Dr. Gonzo

@Gunnersauraus @shut up @6666 @Chaaay AFC @...Dan... and other Arsenal fans that I’m sure I forgot (sorry) Its still early days... very early days, but I think these first signs of Arteta’s Arsenal are really promising. So lads, you think you’ll be active in this transfer window? And if so, who do you think is coming in? I suspect we’re done with our business and I want to see Arsenal good again... so if you’ve got any good hype coming our way, I’d love to hear it.

So they’re going for candidates born into wealth that aren’t really relatable to them at all?

Or this is Raiola's ultimate move in shithousery: "Let Pogba leave, or JLingz stays forever."

Jesus fucking Christ what in the fuck is wrong with the American right?

It's an interesting article. Peter Hitchens (and his late brother, Christopher) are two very smart people that were capable of navigating around complex thoughts. Even if I don't/didn't always agree with them. And I'm not surprised, because if you read up on them... they themselves are/were (weird using present & passed tense, but ya know... with Christopher dead I do have to) pretty complicated people. I think you have to be a pretty complex person to go from being an atheist to finding God in the modern era, for instance - because that's mental, but I don't think Peter Hitchens is crazy. He's also a Conservative with views on Brexit that I could have gotten behind - but that's besides the point. I think that article does a good job of showing how complex Iran is, societally and politically. For people who only know of Iran and Iranians as embassy storming, DEATH TO AMERICA, radicals... I think reading that article may be a good idea. It's a humanising article about a part of the world and a country that the media's done a good job of dehumanising over the decades that have passed. Sadly, I think this was written in a time where the JCPOA probably wasn't contemplated. Which is a shame, because I'd like to have seen his thoughts on what he would have thought about getting the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table and actually being able to participate more in the global economy would have meant. And I think that certainly means the deterioration of Western-Iranian relations after Trump pulling out of the JCPOA & the escalation in tensions we've seen wasn't contemplated... nor was Iran holding out on hoping the US would come back to the deal, up until the Suleimani assassination and them deciding "fuck this, we're going back to building nukes." I just hope war is avoided. But the rollercoaster ride of tension since 2015 makes me wonder: will Iran ever willingly sit back to negotiate with the US or west ever again after this debacle with the US abandoning the JCPOA?

Straight out of the taliban playbook. All of these right wing extremists are the fucking same.

Starting watching: “Don’t Fuck With Cats” on Netflix Pretty interesting documentary miniseries about a real life group of nerds that helped catch a killer, which started by tracking him posting videos of cats that he killed, but eventually he moves onto people

Ancelotti: Win stuff or I’ll give Terry your wife’s phone number

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1552880

I don’t think it’s that secret tbh

Well that depends, if the aftermath of this is Iraq kicking out US troops... then Iran and Russia are the big winners here. Its a joke though that the west stands with the side that backed Al Qaeda and ISIS though

Maybe 4 years ago. This guy is a hateful idiot and proud of it. And now he’s got a shitload of domestic pressure mounting on him

The UN will never do anything to the US. If the US does something horrible here, they’ll be completely unpunished. Laughable and naive to think otherwise

Also @Fairy In Boots if you could grab yourself a free tasty kabob just cos of your ethnicity, why not? fair play to your mate

I’m glad I read that last paragraph. I love ya mate and you know it but... ooooof that was not a pleasant read & didn’t come off across too great.

I just voted Solksjaer as PL manager of the month in the hopes he wins it and it puts off him getting sacked for a while. I suggest everyone join in

Yeah I’ve got family out there and tbh nobody really cares about Israel other than when they keep building settlements and then they bitch about how it’s bullshit they’re allowed to violate international law yet face no sanctions. People out there hate Saudis more, as Saudis pose a more imminent threat to Iran with their support of salafi/wahabbi extremists on their borders.

Nah not really. I can identify with Persians because I’m half-Persian but not because I’m Muslim. And maybe that means I can relate with other cultures in the region better than most. But I think as someone born in England and who grew up there, I mostly identify as English, just with a Persian mum. Fuck religion and religious people. They’re a big reason the Middle East is so utterly fucked.

I’m not Muslim

Quite frankly it’s insane to say you can’t criticise Israel’s governments policies or you hate Jews. There’s Jews in Israel who criticise their government. But that’s not what has even been claimed here. It’s been claimed that not wanting the West to continue to escalate tensions, so there’s no Iraq-style invasion of a country with a much larger standing army than Iraq ever had (and that’s expected the US to attack since 1979), has bigger cities that are more populated (remember the Iraqi insurgency and how the West struggled to cope with it... and still does). It’d destroy Iran, kill thousands of US soldiers (and soldiers of any country dumb enough to join them). Not to mention the fact that the last time the US did something like this it sparked a massive refugee crisis. Given that so many of the people that would claim not wanting war with Iran is anti-Jew are the same people who are anti-Muslim... you’d think they’d want to avoid having more Muslims fleeing the Middle East to come west so they don’t have to worry about being blown up.

From a UK perspective, thankfully we've got the government actually coming out and saying a war with Iran is in nobodies interests.

To once again underscore how big of a miscalculation this was... not too long ago you had mass protests of Iranians taking to the streets and denouncing their government. Today we've got them taking to the streets and denouncing America: I'm sure Pompeo, the fucking warhawk, knew he was spouting off bullshit though. Same as Donald Rumsfeld's "I have no doubt we'll be greeted as liberators."

Soleimani's not some new figure - he's been doing this for decades. The US, UK, and Israel have all had the opportunity to kill him at various times - they've all had restraint. Why? Really think long and hard about why even Israel, who've lost far more Israelis to Hezbollah attacks, would opt for restraint rather than go after this guy. Sun-Tsu once said, "if you're going to surround your enemy, leave them an escape route" - because when you've got someone feeling cornered, they'll react dangerously. I'd argue if Iran aren't cornered now, they're very fucking close to being cornered. The US-Iran tensions being ratcheted up like this started a few years back with a move from the US that did absolutely nothing for stability in the Middle East and has been consistently stoked by both sides. Both sides keep escalating, but this is an unprecedented move. And it's an option that other world leaders have had the opportunity to act on... but refrained because the risk of blowback from that move is too great. There's a reason why every world power involved in the Middle East is urging calm from Iran right now, while the orange guy is just saying "DON'T RETALIATE OR WE DO AGAIN" - Iran can't do anything meaningful to hurt the US, but Iran can do a lot to throw the region into even more chaos. Not wanting to go to war with Iran = hating Jews? In any case, this is bad for any Persian in the world who'd have hoped to see Iran open up to the rest of the world. Because what this ultimately does is tell Iran: get nukes ASAP. Iran only has to look at North Korea to see, a nuclear nation will not be bullied easily. The reformers in Iran are so badly politically damaged now, some are probably going to be barred from running for office by the Guardians Council. They're seen as the politicians that hurt Iran by sitting to the table to negotiate with the West, while the other side was saying "you can't trust the west, they'll break the deal." Hardliners are vindicated and political support for a nuclear Iran will be at an all time high. And a nuclear Iran means the Islamic Republic of Iran is here to stay for eternity.

That's managers telling the media to fuck off because they don't want to criticise their players publicly (unless they're Mourinho, in which case they have a bus they'll be pushed in front of when it's not parked).

Both sides have been escalating since Trump stupidly decided to pull out of the nuke deal and reimpose sanctions as a way to get Iran to come back to the negotiating table. To which Iran responded, "fuck off, we're not negotiating with people that don't honour their deals, AGAIN." The issue here is, Iran's government is going to feel like it has to respond. Suleimani was someone people were saying the Guardians Council might pick to be Khameini's successor - this guy wasn't just an important military general to Iran, he was politically popular amongst the Iranian hardliners (who've grown in power after the US backing out of the nuclear deal). They don't want to look weak in the region, they want to remain a power player in the Middle East, and they don't want to look weak to the Iranian public - who've already broken out in massive protests against the government several times in the last few years. But I agree with this statement regarding the UK & getting involved in this shit: We're going to have other issues to sort out and BoJo will want to make the most of that big majority he's just won - I think that's why that stuff with Northern Rail is happening, he'll want to capitalise on winning in areas Tories haven't won so he can count on them again in the future.