If they hit Dubai every day people would get used to the new normal. We can get used to everything and anything however horrible, it is a great strength and yet also tragedy of humankind.
The difference is the inhabitants of Dubai are much less committed to the place they live in than Ukrainians. Dubai is an entirely transactional country.
And has no sustainable water supply.
Eh? There’s literally a dozen desalination plants in the UAE.
But the Gulf is gettng significantly more saline as a result. As well as destroying marine life, it is taking more energy to produce potable water.
Is that so?
I would have thought that the effect of desalination plants was minimal relative to changes in river outflow and evaporation (due to wind and temperature changes).
Do you have a link?
It's an issue. However, there does now seem to be more work suggesting that circulation through the Straits of Hormuz mitigates the bulk of the effect.
But there will be localised impacts where increased salinity is to the detriment of the ecosystems.
No it's overpriced rubbish and has as much to do with Dubai as Fry's Turkish Delight does with Turkey. While we're on the subject, I am irrationally annoyed how everything that is just pistachio flavoured is now being called 'Dubai style'. It's like how you can't get anything that is caramel flavoured anymore without it being dubbed 'salted caramel'.
Yes, it was like 4 years ago everything became salted, really odd.
I really ought to start selling Dubai Style Salted Caramel Blondies for the ultimate TikTok product
No it's overpriced rubbish and has as much to do with Dubai as Fry's Turkish Delight does with Turkey. While we're on the subject, I am irrationally annoyed how everything that is just pistachio flavoured is now being called 'Dubai style'. It's like how you can't get anything that is caramel flavoured anymore without it being dubbed 'salted caramel'.
Yes, it was like 4 years ago everything became salted, really odd.
I think this sort of thing is because the middle has fallen out of a lot of markets. So the mass-market has to ruthlessly target the plurality, which is recently salted, high-protein and Dubai style and if you want anything else you're searching for an obscure niche.
Given the desalination issues mentioned upthread, an elegant solution presents itself.
Trevor Phillips on Sky News was very good this morning.
There’s no organised opposition in Iran and all the weapons are in the hands of the regime were some key talking points.
And Trump and Netenyahu telling civilians to take back their country . How !
I’ve been trying to work out what the internal dynamics in Iran are. It doesn’t seem to be somewhere, so far at least, where there are big splits within the ruling elite. No real evidence of generals or city police chiefs switching sides, unlike the early days of the Syrian conflict or the occasional ructions and window accidents that befall Russian elites.
Instead it really does seem to be the people vs the ruling class. More Myanmar than Syria or Russia. A junta-style structure.
So they’re going to learn all of the wrong lessons.
The lessons they want to learn are the ones that pander to,their own viewpoints.
Same as everyone else, then
But F... F... S... Even if you think the problem with Labour's immigration policy is that it's costing votes, even if it is costing votes, you don't say that hit out loud on national TV.
Once again, Starmer rose due to the lack of a better alternative. He falls when one emerges. At this rate, he will be PM for ages.
I’ve said a few times I really think he and Reeves are the best Labour have. Probably the best of the five main parties.
To anyone not paying close attention, this was Dubai last night as Sheihk Mohammed celebrated his horse winning a race at the Meydan stadium. The show very much goes on!
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan Given Mandelson was best man at Trevor Phillips’s wedding, and they have been friends and political allies for 50 years, shouldn’t Phillips recuse himself from all Mandelson coverage at Sky News? What am I missing here?
Haha good question. One suspects that the draught beer runs out in a couple of weeks if the airport stays closed, but there’s plenty of stock of other stuff in the duty free warehouse that can be raided for the hotels and pubs if necessary.
My thoughts and prayers are with you Sandpit at this difficult time.
And if all that fails, I’m going to be stuck with that bottle of 18-year-old Macallan in the cupboard. 🥃
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
It would have to be combined with widespread hacking of phones to get the signal out, at which stage that's a lot simpler way of locating these people than very tiny tracking devices implanted in bodies.
But it's a good story, and if it persuades a few authoritarian goons somewhere to live with toothache rather than to get it treated, that's probably a net benefit.
So they’re going to learn all of the wrong lessons.
The lessons they want to learn are the ones that pander to,their own viewpoints.
Same as everyone else, then
But F... F... S... Even if you think the problem with Labour's immigration policy is that it's costing votes, even if it is costing votes, you don't say that hit out loud on national TV.
Once again, Starmer rose due to the lack of a better alternative. He falls when one emerges. At this rate, he will be PM for ages.
I’ve said a few times I really think he and Reeves are the best Labour have. Probably the best of the five main parties.
I think Sir Keir should definitely have quit but I cannot see any replacement. Perhaps Streeting but seems very unlikely to win.
Rayner is not hugely left wing however I fear she’ll get captured. And I just cannot see her as a PM.
But I have family in Iran. My dad is there right now. And I'm not celebrating yet. Here's why.
Iran built the most layered contingency plan on Earth for this exact moment. Four levels of succession for every key position. Pre-authorized military strikes. Regional commanders who don't need orders from Tehran to act.
As you read this, there is already a new Supreme Leader. We just don't know who.
This isn't Maduro. The government didn't get overthrown. The system absorbed the hit. That's what it was designed to do.
Every credible intel assessment says the same thing: a post-Khamenei Iran is more likely to get harder, not softer. More IRGC. More dangerous. Potentially worse for the Iranian people than Khamenei himself.
I'm not sure about what happens next, if he's right about the regime's resilience. How long in practical terms can the US sustain a bombing campaign ?
The basic fact that Trump and Netanyahu fail to consider is this.
There is one of them. If they go, via the ballot box or via other means, what follows will be a totally different policy or a clone policy but never quite the same.
The Ayatollah is a multi headed Hydra, chop one head off and another emerges, it might be as venomous, more venomous, it's always going to be venomous enough to be very poisonous.
It can and will out live it's slayer one way or another, it may have tens of thousands of lives yet.
Or they do consider that and realise that if the hydra has tens of thousands of lives, and you are fighting a just war, then it is just and proportionate to keep killing until you kill all tens of thousands of lives and the hydra dies or surrenders.
Which Israel did in its just war against Gaza. You have just completely justified the tens of thousands of casualties, because they were necessary and proportionate to defeat the hydra.
After the October atrocity by Hamas I said Israel would be doing whatever it needed to, in order to militarily defeat and destroy Hamas. Many here reacted with horror at the idea of defeating Hamas saying it would take "2 million deaths". Others bandied about numbers like "500,000 deaths".
Reasonable estimates of the Iraq War we participated in are approximately 150,000 - 1,000,000 deaths.
Israel defeated Hamas and its tens of thousands headed hydra with tens of thousands of deaths.
Well done Israel. Not a genocide, entirely just, based on your own logic.
“Why did Gorton & Denton voters back the Green Party?” Article in the Times.
Does not suggest Labour should go very left wing.
Constituencies are not homogeneous. Changing tack to respond to one defeat simply increases the likelihood of more defeats.
But politicians are not the brightest
The polls suggest that the Green surge in G and D is not a localised phenomenon. I expect that this will be confirmed in May, with PC benefiting similarly in Wales.
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
Yes exactly, I’d normally dismiss it as fantasy. But after the genius move with pagers, who knows
“Tehran” the series - famously well researched - made it plain that Mossad are planting spies as doctors and surgeons
If they are, then this procedure would be relatively simple. So I can maybe believe that this is happening, just not on the scale of the original report
Terrifying for Iranian leaders. Also important. Who wants to lead the brave Islamic republic if it means your colon explodes two days later
The regime could be overthrown by sheer unwillingness of anyone to lead it
No it's overpriced rubbish and has as much to do with Dubai as Fry's Turkish Delight does with Turkey. While we're on the subject, I am irrationally annoyed how everything that is just pistachio flavoured is now being called 'Dubai style'. It's like how you can't get anything that is caramel flavoured anymore without it being dubbed 'salted caramel'.
There’s actually a funny story behind the “Dubai Chocolate”, to be studied in law school and business school.
The issue is that a food recipe has no intellectual property that can be attached to it, and it’s required to post ingredients on the label of almost all food products. In addition, it’s not allowed to to trademark a place name to a specific company. You can copywrite packaging and trade dress (eg Toblerone bar shape) but not the contents.
So there’s now dozens of chocolatiers, some in Dubai and many elsewhere, producing this pistachio-flavoured chocolate bar of various qualities.
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
I'm more cautious.I think it's probably overstated.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
“Why did Gorton & Denton voters back the Green Party?” Article in the Times.
Does not suggest Labour should go very left wing.
Constituencies are not homogeneous. Changing tack to respond to one defeat simply increases the likelihood of more defeats.
But politicians are not the brightest
The polls suggest that the Green surge in G and D is not a localised phenomenon. I expect that this will be confirmed in May, with PC benefiting similarly in Wales.
No doubt it will be repeated elsewhere however I do not think going after the Greens can be a majority winning strategy.
Haha good question. One suspects that the draught beer runs out in a couple of weeks if the airport stays closed, but there’s plenty of stock of other stuff in the duty free warehouse that can be raided for the hotels and pubs if necessary.
My thoughts and prayers are with you Sandpit at this difficult time.
And if all that fails, I’m going to be stuck with that bottle of 18-year-old Macallan in the cupboard. 🥃
“Why did Gorton & Denton voters back the Green Party?” Article in the Times.
Does not suggest Labour should go very left wing.
Constituencies are not homogeneous. Changing tack to respond to one defeat simply increases the likelihood of more defeats.
But politicians are not the brightest
The polls suggest that the Green surge in G and D is not a localised phenomenon. I expect that this will be confirmed in May, with PC benefiting similarly in Wales.
I expect Green, Reform, PC and SNP to all do well.
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
I'm more cautious.I think it's probably overstated.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
Also, Iran won't have a facility left by Tuesday capable of making anything more complex than a paper dart...
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Israel Now@neveragainlive1 sounds a pretty balanced source.
Your ability to wank all over the latest strong man (or in this case their personification) is unrivalled.
I see you’re in one of your more sour moods. Can’t think why
Mossad are entirely capable of this - or versions of it. And the fact is, they took out an extraordinary list of top Tehran people in one night. Dozens, all over the country
The regime is completely riddled with spies
IIRC this was one of the reasons the IRA gave up. They couldn’t trust any one any more. Completely penetrated. Surrendered out of mental exhaustion
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Haha good question. One suspects that the draught beer runs out in a couple of weeks if the airport stays closed, but there’s plenty of stock of other stuff in the duty free warehouse that can be raided for the hotels and pubs if necessary.
My thoughts and prayers are with you Sandpit at this difficult time.
And if all that fails, I’m going to be stuck with that bottle of 18-year-old Macallan in the cupboard. 🥃
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
I'm more cautious.I think it's probably overstated.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
Like Leon I’d have dismissed it had it not been for the pagers in Lebanon
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Israel Now@neveragainlive1 sounds a pretty balanced source.
Your ability to wank all over the latest strong man (or in this case their personification) is unrivalled.
I see you’re in one of your more sour moods. Can’t think why
Mossad are entirely capable of this - or versions of it. And the fact is, they took out an extraordinary list of top Tehran people in one night. Dozens, all over the country
The regime is completely riddled with spies
IIRC this was one of the reasons the IRA gave up. They couldn’t trust any one any more. Completely penetrated. Surrendered out of mental exhaustion
It’s nice to see some people care about children being killed in Iran when it’s the US and Israel doing it. Less bothered when it’s the Mullahs.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
It's a new era, or rather a return to an older one.
It's great news that Khamenei is gone as most people acknowledge, there is going to be a lot of pretending that having any concerns is the same as defending the regime, but in 30 years time people may look back on a time when wars of conquest and international assassinations had their motives disguised as a more positive one. Sometimes the polite fictions have a useful purpose despite being fictions.
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
I'm more cautious.I think it's probably overstated.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
Like Leon I’d have dismissed it had it not been for the pagers in Lebanon
The problem is power. It takes quite a lot of power to send a signal that will travel any meaningful distance.
The way little trackers like airtags work is that they send a weak signal that is picked up by nearby mobile phones, which then send the signal on. That way mobile phones are acting like a dense observation network to pick up these signals.
If you have tiny dental implants they definitely don't have a greater power source than an airtag, so you definitely need nearby mobile phones (or pagers) to act in a similar way. But if you have access to the phones/pagers I'm not sure you need the tiny implants.
Unless, perhaps, they're literally simply the internals of an airtag (or similar) and they're relying on the Iranians not opting-out of being part of the detection network for them.
Sometimes stories like this are used to deflect from the real mode of surveillance in the hope of preserving that capability for as long as possible.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
Unprovoked?
Unprovoked?
Are you effing serious!
Tens of thousands of protestors slaughtered in cold blood.
Directing and funding terror attacks abroad.
Uranium enriched towards weapons-grade, well past any civilian use.
Refusal to co-operate with international nuclear facilities.
And you have the bare-faced cheek to say "unprovoked"?
The UK Defense Secretary said two missiles were fired toward Cyprus, where thousands of British troops are stationed.
Starmer watched them from atop his fence
Rather watch react and prevent than dive in feet first like opportunistic war mongers like the main opposition and Tory leaders Farage and Pritti would have us do.
BTW there has clearly been a coup by Mossad at the top of the Tory Party with special agent MP for Tel Aviv totally in charge.
Thank God she's no longer privy to state secrets to deliver to them.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
International law is for saps.
It often was and is treated that way by many nations, but some people mistake that for meaning there's no point to it at all.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
Unprovoked?
Unprovoked?
Are you effing serious!
Tens of thousands of protestors slaughtered in cold blood.
Directing and funding terror attacks abroad.
Uranium enriched towards weapons-grade, well past any civilian use.
Refusal to co-operate with international nuclear facilities.
And you have the bare-faced cheek to say "unprovoked"?
Can you not turn down the silly outraged repetitive twat volume a notch just for one day?
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
The leadership of Iran are repellent, their brutal actions against their own citizens disgusting and vile, but the US has no right to say who the leaders of that country should be. And neither do we. This is a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into. Carney's observations about that were spot on. We are, in the lines being taken, making ourselves complicit in criminality. And no doubt we will climb even higher on our horse of hypocrisy when they use asymmetric warfare to retaliate. It is the US and Israel that has put our citizens at risk here, not Iran.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
International law is for saps.
First true thing you've said in a long time.
Modern international law is an excuse to see atrocities abroad and say "not my problem".
If we never hear those two words together again it would be too soon.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
“Why did Gorton & Denton voters back the Green Party?” Article in the Times.
Does not suggest Labour should go very left wing.
Constituencies are not homogeneous. Changing tack to respond to one defeat simply increases the likelihood of more defeats.
But politicians are not the brightest
The polls suggest that the Green surge in G and D is not a localised phenomenon. I expect that this will be confirmed in May, with PC benefiting similarly in Wales.
I expect Green, Reform, PC and SNP to all do well.
Labour to do terribly. Same with Tories.
Lib Dem’s okay but squeezed by Greens.
Await the rampers
Lab benchmark 25% Tory benchmark 2%
Tories have improved since Gorton spiels at the ready
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
The leadership of Iran are repellent, their brutal actions against their own citizens disgusting and vile, but the US has no right to say who the leaders of that country should be. And neither do we. This is a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into. Carney's observations about that were spot on. We are, in the lines being taken, making ourselves complicit in criminality. And no doubt we will climb even higher on our horse of hypocrisy when they use asymmetric warfare to retaliate. It is the US and Israel that has put our citizens at risk here, not Iran.
A riposte to you, from an Iranian. You’re a moral disgrace
“🙋Hello - Iranian here.
For those fixated on 'legality' to excuse the regime in Iran - F*ck You.
No, I will not let you be my voice. You don't get to narrate my story, you don't get to claim moral superiority. You don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong.
Is it legal to throw women in prison for strands of hair? Is it legal to mass execute people? Is it legal to turn a fertile land into a parched desert? Is it legal to rape? Is it legal to shoot innocent people? Is it legal to kill children? Is it legal to torture people to death? Is it legal to spread terrorism? Is it legal to deprive people of a livelihood? Is it legal to shoot people in the eye to blind them? Is it legal to silence people and take away all of their human rights? Is it legal to shoot down a passenger plane? Is it legal to drive millions to leave their country? Is it legal to jail women for singing and dancing? Is it legal to disappear people including children?
You will never experience anything like Iranians have experienced for the last 47 years.
Iranians have fought barehanded and they've paid a price. All up to 1,000,000 (one million) Iranians have been murdered since the regime came to power. Your books on 'civil disobedience' and 'collective protest' are useless against an armed opposition that is ideologically driven and will kill all that stand in its way.
You want legality? The world has a duty to protect innocent lives. It's enshrined in R2P. Some people seem to think Iranians aren't humans. The murder, genocide and massacre of Iranians receives scant media attention - hence scant sympathy.
Those who proclaim to care about 'human rights' must think Iranians are animals and not worthy. Their hatred of Israel and US is so great they've lost all perspective. Yes, Iranians are happy. They're happy someone took out Ali Khamenei and many others directly responsible for so much pain and agony. “
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
Yes exactly, I’d normally dismiss it as fantasy. But after the genius move with pagers, who knows
“Tehran” the series - famously well researched - made it plain that Mossad are planting spies as doctors and surgeons
If they are, then this procedure would be relatively simple. So I can maybe believe that this is happening, just not on the scale of the original report
Terrifying for Iranian leaders. Also important. Who wants to lead the brave Islamic republic if it means your colon explodes two days later
The regime could be overthrown by sheer unwillingness of anyone to lead it
The lesson here is not tin foil fantasies about Bill Gates implanting 5G chips via Covid vaccines (and hip replacements would be more plausible than dental fillings, but mobile phone tracking is simpler) but that information about foreigners' health is crucial intelligence materiel, which is why everyone in SW1 should be strung up for giving away NHS data, from New Labour to Starmer's Labour.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
The leadership of Iran are repellent, their brutal actions against their own citizens disgusting and vile, but the US has no right to say who the leaders of that country should be. And neither do we. This is a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into. Carney's observations about that were spot on. We are, in the lines being taken, making ourselves complicit in criminality. And no doubt we will climb even higher on our horse of hypocrisy when they use asymmetric warfare to retaliate. It is the US and Israel that has put our citizens at risk here, not Iran.
Not to say no one else has tried leadership decapitation before now, but it isn't without risks for the USA to be good at it and open about doing it. Democracies are also vulnerable to potential paralysis and destabilisation in strikes at their leaders.
On the otherhand I guess gunboat diplomacy should become effective again the next time the US Navy gets within a few hundred miles of one of the approximately 90 other dictatorships in the world (not many as awful as Iran's in fairness).
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs (it's wrong) deploying live weapons in a conflict zone is always fortitude check. The ship could eat a silkworn, Aircraft engine failure can put the crew in the silk over fuck knows where. Etc., etc. Many, many things can and do go lethally wrong.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
“You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities.
“On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.”
The mere fact that this *could* be true - it’s probably not, but no one can be sure - must terrify the fuck out of any enemy facing Israel
Yup, it’s like a Bond movie but we saw what happened with the pagers with Hezbollah.
May very well be true.
I'm more cautious.I think it's probably overstated.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
Like Leon I’d have dismissed it had it not been for the pagers in Lebanon
The problem is power. It takes quite a lot of power to send a signal that will travel any meaningful distance.
The way little trackers like airtags work is that they send a weak signal that is picked up by nearby mobile phones, which then send the signal on. That way mobile phones are acting like a dense observation network to pick up these signals.
If you have tiny dental implants they definitely don't have a greater power source than an airtag, so you definitely need nearby mobile phones (or pagers) to act in a similar way. But if you have access to the phones/pagers I'm not sure you need the tiny implants.
Unless, perhaps, they're literally simply the internals of an airtag (or similar) and they're relying on the Iranians not opting-out of being part of the detection network for them.
Sometimes stories like this are used to deflect from the real mode of surveillance in the hope of preserving that capability for as long as possible.
Mossad car mechanics sticking tracking devices on official Mercedes.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
The leadership of Iran are repellent, their brutal actions against their own citizens disgusting and vile, but the US has no right to say who the leaders of that country should be. And neither do we. This is a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into. Carney's observations about that were spot on. We are, in the lines being taken, making ourselves complicit in criminality. And no doubt we will climb even higher on our horse of hypocrisy when they use asymmetric warfare to retaliate. It is the US and Israel that has put our citizens at risk here, not Iran.
What right do we have to act, the right of anyone who sees atrocities and steps in to intervene.
As well as the right to self-defence, since Iran has been attacking abroad by funding proxies and directing them.
As well as the right to pre-emptive self-defence, since Iran has been weaponising uranium.
This is not a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into, the world is already lawless and random and we need to operate sensibly within it.
Carney is the sane one here, I agree. Unfortunately you have completely misread the situation and he has not.
"Despite numerous diplomatic efforts, Iran has neither fully dismantled its nuclear program, halted all enrichment activities, nor ended its support for regional terrorist proxy groups . . . Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be “ashamed” that our brave allies have decapitated probably the most hated, evil regime in the world??
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
WTF is "brave" about firing missiles from ships or planes in the gulf at targets in a City which has no air defence to talk of?
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs (it's wrong) deploying live weapons in a conflict zone is always fortitude check. The ship could eat a silkworn, Aircraft engine failure can put the crew in the silk over fuck knows where. Etc., etc. Many, many things can and do go lethally wrong.
Wasn't there talk of the toilets on the US aircraft carrier getting clogged up? Not a place I'd want to be for sure.
International law is less relevant now in the era of Trump .
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open, prtecting British citizens abroad and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We've forfeited the right to complain about this stuff.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We can't complain.
But Labour just lost a by-election to the Greens, who ran on being all-in behind the Ayatollah.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Starmer's just a spinless unprincipled shit
I think you probably meant spineless but spinless actually works surprisingly well.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Never crossed his deck.
Youd think he would resign now just in case something accidentally did cross his desk. Mandy docs out this week i believe Tick tock
International law is less relevant now in the era of Trump .
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
It does feel a bit like the League of Nations circa 1934
I note that Iran was recently made deputy head - or whatever - of the UN human rights commission
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
I've yet to hear a journalist, pundit, expert, politician, or indeed pretty much anyone who can actually explain what the "regime change" is meant to change into. It's completely open-ended, and even the justifications for the attack are a smorgasbord of past greivances and hypotheticals, many of them directly contradicting the official US position of whole weeks ago.
This makes the Iraq War on the back of the WMD threat look well thought out. Trump's lit a match, thrown it on the firewood and we are simply left to see what happens.
But I have family in Iran. My dad is there right now. And I'm not celebrating yet. Here's why.
Iran built the most layered contingency plan on Earth for this exact moment. Four levels of succession for every key position. Pre-authorized military strikes. Regional commanders who don't need orders from Tehran to act.
As you read this, there is already a new Supreme Leader. We just don't know who.
This isn't Maduro. The government didn't get overthrown. The system absorbed the hit. That's what it was designed to do.
Every credible intel assessment says the same thing: a post-Khamenei Iran is more likely to get harder, not softer. More IRGC. More dangerous. Potentially worse for the Iranian people than Khamenei himself.
I'm not sure about what happens next, if he's right about the regime's resilience. How long in practical terms can the US sustain a bombing campaign ?
The basic fact that Trump and Netanyahu fail to consider is this.
There is one of them. If they go, via the ballot box or via other means, what follows will be a totally different policy or a clone policy but never quite the same.
The Ayatollah is a multi headed Hydra, chop one head off and another emerges, it might be as venomous, more venomous, it's always going to be venomous enough to be very poisonous.
It can and will out live it's slayer one way or another, it may have tens of thousands of lives yet.
Trump believes in a strong man theory of government. He thinks countries are run like personal companies. That's why he keeps acting as if he is above the law. He believes in "L'État, c'est moi".
That means he believes that if you take out the leader, you've won. Maduro captured. Khamenei dead. That means Trump has won, like a game of chess.
However, nation states are not like personal companies. They are complex structures. They have rules and systems. The leader dies, the country goes on. The government goes on. The regime goes on. It's not clear whether Trump understands this.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
"That guy who got punched in the face - how dare he fight back!"
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We can't complain.
But Labour just lost a by-election to the Greens, who ran on being all-in behind the Ayatollah.
I’m sorry but they didn’t run supporting the leadership of Iran after slaughtering x0,000 people.
Although it’s great getting confirmation that people sat on Dubai get the San dodgy “news” sources a lot of people in the uk get
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Never crossed his deck.
Youd think he would resign now just in case something accidentally did cross his desk. Mandy docs out this week i believe Tick tock
There will be no smoking gun. The dossier he quizzed Mandy on was surface level and he will have gone so Peter, this Epstein guy, you don't still speak to him do you, no, ok good.....forensic stuff like that.
There will be some poor lackies who will get the limelight who have been ranting or taking the piss out of Trump and that will come out.
International law is less relevant now in the era of Trump .
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
It does feel like it is very vulnerable. Luckily we have Trump's Board of Peace to see us through from now on.
Maybe we should go full GDI and Brotherhood of Nod instead.
International law is less relevant now in the era of Trump .
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
International law has never mattered.
The UN Security Council has always been a joke.
There has never been much point to the UN itself.
The only thing that has changed is the scales are falling from your eyes and you are realising that truth.
Vetoes in the former and the latter being a talking shop has been the case for the past ~80 years.
International law should never have developed beyond fundamentals of rules of engagement, banning chemical weapons and treating PoWs etc.
Might is not right, but might is might. If you want right, you need the might to enforce it. Or someone else will enforce what they want.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We can't complain.
But Labour just lost a by-election to the Greens, who ran on being all-in behind the Ayatollah.
They ran on cost of living, mainly. Gaza too. I wish they did more stuff on energy and the environment, and kicked out the idiots who support the Iranian regime. But let's not pretend that was the main issue they based their campaign on.
But I have family in Iran. My dad is there right now. And I'm not celebrating yet. Here's why.
Iran built the most layered contingency plan on Earth for this exact moment. Four levels of succession for every key position. Pre-authorized military strikes. Regional commanders who don't need orders from Tehran to act.
As you read this, there is already a new Supreme Leader. We just don't know who.
This isn't Maduro. The government didn't get overthrown. The system absorbed the hit. That's what it was designed to do.
Every credible intel assessment says the same thing: a post-Khamenei Iran is more likely to get harder, not softer. More IRGC. More dangerous. Potentially worse for the Iranian people than Khamenei himself.
I'm not sure about what happens next, if he's right about the regime's resilience. How long in practical terms can the US sustain a bombing campaign ?
The basic fact that Trump and Netanyahu fail to consider is this.
There is one of them. If they go, via the ballot box or via other means, what follows will be a totally different policy or a clone policy but never quite the same.
The Ayatollah is a multi headed Hydra, chop one head off and another emerges, it might be as venomous, more venomous, it's always going to be venomous enough to be very poisonous.
It can and will out live it's slayer one way or another, it may have tens of thousands of lives yet.
Trump believes in a strong man theory of government. He thinks countries are run like personal companies. That's why he keeps acting as if he is above the law. He believes in "L'État, c'est moi".
That means he believes that if you take out the leader, you've won. Maduro captured. Khamenei dead. That means Trump has won, like a game of chess.
However, nation states are not like personal companies. They are complex structures. They have rules and systems. The leader dies, the country goes on. The government goes on. The regime goes on. It's not clear whether Trump understands this.
He probably does, but having taken out the awful leaders means he can always have at least one positive victory to present no matter what else happens - indeed, a lack of other changes in the regime personnel could be a benefit for him in that the risks of a anarchic destabilisation are reduced, even if officially the US would love it if both regimes were replaced.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Never crossed his deck.
Youd think he would resign now just in case something accidentally did cross his desk. Mandy docs out this week i believe Tick tock
There will be no smoking gun. The dossier he quizzed Mandy on was surface level and he will have gone so Peter, this Epstein guy, you don't still speak to him do you, no, ok good.....forensic stuff like that.
There will be some poor lackies who will get the limelight who have been ranting or taking the piss out of Trump and that will come out.
- Oh no, he died some time ago. - Marvellous! Let's say no more about it
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We can't complain.
But Labour just lost a by-election to the Greens, who ran on being all-in behind the Ayatollah.
They ran on cost of living, mainly. Gaza too. I wish they did more stuff on energy and the environment, and kicked out the idiots who support the Iranian regime. But let's not pretend that was the main issue they based their campaign on.
Having a sneaking suspicion that the US is randomly raining death on foreigners because there are domestic stories they would like to sideline makes it hard to cheer enthusiastically.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open, prtecting British citizens abroad and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We've forfeited the right to complain about this stuff.
I don't quite go along with that.
If we had abandoned international law, we would not be supporting the ICC, and we would not be twisting ourselves into a pretzel in our attempts to resolve the Chagos entanglement.
International law is less relevant now in the era of Trump .
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
International law has never mattered.
The UN Security Council has always been a joke.
There has never been much point to the UN itself.
The only thing that has changed is the scales are falling from your eyes and you are realising that truth.
Vetoes in the former and the latter being a talking shop has been the case for the past ~80 years.
International law should never have developed beyond fundamentals of rules of engagement, banning chemical weapons and treating PoWs etc.
Might is not right, but might is might. If you want right, you need the might to enforce it. Or someone else will enforce what they want.
In terms of the UK government positioning on events, ambivalence works with the electorate when the events are hypothetical. They wont get away with it from either side now events are actual. But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Never crossed his deck.
Youd think he would resign now just in case something accidentally did cross his desk. Mandy docs out this week i believe Tick tock
There will be no smoking gun. The dossier he quizzed Mandy on was surface level and he will have gone so Peter, this Epstein guy, you don't still speak to him do you, no, ok good.....forensic stuff like that.
There will be some poor lackies who will get the limelight who have been ranting or taking the piss out of Trump and that will come out.
First tranche. Theyll fuck up trying to justify something in it and get strung up by the subsequent releases
Having a sneaking suspicion that the US is randomly raining death on foreigners because there are domestic stories they would like to sideline makes it hard to cheer enthusiastically.
The Iranian regime has been wishing death on America (and us) for almost 50 years so it's not entirely random.
Having a sneaking suspicion that the US is randomly raining death on foreigners because there are domestic stories they would like to sideline makes it hard to cheer enthusiastically.
The Iranian regime has been wishing death on America (and us) for almost 50 years so it's not entirely random.
That is true, although the question "why now?" is a pertinent one.
A random thought. Is it not illegal in the US for the President to declare war; has to be done by Congress?
What are the chances of Congress getting VERY cross with Trump? Even allowing for the Republican majorities in both houses. Especially if US troops start coming home in body bags or US investments in the Gulf losing money?
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
I've yet to hear a journalist, pundit, expert, politician, or indeed pretty much anyone who can actually explain what the "regime change" is meant to change into. It's completely open-ended, and even the justifications for the attack are a smorgasbord of past greivances and hypotheticals, many of them directly contradicting the official US position of whole weeks ago.
This makes the Iraq War on the back of the WMD threat look well thought out. Trump's lit a match, thrown it on the firewood and we are simply left to see what happens.
I still think that the most likely outcome is an "x days war" to follow the 12 days war of 2025, and either a continued standoff, but with Iran weaker, or a more emollient Iranian leadership who give Trump protection money.
I don't see much prospect of a sustained war - between who? how? - and even if the regime does collapse and Iran falls into civil war I don't see that having wider effects beyond a possible Turkish occupation of Iranian Kurdish regions, and the involvement of various Iraqi militias.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are a bit distracted at the moment.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
I've yet to hear a journalist, pundit, expert, politician, or indeed pretty much anyone who can actually explain what the "regime change" is meant to change into. It's completely open-ended, and even the justifications for the attack are a smorgasbord of past greivances and hypotheticals, many of them directly contradicting the official US position of whole weeks ago.
This makes the Iraq War on the back of the WMD threat look well thought out. Trump's lit a match, thrown it on the firewood and we are simply left to see what happens.
This isn't just Trump, of course. This is Netanyahu's war. Netanyahu has pursued a very aggressive foreign policy, bombing, attacking and invading neighbours, as he thinks that helps his political survival.... sorry, I mean, he thinks that's the best approach for Israel.
Having a sneaking suspicion that the US is randomly raining death on foreigners because there are domestic stories they would like to sideline makes it hard to cheer enthusiastically.
The Iranian regime has been wishing death on America (and us) for almost 50 years so it's not entirely random.
That is true, although the question "why now?" is a pertinent one.
Six very good reasons I can think of, all off the top of my head.
1: Because of the uranium-enrichment that Iran was found to have done, and which they have not co-operated with international authorities on even after the last set of attacks. 2: Because of the attacks on civilians in recent weeks. 3: Because the regime has never looked weaker. 4: Because the proxies that Iran has fought via have never been weaker (the proxies also being a valid justification for attacking). 5: Because the air defences etc have never been weaker. 6: Because an opportunity arose.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
I've yet to hear a journalist, pundit, expert, politician, or indeed pretty much anyone who can actually explain what the "regime change" is meant to change into. It's completely open-ended, and even the justifications for the attack are a smorgasbord of past greivances and hypotheticals, many of them directly contradicting the official US position of whole weeks ago.
This makes the Iraq War on the back of the WMD threat look well thought out. Trump's lit a match, thrown it on the firewood and we are simply left to see what happens.
John Bolton: "The immediate aftermath of regime collapse would most likely be some form of interim, military, secular government that should understand its mission is to restore order after what will very likely be a bloody struggle."
Having a sneaking suspicion that the US is randomly raining death on foreigners because there are domestic stories they would like to sideline makes it hard to cheer enthusiastically.
The Iranian regime has been wishing death on America (and us) for almost 50 years so it's not entirely random.
That is true, although the question "why now?" is a pertinent one.
Six very good reasons I can think of, all off the top of my head.
1: Because of the uranium-enrichment that Iran was found to have done, and which they have not co-operated with international authorities on even after the last set of attacks. 2: Because of the attacks on civilians in recent weeks. 3: Because the regime has never looked weaker. 4: Because the proxies that Iran has fought via have never been weaker (the proxies also being a valid justification for attacking). 5: Because the air defences etc have never been weaker. 6: Because an opportunity arose.
John Healey says that the "increasingly indiscriminate bombing" by Iran is a threat to British personnel and civilians in the region on Kuenssberg this morning. This to a background of missile attacks around Tehran and the murder of their deeply, deeply unpleasant religious leader.
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
What the cynics miss about the "rules based international order" is it was actually quite useful for deterring things like genocides, keeping shipping lanes open and so on. It wasn't perfect but the objective was a good one and far preferable to the anarchy that we now have.
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We can't complain.
But Labour just lost a by-election to the Greens, who ran on being all-in behind the Ayatollah.
They ran on cost of living, mainly. Gaza too. I wish they did more stuff on energy and the environment, and kicked out the idiots who support the Iranian regime. But let's not pretend that was the main issue they based their campaign on.
I don't think the photo of Starmer and Modi had much to do with the cost of living.
Comments
But there will be localised impacts where increased salinity is to the detriment of the ecosystems.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-25167-5
But politicians are not the brightest
"I would claim the friend's privilege to tell Peter that he has been, at best, naïve and foolish, at worst, greedy and duplicitous."
@TrevorPTweets reflects on his friendship with Lord Mandelson amid controversy over the former ambassador's association with Epstein.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/2017885814882013343
Instead it really does seem to be the people vs the ruling class. More Myanmar than Syria or Russia. A junta-style structure.
https://x.com/thenationalnews/status/2027860055958114793
Mehdi Hasan
@mehdirhasan
Given Mandelson was best man at Trevor Phillips’s wedding, and they have been friends and political allies for 50 years, shouldn’t Phillips recuse himself from all Mandelson coverage at Sky News? What am I missing here?
https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/2020790010622963943?s=20
May very well be true.
But it's a good story, and if it persuades a few authoritarian goons somewhere to live with toothache rather than to get it treated, that's probably a net benefit.
Rayner is not hugely left wing however I fear she’ll get captured. And I just cannot see her as a PM.
Which Israel did in its just war against Gaza. You have just completely justified the tens of thousands of casualties, because they were necessary and proportionate to defeat the hydra.
After the October atrocity by Hamas I said Israel would be doing whatever it needed to, in order to militarily defeat and destroy Hamas. Many here reacted with horror at the idea of defeating Hamas saying it would take "2 million deaths". Others bandied about numbers like "500,000 deaths".
Reasonable estimates of the Iraq War we participated in are approximately 150,000 - 1,000,000 deaths.
Israel defeated Hamas and its tens of thousands headed hydra with tens of thousands of deaths.
Well done Israel. Not a genocide, entirely just, based on your own logic.
Apparently it is tied to the shadow fleet breaking sanctions. Bit of an OG
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2028040393078587610?s=61
Yay! There will be a nation with worse teeth than the Brits!
“Tehran” the series - famously well researched - made it plain that Mossad are planting spies as doctors and surgeons
If they are, then this procedure would be relatively simple. So I can maybe believe that this is happening, just not on the scale of the original report
Terrifying for Iranian leaders. Also important. Who wants to lead the brave Islamic republic if it means your colon explodes two days later
The regime could be overthrown by sheer unwillingness of anyone to lead it
The issue is that a food recipe has no intellectual property that can be attached to it, and it’s required to post ingredients on the label of almost all food products. In addition, it’s not allowed to to trademark a place name to a specific company. You can copywrite packaging and trade dress (eg Toblerone bar shape) but not the contents.
So there’s now dozens of chocolatiers, some in Dubai and many elsewhere, producing this pistachio-flavoured chocolate bar of various qualities.
This company is the original one, and if you like these things it’s said to still be the best. It’s what Wifey buys for her friends who are passing through. https://officialfixdessertchocolatier.com/collections/all
They’re a small company that never expected the product to ‘go viral’, and really didn’t have all the IP and branding stuff lined up first.
Your ability to wank all over the latest strong man (or in this case their personification) is unrivalled.
But only probably!
There might be a spin-off that the sensible world might welcome; if Iran is throwing all it's drones and missiles at the US's Gulf bases and at Israel it won't have any to sell to Russia to throw at Ukraine.
Another quiet weekend. I guess the state of play late tonight might make the markets interesting Monday. March madness is upon us
The UK Defense Secretary said two missiles were fired toward Cyprus, where thousands of British troops are stationed.
Labour to do terribly. Same with Tories.
Lib Dem’s okay but squeezed by Greens.
Mossad are entirely capable of this - or versions of it. And the fact is, they took out an extraordinary list of top Tehran people in one night. Dozens, all over the country
The regime is completely riddled with spies
IIRC this was one of the reasons the IRA gave up. They couldn’t trust any one any more. Completely penetrated. Surrendered out of mental exhaustion
I am just bewildered that anyone can say this sort of nonsense with a straight face. We have had a completely unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. No one has even bothered to find a vestige of a legal justification for this attack. No UN resolutions, not even any attempt at negotiations and discussions. Just a US President who is desperate to change the news agenda in his country. The man is a war criminal as, of course, is Netanyahu .
I find it shocking (if not surprising) that the US are not being called out for this criminal conduct. Instead we have SKS wittering about UK planes being "in the air" to protect allies from retaliation and this nonsense this morning. The hypocrisy is rank. We should be ashamed.
We should be ashamed we didn’t give them proper support
https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2028033983309648331?s=61
It's great news that Khamenei is gone as most people acknowledge, there is going to be a lot of pretending that having any concerns is the same as defending the regime, but in 30 years time people may look back on a time when wars of conquest and international assassinations had their motives disguised as a more positive one. Sometimes the polite fictions have a useful purpose despite being fictions.
The way little trackers like airtags work is that they send a weak signal that is picked up by nearby mobile phones, which then send the signal on. That way mobile phones are acting like a dense observation network to pick up these signals.
If you have tiny dental implants they definitely don't have a greater power source than an airtag, so you definitely need nearby mobile phones (or pagers) to act in a similar way. But if you have access to the phones/pagers I'm not sure you need the tiny implants.
Unless, perhaps, they're literally simply the internals of an airtag (or similar) and they're relying on the Iranians not opting-out of being part of the detection network for them.
Sometimes stories like this are used to deflect from the real mode of surveillance in the hope of preserving that capability for as long as possible.
Unprovoked?
Are you effing serious!
Tens of thousands of protestors slaughtered in cold blood.
Directing and funding terror attacks abroad.
Uranium enriched towards weapons-grade, well past any civilian use.
Refusal to co-operate with international nuclear facilities.
And you have the bare-faced cheek to say "unprovoked"?
BTW there has clearly been a coup by Mossad at the top of the Tory Party with special agent MP for Tel Aviv totally in charge.
Thank God she's no longer privy to state secrets to deliver to them.
Let’s hope I’m wrong.
The leadership of Iran are repellent, their brutal actions against their own citizens disgusting and vile, but the US has no right to say who the leaders of that country should be. And neither do we. This is a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into. Carney's observations about that were spot on. We are, in the lines being taken, making ourselves complicit in criminality. And no doubt we will climb even higher on our horse of hypocrisy when they use asymmetric warfare to retaliate. It is the US and Israel that has put our citizens at risk here, not Iran.
Nonsense.
Modern international law is an excuse to see atrocities abroad and say "not my problem".
If we never hear those two words together again it would be too soon.
But we have a weak government that deals weakly with everything
Lab benchmark 25%
Tory benchmark 2%
Tories have improved since Gorton spiels at the ready
“🙋Hello - Iranian here.
For those fixated on 'legality' to excuse the regime in Iran - F*ck You.
No, I will not let you be my voice. You don't get to narrate my story, you don't get to claim moral superiority. You don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong.
Is it legal to throw women in prison for strands of hair? Is it legal to mass execute people? Is it legal to turn a fertile land into a parched desert? Is it legal to rape? Is it legal to shoot innocent people? Is it legal to kill children? Is it legal to torture people to death? Is it legal to spread terrorism? Is it legal to deprive people of a livelihood? Is it legal to shoot people in the eye to blind them? Is it legal to silence people and take away all of their human rights? Is it legal to shoot down a passenger plane? Is it legal to drive millions to leave their country? Is it legal to jail women for singing and dancing? Is it legal to disappear people including children?
You will never experience anything like Iranians have experienced for the last 47 years.
Iranians have fought barehanded and they've paid a price. All up to 1,000,000 (one million) Iranians have been murdered since the regime came to power.
Your books on 'civil disobedience' and 'collective protest' are useless against an armed opposition that is ideologically driven and will kill all that stand in its way.
You want legality? The world has a duty to protect innocent lives. It's enshrined in R2P. Some people seem to think Iranians aren't humans. The murder, genocide and massacre of Iranians receives scant media attention - hence scant sympathy.
Those who proclaim to care about 'human rights' must think Iranians are animals and not worthy. Their hatred of Israel and US is so great they've lost all perspective.
Yes, Iranians are happy. They're happy someone took out Ali Khamenei and many others directly responsible for so much pain and agony. “
Shame on thee
https://x.com/arisenember/status/2027975027577299332?s=46
One might, perhaps, suggest that your own political perspective might not be described as studiously neutral.
On the otherhand I guess gunboat diplomacy should become effective again the next time the US Navy gets within a few hundred miles of one of the approximately 90 other dictatorships in the world (not many as awful as Iran's in fairness).
As well as the right to self-defence, since Iran has been attacking abroad by funding proxies and directing them.
As well as the right to pre-emptive self-defence, since Iran has been weaponising uranium.
This is not a lawless and random world that Trump has led us into, the world is already lawless and random and we need to operate sensibly within it.
Carney is the sane one here, I agree. Unfortunately you have completely misread the situation and he has not.
How about listening to what Carney has to say from himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypl_w3LGqyc
"Despite numerous diplomatic efforts, Iran has neither fully dismantled its nuclear program, halted all enrichment activities, nor ended its support for regional terrorist proxy groups . . . Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security
It’s really more about norms that countries used to prescribe to in case it came back to bite them later . Things you shouldn’t do in case someone else did them to you in the future .
We’re living now in an era where might is all that matters .
The UN Security Council is now a complete joke , indeed one wonders what the point is of the UN itself .
We get constant vetoes in the former and the latter is a talking shop where resolutions are simply ignored .
The main issue I have with that statement from Healey is the performative outrage. We host US personnel and equipment in the UK; we support their operations in the middle east; we provide intelligence, arms and surveillance to the Israelis (particularly in relation to Gaza, which is literally a genocide). Given we have abandoned all pretence of abiding by international law, and support those who break it, UK bases in the Middle East are a perfectly legitimate target for the Iranians, along with all the Gulf States.
We've forfeited the right to complain about this stuff.
Mandy docs out this week i believe
Tick tock
I note that Iran was recently made deputy head - or whatever - of the UN human rights commission
Whole thing is a farce
This makes the Iraq War on the back of the WMD threat look well thought out. Trump's lit a match, thrown it on the firewood and we are simply left to see what happens.
That means he believes that if you take out the leader, you've won. Maduro captured. Khamenei dead. That means Trump has won, like a game of chess.
However, nation states are not like personal companies. They are complex structures. They have rules and systems. The leader dies, the country goes on. The government goes on. The regime goes on. It's not clear whether Trump understands this.
Although it’s great getting confirmation that people sat on Dubai get the San dodgy “news” sources a lot of people in the uk get
There will be some poor lackies who will get the limelight who have been ranting or taking the piss out of Trump and that will come out.
Maybe we should go full GDI and Brotherhood of Nod instead.
The UN Security Council has always been a joke.
There has never been much point to the UN itself.
The only thing that has changed is the scales are falling from your eyes and you are realising that truth.
Vetoes in the former and the latter being a talking shop has been the case for the past ~80 years.
International law should never have developed beyond fundamentals of rules of engagement, banning chemical weapons and treating PoWs etc.
Might is not right, but might is might. If you want right, you need the might to enforce it. Or someone else will enforce what they want.
Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus
- Marvellous! Let's say no more about it
If we had abandoned international law, we would not be supporting the ICC, and we would not be twisting ourselves into a pretzel in our attempts to resolve the Chagos entanglement.
What are the chances of Congress getting VERY cross with Trump? Even allowing for the Republican majorities in both houses. Especially if US troops start coming home in body bags or US investments in the Gulf losing money?
I don't see much prospect of a sustained war - between who? how? - and even if the regime does collapse and Iran falls into civil war I don't see that having wider effects beyond a possible Turkish occupation of Iranian Kurdish regions, and the involvement of various Iraqi militias.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are a bit distracted at the moment.
1: Because of the uranium-enrichment that Iran was found to have done, and which they have not co-operated with international authorities on even after the last set of attacks.
2: Because of the attacks on civilians in recent weeks.
3: Because the regime has never looked weaker.
4: Because the proxies that Iran has fought via have never been weaker (the proxies also being a valid justification for attacking).
5: Because the air defences etc have never been weaker.
6: Because an opportunity arose.
Telegraph