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.
For those who are talking about rules-based order and international law, please understand that those ideas are dead. You can’t pretend there is a morally-just world police while Gaza is being leveled, Venezuela was invaded, war in Ukraine has continued for years, and China bullies Taiwan and the Philippines.
If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend Mark Carney’s speech from earlier this week at Davos. World leaders are just now coming to terms with the new reality of “might makes right”.
Edit, just to be clear: along the lines of this new world order, France is entirely in the right here. They had the opportunity to seize this tanker and was powerful enough to do so. As far as motive, they aren’t happy with how Russia is treating Ukraine. That’s it. To make excusses such as “but international law” and “gotta follow the rules” is nothing short of pathetic drivel.
No, actually. Might does not make right. It is also not always the most efficient way to get what you want.
I’m not saying that force is never necessary in a chaotic world. Violence is often necessary and justified to protect ourselves and others. But violence is not “right” by virtue of being to most forceful, ruthless or effective. What’s right lives on a completely different axis from what can be taken.
The rules-based world order was imperfect, it was often hypocritical, but it wasn’t a straight-up lie. It reigned in a lot of chaos, and it gave us the best years of human civilization. Had the project succeeded, it could have removed weapons of mass destruction and shrunk armies around the world, eradicated hunger and diseases, and no doubt it could have fixed the climate crisis too. It did accomplish many of the things it set out to do. But it was sidelined, betrayed, by complacency and a belief that the dominoes would fall into place without any need for further effort or sacrifice.
I still believe. Fuck the UN. We need to build a new UN with blackjack and hookers, get some real environmental protections on the ground, round up capital, and progressively get rid of weapons. It can still be done.