bully

Good old warmongering Uncle Sam has had his big, scary navy messing around in the Persian Gulf for years, trying to sucker the Iranians into throwing a punch or, when that fails as it has so far, just bullying and intimidating them.

So I had to giggle today when I read that one of Uncle's destroyers cruising around carrying a shitload of live missiles just outside the Strait of Hormuz ran into a Panamanian-flag oil tanker and now has a ten-by-ten foot hole in her right side.

AP coverage of this clusterschnazzle tells us that The Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Gulf, is a crowded and tense waterway where one-fifth of the world's oil is routed. Tensions have risen there over repeated Iranian threats to block tanker traffic in retaliation for tighter sanctions by the West, and goes on to say The United States stoked the flames recently with an announcement that it will send U.S. Navy minesweepers and warships into the Gulf for exercises. The U.S. military maneuvers scheduled for September, to be joined by ships from about 20 American allies.

Great idea! Sounds like just the thing for "a crowded and tense waterway," sending umpteen million ships there for "exercises." With about a fifth of the world's oil traffic threading its way through the traffic, we'll have lots more opportunities to mess things up in that part of the world, including ourselves. And there's no guarantee that future mishaps like this one will be as fortunate, in terms of spilled oil (there was none) and casualties (likewise, ø).

Good old Uncle Sam. You have to wonder if he's enough of a mensch to ever become regular people.