Boy it turns out that George Lucas sure was right about the importance of blockading a trade route
What’s next: America blowing up its own bases in the Middle East? Killing its own soldiers? Crashing its own planes?
The plane crashing thing already happened, after the DEI purge
I think he’s just pissed off that Iran is letting Chinese ships thorough. So now the question is whether Trump is stupid and deranged enough to attack any Chinese ships that ignore this illegal blockade, which would probably kick off World War 3 in earnest.
If it broke out in WW3 then I think most of the world’s public support would be behind China. The US has always been a hostile bully but Americans generally kept it contained to poorer countries that didn’t have as much of a voice. Now though…
That’s not Xi’s style. I don’t think he’d try unless he wants a plausible excuse to kick off a Taiwan assault.
…And, as far as my understanding goes, if Xi wants to do it, now would be an optimal time. Wait any longer, and Taiwan will just get more fortified.
What a stupid piece of shit
Open the fucking strait you crazy bastard!
Art of the idiot
Is it my imagination, or is that stretch of water and the water surrounding it not US territory, thus making what he wants to do (interdict) kind of … piracy?
Blockading is considered an act of war
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” said Trump, who is strongly opposed to the idea of Iran charging ships a toll to pass through the strait.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he said.
Pretty sure what Trump is opposed to is him not getting a cut of the toll.
Oh good. Nazi pirates. How did we end up with a real life plot more stupid than Water World?
This is truly an April Fools-level move.
The US is closing the Strait? The generals couldn’t open it, so Hegseth said, ‘Okay! I’ve got it! We declare that WE’RE closing it, NOT THEM!’
How … is this better?
Iran was allowing some ships through. The logic is that if it’s closed to the US it must be closed to everyone (it was not before).
Do I think this is a good move? No. Do I think Trump and Hegseth have three brain cells between them? No.
But it also isn’t hard to understand their angle here. It’s not better for anyone. But the idea is to make it worse for Iran than the previous phase, where they had control of the strait.
Gonna be a hard sell to the rest of the world who is largely able to negotiate passage with Iran. US navy is gonna hijack ships enroute from the strait to China?
I agree. A US blockade of Hormuz was actually always a reserve strategy to put a chokehold on China if they invade Taiwan. Now we’re just playing that card for no fucking reason at all. This administration is dumb as fuck and I can’t believe there isn’t even anyone in the military who can stop them. I guess that’s what we see with Hegseth’s long line of dismissals.
China is definitely not going to accept such a turn of events without response. I hope they give Iran some nukes.
The US has worked steadily to make Iranian nukes absolutely inevitable.
I get the logic. But it’s still really dumb.
Once again the whole world has to suffer because of Trump’s insatiable ego and greed, and his bottomless stupidity. May he be gone soon.
He did previously say that as the “winners” of the war, the US was entitled to collect that toll, basically. So, yeah, I think you’re spot on.
No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas
Does that mean they are gonna attack anyone that paid? Also when he starts charging does that mean they will destroy any ships right after they pay?
Illegal toll? Who’s laws govern the strait that make these tolls illegal?
International law says that any toll is illegal.
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Lot’s of people avoid using the word retard. But that’s hard on some people because the loss of that word can decimate their whole vocabulary.
I support your freedom of expression; language is hard, and some people need verbal prognostics to make their point. It’s rude to pick on people just because of a diminished capacity.
My vocab is diminished because I don’t use slurs? That sounds like an incredible trade off. I think I will keep it up.
By calling out the decline of Trumps cognitive abilities, I offended subset of people who should in my view never ever be called a “retard”?
I do apologise to anyone who still wants to identify as one.
It’s just not necessary to use slurs. That’s all.
i’m torn. we shame them away from using this one, they’ll just move onto the next. it’s not the meaning behind the word that they like, it’s the fact that it’s a slur. hence the euphemism treadmill.
That still doesn’t mean that we need to use it.
Also, we absolutely should shame these people. Let them move onto the next one. We will shame them for that too. Bigots don’t get to have things.
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One of his many word salads involved an offer to split the tolls between us and Iran, so yeah, that’s what he wants. The dummy simply didn’t realize access to the strait was so valuable until after the bombs started dropping.
Isn’t that… piracy? Not USAs waters, not USAs petrol…
Hasn’t stopped them from stealing oil from Venezuela and Cuba
Sure it hasn’t. But now they are ruining the pockets of the whole world.
Expect it to continue because he isn’t going to stop while he has power.
Our only hope is that Europe and China get tired of the crybaby and begin to do something for real, I guess.
Yeah. It’s obvious the Americans won’t do anything.
those people being rounded up and sent off to camps where they’re disappearing? how dare they be rounded up and disappear instead of dying at the problem for us.
No I mean the 350+ million other Americans who continue going to work every day to keep the corrupt fascist machine running.
no. it’s invasion and war.
Yes , but now they are the ones making everyone’s petrol much more expensive, if it even gets there.
yes and. :)
One can hope than (sadly) onlu then, some countries might intervene for real.
i fuckin hope so. last time it took a few million russians to take down berlin. dc is a bit more of a walk.
Sure sounds like it’s more piracy to me.
Wasn’t Iran already doing that before and wasn’t the main goal to open it up again?
I’m still trying to work out if this one’s a late April Fool…
Imagine working for the man. You just hear crazy shit day in, day out, and have to quickly adapt and run with it, otherwise he’ll find another mug who will.
Yeah but if they say it this way it sounds like they’re in control of the situation
It’s so in a few days he can “re-open” the strait again, declaring that everything is back to normal: “No president ever opened as many straits as I did”
The idea being to choke off Iran’s ability to use it at all. This kills their remaining income stream and also incents the Chinese and others who thought they had a workaround (the tolls) to instead put pressure on Iran.
But that only works if the US is willing to start attacking unarmed oil tankers, which will do no favors for their international support.
If they hadn’t alienated all their allies, they could build an embargo until the straits were opened but that ship had sailed.
China is both extremely well supplied with Oil, and aggressively weaning itself off of oil. It’s everyone else in Asia who are now pressured to get closer to China from this. Asia cutting US off from Chips, and selling to China instead, until US leaves the Gulf region, is the most effective action. Diplomatically, asserting that the US/Israel illegal war is the primary source of fuel and helium shortages needed to make chips, industry needs to focus on serving friendly country needs first.
…You understand Iran has more revenue streams and can overland oil and materials to china… right?
The fact that it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean that isn’t the reason
Possibly but that would mean the trump admin (and by extension congress) still are operating on less intelligence than anyone with an internet connection.
This is not news
Are the pipelines still operational?
The idea being to kill off Iran’s leverage, which is control of the Strait.
In Hegseth’s voice… Why can’t you idiots understand how clear our, sorry I mean our great President’s, mission has always been. We needed to start this excursion, because Iran was about to extort the world through a blockade. It’s extortion when Iran does it. We are liberating the world when we
extort, uhm … uhm… liberate them from Iranian extortion. To pre-empt some of the news you will hear later this week. Iran was already threatening the region with opening Trump branded golf courses on its soil, and so America needed to make sure our friends in the region did so before hand. Radical left wing media not understanding that we won the war because 10 more Trump golf courses are opening in Gulf and 0 in Iran, just don’t understand that freedom isn’t free.
Lol is that a sea mine XD
He cant blockade something controlled by someone else who already shut it.
“You can’t quit, you’re fired!”
Well if you’re going to fire me, I’m gonna fire the warehouse.
There are a lot of people who want this level of destabilization and interruption of goods and energy security. Techno feudalists want this. Trump needs to feel powerful, so someone like Peter Theil who is trying to bring about Armageddon could easily convince Trump that this move makes him look powerful instead of a target by the rest of the world.
He wants the money, that Iran wasn’t charging before he invaded, for himself is as near I can figure. Master negotiator with a grand plan.
