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Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

bbc.com

501–510 of 679 posts

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think the chain of command looks like in the third world? Even in the Russia/Ukraine conflict they use Telegram for basic operations. All chat applications are dual-use.

> What do you think the chain of command looks like in the third world? I have no idea, but Im certain that twitter recordings do not put frontline forces in disarray. > use Telegram for basic operations an encrypted private communication channel is very different than public social media

> > What do you think the chain of command looks like in the third world?

> I have no idea, but Im certain that twitter recordings do not put frontline forces in disarray.

And yet as a counterexample: reality.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear that non-mercenary Arab armies are much better in this respect.

It's not clear that Western armies are better either, as we've seen time and again in Iran, Afghanistan and Syria.

Politically constrained. It's just the stated goal is impossible given the political RoE.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke but even though there’s not an app per se, Russia is using the “gig economy” to run sabotage ops in Europe.

How do they do that?

They find telegram channels where people ask for jobs and offer them $500-2k to light a fire. There's millions of people who can't find jobs.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#504
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a terrible Islamist group that commits warcrimws ... The Syrian President and current Western/Israeli "good boy" - belongs to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which has committed warcrimes which make the Houthis look like choir boys. He was former Al-Qaeda too with a multi-million dollar bounty. Done an utterly ridiculous number of beheadings, chaining & rape of women, torture, the whole galore of work…

Geopolitics is way too complicated for such black and white thinking. Do you know who amongst the governments of those countries decided to back this Syrian president? I certainly don't. What percentage of the (huge) populations that you're damning as "deeply disgusting, sanctimonious hypocrites" do you think know who the current Syrian president is, his history, know who amongst their governments backed him, voted f…

> Geopolitics is way too complicated for such black and white thinking.

Your comment reeks of western superiority and exceptionalism.

Its not black and white thinking. It just hypocrisy at the highest level.

The EU does not spend a single day without going around telling anyone and everyone that human rights are very important and that we should do absolutely everything to keep things that way but then turns around and welcomes the head of a (former) terrorist group in Europe.

Even Macron welcomed the guy in Paris even though ISIS killed hundreds of French citizens.

Can anyone then reasonably blame China or India when they continue doing business with Russia? If so why the double standards?

The US and the EU love to criticize other nations but don't mind supporting war criminals and dictators when its suits them and even give them money and/or sell them weapons.

After the Ukraine war ends, I'll bet you you'll see Putin or his successor being invited to cocktail parties in Frankfurt or London, no question about it.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#505
post #304
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few more examples: “40 beheaded babies” and mass/systematic rape propaganda accepted with zero verification (journalism 101) and, once debunked, zero retractions were made Hamas-run, but not Likud-run Condemnation of atrocities by Israel and the US that comes from Israeli and Western voices is given significantly more weight than the same claims coming from Palestinian or Arab voices. After all, the native lacks th…

There's a well researched report on this bias: https://cfmm.org.uk/resource/bbc-on-gaza-israel-one-story-do...

Thanks, haven’t seen this before.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#506
post #384
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Chinese oil reserves were much larger than was publicly known. They immediately cut imports by a massive amount as soon as the war started and have been able to keep it up for months. Without that the economic fallout would have been far greater. Not that they are doing it for this reason, but they have done a lot to shield trump from the consequences of his stupid war. But those supplies can only hold for so lo…

China is also reducing gasoline and diesel use by adoption of EVs.

A slow, ongoing reaction is not going to fix a sudden, large action.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#507
post #482
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is no evidence Israel killed 70,000 innocents. But there is strong evidence Iran killed 40,000 demonstrators and Hamas killed 1,000’s innocent.

There is evidence, unless you are of the genocidal cult that believes every Palestinian born is automatically a terrorist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran is known to have killed at least 10,000 of their own people just this year. The US has done bad too, but the scale isn't nearly as large.

> the scale isn't nearly as large. This year. ... so far. All sides are bad.

I agree all sides are bad. Too many people ate trying to do one side bad, so the other side must be good. We can ask least bad. Sometimes there are no good options.

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#509

The Houthis created a fake audio of a major Yemeni commander telling his troops to retreat which was subsequently amplified on Twitter/X, telegram, etc. Apparently, this helped the Houthis advance quickly as the opposition forces were in disarray. https://x.com/BashaReport/status/2097862335494795579

Can't read the Twitter link, but that sounds made up. Where in the battlefield decision making process are they listening to social media recordings to make combat decisions?

India Today version https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/houthis-ai-cloned-yeme...

Re: Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is sold globally. It doesn't matter if in Texas wells are producing it at a penny for barrel, if the global prices are high that oil is going to be sold to Philippinos, Japanese, Italians or South Africans. So, at the same time, it doesn't matter if some new routes open or close, it doesn't particularly favor one or the other buyer, it's still sold globally on a bid.

Until we bar export.

What's next? Full blown communism?

In any case, bad idea if other retaliate with their exports.

Also, US cannot really use the oil it produces, because it can refine very little of it.

Any export ban would require massive investments.

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