Iran attacked countries that played absolutely no role in the US and Israel’s attack on it, including some (like Oman) that have been fairly closely allied to the regime.
That goes far beyond what’s permissible in international law in response to an attack.
In my view the US and Israeli attacks on Iran were illegal, reprehensible, and deeply stupid. But that doesn’t mean Iran is allowed to do whatever it wants afterward, especially to countries not directly involved in hostilities. In this case Iran has also broken international law.
Iran attacked US forces and bases all across the Gulf, which played pivotal roles in the USA/Israel attacks.
Radars, airfields, HIMARS installations, airports used for refuelling US tankers, and anywhere that hosted the aggressors in any way were and are fair game.
You can't say Iran attacked innocent and peaceful Kuwait whilst ignoring the US forces firing HIMARS into Iran from Kuwait. Iran has every right to attack those US forces wherever they are parked.
If Iran had limited its strikes to US facilities in the Gulf I might have agreed with you. But it didn’t, it hit civilian targets too, all which had nothing to do with the American and Israeli campaign.
I see you snuck in ‘airports used for refuelling US tankers’ there, but Iran hit passenger terminals and other civilian-only parts of airports. That’s not permitted under international law.
Moreover, none of the Gulf countries allowed US forces to strike Iran from their territory, such as HIMARS firings, until after they were first attacked by Iran.
Being sceptical of US and Israeli motives is one thing, but that shouldn’t cause you to give Iran a free pass to break international law with impunity.
Iran quite naturally hit anything of significant use to the US, or that might hurt the US war effort, and some of those civilian objects were housing US forces who fled their bases in those countries.
One man's civilian object is another man's barracks.
Also, mistakes happen, as demonstrated by the US targeting of a school.
Those Gulf states also got involved by shooting down Iranian drones, planes and missiles. Heck, the UAE even directly attacked Iran during the active phase of the US/Israel coalition attack, so they cannot pretend they were innocent.
I'm surprised that Iran didn't render the region uninhabitable by destroying desalination plants.
At this point you’re just making excuses for war crimes, inventing explanations that don’t match the facts.
None of the civilian structures and facilities hit by Iran in neighbouring Gulf countries were hosting US forces. Again, that might have been justifiable depending on proportionality and the selectivity of targeting, but it didn’t happen.
Nor did Iran disclaim the attacks as mistakes. It only did so in one case, claiming over-eager local commanders, but didn’t indicate what it had done to prevent a recurrence.
There was nothing wrong with Gulf states shooting down Iranian drones, planes, and missiles being launched at them, that’s basic self-defence. Similarly, the UAE launched strikes on Iranian launchers only after first being hit, which is also basic self-defence in terms of international law.
By excusing Iran’s own illegal actions and war crimes you’re no better than the cheerleaders of the US and Israel’s illegal actions and war crimes.
Iran hitting the region’s desalination plants would’ve been a nuclear option, which would almost certainly have invited a wider global response to it and resulted in the end of the regime.
Nope. The UK only responded after its own territory had been struck, as had that of allies in the region who were not part of the US and Israel’s actions.
Its role has been entirely defensive, and legal under international law as part of the right to self-defence.
UK started moving its military assets to middle east way before the war, was militarily acting in defense of aggressors and their allies from day one (and also in previous conflicts), and allowed to use its bases for bombing campaigns from the second day of the war, before their base was attacked. (announcement came before the attack, after Starmer got publicly called out by Trump)
UK got involved in bombing Iran even when attack on its base on Cyprus came from Lebanon and would have made more sense to attack the source of the attack if the goal was actual self-defense. That is if we accept the decision was in response to the attack itself, and not to pressure and public humiliation from Trump. Also Turkey also got under missile attack from Iran, and managed to use diplomacy/other means to de-escalate. So not joining the war was a possibility.
Instead of self-defence or helping stop the war, UK helped aggressors in making their attacks easier and deepened/prolonged the war that way, at great cost to the world. At a time when de-escalation was still possible, UK chose to contribute to the war on the side of the aggressors. Who knows why. Maybe they believed it would be a quick war or whatever and Iran would collapse quickly just like the countries UK decided to aggress against in the past like Iraq.
The UK moved assets into the area in defence of its own bases and in defence of allies like Gulf countries. The war was telegraphed, being at least a little prepared was logical. Even then, they had to rush deploy other assets like ships once the fighting started.
Similarly, permission for US aircraft to use British bases was given conditionally, allowing only strikes on Iran’s missile and drone infrastructure being used to target other countries, and was given after the war had begun and after the drone strikes on Cyprus.
Those strikes on Cyprus involved Iranian-manufactured drones provided to Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps explicitly took credit for the strikes on Cyprus. So let’s not pretend this was some unrelated attack.
Notably, many other countries sent military forces to protect Cyprus too, including Greece, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy, with Ireland even offering to join. Several of those countries were strongly opposed to the war and had denied the use of their airspace and bases to the US. Were they all ‘acting in defense of aggressors’ too?
Once again, it’s possible to both condemn the actions of the US and Israel in their violations of international law while also condemning Iran for doing the same. The illegality of one does not justify the illegality of the other.
Much less than 5-10 years ago, and orders of magnitude less than the Russian military.
The pressures of fighting an existential war plus the demands of the public in a democracy have closed off most typical avenues for corruption, forcing a focus on battlefield results and effective supply to the front-line.
Nobody in the Ukrainian military is advocating for military spending for corrupt reasons, but for the country to remain independent in the face of a Russian military invasion.
I didn’t intend it as a whataboutism, but as an indicator of progress. Not all that long ago the Ukrainian and Russian militaries were virtually indistinguishable, with the same doctrine, training, mindsets, and above all levels of corruption. There’s been a ton of work over the past 15-20 years to reform and modernise the Ukrainian military, especially since the war started.
Corruption is intensely damaging, especially in wartime, and shouldn’t be tolerated. That we’re not seeing many cases of corruption despite the intense scrutiny on the Ukrainian armed forces shows that things are both much improved and heading in the right direction.
That said, I’ve now spent enough time countering what was a low-effort throwaway comment from you in the first place, and which felt less like a valid complaint and more like an outdated belief. If you have any substantive evidence of large-scale corruption, worse than comparative forces, and being tolerated and ignored, I’ll re-engage.
> Not all that long ago the Ukrainian and Russian militaries were virtually indistinguishable, with the same doctrine, training, mindsets, and above all levels of corruption.
This just shows you're not frequent in Ukrainian Telegram scene. The situation members of UAF report there is totally different.
> If you have any substantive evidence of large-scale corruption
The political corpse of Yermak is still warm. Umerov has been named in Mindichgate, as well as Firepoint. It's all very fresh and there has been no resolution. I don't know much more evidence of large-scale corruption you want.
I've seen that same policy in regular corporations. Giving any member of a team 5/5 meant a personal phone call with HR and your skip level to justify it, while the message was sent unofficially beforehand that having that meeting would be bad for a manager's career.
when I had >8 direct reports I was usually allowed to give a single 5/5, greatly exceeds expectations, etc, but it was also made clear to me in unrecorded formats that I also better have someone with a failing score if I did that.
Meshtastic/MeshCore have nothing valuable to offer in terms of delivering bombs accurately. Moreover, militaries already have access to much more robust radio messaging hardware and protocols for data and location transmission.
The main reason both Meshtastic and MeshCore have location data as a part of the protocol is because they emerged from the Ham community which has always taken its role in search and rescue seriously, and because it also appealed early on for other off-grid uses like hiking.
As I understand things, the only AI tool the Bluesky team has been pushing has been a feed generator/curator. They have been pushing for vibe coding their systems or for using AI to generate content on Bluesky.
That's inaccurate. Several journalists had both advance and real-time knowledge of the raid on Venezuela, but chose to hold off on reporting out of journalistic ethics. [0]
Given the detail and depth of reporting into the initial strikes on Iran that emerged very shortly after, I would expect the same was true in that case too.
Banning journalists from the Pentagon doesn't prevent them from getting scoops and being leaked to. That was always a false justification for this move.
It’s likely some customer segmentation label generated through PCA or some other clustering approach.
The qualifying criteria is probably just having picked an offer for renewable-sourced energy in the past, indicating that it has some importance to you. So you will be given more green energy offers in future.
Every company segments its customer base this way for marketing. Sometimes it’s even useful.
‘Department of War’ is merely an authorised second name for the department, but legally it remains the Department of Defense until/if Congress changes it.
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