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The legacy media left and the globalist elite are yet again furious with the Bad Orange Man, which is like saying that water is still wet. The cause of their TDS meltdown du jour, though, is that President Donald Trump is doing what they’ve been unable or unwilling to do for the last 45 years: bring the swivel-eyed fanatics of the Iranian regime to heel.
As is typical, globalists like Keir Starmer are trying to hide behind lawyerly waffle about ‘the rules-based international order’: specifically, their claim is that the strikes against Iran are ‘illegal’, which is just the usual self-serving pack of lies. British barrister and constitutional lawyer Stephen Barrett unambiguously demolishes the lie.
Keir Starmer and his attorney general Lord Richard Hermer are wrong. They are wrong by suggesting to the British public that war with Iran is illegal.
They are wrong to suggest that it is illegal for the United Kingdom to be at war with Iran. They are wrong to suggest that it is illegal for the state of Israel to be at war with Iran. They are wrong to suggest that the United States of America should not be at war with Iran. They are, as they joined the battle today, also wrong to suggest that the Muslim state of Qatar is acting unlawfully – if indeed that is their position – by being at war with Iran.
War with Iran was always lawful.
The reason is simple and fundamental. It applies to states and powers every bit as much as individuals.
Self-defence.
We have always had the right to defend ourselves. Always. That’s not incitement, which is probably what the idiot lefties might wrongfully claim, and they can bore me with that argument for a long time. But we have always had the right to defend ourselves, to defend our partners, defend our children, defend our property. Always. That is an inalienable right of free people.
This is absolutely clear. The idea that international law – which is born of us – does not include that right is bonkers. Bonkers.
That right to self-defence also includes a right to aggressive action. The idea that we have to sit and wait until the enemy is driving their bayonets into our guts is so self-evidently ludicrous that only a leftist could take it seriously.
If a great hulking man armed with a massive machete comes to your front door, that is enough for you to reasonably conclude that you are in imminent danger of attack and to take lawful actions of self-defence […]
We have always been able to take aggressive action – any action. So Keir Starmer trips himself up because he tried to say we can’t take aggressive action, that’s unlawful. And then he had to concede that obviously that’s nonsense. And then he tries to set completely artificial boundaries upon that action. He tries to say, well, we’ll only knock out this specific type of weapon. And I’m not going to indulge him and I’m not going to engage him. That’s pathetic.
That’s like saying if we destroy all the tanks and their battalions outside Germany, we can’t possibly invade Berlin. It’s absolute tosh and absolute nonsense.
As for their beloved ‘rules-based international order’, as I wrote recently for Real Good Oil, that’s an even bigger mountain of tosh.
Now, let’s be fair to the nutters, Starmer and Lord Hermer, and let’s try to understand their argument. At best, their argument is that nobody can declare war without the permission of the United Nations.
You will notice that many of the bad people in the world and the bad countries in the world have declared war without bothering to ask for permission from the United Nations. You will also notice, I hope, that there is no hope in hell of any of the good countries – i.e., US or America – getting permission from the UN Security Council to declare a war.
It is not only a stupid and bureaucratic move to do – it’s impossible. China or Russia will veto any attempt by any Western power to declare war. Simultaneously, any Western power will veto any attempt by China or Russia to declare war.
But how has Iran threatened us so that it merits self-defence? In Australia’s case, Iran is directly responsible for not just terror attacks on Australian soil, but for stoking much of the anti-Semitic hate that has ripped at Australia’s social fabric.
Iran – before anything happened, before Israel or America took action – had threatened people. It was threatening us on our bases. So it threatened the UK, it’s threatened the US, threatened Israel, it fired rockets at Israel.
It’s taken really incredibly aggressive steps and it is only natural to consider what do you do in response to that.
Iran has murdered American citizens and military personnel. It has attacked US bases and UK bases in Cyprus: those nations’ sovereign territory.
We’re actually technically entitled to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty […]
This is Qatar’s position, which is that you’ve attacked us – of course we can attack back.
Starmer is, like Barrett, a lawyer. He must understand that the ‘illegal war’ claim is utter nonsense, which is probably why he so quickly back flipped.
But why do leftists make obviously bad arguments like this?
The left hate self-defence. They hate it because they are exactly the type of people who want to abuse you and for you not to be able to hit them back because they’re tiny, tiny, tiny, wee little men like Starmer.
But there is no doubt in my mind, there is no doubt now in the minds of David Wolfson, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, Suella Braverman, two different political parties, the retired military judge who took the time to publish in the Spectator – for which I’ll always be grateful – Nigel Biggar who’s Lord Biggar who’s not a lawyer but sees it from a moral lens and law should be viewed from a moral lens. Once law is not viewed from a moral lens, law becomes evil.
And too many of the left have become very, very evil.
