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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

#411

Post by ra »

badpun wrote: post #304
saiya-jin wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neighboring countries like Slovakia or Hungary could also state similar historical stuff (I lived through it myself) yet look at their current governments. Hungarians also had 1956 yet look at Orban

Hungary is currently hugely dependent on Russian natgas, so they're completely at Putin's mercy. Putin could have have them freeze to death at a snap of his fingers, which I'm sure was pointed out to Orban during a private audience.

Yep - energy security draws battle lines, generally not isolated military events.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#412

Post by l3mure »

edanm wrote: post #393
mrtksn wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Anyway, %50 women and children causality rate on top of illegal occupation and other atrocities wouldn't convince anyone about it being a "collateral damage". Gaza isn't occupied any longer, or at least, not in the traditional sense. Israel left Gaza in 2005. As for the casualty rate - just look at the casualty rate in e.g. the Iraq war. Every civilian death is tragic, but war really does involve a lot of collatera…

> The IDF doesn't target civilians, and would definitely never brutally massacre, rape and torture civilians.

They have unequivocally done all of those.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#413

Post by l3mure »

johnnyworker wrote: post #303
edanm wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you obviously care a lot about this topic, but I think you're really wrong on your facts. For the record, I'm Israeli, so take what I say with your appropriate level of skepticism - but I'm going to at least try to get across what I think you're wrong about. I hope you approach what I say with an open mind, though many people tend not to (in any discussion of anything, not just about this). > And when you say "…

> Israel has the means to kill far more people, if it wanted to - it just doesn't. That you say this and still come on to me with that "I share your values" stuff is just gold.

One of Israel's main talking points is an unironic repeat of an abusive trope and they wonder why they're losing the propaganda war, incredible stuff.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#414

Post by dctoedt »

defrost wrote: post #98
tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, this is literally the oldest, best established casus belli in the American system.

Blowing up your own ammnition by accident and blaming the Spanish? ADDENDUM: Clarification for those up|down voting like a yo-yo: On February 15, 1898, the American battleship Maine exploded while sitting in the Havana harbor, killing two officers and 250 enlisted men. Fourteen of the injured later died, bringing the death toll to 266. A naval board of inquiry concluded that the blast was caused by a mine placed outs…

Where have you gone, Sam Cooke ("Don't know much about, hiss-toh-ree-ee ...")

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#415

Post by nojvek »

War is a huge escalation - usually when two countries see no other avenue than to fight it out.

Most wars are fought over borders. Land ownership is 0 sum game. Especially land blessed with natural resources. (Middle East is great example of oil wars)

In the 90s imperialism was popular - if you had the manpower and weapons, you’d take land from the weak.

Russia is playing land grab card against Ukraine.

Hamas is playing the land grab card against Israel. Although Israel being backed by US will inflict a lot more damage.

Africa is full of border conflicts for centuries. We don’t hear much about it since it’s a poor continent.

The US has the world’s largest military and a big part of what they do is to ensure their allies have their borders intact (NATO, Australia, Japan, S Korea etc).

So sinking some ships is likely gonna be met with some bombs on their military production facilities where missiles are made (if they figure it out).

For the world’s largest military, US holds much restraint not invading other countries borders, and helping democratic countries keep their borders intact.

If US unleashed colonialism card, we could be much larger than British empire. However the bitter lesson is that conquering is easy, maintaining power is way harder.

Seems China is holding restraint invading Taiwan until they see a clear win with a blitz, or another peaceful avenue.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#417

Post by ceejayoz »

maxglute wrote: post #111
pkaye wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many cargo ships does the US have?

Not enough, hence a lot of DoD logistics is now done on civilian shipping via Maritime Partners program. Including Maersk who was dropping DoD contracts in September, the few ships on contract by DoD in region was refusing to go a couple weeks ago even with US escorts. The big revelation is Houthis has demonstrated US Transportation Command / US military's sealift ability is being challenged by small time Iranian pro…

> The big revelation is Houthis has demonstrated US Transportation Command / US military's sealift ability is being challenged by small time Iranian proxy, so good luck on an IndoPac campaign against PRC.

This is a very odd takeaway from this incident.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#418

Post by badpun »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #204
screye wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because events never cause wars. Countries want war and then they wait for an inciting event to go in. The US wants a war with Russia without putting boots on the ground. Ukraine was a convieinient excuse. 9/11 triggered a war with random middle eastern countries that the US wanted to invade anyway. If Cuba downed a large cargo ship, then the US will have annexed it before midnight. If China downs one in South China…

> The US wants a war with Russia without putting boots on the ground. Ukraine was a convieinient excuse. That claim seems delusional. US was doing it’s best over the last 20 years to appease Putin so that they could ignore Europe and focus on the Pacific. Hardly anyone in the west wanted to be dragged into this pointless war..

Seeing how Putin cannot be appeased, his war with Ukraine is a pretty convenient outcome for the US. Ukraine, with some limited help from NATO countries, is doing a huge bleeding of Russian military potential. This, for a mere cost of a couple dozens of billions, seriously knocks back US's main rival in the Europe regions. As long as US wants to have any influence in Europe at all, this was is very advantageous for them.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#419

Post by badpun »

m4rtink wrote: post #328
badpun wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary is currently hugely dependent on Russian natgas, so they're completely at Putin's mercy. Putin could have have them freeze to death at a snap of his fingers, which I'm sure was pointed out to Orban during a private audience.

Well, the Czech Republic used to get most of its natural gas from Russia as well, even very recently - mainly due to how the old eastern block pipeline network was laid out. But it has since the switched to regasiffied LNG & rented a couple LNG terminals for it. Other European countries did the same successfully. Why Hungary can't do that as well ? Seems more like some direct blackmail against Orban and his people to…

I believe that Hungary is doing that as well (a quick googling reveals a bunch of projects under development and construction). However, untying themselves from Russia might take a couple of years at least.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#420

Post by genman »

Tommstein wrote: post #405
lovelyviking wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! Ukraine is loosing the best Ukrainians as we speak due to the lack of weapons and it’s heart breaking to say the least. Those people in front like need much more support then they get. It’s a moral obligation of the west among other reasons.

I support Ukraine in this like all civilized people, but we have absolutely no moral obligation to Ukraine whatsoever. When the Iron Curtain fell and pretty much everyone who was behind it ran to NATO for protection from Russia as fast as they could, even countries that don't even share a border with Russia, Ukraine was like "nah, Russia's not that bad, don't wanna take sides between them and NATO, what's the worst t…

I would argue that quite contrary is true - we do have moral obligation to stop genocide of Ukrainians by Russia.

Your description is also not factually correct considering multiple revolutions in Ukraine that tried to set the course toward NATO and EU but you have to also take into account that Ukraine is also too important for Russia and Ukraine was actively attacked by Russian intelligence services and finally direct war against Ukraine in 2014 to prevent it joining NATO.

We should also take into account deceptive manipulations by the West like the Budapest memorandum that created an impression of false security.

But even regardless of this, not supporting Ukraine would be incredibly dumb move for US that will seriously hurt its geopolitical position. War in Ukraine, multiple coups in Africa, Hamas attack on Israel, now these attacks on ships.

Look to where just cowardly moving out of Afghanistan has taken us.

Another humiliating retreat would be a colossal blow to US.

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