Last Thursday, after two consecutive missile attacks on the US Navy ship USS Mason, which allegedly were launched by Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, the US entered its latest military engagement in the middle east, when the USS Nitze launched several Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at radar installations located by the Bab el-Mandab straight, and which enabled the launch of at least three missiles against the U.S. ship.



The USS Mason (DDG 87), a guided missile destroyer

As Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said, "these limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation," adding that "these radars were active during previous attacks and attempted attacks on ships in the Red Sea," including the USS Mason, one of the officials said, adding the targeted radar sites were in remote areas where the risk of civilian casualties was low. That said, as we highlighted, the U.S. said while there growing indications, there was no official proof that Houthi fighters, or forces aligned with them, were responsible for the attempted strikes which targeted US ships. Still, the lack of concrete proof did not bother the US which, cavalier as usual, unleashed the missile assault on Yemeni territory, breaching the country's sovereignty and potentially killing an unknown number of people.

However, today - four days after the US "counterattack" - the story changes. According to Reuters earlier today the Pentagon declined to say whether the USS Mason destroyer was targeted by multiple inbound missiles fired from Yemen on Saturday, as initially thought, saying a review was underway to determine what happened.

"We are still assessing the situation. There are still some aspects to this that we are trying to clarify for ourselves given the threat -- the potential threat -- to our people," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a news briefing."So this is still a situation that we're assessing closely."

And yet, the US had no problem with "clarifying" the source of the threat on Thursday when it fired American cruise missiles at Yemeni targets.

At this point we refer readers to what we said on Thursday, when we once again put on the cynical hat, and voiced what those who have not been brainwashed by US media thought, to wit:

In retrospect one now wonders if the "cruise missiles" that fell close to the US ships were merely the latest false flag providing the US cover to launch another foreign intervention.To be sure, the Houthis, who are battling the internationally-recognized government of Yemen President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, denied any involvement in Sunday's attempt to strike the USS Mason.

A few days later, we have the closest thing possible to a confirmation that, even as the Pentagon itself admits, the "open and closed" case that Yemeni rebel fighters would, for some unknown reason, provoke the US and fire unperforming cruise missiles at a US ship, has just been significantly weakened. Of course, it if it wasn't Yemen rebels, the only logical alternative is the adversary of Yemen's rebels: Saudi Arabia. Although with the Saudis in the press so much as of late, almost exclusively in a negative light, we doubt that the Pentagon's "assessment" would ever get to the point where it would admit that America's Saudi allies launched missiles at US ships in a false flag attempt to get the US involved in the Yemen conflict by attacking the Saudi opponents and in the process aiding and abetting the Saudi execution of even more "war crimes."