It's only 24 miles wide at its narrowest point. You're right that they couldn't clog it completely, but making the waters un-navigable for large oil tankers seems doable. Especially since the crews wouldn't just have to watch out for the sunken ships, but also large and dangerous chunks of floating debris and hazards they can't see under the water.
The imagery conjured by "death valley" to me is a boat graveyard - endless wrecks from shore to shore.
One needle can't. Wanna find out how many flaming wrecks Iran can fill the Strait with?
Never mind the fact that workers aren't going to sail to their deaths into "death valley". Even with hazard pay it's going to be hard to actually find crews for every vessel, and the costs of insurance would be enormous.
When it's our turn, shall we just hug it out with the former ICE agents and border patrol? Just send the fascists home?
Because if we do, they will come back. They always do. After the Civil War we just let the slave owners and the Confederates go, and they came back with the Klan and Jim Crow. After the civil rights movement we just let the Klan and their politicians go, and they came back with "tough on crime" and "states rights" and now they're wearing masks and murdering people in the street again.
We can't do this anymore. When we defeat them again, and we will, we can't let them regroup. Marx said it himself: "We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
Tall people have a biological advantage in certain sports, like basketball. That means the should be banned, right? Just based on the same logic (that biological advantages are unfair) then what's the difference?
Unless the US stops all of its oil producers from engaging in international trade
It could, though. The fossil fuel lobby would oppose this, of course, but they're not the only lobby. Never mind the fact that all of Trump's supporters drive oversized vehicles. Amazon doesn't want high fuel prices, neither do Uber or DoorDash, neither do GM or Ford or Stelantis, neither do farmers, neither do construction companies, neither do data centers, neither do military contractors or the Pentagon, and so on. There are a lot of economic and political forces that want to keep fuel prices down.
This would begin a collapse of the old economic order, of course. If Canada and Mexico could be convinced to go along with this, lead by the US's new "hemispheric dominance" strategy, we might see oil prices totally diverge between East and West.
I made a lentil sauce the other day, and I guess it's basically curry? It's meant to be a sauce for sandwiches, but I'm putting it on my rice tonight and it's really good!
The difference between 2008 and today is that the US is a net exporter, which means the US has the option cut its exports to keep oil prices down at home. That'll have fascinating effects on global oil markets.
I could see this playing out. Already, people in the admin and media are saying that we started this war to protect Israel (or because of Israel, or even dragged into war by Israel) and that seems like the first step to an off-ramp.
lol holy shit they're going to do what?