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Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more awkward than supporters of Israel having to cope with Israeli ministers suggesting nuking Gaza, or having to deal with the ACLU defending Nazis in court. Every cause, even (sometimes especially ) the righteous ones, has shitty people attached to it.

That’s not the same thing at all. Hamas and the like have an official, publicly available creed which explicitly calls for the extermination of Jews. You sure you want to put that on the same level as one minister suggesting something stupid? By that logic, you absolutely must put all of congress in one group because trump suggested something similar.

> You sure you want to put that on the same level as one minister suggesting something stupid?

Yes, I think a government cabinet minister saying "nuke Gaza" is quite scary.

For every one willing to say it out loud, there's usually more leaving it unsaid but supporting the sentiment.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#382
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the US was actually trying for moderate appeasement, it would have advocated for a militarily neutral Ukraine, and independence referendums in eastern Ukraine. Why? There was no genuine independence movement in eastern Ukraine. It was a Russian military operation right from the start, led by their security services. Russians have a long history of establishing such fake countries on the territory of other countr…

Why not? IF that is the case, than an credible election should be a landslide. It would demonstrate commitment to democratic self determination, which I think should be a global baseline. I have never been to Ukraine, so dont claim a any definitive knowledge of what people do an don't want. However, I do have immigrant friends from eastern Ukraine with family there with many grievances against the central government,…

> Why not?

Eastern Ukraine had no independence movement before Russians invaded and created an illusion that one existed, to fool western observers into believing that it was some kind of "complex" local conflict and not a clear-cut foreign invasion.

After the invasion, under foreign occupation, referendums are illegitimate. How do you expect people to vote when any sign of loyalty to Ukraine can get you and your family imprisoned or executed? Voting doesn't matter anyway, because the military admin will falsify results according to their needs.

Not to mention that Russians in Ukraine don't have any legitimate claim to sovereignty in the first place. International law does not recognize the right of a random group of people to declare sovereignty. Otherwise Koreatowns and latino neighbourhoods in every US city would declare sovereignty and stop paying taxes to US authorities.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#383
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has virtually zero dependence on trade through the Red Sea area. This is more about assisting allies and maintaining regional hegemony.

What makes you say that? At least, a significant amount of world trade passes through there, and the US is dependent on economies of its trading partners and of the world in general. If you mean, not many countries ship directly to the US via the Suez Canal, I can imagine that. Europeans sail west across the Atlantic, East Asians sail east across the Pacific. India, perhaps, might go west through the Canal, but I don…

What makes me say that is the fact that none of the top US trading partners are in that region. Almost all of our overseas trade is on Atlantic and Pacific routes, very little through the Suez Canal.

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-does-the-us-tr...

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#384
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ignore people like dash2 who say that the US would be "much, much poorer without it" On what planet is losing a quarter of one’s GDP not “much, much poorer”? That’s the GDP of 33 U.S. states and territories [1], through Indiana. It’s more than the GDP of Germany, the world’s third-largest economy [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou…

Did you even bother to look at the figures for the rest of the world? During the Great Depression, even if one got a salary cut, that was far better off than losing the job. If the US is "much, much poorer", every other country (developed or not) has been evicted and moving in with the parents if lucky; homeless and on the streets if not.

> Did you even bother to look at the figures for the rest of the world?

America might be less fucked than everyone else. But it would still get fucked.

> During the Great Depression

Great analogy. You’re talking about economic catastrophe on par with the Great Depression, which involved a 29% reduction in GDP.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking the other way is looking the other way No, it’s maintaining focus. Is every article that talks about the war in Gaza looking the other way on every other ongoing atrocity? > You can compared an apple to an orange, or another apple, but not itself You can compare anything to anything. That doesn’t make the comparison useful, nor does it keep it from speaking about its speaker as well.

No, why would it be. But a hypothetical citizen of a nation supporting Israel in their current undertaking not caring that a terrorist attack was committed with the stated intent of creating pressure to stop an on-going genocide, as if it has nothing to do with them, is looking the other way. An article leaving out that context is too. Given that what actually happened was "a flash and no injuries" -- so, nothing --…

> it seems outright weird to not include that

If I’m sailing a ship, I want the information that lets me do my job. Not shoehorned political agendas. Given a choice between publications, I’ll choose the concise one.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#386
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> needed They need to leave Gaza alone and not blockade. At. All. How’s that boot taste?

Gaza and Israel are at war, because Gaza attacked Israel. In wars, countries don't normally allow aid in to the state you are fighting. The fact that Israel allow anything in at all shows the extent to which they are fighting with kid gloves. In any other place or any other period of history all goods heading into Gaza would be seized, and the entire territory would be put under siege until they either surrendered co…

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#387
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing > Ethnic cleansing has been described as part of a continuum of violence whose most extreme form is genocide, where the perpetrator's goal is the destruction of the targeted group. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer whereas genocide is the attempt to destroy part or all of a particular ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. Wh…

How is displaying a national group elsewhere not destroying it as a national group ? That's why I say genocide. And at best you could say they don't care if the Palestinians live or die as long as they go away, by bombs, starvation or fleeing, and then can take the land. https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398 > "If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza…

> How is displaying a national group elsewhere not destroying it as a national group?

Plenty of nations have migrated over history. Every inhabitant of the Middle East is part transplant and/or invader.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#388
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> you are a terror supporter

Someone can support Palestinians’ rights without supporting terror. As can someone commit even heinous war crimes without rising to genocide.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about an extra variable here or there, we're talking about the equivalent to string theory which is famously intractable. It's an n-body problem where n = ?????? and you don't know any of the boundary conditions. It's not random and inscrutable, but it sure isn't conducive to naive academic analyses like game theory. Just because you can model something simple, doesn't mean you can predict something…

maybe there is a disconnect on what we call prediction. There is more than enough information to predict if China would be in favor or against US building a military base in Taiwan. There isn't enough information to predict what Xi Jinping will have for breakfast.

There's definitely a disconnect because if that's the best example of a game theoretic prediction, I stand by my statement that game theory is useless in geopolitics.

What would China's first concrete move be after it's final final warning [1]? Which faction in the party would have most influence over Xi Jinping in such an event and how much influence do they have over the military? How much would China be willing to compromise it's status as a trading partner with the West if push comes to shove? Those would be useful predictions that can be acted on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because US protecting global shipping is overexaggeration. US protects US flagged shipping - non US flagged vessels got hit without US intervention during tanker wars for years without US lifting finger. MENA oil exporters had to reflag under US flag (pay US taxes/protection fees) to be eligible for defense. US didn't step up to end tanker wars until bunch of US sailers killed with USS Stark was hit. Prosperity Guard…

> US protects US flagged shipping Not true. FON protects non-US flagged ships; most ships aren’t U.S. flagged. > non US flagged vessels got hit without US intervention during tanker wars for years America doesn’t protect all ships all the time. Sure. We’re selective about which FON issues we exert influence over. But when we get there, we protect everyone. > because Maersk and other civilian shippers that DoD depends…

>Not true

Historically true. Entire US protects global shipping narrative, that got popular post Zeihan, ignore the fact that US explicitly did not protect non US flagged vessels during tanker wars for years - the last large scale SLOC disruption. And when US "got there" they didn't protect everyone, Kuwaiti vessels had to reflag as US to get protection. US protected everyone in the sense that Stark getting hit triggered Operation Earnest Will that eventually led to cease fire with Iran to end tanker wars. But US was fine with years of SLOC disruption until US lost sailors.

>Source

Sal Mercogliano of What's Going on in Shipping covered it around early/mid december. Source is his sources. But martime twitter in general, folks tracking Maersk DoD ships with apparent USN escorts were wondering why they weren't transitting red sea / hovering Gulf of Oman. They had explicit protection outside of prosperity guardian but didn't move until after. Sal sources said Maersk was trying to leverage US to protect all Maersk shipping, not just US flagged/part of DoD program.

>America shouldn’t be doing this for free...

This presuppose US is some benevolent provider of global security, or PRC is free riding. When reality is they both have postures calibrated for their own interest. There's every reason PRC should do African anti piracy that effects her since US can't be depended on. And every reason not to do anything in Red Sea when it doesn't effect her as much as it undermines US. They would be stupid to help US/west when they could be just collecting intel which for PRC interest is doing plenty. If US really wants PRC to do more, they should encourage PRC to open more naval bases abroad and burden share. But that's stupid. US benefits from adversaries not having global basing and optics of being global martime security provider even from countries that would rather not be "protected" by US.

>"Largely" does heavy lifting

Not really, PRC shipping hasn't had pause unlike Maersk or western shippers. COSCO announced they planned to detour but continued Red Sea operations like normal. So far no indication PRC shipping has been disrupted. Hangzhou (Singapore flagged) was previously docked in Israel's Mediterranean port. Whatever Houthi/Iran targetting is discriminating enough for PRC to ride things out. But yes regional war would flip script. Even India/Pak navy war cooperating after recent tanker hit off India. In the mean time, current instability is not explicitly "good" for PRC, but it's much worse for US/west. Until something changes, there's no reason to cooperate. Hangzhou still got hit despite a carrier group there to settle things down, Maersk is halting red sea transit again despite explicit US protection. It's early days, but right now PRC is position to sit back, gather data, and watch US bleed expensive interceptors (which is an easy to replace economic problem), and wear down hulls and crew on extended deployment (which is a harder to replace political problem).

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