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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

> The Houthi leadership has obstructed efforts by foreign entities to inspect the ship or to siphon its oil

For anyone else whose mind jumped to the same conclusion as mine.

They don't want others stealing their oil, but they're likely to lose it too if they don't transfer it somewhere safer (no pun intended), so it's definitely a strange situation with tons of politics involved.

It would probably be best just to buy it off them. Sure it's money going to a possible despotic regime (I am pretty ignorant about the sides in this conflict), but that happens all the time with "development" grants and the like.

Or contaminate the tanks with something that breaks it down the crude so its at least less harmful when it spills.

It concerns me that people disagree with a valid means of protecting against catastrophic environmental disasters. Oh well.

Or bomb them. (Not the ship, them.) Because when a group who rules an area is doing something that, when continued, is going to cause you serious harm and diplomatic measures have failed, that's called an act of war (or the equivalent for non-state actors). If someone is committing acts of war against you, you go to war with them (and somehow I don't think this particular war will result in lots of US casualties).

This is what war is for.

You don't think they have been bombed enough? Did it work? Maybe the US learned something from the recent wars they waged and, with admirable consistency, lost.

The biggest thing the US should learn from recent wars is "do what you went there to do, then leave and don't try to engage in any nation building".

And they're still around, so no, they haven't been bombed enough. Dead people don't hold ships hostage.

You may want to read some news about the area - they are already being bombed. That is what started this whole issue in the first place, it's not likely to help end it. By and large, people who you are actively bombing are way less likely to listen to what you are shouting over the bombs.

It’s also a bargaining chip. They can scuttle the ship and close suez for months, costing billions and killing hundreds of thousands.

That's a fast-tracked one-way ticket to being blown off of the planet by the united force of every world superpower.

You really don't want the Americans and the Russians to ever agree that your atoms don't deserve to be bonded together anymore.

It’s literally mentioned in the article

That'd be all out war. I'm not sure they are that insane.

It’s like a nuclear bomb. Quite powerful even if you can never use it.

They are in an all out war. Yemen is a war zone on par with where Syria was during the Obama regime.

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