Yes, in 10 years. Because even though gas prices go up hour by hour they take years to ever so slowly drift down.
Edit: *triple tap.
>Independent analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the school and the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex had been struck near-simultaneously by air-delivered munitions.[39]
The objectionable part of double/triple tap strike is that you're killing rescuers or aid workers. Otherwise from a morality perspective there's no meaningful difference between 1 bomb and 2/3 bombs, especially if the actual incident was by all accounts caused by a targeting error.
Despite the war aims being nebulous, illegal, and ever changing, none of them would be advanced by bombing a girls school.
If the goal is to force the enemy into giving up? Many are willing to give their life to a cause, but way less are willing to give the lifes of their children.
This was not just some school, but a school where the children of the iranian leadership are going to.
And coincidently Trump himself said he would target the families of terrorists, if voted into power.
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...
no shit... this is not proof of a mistake.
It certainly seems that there was an intentional decision to disband departments in the military last year that were intended to confirm targets are appropriate before a strike (although I can't find a reference now). There's also a lot of reporting that they used AI to do the targetting selection; if so that was an intentional decision to allow for poor selection; especially since it doesn't appear there was validation of targets. There's a lot of intentional decisions to make comments declaring 'no stupid rules of engagement' and such.
I think it's most likely that the intentional decisions led to the situation where the targetting of a school would not be noticed until after the school was hit and international outcry was made, but that doesn't mean it was not a targetting mistake. You can certainly hold people accountable for the decisions that lead to the targetting of a school, at least in the court of public opinion since there's an accountability vacuum in washington DC lately.
There are many examples of targetting mistakes that are excusable. I don't think this is one of them; but that it is inexcusable and was the result of intentional decisions doesn't make it necessarily an intentional act and not a mistake.
The "proof" of the mistake is Hanlon's razor and the fact that the school was adjacent a military facility and the building itself used to be for military purposes.
>Footage from Russian state broadcaster RT has captured the moment a missile lands just a few feet from where its reporter was broadcasting in southern Lebanon.
What's this supposed to be proof of? That because a bombing happened near a journalist, that he must have been intentionally targeted? Does the US even have capabilities to track journalists in Iran, of all places? Given that journalists are specifically going into war zones, what even is the expected amount of journalists to get bombed, from pure chance alone?
At this point, Hanlon's razor should be considered a fallacy.
In fact, quite a lot of what looked like incompetence was malice. Intentional and proud malice. It does not mean there is no incompetence, but Hanlon's razor is no longer valid.
Second, army working group meant to ensure these mistakes wont happen was dismantled by Hegseth. All the while he framed such efforts as woke nonsense and praised lethality only. He was sending clear message about what matters to troops
The system was changed to allow and facilite errors like that.
I think that covers a lot of western media in all the wars the US has waged in my lifetime:
it's always "a regrettable (but worthwhile) mistake" until it's a "horrific but unique war crime"... it's never "who the fuck said these vicious idiots could kill whoever they want and never face just and material consequences for their crimes".
This shit certainly seems intentional. Maybe the folks who are attributing things to "incompetence" are just projecting their own incompetencies in interpreting the world, but at this point I suspect that they to are complicit in this malice.
They both suck and both collectively fuck off for the betterment of humanity.
and now we find ourselves in nearly the same situation "they will welcome us as liberators", "it will just take two weeks", "the United States was in imminent danger of attack by weapons of mass destruction", "these are really bad totalitarian people and we are morally required to intervene". word for word.
and still, after doing this twice to countries directly to the east and west, and having poured money and blood into the sand to end up in a worse position than before, we're taking another run at it, with even less justification.
before bringing up the fate of the Iranian people, maybe we should look at the Iraquis - they certainly didn't benefit, or the Afghanis, or the Venezuelans to take a more recent example. It takes a special kind of idiot to ignore all that recent history and support this assault.
Yes, was is bad, trump is a massive ego and idiot. But nothing we've done has come even close to what the regime has been doing to their own people since 1979.
Besides, Israel wont allow democratic or other functional regime change. Their goal is failed state with forever civil war in it. Something they can regularly bomb whenever it will seem functional. This can still happen, so everyone around should be ready for refugees waves.
Trumps idea of regime change is replacing head for someone who pays him personally - while keeping regime in place. This wont happen now.
Iranian monarchists want own dictatorship, but wont be getting it either.
Iranians who protested were just fucked and that is all about it.
In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
Also I am confused which contry you mean, mutual bombing has going on there since a while.
Iran bombed Israel in January as a distraction tactic during the protests.
The compound of the school physically separated from the military buildings since 10 years. Clearly visible on sat pictures.
Trump's reaction?
It could have been anyones Tomahawks missiles.
Is that where your information comes from, that there was a missile launcher next to it?
Oh and are you aware that Trump once said he will intentionally kill the families of terrorists, if voted into power?
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...
And because I dislike a regime that wants to kill me, I must automatically worship Trump?
That's just moving the goalposts because the original comment said
>What part of "doing the right thing" is bombing an all girls school?
which is calling out that particular event specifically, other than the war itself. Otherwise you can just head over to the wikipedia page and point out the casualty figures.
You do not get to decide that. If we allow everyone to invade other countries and murder leaders because they deem those people worse than themselves, the world will be engaged in endless war. Or do you think perhaps deciding who to invade and kill is a special privilege reserved only for your country, which should be emperor of the world?
The preceding comment was about holding someone responsible. It appears you might have misunderstood that mine points out that this is exactly how the school was hit.
I also don't even know what you're getting at. There was nothing "relativistic" or "morally grey" about my argument. My point is that in order for any kind of peace to exist, each country must be able to accept that there will be other people in the world who are morally repugnant to them. Because there will always be leaders who consider each other repugnant, so if you endorse starting wars over that, you're committing to a world where everyone is starting wars all the time as the international norm.
While this certainly accords with the promulgations of the morally bankrupt UN, it is not a recipe for existing in our world. This is why it is important to have a powerful military.
This is a lie. A complete fabrication. Trump says this, completely baselessly, without a shred of evidence, as known liars are wont to do. They allowed inspectors in and not one of them ever suggested they were violating the terms of the deal.
> How many have to die for us to decide to act.
This is a murky question, but if anybody was going to intervene in a country's domestic affairs, it would need to be by broad international consensus to have any legitimacy. It absolutely cannot be a unilateral invasion where one country decides who is worthy of invading and who is not. Moreover, that is not why they were invaded. Whatever qualms you have with the Iranian regime, this war is not a war to instate democracy in Iran. We already saw with Venezuela literally just two months ago that Trump invaded and deposed the leader, only to keep the current regime in place with an agreement to serve as his country's economic vassal. Stop projecting your own justifications for why you would invade Iran if you were President of the United States, to justify the actions of the current one who is not invading for those reasons. The only thing you are doing by justifying his invasion for unrelated reasons is giving your support to the death of more innocent Iranians that you ostensibly want to help.
Do you believe that other countries should be allowed to defend themselves from the import of Khameini's Islamic Revolution?
Or did you not know that this was his openly stated purpose?
How many people have to die before you start blaming the international community for inaction or worse, you start to feel that the international community is complicit because they prevent one country from acting while another funds terror attacks with impunity?
Actually, not only did you ignore my reply, you're ignoring the post you're replying to as well. THIS WAR IS NOT EVEN A REGIME CHANGE WAR. STOP PROJECTING YOUR OWN MOTIVATIONS ONTO THE US GOVERNMENT.
FFS they don't need reasons. Their stated goal and actions in support of it is the destruction of the apostatic free world. Your oppressed/oppressor narrative is vapid. Though terrorism is a tool they use, their goal is a caliphate with Sharia law.
I already know your next tired argument will be BUT THE RELIGION OF PEACE, so I will go ahead and pre-empt it. It is not genuinely religion that motivates people to die in acts of terrorism. If it were, that would still not be a reason to attack America, which is on the other side of the planet, as opposed to any of their closer neighbors who are just as full of heathens. Take, for example, Japan. It is a notable country on the world stage, once the #2 economy in the world. It has never, not even a single time, been attacked by an Islamic terrorist. Why do you think that is? Is it because Japan is not free? Is it because Japan lives in accordance with Islamic principles? Or is it because, maybe, just maybe, Japan hasn't given a single person from the Middle East any reason to want to sacrifice themselves to kill Japanese people?
Similarly, note that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with 270 million people, 87% of which are Muslims. Not one of them has ever staged a terrorist attack against the US. Doesn't that seem strange to you? If Muslims are inherently evil people born for the religious purpose of attacking the US, surely Indonesians should be doing it too? Or maybe, just maybe, it's not actually religion that motivates such extreme acts of self-sacrifice, and the real reasons Indonesians don't attack the US is because the US has not given Indonesians reasons to hate it?
> their goal is a caliphate with Sharia law.
My understanding is that the regime in Iran has been terrorizing around the world for decades. It's not just disagreeable. People are seeking justice.
It's one thing to dislike another politician. No one needs justice for repugnancy. But if they are committing acts of terror, that's a totally different thing.
The list of Iranian terror attacks in America amounts to a whole lot of fuck all. Whatever Iran might be doing elsewhere shouldn't be America's problem.
But there you suggested that the US should stop because they make Iran want to bomb and that's why there's war. And we can say the same about Iran.
So, your solution is hopeless as we already know from centuries of conflict history. Iran wants to kill us for historical events. We want to kill them for those too. Very insightful.
But we're bigger and the war is just on the TV in America. You have a much better shot of convincing them that we'll stop bombing them if they just take it for a while and then don't seek revenge.
I didn't know why you think America will be easier to convince of that.
No, Iran wants to kill you for current events. You're talking like American imperialism in the Middle East is past-tense. It is on-going, constantly. It is happening right now. This, itself, is an imperialist war. Trump is not going to war for whatever fucking reason you think he is, like stopping terrorism or changing the Iranian regime to help the Iranian people.
> You have a much better shot of convincing them that we'll stop bombing them if they just take it for a while and then don't seek revenge.
They LITERALLY DID THAT. The first invasion striking their nuclear facilities was itself an act of war that would have justified closing the Strait and all other measures they could take to fight back. Yet they accepted such a blatant crime against them and tried to de-escalate, were in the middle of negotiating a humiliatingly one-sided deal (after Trump tore up the one they had made with Obama, for no reason), and then the US attacked them in the middle of negotiations for the second time in a row. This time killing their leader, 150 children, and countless other crimes. Nobody could ever lay down and accept that. You have just created a country full of people that will justifiably hate you for another 80 years, minimum. They have been taught that the only thing trying to appease the US does is embolden the US to take even more from them.
I don't know how to communicate this to you, but your country IS THE AGGRESSOR. The US is worse than Iran. Fullstop. The Iranian regime is evil, and despite that, the American regime manages to be multiple times worse. Peace in the Middle East was possible. It is the US who is constantly, constantly, constantly stirring up conflicts there, and you have the gall to blame Iran for it.
Yeah, that already happened. Now what? How do we stop more kids from getting kidnapped, raped, murdered, or bombed?
Your proposed solution is essentially a leader in every country that has suffered from Iran's terror who can convince his/her people that their kidnapped children are worth it.
Obviously that isn't feasible. But worse, how is that different than saying it's okay for Iran to kidnap children?
Not launching missiles at schools would be a great start to stopping kids from being bombed!
yes. we got the bomb before they did, because our policies are better than theirs.
Why do people think that since Iran is evil all actions against Iran are justified?
Iran will go the same way, one way or another.
That was pretty validating for the war effort.
"supposed to be allowed to have."
Ridiculous premise. They armed themselves thusly because American politicians have been singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran!" for generations.
Most of Europe is within striking distance of their current capabilities that they were not supposed to have.
Treaties gave terms to limit the range of their missiles. Treaties were agreed to to prevent them from enriching uranium.
They violated both. Had they been allowed to continue on their path, we can all expect that we would be looking at a nuclear terror attack in the near future.
People are going to react for their left/right politics but the Iranian regime is a danger to the entire planet. There’s a reason that Iranian expats world wide have been celebrating in the streets.
Their biggest fear is that we are going to leave before the regime is fully removed.
Sponsoring and funding global terror networks is not a “defensive posture”. Giving speeches about nuking your enemy while secretly developing those capabilities isn’t either.
Gee, I wonder why they want nukes. Pity they didn't get them in time, this whole war might have been averted.
At least Iran's been pretty transparent about their intentions for a while now.
Israel maintains the "strategic ambiguity" about its nuclear "energy" development which is the stupidest fucking thing ever. Of course they've got nuclear weapons.
Absolutely. Russia does it all the time, IDF does it all the time, why would the Pentagon be any different?
It's absolutely fucking insane to downplay it like these things just happen and are unavoidable. What is wrong with you? Maybe you don't understand these are not just numbers on a screen? How many children do you know in your life? Is it even close to 150? Can you imagine every single child you know being killed and shrugging that off, insulting people who bring it up as being "sensationalist" and "polluting the conversation"?
Many people, myself included, watch very loud righteous indignation about this awful event…while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
- The Iranian women’s soccer team who are returning home from asylum to likely torture and execution due to regime threats against their families.
- The thousands of Iranian protesters who were shot by the regime.
- The 19 year old wrestling champion who was executed for participating in a protest.
Nobody is saying the school wasn’t terrible, but it’s not some situation where if we just leave the regime in power it’s going to be all sunshine and roses over there.
Show equal parts outrage and people will take you more seriously. Show equal parts outrage and you will find far more outrage from leaving the regime in power.
> while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
Also, really? You think anybody who opposes the US bombing a school is cheering on protestors being shot and all other crimes of the Iranian regime? Well, I guess I'll be the first: Iranian regime bad. Killing protestors bad. Executing dissenters bad. There you go. Your argument is defeated. You can no longer make that claim. But I reckon most people aren't couching their statements by bringing up the whudabbouts because first it's not the direct topic of the conversation, and second it's a fucking given. But it being a given that X is bad does not justify doing more bad things.
That genie isn’t going back in the bottle though so now we have to deal with the very real threat to the world that we certainly had a hand in creating.
Glad to hear your opposition to all of the evil as well. The desire for vocal, social righteous indignation with most of this dialog does not follow your fervor though. People remain silent until it supports their local politics, for the most part.
You should see how many innocent people US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killed. And that's only the ones we know of before the era of smartphones and social media where people could more easily document war crimes. Did anyone go to jail for it? No. Will anyone go to jail for killing innocent people in Iran? Also no.
Trump is gonna fuck some more shit up in the area, declare "victory" when he's bored or the political pressure gets too high while leaving the middle east in a bigger mess than it was before.
These dots don't seem hard to connect.
This is a lie. Not only is it not the stated purpose of the war, even Netanyahu himself went out of the way to say that Iran had no remaining capability to accomplish this and that was not why they were invaded.
> They currently have demonstrated missiles that can reach Europe.
The US demonstrated its missiles can reach schools in Iran. Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
> Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts. And between the scales of different actions.
One of which is explicitly not Iran's nuclear capacity, as confirmed by one of the heads of state invading.
> Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts.
Normal people can also understand that some things are too serious to pass off as "oopsie". We have terms like "manslaughter" or "aggravated murder" for when your reckless negligence leads to loss of human life. You are still responsible for the murders you cause when you take actions with intent that you know will lead to people dying without intending any specific one of those deaths.
Regarding the USA-Iran war, the president of the USA has threatened to destroy essential infrastructure (e.g. electricity) if Iran doesn't surrender in 48 hours. Which, from my understanding, is a war crime. I think Trump is perfectly ok with bombing schools and hospitals.
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[0]: https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/2035545687006298392?s=20
There has been little planning and there are no sane military objectives beyond blow stuff up. How can there be when the objectives of the overall war change depend on what side of the bed Bone Spurs got out.
But when you use autonomous targeting systems (with "human oversight" in theory) and tell your soldiers:
"no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.” (Hegseth)
And the top commander says that he would intentionally kill the families of terrorists if voted into power:
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...
Then at some point I do not believe the term "mistake" is appropriate here.
You should really unpack these statements, especially if you're trying to have a "grown up conversation". You're saying that no price is too high for achieving military objectives, even those that are very unclear and unilaterally defined without justification by a easily distracted narcissist with obvious goals of distracting from his domestic problems.
It's never just one mistake. It's usually a chain of mistakes and bad decisions that make the final mistake possible.
I'd estimate that there were likely 77,168,458 mistakes/bad decisions made by individuals before this mistake could happen.
In reality, in same vein quite a few US laws are set. If you are not US passport holder you are subhuman. Less rights, less care, more disposable, just a garbage to step on. We saw it enough in past 80 years to see a clear pattern everywhere US went and (mostly) failed.
For those slow in back rows - this is how you get almost endless stream of new fanatical recruits to merry groups like isis or al-queda. Dumb, supremely dumb. Yeah, 'a mistake, it can happen'. Fuck that american self-entitled rotten racist mentality. Then you wonder why whole world hates you now and what you stand for and represent. What a success story for america in past year.
None of that happened because the US was unprepared for this war. It was Bibi's idea and Trump is weak and incompetent so he just went along with it, ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent.
Trump is what a weak man imagines a strong man to be like. Just look at his official portrait [1], trying to look tough and dangerous. Compare that to Dwight D. Eisenhower's portrait [2], a man who commanded entire armies in the largest war in human history.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#/media/File:Offic...
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[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#/media/Fi...
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Like, yes, evil military planners did sat down and said "rules of engagement are woke, the working groups handling civilian safety are waste of money, be maximum lethal".
Also, they had no stable military objectives except "make my insecure masculinity feel manly".
I have heard more than one Trump-defender say “well they would have grown up to attack us.”
"https://www.euractiv.com/news/denmark-considered-destroying-..."
Unpleasant if this escalates.
Also, the gasoline prices are only "momentary" up, if the whole area does not burst into flames. Then it doesn't matter if the trait is closed, as no more oil is being produced.
The only bright side is, this is a great push for renewables.
As adwn says, it's a globally priced commodity, and the US is not in a position to disentangle itself from that market because in spite of being one of the world's largest producers, US refineries are not in a position to process that product, so it needs to go abroad. The US needs to import significant amounts of sour crude to be refined for their own use.
The US is just as screwed as the rest of us.
Also, the primary worry for Europe isn't oil, it's natural gas.
Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
He was somewhat prescient during his 45th presidency, given what happened in Ukraine in 2022 and how it forced US to spend huge amounts of money and military hardware which the EU simply didn't have. Maybe with a stronger standing EU army, that invasion would not have happened in the first place.
[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01495933.2021.19...
Yes. By design. But if the US decouples, the rest of the countries can and will make their own alliance, with blackjack and hookers. Greenland thing is peak wierdness and the only explanation of it would be pride, stupidity or active undermining of NATO.
> Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
Yes. But, you have a very shallow reading of this and you're taking things at face value. He latched on the spending as a pretext, and as a way to increase US income for the defense industry. He doesn't give a rat's ass about the security of NATO countries. US has entered a very transactional, bully, phase and this is a bad way to maintain international standing.
"There was also a second related initiative, the European Defense Fund, that will support continental defense research and development. The projects were widely seen as attempts to address a long-standing American concern – that Europe lacks usable military equipment, and is overly reliant on Washington for military deployments.
But instead of reacting with satisfaction that the continent was finally addressing a long-standing weakness, the United States expressed frustration, noting that the projects could decrease trans-Atlantic cooperation and could also cut out American defense companies from bidding on future European defense projects."- Europe's monetary aid for Ukraine far outweighs that of the US.
- The US military aid for Ukraine mostly consisted of old and obsolete hardware.
- Since about a year or so, all weapons and munitions delivered by the US are paid for by Europe.
Huh, I wonder what happened a year or so ago? What could have led to the US cutting off so much support? /s
The US chose to be the premiere military power and as a result reaped the benefits that come with having bases all over the world. This absurd claim by Trump that the relationship is one-sided is completely without merit. It was mutually beneficial, arguably better for the US. Just like being the world’s reserve currency. The complicated system of soft power reinforced by the threat of hard power that the US created over the last 80 years was no small feat and frankly we will never get that back now. Maybe it’s for the best! But this nonsense about NATO being a one-sided deal where Europe overwhelmingly benefits from US dollars/military presence is absolutely ridiculous and just another piece of evidence that Trump has no clue how foreign policy works.
Additionally, any argument about not wanting to spend all that money lacks legitimacy given how the administration is spending.
I'm confused how this interpretation could ever come about. No, I mean his point about "Trump trying to bolster NATO" is comic, as Trump is actively weakening NATO, no matter his stated goals wrt. improving funding and having member states "carry their load". _Especially_ his threats to Greenland and Canada, for no apparent reason. It's really mind-boggling. Perhaps my fault, since I expect mental consistency from post-truth populists and authoritarians.
We've still got some kind of karmic notion that inconsistency is bad for you in the long run. Maybe it is, but that run keeps getting longer and longer.
Not that my country fared any better with this kind of rhetoric in last couple of years. But we don't have the democratic tradition as rich as you had (or at least I felt you had). I feel like despair will be the feeling for me this decade.
That wouldn't be possible if he were any smarter. Nor is he a Boris Johnson type character, playing the clown while being quite well educated in private.
The right wing coalition will survive and thrive even without him. But it's hard to predict just how, because it will have to adapt.
All he wanted was EU to buy more US weapons (also to help with his wars). Guess what is happening now, we still do buy US weapons where there is no other choice, but apart from that, we build and buy our own things now. Try to get rid of US software depenencies - in general, get rid of any dependency we have towards you. If this was Trump's goal, great job I have to say.
Problem is that Trump wants to eat the cake and have it too. If we’re no longer being protected by the US then US companies should not expect preferential laws and access to the EU market.
Europe didn't slack off militarily during the Cold War. Germany, for example, poured massive amounts of money and resources into the Bundeswehr to be able to fend of the Soviets. The US relied as much on the European members of NATO as the Europeans did on the US.
After the Cold War, both the US and Europe scaled back their military spending and enjoyed the peace dividend. It was only after 2001 that the US increased its budget again – but to fight insurrectionist wars (which EU members aren't particularly interested in), not in a peer conflict. They're not prepared for a pro-longed war against a near-peer power.
So although I agree that Europe should be rearming heavily, and should have started in 2022 at the very latest, it's not like the US did really much better. They're really good at curb-stomping much weaker opponents, like Venezuela or Iran, but they haven't seriously prepared for a war against China.
That remains to be seen, though. Really winning that war requires either lots of boots on the ground and a long occupation (where the outcome might still be like in Afghanistan) or using nukes, which could escalate quite badly for us all. There is a reason no other POTUS has attacked Iran before.
Of course Trump can at every point in time just declare victory and leave the mess to all others for cleaning up. That is the most likely outcome, IMHO.
But the most important question is, what's next? If depriving tens of millions of people of energy doesn't work, what will he do next?
One hypothesis is he'll threaten Iran with a nuclear strike. In response, either China or Russia or both, will say that's a line that cannot be crossed.
And then, we will either all die, or be living in a world saved by authoritarian regimes from the irresponsibility of the US.
It will be interesting! But probably extremely unpleasant.
Given how much money the US has given Israel compared to how tiny their GDP is it is also clear the US financially owns Israel. If I were US president I would annex Israel so that they no longer determine US foreign policy. Of course Israel would agree to be annexed because otherwise they can be easily isolated like the way they isolate Gaza.
Did you not see the lead up to the 2024 election and all the whining about how Biden, specifically, caused gasoline prices to go up? This is a very important issue to Americans because we use gas cars to go everywhere and all our food is transported using vehicles that consume gas. GP is obviously being rhetorical here because MAGAs wouldn't stop railing on Biden for global COVID inflation (mostly out of his control) but they're now making excuses for Trump starting a war that's spiking gas prices.
Yes, that's it. The only reason for imperialism is "what's in it for me".
All the rest is bullshit.
Source: I am not American, therefore I know American Imperialism when I see it.
God, I used to be _really_ into Minesweeper.
One of the earliest games I made back in college was a 3D Minesweeper cube. I remember being really proud of one little detail – the detection and automatic resolution of ambiguous clues that would require guessing, which always annoyed the heck out of me in every other version of Minesweeper.
That likely means US and Israel. Unclear if countries like the UK that are facilitating the US through use of their bases would be considered legitimate targets (likely yes).
And as another commenter noted, mines get moved by currents, so the cable could get tangled and snap.
Remember, the strait is not Iranian property, but International waters. So no one would have to ask them for permission, but that is the way it is and most do not risk it (insurance won't cover).
That seems to depend on who you ask. Iran has expressed a differing opinion on the matter and appears to be capable of striking the area in practice.
Also something Chinese fishing ships do around the galapagos and other regions to fish illegally.
I find Sal Mercogliano's "What's Going on With Shipping?" to be a better source to understanding what's happening in the Strait. Here's a link to yesterday's episode "Strait of Hormuz 3-Week Recap | What is the Status of the Ships, Transits and Escort Mission?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q64cOs7GN_4
> Before the war, about 138 ships passed through the strait each day according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre, carrying one fifth of the global oil supply.
> The data provided by shipping analysts Kpler shows 99 vessels passing the narrow strait so far this month, an average of just 5-6 vessels a day.
I mean, it's bad, but it's factually not a minefield. The threat isn't coming from mines anyway.
That's not clear. Mines are generally concealed. It's the reason that mine-sweeping is slow and dangerous.
And there's no public information (AFAIK) that let's us rule out mines having been, or even currently being, laid.
There might be mines in the straight that are sophisticated enough to be armed, disarmed, or moved on command, or there might not. There might be artillery emplacements* hidden and not found, ready to pop up... or there might not. There are probably still plenty of drones and missiles all over the country that can be called down on Hormuz at will. Iran might choose to save them for something else... or they might not.
If a few oil tankers get through without Iran's permission, one might conclude everything Iran has in place has been found and that the straight is safe. Then again, it might not be. The Iranians might save a few choice surprises for the first aircraft carrier that gets too close. They might also choose to actually sink a large ship**, blocking the straight long-term. The Iranian regime has been planning specifically for a U.S. invasion since it's inception*** and they probably have some very well hidden and nasty surprises as well as plans to use them to maximum effect.
Merchant vessels can't get insurance to go through because of all this uncertainty. The U.S. Navy has completely refused to go in there because losing a multi-billion dollar military vessel along with hundreds or thousands of sailors for a war that's already unpopular would likely knock the U.S. out of it completely. This is why Trump is desperate for other nations to come in and clear the straight. He doesn't care if they lose ships, but he can't afford to lose even one American ship for a "Wag the Dog" war that's already exploded the budget.
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*The straight is narrow enough that artillery can actually cover it. Even the most sophisticated anti-missile defence systems aren't meant to deal with artillery shells fired from nearly point blank range.
**The straight has only a couple of channels deep enough for large vessels to transit. One or two well positioned wrecks could block the works.
*** They rebelled against a Shah installed by a CIA backed coup after all.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/20/risk-london...
And even then: "after you" ... "no, I insist, after you" ...
This is a sovereign nation that is being attacked by a waning superpower. It's war and they are retaliating in really the only way that they can force America to back off - which is make the war really expensive and even more unpopular domestically.
Do you understand the concept of asymmetrical warfare? Hiding hundreds of launchers, firing them, and losing them is already accounted for by Iran, while a decent chance of losing any asset going through is prohibitively expensive. The strait is closed.
I don’t quite agree with making fun of the situation that’s deadly serious to many innocent people. Yet I’m sure the intentions of the author were good.
Hoping for peace.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-...
> Washington CNN — The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
Obviously Republicans decried it with bad faith bullshit because reality and sanity don't matter to them.
With that money they chose to massacre their own people and fund terrorism across the region.
Now we're spending a multiple of that literally every day for this war. And screwing the global economy in the process. Is this a better deal?
Delivered in August 2016.
> ...they chose to massacre their own people...
In 2025-26 according to your link.
I dunno, that's a big chronological gap to bridge for implying a causal relationship to work.
We're looking at 5x that this time around (so far) and no deal in sight. Not sure this admin is doing the smart thing.
"I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it rather than sending palettes of cash on an jet to radical Muslims."
Point is you can mock Trump with your minesweeper game and jeer from the sidelines, but it's a better policy than sending bad guys money.
The corruption and incompetence are both unprecedented, but you keep doing your dance!
This is America, the country willing to do the unconscionable when they're not winning fast enough.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
It never ceases to amaze me that demonstrating such a weapon on civilian targets somehow made it past the entire chain of command. One of those things that I just can't wrap my head around no matter how many times I come back to it.
The sites in question were also specifically selected because they hadn't previously faced conventional attack, enabling a more accurate damage assessment.
Which, by the way, illustrates a related point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki had stiff competition. WWII was devastating, to cities and civilians all over the map. More people died in the conventional bombing of Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I think the atomic bombs represented some 2 weeks worth of casualties in a war that lasted 300.
Good to see minesweeper is still existing today.
As for "winning" - Trump will say everything, from A to the opposite Z. It is the flood-the-zone-with-shit strategy, as explained in the 1980s by Yuri:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk
So, rather than evaluate what Trump says, one has to evaluate what is happening.
What I see right now is the USA committing more and more to the invasion. Ground troops will come next; first as "limited range", lateron as Vietnam 2.0. Trump is kind of like Lyndon B. Johnson now, just that the country is Iran rather than Vietnam.
You completely misunderstood that. Take into account that you see the swords failing all around you whilst one nation effectively messed up the rest of the world through propaganda and maybe you'll begin to understand the true meaning of that sentence.
Information, used well or abused well, is more powerful than any other weapon of war.
Indeed, because people with the swords will decide on that information who to slain or who to defend. If you do it right, you don't need to fight the enemy soldiers, but they will fight for you.
How much did missiles and a trillion dollar military budget help against Russia in 2016?
In today’s world it’s “thousand internet trolls on a payroll mightier than missiles”.
Playing by the book of fear uncertainty and doubt is going to foster hate, distrust and suspicion/paranoia.
"Only true power is respected"—what’s this even supposed to mean? Right now, the American military is shooting with all its mighty glory on Iran, yet loosing the war, money, and yes, respect from the rest of the world. Well, except for Putin maybe, who is unilaterally benefiting from this disaster.
This little incel power fantasy of rule by force you guys are cooking up there is complete and utter bollocks.
I will now go listen to the words of a bloodthirsty fascist. Thank you for the advice.
Although the American troops are wildly disproportionately “white” because that is historically the pool of peasants the people with the pen draw on to sacrifice and murder for their wars, if you look at the forces and the US military in general, it’s the most diverse, multi-cultural, rainbow coalition in existence on this planet. You literally have people of every race, ethnicity, and nationality included in a rainbow of killing and they are proud of it; yet here we are being sarcastic about it being as simple as “whites” killing “browns”, not realizing that just demonstrates the pen’s lingering albeit still useful control over the mind.
Your point is well made though, the pen is indeed far more powerful when it can hide in plain sight the multi-cultural, rainbow coalition, diversity sword of the maniacal, narcissistic, psychopathic, child raping, Epstein class right in front of you.
The pen is indeed far mightier than the sword
Racism isn't necessarily perfectly confined to color, it's just a convenient shorthand so people can do what they want to do anyway.
But I agree, the pen controlling “racism” in ways that always coincide with ruling class objectives is very correct. It is something people have never understood over the centuries, even at the height of slavery, that it’s always been the parasitic and perfidious, thieving Epstein class of their day who manipulate things like “race” with the common objective being keeping themselves at the top to parasitize everyone else, by forcing and keeping the multitude fighting in many different ways.
I figure that if you are racist enough you're welcome to the Klan, no matter what your actual skin color.
I do sometimes wonder how Americans would react if I told them the palest person I know is Iraqi.
That is a false equivalence, ignoring the countless criminals that have been removed from our neighborhoods.
One of THOUSANDS of examples below. You want this guy as your neighbor, really?
Kindness to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
"Eduardo Temoxtle-Calihua, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted for cruelty toward a child and DUI in Lincoln County, Idaho."
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/03/16/ice-continued-arrest-mur...
The difference is the US had bad intelligence and acknowledges it's a tragedy. The regime intentionally murders by the thousands and would murder more if it wasn't thwarted by the US and Israel. And somehow you're more upset about the former not the latter.
> Since the beginning of the 2025–2026 Iranian protests, the government of Iran has perpetrated widespread massacres of civilians, deploying both its own security forces and also imported foreign militias to suppress widespread public dissent across the country.
I agree with you. Also one where you try to prevent olympic athletes from being publicly hanged by islamists.
Or when you try to detect lies from the islamist republic of Iran: for example when they said they didn't have long range missiles and they now just tried to attack targets 2000 km away. The intel was right after all.
But there's an issue in the west: some people hate free people and their own west so much that they prefer to side with islamists, with Hamas, with people chanting "from the river to the sea", that they'll only half-condemn Oct 7th saying it's "resistance", that they'll refuse to see when groups of people refuse to integrate into the US, that they'll never condemn a mayor of major US city saying "it's now time for US citizens to follow the teachings of prophet muhammad", etc.
And don't get me started on those saying the islamist veil is "empowering" for women and a sign of "tolerance". Moreover it's coming from those who happen to on the same side that constantly criticizes "toxic masculinity". But criticizing the most patriarchal culture and religion of them all? "Won't hear / Won't see / Won't talk".
It's never-ending. Their hatred for half of the people in their own country make them side and root for absolute evil.
To me there's a word for such people: they're traitors. Plain and simple. And they're definitely my ennemies.
I cannot be friend with someone condemning a US missile landing on a school but not condemning islamists killing 30 000+ of their own people and publicly hanging olympic athletes.
Plain and simple. And they're the ones who should look deep down in their soul to see how dark it is, not me.
You missed the entire point of my comment: to us it's a tragedy. To them it's a strategy. That's why we're bombing them in the first place. They are commiting genocide.
To put more simply: it doesn't matter what logic or reasoning there is. There are real, tangible consequences to killing 150 children with a cruise missile. The tragedy will be when simple minds understand those consequences as little more than, "it's because they're subhuman terrorists who hate America."
It’s like saying who is worse.. Iran or North Korea??
Like what’s the point.
So what exactly is the problem with saying both bombing school children and machine gunning protestors is bad? Be specific.
That was fake news, never happened. You've been duped by Russian and Iranian propaganda: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/
> Trump did say there were "very fine people on both sides," referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters.
> He said in the same statement he wasn't talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be "condemned totally."
If you are marching alongside nazis, at a march organized by neo-nazis, you’re a nazi. There are by definition no good people who march alongside nazis, so his (and your) attempt to differentiate falls flat.
Imo it’s barely political. Like it’s political in the sense that it’s topical, yes.
And it has a mocking tone about the “tired of winning” speech, but that isn’t exactly a partisan position - even if you’re a supporter of his policies that’s a rediculous and mockable speech.
Like I agree this is a topical game. But to call it political implies it has a political position. If you belive it does, what is it?
Behind the scenes help is perfectly ok. The colonists didn’t form America entirely on their own.
I think where so many have issue with this war is that a couple of old men decided they would try to overthrow an incredibly dug in regime with a little air power. It’s like Iraq and Afghanistan all over again. The results are wildly predictable.
The regime is entrenched and waiting it out while causing havoc with semi-guerilla tactics of bullying the Straits and attacking neighbors.
Change comes from within. Not from cruise missiles.
At the end of the day, we have heard the same thing for a decade. Ignore his tone, ignore his words, ignore this or that policy, because the economy is/is going to be great. When the economy is not doing great, he still gets excuses. Gas prices, however, are what they are. No amount of spin control can stop that.
Absolutely right. It also makes sense most people will care about something tangible like gas prices than the lives of other people half way across the world.
But this doesn't mean that half way across the world there isn't something truly urgent that needs dealing with.
I honestly don't know what will come of this war but I do know with a fair bit or certainty that a nuclear Iran would have caused the US far more damage than a few weeks of higher gas prices, and they wouldn't even need to use it.
But to truly and fully understand this people need to put a real effort and research the region.
The US defense apparatus has been doing just this for quite some time. And netunyahoo has been saying Iran is 'weeks away' from having nukes for 30 years, now.
Opinion? israel has some real juicy stuff on trump, and he's doing his best to not get the information released by doing netun's bidding. I am thoroughly appalled at trump's General Officers allowing him to get into such a mess.
> this is not about Trump
It has everything to do with Trump. It is his administration. It is his military dropping those bombs. It’s literally his job.
We’re just going to give him credit for taking out Iran’s leadership but not hold him accountable when we bomb children going to school?
I was expecting some curve balls at the end with undecidable constellations but it was all quite straightforward.
No once can stop it alone But it can be stopped
Edit: For the record this actually happened 10 years ago under Obama.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-...
> Washington CNN — The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.