S5 E10 - Iran, A Juvenile Delinquent Throwing Rocks at Cars

Iran’s “Overpass”: Mining the Strait of Hormuz, Extorting Shipping, and the World’s Double Standard

The episode compares teens throwing rocks from highway overpasses—citing fatal cases in Michigan (Kenneth White, 2017), Ohio, and Colorado—to Iran’s deliberate policy of attacking and extorting neutral shipping in the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global seaborne oil and LNG normally passes. It argues Iran has reduced traffic to about 5% of prior levels while charging up to $2 million per vessel and allegedly mining international lanes in violation of longstanding Hague rules, driving oil-price spikes, flight cancellations, and delays in fertilizer and food shipments. The speaker claims the world holds Iran to lower standards than the West, noting a UN statement “asking them to please stop” and a Security Council resolution vetoed by China and Russia, while China imports over 90% of Iran’s illicit oil. The episode contrasts Iran with Singapore’s prosperity and choice to enable commerce rather than threaten it.

00:00 Overpass Double Standard
00:53 Deadly Rock Throwing
03:04 Strait of Hormuz Overpass
04:05 Why It Hits Home
05:27 Tolls and Extortion
06:18 Sea Mines and Decency
09:09 Princess Diana Contrast
10:09 UN Vetoes and Hypocrisy
12:17 Two Ships Two Missions
15:06 Singapore Chooses Good
17:53 China's Complicity
19:10 Back to Michigan Verdict
20:30 Conclusion and Thanks

 #TheTenthMan #HormuzCrisis #FreePassage #IranNavy #DoubleStandard #NeutralShipping #IRISDena #Hormuz #LostPotential #TinCanSailor 

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Transcript

The Tenth Man 0:00

When we catch teenagers throwing rocks on cars off of an overpass, we hold them to a higher standard than the world holds Iran. Singapore has no oil. While Iran has 10% of the world's reserves, yet Singapore's economy is eight times as large. The difference is choosing evil over good. The desert Camel caravans paid tribute to cross the sand. Now super tankers pay$2 million to cross the strait. The weapon changed, the people involved. Didn't China vetoes the resolution to reopen the strait while importing 90% of Iran's illicit oil. Evil supports evil. Princess Diana got a treaty for landmines. Iran gets a statement asking them to please stop. There's a game that teenagers play. They call it overpassing, I'm told. The rules are simple. You climb up onto a highway overpass, you wait for cars to pass beneath you, and you throw rocks. A hit on a windshield is called a dinger and dingers earn points. I might know this game better than most people because the overpass where it turned fatal is one county away from where I'm sitting now. Dodge Road Overpass in Vienna Township, Michigan, I 75 South. It was October 18th, 2017, and five teenagers from Clio. I know some people from Clio climbed up there that night, and one of them, Kyle Anger, and that's his real name, threw a six pound rock, right through the windshield of a passing work van. And it killed Kenneth White, 32 years old in the passenger seat, engaged to be married, dead on the highway a few miles from here. Anger, got 39 months in prison, and the others got probation. Now nobody sat those teenagers down beforehand and explained to them the relevant Michigan statutes on reckless endangerment. No one handed them a pamphlet from the DOT. They didn't really need a law. Every one of them knew before they picked up a rock that dropping a six pound piece of concrete onto a moving car at highway speed was wrong, that it could hurt somebody. They knew they did it anyway. And the court judged them accordingly. Two months later, same interstate, but on the Ohio side, four teenagers dropped a sandbag off a bridge onto a passing car and killed Marquise Bird, 22 years old. April, 2023 in Colorado, three high school seniors drove around at night throwing rocks off various overpasses and killed Alexa Bartel, 20 years old, right through her windshield. Murder charges. So three separate states and three dead people in the passenger seat. Every one of these teenagers knew better and they were judged by the law. Now, let me describe a different overpass. 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, roughly 20% of the world's seaborne oil and 20% of its liquified natural gas passed through it. Tankers out of Saudi Arabia. Every super tanker from Qatar, every barrel from the UAE, Iraq and Kuwait. All of it funneling through a gap the width of a county. And there's a nation standing on one side of that gap with the full apparatus of a modern state, a navy, an air force lawyers who sit in international bodies, diplomats who give speeches in New York. And that nation has decided, as a matter of deliberate policy to throw rocks. And let's just pause a minute to ask you to tell a friend about the 10th Man Podcast. We don't have commercials. We get right to the point and we do not parrot what other people say, and it grows with your help. Now let me make this Strait of Hormuz personal because right now it is very personal. Every time you fill your tank, we're not buying their oil, but the oil market drives the oil price. So every time you pay a utility bill or buy anything that was shipped, which is everything, you depend upon ships moving freely through 21 miles of water between Iran and Omon. When those ships stopped moving, everything moves against you. It's not just gasoline, but diesel fuel, food, medicine, fertilizer, and oil prices have already surged more than 40%, reaching around a hundred dollars a barrel with spikes above 110. Airlines are canceling flights because jet fuel prices doubled. Fertilizer shipments to Africa and South Asia are delayed, and these aren't just Democrat Snap parasites paying more for their Hot Pockets and Pepsi. You have actual vulnerable populations facing food insecurity, not because of drought or local war, but because Iran decide to throw rocks off the overpass. Before this conflict, around 3000 vessels a month used the strait. That number now stands around 5% of that level, 5%. And Iran is charging a toll. Iran began allowing some ships through in exchange for up to$2 million per vessel while waving through ships from countries it deemed friendly. China, Russia, India, Iraq. Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand.$2 million per ship. A thousand years ago, the desert caravans paid tribute to pass. 200 years ago, we had to pay the Barbary Pirates for passage through the Straits of Gibraltar. Now the super tankers do too. Different flag, different ocean, but the same model. Going back to when camels were the ships of the desert and you paid the man with a sword to let you cross his piece of sand. The weapon changed, the racket didn't. Now, the Hague conventions on naval mines have been settled, international law since 1907. Well over a century. They say plainly without ambiguity, that you may not lay unanchored contact mines that drift freely and cannot distinguish between a warship and a grain freighter. You may not mine neutral international shipping lanes. You may not use mines offensively against commercial vessels. And if any western country put mines into international waters indiscriminately, there would be an uproar of protest. But here's the thing, and what I really want you to hear. A modern nation with a navy and diplomats and lawyers and UN seats does not need the Hague conventions to tell it that blowing up passing ships is wrong. A 17-year-old in Clio, Michigan didn't need a statute to know that dropping a six pound rock on a moving car was going to hurt somebody. That knowledge is not a product of law. It is a product of conscience, of basic human understanding of cause and effect of what we used to simply call decency. You don't indiscriminately put people in danger who are simply going about their daily lives. You learn that in Sunday school or even in kindergarten. So when we demand that Iran comply with international maritime law, we're asking for the bare minimum. We are asking them to meet a legal standard that sits well below the moral standard we expect from a teenager with a rock, and we can't even get that. Now. There are legitimate uses of sea mines. If Iran wanted to mine its own harbors against invasion, its own waters defensively to keep a hostile fleet out, even us that is a recognized right under international law and basic national sovereignty. More power to them plant all the mines you want inside your own territorial waters. That is what mines were designed for. And frankly, we would be justified in creating a no-go zone inside all their harbors to keep those gunboats from coming out. But what Iran has done is mine International shipping lanes, neutral lanes shipping lanes used by Greek ships, Filipino crews with Indian cargo, Malaysian tankers, Japanese LNG vessels, neutral ships carrying neutral goods to neutral countries. That is not defense, that is extortion with explosives. You might remember Princess Diana in 1997. This was in Angola. Okay. Walking through minefields in a flack jacket tenderly, holding limbless children. She put a human face on the landmine campaign and the world responded. The Ottawa Treaty was signed. And nations that had deployed landmines defensively in their own territory against military incursion faced international pressure to give them up. But sea mines are treated differently for some reason. Iran is deploying sea mines offensively in international waters against civilian vessels with civilian crews who have nothing to do with any of this. But there's not a campaign, not a treaty, not a hashtag, but silence. And the silence is not an oversight. It's the sound of low expectations. And that brings us to the central point of this entire episode. The thing that nobody in the mainstream press will say, plainly. The world does not hold Iran to the same standards that holds the West. Not even close. When Israel retaliates for a rocket attack, the UN Human Rights Council schedules a special session within days, and the word retaliate in this case is being used correctly. It applies to the first person who was attacked, not the attacker. But when Iran seized the MSC Francesca at gunpoint, a neutral civilian cargo ship, permission to transit given and then revoked by a gunboat, the Secretary General issued a statement politely asking them to please stop. When Iran mined international shipping lanes, the the Gulf States involved or affected finally got a resolution to the security council floor, a simple one. It called for Iran to immediately cease all attacks against it, neutral merchant vessels, and any attempt to impede transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz But China and Russia vetoed it. Beijing imports over 90% of Iran's illicit oil. Moscow has been supplying Tehran with combat aircraft, helicopters, and armor vehicles. They vetoed the resolution and explained that it, the draft was too one-sided, too focused on Iran. Well, why wouldn't it be? Iran was mining the strait and that is the crime. Iran was seizing ships. Iran was also firing over 500 ballistic missiles and over 2000 drones at the UAE alone. Not at military targets, but at resorts, ports, hotels, and civilian neighborhoods. And the resolution was too focused on Iran. The world didn't miss the irony. The world simply did not care. Now lemme give you two ships, two missions, 38 years apart. April 14th, 1988. The guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts is transiting international waters in the Persian Gulf on a specific mission escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers, neutral tankers. The Roberts was protecting neutral commerce from Iranian attack. That was their job, entirely legal, entirely defensible, and entirely in keeping with the principle that neutral shipping moves freely. Well, the Roberts hit an Iranian mine. The blast broke its back. It cracked the keel nearly broke the ship in two. 10, sailors were wounded and the ship was saved only because of a crew doing excellent damage control. Something we train in a lot. 38 years later, the iris or IRIS, Dena On March 4th, 2026, the American sub USS Charlotte sank the Iranian navy frigate Dena in the Indian Ocean, about 40 nautical miles south of Sri Lanka. The blast killed over 80 of her crew of approximately 180 men. Now, I was a destroyer man myself, a tin can sailor so I can sympathize with the men aboard the Dena. They were sailors and what happened to them was not a small thing. But here's the contrast that the world refuses to draw. The Roberts protecting neutral shipping, nearly sunk by an Iranian mine. Their mission was to keep the lanes open, keep neutral commerce moving, and keep the world's oil flowing to the people who need it. But the Dena part of the Navy that lays those mines built specifically to threaten the shipping lanes the Roberts, was defending. Its purpose, its doctrine, its entire reason for being the threat to close the strait, to hold the world's commerce hostage. 38 years of the same Iranian policy, the same Iranian weapons, the same Iranian targets, neutral ships moving freely. State sponsored throwing rocks off the overpass. But the world condemns us. Kyle Anger threw one rock and he got 39 months in prison. Iran has been throwing rocks for 45 years, and the world asks us to understand their position on the bridge. This is not mere nuance. It's a double standard, a morality gap so large you could sail a supertanker through it if the strait were open. Now let me show you what happens when a nation makes a different choice, Singapore. A city state with no oil, no farmland, no rivers, no mineral wealth, just a harbor and a position at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Today's Singapore's, GDP per capita is approximately$127,500. Iran is$16,200. That's nearly eight times. Eight times the per capita output in Singapore from a country with no oil against a country sitting on 10% of the world's proven reserves, 6 million people outperforming 90 million on a postage stamp of an island with nothing but a port and a choice. So here's the point that matters even more than the math. Singapore does not mine the Strait of Malacca. Singapore does not board passing ships and demand$2 million for safe passage. Singapore does not fund proxy militias to attack vessels in the South China Sea. Singapore looked at its position on the world's shipping map and asked one question, how do we make ourselves indispensable? Iran looked at its position on the world's shipping map and asked a different question entirely. Iran could be repairing ships instead of destroying them. It has the coastline, it has the ports, and it has the population. Ship building, ship repair, warehousing, logistics, transshipment. The entire apparatus of a maritime hub nation is available to any country willing to be useful rather than dangerous. Instead, Iran uses oil money to build weapons. It allocates 51% of its oil and gas export revenues, roughly 12 billion euros a year, directly to the IRGC, the Republican Guard, and its security forces, and an estimated$1.6 billion per year to fund Hezbollah, the Houthis Iraqi militias and Hamas. That money did not build a port. It built the Navy we just sank. We'll have to do a full Singapore comparison another time, but plant that number eight times. Eight times the GDP per capita built on nothing, going against everything because they chose to be useful and Iran chose to be feared. Here's a thought experiment the world should run. China demands free transit through the Strait of Hormuz. A third of its oil supply depends on it. China vetoes the resolution that would reopen it. China imports 90% of Iran's illicit oil, and arms the proxies that attack the shipping China claims to need. If this were a full conventional conflict, the United States and its allies would be within their rights, they are within their rights if they were to treat Chinese and Indian ships supplying Iran as hostiles. We could be sinking the Iranian allies ships. The law of naval warfare is clear on this. Nations that materially supply a belligerent become participants in the conflict. But we're not even doing that. But we're being restrained and measured, and in return we get vetoes, condemnation and lectures about international law from the nations arming the side, doing the mining. If China wants the strait open, China has a simple option. Stop buying the oil that funds the mines. Let me bring this back to where it started. Vienna Township, Michigan, the Dodge Road overpass. Kenneth White, the victim. Those teenagers were judged, not because the law required it, but because what they did was wrong and everyone knew it was wrong, and the court said so out loud. Karl ANger did his 39 months and the Col, Colorado teenagers faced murder charges. The Ohio teenagers faced felony prosecution society looked at what they did and said, you knew better. You had a choice, and you'll be held to account. Iran has been dropping rocks off the overpass for 45 years. They know better. You don't need the Hague to understand that blowing up neutral ships is wrong. They had choices. Singapore made different ones with less, but the world has declined consistently, generationally, institutionally, to hold them to account. That isn't sensitivity or diplomacy. That is the soft bigotry of permanently lowered expectations applied to a modern nation state with modern weapons, making modern choices and being excused from modern standards. The teenagers got prison time. Iran gets a toll booth and more money coming in to sponsor more terrorism. Well, paying terrorists is a sure way to get more terrorism. Thank you for listening.