You will rightly discard what some warmongering shitstains manufacture about their enemies
You are someone who thought that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war because some groups of israeli propagandists said so and you don't like Hamas. For all I know you still think that. Sit down.
This isn't scepticism of any sort whatsoever;
It is skepticism with an appropriate consideration for what is being asked of the audience. Al-Jazeera is funded in part by the government of Qatar, and Qatar has ample reason to promote the idea that Iran is targeting civilians rather than targeting US military personnel who happen to be near civilians: to soften, for their domestic audience, attitudes about Qatar's collaboration with the United States. They also may simply not have all the relevant information.
Meanwhile, I've been drawing my conclusions about the Minab school bombing largely from US media; US media
admits the premises I use to conclude that the bombing was deliberate and impermissible; Qatari media
claims that Iran has targeted civilians (according to you; I assume that is true, though you've hardly been very specific about to what you are referring). There is a crucial difference between admitting something and claiming something.
You should be skeptical of anything that demonizes targets of US aggression because you are in a position to support US aggression or oppose it and to do either of those more or less vigorously; you are part of the big bloc of countries with largely the same ruling class as the United States. And yet you seem to wear it as a badge of pride that you reflexively dismiss claims made by the
Iranian government; you are not Iranian! That is not brave!
Once again, it is not
principled to come to a conclusion about some event because you came to the same conclusion about a different event done by different people about which you have different information of different quality. At this point, you presumably understand what the "40 beheaded babies/babies in ovens" fabrication was meant to do. Presumably you see how it would be ridiculous to loudly ridicule anyone who rejects those claims as "believing Hamas's poor excuses for targeting babies".
it's kneejerk apologia for the most extreme right-wing state violence so long as its perpetrators make the right geopolitical noises vis-a-vis America.
On what basis do you think I should feel compelled to amplify the narratives justifying US aggression against other countries? I understand that you do so freely and haphazardly; but why should
I lend my voice to condemn targets of US hostility? What purpose would it serve to go out on a limb in service of my country's belligerence? Why, indeed, should I feel compelled to criticize how other countries choose to defend themselves against my country's aggression and manipulation? The seriousness of an accusation is not evidence that it is true, nor is describing the content of the accusation as 'right-wing state violence'; it is a good thing to challenge those who hate the Empire's enemies on the Empire's schedule with contrary information; it is a good thing to sabotage that method of social control.
for your basis is often just random Twitter squawkers
I think you may need a refresher on the difference between factual claims and the sharing of opinions or analysis. Or the difference between sharing an assertion and claiming certainty. Or possibly the definition of 'random'; someone like Adam Johnson or Ryan Grim or Craig Murray or Quds News Network or David Sirota or Norman Finkelstein or Briahna Joy Gray or Katie Halper or Glenn Greenwald are not "random", and oftentimes the tweets I share are not original reporting but comments about something reported by someone else. Zei_Squirrel, for example, analyses and compiles news reports and other documents and posts profanity-laden opinions based on that analysis. I've also posted tweets from people in Gaza, usually about things that are not particularly controversial (such as "hey, we're being bombed right now!"); that
is original reporting, but the factual claims are usually not particularly contentious and in the cases that they are, it is still a perspective that ought to be heard. "What are the people subject to US/UK/israeli etc. aggression saying?" is always going to be relevant to US and UK political discourse. It is certainly not principled to ignore them.
Exactly none of the European countries is participating.
The UK is allowing US aircraft to launch from its airfields (in what are laughably called "defensive strikes" by Sir Kid Starver) and its air force is participating in intercepting Iranian drones and missiles. And whatever the other European leaders are saying, they are at the very least tolerating the US and israeli war of aggression against Iran; more than that, their participation is being called for and justification for doing so is certainly at issue whether or not it has yet happened.
