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Joe Biden would have made the best President… According to Joe Biden

 
 


Posted by Turtler    United States   on 05/31/2016 at 05:13 AM   
 
  1. The Iranians peacefully stopped the armed invasion of their territorial waters by the US Navy*. We know they claim those waters, and have standing orders to keep out of them.
    But stupid people do stupid things. And in this case it did not cost them their lives.

    *Apparently it had happened before, and this time the Iranians were ready for them.

    Yes - the USA does not want to follow the “Treaty of Westphalia”, but it remains international law (ToWP = do not intervene in the internal affairs of another country).

    Posted by RickD94    United States   05/31/2016  at  09:46 AM  

  2. Good god, we seriously have someone trying to play apologist for the Mad Mullahs *here*, on this issue?

    The Iranians peacefully stopped the armed invasion of their territorial waters by the US Navy*.

    How many things are wrong with this sentence?

    Well, let’s start with

    1. Seizing ships and crew Immediately, without warning, without communication, and without even Bothering to check up and then subjecting them to captivity and propaganda browbeating is not compatible with the law, or- more relevantly for this post- “Standard Nautical Procedure.” It is in effect coastal water piracy under the Very Vaguest of justifications, justifications that are not recognized before either the laws or customs of the sea, or modern international law.

    And yes, note all those conditions. I am not even saying that the Iranians do not have the right to defend their territory or their waters. But that doesn’t mean they have the right to shred everyone else’s rights either.

    2. It was not an armed *INVASION*, because words still have meaning and an invasion is an armed entry into territory with the intention of seizing and occupying it. Which this was not by ANYBODY’S version of events, including the fucking IRGC’s.

    This does not mean it was necessarily Right; there are plenty of armed nautical misbehaviors and crimes that do not reach the level of invasion. But it certainly does NOT give you the right to throw that word around where it is not fitting.

    and

    3. As I mentioned before, their behavior was beyond any justification or valid defense of their territory. Seizing ships and crew is at the VERY EDGE of anything that could be called peaceful under Admiralty Law, which is why it is supposed to be done under only very limited circumstances.

    The Iranians did not do this. they did not warn the crew to Get The Hell Out. They did not demand that the crews concede to be towed out to international waters. They did not offer any reprieve or reasonable chance, because it is pretty obvious they were Not Looking For One.

    They kidnapped foreign sailors under a vague pretext and then broke their obligations under multiple international laws on how they should be treated.

    And furthermore, since the Iranian regime is a totalitarian terror state and its’ naval arms have a long history of Flagrantly and murderously shunting the law- maritime in particular and international in general- and violating Other nations’ territorial waters for reasons far more malevolent than these ships could ever have been (You ever hear of the Tanker War, by chance?), I am honestly not interested in hearing them out.

    You do not get to slaughter Kuwaiti and UAE Tankers and their crews so hard the USN has to do Praying Mantis to deal with you, and then expect me to give a damn when you try and justify your imprisonment and torture of more sailors for the Heinous Crime of them drifting into your territorial waters.

    Period.

    We know they claim those waters,

    Which is both unsurprising given the origin of the name Persian Gulf, and not something overly binding given how far reaching Iranian maritime claims are and the nature of maritime traffic on the Gulf.

    and have standing orders to keep out of them.

    Which in no way deprives foreign vessels on territorial waters of their right to self defense against undue hostility, or releases the Iranians from their obligation to Follow The Fucking Law. There’s a reason why the USN and Coast Guard do not string up Russian whalers or force them to make propaganda videos under obvious duress.

    Because law abiding, civilized governments Do Not Do That Shit.

    The IRGC DID.

    But stupid people do stupid things. And in this case it did not cost them their lives.

    Oohhhhh No You Do Not.

    Do I have plenty of issues with how the USN and US Government handled this? Yes. But that does not make them the ones to blame for this.

    Because this is part of a mind-numbingly consistent pattern of behavior from Tehran and the naval services under its’ command. Mark Steyn conveniently listed several incidents that are nearly identical to this one, in which those naval branches preyed upon any other Western ships they could get ahold of in the same way.

    And which In turn fits into the wider patter of AGGRESSIVE hostility by the Iranians to the rights of neutral ships and transit on the ocean. You do not get to blame “Dumb Western Sailors” for something like this. They are not the common denominator here, and whatever dumb behavior they were guilty of does not justify getting GANKED on the water without due cause.

    And secondly:

    And in this case it did not cost them their lives.

    What would justify costing them their lives in this scenario???

    You do not have the right to immediately board and capture any foreign ship on your territorial waters, much less KILL THE CREW.

    Am I supposed to be Glad that the Iranians did something they had no right to do with insufficient cause in favor of doing something ELSE they had no right to do and which they had insufficient cause to justify themselves for merely because there was no blood This Time?

    Sorry but that isn’t just moral bankruptcy, it is FUCKING STUPID on a body of water that is as relatively small and heavily used as the Persian Gulf is, where you are going to have ships going past each other and often taking detours into naval water.

    *Apparently it had happened before, and this time the Iranians were ready for them.

    A: “Apparently”? So you mean you didn’t bother to do research before making this statement, you just uncritically accepted what came out of the mouths of a theocracy that will lie about ANYTHING and a Presidency desperate to save face even when it involved making easily disprovable lies? (Again, the “standard nautical” practice bullshit.

    B: This explains why the Iranians have been doing it over the past several years to the ships of American allies but only just started doing it to us now *How*?

    and

    C: Yes, on some level we do make armed incursions into their territorial waters. There are a couple of different reasons for this but let me boil them down to two.

    For One: As I mentioned before the Persian Gulf is rather small and rather heavy on terms of traffic. Which means that it isn’t uncommon that you have to take detours into one or another nation’s territorial waters in order to avoid careening into another tanker or what have you. It is not surprising that the USN has done this.

    And for Two: Yes, the USN and its’ allies do have an obligation to keep abreast of Iranian naval activity and dispositions, as well as to conduct freedom of navigation exercises and escorts along the length of the Gulf. Which is more than justified given Iran’s track record of naval subjugation, violations of international law, and attacks on neutral shipping that go back to about half a century now.

    This may not be the most savory thing, but it does not make it Illegal under the law.

    The only real defense the IRGC has to justify this is that if the confession they illegally wrung out of one of the sailors was correct, this was an example where the USN was ALSO breaking maritime law.

    Which is still not much of a defense against their own.

    Yes - the USA does not want to follow the “Treaty of Westphalia”, but it remains international law (ToWP = do not intervene in the internal affairs of another country).

    Oh this is FUCKING RICH. Have you even read the Treaty of Westphalia? I mean the actual thing (Starting with the great big preamble between the King of France and the Habsburg Emperor making peace)?

    If you did, you would not be using it to try and act as an apologist for the IRGC, because one of the core tenants of it was that *A RULER OR GOVERNMENT COULD NOT IMPOSE THEIR RELIGION ON SUBJECTS OF SOMEONE ELSE.* You know, like the Iranians did when they forced the captured female sailors to wear the Islamic veil.

    It also did not mean you could seize foreign ships going on your territorial waters without good cause, especially since rivers like the Rhine and the Baltic Sound were international waterways with dozens of states.

    So you don’t know the Treaty of Westphalia- or Westphalian sovereignty-, or how international law has in many ways moved on from it or contradicted several key points (Nuremburg Trials anyone???). But you still want to shoot from the hip to try and justify This nonsense?

    Let’s put it this way: Biden lied and lied badly about this being some kind of standard action by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Naval Arm. It was a flagrant violation of international law.

    And if this is the kind of stuff you will swallow and you still want to debate *Me* about maritime law or the Treaty of Westphalia, you will lose and lose BADLY.

    I suggest you decide your next comment carefully.

    Posted by Turtler    United States   05/31/2016  at  11:53 AM  

  3. Dude that’s an awful lot of word vomit just to make the claim that Biden is an “Idiot par Excellance” but by all means let your “freak flag fly”.

    blah-blah  wink

    Posted by Rich K    United States   05/31/2016  at  12:24 PM  

  4. Dude that’s an awful lot of word vomit just to make the claim that Biden is an “Idiot par Excellance” but by all means let your “freak flag fly”.

    I have never hesitated to fly my flags, “freak” or otherwise.

    But I was not doing it just to claim that Biden is an idiot par excellence; I am pretty sure that anybody who has been conscious since he became VP is aware of that by now.

    What not many people know is that he’s also a Megalomaniac par Excellance, a Twoface par Excellance, and a lot of other things that are worse than merely being an idiot. That is what the “word vomit” on the post was about.

    The “Word Vomit” on this comment was for a claim that was different but related to those.

    That the Iranian RGC’s naval wing was wrong to seize foreign ships and crews without warning or communication, and then to force their crews to cough up Stalinesque confessions of wrongdoing for the video cameras.

    I hope that makes things clear.

    Posted by Turtler    United States   05/31/2016  at  12:34 PM  

  5. If the master plan works and Biden is elected, along with a VP hand picked by Obama, I put the over/under at February 28th for Biden’s resignation for reasons of health (surpassing William Henry Harrison’s tenure. And we face another 4 or 8 years of an Obama puppet.

    Posted by Ed456    United States   06/02/2016  at  10:35 AM  

  6. @Ed456

    Interesting. The big issue I would have is that Biden already is an Obama puppet, he’s just one that *nobody respects* including other Obama puppets. Though that detail about them waiting just long enough to past Tippecanoe Harrison is scarily insightful…

    Posted by Turtler    United States   06/05/2016  at  06:09 PM  

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