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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> If you really think this is no meaningful distinction between a blockade and an embargo, then how about you just correctly refer to it as an embargo?

I think you're very focused on finding reasons the blockade isn't one, to the point of some severe contortions. I'm not sure why you think the US is leery of acts of war; we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.

You think it's an embargo; I (and much of the world) think it's a blockade. Whoever's right, this'd be deeply shitty antisocial behavior if you did it to your neighbor, and likely to lead to blows.

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The severe contortions are on the end of people trying to call this a blockade. These terms have long established definitions. A blockade is a unilateral action where a country seizes vessels that try to dock at the blockaded country. It's an act of war.

This is not what's happening in Cuba. Countries are deciding to participate in the embargo because they don't want to have their exports to the US tariffed. Emphasis on decided. These countries have the option to continue trading with Cuba and having their imports tariffed.

A blockade does not afford other countries that option. The Royal Navy seized any and all vessels bound to Germany during WW1. There was no option to simply accept a tariff and continue trading with Germany. Because this was a blockade not an embargo.

> we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.

Correct, like a blockade, those are indeed acts of war. If the US was bombing Cuba, then the US would indeed be at war with Cuba. But that's not happening in Cuba.

> A blockade is a unilateral action where a country seizes vessels that try to dock at the blockaded country.

Extensive evidence of this occurring has been repeatedly presented to you.

No, it hasn't. The ships that were seized were flying false flags. They're subject to seizure regardless of the embargo.

A thin layer of plausible deniability does not stop something from being a blockade.

What stops it from being a blockade is the fact that ships that are legally registered continue to dock in Cuba.

That’s disingenuous. The blockade is specific to oil.

Ships carrying oil are free to dock in Cuba. But whatever country is selling that oil will be subject to tariffs in the US.

You can call it a blockade a thousand times, that doesn't make it true.

> Ships carrying oil are free to dock in Cuba.

You know this isn’t true, but continue to assert it. I gave you a link to a non-false flag tanker that was forced away by the Coast Guard and escorted out for several days.

As I explained in my reply, that tanker was not forced away. It lied and said it was headed to the Dominican Republic, but tried to sail to Cuba - presumably to surreptitiously sell oil without triggering retaliatory tariffs. When it realized it was being followed by the Coast Guard, it turned around and sailed to its stated destination.

The ship could have made port in Cuba and unloaded it's oil. But then Colombia would be hit with tariffs. The threat of tariffs made the ship turn around on its own volition, not because the coast guard deployed force to stop the ship.

So:

Seizing ships isn’t a blockade.

Turning away ships isn’t a blockade.

The UN, Cuba, and major national and international news outlets considering it one doesn’t count.

Running out of oil and massive power outages doesn’t count.

Trump’s threats of strikes don’t count.

Apparently nothing does. The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even meet your standard.

> Seizing ships isn’t a blockade.

> Turning away ships isn’t a blockade.

If the vessels were legally flagged, both of these are indeed actions of a blockade!

You're just ignoring the fact that the ships the US seized were flying false flags and are subject to seizure regardless of the embargo.

And in the case of the Ocean Mariner, the ship wasn't forcibly turned away by the coast guard. They changed course to the Dominican Republic (which was its purported destination anyway...) on their own volition when the realized they were being tracked. The could have continued to Cuba if they wanted to, but that would trigger retaliatory tariffs.

> The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even meet your standard.

Yes it was a blockade! The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).

> If the vessels were legally flagged, both of these are indeed actions of a blockade!

Where is “it’s not a blockade if the ships don’t have papers” set out in international law?

> Yes it was a blockade!

Funny. Kennedy tried your exact denialist tactic - they called it a quarantine.

History, of course, isn’t fooled.

> The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).

And you are somehow privy to the Coast Guard’s orders in the Ocean Mariner case? How do you know what would have happened if they made for Cuba?

In your view, what does this mean? The distinction seems important to you, but I am not sure if you have really gotten into the meaningful difference. If it is definitely not a blockade, and that is important to say, why is it important? Does it mean we should view the situation differently? Does it imply more/less culpability to one party or the other? Should we have more hope around the humanitarian crisis? Or less?

Being direct about these kinds of questions would maybe help us understand where you are coming from here.

A blockade is an act of war, carried out by military force. Saying the US is blockading Cuba is saying that the US and Cuba are at war. That alone is a pretty big reason to understand the difference between a blockade and an embargo.

The other important dimension is that countries participating in the embargo are choosing to participate in the embargo. This is distinct from a blockade which is done unilaterally. The Royal Navy didn't let ships into Germany ports during WW1 if they paid a tariff. No, they seized ships bound for Germany, because that was an actual blockade.

An embargo is when countries decline to trade with you on their own accord.

A blockade is when a country uses military force to physically stop other countries from trading with you, even if those other countries want to trade with you.

They're pretty substantially different.

The US won’t even admit to being at war with Iran, and more explicit acts of war have clearly been committed there.

An act of war also isn’t the same as being in one. It takes two to tango, to some extent. Many acts of war do not result in one.

Act of war, no war: https://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/02/18/britain.marines/...

Is the meaningful thing you are trying to get across here something like: "everyone is saying USA is doing something really bad, but in fact they are not"?

Or maybe more: "ok USA might have it a little out for Cuba, but remember, everyone else hates them too, otherwise they would be trading with them"?

The meaningful thing is to understand the difference between a blockade and an embargo.

When people say that the US is blockading Cuba I'm not sure if they are genuinely misinformed and think that the US Navy and Coast Guard are physically apprehending any ships trying to dock in Cuba, or if they are just ignorant about the difference between a blockade and an embargo.

You are quibbling over minor semantics. Is the US preventing most oil from reaching Cuba or not?

The fact that oil imports are being curtailed by an embargo rather than a blockade is not minor semantics. The former is when countries voluntarily cease to trade with someone. The latter is when a country deploys its military to seize vessels trying to reach the blockade target. It's also an act of war.

If people really think it's a minor semantics difference, then they should just be honest and correctly refer to the situation as an embargo, not a blockade.

...so that is a 'no' to the question, right?

No what? The US's embargo and threats to tariff countries that don't match this embargo is blocking most but not all oil bound for Cuba. Russia, for example, continues to trade with Cuba because it's willing to tolerate increase in tariffs (not that Russia is trading much with the US anyway).

If this were a blockade then the US would be boarding Russian oil tankers even if they're legally flagged as a Russian vessel.

If you really think the distinction between blockade and embargo is irrelevant then we can just acknowledge that it's an embargo, not a blockade, and move on.

Ok! So the answer is in fact 'yes', with once again the rider that it is not something we should call a blockade. That seems fine with me, I think we agree about the important thing here.

> You are quibbling over minor semantics.

You all are. Why not just concede it's an embargo not a blockade and move on?

> Is the US preventing most oil from reaching Cuba or not?

Sometimes questions like that obscure more than they elucidate. If you're debating if a killing is murder or involuntary manslaughter, it doesn't prove your point to ask if the man is dead.

Ok but if it is a murder/involuntary manslaughter-esque distinction, why not just say that? I feel like I made it really easy to do that and wasn't couching it in an accusation or any kind of hyperbole.

Just, please, tell it to me straight, I'm a little slow. Is that what we are saying? That everyone is claiming murder, but actually it's more involuntary?

> Ok but if it is a murder/involuntary manslaughter-esque distinction, why not just say that?

It's a distinction between two different things that have some similarities (in this case, a cessation of trade) but important differences.

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