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.
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.