US/Israel conduct airstrikes on Iran again

This isnt the question he asked.

Why do you continue to engage dishonestly?

Instead of presenting your opinions as “facts” why don’t you back up your opinion by comparing the 1980s era Iranian military with that of today?

The quote from the Saudi king was his decision to allow the US, led, initiated and assembled forces onto Saudi soil. The forces that took part in Operation Desert Shield were assembled under the initiative of the United States, not Saudi Arabia.

By the way, check the thread title before engaging in backseat modding please.
If we can discuss Iran killing civilians we can discuss Israel killing civilians and the different reactions of posters if innocent people are killed by Iran rather than Israel.
I am opposed to the killing of any civilians regardless of who kills them.

That is a lie. I do not support US action anywhere in the World.

I am on record as saying that Trump and the US are wrong in the case of Greenland, with what they are doing and saying with Canada, with their tariff wars and with their refusal to stand up more strongly to Putin. Within the US, Trump gets strong criticism for those actions too, something that we can see play out on mainstream media every day. For obvious reasons, he gets much less criticism on Venezuela and Iran, unfortunately the Irish left are blind to those obvious reasons.

Incidentally, last I checked, I didn't see any dissent towards the regime on Iranian television. Maybe the ordinary civilians protesting and being killed are figments of our imagination. That is one clear difference between democracy in the US and totalitarianism in Iran. Which side of that coin do you favour?

It is clear to me that there are a group of posters on this forum who follow the kneejerk anti-American rantings of RBB, Paul Murphy, Wallace and Daly and refuse to apply any criticial thinking to the actual situations on the ground. That is very disappointing.

So you don't support Trump or the US imperialism and Israeli terrorism, while supporting everything they stand for, you're just here to moan about Irish 'lefties' and push your extremist right agenda and war against Iran because, like the US, they kill their citizens for protesting, supported of course by the US and Israel.

Maybe the ordinary citizens of Palestine being targeted and murdered without even protesting are figments of our imagination, as Israel slaughter women entire families, supported by the US. I'd call that totalitarianism.

So yeah, Iran is the lesser evil. Of course, you'll come back with an antileft diatribe, but hey, you'll be on the blocked list by then. Your reasons for being on the 'Israel launches strike again Iran…' thread are totally disingenious.

After reading some of the posts here it seems there is a strong belief that US and Isreal are behind all this. Do the actions of the Iranian Regime not have any part to play in causing the protests? The people that took to the streets to protest did so knowing they risked death for doing so and still they did so. I notice a strange phenomenon coming from many on the left whereby only certain countries/groups of people are responsible for their actions and those actions must be held against them but others get a free pass. Personally I am not a fan of countries interfering with internal affairs of sovereign countries because it has ended up so badly for so many but when I hear about protesters being murdered then I feel conflicted because although I don’t know those people I don’t want them to die protesting on streets.

It must be nice to be able to neatly divide world into good guys and bad guys.

Why are you talking about "lesser evils" though. It's completely absurd, like a warped sports mentality, that you have to support a side, or offer some level of justification towards a side, even if there's two bad actors involved.

Is it not okay to think Israel, the US, or whomever, are doing terrible things, while also acknowledging that Iran does terrible things as well, probably not to the same scale solely because they lack the means rather than intent.

Why would you equate being against Iran, or supporting the removal of their leadership, as some de-facto support of the US?

If a murderer kills a rapist in prison, would saying you wouldn't shed any tears for the victim be a ringing endorsement of the murderer and everything he's done or stands for?

It's not sports teams. I find it bizarre that so many people on this forum twist themselves in absolute knots to absolve Iran of any accountability for it's evil-doing and malintent simply because "US imperialism" or "Israel bombing Gaza".

Is it OK with you if a few rational posters don't actually "support" any side and just stick to objective facts? You know, like saying Iran's leadership is a despotic fundamentalist regime that murders its own people isn't equatable to waving an Israeli flag around the place?

Iran has been destabilizing the region for decades. They're not doing it borne out of some noble pledge to the people of Palestine. Iran thinks nothing of murdering as many of its own people as it takes to retain control.

Holding that opinion has zero bearing whatsoever on my opinion of the US or Israel, neither of which I have any vested interest in whatsoever, nor do I endorse or support anything they do.

I mean, if we want to focus on the US meddling in third countries, surely there must be an acknowledgement of the fact that Iran has literally been doing the same thing for decades in the region.

There was a poster on here recently who claimed Iran was playing a "blinder" with a few thanks for his incredibly insightful analysis.

Playing a blinder! Cutting off access to the outside world, publicly threatening to execute protestors for offending Allah, killing tens of thousands for daring to stand up to an oppressive regime.

Makes them no less evil than Israel in my books, but sure look, if you want to say "well they are probably more comparable to Pol Pot than Hitler so they are a lesser evil", knock yourself out, but it's just not credible to me.

So the only US terrorism that you object to is in relation to Greenland and Canada, so upstanding!

I never said either was terrorism, it is clear that you don't understand the word.

The thing is, I don't fall for US propaganda, I don't fall either for the pathetic Irish left-wing propaganda, when I see something that bothers me, such as the Iranian oppression of their own people, I call it out. Maybe that's because I visited Iran and met ordinary people there over 25 years ago.

It is really disturbing that politicians like Wallace and Daly and Murphy and RBB have real sympathy for the Iranian regime. There is no way I can ever vote for people who have supported that.

Shame on posters who excuse the Iranian regime.

”Executing them for displaying a single hair” I suspect this is an exaggeration. If you can give me an example of a woman who was executed in Iran for displaying a single hair I will agree with everything you say.

Is this an example of a person being executed for displaying a single hair?

Do you define all deaths in custody following police or prison officer violence in western countries to be executions? Do you apply the same standard?
Do you classify the death of El Hacen Diarra this month as an execution? Had you heard about it?

If you truly believe the government executes people for displaying a single hair of course you are going to believe anything else you hear.

I haven’t defended anyone being killed. There were protesters killed on this island on this very day within my lifetime by a democracy. There were people beaten to death in police custody and police cleared of any wrongdoing within my lifetime in a democracy. Nobody decided the governments had to be taken out.
Was Masha Amini executed for displaying a single hair as the poster claimed Homelander? Do you agree that that is true?
Imagine using the death of a woman for political purposes while being fine with the death of tens of thousands of women if they were killed by the right country like some posters here.

For some reason posts with quotes won’t post for me.

In Ireland we don’t have any right to speak off. All our big parties are left or far left so I as an Irish person living in Ireland am going to have more of an interest in what positions our own politicians and people take. Look at the friends Wallace and Daly have made over the years. What the right say or do in America can 100% be hypocritical but it’s not my concern tbh because I don’t live there or vote there. If a serious right political party show up in Ireland they naturally I will criticise them if I think they are being hypocritical.

I just think it’s morally bankrupt that so few people who say they stand for human rights are not criticising the Iranian regime. Why don’t they? Is it that they won’t criticise the Iranian regime because of they are supposed to be funding Hamas and other terrorist organisations so want that gravy train to keep going. I have seen a couple of clips of altercations between Iranians in the west and pro-Palestinian supporters and I really hope those clips are fake because I would have thought innocents are innocents no matter what.

Yet when it comes to other countries instead of getting both sides of the narrative we get a hawkish neocon or war crime apologist/genocide denier, being interviewed alongside an “expert” from a military industrial complex funded think tank.

Can you point me to some examples of this on RTE please?
Otherwise I call bullshit on your strawman.

What we have now in the media is not a desire to get to the truth or inform the public by interrogating contrasting narratives but merely a mechanism to reinforce a narrative already decided.

Oh please, that is nonsense, and is exactly the same bullshit that the likes of Tucker Carlson spouts. Western media is not one homogenous block where they parraot a set narrative that is already decided. I have to ask, who decides this narrative, name them.
Again its just conspiratorial nonsense.

The quote from the Saudi king was his decision to allow the US, led, initiated and assembled forces onto Saudi soil. The forces that took part in Operation Desert Shield were assembled under the initiative of the United States, not Saudi Arabia.

It was a pan Arab coalition of Arab states and Western powers. The fact is that the Saudi King invited the US to Saudi Arabia under a coalition agreement in order to stop Iraqi aggression.
You seem to have forgotten that Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Instead of presenting your opinions as “facts” why don’t you back up your opinion by comparing the 1980s era Iranian military with that of today?

Their military is smaller today than it was in 1985. All you have to do is look at their aircraft and tanks. It is decades old technolgy, not remotely near capable of that of Western powers like the US or even Israel.
The only thing they have going for them is their missiles, and even they seem not remotely capable as they once thought.

I will go back to the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia on paper, had/has the 2nd largest and most formidable military in the world. Yet it can't make any ground in Ukraine, and it can't get air superiority. Their kit isnt as good as Western kit.

If you honestly think Iran can hold its own against the US and its allies in a technological air war, then I have magic beans to sell you by the pallet load.