5 ms·

Missing the forest for the trees, are you? Wars of aggression are against UN rules, and US is in the wrong regardless of what it hit. Feels like we're talking

by megous 7mo ago

Missing the forest for the trees, are you? Wars of aggression are against UN rules, and US is in the wrong regardless of what it hit. Feels like we're talking here about whether rapist should have known that the rapee was a child or an adult, and they had a good reason to believe it was an adult person (there was mother of the girl standing next to it, so, hard to distinguish...), so yeah, obviously a tragedy they raped a child instead, but it happens sometimes when you rape a lot of people at once. A tragedy, but let's get on with raping more...

YZF 7mo ago
Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution and the US claims that there was a threat of attack on US bases and US interests and therefore the attack was in self defense. The body that decides is the UNSC and given the US has veto powers it's not going to obviously declare the US attack illegal. From Israel's perspective there's an even stronger self defense argument given the amount of missiles aimed at Israel from Iran and the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel. So the US argument that they knew Israel was planning the attack and they knew Iran would retaliate against US interests seems at least on the surface to bad valid.
- cool_dude85 7mo ago
  >Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution On who?
  - alex43578 7mo ago
    At various times, and potentially via proxies: Iraq Saudi Arabia Israel Kurdish Rebels The US “All countries” via actions against shipping in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz
    - shykes 7mo ago
      Iran proxies were extremely active in Syria, as they were close allies of the Assad regime. They are responsible for countless exactions. In 1992 there was a deadly car bomb attack in Argentina, killing 29 people and injuring 250 more. Then again in 1994 a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 87 people. Eventually the investigation demonstrated conclusively that Iran was responsible.
      - epolanski 7mo ago
        You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar.
        shykes 7mo ago
        > You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list. > Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar. Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal. Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wildly inflated nonsense. Israel and Hamas have been enemies to the death for decades.
        epolanski 7mo ago
        > Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1]. It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this. > "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…" Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority various Israeli governments have legitimized and propped Hamas in order to have a scapegoat to not have to sit around the negotiating table. Israeli actively armed and helped financing of Hamas while helping them suppress moderate Palestinian factions. And that's only what we know. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we'll also get proof that Israeli intelligence knew about October 7th and still allowed it to happen to go on such an extensive military campaign and crush forever any hope for a Palestinian state at the same time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
  - energy123 7mo ago
    They've colonized the whole region with their proxies, from Lebanon to Yemen to Iraq, previously Syria which they attacked with Hezbollah to support the Russia-backed Assad. About 1 million dead people from all this proxy warfare. Lebanon in particular wants to be a normal liberal democracy but their proxy militia assassinates any politician who stands in their way.
    - sumeno 7mo ago
      How many dead from the US's proxy wars?
      - dylan604 7mo ago
        This is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Not dismissing your point, but it's really not a useful follow up. The two things can be bad at the same time.
        tovej 7mo ago
        Not really irrelevant if the original question was whether this was "self defense".
    - megous 7mo ago
      Colonized? Are Hezbollah not Lebanese? Were assadists not Syrian? (assadists invited Hezbollah) And how did Hezbollah come to be? I think you're simplifying quite a bit. And you're also omitting Israel and other near east countries or groups as a proxies of USA, simply by avoiding a clear and sensible non-discriminatory definition of what a proxy is. Eg. USA's Israel "proxy" crucified (literally) a "Palestinian Christian poet, advocate of non-violence and PLO spokesman" in Lebanon and executed a random woman who stood in the way of their operation. This is one of hundreds a lot of the time political assasinations IL did all around the world. Also Iraq attacked Iran during Iranian revolution in the past. You can hardly call Iraq a victim of Iranian proxy warfare. You can't ignore history or the long-term USA and Russian meddling in the region. Seems like significant subset of what you call proxies are locals who formed a group and tighter (Hezbollah) or very loose and inconsequential (Hamas) alliances with Iran, in response to either beligerent occupation/aggression or invasions by some other groups like Israel, Iraq, Saudis - basically in response to wars fought over land and resources.
- dylan604 7mo ago
  > the US claims that there was a threat of attack What the US claims is really not a strong source of anything, and I'm saying that as an American. The most compelling reasoning is that Israel was going to do something so US decision makers decided joining was the best worst decision, and I'm being very bend over backwards generous with that. Anything else is just excuses trying to cover it up. It seems obvious now that there was no stopping Israel from their strike on Iranian leadership. It was too ripe of a target, they have been emboldened by current US admin, so at that point it was in for a penny, in for a pound mentality. If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets, then the world would possibly have some sympathy. No rational person could condone an outright first strike just because we thought something was going to happen. Yet the fact that in the "we think they will do something" spit balling never suggested shutting the down the strait seems very suspect as well.
  - leereeves 7mo ago
    > If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets A reasonable belief, because Iran in fact responded to the US+Israeli strikes by attacking US allies and even neutral nations like Qatar. And why should we doubt that Iran would have closed the Strait of Hormuz even if the US had not attacked, leaving Israel to attack alone? The strategic calculation (threaten the world economy so other nations oppose the war) would have been the same.
    - dylan604 7mo ago
      But had the US not been part of the first strike, they could have applied much more diplomatic pressure to open the strait. As an active aggressor, they have no wiggle room. It might seem like semantics to you, but there's a huge difference diplomatically.
      - leereeves 7mo ago
        Pressure from most of the world isn't enough, why would additional pressure from the US (who Iran already regarded as an enemy) have made the difference?
- cma 7mo ago
  > the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel. Iran has supported a treaty on elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the middle east, Israel has been the blocker of it, only actor in the region that has nukes, and isn't in the NPT. As a non-signer of the NPT, military aid to Israel is also illegal under US law, so we play along with strategic ambiguity and pretend they don't have them.
- epolanski 7mo ago
  You can't relabel aggression like in Venezuela and now Iran as defense. An aggression is an aggression. As in tribunals, to claim you acted in self defense, you need proof. And the Pentagon itself admits there were no threats.

by megous 7mo ago

YZF 7mo ago

Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution and the US claims that there was a threat of attack on US bases and US interests and therefore the attack was in self defense. The body that decides is the UNSC and given the US has veto powers it's not going to obviously declare the US attack illegal. From Israel's perspective there's an even stronger self defense argument given the amount of missiles aimed at Israel from Iran and the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel. So the US argument that they knew Israel was planning the attack and they knew Iran would retaliate against US interests seems at least on the surface to bad valid.

cool_dude85 7mo ago
>Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution On who?
- alex43578 7mo ago
  At various times, and potentially via proxies: Iraq Saudi Arabia Israel Kurdish Rebels The US “All countries” via actions against shipping in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz
  - shykes 7mo ago
    Iran proxies were extremely active in Syria, as they were close allies of the Assad regime. They are responsible for countless exactions. In 1992 there was a deadly car bomb attack in Argentina, killing 29 people and injuring 250 more. Then again in 1994 a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 87 people. Eventually the investigation demonstrated conclusively that Iran was responsible.
    - epolanski 7mo ago
      You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar.
      - shykes 7mo ago
        > You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list. > Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar. Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal. Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wildly inflated nonsense. Israel and Hamas have been enemies to the death for decades.
        epolanski 7mo ago
        > Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1]. It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this. > "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…" Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority various Israeli governments have legitimized and propped Hamas in order to have a scapegoat to not have to sit around the negotiating table. Israeli actively armed and helped financing of Hamas while helping them suppress moderate Palestinian factions. And that's only what we know. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we'll also get proof that Israeli intelligence knew about October 7th and still allowed it to happen to go on such an extensive military campaign and crush forever any hope for a Palestinian state at the same time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
- energy123 7mo ago
  They've colonized the whole region with their proxies, from Lebanon to Yemen to Iraq, previously Syria which they attacked with Hezbollah to support the Russia-backed Assad. About 1 million dead people from all this proxy warfare. Lebanon in particular wants to be a normal liberal democracy but their proxy militia assassinates any politician who stands in their way.
  - sumeno 7mo ago
    How many dead from the US's proxy wars?
    - dylan604 7mo ago
      This is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Not dismissing your point, but it's really not a useful follow up. The two things can be bad at the same time.
      - tovej 7mo ago
        Not really irrelevant if the original question was whether this was "self defense".
  - megous 7mo ago
    Colonized? Are Hezbollah not Lebanese? Were assadists not Syrian? (assadists invited Hezbollah) And how did Hezbollah come to be? I think you're simplifying quite a bit. And you're also omitting Israel and other near east countries or groups as a proxies of USA, simply by avoiding a clear and sensible non-discriminatory definition of what a proxy is. Eg. USA's Israel "proxy" crucified (literally) a "Palestinian Christian poet, advocate of non-violence and PLO spokesman" in Lebanon and executed a random woman who stood in the way of their operation. This is one of hundreds a lot of the time political assasinations IL did all around the world. Also Iraq attacked Iran during Iranian revolution in the past. You can hardly call Iraq a victim of Iranian proxy warfare. You can't ignore history or the long-term USA and Russian meddling in the region. Seems like significant subset of what you call proxies are locals who formed a group and tighter (Hezbollah) or very loose and inconsequential (Hamas) alliances with Iran, in response to either beligerent occupation/aggression or invasions by some other groups like Israel, Iraq, Saudis - basically in response to wars fought over land and resources.
dylan604 7mo ago
> the US claims that there was a threat of attack What the US claims is really not a strong source of anything, and I'm saying that as an American. The most compelling reasoning is that Israel was going to do something so US decision makers decided joining was the best worst decision, and I'm being very bend over backwards generous with that. Anything else is just excuses trying to cover it up. It seems obvious now that there was no stopping Israel from their strike on Iranian leadership. It was too ripe of a target, they have been emboldened by current US admin, so at that point it was in for a penny, in for a pound mentality. If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets, then the world would possibly have some sympathy. No rational person could condone an outright first strike just because we thought something was going to happen. Yet the fact that in the "we think they will do something" spit balling never suggested shutting the down the strait seems very suspect as well.
- leereeves 7mo ago
  > If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets A reasonable belief, because Iran in fact responded to the US+Israeli strikes by attacking US allies and even neutral nations like Qatar. And why should we doubt that Iran would have closed the Strait of Hormuz even if the US had not attacked, leaving Israel to attack alone? The strategic calculation (threaten the world economy so other nations oppose the war) would have been the same.
  - dylan604 7mo ago
    But had the US not been part of the first strike, they could have applied much more diplomatic pressure to open the strait. As an active aggressor, they have no wiggle room. It might seem like semantics to you, but there's a huge difference diplomatically.
    - leereeves 7mo ago
      Pressure from most of the world isn't enough, why would additional pressure from the US (who Iran already regarded as an enemy) have made the difference?
cma 7mo ago
> the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel. Iran has supported a treaty on elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the middle east, Israel has been the blocker of it, only actor in the region that has nukes, and isn't in the NPT. As a non-signer of the NPT, military aid to Israel is also illegal under US law, so we play along with strategic ambiguity and pretend they don't have them.
epolanski 7mo ago
You can't relabel aggression like in Venezuela and now Iran as defense. An aggression is an aggression. As in tribunals, to claim you acted in self defense, you need proof. And the Pentagon itself admits there were no threats.