Citations Needed · Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson

"Shadow Fleets," Sanctions & Western Media's International Law-ification of Arbitrary US Dictates

March 11, 2026·1 hr 22 min·5 clips

A 1960 State Department memo proposed “hunger, desperation, and overthrow” as tools against Fidel Castro's Cuba.

1. Citations Needed addresses “Shadow Fleets,” sanctions, and U.S. media's international-law framing of trade with official enemy states. 2. Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson host the analysis, while Mariam Jamshidi contributes expertise as an associate professor teaching international law, national security, and tort law at the University of Colorado Law School. 3. The episode asks why U.S. media describes foreign trade as “evading sanctions” when the sanctions may be unilateral U.S. dictates rather than international law. 4. The hosts examine Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times headlines about Venezuela's oil tankers and so-called shadow fleets. 5. Nima contrasts coverage of Venezuelan trade with U.S. arms sales to Taiwan despite Chinese sanctions against U.S. companies. 6. Adam defines sanctions as embargoes, arms restrictions, permit requirements, asset freezes, loan limits, and travel or visa bans. 7. The discussion says broad sanctions can restrict food, electricity, clean water, medical treatments, and other essential civilian supplies. 8. The hosts cite a 2020 report linking sanctions to adverse effects on income, poverty, inequality, trade, child mortality, undernourishment, life expectancy, and human rights. 9. Human Rights Watch is cited regarding shortages of epilepsy drugs and chemotherapy medications in Iran during the 2018 sanctions period and severe COVID infections. 10. The hosts connect Afghanistan's blocked international funds and Venezuela's oil-revenue collapse to the economic effects attributed to U.S. sanctions. 11. John Fetterman and Tom Cotton are mentioned as politicians who have described making Iranian people suffer as a route to political upheaval. 12. A 1960 State Department memo is quoted proposing economic hardship in Cuba to produce “hunger, desperation, and overthrow” of Fidel Castro's government. 13. The Kennedy administration's 1962 Cuba embargo is presented as a unilateral measure that remained in place through 2025 despite annual United Nations votes seeking its end. 14. A 1980 Associated Press story calls traders moving air conditioners and rice toward Iran “artful dodgers” while acknowledging uncertainty about whether the transactions were illegal. 15. The hosts criticize a 2020 Associated Press report for describing China, Cuba, and India as new participants in Venezuela's oil trade without stating that those countries were not subject to U.S. sanctions. 16. C4ADS and IBI Consultants are discussed as sources whose report used “dark voyage activity” language while having links to institutions such as the Pentagon, State Department, IMF, and OAS. 17. CNN's Jake Tapper and former NSA official Beth Sanery are cited in a 2025 discussion that treated seizure of a Venezuelan tanker as a routine legal case. 18. The episode uses “well-funded and well-lawyered pirates” to characterize the hosts' criticism of U.S. tanker seizures and media descriptions of those actions. 19. Media-criticism listeners tracking sanctions, Venezuela, and international law. 20. Listeners seeking apolitical reporting without extended legal framing.

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