France says it has seized an oil tanker in the Mediterranean suspected of being part of Russia’s sanction-busting “shadow fleet”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the tanker, named the Grinch, was “subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag”.
The French navy, with the assistance of allies including the UK, boarded the vessel on Thursday morning between Spain and Morocco. French maritime authorities said that a search of the vessel had “confirmed the doubts as to the regularity of the flag”.
Russia’s embassy in Paris said it had not been informed of the seizure.
I do agree, and tbh I am trying to work through what a world without a “rules based order” looks like.
I do not want to defend Russia by no means, but why when Russia invades a neighbor it is bad, but when the US kidnaps a president it isn’t(at least portrayed in the news as bad)?
Especially when both are threatening to invade Europe and allegedly sharing information?
It’s still bad when the US illegally invades a country (without congressional approval) and abducts its head of state. The only people who don’t seem to mind that are magas, and they don’t seem to mind fascist russia violating international law either.
This juxtaposition is a bit of a strawman, because both examples are bad and anyone with a moral conscience understands that.
Tell me you are an American without telling me you are an American…
And what exactly do you mean by that?
Is saying “What trump did is bad, and the only people who support it are maga lunatics” something only an american would do?
No, saying that the problem with invading another country is that it is done without congressional approval is.
Way to butcher what I said for the sake of argument.
Adding what basically amounts to a footnote that he acted without congressional approval doesn’t imply that the only reason it was bad was because it lacked congressional approval. It only means that he acted without the consent of the governed, and thus was an unconstitutional overstep of presidential authority.
You must be king of the scarecrows to have so many strawmen at your disposal…
What he did was bad, AND he lacked congressional approval. Not “what he did was bad because it lacked congressional approval.”
Tbf, makes sense, should have read your comment more carefully.
After rereading it, I can see how you could get the wrong idea. The important thing to remember is that parenthetical clauses are to be read independently, without modifying the meaning of the clauses outside the parentheses.
Kidnapping foreign presidents is also bad. Maybe not quite as bad as 4 years of bombing and killing, but still bad. I’m no fan of Maduro, and I think Venezuela will be better off without him (but maybe only if it’s also without his VP and her family’s extensive control of the government apparatus), but this is not a good way to accomplish that.
So reality is complicated and nuanced, and media doesn’t handle that very well. Especially not when they’re increasingly becoming propaganda outlets for a fascist regime.
Not at all better off. What just happened, since the news is not going to tell you apparently, is the administration made a deal with the military to give up maduro and stand down on the operation to become the de facto power, directing the selling out of concessions through their now puppet civilian leadership.
There will be resistance when they start moving oil out, the army will commit abuses, likely including paramilitary death squads financed with drug and gun sales on black markets.
Exactly what I said: not like this. Not with his VP in charge. It should become a democracy where the mineral wealth is used to help the people.