is. If one I understand they are extending their runways and ability to harbor more ships. But any kind of action against the Houthi rebels will probably come out of that base in Djibouti, Camp LeMunay, or from aircraft carriers, or, you know, perhaps from Saudi Arabia if they allow us to use. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Ryan McBeth. We'll be right right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment. and support our amazing sponsors.

All of the deals discount codes and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also email us or use the AI chatbot to surface any code that you need from the show. It is very important that you support those who support us.

Now, for the rest of my conversation with Ryan Macbeth. The Houthis have been shooting those missiles towards Israel. I know, I think it was Saudi Arabia shot down a couple of them, which makes sense because it's over their airspace, which I would not really want those

flying through my airspace, even if I were neutral, let alone at war with the country that shot them. What about the U.S.? I know we have ships all over that area? Are we not trying to also shoot down those missiles? We are, and we're actually doing an excellent job. There is a U.S. Navy destroyer, an early birth class destroyer called the U.S.S. Karni, and these people are absolute heroes. They have been patrolling the Red Sea, and they have been shooting down the Uthi missiles that are either headed toward Israel or headed towards ships in the Red Sea, as well as Houthi drones. They had been shooting them down on an almost

weekly basis. Wow. These people have done a phenomenal job. I actually sent them a bunch of t-shirts from my Department of the Boat People collection on Bunker branding as a reward for a job well done. I am so impressed with the professionalism and the ability of the sailors on the USS Carney. So how does this play out in the coming years? If we have Houthis that are maybe, are they an effective stalemate with Saudi Arabia?

or is there some progress here? They're being armed by Iran. It doesn't look like they're going to go away anytime soon. They're fighting against Israel or they're launching missiles at Israel. I mean, what happens now? So there is a basic stalemay right now. You have the Saudi-sponsored government of Yemen, which is fighting. You also have the Southern Transitionary Council,

which is another group in southern Yemen that is basically funded by the UAE and they're fighting. and sometimes they're on the side of the Saudis and sometimes they're not. And you have the Houthi rebels who patrol the capital city of Sana, but not quite much else outside of that bite of the Hershey bar. So they're mostly a stalemate, and they keep throwing rockets at each other and getting bombed by Saudi Arabian planes, and they might take a town, and that town gets taken back.

At one point, the Houthi rebels pushed as far as Aiden, and they were pushed back out again. So they're mostly at a steelmate right now. So do we really think that they will stop fighting if, let's say, there's a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Are they going to stop launching rockets at Israel, or you think that's a bluff or just a nonsense? That's a very good question, because once you kind of get the taste for power, it's really

tough to give that up. So if the Houthis recognize that we can have complete hegemony over the Red Sea and over the Gulf of Aden and anybody who, passes by us, perhaps they need to pay us a tax. It's like piracy, right? Like, oh, we want a tax. Actually, I'm just going to take the whole ship and hold it for ransom. I don't know if they would stop. I don't know if they would stop unless they get a lot of concessions from Saudi Arabia and perhaps they're recognized as the true official government of Yemen. That you might see them stop. But like I said, once you get a little

taste for power, it's kind of tough to give that up. So if ships are passing the Red Sea and have to be fearful of you, that isn't necessarily capability that you might want to give up for nothing. This is a little bit of a scary situation because they seem to be very capable of causing havoc in the area and are being armed by Iran, surprise, surprise, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. So that concerns me quite a bit. It should concern you. This is a very volatile region of the world. This is a region of the world where a good portion of shipping passes through. And there are a lot of good options other than putting boots on the ground. And now you're fighting a rebel group that wants to be there that knows the terrain. And I don't know if the United States or even if the rest of the

world is in the move for another ground war where U.S. troops can get killed. I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. Can I ask you for a quick, quick Hamas updates? Because I know it's totally off topic, and I did not ask you to prepare this at all. But what do you think? They're flooding those tunnels. Israel's flooding those tunnels with seawater under Gaza. That sounds like it might work? I don't know. I mean, I know Jack Squad. My war experience is call of duty, which I'm terrible at already.

So I don't know what to make of that. So it's a short-term solution that's going to create a long-term problem. There is an aquifer under Gaza that also extends into Israel. It's literally the Gaza aquifer. Now, much like the Colin Powell pottery bar rule, if you break it, you buy it. And by flooding those tunnels with seawater, which you're going to get is damage to the aquifer. And so now you're going to have a brackish aquifer. Now Israel is going to be on the hook for providing fresh water to Gaza for many, many years to come if they destroy that aquifer, which it looks like that's what they're doing.

So it is a very efficient way of getting Hamas militants out of the tunnels. But in the long term, it's going to create more problems with providing fresh water and desoltingization. Isn't the aquifer I've read that it's already like 90 plus percent polluted with chemicals and sewage? So is it just harder to clean up salt than it is sewage and chemicals? Or is it just like, I mean, it almost seems like it doesn't matter at this point. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's like, well, this is already polluted. Yeah, we're polluting it more. Usually destroying public infrastructure is a bad idea.

I mean, yes. Let's not try to make the situation any worse. Yeah. No, I get that. But I also totally understand why they're doing it, I guess, right? In the short term, getting these guys out of those tunnels makes a lot of sense. It's terrible that it's going to create an even bigger environmental problem in the future. Well, in the short term, the Palestinians in Gaza don't vote.

So if you are an elected official inside Israel, which is going to get you votes by destroying Hamas with fewer Israeli casualties? Right. And then maybe you have to clean up an aquifer for the next 50 years. But heck, you know, I'm not going to be in office. That's a problem for future, Jordan. I don't envy that guy. That's a problem for future whomever, right? Right, not even me.

Yeah, I'll be retired by then. So good luck, future person. I hope you have good tech to help clean that up. Absolutely. That's the mindset. Is it true that this is really effective so far? I mean, I saw this video the other day where all these sort of like, I always get in trouble in the show for fat shaming, so that's not what this is.

but there's some pretty well-fed looking Hamas guys with their shirts off sitting on the ground. I mean, it's like, where did all the supplies go? Well, they obviously had no problem eating during this conflict. What am I looking at or is this just disinformation? You're talking about the pictures of captured Hamas. Yeah. Miletus with most of their clothes off? That's what they say it is.

I don't even know. I'm always, now I question everything that comes out of that region because, you know, half the time they're like, this is actually a different country, and it's not a conflict. It was a soccer match. and you're looking at it. So who knows? But yeah, it appears to be a bunch of captured Hamas soldiers with decent-sized racks, if you will, sitting on the ground in their underwear. Well, one of the things you tend to see in some Arab countries is you tend to see a lot of obesity as you enter your 40s. I think a lot of that is because they drink very sugary tea.

Constantly, there are a lot of overweight middle-aged men in Iraq, and everyone had diabetes. Yikes. That might not be food that they're eating. it might just be their diet. It's a heavily carb-based diet, a lot of rice, a lot of bread, and you're drinking sugary tea all day. I mean, it's my favorite food, for sure,

so I can see how it happens. One of the things the Israelis do, and I've actually made videos about this where I've criticized this practice, it said the Israelis strip people down their underwear when they get captured and then they send them off without clothes on or with just their underwear on.

That's very dehumanizing to do. I know why they're doing. doing it. And they're doing it because the Israeli officers, who are the colonels and the generals now, were second lieutenants in the early 2000s back when there were suicide bombings constantly in Israel. So they remember those days, and they want to prevent any Hamas militant from possessing a suicide vest and killing some Israelis. They remember that. There is a method to this madness. In the U.S. Army, we probably, probably wouldn't do that, or I know we would not do that. We would treat them like prisoners. And we did search them, would allow them to put their clothes back on. If you take a look at

the Geneva Conventions, if you consider somebody, even a non-state actor who's taken up arms, they are supposed to get similar protections. However, I believe the Israelis are looking at some of these militants as terrorists, which don't necessarily get Geneva Convention protection. So that might be why they can get away with taking off all of their clothes. I wouldn't want suicide vests and grenade in the underwear type stuff to, I know it's dehumanizing, but I also 100% understand the safety concerns here, so it's not easy, not an easy choice. The disinformation thing is very interesting, because, of course, I saw this in many news outlets, and I saw your video on Substack, and then I was on Reddit, and it was like, look at this,

rumor has it. All these men were summarily executed by Israel moments after this photo was taken, and I was like, there's no evidence of that other than this random person on Twitter who just, made that up and then was like, it's Srebrenica 2.0, which is a massacre that happened with the Serbs went after Sevili. And I'm like, not really. These are combatants as far as we know. Srebrenica was a bunch of non-combatants that were under UN protection. Like, there's so many different things that's false. In the comments were like, of course, the Nazis are at it again. I mean, everyone just ate it up. And I thought, holy moly, not one critical brain cell in the

whole bunch here. That is the basis of dip or deceptive imagery personal. It's where you take an image and you twist that image to the narrative that you want. And that is something that we saw with Russia, where Russian supporters would show an image and say, look, illegal cluster bombs are being used by Ukraine. Oh, well, that's a smart munition. But the average person might not know about the five S's, the five S's in the T, search, segregates, safeguard, speed, and silence. and the T is tag.

You tag any prisoners that you get after you search and segregate them, speed them to the rear, keep them quiet. So the average person might not know what you do when you actually encounter a prisoner. So it's very easy to take a picture and twist that. Yeah, it's very interesting to look at the dip, the deceptive imagery. What is it? Deceptive imagery persuasion. Oh, okay. That's a good acronym, except for the fact that I couldn't remember.

It makes a lot of sense. We're going to see a lot more of that in this conflict and others. Ryan, thank you so much. I know that we went way off topic, but I really appreciate your expertise. Thank you, Jordan. I love coming on the show. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with Yasmin Muhammad, who grew up under the tyranny of radical Islam. This religion forces people to just get stuck in time. It is the root of so many of the evils that are happening in these countries. This is why we can't progress. We always hear. hear about how the caliphate is coming, how Islam will rule the world, how Muslims will get rid of the

infidels, we're going to kill off all the Jews, and Muslims are going to control this whole world. And the whole world will go back to Allah the way it should be. Everybody on the planet will be praying to Allah. These people are indoctrinated into a belief system that turns them into monsters. It erases their humanity. It tells them your basic humanity and what you're, but you believe to be right and wrong, you must ignore and you must follow what you are told to do. This is happening in your backyard. And if you don't care about what's happening in Afghanistan

or what's happening in Pakistan, what's happening in Saudi Arabia, then care about what's happening on your own soil, at least. Terrorism is the art of fear, and the only way to defeat terrorism is to not be afraid. In the face of these people that are telling you, you are not allowed to have free expression, you are not allowed to have free speech, you are not allowed to have an opinion, you say, okay, watch this, watch my opinion, watch my free expression, express itself.

For more about Yasmin's harrowing story and her escape, check out episode 748 of the Jordan Harbinger show. Man, what a mess. I would love to have seen Yemen before the current conflict, and maybe I'll be able to visit someday when it's not one of the most dangerous places in the world. I guess, hey, if you're looking for a business idea, Houthi insurance company that ensures your ship doesn't get hit by the rebels because you paid them off in advance.

I'm not sure that as a sustainable model might require a few connections. It seems like China should be on this. I mean, China relies on shipping, and they are hitting a lot of ships that are fly. Sure, the ships flagged Norway, but who made those goods? Where are those goods coming from? They're coming from China. So this is going to raise prices for a lot of folks, including people who are operating with China.

This might result in the global coalition telling these guys to knock it off. I guess we'll see how this plays out. All things Ryan Macbeth will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com, or you can ask the AI chatbot on the website. Transcripts are in the show notes as well. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show. All at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

Don't forget about six-minute networking over at six-minute networking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. this show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Millio, Campo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends

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