V. Illych L. posted:

it can be if people insist on not clarifying their terms and using words to mean different things than they, in fact, mean

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Esran posted:

Substantial parts of the insurance and shipping businesses disagree with you, they think the Houthis attacks are not indiscriminate.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rce=reddit_wall
https://www.reuters.com/business/maersk-introduces-surcharge-israel-shipments-cover-insurance-2023-12-07/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-16/insurers-seek-to-exclude-us-uk-ships-from-red-sea-cover?leadSource=reddit_wall

There's a reason ships were putting "ALL CHINESE CREW" or "NO ISRAEL" in their AIS, and it's not that they think the Houthis are doing random piracy or don't care who they attack.

"I am bleeding, making me the victor".

Kagrenak posted:

As more time has passed and more ships have been targeted I'm definitely more convinced they were just bad at getting the correct info at first and are largely only targeting linked ships at this point. Their accuracy (of targets, not of direct hits it seems) absolutely looks to be going in the right direction.

I still don't buy that it will have a large enough effect on policy outcomes to be worth the likely impact on food prices in poorer nations imo, even if emotionally it seems like a decent direct action. But the true extent of either is yet to shake out, so we'll see.

Esran posted:

So it is your view that the actuaries working for these insurance companies are simply wrong, and you know better?

quote:

"The Houthi attacks are encompassing all vessels with less and less clear criteria," an insurance source said. "U.S. and UK flags are advised now that they should not go through the Red Sea."

Josef bugman posted:

Well 1) Can you link the reading you've done and 2) Can you demonstrate the previous articles about cheaper premiums for Chinese shipping are false.

Josef bugman posted:

So they are going up generally, but not as much for Chinese Shipping. So it could be the military escort, which I will note the US and UK are kind of doing by putting a load of ships and shooting rockets in the red sea, or it could be due to the targeting of specific shipping?

Esran posted:

I would expect actuaries working for an insurance company insuring maritime shipping to have more insight (special or otherwise) into the thing they're evaluating risk for, than random posters on a dead message board, yes.

If insurers believed the Houthis were not at least attempting to target US/UK/Israeli vessels over others, it would make no sense for them to impose special costs for just US/UK/Israeli vessels, or for the insurers to want to forego that business entirely.

quote:

"The Houthi attacks are encompassing all vessels with less and less clear criteria," an insurance source said. "U.S. and UK flags are advised now that they should not go through the Red Sea."

Giggs posted:

You provided no source for your summary, and a cursory glance both puts it out of date and shows that you've wildly misrepresented reality.
For instance, your first point:

is wrong, two ships have been hit more than a week after the Marlin Luanda.

This jumbled mess of inarticulate nonsense is very hard to verify or even understand. It does not match up with sources I've found listing ships that have been attacked in the Red Sea. The broadest being wikipedia. Of note however, is the distinction of a Liberian ship. Because of this awful post it's impossible to know what ship you're referring to but from what I've been looking at it would appear you're simply stating that the registry flag denotes ... ownership? Management? Crew? It's impossible to know what you mean because you very obviously use indistinct language and provide zero evidence.

So please name which ship you're referring to, your explanation of what makes "the ship" "Liberian" with sources. Further to that I'd appreciate your source(s) for the listing of ships attacked.

Esran posted:

The Reuters article I posted regarding insurers wanting to put special language into contracts and/or denying coverage specifically for US/UK/Israeli vessels is 3 days old.

I don't see a reason to think the insurers have changed their minds in the last 3 days.

Insurers have no incentive to deny coverage for certain shipping if they don't believe that category of shipping is more likely to be attacked than the other ships they're insuring. It literally loses them money.

You're reaching into conspiracy territory at this point.

A big flaming stink posted:

Kchama, are you arguing that insurance companies are not disproportionately raising premiums on ships the houthis are claiming to target, or are you arguing they are but they are misinformed to be doing so?

quote:

So please name which ship you're referring to, your explanation of what makes "the ship" "Liberian" with sources. Further to that I'd appreciate your source(s) for the listing of ships attacked.

Esran posted:

It's conspiracy theory because I'm pointing out that within the last 3 days some insurers say they want to either raise costs or deny coverage specifically for US/UK/Israeli vessels, and your response is to tell me that maybe the actuaries are wrong, maybe they were just going off the Houthis' statements, maybe the insurance companies just want to raise rates because insurance companies love to raise rates.

You're implying that the insurers are some combination of incompetent, gullible or lying about their motives when they raise rates or deny coverage.

How would anyone provide evidence to the contrary?

Regarding the Reuters article, I'm not saying all insurers are doing this. I'm saying some of the major players in that space are.

I don't think the article is vague at all, it provides an example of how US/UK/Israeli ships may be affected:

I don't think it makes any sense for Reuters to cover a story about shipping insurance this way, if what's actually going on (which I understood you to be implying) is that insurance premiums are just going up for any ship not receiving a military escort.

Electric Wrigglies posted:

No one is saying there was no collateral damage, it is inevitable, some say that Israel has inflicted some unintentional collateral damage in Gaza even if the IDF internally probably doesn't think so.

The real test is comparing the population of all ships using the straight and the ratio of announced targets vs all ships using the straight against the same ratio for ships that were actually targeted. I haven't counted the ratio of hit ships, I understand more than 50% had a link to Israel in some form (ignoring the Houthi claimed they ignored calls ships)? I don't think 50% of all shipping using the straight has such links to Israel.

SMEGMA_MAIL posted:

How should or could they be stopped?

SMEGMA_MAIL posted:

Then it all seems like it should be really important to focus on stopping the genocide in Gaza even if people don’t care about Palestinians, if the Houthis are causing so much problems.

SMEGMA_MAIL posted:

Sure, but maybe the United States and UK could also not help Israel complete the ongoing extermination of thousands of people and displacement of millions by bombing a country where we also aided a genocide, and maybe your energy as a westerner should be focused on the people who are actually dying by the hand of your government and their allies who are all actively bombing and killing people in Yemen and Gaza rather than criticize that someone is fighting back in the wrong way because they might kill innocent civilians.

SMEGMA_MAIL posted:

Are we talking about Gaza again, where people are actually dying, or are they not civilians?

hadji murad posted:

Maybe they can table a resolution at the UN.

SMEGMA_MAIL posted:

No but many people here have explicitly supported or refused to condemn American and UK actions that involve killing people in Yemen in order to support the genocide in Gaza, while being extremely focused only on hypothetical deaths and actual damage to property by the Houthis.

Please don’t do the Sudan concern trolling, that one is really gross given what the US and Saudis did to Yemen recently,

Tangy Zizzle posted:

Does anyone have an explanation or possible explanation for why the US/Allies haven't offered to pay the Houthis off? It must be costing hundreds of millions of bucks a week to fire all those interceptors, keep the planes in the air, fuels the ships, feed the sailors, etc - not to mention the cost of shipping insurance going through the roof.

I'm sure that offering to establish / rebuild a Yemeni port, feeding the Yemeni people, and / or helping develop their maritime assets would galvanize the Houthi gov't to deal. Hell, even direct cash would start to provide Yemen resources that will help them become independent from Iranian aid / build a stable political foundation to work with.

V. Illych L. posted:

i admittedly have a deficit in my empathy with even quite innocent container ships compared to human beings of flesh and blood, even bad ones, and this might be colouring my analysis here

V. Illych L. posted:

i agree that this is a case which can be made (and it's the one i find most compelling for that side of the argument), but it's not a straightforward one. one reason among others that it's not straightforward is that the actions being taken to make them stop doing the thing that they're doing facially seems to validate their stated logic, namely that using violence to impose a cost to non-compliance with a reasonable demand is a valid way to enforce certain foundational principles. the US also operates on this logic more broadly, as when it imposes economic sanctions using its key position in the global financial system. i don't think one has to condemn such sanctions in all cases to condemn the houthis' actions here (or even to support the military action intended to quell them), but one might find oneself having to execute some difficult maneuvers to avoid committing to a principle which one cannot actually defend.

i should clarify that i'm personally ambivalent on this issue - i do think that if it were reasonable to expect that this blockade could directly force the israelis to stop, it would be justified. if it can meaningfully contribute to making the israelis stop, it's a very difficult calculation to make. if it cannot be reasonably imagined to make any difference, it is clearly unjustified. i don't think the former nor the latter are accurate interpretations, so i find myself in the big moral grey zone here.

at any rate, the moral issue is imo clearly secondary. my position remains that stopping israel's actions in gaza would remove the prestige which makes it so difficult to actually stop the houthis and remains the most straightforward solution to this problem. the military intervention doesn't seem to be accomplishing much at all.

V. Illych L. posted:

as a matter of actual fact, the israelis have gotten a pass on quite a lot of illicit missile-lobbing, whether it killed anyone or not, as well as firing at ships and enforcing an illegal blockade with a higher body count than the houthis' blockade has to this date (i don't know off the top of my head whether they've specifically fired missiles at any ships without killing anyone, but that doesn't seem to be the spirit of this post). happily the israelis are not the issue here, i take it as a given that they should be condemned.

V. Illych L. posted:

i've been over this previously at some length, but i don't think that this is a credible position. there seems to me to be a clear causal connection between what's going on in gaza and the present blockade, if by no other means than preventing a broader arab coalition from intevening against the houthis at this point. if you're interested in more depth on this point, i have several posts about this specific issue itt so you can just check the last page or so of my post history here.

Party In My Diapee posted:

The Houthis have declared a blockade and every ship that doesn't go the long way around or surrender have decided to ignore that warning and put themselves at risk for no particular gain, other than profits for the companies and continued political support for Israel for the governments. Don't have to like the Houthis to be happy at least someone is doing what they can to protect Palestinians. We don't condemn Ukraine every time they cause civilian casualties

Saladman posted:

Serious question, how does a container ship have Belarus as a destination? Don’t they need to report a port as a destination?

Josef bugman posted:

It doesn't actually name the ship though. Do you have a link to it or some further info on the attack?

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

so now we've moved past reposting tweets from previous pages, and are jumping to same page reposts?