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UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

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Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#221

Post by CrzyLngPwd »

_djo_ wrote: post #218
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very naive. Iran attacked US forces and bases all across the Gulf, which played pivotal roles in the USA/Israel attacks. Radars, airfields, HIMARS installations, airports used for refuelling US tankers, and anywhere that hosted the aggressors in any way were and are fair game. You can't say Iran attacked innocent and peaceful Kuwait whilst ignoring the US forces firing HIMARS into Iran from Kuwait. Iran has ev…

If Iran had limited its strikes to US facilities in the Gulf I might have agreed with you. But it didn’t, it hit civilian targets too, all which had nothing to do with the American and Israeli campaign. I see you snuck in ‘airports used for refuelling US tankers’ there, but Iran hit passenger terminals and other civilian-only parts of airports. That’s not permitted under international law. Moreover, none of the Gulf…

Iran quite naturally hit anything of significant use to the US, or that might hurt the US war effort, and some of those civilian objects were housing US forces who fled their bases in those countries.

One man's civilian object is another man's barracks.

Also, mistakes happen, as demonstrated by the US targeting of a school.

Those Gulf states also got involved by shooting down Iranian drones, planes and missiles. Heck, the UAE even directly attacked Iran during the active phase of the US/Israel coalition attack, so they cannot pretend they were innocent.

I'm surprised that Iran didn't render the region uninhabitable by destroying desalination plants.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#222

Post by thrownthatway »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #130
dgroshev wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone engaging in a good faith discussion would make the conclusion you just made.

Why not? What do you think an llm would say if you asked it: > Did the US and UK support Saddam Hussein when he was using weapons of mass destruction on Iranian civilians?

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Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#223

Post by _djo_ »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #221
_djo_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Iran had limited its strikes to US facilities in the Gulf I might have agreed with you. But it didn’t, it hit civilian targets too, all which had nothing to do with the American and Israeli campaign. I see you snuck in ‘airports used for refuelling US tankers’ there, but Iran hit passenger terminals and other civilian-only parts of airports. That’s not permitted under international law. Moreover, none of the Gulf…

Iran quite naturally hit anything of significant use to the US, or that might hurt the US war effort, and some of those civilian objects were housing US forces who fled their bases in those countries. One man's civilian object is another man's barracks. Also, mistakes happen, as demonstrated by the US targeting of a school. Those Gulf states also got involved by shooting down Iranian drones, planes and missiles. Heck…

At this point you’re just making excuses for war crimes, inventing explanations that don’t match the facts.

None of the civilian structures and facilities hit by Iran in neighbouring Gulf countries were hosting US forces. Again, that might have been justifiable depending on proportionality and the selectivity of targeting, but it didn’t happen.

Nor did Iran disclaim the attacks as mistakes. It only did so in one case, claiming over-eager local commanders, but didn’t indicate what it had done to prevent a recurrence.

There was nothing wrong with Gulf states shooting down Iranian drones, planes, and missiles being launched at them, that’s basic self-defence. Similarly, the UAE launched strikes on Iranian launchers only after first being hit, which is also basic self-defence in terms of international law.

By excusing Iran’s own illegal actions and war crimes you’re no better than the cheerleaders of the US and Israel’s illegal actions and war crimes.

Iran hitting the region’s desalination plants would’ve been a nuclear option, which would almost certainly have invited a wider global response to it and resulted in the end of the regime.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#224

Post by thrownthatway »

specproc wrote: post #91
foldr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.

It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much. Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country. I don't believe that it really changes t…

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Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#225

Post by specproc »

thegrimmest wrote: post #186
specproc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much. Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country. I don't believe that it really changes t…

I don't think it's fair to compare US foreign policy to actual imperialism as practiced by the Soviets, the British, etc. The US does not maintain colonies, and, as you point out, does not even attempt to exert total control. Pursuing your interests and forcing total political and cultural domination are not equivalent. The US is more than happy for Germans to be German, Japanese to be Japanese, etc, as long as US in…

> I don't think it's fair to compare US foreign policy to actual imperialism as practiced by the Soviets, the British, etc.

All empires function differently. The modes of empire were very different between the British and other recent European empires, which were very different to the Soviets, the Ottomans, the Romans.

Empires are heterogeneous even within themselves over time and across Geographies. The British empire took a very different form in Ireland, to the Americas, to India, to Kenya.

Similarly the Soviet experience was very different between the Ukraine, the Baltics, Georgia, Tajikistan; or in non-Soviet Warsaw pact countries, which were -- as for most countries in the American empire -- nominally independent, but practically not, see Hungary and Czechoslovakia for particularly pertinent examples.

Ultimately, this is a duck test thing. The American empire looks like an empire, acts like an empire, so to my mind it very much is an Empire.

> The US does not maintain colonies

This, I'm sorry, is categorically false. America has colonies in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I'd go further to suggest, that as Israel's most substantial economic and political backer, Israel could be considered something akin to a US colony in the Middle East.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#226

Post by rigonkulous »

nradov wrote: post #192
rigonkulous wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, lets see .. the invasion and destruction of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Afghanistan, Syria .. the violence in Somalia .. the genocide of Gaza, and now ethnic cleansing in Lebanon. You can say as many stupid things as you want, until the war crimes are prosecuted, the war criminals will continue to get away with war.

How do you propose to prosecute Vladimir Putin? Will the UK send some unarmed police officers to arrest him?

The only ones who can do anything about their war criminals are the citizens, themselves.

This is also the reason Western war criminals are currently free to continue their heinous blood-shed.

If you want to prosecute their war criminals, you better prosecute yours first, or else the moral cliff upon which you climb is merely a shadow.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#227

Post by roenxi »

flumpcakes wrote: post #141
roenxi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. Claiming that the UK doesn't support diplomacy through violence then transitioning into this gem has to be one of the wildest juxtapositions I've seen this year. Do you classify the US strikes on Iran as uniformly offensive or defensive in nature? Or do you think there i…

The UK has only allowed the US to use their air bases to strike Iranian offensive capability and intercept missiles launched towards middle eastern cities. Iran bombed an airport in Kuwait yesterday, for example. It's pretty obvious how the the UK's actions vs. Iran's, or even the US's, are different.

> It's pretty obvious how the the UK's actions vs. Iran's, or even the US's, are different.

Well, no in fact it isn't. Hence the question. Like, say the US bombs an Iranian city then the Iranians counter-strike a US base somewhere in the Middle East with an IRBM or whatever they are called. Sake of argument, the base isn't being actively used in the attack.

If the US response to that strike is to destroy the launcher, are you going to characterise that response as fundamentally offensive or defensive in nature? The US isn't hitting the launcher in a premeditated way. Note that the US base probably isn't on US soil since Iran can't hit targets that far away.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#228

Post by megous »

_djo_ wrote: post #173
megous wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "striking offensive capability" of a country is aggression and the country that strikes, and it's helpers are all aggressors and in the wrong as far as intl. law goes. You need to work on understanding how causality works. What happened yesterday has no bearing on what happened 2 months ago. If UK/US wanted to be in the in the clear they could have asked UNSC to authorize use of force against Iran.

Nope. The UK only responded after its own territory had been struck, as had that of allies in the region who were not part of the US and Israel’s actions. Its role has been entirely defensive, and legal under international law as part of the right to self-defence.

UK started moving its military assets to middle east way before the war, was militarily acting in defense of aggressors and their allies from day one (and also in previous conflicts), and allowed to use its bases for bombing campaigns from the second day of the war, before their base was attacked. (announcement came before the attack, after Starmer got publicly called out by Trump)

UK got involved in bombing Iran even when attack on its base on Cyprus came from Lebanon and would have made more sense to attack the source of the attack if the goal was actual self-defense. That is if we accept the decision was in response to the attack itself, and not to pressure and public humiliation from Trump. Also Turkey also got under missile attack from Iran, and managed to use diplomacy/other means to de-escalate. So not joining the war was a possibility.

Instead of self-defence or helping stop the war, UK helped aggressors in making their attacks easier and deepened/prolonged the war that way, at great cost to the world. At a time when de-escalation was still possible, UK chose to contribute to the war on the side of the aggressors. Who knows why. Maybe they believed it would be a quick war or whatever and Iran would collapse quickly just like the countries UK decided to aggress against in the past like Iraq.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#229

Post by _djo_ »

megous wrote: post #228
_djo_ wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. The UK only responded after its own territory had been struck, as had that of allies in the region who were not part of the US and Israel’s actions. Its role has been entirely defensive, and legal under international law as part of the right to self-defence.

UK started moving its military assets to middle east way before the war, was militarily acting in defense of aggressors and their allies from day one (and also in previous conflicts), and allowed to use its bases for bombing campaigns from the second day of the war, before their base was attacked. (announcement came before the attack, after Starmer got publicly called out by Trump) UK got involved in bombing Iran eve…

The UK moved assets into the area in defence of its own bases and in defence of allies like Gulf countries. The war was telegraphed, being at least a little prepared was logical. Even then, they had to rush deploy other assets like ships once the fighting started.

Similarly, permission for US aircraft to use British bases was given conditionally, allowing only strikes on Iran’s missile and drone infrastructure being used to target other countries, and was given after the war had begun and after the drone strikes on Cyprus.

Those strikes on Cyprus involved Iranian-manufactured drones provided to Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps explicitly took credit for the strikes on Cyprus. So let’s not pretend this was some unrelated attack.

Notably, many other countries sent military forces to protect Cyprus too, including Greece, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy, with Ireland even offering to join. Several of those countries were strongly opposed to the war and had denied the use of their airspace and bases to the US. Were they all ‘acting in defense of aggressors’ too?

Once again, it’s possible to both condemn the actions of the US and Israel in their violations of international law while also condemning Iran for doing the same. The illegality of one does not justify the illegality of the other.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#230

Post by nradov »

rigonkulous wrote: post #226
nradov wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose to prosecute Vladimir Putin? Will the UK send some unarmed police officers to arrest him?

The only ones who can do anything about their war criminals are the citizens, themselves. This is also the reason Western war criminals are currently free to continue their heinous blood-shed. If you want to prosecute their war criminals, you better prosecute yours first, or else the moral cliff upon which you climb is merely a shadow.

Cool. In the meantime though we should do whatever we can to help the Ukrainian military kill as many Russians as possible.
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