Iranian boats attempted to seize British tanker

People working for Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch would laugh in your face if you told them "Iran is a very progressive nation." Iran is a Medieval theocracy crossed with a modern
police state. The World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap report ranked Iran 140 out of 144 countries for gender parity (Wikipedia article 'Women's Rights in Iran). Reporters sans Frontieres
(Reporters Without Borders) ranked Iran 164th out of 180 countries in its 2018 World Press Freedom Index (https://rsf.org/en/news/zahra-kazemis-killers-still-unpunished-15-years-after-her-death-
custody). I just read a joint report by Amnesty International and Justice For Iran that said they have found about 70 mass grave sites in Iran, and estimate there are about 50 more, where thousands
of dissidents were executed without trial by Iranian authorities (Amnesty International: Iran-new-evidence-reveals-deliberate-desecration-and-destruction-of-multiple-mass-gravesites/). Amnesty International
has reported that in 2018 Iran arrested over 7,000 protestors and killed 26 others. Of those arrested, at least 9 died under suspicious circumstances. Iran executed 507 people (officially) in 2018. That's
more than any country in the World except China. China has a much larger population than Iran, so Iran leads the World in Per Capita executions. Sixty percent of all executions in the Middle East
occur in Iran.(Wikipedia). In contrast, the USA, with four times the population of Iran, executed 25 people in 2018. If you go to the Middle East part of the forum, you can read a number of threads
about Human Rights in Iran which I have posted, beginning with 'The Murder of Zahra Kazemi.' If you knew more about Iran, I doubt you would ever call it "progressive." I could literally post threads about
Iran's Human Rights violations every day for the rest of my life and still not adequately cover the sublject.

 

The fact that you support the idea of dropping daisy cutters to wipe them out,... is supporting genocide.

 

I claimed the US removed the democracy, and replaced it with a fascist dictator.

Nope. It would have been a nice democracy who would have spend their own natural resources to good use. The US turned it to an corrupt infested fascist state.

 

yeah... the US massacres children by the 10.000's by supporting a genocidal blockade. And a person like you puts the blame on the victims. It's exactly like them guys that when a woman gets raped, claim it was because she somehow asked to be raped.

 

"But when it comes to diplomacy, perhaps we underestimate the impact of silence. A case in point was the lack of response from the EU over the UK’s strange role in the arrest of an Iranian supertanker in the Mediterranean Sea in early July. As the action was taken to uphold EU sanctions, the silence was all the more remarkable. And it offers a stark forewarning of the foreign policy tensions the UK will face after it leaves the EU."

This is the seizure I am referring to. There was nothing strange about the seizure and Iran admits it is one of theirs. The ship however was registered under a different country and flag. it also took a strange route to get to the Mediterranean Sea.

A seized Iranian tanker took a several-thousand-mile detour around Africa in a possible attempt to sneak a shipment of crude oil to Syria

https://www.businessinsider.com/ira...syria-thousands-miles-detour-gibraltar-2019-7

 

I was listening to Zarif talking on Hardtalk 2 nights ago. He said that the supposed ban was on taking oil from Syria not on taking it to Syria. He also pointed out that the EU can put whatever sanctions they like on Syria but Iran does not need to keep such sanctions unless the EU is becoming like the US. He believed this was nothing to do with any EU sanctions but was the UK doing the US dirty work. The way he spoke also suggested that Iran was delivering the oil not to Syria but to a country not going with the US ban and so did not want to mention who it was - again this emphasised the UK acting for the US rather than anything to do with the EU.

 

Zarif has offered to have talks with the US and says Iran is prepared to have more frequent inspections and to make them permanent. That should please at least one poster here but it does not sound like the US is interested.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/18/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-mohammad-javad-zarif-sanctions

 

I think you're making mountains out of mole hills to make an invalid point.

The ship did not take a "detour". It did not use the Suez Canal because the canal cannot handle that size ship when fully loaded.

Secondly, many cargo ships are registered in countries other than the one in whose cargo they are hauling. They are contract haulers much as many 18 wheelers are. Panama is a favored country for registration of many cargo carriers, though I'm not sure about this particular ship. There's nothing strange about this, either.

 

I've noticed the term "genocide" being tossed around rather loosely. Genocide is the deliberate attempt to kill an entire group of people - as the Turks did with the Armenians in 1915, and as Hitler did
with the Jews in the 1930s and 40s. Using genocide to describe every killing of civilians devalues the term. Human Rights crimes are always ugly, but most don't sink to the level genocide.

 

Trump has a couple of times suggested the US will annihilate Iran, make Iran no more. He was widely thought and reported as suggesting genocide of the Iranian people. He is already killing Iranians with his sanctions. Zarif in particular mentioned on Hardtalk the other night that people with cancer and some other illnesses were dying because Iran does not make the needed drugs and the US is making it impossible for them to buy them.

 

I did some research on your opinion as to why the Grace 1 could not pass the Suez Canal and I found nothing that absolutely verifies your belief. Maybe you can provide a link that states the Grace 1 could not pass the Suez Canal?

 

I read somewhere that it was related to this:

The current channel depth of the canal allows for a maximum of 20.1 metres (66 ft) of draft,[1] meaning that a few fully laden supertankers are too deep to fit through, and either have to unload part of their cargo to other ships ("transhipment") or to a pipeline terminal before passing through, or alternatively avoid the Suez Canal and travel around Cape Agulhas instead. The canal was deepened in 2009 from 18 to 20 metres (59 to 66 ft).

Suezmax ships have lengths of about 275 metres stipulated as per the Suez Canal passage requirements

The length of Grace 1 is 330m.

Also Iranian tankers and cargo ships are banned from unloading part of its cargo so have to travel around the cape

 

If Iran decides to go to war with the US then weapons like Daisy Cutters may be used. That decision by Iran would likely lead to a great many Iranian deaths, but the decision lies with them. My advice is to avoid any provocation in order to avoid the deaths of any Iranians.

But will the religious fanatics, determined to meet their astral virgins, listen? Who really knows what goes on in a fanatics mind where their indifference to human life has been well documented.

 

Again... you're blaming genocide on the victims. That's not possible. That says plenty that you view these people as 2nd class and not having normal rights. Your rant suggests that if the US decides to go to war with the US, that all the American civilians may be massacred because of a political decision they never asked for. It's utterly idiotic.

 

The people were much more free under the Shah than they have been under their crazed Ayatollahs. In fact they cheered when Khomeini returned from France, demonstrating to the world just how anti Democratic a great many Iranians tend to be.

 

What "Genocide" are you referring to"? It seems you're unclear on the meaning of the word.

"Victims" don't start wars.

 

The Iranians were much more free under their democratically elected leaders, than under the Shah.
The US tossed Iran centuries in the past by being the force behind the coup against the president of Iran.
Iran is far more better off without a fascist puppet, corrupted to let the US drain the country of it's resources.

 

civilians do not start wars.

 

I just saw that they have managed to capture a British tanker now. I don't have a link for it yet.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/464594-iran-confiscates-british-tanker/

IRAN CONFISCATES BRITISH TANKER IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ – IRGC
HomeWorld News

Iran confiscates British tanker in Strait of Hormuz – IRGC
Published time: 19 Jul, 2019 18:06Edited time: 19 Jul, 2019 18:20

© REUTERS/Stephen Hird

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has seized the British oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported. UK authorities said the tanker had ‘veered off course’ before capture.
The Stena Impero was headed to Saudi Arabia but left the international sea lanes and headed north towards the Iranian island of Qeshm, marine tracking data showed on Friday.

The 30,000-ton tanker is owned by Stena Bulk, and was bound for the Saudi port of Al Jubail.

Iranian state TV reported that it was seized by the IRGC naval units for “not following international maritime regulations.”

Stena issued a statement that the ship was “approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz, while the vessel was in international waters.”

The company is “presently unable to contact the vessel which is now heading north towards Iran.”

UK authorities said they were “assessing the situation following reports of an incident in the Gulf.”

 

It is probably true that the US under Eisenhower (encouraged by Winston Churchill) should not have conspired to overthrow Mohammed Mossaddegh in 1953. They were afraid that he would ally Iran with
the Soviet Union, and the West would then be cut off from Iranian oil. His replacement, the Shah was a brutal despot. However, the 1979 revolution made things even worse. Todays Iran is a cross
between a medieval theocracy and a modern police state. According to Wikipedia, "In its early years, the revolutionary regime was especially criticized for its human rights record. In the first 28 months of
the islamic Republic, between 1979 and June 1981, revolutionary courts executed 497 political oppenents as 'counterrevolutionaries', and 'sowers of corruption on earth' (Mofsed-e-filarz). In the next four
years from June 1981 until June 1985, the courts sentenced more than 8,000 opponents to death. After a relative lull, thousands of poltical prisoners were executed in 1988. Like other revolutions before
it, the Iranian Revolution took a higher toll on those who had participated in the revolution than those in the regime it overthrew." Wikipedia says, "The Islamic revolution is thought to have a significantly
worse human rights record than the Pahlavi Dynasty it overthrew." Today, Iran has the highest execution rate, per capita, in the World (507 in 201. Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without
Borders) ranked Iran 164th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Iran 140th out of 144 countries studied
in gender parity.

 

Sounds like a false and flimsy excuse to seize that tanker. Given their previous attempt, it's clear they wanted to seize one in retaliation and as some kind of bargaining chip.

 

Saying this is true my question is why with all the ships Iran could have contracted they pick one that probably couldn't go through the Suez Canal costing Iran more money which apparently they don't have and a lot more time to deliver the oil to where ever it was going. Something isn't right here.

 

So apparently now the US Navy will escort every tanker going through the Strait which heightens the chances of an encounter with the IRGC. So be it.

 

"UK authorities said the tanker had ‘veered off course’ before capture"

Seems like a deliberate act to escalate the situation or both sides want to save face and mutually release each others ships at the same time