The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
Vietnam? Sure. Japan... not so much.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
Yes, the conservative realizes this and wants to change it by changing incentives.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
How are Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and all those other third world countries doing after your carpet bombing?
We never nuked any of them, carpet bombing doesn't work as well. Vietnam's doing pretty well. Iraq... well, better than under Saddam Hussein. Syria's on Putin's plate, and Libya on Europe's.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
An actor can probably get "country matters" across, perhaps by breaking accent and rhythm a bit so it's clearly "cunt-ry matters" (whether that's the derivation or not). As for "nothing" meaning "vagina" (or "pussy"), that's likely a recent fabrication.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
16hr ago
And certainly all the people complaining about hospice and daycare fraud aren't running their own fraudulent hospices and daycares.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
16hr ago
Last time the US used nukes in anger, we bombed the target into the First World.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
I don't really subscribe to the word "right" in this case.
When you lose "right", you also lose "should" and also "responsibility".
Personally, I think the USA should have anticipated this, and either ensured it had a mitigation strategy or hold off until it could come up with one.
The US did; the Department of Defense is not, in fact, entirely made up of idiots. There is mitigation, in fact, happening, which is why there's not $200+ oil and lights out everywhere from London to Calcutta.
I actually think that when the protests were happening the American military should have scrambled whatever it had or could to get cooking immediately to help the protests with a decapitation strike.
It's pretty clear that wouldn't have worked. If the Iranian dissidents can't do anything with several layers of the leadership knocked off, they couldn't have done anything with whatever could be scrambled up at the time. The Iranian dissidents are utterly defanged and can be kept down by the Basij and their small arms alone.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
Belligerent and water is pretty fungible
No, not at all. Kuwait, for instance, is not a belligerent.
I doubt military bases have dedicated desalination plants so it's just a normal one near a city but we can assume some goes to service members.
Which makes them dual-use infrastructure, which means they are not absolutely protected from attack but rather are subject to the usual rules of proportionality (military advantage vs. collateral civilian damage)
Especially given it will likely not reduce military effectiveness and will inflict a lot of suffering on the civilian population that Trump/the USA is claiming to be fighting to free from their (absolutely awful) government.
As far as I know, the only desalination plant to be hit (allegedly) is on Qeshm Island. Which Iran is currently (and predictably) using as part of their strategem to control the Strait. This makes it an arguably reasonable target on its face, though I do not know enough details to know if it's really a reasonable target. (I also don't know if it was actually hit or if it was, if it was itself collateral damage)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
There's plenty who DO believe the drug boats are fishing boats. They're still going on about Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
Neutral or belligerent? Supplying military installations or not?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
I'm not truly sure if it is a good idea or not, probably not - but I have a strong suspicion that one of the things Trump is up to is to try and convince undecideds it is a great idea.
Definitely. He tested the Europeans and they failed massively. They've demonstrated not that they are either unable or unwilling to help enforce freedom of navigation (helping attack Iran is indeed not their responsibility, FON is that of all seafaring nations), but that they are both unable and unwilling to do so. Which leads directly to the question of "what good are you as an ally"? If the answer is "bases", well, they screwed that one up too.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
So the US and Israel attack Iran, Iran attacks many neutrals for "leverage", and it's right for the neutrals to act by putting pressure on the US and Israel to stop attacking Iran, thus giving them the leverage they were looking for?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
The ship's flag says which sovereign is responsible for the ship. Iran hit ships with neutral flags AND neutral owners.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
The one place where non-Americans have direct visibility of how Reds think is the public behaviour of the man they have chosen to represent them on the world stage since 2016. And from the outside a culture that can enthusiastically elect Donald Trump looks like a culture that considers sadism a virtue and honesty a vice.
It's min-maxing. Trump's a boor, but since Reagan, Bush Sr., and certainly Bush Jr. were all treated the same way, that's not a loss. If indeed the Red Tribe Europeans see a difference, it doesn't matter because Blue Tribe Europe has been firmly in charge the whole time.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
This is a pipe dream. Iran has bunkerized anti-ship missiles all along the coast, not only around Bandar Abbas.
Yeah, I've seen the AI videos of them. This "Iran is militarily invincible" stuff is less credible than the invincibility of the Republican Guard in the Iraq war.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
The only country that might be able to do pull out a win the Americans can't is Ukraine, because they actually understand modern drone-first warfare. I think it is possible but unlikely that the Ukraine-Saudi alliance turns out to be a Big Deal, but I have no idea what happens after that.
Ukraine can't open the straits because there's essentially three ways of opening the straits against the will of the Iranian regime.
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Destroying the Iranian regime. Then you have a new regime which presumably will not be shooting at ships. Ukraine can't do that; it's an open question if the US can.
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Completely and provably destroying the current regime's capacity to shoot at ships. Even one potential remaining drone within range is too much for the insurers. I do not think this is possible for anyone, let alone Ukraine. Ukraine knows modern drone warfare (because they invented a good deal of it) but they take losses.
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Substantially destroying the current regime's capacity to hit ships, and insuring them to accepted international standards outside the cartel. The US might be able to do this; Ukraine definitely can't do the insuring part, and I don't think the Saudis can either (they have the money but they're not named as proper certifiers in the treaties).
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
21hr ago
Going the other way (refining heavy crude in a light crude refinery) is significantly more complex and actually has many years of lead time for the equipment that's required additionally.
Except Iran could produce it in a week or two, a month at most, under heavy bombardment. Probably all that lead time is due to the thicket of rules and regulations the West has and not actual physical requirements.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
21hr ago
Refineries which can process heavy crude can process light crude; they just need to disconnect half the equipment.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Fighting BACK is utterly reasonable and should be no reason for Europe to intervene. Shooting at the US and Israel, and US and Israeli merchant traffic even. Smashing neutrals is another thing entirely. What did Gibraltar (UK), Malta, Palau, the Bahamas, Thailand, Japan, and Liberia have to do with it? Iran hit ships with all those flags, owned by companies from various uninvolved nations. And they threatened any vessel transiting the strait regardless of involvement. That was their choice.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
It's not a fire. It's Iran. They have agency. They chose to harm Europe (and China and India and Pakistan and even Thailand) in response to the US and Israel harming it.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Stunning inability? Maritime insurance rates weren't through the roof five minutes ago.
Thanks, London Insurance Cartel.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
And unlike the rest of Western Europe, Denmark wanted the EU countries to support opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Because Trump's blather about things the US wouldn't rule out, magnified into a threat by journalists with TDS, doesn't hold a candle to their actual interests.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Even if we ignore the stunning inability to assign agency to any country but the US in the present time, perhaps you've heard of the Red Sea Crisis?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up.
Yes.
Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world, Trump just decided 'I'mma kill these guys now.'
No, actually. Many parties were consulted -- Israel and the Gulf states.
But, as I said earlier:
And the Europeans aren't willing to lift a finger to defend themselves against damage caused by Iran's war crimes (yes, attacking neutral shipping is a war crime), and instead blame America for provoking Iran into doing it.
Europe consists of Neville Chamberlain's children, the lot of them.
I'm tired of being friends with the big aggressive guy who keeps getting into fights with the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive.
You know who else makes the stuff Iran makes to keep your civilization alive? Russia. It's OK to get into fights there, apparently.
That Trump's trying to negotiate is certainly the way to bet. But the Euros totally walked into this, and the most basic Trumpology could have told them that.
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