Fears of environmental disaster rise as ship sinks after Houthi attack | Hacker News Reader

Fears of environmental disaster rise as ship sinks after Houthi attack

washingtonpost.com

15 pointswslh33 comments

Surely this should have been a risk accounted for and the shipment should have been diverted or cancelled? It’s not like the payload was unknown or the possibility of an attack was new?

I really don’t understand why we keep shipping through there. Yes, it will cause 2% (the number I found) inflation. We (US) have had worse. Many places survive (albeit with damage) 100% YoY inflation. Let’s just stop escalating conflicts for money, people’s lives and global peace are worth more than that.

The US might only feel 2% inflation, but that doesn't mean other countries (ie. developing ones) are going to get off as easily. Food spending makes up more of their budget there, so the impact will be much higher, not to mention they're poorer to start with and are already feeling the effects from the inflation caused by the pandemic/Ukraine war .

Inflation is a misleading term here IMO. It would cause a shortage in shipping capacity, which would produce a price increase. There is no reason to believe that this would be persistent enough to consider it a change in the value of the currency itself (since the alternative routes may be improved etc). If this is inflation, then everything is inflation.

Why are you trying to make this about the US? We have very little trade through that route. Other countries that do rely on that route obviously can't give in to terrorists regardless of environmental risks.

Ansar Allah is targeting the US, Israel, and their allies who support Israel.

China can sail the route just fine, for example.

Don't be naive. Regardless of the propaganda they might try to push, the Houthis are engaged in indiscriminate terrorism as Iranian proxies and have attacked vessels owned and operated by multiple nations regardless of links to Israel. They hit the Chinese / Panamanian tanker MV Huang Pu.

https://news.usni.org/2024/03/24/chinese-tanker-hit-with-hou...

Ansar Allah has targeted random ships, including Russian tankers, and, most notably, was conducting these attacks before the October 7th attacks; their advocacy for Israel is a retcon. It's worth pointing out that if Ansar Allah succeeded in liberating Palestine, their next action would be to burn down all the mosques --- Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni (and Hamas is an explicitly Sunni organization), and Ansar Allah is at war with Sunnis in Yemen, where it has been destroying mosques for the last year.

Which Russian tanker? One was hit carrying Russian naphtha, the Marlin Luanda, but it was not owned by Russia. AA claims it was British[0].

What ship attacks happened prior to the 7th?

> "It's worth pointing out that if Ansar Allah succeeded in liberating Palestine, their next action would be to burn down all the mosques"

No, it wouldn't. This is pure conjecture. The Sunni and Shia conflict in Yemen is far more complex than you are trying to make it sound. The Sunni Saudis have been inflicting a famine on Yemen for years. The Sunni Emiratis have been assassinating and conducting terrorism within Yemen. This is important context to leave out.

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20240127202900/https://www.bbc.c...

All you're saying here is that you think Ansar Allah has good reason to attack native Yemeni Sunnis, who make up the majority of the population. I don't think defending or even mitigating the Houthi cult is an especially useful rhetorical hill to die on. Note that I didn't refer to "Sunni Emiratis". They're not blowing up mosques in the Emirates, are they?

The Houthis have been attacking shipping since at least 2015: https://acleddata.com/2024/01/05/qa-why-are-yemens-houthis-a...

That was part of their war with the Saudi coalition. The parent was saying they were attacking random targets and only used the genocide as cover for more random attacks, when it is clear they are targeted attacks and for specific purposes. Appreciate the link.

You’ll note one of the specific purposes the link lists for the shipping attacks is to distract from domestic failures in Yemen.

It’s not an outlandish position to say that the Israeli/Hamas conflict is a secondary reason for the Houthi shipping attacks.

I don't disagree with that. Actions can have many intentions. But that doesn't mean they don't oppose the genocide and are using it unscrupulously to attack ships (which the parent was implying). The majority of muslims In Yemen, regardless of sect, support Gaza and oppose the genocide. This is a good way to take a moral stand, gain public support and further legitimize their government, and be a thorn in the side of the US.

https://archive.is/u03Za

Do we know the impacts of large amounts ammonium phosphate in the oceans?

Algal blooms?

Suddenly the West cares about environmental disasters. Very convenient.

"West cares about environmental disasters"

I don't think there has been a week in the last 20 years where there hasn't been an environment piece in the news. I would argue the West cares very deeply about the environment, certainly more so than the East, Far East and Middle East.

Or looking at it another way, "suddenly The West cares about the Houthis," is more accurate. This is probably a "sell the upcoming military action with Houthi's to the public" piece. They're using the environment angle because they know it will stick better than reporting about it jamming up the supply chain.

Disruption of international shipping is literally the oldest cassus belli in the entire history of international law, so the idea that anybody is grasping at straws to respond to Ansar Allah is a very weak argument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com