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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

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocide is already defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There is a big difference between saying genocide is wrong, and saying that anyone dying during a war is wrong. Of course every death is a tragedy, but my expectation is that israel (like any country) follows international law. I don't expect them to be absolute pacifists.

Replace "dying" by "murdered". Einstein called killing under the cloak of war murder anyway, and that wasn't even talking about bombing one of the most densely populated areas with over 1M minors in it. If you need more arguments to stand up, you will never stand up. The White Rose also talked about cloaking cowardice under the cloak of wisdom. It's not a tragedy, it's a crime, it has perpetrators and supporters who…

There is a certain philosophical sense that all war is murder. But international law does have definitions for these terms, and murder can be both a war crime or a crime against humanity depending on the circumstance. However there are requirements to meet. Someone being killed during a war does not neccesarily mean its murder. It could be, but it depends on the circumstances. Even if it is not murder, it might be a different war crime, but it would also depend on the circumstances. It is also possible for the death to be totally legal under international law.

This is not that different than ordinary laws in normal civil society. Sometimes a death is murder. Sometimes it is a lesser charge like manslaughter. Other times it isn't a crime at all (for example if the person was killed in self-defense). What type of crime it is depends on the facts at hand.

Similarly, carpet bombing a densely populated area would be an obvious war crime. However, targeted bombing (which is what israel claims to be doing), maybe - maybe not. It depends on things like how good the targeting is, what is the expected collateral damage, what is the expected military benefit.

Justice happens when everyone is held to the same standard of whatever the law is at the time the offense was comitted and evidence is used to demonstrate that the perpetrator's actions met the elements of the crime. Yes, those types of requirements are hard sometimes, but that is what separates justice from vengence.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you then have us nuke Yemen? That couldn't possibly backfire. It's not like any promenant families are from there, right?[1] Wouldn't it be easier to just drop Israel like a hot potato? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family

Game-theoretically the US wouldn't want to drop support for Israel in response to attacks on shipping-- that would just result more in attacks on shipping by any country in the world that wants to force the US to do something. If the US wanted to drop Israel, they would only do so after a years-long bombing campaign that terrorized and depopulated Yemen, to make it clear that the US cannot be blackmailed into droppin…

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#443
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know well what the outcome often is. Well, we are about 50 years overdue for a large scale conflict? Thanks nukes. There’s something to be said for nobody wanting to open pandora’s box.

Why do you say that? To me, it just seems like more neo-reactionary rhetoric. It couldn't be that democracy, international institutions (such as the UN), etc. have changed the world - that we built a better world. That would be a threat to reactionaryism. Those institutions, including the UN and the rules-based international order, were built by the people who fought WWI and WWII, specifically to prevent future war.…

> Why do you say that? To me, it just seems like more neo-reactionary rhetoric. It couldn't be that democracy, international institutions (such as the UN), etc. have changed the world - that we built a better world. That would be a threat to reactionaryism.

Because it’s the significant thing that has changed.

We’ve always had political institutions, and it’s clear how useful those have historically been at preventing war.

What we haven’t had is the ability to destroy entire countries (and likely the world) at the press of a button.

It’s not that I consider it desirable that that is the main reason, but I do consider it likely.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#444
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I read it more as ‘actually holding them responsible’ than occasionally (or constantly) yelling at them, since that is kinda pointless.

On the contrary that type of complaining and soft diplomacy does have a real effect. Israel's isolation on the world stage informs a lot of the decisions israel makes currently and has made in the past that lead to the present day. Its not a "do this or else" sort of thing, but it definitely has had a major effect on regional politics. Arguably one of the main causes of the current war is israel-saudi normalisation.…

> On the contrary that type of complaining and soft diplomacy does have a real effect.

It’s had a mild effect on Russia, and they’re basically a pariah. You can’t tell me it has a significant effect on Israel.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "dying" by "murdered". Einstein called killing under the cloak of war murder anyway, and that wasn't even talking about bombing one of the most densely populated areas with over 1M minors in it. If you need more arguments to stand up, you will never stand up. The White Rose also talked about cloaking cowardice under the cloak of wisdom. It's not a tragedy, it's a crime, it has perpetrators and supporters who…

There is a certain philosophical sense that all war is murder. But international law does have definitions for these terms, and murder can be both a war crime or a crime against humanity depending on the circumstance. However there are requirements to meet. Someone being killed during a war does not neccesarily mean its murder. It could be, but it depends on the circumstances. Even if it is not murder, it might be a…

> However, targeted bombing (which is what israel claims to be doing)

That claim does not hold water.

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

And in the same thread here, an Israeli tells me that unfortunately there is no other way than reduce Gaza to rubble. But it's also laser-precise targetting killings.

Enough.

Pretending it couldn't be known was disproven by those who called it out, any further playing for time I will not take part in. Let's examine the evidence when people are on fucking trial where they belong.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#446
post #415

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 play…

> "Hamas is playing the land grab card against Israel".

What do you mean by that? Comparing Russia with Hamas seems like a massive distortion of reality, not sure you meant to do that.

Israel is occupying internationally recognized Palestinian lands of West Bank and a blockade on Gaza. Just yesterday the Israeli foreign minister suggested sending Israeli settlers into Gaza illegally and drive Palestinians out for good. Hamas is a terrorist organization, who kills civilians, but let's not pretend that the IDF is any better.

And the US is a colonial power of the 20th and 21st century. It just hasn't done it the same way as the Europeans of 17,18th,19th century, mostly because there are different tools available now: culture export, dependence on oil, dollar as reserve currency, global free trade, and the rise of corporations.

Noan Chomsky says the issue of Palestine is resistance against colonialism. [1] [2]

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lUQ_0MubbcM&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D

[2] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-02/israel-gaza...

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#447
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western media, representing an ebullient american establishment, which was replete with articles like this around the beginning of may 2023: https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-counteroffensive-begun-expe... If you can find an article from may 2023 that accurately predicts that ukraine could end the offensive with less land than it started off with Id like to see it. There's more doom and gloom now of course. The failur…

> an article from may 2023 that accurately predicts that ukraine could end the offensive with less land than it started off with Everyone I read made predictions conditional on aid, specifically, long-range strike capability and air defence. Here is Phillips O’Brien on 28 May: “Ukraine has had to fight this war under a series of great handicaps. Its aid has been often technologically limited and always politically li…

>Everyone I read made predictions conditional on aid

Ok and once the aid numbers were published how many of them predicted that Ukraine would end the offensive with less land than it started?

>If you’re seriously following this issue, stay clear of Yahoo! News and ad-funded sources. They’re mostly mouthpieces

Im obviously talking about what the mouthpieces said - what the average person on hacker news will have read and believed.

My sources nailed it. They made fairly specific predictions, most of which came true with a smallish margin of error. They've been predicting a Ukrainian collapse some time between mid 2024 - beginning of 2025 for the last several months.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#448
post #11
post #3

I’m fairly concerned this Red Sea thing can turn into what sets off inflation for real. These routes were major efficiency factors to the economy. If we lose them, there’s nothing but added cost coming for us all, and at the worst time for consumer confidence in central banks ability to manage the situation. Can we just keep our shit together? It’s been a rough decade and it’s only 3 years into the 2020s…

The Houthis official slogan is: “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam." I’m petty sure they do not give a shit about making consumerism harder for Americans. In fact it’s probably a bonus.

You said this to a few people, and you’re not wrong but i also don’t care? This should be an issue we can resolve without really getting into the politics of their belief systems. Secure shipping channels, it’s been the MO of modern economies for a hundred years or more at least.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this diversion significantly affect travel time, which would cause some shippers to opt for air instead of ocean?

It adds 7-10 days to a trip that would normally take 30-40 days: https://www.flexport.com/blog/global-ocean-carriers-halt-red... Air cargo rates are 10-20x ocean, so it’s unlikely an extra week of travel would justify the expense for most cases.

My point is it’s not cheaper it’s more expensive, at precisely the wrong time. Sure shipping costs might be a small fraction of the costs of goods…but…unless it’s TLDR: it’s more than 2%, the average value of a shipping container is 50k, it costs 3k to mover. This is an issue, let’s resolve it.

https://porteconomicsmanagement.org/pemp/contents/part1/mari...

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#450
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dir…

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

Another humiliating retreat would be a colossal blow to US."

It's not about humiliation at this point. The US actually cannot beat these countries straight up in a shooting war anymore. The combination of post-Cold War deindustrialization, the lack of morale after 2 decades of fruitless wars, and the politicization of the military reducing its appeal to its traditional recruits, especially in the rank-and-file, have shown their fruits in the collapse of American deterrence ability in the 2020s. Russia wouldn't have dared to attack Ukraine in the first place if the US was stronger, and NATO's performance has only been good enough to avoid Russia steamrolling Ukraine, not to significantly retake Russia's gains. Russia can make more artillery shells than NATO combined. Ukraine is even more at risk now that the West's attention has wandered to the Middle East, endangering the aid that's kept them in the war so far.

Some would blame this on the current president, but I think the rot is much broader and deeper. If there is a future of the American military, it will probably consist of Anduril taking it over.

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