In the early hours of March 4, 2026, in international waters off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka, the USS Charlotte, a Los Angeles–class nuclear-powered attack submarine, closed in on the IRIS Dena, a new Iranian Moudge-class frigate.
Submerged, the Charlotte fired a heavyweight, acoustic-homing torpedo at the hull of the Dena. It missed. It fired another. It connected. The periscope footage of the attack was released by the United States Department of War. It shows the shockwave of the torpedo fracturing the Dena’s hull and sending its helicopter flight deck metres into the air.
Within seconds, what was left of the Dena was plummeting to the depths of the Indian Ocean, carrying at least sixty of its crew of 180 to their deaths.
Some moments later, an email was sent from US Indo-Pacific Command to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue agency. Twenty miles from Galle’s coast, a ship is in distress. Sri Lanka immediately engaged a search and rescue effort that included its air force and navy. The surface of the sea contained clues that a vessel had been attacked and had likely been sunk. But it was not clear whether the attack had come from above or below. They were able to rescue thirty-two sailors, and recover the bodies of eighty-seven others, many of whom had mysteriously broken legs.
The Charlotte had long vanished like an apparition beneath the waves.
This was on the fifth day of the US–Israeli war on Iran, 2,000 nautical miles from the immediate conflict zone.
The US has been the main villain ever since they inherited the role from the British. None of this is surprising if you’ve been paying attention.
Hey, we were happy dicking around in our own backyard for the first 150 years or so. We even attacked ourselves, we were so bored.
Then you people asked us to join WW1, and we got a taste of World Domination, and we loved it. So, y’know, you started it.
We’re Frankenstein’s Monster, and you let us loose.
/S, just kidding, America sucks, we know it. A lot of us want to do better, and we’re hoping for a different future. We’re at a crossroads, things are going to be very different in the future. I just hope it’s our difference that prevails, and not MAGAs.
Spain has something to say about that. Cuba, Philippines, … And Hawaii has also something to say.
The only one thinking the US are the good guys it’s the US.
As of right now, you’re no better… scratch that, you are actually worse than Putin.
Now that the United States is trying to do a Russian Ukraine upon Iran…
yyyyeah there is no moral highground anymore.
just an immoral crater filled with mud and viscera.
No state is moral. People are (or can be) moral.
honestly TRUUUUUUE!!
This is the case with pretty much all collective entities, they’re all cut from the same cloth:
businesses, sports teams, fandoms, private clubs, political parties - they’re all manifestations of tribal instinct and one of its “”“features”“” (which, in this very synthetic habitat we’ve created for ourselves can become quite maladaptive if not toxic) is the displacement of personal accountability.I’m saying, yes, groups are not moral but people can be moral - and I am hypothesizing THAT is why.
Parallel processing has enabled humans to do absolutely incredible things.
But it has also enabled humans to do truly heinous things too.
Bystander effect, “just following orders”, toeing the party line, passing the buck, riding the bandwagon… I think it’s not enough to teach people that only people themselves are capable of making moral judgments, but that we absolutely should also teach people that abstract gestalt entities that we become part of, that we allow to subsume us, are not.
Even the ones that aren’t outright evil are only so by the individual decisions of the people it comprises–through either luck or mindfulness–steering it away from brutal shortcuts that spend others’ lives for the sake of its own perpetuation.
It’s kind of ironic though that the people who decry “groupthink” the loudest are the ones that seem to be doing it the most. I’d sure like to think that we’ll learn to do a better job of identifying that blindspot (which such distributed collective entities exploit to enhance their own survival odds) and countering it, then teaching the next generations to look for it and counter it too.
… if we’ll even be around to see any generations that may exist after us.
Oh I don’t know. I think the Israelis are convinced they’re the good guys.
America and Israel are the common enemies of humanity
Add Russia to that
China and North Korea too while at it, please?
Iran goes on that list as well.
Absolutely, and probably a few more countries still
Yeah, they’re not attacking anyone at the moment. Let’s hope they don’t join the club soon
I don’t claim that know who the good guys are, but the US and specifically the military are definitely the baddies.
I disagree with you only on one point; “and specifically the military”.
Apologies for being blunt, but this is a coward’s logic. I’m not seeing that to attack you personally, but because far, far too many of us are guilty of this specific act of moral cowardice, and it needs to be called out now often.
A military acts on the will of a government. A government rules by the consent of the people (yes, even authoritarian governments; democracy is just a system for assigning that consent peacefully, fairly, and with minimal bloodshed).
With vanishingly few exceptions throughout history, militaries are not rogue agents acting on their own devices. They are our will made manifest. A soldier is a bullet fired from a gun. We take aim and pull the trigger. A soldier can do their best to act ethically and responsibly, but ultimately war is a scenario where no good outcomes can ever occur. Only degrees of terrible.
A soldier chooses to accept the responsibility of living and enacting that terror on our behalf because ultimately someone has to. War is sometimes inevitable and necessary. We do not categorically refer to the soldiers fighting for Ukraine’s defence as monsters even though most of them - especially those serving before the war, those whose bravery and skill ground the Russian invasion to a halt in those vital early hours - serve for the same panoply of reasons that any other soldier does. Many of those reasons are simple, or selfish, or thoughtless, but the reasons why they chose to shoulder that responsibility didn’t change the outcome.
It’s easy to blame the military, because it abrogates the collective shame of what war actually is; an extension of politics. I know plenty of soldiers who are some of the most anti-war people you’ll ever meet, because they understand what war costs, in a way the average civilian never will.
When war kills people, when war results in atrocities, when war is a nightmare of death and carnage and suffering, that responsibility is collective. It belongs to a people, not just a military.
Trump’s war in Iran is America’s war in Iran. Just like Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam and Korea, and so many others.
America is NOT acting on the will of the people. It has been totally stolen from the citizens, and neither side is doing what the people want. MAGA approval rates are abysmal, but so are Democratic approval rates. NOBODY is happy about it.
Understand that we are a nation under siege. MAGA stole the 2024 election with election fraud, and the Dems let them off the hook, and now we’re dealing with the consequences. The majority did not want this, and now even many of them are leaving.
There is a national seething happening, just under the surface, and barely in control. MAGA tries to deny the Midterm Bloodbath, it will break loose.
America is NOT acting on the will of the people.
I’m aware. But I didn’t actually say that, did I?
If you refer back to my previous comment, you’ll see that my exact statement was “A military acts on the will of a government. A government rules by the consent of the people.” There’s a subtle, but important distinction there. America’s actions in Iran do not necessarily reflect the will (read; desires, intentions) of the American people. But it is, none the less, being done by a government that is operating with the consent of those same people. And that will continue to be the case until the people choose - by one means or another - to withdraw that consent.
These sailors signed up to fight for the Iranian regime. Regardless of what you think of who did it and how: these were baddies.
Hegseth and trump playing with lethal toys like a sociopath torturing animals.
A non-hostile ship being targeted because “Just do it and see what happens. “
And the biggest stupidity is having an easy target to seize, as a ship from a nation they are at war, they chose to sink it committing a war crime.
Mark my words, by the end of Trump’s term the United States is going to have no allies left in the entire world.
Hell, we barely have any left as it is now.
If it was unarmed they could have effortlessly captured it. Imo this is just going to crystallize US opposition.
The US has rarely been “the good guys”, and even then mostly by accident.
I don’t get why the article keeps saying the military frigate was “unarmed”?
It was on a training mission and was heading home. With no weapons on board. We are cowards.
This entire war is illegal, but articles like this just grind my gears.
Attacking a war ship on a training run is like destroying airplanes on the ground, or bombing infantry barracks where soldiers are sleeping. It isn’t a war crime, or even out of the ordinary in a war.
And calling the sub crew cowards doesn’t even make sense.
The frigate would have been just as helpless against the sub if it had been carrying its usual armament.I guess I’m just allergic to dishonest propaganda, no matter from which side.
Also, fuck Trump, his administration, and every single US service member going along with this. I hope they get humiliated and are forced to pull out with their tails between their legs before they “accidentally” kill more school children, or deliberately destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure (an actual war crime).You are in serious need of education. This was an international naval exercise, where participants show up unarmed to not endanger any other participants and as a show of good will. This is basically a diplomatic gesture. Attacking such a ship is among the most cowardly things any military can do. So exactly what you would expect from the cowards of Magastan.
There’s plenty of that to be found on Lemmy tho
Yes, and the reactions to this post make me seriously consider leaving this place.
For me it’s the exact opposite. I wouldn’t know where else to observe these people, if not here?
And if it gets too frustrating I just close the app
Yeah, lemmy is a bit of a cespool.
Wow you’re soft.
an attack on an unarmed vessel during a ceremonial voyage 2000 miles from the illegal war… yeah no. Just another war crime to add to the pile.
So it has no weapons on board, it was just on a training mission. Cool.
But it’s still a warship and two countries are at war. I guess you’re saying the us should wait for it to make its way to port, fill up on ammo, take on its full crew compliment and then sink it as it leaves port?
Is that better?
Let’s put aside the stupidity of the idea that they should have allowed it to re-arm first and risk US lives for no reason.
The training mission had a live fire component, so the ship was definitely armed during a portion of the excersise. Unless they ran out of ammo or something weird happened, it was armed.
As a precondition of its participation in the fleet review and the Milan 2026 exercises in India, the IRIS Dena was unarmed.
From the actual article. Which you could have read. It’s not even paywalled, you just didn’t want to take the time.
And yet the article cites no source for this and as far as I can tell, there is no official source excluding Iran. Only the same BS that ammo is usually not carried during excersises which obviously does not apply to live-fire excersises, which Milan 2026 was.
So unless you are suggesting we should be trusting what Iran says, I revert back to there is a good chance it had some ammo.
More importantly, what does it matter? The US military wouldn’t have known for sure whether the ship had ammo or not and no reason to check. Even if it did not have ammo at the time, it would just re-arm in Iran. It was a legitimate target regardless, just like a bomber returning home after dropping bombs is a legitimate target, even if it does not carry bombs at that time. If you let it go, it will pick up more bombs and bomb you again.
PS: No idea why people feel the need to make shit up to paint the US in a bad picture. You want evidence of a US warcrime?
US secretary of war Pete Hegseth has said that “no quarter” will be shown to Iran
There it is. Just making that statement is a violation of the Geneva conventions. This is because it discourages surrendering, by suggesting surrenders will not be accepted/treated well, which in turn results in more deaths than necessary.
Unfortunately what is allowed in war is still pretty brutal. This was a warship and it would be a legitimate target from the moment the war started, without exception.
Let’s focus on the actual war crimes, like the Pentagon redefining “military target” to include destroying energy, food, and fresh water infrastructure because soldiers need to drink water too… Hitting those targets would still be a war crime, the Pentagon is not the arbiter of what is and isn’t a military target.
The thing is, the side that perpetrated this action is still denying that this is an actual war. In such a case, is this a legitimate target?
They aren’t the arbiter of what is and isn’t a war.
But it was wicked cool, and we did that, so it’s cool. - Hegseth
The US have never been ‘the good guys’.
Who Are the Good Guys Again?
Nobody this time. Especially those holding absolute power.
Nobody this time.
-
American Fascists
-
Scary Muslims
Well, I don’t want to align with the fascists. But also I do kinda agree with them on the scariness of Muslims.
I guess I’ll do the Radical Centrist power move and say “Both Sides are Wrong”.
-
We are. Because we say so. Now the other guy, wooboy what a bad guy!
US are not the good guys since WWII.
Since ever.
America was leaning towards the Nazis before Pearl Harbor.
America was sharply divided between socialism and fascism in the run up to the collapse of the Russian Empire and emergence of the Soviet Union. Consequently, American leftists saw a ray of sunlight in the path Lenin took to revolutionizing the Russian socio-economic system. At the same time, American corporationists saw the USSR as an opportunity to describe American Leftism as a Foreign Invasion.
The adoption of European political theories and figureheads on the left triggered the hysterical anti-immigration reflexes on the right, polarizing and galvanizing the general public which had already grown deeply anti-European in the wake of the First World War.
This culminated in the Palmer Raids of 1919, split the union movement going into the Roaring Twenties, and - in a hat trick of reactionary revisionism - managed to unify Dixiecrat bigots, big money Industrialists, and evangelical Christians (both Protestant AND Catholic) into a single suffocating mono-party that would dominate American politics for the next twelve years.
The Neo-Confederates, the Industrial Fascists, and the Evangelical Paleo-conservatives congealed into the Coolidge/Hoover Republican Party and managed to govern virtually uncontested until the Great Depression upended their coalition.
But at this point, leftist organizing and activism had rebuilt and reorganized around generally palpable national socialist principles. And over the subsequent decade leading to Pearl Harbor, established a left-leaning national government coalition that was broadly sympathetic to the Russian and Chinese Communists to the point that we were openly aiding them in their wars against Germany and Japan.
Pearl Harbor was an attempt by the Japanese military to cut the US out of the Pacific Rim, precisely because we’d undermined their access to Middle Eastern petrochemicals and smuggled arms to the KMT/Communist coalition on mainland China. It was “unprovoked” in a very technical sense, but far from unanticipated given our open aiding and abetting of anti-Japanese forces all across the East Pacific.
America was leaning Communist by 1944. If FDR hadn’t plotzed and handed the keys of the country to a reactionary like Truman, we might have avoided the Cold War entirely. Or, at least, forestalled it for a few more years.
