This seems like a fundamental problem with the system to me. If you can’t count on the candidate to at least attempt sticking to campaign promises, then the entire process is irrational.
Presumably the mechanism is supposed to be Congress and impeachment, but that doesn’t work if the president is directly influencing their election campaigns.
I do wonder if / how something could be implemented that addresses this, beyond just losing at the next election.
We should be explicit about what happened:
Google and Facebook skimmed off most of advertising revenue that previously supported journalism.
Then neither originated new news in quantity or quality to replace what they ate. Revenues (from ads) without costs (of paying journalists) = their profits.
Now, we have orders of magnitude less professional journalism.
When you boil it down, their business models are less about being clever and more about redirecting a huge, previously-social-good flow of money through their toll gates and taxing it.
That doesn't prove what people voted for. It proves the quality - or lack thereof - of the voting population, the political class, and the media.
Few want to hear that. Fewer still understand it.
Every bold change, whether it's more or less taxes, will not realize.
It is just meant for people to vote on, not for the government to realize.
I do think that in multi-party systems, parties have more to lose long-term.
One crazy president won't fundamentally change your color.
It sounds petty and dumb. Unfortunately, that's what's happening. 44% support the invasion. [1] That's identical to the constant 40-45% support the admin has had since day one. There has been no change in support and there never will be. There's absolutely no convincing them, leaving us with the only option of figuring out how we're supposed to deal with a country where nearly half the population has a mindset no different from willing kamikaze pilots.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/majority-of-americ...
"the new survey found 56% of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Iran, while 44% support it."
But later:
"A majority -- 54% -- of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran. Another 36% approve and 10% are unsure"
36% support it.
People voted for a vindictive and petty criminal that doesn't care about rules or laws. This is the result of that.
I can't think of a time in my life when the choice was any more clear.
Or at least, it's going to vote the fuckers doing this in again in November.
On one hand he had "No new wars", he also was pretty clear on his disdain for Middle Eastern countries - the ones not giving him millions in bribes.
People knew that he was incoherent and inconsistent. He proved that during his first Presidency. So, I don't think it is a case of "not what people voted for". People are getting exactly what they voted for - chaos and incoherence.
As you said, Congress doesn't want to do anything due to elections. And courts have declared that President actions are always justified.
Choices beyond losing election requires either of these branches to act. Without that, wait for the next election.
To be more specific, the SCOTUS has only declared one particular President's actions as always justified. I would be willing to bet any amount of money that they suddenly reverse this opinion as soon as someone from the other team becomes president.
My impression is that a key part of Trump’s campaign was ending excessive foreign wars. There are lots of clips going around with him saying this.
Citation needed. I think there is demonstrable evidence that this is exactly what people voted for and they will continue voting and behaving exactly as they have been for the foreseeable future.
Around ~30-40% of the U.S. population is basically subject to the whims of of the other 60-70% who are either A. Cult members B. Completely apathetic or C. Stupid/Insane and openly hostile to any techniques that could be used to bring them around.
It's seemingly impossible to get off this progression, and no the apathetic people being shocked into making an opposition based choice every ~4 years before they go back to fucking off is not going to pull us out.
And then people wonder why the voter participation rate is so low.
Pray that you'll see the end of it in 3 years. It would be surprise if that ship can be turned around.
This isn't politics. This is American imperialism. The constant wars happen regardless of who is elected or what they believe in. Even Obama had his Libya
The first thing you must understand, is this is the US protecting the Petro-dollar. China and Iran were trading goods for oil, and bypassing our currency. Nukes are a factor as well.
The rest is laid out plainly here: https://datarepublican.substack.com/p/data-analysis-of-the-s...
Vote these people out please.
Why must Israel be so duplicitous? It is exhausting.
(Afghanistan was already not great, the Taliban were open to extradict Bin Laden, they just demanded proof first, but it was still sort of a international coordinated action.)
That broke the dam. Why should russia care about international law, if the US does not? When you are superpower number one, you lead by example. For better or worse.
Seemed mostly like a nation state bombing refugees to me...
This will make the US safer.
This will make stuff cheaper.
This is a well thought out war.
It will improve the US economoy.
It will not destabilise the region.
This will make life better for Americans.
It will in no way make people hate the USA.
It is all borrowed or printed. And the wars wouldn't have happened without them having those options, because Americans don't even want this.
You know, the usual independent and objective framing - its "Iran exchanges strikes", not "Israel and US started a war of aggression amid negotiations and bombed Tehran" or whatever
"A U.S. Tomahawk missile hit a naval base beside an Iranian school, video shows."
While in the article:
"A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed."
So:
"Evidence shows US Tomahawk Missile Killed 175 people after it hits a Iranian elementary school"
Would be more apt.
examples here:
Absolute disaster, all to fill up the coffers of American oil companies...
1. Hezbollah (Lebanon)
2. Hamas (Gaza Strip)
3. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Gaza Strip/West Bank)
4. The Houthis / Ansar Allah (Yemen)
5. Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraq)
6. Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq (Iraq)
7. Harakat al-Nujaba (Iraq)
8. Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (Iraq)
9. Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya (Iraq)
10. Kata'ib al-Imam Ali (Iraq)
11. Badr Organization (Iraq)
12. Liwa Fatemiyoun (Syria/Afghanistan)
13. Liwa Zaynabiyoun (Syria/Pakistan)
14. Al-Ashtar Brigades (Bahrain)
15. Saraya al-Mukhtar (Bahrain)
16. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (West Bank)
17. Popular Resistance Committees (Gaza Strip)
18. Lions' Den (West Bank)
19. Hezbollah Al-Hijaz (Saudi Arabia)
20. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - Quds Force (Regional/Iran)
Islamic regime's side. Rather key distinction v. Iranian people.
By afraid I am not saying it will happen, it is not a prediction. I think that it is a risk.
Listen, we know you weren't in it because you're such a swell guy, we're not stupid. But now we don't even get what we were willing to bend over for in the first place (to get rid of the regime)?!
this should seriously stop. and i am very sad Europeans are spineless and following the US in another insane middle-east war. wasn't afghanistan and iraq enough?
In contrast, look at the ignominious history in India (-n subcontinent) over the past millennia - whose moron elites are so deluded that they end up selling even more Anglo-American colonization in the name of decolonization.
Fascinating evolution of these two cousin nations.
Anything they do in this conflict is justified, anything less than their total victory is a disaster for the world.
The more I see the intellectual level of the political discussions here, the more I understand why dang and moderators discourage political discourse.
Israel does like to rape their prisoners and let sex criminals hide there.
And I also don't think anyone thinks Israel controls the US. They don't. Rather, the US will do almost anything to defend Israel, even if it's self-destructive. This isn't based off of words or conspiracy, but rather actions. Lots and lots of actions, which cannot be denied.
No one in this thread is thinking "This makes me like the Iranian regime" or "this is in favor of the Iranian regime". And so ofcourse your pro-Israel comments are even more besides the point, especially because this article is about the suffering of the Iranian people and you're take is "HN is anti-Israel whilst believing it is pro-Israel". HN isn't a single person, it's a lot of people with differing opinions and sometimes you'll have a pro-X sentiment and another time it might go the other way.
Also labeling 'pedophilia' as a 'conspiratorial trope' kind of defeats your entire comment, but maybe that's just me.
At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
The USSR also committed espionage to steal nuclear secrets from the US and we didn't bomb them either, so perhaps that is the secret? If you steal US nuclear secrets we "stand idly by" but if you develop the nukes on your own or by stealing someone else's secrets, then we go to war?
I'm really struggling to understand when someone getting nukes is reason to go to war against them, I don't see the other side making any rational arguments that don't boil down to "I don't like country X, and so want to see them weaker, but I do like country Y so I don't mind if they get stronger". But that's a very subjective judgment and should not drive national policy.
North Korea and Pakistan has nukes.
> At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
It was not nearly this point. This was a point where USA, Israel and Saudi perceived Iran as weak and easier target. That is why the war started.
Do you know who doesn't get regime-changed? North Korea.
After you've misled the world into supporting the USA in Iraq:
"WHERE IS THE PROOF?"
This time, you didn't even try to submit proof. The "feeling" of your delusional president should be enough.
Or not even that, since the reasoning changes daily.
Try harder.
I think it's incorrect to say Israel is pulling the strings when admins of both have been colluding almost since Israel's existence.
I sure hope my gut is wildly incorrect this time, for me, you, and mankind overall.
This kills the democracy.
Their reason for supporting a war but not the way Trump is doing it could range from it being too extreme to not being extreme enough. Some people unironically want nuclear weapons to be dropped and will settle for nothing less.
That said, PressTV is different from the above a it's an officially a state-operated entity, so it is not a question of mere bias.
> business model
I don't know, is this willful ignorance? Press is political ...
That Sinclair, Nexstar, CC/iHeartMedia were allowed to consolidate in the 90s is bad.
That Google et al. decimated newspaper revenue from the mid-00s onwards without replacing their newsrooms is worse.*
I wouldn't have as big a gripe if Google or Facebook had started their own news bureaus and funded them with their profits. It still would have been a rounding error on their balance sheet.
But instead they destroyed a social good, took their bonuses, and called it a day.
* See 2007, the year Google was allowed to buy DoubleClick https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers...
Expecting to hold any promises just because they were said and got him where he wanted is a bit naive, don't you think? Or does the idea of 'but now he will act completely differently to his entire prior life!' makes any sense to you?
I think a relatively accurate model of the people's opinion towards intervention might be quite simple: it is good if we win relatively swiftly and bad if we lose and/or don't gain anything, and the opinion at the time is shaped (and over time altered) based on their estimate of the outcome, but no politician says it that way so it is always cast as black and white pro-war/anti-war.
In the current case, I think many Americans, even Democrats, recognize the regime in Iran as a threat that needs to be dealt with somehow (a deal or an intervention). Their worry is the cost and ramifications, not some ulterior principle. If Trump brings home a win and some oil to boot soon-ish, you're going to see positive sentiments more clearly. If this drags on, the backlash will be there, and will be phrased as "MAGA never wanted the war" and along your lines of isolationist promises not kept.
The most important thing to understand about Trump and conservatism in general, by far, is that there is one central principle that underpines the entire ideology: hierarchy. Going back to the time of kings and nobility and clergy, through to the present day.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
One set of laws for the people higher in the hierarchy, and one set of laws for the people lower in the hierarchy. Things that are okay for them to do are not okay for you to do. Wars started by Democrats are bad. Wars started by Republicans are good. They know this is not convincing rhetoric to anyone who is not part of the in-group, so they lie about their reasons and play games with words. This, however, is what they truly believe.
It is why every action they take appears hypocritical to their opponents, but in actuality, it is perfectly consistent with their values - it is good when they do it, because everything is good when they do it, and it is bad when somebody else does it, because everything is bad when somebody else does it. It is why "the only moral abortion is my abortion". It is why the exact same policies executed by different presidents will have the same approval rating by democrats, but a completely inverse approval rating by republicans (eg 40% of Democrats approve of either Obama or Trump striking Syria, while 20% of Republicans approve if Obama does it and 80% approve if Trump does it). It is the single consistent trend through all of their policies. They know exactly what they were voting for, and that is for the man who represents their hierarchy. The games he plays with words are part of the platform.
Edit: I have rewrote the message quite a bit, apologies if anything doesn't make sense.
It may be the case that his base is still just following him and supportive of whatever he does.
But the number of people who voted for him vastly exceeds his “base”, and the entire MAGA movement is basically predicated on a form of isolationism, or at least not pro-intervention. Part of the reason it became popular was as a reaction against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So I don’t think it’s as simple and one dimensional as you paint here. Which is exactly why I think it’s a systemic problem: many people probably voted for him because of the campaign promises of being against foreign wars.
My impression is that most of his voters are selfish and couldn't care less for other people's woes (migrants, sexual abuse victims, Iranians or whatever), but will care if his antics hit their own pockets. I'm not American so I may well be wrong, though.
Their support is not the result of a rational calculation of self-interest, and never was. If it was, a base of rural and poor people would never be supporting a coastal city New York elite born with a silver spoon in his mouth as "one of them". But they do, because he is one of them in the way that matters to them. They are fighting for something larger than themselves, and are completely committed to a cultural war for social hierarchy.
> if gas prices and general inflation spike hard, as is nearly a given if Trump doesn't back out from the war?
As an aside, I don't think there is any backing out of this war. If somebody launched a missile at your country and killed hundreds of schoolgirls, and destroyed ships on diplomatic missions while leaving the survivors to drown, while also assassinating your country's leader (but not out of any intention of liberation), would you just let things go because they stopped bombing? Of course you wouldn't. Your country would continue to retaliate. And it is trivial to punish America. Even if America unilaterally decided to "declare peace" and withdraw from attacking Iran, Iran has every reason to continue locking down the gulf and making Americans pay the price. Unlike with tariffs, there is no backing down from these price increases even if Trump gets cold feet. But, even so, there is no reason to believe it will move the needle on his base. There is already talk of "short term pain for long term gain" among those who realise this.
You should edit your post because it represents Christians in a way that is not true the majority are not aligned with a weird minority subset nor the views you are assigning them.
source - grew up in a baptist church, grandfather was a pastor
The majority of Christians are not in an end times death cult, and the size of a religious voting block in the USA doesn't change that fact. Again, we use language to separate moderate Muslims from minority extremist views normally referred to as Islamist here, but Christians are an end times death cult who don't protest war (pretty sure the Pope is on record as being anti-war).
I talked about how we refer to different religions with a bigoted double standard here, not Muslim/Christian voting influence. You followed with the very bigoted:
"Like get real, you will never see a Christian at an anti-war protest."
HN has a bigotry/stereotyping/double standard problem towards Christians. Bigotry against a religion as a political weapon/lashout is wrong.
I was referring to the "44%" which the previous post was making a case for represent MAGA people who support Trump no matter what he does -- not Christians in general.
MAGA has a very strong Evangelical block who are rabid "Christians" (though frankly they more closely resemble the Catholic Inquisition and have very little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ)
Of course, there's also the angle with Miriam Adelson who might have sweet talked Trump into going aboard with Israel on this disaster.
"Well, you want oil to live above 60 but below 90. And don’t get me wrong, we’re still printing money at 90, but gas gets up over $3.50 a gallon, it starts to pinch. It hits a hundred, every product in America has to readjust its price. $78 a barrel, that’s about perfect. You know, brings enough profit to keep exploring, but it don’t sting as much at the pump."
They don't have to build nuclear weapons! They're just doing that shit.
The bigger problem is - current war won't prevent them from obtaining it. It may delay the date, but also will make them work smarter, hide things better and give them much more resolve. I can see ie putin helping them get through some technological or material hurdles, that would help him greatly in their war in ukraine.
But I do feel obligated to interrogate the idea that the US is responsible for this escalation. Iran is seeking to expand its power and influence in the region, and employs violent means upon people - even its own people - to achieve these goals. The regime is, fundamentally, amoral.
The US gets to decide if it wants to put a stop to that. But left alone, the world gets more dangerous the stronger the Iranian regime becomes. The same cannot be said about the United States. The period of history belonging to the unipolar US liberal order was probably the most prosperous and peaceful time in history.
The US can deploy a carrier strike group faster than any nation can build a nuclear weapon. And after seeing the hellfire unleashed on Iran, it is clear that pursuing nuclear weapons may not be the answer it once appeared to be.
Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US - some of the richest countries on Earth mind you - haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
> Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US
I haven't seen that expression at all, ever. No one was called those state vasal states a year ago. And now, as fascists are in American government, it is becoming routine amount right wing. The logic seems to be that any former ally that does not start war with USA is a vassal or something.
> haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
French recently announced change of doctrine, they will expand nuclear arsenal.
Discussing what terrorism is, in this context, is rather complicated. Especially speaking as a Brit, and knowing rather a lot of other dates, such as 1917.
The Pentagon agrees that Iran is not officially pursuing nuclear weapons. However, there are CIA reports that indicated there may have been covert operations taking place that were exploring cruder nuclear weapons. I imagine that was the basis for the US bombing of Iran in 2025.
It's like criticising an abused wife with no job no money and not many friends for not just leaving immediately, and the husband is rich, powerful and knows everyone
Hello?
Unrelated to that some increase in spending was due, I agree with that. All I'm saying is that I don't trust the US admin.
Two weeks ago it was 30k, a week ago it was 35k, now it's 40k+, but OSINT sources keep the number around 15k (including 1.3 k from the Iranian government own forces) and don't move it up. I'm pretty sure the real number is higher than the one OSINT resources can give, considering the uprising and repression also happened in small, less connected cities, but the constant increase is honestly very off-putting, and the more it happens, the more it feels like manufacturing consent.
Thats extremely hard sell, with cherry on top when you have a literal video of tomahawks hitting that area during that time and trump claiming it was iranians who bombed it... just spits and insults in the face
Your math is not mathing. 30-40k in 2 days unarmed civilians vs I dunno 6k almost all military in a week? If you look at the stats of executions etc you'll see civilian casualties in Iran go DOWN while being bombed.
> regime didn't bomb 200 girls to pieces in their school, did it.
Yes, actually they did. It was their own missile. Just like the Ukrainian plane they shot down a few years back.
Man, why that joke gotta be so evergreen :/
People use this name (Regime) wrong - worth to at least read definion on wikipedia:
My post was simply to clarify to the reader that PressTV is owned by the regime in Iran.
I don't think bombing a country should be the first course of action. Diplomatic action should leave no stone unturned. But if all of that fails, it is strategically advantageous and safer for the world to prevent countries from acquiring nukes by any means necessary.
If you set the example that the cost of pursuing nuclear weapons is unbearable, countries will find better things to do, like enriching themselves in more productive ways.
Ukraine wants nukes to defend itself from Russia (a nuclear power). Taiwan wants nukes to defend itself from China (a nuclear power). Iran wants nukes to defend itself from the US and Israel (both nuclear powers). India and Pakistan both want nukes to defend themselves from each other (both nuclear powers).
Now I don't want to get into a debate that it is really the benevolent Pakistanis fighting off aggressive Indians or vice-versa or that really Taiwan is the aggressor and that China is a benevolent neighbor, or that poor little Israel is just trying to defend itself from Iran, etc. Those regional squabbles mean nothing to me as I don't even care who is the "real" aggressor, all that matters is that you have two nations in conflict, and when there are two nations in conflict, it is not a stable situation to pretend that just one of them will have nukes but the other will not.
The moment one side gets nukes, the surrounding nations they are in conflict with will also want to get nukes. So as soon as the US got nukes, it's rival, the USSR, also got nukes. And as soon as Israel got nukes, it made it inevitable that at least a few regional rivals in the middle east will get nukes.
Trying to prevent this is guaranteed to fail. It does not matter what the government in Iran happens to be, as long as they care about their own survival, they know they need nukes as long as Israel has them. More importantly, attacking the nation before it gets nukes speeds the process of nuclearization along. Dramatically so. For instance, when Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear power plant, Iraq, which at that time did not have a nuclear weapons program, went full speed ahead trying to develop one. Because it highlighted that they were at risk of being destroyed as nation from a violent neighbor, and so the urgency of developing their own nukes increased. As soon as India got nukes, it became a top priority for Pakistan to get them. If you don't believe that, then you don't understand the world. It does not matter who you think is the bad guy in a conflict, what matters is the asymmetry.
Whatever will be the outcome of this war with Iran, the Iranians now know that getting nukes is priority one. It will happen within a decade, most likely within a few years. The only way to stop this would be boots on the ground and a long term occupation of Iran, which of course no one, not even the US, is capable of doing.
And then Saudi Arabia will want nukes to defend itself from Iran. That's just how this works. KSA will be the next nation to get nuclear weapons after Iran.
Trying to pretend that you can maintain a long running conflict in which only one side has nuclear weapons is incredibly foolish. Obviously this is not going to happen.
You are conflating the Cuban Missile crisis of October 1962 -- which was the USSR placing nuclear weapons close to the US in Cuba in early 1962, in response to the US placing nuclear weapons close to the USSR in Turkey in 1961, and in your mind you have blended that crisis, which was a close call in which both sides ultimately agreed to withdraw their nukes, with the acquisition of nukes by the USSR 11 years earlier.
Yet when North Korea, India, China, Pakistan, South Africa, or Israel, got nukes this did not set off a crisis, it was the brinksmanship that set off a crisis.
Soon, both major powers in the gulf -- Iran and KSA will get nukes. Odds are this will happen within a decade. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
There are too many pressures forcing this to happen, not least of which is the clear understanding that these nations need to have nukes to prevent destruction by the other nuclear powers some of which are clearly hostile to them and bent on their destruction. It's why North Korea, which kept their nukes, is still around, but Libya, which gave up their nukes, has been dismembered. Just as a matter of self-defense and survival this is inevitable.
However what we can do is tone down the rhetoric of nuclear brinksmanship, threatening global war if a rival doesn't withdraw their nukes. That was the real lesson of the Cuban Missile crisis, which you have confused with Russia's 1949 achievement, or China's 1964 achievement.
Since no one is going to disarm their nukes, this is just something people have to live with. Threatening war over this issue is exactly what causes the risk of global catastrophe, not the spread of the technology, which is inevitable.
The USSR getting nukes in the first place lead to several incidents which were a judgment call away from armageddon. With the benefit of hindsight the correct call would have been to exhaust all options to prevent the soviets from acquiring nukes.
We just got lucky. Whether it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the soviet early warning system malfunction in Sept 83, or Able Archer 83 in November, there was a lot of dumb luck.
Proliferation will bring the end of humanity. There will be too many actors, too many variables. You can get lucky with 2 actors. You can’t keep getting lucky. The only option is to ensure you don’t have to be lucky.
Last year they were getting close to a deal. It also just failed as Israel killed Irans negotiators.
This situation is engineered.
Generally US tries to represent freedom and democracy and be the force of good, but they often ending up representing it in pretty horrible and messed up ways which end very far from these ideals. Road to hell is often paved with good intentions, isn't it. So no, too strong US ain't very good for rest of the world, quadruple that with current leadership. I am not saying China or russia are better, or even equal, far from it, its rather loss in each direction.
Iran is a bit special in its absolute hate for Israel and a bit whole west, but thats purely wet dream of ayatollahs that came to power after 1978, till then they were regional friends and one of best western partners. That revolution weas triggered purely by utter incompetence of CIA and british MI6, so thanx guys for fucking up entire region for everybody.
I don't think there is a single country in this world who would welcome them becoming nuclear power - not russians, not chinese, and definitely nobody around them. But maybe its too much to expect from reality - it would require such a massive ground invasion that US is not willing to wage (and pay for) and it would take a nuke to NY or similar level to trigger it.
For example, the idea that bombing civilians is a war.
Most of European countries could have had nukes by now if they weren't stopped by the US/USSR; going by your logic it was inevitable once the UK and France had them the others would follow but they didn't. Of course at the time at least the American leadership was a bit more (forward) thinking than right now.
If you are the only person in the room with a gun, you have a huge advantage. With each additional person getting a gun too the advantage will be less, but it will still make sense to try to stop that process until everyone has a gun, and we are very far from that point. It is actually cheaper to try to stop proliferation than to build your defense with 'everyone has nukes now' in mind.
It's a failure of longterm thinking.
And in any case, the genie is out of the bottle. There is not gonna be a situation in which a small group of nuclear powers endlessly bomb and attack other countries with impunity. The other nations will get nukes to defend themselves against the existing nuclear powers, it's just a matter of time.
JCPOA agreement was nuked by Trump administration. No, I don't buy your arguments, If Iran would wanted to have Nukes would have it already made those in 5 years for sure. Kim didn't have problems for making those.
isn't really the 'I'm not bigoted on this' reply you might think it is. It's more just the bog standard 'this is why I am bigoted against X group' justification of bigotry.
If there are single-issue voters supporting this admin, I suspect for many that issue is not "stay out of foreign wars" but something closer to going back to some mythical time in the U.S. that looked more like Currier and Ives.
Congrats on letting it finally sink in, but I honestly don't understand how this fact wasn't clearly evident from even his first term. His base absolutely eats up any rhetoric around making the country 1. more white and 2. more christian. You don't even really have to be listening for subtle dogwhistles anymore. They're saying these things openly now.
Yeah, that's a good point. And the fact that the new leader's closest family members were killed in the attack won't help. But I suppose the Iranian regime might want some stability, and the Gulf countries are very interested in the end of the war because for them it's pretty much an existencial treat. So maybe there's a scenario where Trump gets to declare a GREAT VICTORY because he supposedly destroyed Iran's nuclear capability or whatever, Iran gets money from the Gulf countries and the regime gets stability, and the Gulf countries get... well, avoiding ruin.
Not only that, but the only way to do this is to stack the risk against yourself in the case it ever fails.
Just look at the EU/Russia energy dependency. There is good reason that no serious nation does this (intentionally) with actually vital goods like their food supply (not even among allies, really).
Then a week ago, a US-based watchdog let the number 35k float, and all of the sudden that's the number used by US department of state. And now the number you just threw is 40k.
Meanwhile, the OSINT community confirmed deaths are still around 15k. I will admit, the bombing doesn't help because we cross data from funerals and morgues/hospitals, and now we will have to distinguish bombing victims from repression victims, which in some areas (southeast and west mostly) is difficult.
Every time it turns out they lied through their teeth, yet people still believe.
30K is such an incredibly high number that you really have to be gullible to trust it.
Correct; it's a very high number.
Yes, either that, or shows how ignorant you are about the extent of brutality of the regime.
I didn’t see any more brutality than I saw from US regime and especially ICE.
I never saw a person shot in the face in Iran but I saw in the US. Should we bomb US?
Also, 30k dead means there would be at least some proof. Once Iran reinstated internet after protests NO VIDEOS of killings showed up. Protesters decided not to record any of the killings?!
Care to backup those wild claims with any facts? The video of tomahawk I talk about is circulating all over internet, so its pretty uphill battle to discredit it when clearly tomahawks are landing
Nothing about this is such a wild claim if you are familiar with their past behavior.
There were Persian language sources inside Iran that immediately after the incident attributed it to IRGC missile misfire, before some outlets started using that as propaganda material (which by the way played out perfectly.)
Plus the video itself, you somehow avoid commenting completely about the prime evidence. Not fitting your not entirely correct narrative, is it?
If you would even care about the topic properly you could argue that school wasn't far from military base and divert the topic with some whataboutism and finish with fog of war theme, but even that's not whats happening here. 'Just trust trump' ain't going to cut it, not in 2026.
Very.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan
I'm not gonna debate the obvious with an account with 53 karma who denies the existence of basic stuff or not aware of the obvious who wants to lash out against the west. No videos my ass. I'm not gonna be your Google, so I am out.
Condemning a religious group based on a few is bigotry. We criticize it when it happens to Muslims, but seem to support it for Christians. Demanding a group denounce other peoples actions or a trait you define to be 'inherent to them' is classic bigotry. Saying a religious group is your political enemy has never led to anything good in history. 'I think trump supporting evangelics who want to bring about armageden blah blah' could be a valid point but 'Christians are a doomsday death cult' isn't.
[0] https://americancompass.org/how-the-decline-of-evangelicalis...
Evangelicals aren't all Christians and 80% isn't all. But fuck it, assigning traits we don't like to all members of a community? That is 100% cool for Hacker News discussions. Trash take from all of you. But I'm glad you went hard so it can't be denied.
Hacker News has a blatant bigotry problem against Christians.
The alternative is trying to fight that, and if you're picking a fight with the strongest player, you're playing to lose.
This is what an empire, that is competently run, should do. The US is not an empire, and it is not competently run. It has no attributes in common with empires of history. It does not occupy foreign lands, it does not extract taxes, it does not (directly) control foreign governments. If anything, in this case, the US is under the control of a foreign government.
Now it's threatening to invade NATO allies, and other allies are deploying troops to deter that; Which makes perfect sense because you cannot appease authoritarians.
The US is in fairly rapid, self inflicted, decline at this point.
My sense is this is an inflection point, and it may take decades to play out. At that point, the world will have irreversibly changed.