In a former life, I used to travel up and down the highway which runs along the north shore of Lac Leman in Switzerland, from Lausanne to Montreux and beyond. Along the way I'd pass the site where the fire occurred which is immortalized in the rock song "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple:
For some reason, the US now plans to send a naval "coalition of the willing" to protect the Red Sea from what we consider to be pirates, mainly from Yemen. This mission also will involve smoke on the water, this time in the Middle East.
There are several reasons why this may be no easy task, and you can read about them here:
https://www.unz.com/article/the-u-s-navy-is-unprepared-for-a-prolonged-war-with-yemen/
You might want to ask WHY we would undertake such a thing WITHOUT a declaration of war or even a clear understanding of why this mission is necessary. I suspect it has a lot to do with the possibility of another "Gulf of Tonkin" resolution, this time in support of the pending war with Iran.
For many of us, this is mainly academic now, but wait until the Houthis sink one or more of our large ships (e.g., an aircraft carrier). Then the shit really will hit the fan, and the ol' national debt will zoom upward into the stratosphere.
Can we afford more wars? According to those who never went to war themselves, the answer is yes. But those of us who HAVE been deployed will tell you the answer is NO ... especially when the whole thing is avoidable and could be stopped in a New York minute if our "leaders" had enough backbone and intelligence.
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