This illegal war was about regime change. The best claim for it was that it might bring a better life for Iranians. There is no evidence that aerial warfare has ever delivered this outcome.
Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Going back to before ‘planes the Zanzibari war sure worked with a few well placed shells.
Whenever someone moans on about the horrors of Dresden they never – in my experience, never – mention that the Germans were still bombing London and Antwerp.
Why is that, do you think?
They also tend not to mention Tokyo, which was far worse than anything that happened in Europe. But, y’know, those evil little yellow monkeys had it coming.
Yes, the March 10 1945 firebombing of Tokyo (Operation Meetinghouse) by U.S. B-29 bombers was the most destructive conventional air raid in history, killing over 100,000 civilians. Very grim.
Was it a war crime? No, IMO. Though civilians were targeted, the objective was to shorten the war. And after the Nanjing massacre, Pearl Harbour, POW abuse, the Chichijima/Ogasawara ‘incident’ (when Japs cannibalised four Americans!) etc, the Japs certainly had it coming. If you don’t want your civilians targeted, don’t commit unnecessary atrocities in war and surrender in good time when you are losing…
They were evil. Try reading Knights of the Bashido or the memoirs of this who served there. My father served in Fleet Air Arm in the Far East and his carrier brought a lot of PoWs back, he talked about seeing some of the hardest men he knew being in tears at the state of the PoWs as they were piped aboard.
They’ve changed though and we shouldn’t hold that against the current generations.
It just goes to show that a national culture can be changed quickly and successfully, although I suppose it helps if your emperor is a living god able to instruct his subjects unequivocally, before abdicating his deity status.
The Jap I married is the nicest person I’ve ever met. Her dad escaped the Tokyo firebombing by diving into a canal and repeatedly ducking under. He was just too young to be conscripted.
Yes, the war is about regime change, because the current regime is a millenarian death cult intent on acquiring nukes because it intends to use them. This cannot be allowed to happen so the war is necessary, regardless of dainty legal niceties. Aerial warfare delivered the desired result in the opening salvo.
It remains necessary to destroy remaining nuclear facilities, missiles, their launchers, and production. That will take more time but can also largely be done from the air. Then, the IRGC, which will be more difficult still but not impossible.
The war is not about replacing a collectivist theocracy with neoliberalism. Trump is not a neocon, and is not that dumb. Neither is Netanyahu.
Operations seem to be concurrent rather than consecutive.
Although Trump is not interested in nation building, he will “assist” and “encourage” the Iranians to build their nation somewhat more akin to the present century than the seventh.
Yes, the war is about regime change, because the current regime is a millenarian death cult intent on acquiring nukes because it intends to use them.
Exactly.
On the subject of Japan, I liked their foreign minister’s description of: Islamist occupied Iran.
Yes. Well put. Takaichi is getting somewhere.
How is it illegal?
In a nutshell. It was aggression i.e. offensive and the UN security council didn’t sanction it.
It could be argued it was a defensive first strike to counter a real threat.
We’ve got to get our pretaliation in first.
Obama didn’t get permission to bomb Libya.
Blair didn’t get permission (from the UN) to bomb Kosovo.
It appears that it’s OK when the right guy does it.
Some on the left will never sanction any military action so they can be ignored.
Hey not an international lawyer just the basic gold standard of a legal war is there if
1. They invaded/attacked you or it was imminent.
and/or
2. You’re doing it on behalf of the United Nations as decided by a security council resolution. Absolutely there is geo politics involved with SC russia, china, us, uk, france don’t all agree that often so you’re left with 1. quite a lot of the time.
I don’t know about the info the israelis and americans had on the imminence of the threat, but safe to say it didn’t convince Keir or his cabinet or the AG all that much.
I always admired Harold Wilson for not getting UK embroiled in Vietnam and still maintaining a decent relationship. Perhaps this is what Keir will be remembered for.
What Keir will be remembered for…
According Tim Shipman of the Speccie he wanted to do more but his cabinet wouldn’t let him.
The lot of them should be classed as traitors.
We’re in for a rough 3 years if keeping Islamists happy in this country are going to be determining domestic and foreign policy.
Interestingly, Muslim countries in the region are said to be lived with us for not doing anything.
This, for my money, is the biggest issue at play here. On a whole range of matters (from bombing Iran to who can play football in Birmingham) the determining factor seems to be ‘how upset/violent will the ropers get?’
The UN Security Council would never sanction it, because they never sanction anything in Israel’s favour. Consequently, this necessary action had to be unilateral.
I’m looking forward to Trump giving that preposterous Spaniard a good kicking. He won’t forget this.
I’m just wondering what sort of kicking he’ll give TTK. Or perhaps he’ll let Labour defenestrate him first. I think, however, whoever replaces TTK is unlikely to be any more accommodating to Trump, or Netanyhu.
Trump is remarkably good at having the last laugh. Perhaps he’ll arrange for TTK’s next Ukrainian rent boy to have herpes.
The UN doesn’t have any authority over anything though. They’re not a lawmaking organization so how can people think that you can break UN ‘laws’ when they don’t exist;)
Since when has any part of the UN any jurisdiction over the US?
There really is no such thing as international law because it’s prime tenet is that “the sovereign may breach such law at his pleasure letting the parties who claim to be wronged by the breach take what action they may” or some such wording. Law school was long ago.
So it’s all bullshit, non-binding agreements with no enforcement mechanism. Reminds me of Stalin: How many Divisions has the UN?
My fave Lea Girl is Florence Nightingale (born Lea, Derbyshire).
Uh? She was born in Florence, Italy. There’s a clue in her name….
I thought Magic Roundabout originated in France.
Only the visuals. Apparently the English language script was invented by the chap who read it. Or so I read millennia ago.
It was. Eric Thompson made it all up from the visuals, names and all. Sadly, his copybook is somewhat blotted by also being Emma’s dad. Although she was sexy when young.
Firenze Nighti was her stripper name.
Totally necessary & justified to deny the mad Mullahs nukes. That’s all I need.
There are several potential side benefits, including regime change, but denying them nukes is essential.
Milosevic was ousted as a result of the NATO bombing campaign, though that wasn’t the objective of the bombing (which was to secure Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo) and happened a while after the bombs had stopped falling. If this campaign weakens the IRGC and Basij sufficiently, and the regime loses face from further economic losses and agreeing to the humiliating demand to end the nuclear weapons program, then it might find its days are numbered in the same way.
Was Murphy was opposed to the “humanitarian intervention” over Kosovo? There were pacifists, socialists and Russophiles/Serbophiles against it, but Kosovo was a cause favoured by “right-thinking people” at the time. And it did at least produce a better outcome than the Libyan bombing campaign – though that also resulted in regime change, it was bloodier and more chaotic.
Islamic State, in so far as it functioned as a quasi-state rather than a terror group, didn’t withstand sustained bombing either, and that must have been pretty brutal considering how many ISIS brides and their babies were killed during it. But a common factor with Kosovo, Libya and IS was that the bombing campaigns supported local opposition on the ground. Iran has a few rebel groups – Kurdish, Arab, Baloch, communist, etc. Wonder how many of them are going to start getting arms deliveries. And importantly, how carefully they’re gong to be vetted first…
Apparently, Kurds in Iraq have already been armed and are poised to enter Iran, perhaps under the pretext of protecting Iranian Kurds. What do the Turks think of that? Well, they’ve moved troops to the border too.
Given how the Kurds in Syria have been screwed by the US once their use as a proxy against IS came to an end, they’d be wise to think very carefully before getting themselves into a vulnerable position inside Iran. But they might as well take any freebies on offer I suppose.
The Kurdish forces in Syria, being closely tied to their brethren in Turkey (far more than the Iraqi Kurds who remain close to the US) misread their transactional and temporary relationship with the US as the beginning of a long term alignment, not noticing that Turkey’s status as a key US ally precluded that. Kurds in Iran may be a bit more savvy.
“though that wasn’t the objective of the bombing” which would have been something to do with domestic American politics. This was in the time of Slick Willie, remember.
Was Murphy was opposed to the “humanitarian intervention” over Kosovo? There were pacifists, socialists and Russophiles/Serbophiles against it, but Kosovo was a cause favoured by “right-thinking people” at the time.
Supporting Muslim separatists against Europeans was a terrible idea and our first blatantly self-defeating intervention.
For our trouble, we got another Muslim controlled area on European soil and armed Albanian gangsters to the teeth. That didn’t earn us any consideration from Muslims, who brought the first suicide bombings to the US and Europe in the years immediately after.
But remember what General Wesley Clark said. They bombed Belgrade, but the real target was us all along. The little people who wanted to still have a country of our own.
This war is going to be very costly.
Nonsense, candidly the government can just print new money and we’ll all get rich, somehow.
The US / British / Dutch naval bombardment of Algiers led to the Barbary ruler freeing 3,000 Christian slaves and agreeing to stop terrorising the Mediterranean.
More or less worked. Not a single boot on the ground.
Not an illegal war. This regime committed an act of war by overrunning our embassy and imprisoning our embassy staff for more than a year. Unfortunately we had a spineless peanut farmer running our country at that time. No peace was ever declared. Since then Iran has committed numerous acts of war against our forces. We have also committed acts of war by bombing targets in Iran over several administrations. The time has come to finish it.
Agreed. It’s been a war for decades.
And Western influencers cry, “The UN didn’t approve it!”
The West needs to wise up to the danger they are in.
.
Centuries ago, Europe knew what was necessary…
If it’s the UN that decides it legal or illegal, then it’s a moot point as they aren’t going to do anything about it. Time to disband or simply ignore the UN?
Why was nobody concerned about Gaza’s illegal war on the existence of Jewish people?
Or Iran’s illegal war on everyone who was murdered by their proxy, Hezbollah?
Or indeed, Iran’s illegal war on almost every Arab country just now?
You really have to hand it to the jihadis, they thought it would be funny to start a race war against the Jews, and it led to Gaza being flattened, 75,000 Pali funerals, Hamas and Hezbollah being deleted, and the Ayatollah’s dead.
Allah must really fucking hate those guys.
A Hezbollah suicide bomber blew up a bus in the EU/NATO (Bulgaria of all places) in 2012, killing six people. People seem to have memory holed that one very quickly. After the Bataclan massacre perpetrated by IS in 2015, the French intensified their air strikes on IS’s proclaimed capital in Raqqa, have to hand them some credit for that. Whereas that Hezbollah attack just seems to have produced a lot of political hot air, rather than any serious international pressure on Hezbollah/Lebanon/Iran. Let alone any military intervention. Maybe people were too worried about “upsetting the delicate balance in Lebanon” or “harming the sensitive nuclear negotiations” or causing the oil price to go up. But the West really didn’t manage to extract the deserved level of justice or vengeance for that one, which must also have reduced the level of deterrence against other nasties. A lot of the punishment the Iranian regime is getting now is loooong overdue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Burgas_bus_bombing
Have to hand it to ol’ Starmer.
By being so vacillating, useless, spineless, unimpressive and dithering, we might actually stand a chance of sitting this one out.
Eh?
We are still a target
But a target with absolutely no influence on the war’s conduct or an inside track on what is going to happen
Absolute genius
Probably for the best. Our world class foreign office would likely suggest paying £36 Bn to Iran and giving them Wales.
Also we do not have the budget for this. 1,500 strikes in 24 hours? That’s a lot of expensive missiles. What did the winter fuel allowance U-turn cost?
I wonder what Starmer would have suggested, had he been invited to the planning of this operation.
Propose they urgently form a crack team of tough, experienced, international lawyers?
Stamer is a Rimmer clone. https://youtu.be/5WgUktfdDy4?si=ojK10fnoobdO3UY3
Starmer speaking directly to Muslims (in their physical presence) last night:
“On Iran, I want to make clear the UK was not involved in the offensive strikes of the US and Israel, and that remains the case.”
We’re not sitting this one out, we’re fucking surrendering.
Pardon my language, I should have said fucking submitting.
I fear it’s all going queer for Sir Keir, so he probably won’t be submitting for long, resigning to spend more time with his international lawyers maybe. Trump landed a Dr Who “don’t you think she looks tired?” rhetorical killshot on our embattled Prime Minister. It was all the more devastating for not being crude, or an insult:
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with”
Oh dear. I don’t think a Mk 48 torpedo would have been as cruel.
Well, he’s doubling down saying Trump has no viable plan and has probably broken international law. I guess some wonk has worked out Starmer can eke out his political existence at the expense of the national interest (so fuck the nation).
That’s not gonna work for him, but he was politically doomed anyway. Watch what they do: the French can’t wait to send their aircraft carrier, ferrety French midget in chief Macron smells le gloire. Starmer had to retract his “refusal” on the use of bases, so he won’t get the political benefits from pandering. Iran has pissed off most of the Muslim world by trying to bomb them, anyway.
Anyone remember Macron’s response to the October 7 pogrom? That there should be an international coalition to destroy Hamas, based on the anti-IS coalition and presumably with himself in charge of it? Went absolutely nowhere once it sunk in that a lot of said coalition members actively hosted and funded Hamas. But yes, glory hunter extraordinaire. https://apnews.com/article/france-macron-israel-coalition-against-hamas-6ef01427f3e577c75a80c0a0d7404efe
Sorry, link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15612923/Keir-Starmer-Trump-Churchill-Muslims-Ramadan-fast-UK-Gaza.html
puke
I wonder what he said about Obama’s 7 month long aerial bombing campaign?
For some reason, over here, it was legal while this one isn’t.
But Obama is a sainted “black” (well, half-caste) man who by definition can do no wrong.