You’re getting into what you feel, versus what the law says in black and white. You might empathise with the desire to attack the US forces on that base, but the law doesn’t read the way you feel.
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Interesting the article talks about the bombers being used in defensive sorties in Iran. How are they “defensive”? That question isn’t really aimed at you Ants but more pointing at the language used.
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Is this a new form of pre-season training to toughen the players up?
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Best form of defence is to attack, get them before they get you. Not that I agree with it but that’s probably what uncle Sam will tell you.
I guess the ultimate form of defence is building a nuclear program.
The US hasn’t gone to war since WW2. Officially.
Being at war means Congress needs to stick their noses in. Much easier to do counter terrorism, police actions, UN mandates…
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..burning down the house 
… 
Sounds like the “terrorists” at the UK airfield were just simple thieves trying to score distillate.
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But trump had been watching them for a long time.
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Thought they might know some tricks he could learn.
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The incredibly inefficient journey of oil at the moment.
WOW.
The Economist:
- …more oil is coming out of the Gulf on ships and through pipes than a few weeks ago, its way to market is riven with inefficiencies.
- A shuttle service of Gulf-owned very large crude carriers (VLCC), protected by the US Navy, is bringing oil through the strait for transfer to vlccs anchored off Oman owned by firms not prepared to risk that journey. Around 15% of the global vlcc fleet is at Oman, much of it awaiting cargoes that take two to three days to swap over.
- To the west, the threat to shipping from Yemen’s Houthis at the mouth of the Red Sea means that vlccs taking oil from the Saudi port of Yanbu farther up the coast are heading in the opposite direction, towards the Suez Canal. Because they are too big to go through the canal fully laden, the oil is offloaded, piped across Egypt and reloaded onto vlccs in the Mediterranean for the long voyage to Asia round the Cape of Good Hope.
- At around $650,000, the average daily spot rate is over six times more than in January and nearly three times more than at the start of September. A handful of vessels traversing the treacherous Strait of Hormuz are fetching over $1m a day.
link:
https://www.economist.com/business/2026/09/24/tanker-rates-are-on-the-crest-of-a-wave
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Crude transport is pretty close to normal, but finished fuels is about half the pre-war volumes. Most countries are pretty self sufficient on diesel and the crude volumes secures those domestic supply chains. About 200k of the global 1.2M (forget unit) of diesel is sold internationally. Production something like 30% US, 30% Asia, 30% Middle East and 10% Russia.
Russia is out due to Ukraine’s strikes. Middle East limited due to Iran. Asia limited by crude supply. US might ban exports to give Republicans a boost for the November midterms. Recipe for all of Africa to run out of fuel, government collapse type of outcomes.
There’s better quality coverage of that scenario than this rushed post, but that’s the downside risk if Trump does ban exports. Would result in the US refineries losing profitability and thus scaling down volumes, defeating the point of the intervention.
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Sounds like Trump has been talked out of that madness.
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The Republicans are on track to lose Iowa for the first time since 1932, with a 8-12% swing to Dems bringing much of the red heartland into play. Don’t underestimate the power of shortsighted selfishness. A couple of weeks of crashed domestic fuel prices might make a difference politically, even if it does blow up the global economy.
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How 'bout those unreliable renewables, eh?
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Just catching up on the news in Russia and 6 hospitals have gone into quarantine after a lab technician dies from pneumonic plague. It’s all sounding very Wuhan-ish but probably nothing to worry about, right? I’m sure Russia will be very open with what’s going on.
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About as open as the chinese were
Sounds dodgy af tbh. Russia doing their normal trick of suppressing this and and media reporting that’s trying to publish it out there. A broken test tube .. hmm.
From the Times this morning :
"Daria Shipilova, an employee at an anti-plague research institute in Russia’s Irkutsk region, accidentally broke the test tube on September 25, according to colleagues cited by local media.
She was rushed to hospital after falling ill two days later, where doctors initially assumed she had coronavirus. She died on Friday.
At least 60 employees of the institute are in quarantine at the facility, according to sources cited by the RFE/RL website. Hospitals and maternity wards have also reportedly been locked down for three weeks. A colleague said that Shipilova could have come into contact with up to 300 people."
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When that report came out about her someone said that if she was at work handling a test tube full of nasties when it broke she would have been in full Hazmat gear, suggesting that a cover up has already started.
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