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

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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying Says you. All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" go…

> All other nuclear nations behave [...] What makes you think that Iran won't? Iran already misbehaves, exporting violence to the entire region. How do you think they are going to act when they have nuclear weapons?

The same as Israel.

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

#572
post #472
post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious flamewar is not ok on Hacker News, regardless of religion. No more of this please. I realize that this thread has many ways of degenerating but what you posted here was particularly pure flamebait. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49660220 .

Ok, I accept being deleted by moderator. Not intend to flamebait. But why on 9/11 have front page about Houthis, many comments supporting them and others apparent unknowing who they are?

Uh, they just did us a huge favor by owning the perpetrators of 9/11 on the 25th anniversary. We should be celebrating!

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

#573
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't announce their secret nuclear weapons programs before they are complete (though they are sometimes discovered), but some countries have violated international law and developed them, precisely to protect their sovereignty: - North Korea - Israel - India - Pakistan All retain their sovereignty, though I can't prove any causal effect and certainly nuclear weapons isn't the only cause. Others have pursued the…

> Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons Ukraine never had nuclear weapons. Russia is the sole legal successor of the USSR and these were all Russian nukes on Ukrainian territory. > in exchange for peace from Russia There isn't a single mention of nuclear weapons in the Budapest Memorandum.

Since the USSR no longer existed and Ukraine became a sovereign nation again, Ukraine had possession of them.

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

#574

And the Saudis asked the US to strike the Houthis because they don't trust the leadership of their own officers, but the US said "no". MbS is furious with the Trump crime family as a result. (While the Saudis have tons of US equipment but it's mostly a show force because they're unable to employ it effectively.)

I wonder why the US refused. Did MbS's check bounce or is Trump worried about another quagmire before the midterm elections?

Will MbS place a phone call to Pakistan National Command if his oil shipments get distilled for too long?

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

#575
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is over simplified to the point of being misleading/wrong. Russia was the legal successor of the USSR for purposes of diplomatic continuity, but the other Soviet successor states divided portions of the Soviet military/equipment, split Soviet debt obligations, etc on a case by case basis.

Nuclear weapons are a special case though. Plus Ukraine didn't have the ability to use them anyway without launch codes as far as I'm aware.

Electronic components can be swapped out. The nuclear material is what really matters.

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

#576

That's why relying on mercs (which is what both UAE and Saudi chose in Yemen) is a double edged sword. At some point the cash isn't enough of a motivator and they will just run away.

We seem to be in need of a mercenary Uber, where individual mercenaries will have their reputation and the potential customers will be able to check it.

Isn't it just blackwater, or whatever it's been renamed as?

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

#577
post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hamas is claiming a total of around 70k. Israel is claiming a total of over 20k combatants. Thus at most Israel killed something under 50k innocents, and probably a lot less.

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

#578
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Do you know who amongst the governments of those countries decided to back this Syrian president? I certainly don't. I am very much against black and white thinking. But the typical US and even EU liberal citizen is mired in such thinking when it comes to talk about "war crimes and "regime change". If you don't know who in the EU govt decided to…

Really? You’ve spent the time to learn every member of the EU government that supported them? And you think that’s a good use of everyone’s time? I guarantee you that the average US citizen hasn’t bothered to do that with even their members of congress, many don’t know the name of their representative, let alone those of a foreign government, they’re generally much more concerned with how they’re going to make enough money to pay to live as costs rise. Not to mention the flurry of domestic cultural infighting related concerns.

You’re certainly free to hold whoever you want responsible, but I’d argue it’s not a realistic position. And keep in mind that it’s hard for someone living here to have an accurate view of what the average American believes, even harder for someone living outside the country - dominant opinions vary widely between regions of the US. I’m sorry that our government supports war criminals of varying degrees on our behalf, though, would certainly be nice if our leaders were more principled on that front.

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

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't just do it by "accident". We did it through incompetence. This wasn't the unfortunate result of a necessary attack on a valid target. This was the result of stupidity. "Hey, we're not as bad a literal terrorist regime!" is not a metric by which I think we should measure our own country. I'd believe we'd actually accomplished our goal of stopping their nuclear program if this specific administration hadn't t…

> We didn't just do it by "accident". We did it through incompetence. Ok and they did theirs with malicious and clear purpose. Yikes! > This wasn't the unfortunate result of a necessary attack on a valid target. This was the result of stupidity. No. Iran and their militant proxies know that we don't attack civilian targets on purpose. That's why they set up facilities, military equipment, or hide combatants behind ch…

It was admitted incompetence in target selection, potentially due to misuse of AI, acting on out of date intelligence.

This has been heavily reported on and no counter-story has been proffered.

You introduced a whataboutalism. I pointed out whataboutalisms are ridiculous when it comes to dead children.

The frustrating part of all of this is we had a working agreement with Iran, with numerous mechanisms to ensure compliance, that was torn up because this administration, without any offered evidence, said Iran wasn't in compliance. And this was despite multiple international partners disagreeing and saying they were absolutely complying.

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

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it is just trump. netanyahu's been pushing for this for decades, but prior presidents just didn't let themselves be pushed. as for iran, they've been the picture of restraint since trump's first term.

The problem existed anyway. Pushing it into open conflict doesn't change that.

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