Tanker carrying Russian oil to China attacked by Houthi sea drone

BombOmOm@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 368 points –
Tanker carrying Russian oil to China attacked by Houthi sea drone
newsweek.com
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I'd like this a lot more if it wasn't dumping oil into the sea...

100,000 tons of crude. Who's responsible for mopping this around for PR before it finally sinks to the bottom?

I wouldn't hold your breath. "People waiting to be saved in the Middle East" is a long list, and I assume the seabirds are low down.

What is a typical rate of actual recovery after an oil spill?

There's an even longer list of "people not waiting anymore to be saved in the Middle East", where entries are usually permanent.

I don't think it sinks. I think it floats until it ends up on a coast somewhere.

I was just thinking of all the tar balls and tar logs and polluted animal life sinking into the abyss, but generally, yea, I think it does just wash up places.

Who's going to try and risk getting sunk by a drone or a missile?

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Hear me out: If it's on fire it destroys more of the climate and less of the ocean... (not sure if win tho)

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The people here praising the Houthis seem to think they knew who they were attacking rather than just seeing a ship pass by and attacking it, which is what they actually do.

And in general I didn't expect to see praise for a group that has "A Curse Upon the Jews" as part of their official slogan.

There are certain people on Lemmy who support the Houthis because they claim what they are doing supports Gaza. It does not. They aren't stopping Israel from doing anything by doing this... but there are people here who have this ridiculous "enemy of my enemy is my friend regardless of what they actually accomplish or what their real goals are" attitude which baffles me. The Houthis are awful. They have killed a huge number of people, including children, just like Israel. But hey, they're declared enemies of Israel, so we can just overlook that little issue.

I've seen people even praise theocracies like Iran for the same reason.

It's ridiculous.

“enemy of my enemy is my friend regardless of what they actually accomplish or what their real goals are” attitude

See also: "America bad, therefore Russia good"

It does not.

One of Israel's ports is going bankrupt as a direct result of the Houthi blockade. That might not be preventing Gazans from being murdered but it's fucking something which is more than 99% of the world is doing.

The Houthis aren't a perfect org, but US imperialism is the greater evil by far, and everyone who opposes it deserves at least critical support.

Part of the comment you responded to:

but there are people here who have this ridiculous “enemy of my enemy is my friend regardless of what they actually accomplish or what their real goals are”

Thank you for proving my point.

Part of the comment you responded to:

One of Israel’s ports is going bankrupt as a direct result of the Houthi blockade.

The Houthis are accomplishing something, and their real goals align with defeating the world's hegemonic evil.

You agreed that it didn't help Gazans. Which was my point. They claim they are helping Gazans. They are not.

And, again, they do the exact same things Israel is doing- Killing thousands of people including children. You are ignoring that, which I also said that people like yourself do.

One mass murdering group is good to you because you don't like a different mass murdering group and neither do they. That's some bullshit reasoning if the reason you don't like the latter group is because of all the murder.

Hurting Israel's economy punishes them for hurting Gazans, even if it doesn't directly stop them.

You seem to be under the impression that I don't like political violence on principal. Not the case. I don't like political violence that is on the side of perpetuating global empire, and I like political violence that is opposed to it. What you're doing, by flattening all political violence into just "violence bad", is a rhetorical tactic that promotes the status quo by demonizing all groups that fight against it.

The Houthis are fighting against the Saudi-backed puppet regime in North Yemen. They are not going to someone else's country, ethnically cleansing the group that's already there, and laying claim to it. They are enforcing a naval blockade in order to economically punish a country that is committing genocide, they are not perpetuating one themselves.

I see. Murdering children is opposing global empire when the Houthis do it, so it's acceptable.

Why doesn't anyone help the Palestinians? No not that way! They have to be absolutely perfect while we supply weapons for the Genocide!

So the options to you are "absolutely perfect" or "child murderers just like Israel" and you are going with the latter.

Guess it isn't the deaths of innocent people you care about.

They are attacking shipping boats of the worlds wealthiest elites and you are comparing them to israel intentionally massacring 15.00 children. Which is the reason they are attacking the ships.

This is absolute insanity.

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This is just so blatantly false. Either the media manipulates the real owners or just cites the flag it sails under.

This ship had a Greek crew. Greece is the host of the European israel protection operation in the Red Sea. Meaning Greece has willingly involved themselves in the Genocide to defend israel so they have been barred from access.

And take last months US military confirms Houthi missile strikes on two ships in Gulf of Aden

Two missiles fired by the Houthis struck the Norderney, a German-owned cargo ship operating under Antigua and Barbados flags

Yet another batshit insane Linkerbaan take. Go outside.

To the people downvoting the above comment: Houthis declaring US and UK ships open to attack as retaliation to the drone strikes in Yemen, then also extending this to the ships operated by the latest coalition against blocking the Red Sea sea traffic against Israeli profits is a would have been a no-brainer when you consider attacks on allies of belligerent countries are viable when it comes to Russian-Ukrainian war or any non-western supported war.

Houthis have been waging these attacks against with the aim of pressuring the allies of Israel, the decades long genocide committing apartheid, rogue and terrorist state, away from supporting its latest and most intense war crimes. They have been accomplishing this pretty well, and this is just an economic pressure akin to embargoes the western hemisphere applies to whoever they don't like at that moment. There will be literal and figurative friendly fires, attacks on bystanders, and unintended consequences to some extent, of course, but as per the wikipedia compilation, mostly the countries, companies and ships that keep trading with Israel despite their extensive war crimes are affected from the Houthi attacks, while the rest are pretty much operating unhindered.

Britain and the U.S. are still trading with Israel and now they hit a Russian ship. How does this help Gaza at all?

British and US ships being harbored by the Greek host of the operation is a direct counter action to the Houthi efforts to pressure Israel to permanent ceasefire via pressuring its allies with economic repercussions.

As for the sole ship pointed in this article, it is not a Russian ship per the article. It is a Marshall Islands owned ship, under Liberian flag, operating by and for the profit of a Greek company, carrying Russian oil to China.

The only negative effect this has for the Houthi/Iran side is that their allies' commerce has also been disrupted. It is not even a negative effect if you count the pressure this applies on their allies Russia and China to separate their commerce from Greek companies.

Politics is nuanced, this pressure can also backfire, but I seriously doubt either Russia or China would lessen ties over a changeable middleman. On the other hand, Greek companies will feel more pressure from the loss of cut from the Asian trade pie more, and will pressure their government to lessen their involvement in backing Israel in this matter.

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Will be interesting how this will affect Russia's uninsured/self insured vessels going forward. As they've been cut off from all maritime insurers with the sanctions, they will have to cover this one themselves. It will hurt.

Wait just a ding dong minute….

Iran is attacking Russia and China at the same time?

It's almost as if everyone the west hates isn't a big hivemind. Who knew?

Newsweek has such shit journalism, man:

Yemen's Houthi rebels continued their attacks in the Red Sea by targeting two tankers in 24 hours, including a vessel carrying Russian oil likely heading to Asia, where China is the region's largest buyer.

That's the only justification given... Even though, y'know, India has been the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil since the sanctions and is also, shockingly, in Asia. Meanwhile, it's summer and the Northern Sea Route is viable, cutting the transport distance almost in half.

Houthis attacking all three imperial superpowers at once holy based.

Awww but I thought Russia and China were their friend? Did they finally realize the neo-USSR power bloc is an equally uncaring imperialistic resource extractor that only gave a shit because the Houthis were going to be inconvenient for the US?

Houthis are Shia and their friends are Iran and Hezbollah. Russia is an unreliable transactional partner of their friends, and also Russia is doing a lot of licking up to Turks and Sunni terrorists.

So - they know the situation very well.

Right, but they previously had an active diplomatic agreement allowing any Russia or China affiliated ships to pass untouched..

Clearly something has changed since then, something that makes them think receiving any Russian support (even indirectly) is not worth it.

I'm more likely to believe the Houthis just fucked up here, retaliatory strikes disabled their ability to discriminate targets they want to strike and those they don't. Or the people they have launching the missiles not properly trained and educated on how to confirm targets. While there is a possibility this was an intentional strike on a Russian flagged ship, I have my own doubts given their general history with Russia and China and previous statements.

uncrewed surface vessel

Wait, are drone oil tankers a thing now?

The Houthis launched an uncrewed surface vessel attacking MT Chios Lion, a Liberian-flagged, Marshall Islands-owned, Greek-operated crude oil tanker, according to a statement put out by the United States Military's Central Command on Tuesday.

No, the attack vessel was the drone

Not that I'm aware of. The uncrewed surface vessel in this case was one of the attacking vessels.