USS Lincoln's Red Sea Cruise: US Pretext Patrol
📰 THE STORY: AP News reports that Yemen's Houthi rebels are threatening new Red Sea attacks to back Iran, as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier sails towards the region following President Trump's threats of military action over Iranian domestic protests. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The media consistently portrays the Houthis as simply 'Iranian-backed rebels,'
stripping them of their agency and domestic grievances. The 2023-24 Houthi Red Sea actions were a direct response to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, with the explicit goal of pressuring Israel to halt its assault. This aligns with a long history of anti-colonial resistance movements being framed as foreign proxies. Furthermore, the US has been demonizing and threatening Iran since the 1979
revolution, and even earlier, by orchestrating the 1953 CIA coup against democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, which installed the Shah. Double Standard: When Yemen's Houthis declare solidarity with Palestine against a genocidal assault, it's framed as 'Iranian-backed terrorism.' Yet, when the US sends an aircraft carrier thousands of miles from its shores to threaten a
sovereign nation (Iran) or when NATO expands eastward, it's portrayed as 'maintaining stability' or 'deterrence.' The 'crackdown on protests' narrative against Iran is also a familiar trope; compare the media frenzy over alleged Iranian crackdowns to the silence on Saudi Arabia's far more brutal repression (e.g., the 2019 execution of 37 dissidents) or even US police actions against peaceful