For me it's a question of timing -- Medhurst's thesis is that US piracy could cause durable capital flight to the US. That requires a sufficiently long period of time in which the US has the energy market cornered. But a symmetrical blockade by both sides would not corner the market for anyone. So there would have to be an initial period of asymmetry, and that initial period would have to be long enough to trigger capital flight -- presumably, long enough for industries to collapse or atrophy (is that wrong?). Sincere non-rhetorical question, is this plausible?
Didn't a ship already defy the US on its way to Venezuela, albeit unsuccessfully? I kinda missed that story.
I agree that the US is infinitely willing to sink infinitely many civilian cargo ships. What I'm wondering is, if they started sinking 3rd party cargo ships, e.g., Chinese ships, what retaliation would they face, how high up the escalation ladder would that be and how long could they remain at that level of the ladder.
As for Larry Johnson, I know the adage is that there are no ex-CIA, but he seems to be ex-CIA. From what I've seen, his takes tend to align with other commentators in the anti-US geopolitics circuit. Unless he's nefariously steering them, I think he's just an analyst who saw enough to become bitter. Or I'm too credulous.
From yesterday (20th): although Larry Johnson has not watched Medhurst's video yet, he has apparently heard of it. Johnson says he disagrees with the idea that this war will strengthen the petrodollar. (More bluntly, he says "Dude, what are you smoking.")
It's not exactly a rebuttal (just a flippant aside), but it's at least interesting that, at some point, when he heard "A journalist has argued that this war could actually strengthen the petrodollar," apparently no scenario popped into his head that he thought was credible.
I think Johnson is not impressed with US threats to blockade shipping at a distance, at least at this stage. Last week on Diesen's show he said the US needs to use helicopters to interdict ships, because the US lacks the political ability to threaten to sink cargo ships at sea (*or more accurately is not ready to escalate that far yet), and therefore the ships would call their bluff. If that premise holds, it raises the issue that a carrier with helicopters can only cover so much area at sea, and then there are issues on top of that like maintenance strain on the aircraft, etc.
I guess, by that reasoning, the central question becomes, would the US open fire on cargo ships belonging to third parties? And if so, what would happen?
They wrote it in such a vague and euphemistic way, too, like they are deliberately discouraging critical thought and trying to speak directly to the fascist subconscious of the liberal reader.
The "20x the going rate" estimate appears to be expert commentary by someone speaking to the media (Yoshikiyo Shimamine speaking to Nikkei, behind a paywall), not a published study. It's so early that there's probably no reliable number or scaling curve or roadmap that anyone can point to. It seems to be vibes at this point.
The organisation that, conveniently for the Zionist narrative, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack is Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. This is a group which simply did not exist until the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran, when it suddenly appeared fully formed and started causing small incidents of property damage to Jewish communities in Belgium and the Netherlands. From day one of its appearance, Israeli-backed think tanks and security groups instantly claimed to have linked it to Iranian militias. [...] In its manifesto it uses the term “The Land of Israel” to refer to Palestine. No Islamic group, ever, referred to “The Land of Israel” and the phrase in Arabic is not even what complicit Gulf Arab elites use—they use just “Israel” or “The State of Israel”. “The Land of Israel” is unnatural in Arabic and evidently written by a Zionist and translated into Arabic. The other strange thing is that this allegedly Iranian group doesn’t use Farsi. Iranians don’t speak Arabic. Nor would any Iranian government-aligned group ever talk of “The Land of Israel” in Farsi. To add further to this, the group’s published logo appears to be AI-generated and the Arabic lettering on it is wrong. “Islamic” is rendered incorrectly and some of it doesn’t mean anything coherent at all—it is gibberish, presumably constructed by AI asked to produce a shield with Arabic lettering.
I'll respond to these points briefly but it's kinda beside the point. I'm defending Marmite not because I think all their takes are correct and I want to die on that hill, but because I think you misrepresented their views and by extension their character. Like I said before, I think it sets a toxic precedent to badmouth a user in good standing on this forum, and I want to set the opposing precedent that we also stick up for each other here, because these things ripple out and affect the community. Like anyone, Marmite has surely posted their share of hot takes and gaffes. Hexbear is also not a hivemind, we have bounds but people disagree within those bounds. I agree that "a core part of our system is criticism and self-criticism," but it needs to be respectful. That's not to call you a shitty person -- people get on each others' nerves sometimes, it happens.
I'm not trying to be hostile, but to be honest this shit makes me tense and I do not enjoy it. I'm trying to thread this needle where I defend Marmite, without putting you on the defensive so much that you have to protect yourself, and without escalating or getting too defensive myself, but also while protecting myself and not becoming a target alongside Marmite. Honestly the margins feel pretty fucking thin here. And it's not necessarily your fault or mine or anyone's, it's just the nature of the beast. Shit takes on a life of its own. This is why the only solution, the only way to keep a forum healthy, is a culture of patience, respect, charitable interpretation, and deescalation. That goes for me, you and Marmite.
First of all, There was absolutely nothing "surprising" about this conflict.
There was also "nothing surprising" about the US bombing Iran. Visible buildup and motive alongside public denial. What adjective should be used? The intent was surprise / ambiguity
The difference between then and now is that now everyone expects this kind of thing. In 2022 it was harder to believe that Russia would invade. It didn't feel like WW3 yet. Now anything is possible.
the role the west played in the origins of the conflict went completely unmentioned
I think because that literally goes without saying, in a hexbear news megathread, years into the conflict and over a decade after the color revolution in 2014. Especially for someone as chronically in-the-mega as Marmite. Marmite knows, everyone knows. This is one of the strongest lines of consensus on the site. Relentless pressure from NATO eventually provoked Russia into open conflict, because NATO nukes down the road from Moscow is a red line and has been since the breakup of the USSR.
I agreed with marmite on the matter of political double speak, which you seem to be confusing with "tactics"
I mean tactics in the colloquial sense, not the "tactical / operational / strategic" sense. Tactics as in "actions to achieve contested objectives." Doublespeak included.
To paraphrase, Marmite's take was "Russia criticized the US for doing something they also did." Whether you agree with the comparison is another matter, but that is what Marmite actually said. Not "Putler invaded for no reason and we need to support the heckin' Ukrainian resistance." No one on this website is saying that. If we conducted a poll right now, and that was one of the options, people would select it as a joke because that's how un-hexbear that take is.
Given you weren't even aware of the Kiev operation [...] You yourself seem like you could use a bit more material understanding of the contradictions currently at play in Ukraine.
Admittedly, four years ago I spent less time in the megathreads than I do now. I knew Russia made a push for Kiev, but didn't know about the attempted special forces raid, or maybe heard some early rumors about it and then never followed up. IIRC, at the time, a common early take in the mega was that the push for Kiev was a feint. And yeah, of course there's always more to learn about the dimensions of any conflict. But for the most part, I get the picture already.
Anyway, apologies for the long thread. No hard feelings, I hope. Have a good one.
I saw that comment. That's not "blaming the war on Russia," that's comparing Russian methods to US methods.
Russia did conduct a surprise attack following an ambiguous buildup. And, while this is the first I've heard of the Kiev special forces operation, if they attempted to detain or kill political figures that would also be a kind of decapitation strike. There's a methodological resemblance to the US blitzkrieg on Iran.
Comparing tactics is not the same thing as both-sidesing imperialism. For that matter, hexbear is anti-imperialist, not, strictly speaking, pro-Russia. AFAIK the neoliberal state of Russia is anti-imperialist as a matter of self-preservation, not on principle, although principle vs practice can get blurry.
Maybe you think Marmite should not refer to Russia in a flippant way, but this is absolutely not "fanatical support for Ukraine" -- Marmite even refers to the operation as denazification, right there at the end. The comment has 40 upvotes, it's within the bounds of acceptable speech on hexbear.
That doesn't mean it's beyond criticism. Marmite got pushback from a user who pointed out that, in both conflicts, it was the US side that sabotaged negotiations, and it was only afterward that Russia invaded. Take, counter-take, both upvoted. Normal exchange on hexbear.
Marmite explained the situation from Pakistan's perspective. Perspective-taking is not the same as endorsement. Marmite characterized the Pakistani motive as retaliatory, which, afaik, is perhaps oversimplified but not wrong. At no point did Marmite defend Pakistan's decision to bomb a hospital, or even characterize Pakistan as good or bad.
I'm not trying to debate-bro you but it bothers me that Marmite may have been pitchforked off the site.
I'm not trying to make you look bad, but that's how "fanatical support" sounds to me. I've been in this community since the subreddit and I have never seen any long-term hexbear user express "fanatical support" for Ukraine, so when I see that phrase it sounds like exaggeration or distortion, which is not what people usually do in a calm frame of mind.
The reason I care is that hostility and vague-posting are toxic to forums. It doesn't just affect you or Marmite, it changes the overall atmosphere of the site. A hostile atmosphere on a forum makes people defensive -- and then they protect themselves with more hostility, and it becomes a feedback loop: hostile atmosphere -> defensiveness -> further hostility. The temperature builds up online faster than in person because we don't have the social cues of a person's face, voice, and body language. Eventually, if it gets bad enough, users start to form cliques as a further way to protect themselves, which turbocharges the feedback loop -- the cliques reinforce the hostility and the hostility reinforces the cliques -- until the community balkanizes and dies. I have seen this happen to a community that was very dear to me, because people just would not or could not deescalate. Once the site culture, and the accumulated history of drama, reaches a certain threshold, it becomes hard to reverse. That is absolutely within the realm of possibility on hexbear.
Anyway, since you first responded to me I've been skimming Marmite's comments containing the word "Ukraine," using hexbear's search function. I'm 5 months in so far, and I haven't found anything that seemed like fanatical support for Ukraine in my opinion, or even lukewarm support. Maybe I'm skimming too lightly.
If it's older than 5 months, maybe you can provide links? Otherwise you're essentially vague-posting.
Honestly I find that hard to believe, and your wording reads as angry to me. I apologize if this is not the case, but I get the impression that you got into an argument with marmite, maybe heated words were exchanged and you are still tweaked about it, and now you are saying things out of spite. Ukraine is run by nazis, and, last time I checked, Pakistan recently bombed a hospital. Unless we have literal intelligence moles on this inconsequential website, I can guarantee with 100% certainty that no long-term hexbear user supports either of those things. Whatever marmite's takes were, we are missing some nuance between what he said and how you've recounted it here.
I really think that's unfair to marmite. First of all, it's ambiguous wording that could be read as calling marmite a reactionary. Military pessimism, warranted or otherwise, is not the same as supporting the empire. Second, for a concrete question like "whether or not a plane was shot down," what reactionaries think is irrelevant. Not to sound corny, but it's supposed to be just the facts here, we're not trying to live in a bubble where no one wants to give bad news or report a fact that a reactionary also reported. Reactionaries are not storybook gremlins that are compelled to lie 100% of the time.
Some of marmite's conclusions may have been disputable, but factual disputes in the news mega are healthy and part of the process, it doesn't need to be personal or have an ideological dimension. During the 12 day war, there was some ambiguous footage of explosions on a hillside near Tehran, iirc, which could have been gravity bombs (JDAMs) or standoff glide bombs (JASSMs, I think?), with different implications for how much air superiority the Epstein Axis had over Iran at the time. Marmite thought they were JDAMs. That is a purely factual claim that can be discussed on a purely factual basis, not an ideological dispute.
I hope this doesn't come off as a rant, I tried to keep it short. But I suspect that marmite, and XHS, dipped because people were rude to them and they started to get stressed out interacting with the community. The result was that we lost two very knowledgeable comrades with interesting things to say. We don't have to agree with all of their takes, that's not the point of a crowd-sourced OSINT forum like the news mega. It's a collective process.
I assume China foresees the trap, if not its precise timing -- their rapid military buildup is certainly suggestive -- but that would just make it a race: who can amass the relevant economic, military, and political leverage before the point of no return? And who will correctly judge when that constantly changing point-of-no-return is? I wish I was qualified to speculate or wargame that out. On a vibes level, I know the US has managed to maintain primacy for a long time, and they still hold many advantages, but they are also seething white supremacists whose own arrogance can cause them to make mistakes, and the USA lacks the heart and determination of the resistance.
(I kept thinking about this after posting and had to repeatedly edit, it's a lot to chew on)
This lines up with Richard Medhurt's analysis from Apr 10 (posted in this thread already) that the US will try to capitalize on their current privileged position in the energy market, since their energy infrastructure and shipping are still functional.
Is this a bit or is there some lore on Larry Johnson