Send a REAL message.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM

Once again, a hypocritical violaton of the laws of the sea. If we were in a declared state of war with Germany or Iran it would be different.

Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Nothing hypocritical about it, we have been at war with Iran for over 40 years, we just don’t believe it: Iranian embassy attacked during Carter’s term, the marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan’s term, Khobar Towers, Iraq IEDS from Iran killing US troops, Afghanistan IED’s from Iran killing US troops, embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed, Iranian proxy wars in the West Bank, Lebanon two years ago…

Hypocrisy is Germany agreeing to place sanctions upon Iran and running guns and ammo right through the heart of those sanctions.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 6:11 PM

If we declared war on Iran, as we probably should, you’d be right.

Since we’re not about to declare war, it would be wrong.

Send a REAL message.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM

Once again, a hypocritical violaton of the laws of the sea. If we were in a declared state of war with Germany or Iran it would be different.

Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM

If we declared war on Iran, as we probably should, you’d be right.

Since we’re not about to declare war, it would be wrong.

Nothing hypocritical about it, we have been at war with Iran for over 40 years, we just don’t believe it: Iranian embassy attacked during Carter’s term, the marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan’s term, Khobar Towers, Iraq IEDS from Iran killing US troops, Afghanistan IED’s from Iran killing US troops, embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed, Iranian proxy wars in the West Bank, Lebanon two years ago…

Hypocrisy is Germany agreeing to place sanctions upon Iran and running guns and ammo right through the heart of those sanctions.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 6:11 PM

Send a REAL message.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Once again, a hypocritical violaton of the laws of the sea. If we were in a declared state of war with Germany or Iran it would be different.

Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Nothing hypocritical about it, we have been at war with Iran for over 40 years, we just don’t believe it: Iranian embassy attacked during Carter’s term, the marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan’s term, Khobar Towers, Iraq IEDS from Iran killing US troops, Afghanistan IED’s from Iran killing US troops, embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed, Iranian proxy wars in the West Bank, Lebanon two years ago…

Hypocrisy is Germany agreeing to place sanctions upon Iran and running guns and ammo right through the heart of those sanctions.

Stop the freighter, after contraband is discovered give the crew half an hour to abandon ship, then put her on the bottom. Problem solved.

Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 9:16 AM
So, sink millions of dollars worth of shipping and the legitimate cargo onboard and ignore the environmental impact of doing? Wouldn’t fining the heck out of the shippers and/or impounding the ships make more sense?

highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 9:22 AM

Nope…fire for effect. Grab the ship and cargo, and fine the owners, is nothing more than legal, perhaps, piracy.
Put a ship on the ocean floor sends a message in war time loud and clear.

What else do German ships transport into and out of Iran? What else have we not caught?

We’re not supposed to know. Watch for Obama to put a kibosh on our checking any ships. Can’t think of a better way for him to stand by his muslim brothers.

Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 9:16 AM
So, sink millions of dollars worth of shipping and the legitimate cargo onboard and ignore the environmental impact of doing? Wouldn’t fining the heck out of the shippers and/or impounding the ships make more sense?

highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 9:22 AM

Create a charity for Victims of Terrorism, auction off the ship on the world market and donate the funds to the charity. Take the arms and ammo on board to give to allies that use those munitions, Iraq & Afgahnistan.

Wallah! Win, win, win! Lesson taught to idiots, money goes to good cause, we save funds we’d have otherwise provided to allie. Could it get any better than that?

Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:54 AM

Well I think they can’t sink a ship unless it’s a pirate vessel. As far as search and seizure of illegal cargo, I’m pretty sure it’s fine for any U.S. warship to do that. The Navy’s doing it primarily because it is the only navy that can do that.

What else do German ships transport into and out of Iran? What else have we not caught?

Sauerkraut? Schokolade? What?

Krauts better not be messin’ with the U.S. Navy, else they’ll end up like wienerschnitzel. :-)

An eighth container was full of cartridges suitable for the manufacture of additional rounds.

Undoubtedly these are actually the brass cases. (Cartridges or rounds are the completed assembly of case-primer-charge-projectile.) The brass case is the most difficult of the components to manufacture. Components are easily assembled into cartridges by relatively simple hand tools or machinery, usually at significant reduction in cost per round. From a smuggling standpoint, while the cases are the bulkiest component of the cartridge, empty cases would not alert a gunpowder sniffing dog.

These facts would increase the probability that Hezbollah was the intended ultimate recipient.

coldwarrior on October 13, 2009 at 9:14 AM

He said sanctions should only be used when all diplomatic means have been exhausted, and that “in the situation with Iran, this is far from the case.”

Grrrr…. thats not a “delay”… thats a not even considering it…

“Two European Nuclear Scientists Arrested as Al-Qaeda Suspects”, Annie Jacobsen writes:
Authorities say Dr. Adlene Hicheur and his 25-year-old brother Halim, also a nuclear scientist, had provided al-Qaeda with data on terrorism targets inc…

That in itself is not prohibited by the UN sanctions. It’s the transport of weapons out of (or into) Iran that’s proscribed. Hansa India has undoubtedly transported legitimate cargo to and from Iran on a near-continuous basis.

The crew of Hansa India is almost certainly a mix of Middle Easterners and Asians, perhaps with a few Europeans as well, although as we’ll see, that’s could be unlikely. The ship is Liberian-flagged — a “flag of convenience” that many shipping companies use because it’s cheap and not well monitored. Flags of convenience are extremely common in the shipping world; they don’t inherently mean anything nefarious about the shipping company.

The picture should be coming through that German nationals probably had nothing to do with letting the arms shipment happen. That doesn’t mean the German shipper isn’t at fault, but it does mean this was not necessarily a deliberate action by Germans. (My assessment would be that it wasn’t.)

Leonhardt-Blumberg has been the target of a long-running campaign by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF, a union) to get its convenience-flagged ship crews signed to ITF union contracts. (The crews of L-B’s EU-flagged ships are already in ITF contracts.) An online search doesn’t reveal whether Hansa India is one of the ships whose crews are still unsigned. If it’s not an “ITF” ship, there would have been no mariners onboard from nations where ocean-going seamen are all in unions. That covers all EU members, including Germany. Even if Hansa India has been signed to an ITF contract, its area of typical operations means that Europeans on the crew would be very few, and much more likely to be from Ukraine, Romania, Greece, etc than from Germany.

What all this means is that the shipping world is one in which it’s not all that hard to get under the radar, pay off a few people, and ship arms without the cognizant shipping company knowing it was happening. Issues like conflict over unionization can and will influence the loyalty and integrity of crewmembers.

So L-B should be embarrassed that this happened. But it’s going too far to consider this particular event evidence that Germans were colluding in arms shipments to Hezbollah. I did just see that the UK has told its shipping companies they won’t be allowed to charter ships to IRISL, and I hope Germany will follow suit.

What else do German ships transport into and out of Iran? What else have we not caught?

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!

Send a REAL message.

dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM

Once again, a hypocritical violaton of the laws of the sea. If we were in a declared state of war with Germany or Iran it would be different.

A little more dialogue should solve the problem. Perhaps the Clinton solution-we will hunt down and bring to justice those responsible.

rjoco1 on October 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM

Or blame Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, those evil mongers, stirring up violence against the Nobel Appeaser.

“Stop the freighter, after contraband is discovered give the crew some new 45 caliber airvents half an hour to abandon ship, then put her on the bottom. Problem solved.”

I don’t know that it would solve the problem, but it would certainly send the right message.

GFW on October 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM

Send a REAL message.