This is geopolitics 101. Iran has openly stated that any new US Israeli attack or invasion would trigger a more devastating response that does not follow previous rules fuller control or closure of the Strait of Hormuz, strikes on energy facilities, US bases, undersea cables, data centres and AI infrastructure across the Gulf, “zero red lines.” Nick’s point on the energy side is straightforward the current shock has been muted because the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and coordinated IEA releases have been drawn down to buffer prices for the past eight months. Those buffers are now largely exhausted, Russia’s refining capacity is damaged, and there is little remaining cushion. Pre war, Hormuz handled roughly 20% of global oil 20–21 mb/d. A renewed escalation or naval push that further closes the strait would therefore hit supply chains harder especially Asian buyers of crude, LNG and petrochemical feedstocks driving sharper price spikes and inflationary pressure with fewer offsets available. The depleted interceptor stocks, damaged bases, low public support and regional doubts about US protection simply raise the cost of trying to force the strait open.

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Ex-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino just told Americans to stock up 'today'. Same week UK PM Andy Burnham launched a “Be Ready” campaign telling Brits to keep three days of tinned food, bottled water, radios and cash at home. while the Pentagon runs its 90 day Fortress selfsufficiency plan. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are quietly prepping the public for disruptions they won’t name. When the insiders start talking like preppers, it’s not a drill. Get your stuff while it’s still on the shelves.

So the Honduran HR lad gropes a teenage boy’s bollocks in a gym changing room, gets two and a half years fully suspended and a €5k “sorry fund.” Meanwhile native truck driver Graham Carey opens his mouth about “rape-ugees,” and the same system puts him away for two years. One’s a fleeting hand, the other’s a hurty word. One loses his job and maybe his status the other loses his liberty for noticing the pattern out loud.

Helen McEntee and the Irish government are arming the Defence Forces with 550+ French Scorpion armoured vehicles (Griffon, Serval, Jaguar etc.) enough to mechanise an entire 4,000 strong brigade while our total force is only 8,000. That’s roughly one armoured vehicle for every 7–12 troops. Are they planning for catastrophic losses? This isn’t for home defence or traditional UN peacekeeping. It’s preparation for high-intensity “peace enforcement” in Lebanon under a new EU mission McEntee is pushing Irish troops into after removing the Triple Lock to drop the UN mandate. The EU’s own Lebanon policy states it supports the Lebanese government establishing a “state monopoly on arms” and “strongly condemns Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel… and calls for the full disarmament of Hezbollah.” consilium.europa.eu/en/polic… Irish soldiers have already died in Lebanon (48 since 1978). Buying French armour to help enforce Hezbollah’s disarmament effectively doing Israel’s and the EU’s dirty work while France profits and Irelands neutrality is over.

Still blaming “corporate greed” for the smaller, more expensive jar of coffee? Most spent 2020–21 cheering the lockdowns while governments and central banks created trillions out of nothing to pay for the stay home orders, furlough schemes and “stimulus.” Then they spent the next few years nodding along as the same governments poured endless borrowed money into Ukraine war funding. Now the currency is weaker, the jar is 10g lighter and the price is higher, and the response is “greedy companies.” Those lockdowns and that war funding were not free. They were financed by expanding the money supply faster than the real economy could absorb it. That is debasement. Your wages and savings did not magically keep pace they were diluted. You took a real pay cut whether the number on your payslip went up or not. The coffee jar simply made the theft visible. If you supported both the lockdowns and the open ended war spending, you helped write the cheque. Pretending the only villains are the companies adjusting to the mess you applauded is pure cope. The money got smaller. Everything else followed.

Meanwhile in India... Rival villages club each other bloody with sticks and torches so their side can snatch the idol of a local Shiva form. One dead, over a hundred injured. Locals call it re-enacting a mythological battle, Scripture calls it idolatry. Grown men setting fires and thrashing each other for village bragging rights over a statue is exactly the pagan blood rite the early Church suppressed. New agers romanticise it as “sacred ancestral energy” and “decolonised spirituality” while ignoring the body count and the superstition that the winning village gets better luck. The same people who denounce medieval Christian violence suddenly respect exotic stick fights for a goddess statue. Blood and broken bones are fine when brown and pre-Christian. Christ rendered this tribalism obsolete.

If the Pentagon is quietly prepping every major US base to run 90 days with zero outside power, fuel, water or supplies, the rest of us should take the hint. Basic 90-day food & preps for a family of 4.. Food staples > 50–75 lbs rice > 25–40 lbs dried beans/lentils > 20–30 lbs pasta or oats > 20+ lbs canned meats (tuna, chicken, spam) > 30+ cans mixed vegetables & fruit > 5–10 lbs powdered milk or shelf-stable milk > Cooking oil, salt, sugar, spices, peanut butter Water > Aim for 1 gallon per person per day (360 gallons total) store what you can + get a good filter (Sawyer/LifeStraw) and rain collection Other basics > Manual can opener > First aid kit + 90 days of any meds > Flashlights, batteries or solar/crank lights > Toilet paper, soap, hygiene items > Blankets, warm layers, basic tools > Battery/solar power banks + AM/FM radio Start small and build. Better to have it and not need it.

They're prepping every major US base to go 90 days with zero outside power, fuel, water or supplies. Portable reactors, microgrids, stockpiles. Official line is "resilience for a big war." Funny how the timing lines up with everything else heating up. What do they know that we don't?

In a crisis, Irish troops committed to the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (the evolved Battlegroup) could be ordered into an active or near active war zone. The RDC is explicitly structured for rapid intervention including stabilisation, peace enforcement, and initial entry operations and Irish personnel have already trained for such scenarios in multinational exercises simulating deployment into unstable regions. Removing the UN authorisation requirement from the Triple Lock lowers the legal and political threshold for Ireland to join such an EU led deployment. While Government and Dáil approval would still be needed, the change removes the veto that has historically constrained participation in non UN missions. This possibility sits against repeated statements from Irish ministers and EU counterparts framing Russia as an escalating threat. Minister Helen McEntee has described Russia moving from hybrid threats to “kinetic” actions against European states citing airspace and land incursions in Romania, Latvia, Estonia, and Germany, highlighted attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, and expressed interest in an Irish Naval role in EU operations targeting Russia’s shadow fleet. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has spoken of Russia “trying to kill as many civilians as possible” to force a Ukrainian capitulation. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has described Russia’s actions as increasingly physical and said Europe must respond. In this climate, an EU decision to activate the RDC in response to a perceived Russian linked crisis whether in the Balkans Mediterranean, or further afield could place Irish Defence Forces personnel under EU command in a contested environment rather than a traditional UN Blue Helmet peacekeeping role.

The government’s plan is clear scrap the Triple Lock so they can send Irish troops into the EU’s Lebanon mission that exists to help the Lebanese army enforce the US Israel Lebanon deal and disarm Hezbollah. That’s not peacekeeping. That’s backing a process that risks pulling Ireland into the fight to strip Hezbollah of its weapons, under pressure from Israel and the US, with no UN mandate and against the traditional understanding of Irish neutrality. Clonan is right to call it out. Removing the Triple Lock is the first step to putting Irish soldiers into exactly that kind of mission.