from HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 06:04
https://sh.itjust.works/post/56829740
An eerie quiet hangs over Ras Al Khaimah’s industrial port. Usually a thriving maritime hub of the United Arab Emirates, now ships stand docked and silent. Not far out along the hazy horizon, a backlog of hundreds of tankers have lined up in recent days, halted along a waterway flooded with danger.
Any vessel heading past Ras Al Khaimah out to the Arabian Sea must traverse the world’s most treacherous strip of water for shipping today: the strait of Hormuz. Just over 20 nautical miles from Ras Al Khaimah, two oil tankers heading for the strait were attacked by Iranian missiles this week, one catching fire.
It is one of the many consequences facing Gulf states as they are pulled deeper into a war that they did not start and had diplomatically tried to prevent.
For decades, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Oman have allowed US military bases, infrastructure or access on their soil, and have been among the largest buyers of American weapons and technology. In return, the US has stood as the Gulf’s closest and most significant military partner and protector.
But now, Gulf states have growing concerns over the relationship, analysts say, after Donald Trump was seen to wilfully torpedo peaceful diplomatic negotiations in favour of starting a war in the Middle East.
#world
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Fuck. Them.
The reason that every other US president has ruled out war with Iran is exactly because of this tactic. It takes a group of really ignorant, egotistical, and foolhardy leaders to melt through the layers of decision making that underlie such a course of action.
The more Trump screams on social media and Hegseth bully pulpits while whining about media coverage, the worse this war is going. Look for more avoidable Air Force and Navy incidents, more dead American soldiers, and a civilian bloodbath that will take decades to unravel the implications of.
Fuck the Americans involved in this war,nobody asked them to join the army and they’re aware who and why they are fighting for
In a society where higher education is paywalled, I can’t look down on people who use the military to get pass the paywall.
You would if they killed your daughter while she was at school
Fuck em. They can read, they know what this leadership is.
What if they signed up before the current regime came to power?
Only possible valid defense.
You think the US military was out there distributing flowers before Trump came along? They're all scum.
This goes way before the “current” regime en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
When Dick Cheney was making the world safe for Halliburton? Yeah, there’s no comfort there.
Not only that but if it wasnt for the US military then Russia would control Ukraine and would be advancing into Europe.
Or China would have already invaded Taiwan.
Or North Korea would control South Korea.
The problem here isn’t the US military. It’s the leadership.
But the foreign bots brigading lemmy want the US military weaker so those nations can advance their geopolitical goals.
That’s not very class conscious of you.
why
Joining the US military is just signing up to murder brown people at the direction of the oil industry and war profiteers. Been the way for at least half a century.
“I was a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism”.
-Smedley Butler, 1935
Don’t worry. They asked
ChatGPTGrok if it was a good idea, and it said “You’re absolutely right”. And if the magical computer box that our entire economy now rests upon says so, it must be right.I heard a commentator describe it as “victory disease”.
Trump is in control of the largest and most sophisticated military in the world. He had a couple of one and done victories, its easy to see how he might start to feel over confident.
It was almost inevitable they would eventually pick a fight they couldn’t win.
That said, going in with absolutely no plan-b was really, really stupid.
They didn’t even have a plan A!
They had a plan A: put the fear of god (aka USA) in Iran. This technique doesn’t work on most teenagers (as well as most countries)
What victories have they had???
Venezuela and the last strike on Iran.
They should make the pertinent conclusion that US bases don’t protect them, that US is only standing by Israel.
Those bases were originally built to protect them from soviet imperialism
Now its being used to forward Israeli imperialism.
The irony.
Those bases were built to protect oligarchs economic interests, nothing more.
Uhh, citation needed? Maybe a little bit during the cold war but I think it was the Gulf War that did the trick. Everyone looks at it through the hindsight of a seal clubbing victory but that’s not how it looked going in. Saddam’s military was legitimately terrifying and the US wasn’t sure how Desert Storm would shake out.
After ‘91, you clearly wanted to be on the US’ good side. They decided if you were safe or if you were a target. If you stayed in power or if the opposition-of-the-day (Arab Spring, ISIS, CIA, regional enemy) toppled your government.
The US started building bases in the region starting in 1946.
But the thing with bases is they are useful in many ways. There are rarely single purpose.
KSA: “Yeah I defnitley didn’t do nothing just like Israel over there. I don’t even know what an Iran is”
How are the bribes to the child rapist paying out? I see you are recieving bombs in exchange to the “payments” you made to Mango Hitler. I suppose it was the expected result? Bombs for money, isn’t it?
Good. You need to keep getting bombs.
The Zionists paid more.
So the middle east countries paid top dollar to get the US 'president' to do all the things they wanted, and he ended up screwing every single one of them.
When you get in bed with trump, he will eventually shit the bed, and you will have to lie in it with him.
You deserve the stupid choice you made.
They got in bed with a rational USA, and the USA shat out Trump and ruined the world.
No they got into bed with Trump. He has mucho dinero from the Gulf nations.
Didn’t they give him a plane or something?
What about that $2 billion bribe?
<img alt="" src="https://aussie.zone/pictrs/image/f0c5d03c-2b41-418b-8e08-0883337508c0.jpeg">
What a creepy image.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/4e6fa02e-2d1a-4075-bff1-0755ebd89762.webp">
I love touching glowing balls...
Rules for Being an Evil Overlord, #22: “No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.”
You lie down with dogs, you get fleas.
If you don’t like being a target, get the US bases out.
This is what happens when you outsource defence to a nation that has never acted altruisticly towards an ally (except Israel).
Was it Kissinger who said something along the line of “USA has no permanent allies or enemies, only interests.”
Saudi Arabia: Yeah right...
As a thought exercise, I was considering what the other countries in the middle east could have done to avoid this conflict.
I ended up with nothing reliable. They did not have sufficient power to address the problems in the Iranian regime. And even if they could, the US would likely just be attacking the next state on Israel’s hit list and cause similar problems.
The only thing that might have gotten close, is to outspend the Zionists in their interference in US politics.
They could have closed down the American bases that Trump is using to attack Iran. That would have done the job.
Trump would have attacked from the sea. Though it would have prevented incoming attacks on their soil, their ships would still be caught in the middle.
then they should have let that happen
USS Abraham Lincoln has to stay away from Iran because they keep attacking it with drones. Without bases in Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia, USA would not be able to sustain this war.
They could have not funded him. They could have not propped him and his family up.
They thought they had a useful idiot.
They did, but he was still an idiot.
If your running that thought experiment it’s not just the Arab states funding trump and America.
Those same states could also have curtailed Iran’s influence in the region as well including removing funding for the various military and terrorist groups they all have a hand in.
Frankly they have raked in the money while others suffer and now they are suffering because of it.
Meanwhile the orange toad is using the money they gave him to further his own agenda and using their countries as pawns.
It’s complicated, right? On the one hand, those Arab states couldn’t have predicted this crazy US administration and had no say in the US people voting in somebody like Trump.
On the other hand, however, they are totally involved. First of all, they funneled a lot of money into Trump’s election campaign and therefore are now reaping what they sowed. If you fund somebody like Trump, you get somebody like Trump. And all those conflicts in the regions are also fueled by Saudi, Qatari and Emirate money. You know who is also hosting and funding Hamas? Qatar. Who is funding all those extremist mosques? Saudi Arabia. So if they wanted peace in the region they had a lot of leverage to bring it, and they didn’t.
It is conplicated agreed.
They certainly have enough agency to deal with the minor powers in the region. But Iran and Israel are too powerful to deal with, without some outside superpower.
Back in the second Bush Era the Saudi’s heavily influenced the US and were able to convince them to deal with Saddam
But this time round it was the Zionists that contributed more. The Arab powers were also a lot more fragmented in terms of their strategy. They are rivals after all.
As a thought experiment, what do you think would have happened if they wound down their involvement with the u.s., and actually tried to come to their own arrangement with Iran? Maybe a united front of the OPEC countries would have been enough to give the middle finger to any country that supplied Israel with weapons…
Get in bed with china, make their own deals with African nations and india to get industrial capabilities up and running, and we’d see a very large and sudden swelling of the global south.
MBS and other Gulf dictators were begging Trump and Israel to attack Iran. They are now being served a good example of FAFO. In particular, I hope MBS and MBZ go down in flames. They are the worst of this inhuman scum.
Are the Europeans learning the lesson?
Europa has been disentangling and decoupling for about a year. Cloud infrastructure, software, payment systems, defense, … But it takes time.
right and when are they going to say “thank you”.
Did they thank the orange felon/rapist/liar though?
This is possibly the one thing that will get Cheeto to pay attention. OPEC oil boys getting mad
Not after he declares himself Acting President of Iran
Nah, they’re learning the lesson that they should have learned the first time he was president. He will stab EVERYONE in the back. No one is safe from him backstabbing if he thinks it’ll get him something better.
Maybe stop allowing America to use your country as bases to terrorize and control your neighbors?
You were talking about a bunch of dictatorships that use their Neighbor slave labor to suck oil out of the ground and concentrate trillions of dollars in the hands of a few people
They fucking love America. How do you think they can move $100 million cargo ships full of oil around on a daily basis!
Australia needs to cancel our leases of American bases in Australia. Even if you think we should be aligned with the US only having Australian bases on Australian soil is in our best interests. This war has shown that any host country of American bases will be subject to attacks not only on those bases but on the host country’s own military and civilian infrastructure.
Yanks out!
They didn’t start it because they’re cowards who have America and Israel do their dirty work.
Seriously tho 🤣 Iran bombed the fuck out of them and now they can’t sell oil. Sorry I can’t find my compassion for the petrostate dictators. May they lose all their ill gotten gains.
Those countries have been directly funding Donald Trump and are all littered with American bases. They are absolutely involved.
I met several US Navy servicemen when I was living there.
Every single one of you were buddy buddy with Trump to America’s detriment. I don’t give a single shit what happens to you.
I hate to say this but as a former US molarity officer I am 100% behind Iran. The Mango Mussolini start Operation Epstein Fury as a distraction and the buzzards need to come home to roost. I am sorry people are getting killed but Iran is not going to stop now that their leader and 180 little girls have been killed.
Protection for Petro dollar oil dies here. Trump is destroying American dominance on the world stage, it’s wild to see.
Petro dollar is worthless.
Let me cry crocodile tears and play the worlds smallest violin for the poor lil ole petrol states
As someone who grew up in Dubai I want to tell them to go fuck themselves. They made their bed, now sleep on it.
I’d submit their beds were made using slaves.
The beatings will continue until America is great again. Apparently the strategy is to lower the bar on what “great” means by dragging the entire rest of then world down.