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The US Torpedoed an Unarmed Ship. Who Are the Good Guys Again?

The destruction of the Iranian IRIS Dena was a warning about what American power has become

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.

The US Navy has struck and sunk Iran’s unarmed IRIS Dena frigate

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Canada built its defence on interoperability with a US that followed rules-based order—but that might be gone now

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.

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Do we know who the good guys are here?

On the last day of February, without so much as a heads up to their traditional allies, or to the United Nations, the US and Israel launched devastating attacks on Iran’s leadership and military architecture. In the process, they destroyed a girl’s school with a Tomahawk missile and killed over 100 of its students. Their tiny bodies would be buried row by row in tiny graves.

The war isn’t legal by US domestic standards. Congress has the sole authority to declare war according to the US Constitution. It isn’t legal by international standards either. The UN Security Council must authorize a necessary and proportional response to an imminent threat. This was an unprovoked war of aggression. A dream come true for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a genocidal accused war criminal who has “longed” for this for forty years due to Iran’s........

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