Media Malpractice

[dd10snoop28]

I just saw a post on Twitter that Ron Paul was speculating on whether the current president is will use nuclear weapons tonight. The dude is completely out of touch with a take like that, sorry to say.

[Phalanx]

I just saw a post on Twitter that Ron Paul was speculating on whether the current president is will use nuclear weapons tonight. The dude is completely out of touch with a take like that, sorry to say.

So we're just going to ignore the fact that Trump has already been bombing the heck out of Iran (including little girls) for over a month and that is the context for his comments that he was going to end their civilization? You know the funny part to me about this? The fact that such comments from the Iranian leadership over the years are used as part of the justification of this war in the first place. So basically, we can take Iran's threats seriously and act on them, but people are 'out-of-touch' to take what Trump says seriously. Right.

[dd10snoop28]

He’s been using this tactic forever. He wrote a book about doing it. He went on talk shows to talk about how he does it. And still, nobody understands that he is doing the thing he has always done & has been successful for him. It’s astounding.

The tactic has been the same for years: Implying outrageous things so when the opposition offers a middle ground that is acceptable (and what is what he sought) he can accept. They think they got a great deal when he had no intention of doing the thing he said. He does it every time.

Literally in the same post he said "God Bless the Great People of Iran!".

So yes, clearly out of touch.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Also not a fan of your framing both sides as being something of a moral equivalent.

While I agree that America has seen a significant degradation of the values that once made it great, the moment you start to view America as morally indistinguishable from Iran....you have nothing left to fight for.

[Phalanx]

Also not a fan of your framing both sides as being something of a moral equivalent.

While I agree that America has seen a significant degradation of the values that once made it great, the moment you start to view America as morally indistinguishable from Iran....you have nothing left to fight for.

Yeah, I miss the days when I thought America were the good guys and all the brown people were bad. Everything was so much simpler then. That was a lot of pre-emptive bombings ago.

Your argument reminds me of a proverb:

Like a madman who throws
Firebrands, arrows and death,
So is the man who deceives his neighbor,
And says, “Was I not joking?”

I think the 'Trump 4D Chess' argument went out the window when he actually started bombing civilians.

[dd10snoop28]

Also not a fan of your framing both sides as being something of a moral equivalent.

While I agree that America has seen a significant degradation of the values that once made it great, the moment you start to view America as morally indistinguishable from Iran....you have nothing left to fight for.

Yeah, I miss the days when I thought America were the good guys and all the brown people were bad. Everything was so much simpler then. That was a lot of pre-emptive bombings ago.

Your argument reminds me of a proverb:

Like a madman who throws
Firebrands, arrows and death,
So is the man who deceives his neighbor,
And says, “Was I not joking?”

I think the 'Trump 4D Chess' argument went out the window when he actually started bombing civilians.

It's not an "argument". It is simply a factual observation of past behavior and his method of negotiating that has been repeated an innumerable number of times .
There's a difference between not liking his method of negotiating vs. ignoring the fact that this has been his same form of diplomacy for 40+ years and wrongly concluding "IS TRUMP IS GOING TO SEND NUKES TO IRAN?". I won't belabor this point since it doesn't seem well-taken but whatever...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your framing of this as "white vs. brown"....i don't even understand. You seriously think that race is the motivating factor of the conflict? I’m not even sure how one could come to that conclusion. I understand the absolutely failed military interventions in Iraq, Adghan, Libya, and Syria, but how one would conflate all of these situations as being the same as the current one is dumb. Some context:
-Last year, the Basij (aka the moral police) arrested a woman who didn't have her head properly covered and hanged her publicly.
-A few years ago, hundreds of thousands of women protested across Iran. The IRGC had snipers positioned on the top of the buildings and started sniping women between the eyes one-by-one. By the time the women realized what was happening, this created a panic/stampede that ended the protests. No women protests since then.
-In January 2026, hundreds of thousands of Iranians were protesting against the regime across the country again. The IRGC/Iranian Army/Basij suppressed this protest by murdering between 20-70,000 citizens over a two-day period. The Regime shut down the internet/phone communications for a 21 days in order to prevent videos from leaking outside of the country. Well, the videos still leaked and there are hundreds of videos of dead bodies laying on the floor, overflowing morgues with family members looking for their deceased amongst the hundreds of dead bodies.
-In response to this massacre, Trump told the Iranians to stand strong and that American would send help on the way.

Not only that, but I since half of my family is of the Persian persuasion, I am somewhat connected with what is going on with those brown people, Of the dozens of Persians that I have been in contact with, every single one of them expressed support and extreme gratitude for America’s actions. Some of been looking forward to the day where America would intervene and give the Persian people a chance to overthrow the regime for 20-30 years.

During the January ’26 massacres, I was on social media feeds of Persians in Iran and the vast majority of them were begging for America to do something…anything in order to grant them relief. Not only that, but during the first few days of the attacks in Tehran, I saw numerous videos of Persians celebrating on the rooftops while military strongholds in Tehran were being bombed by America. There are a couple of videos I have seen of the Basij shooting into apartment windows if they hear cheering, celebrations, or chants for freedom.

I would estimate probably around 70-80% of the Persian people want to see the current regime replaced. The only people faithful to the regime are the fundamentalist Shia Muslims at this point, and the % of population that remain in islam has seen drastic decline in the last 15 years.

This has been a brutal Islamic regime from its inception. Once the Ayalttoah obtained power in 1979, he and the Mullahs completely obliterated any political dissent whatsoever.... the communists, MEK (islamo-communists), and secular youth who all helped to overthrow the Shah were tracked down and eradicated after the revolution once the Ayatollah was put in power, and they had to flee to other countries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That’s why your take of “America killing civilians” really irks me and then your characterization of our position in this conflict as being reduced to “brown people are bad” really rubs me the wrong way..

[Phalanx]

I withdraw the 'brown people' comment, it's a lazy way to characterize the interventionist position. My apologies.

On the other hand, it doesn't bother me at all that you are irked by my description of Iranian civilians being killed including those schoolgirls. It's a fact and that fact should irk you as well. Numerous ridiculous wars in history started with the accusations that those in power in a given country were abusing their own people. You can go back to the Boer wars in the late 1800's. This is not a just reason to start a war in my estimation. Neither is anecdotal evidence about happy Iranians who like their country being bombed. If there really are 70-80% in disagreement with the regime, then they need to do something about it, rather than expecting us to send our sons and daughters to be put in harm's way for affairs that are not their own. In any case, it is ridiculous to me when anyone thinks our country is involved because we are trying to help anyone. Bombing Iran has been on the docket for several decades now. It has nothing at all to do with recent protesters being killed and everything to do with the long-running globalist agenda and the importance of resources in that region.

I don't respect a leader who posts lightly about ending another country's civilization, particularly one who has already been bombing them for a month. I think Joe Kent was absolutely right to dissociate from what he obviously knew was coming. I have a lot of respect for that decision, and I am glad that he was able to foment some tangible political opposition to this reckless shift in foreign policy. Hopefully, Trump is listening to all of these people who helped him get elected who now oppose this course.

[dd10snoop28]

I withdraw the 'brown people' comment, it's a lazy way to characterize the interventionist position. My apologies.

On the other hand, it doesn't bother me at all that you are irked by my description of Iranian civilians being killed including those schoolgirls. It's a fact and that fact should irk you as well. Numerous ridiculous wars in history started with the accusations that those in power in a given country were abusing their own people. You can go back to the Boer wars in the late 1800's. This is not a just reason to start a war in my estimation. Neither is anecdotal evidence about happy Iranians who like their country being bombed. If there really are 70-80% in disagreement with the regime, then they need to do something about it, rather than expecting us to send our sons and daughters to be put in harm's way for affairs that are not their own. In any case, it is ridiculous to me when anyone thinks our country is involved because we are trying to help anyone. Bombing Iran has been on the docket for several decades now. It has nothing at all to do with recent protesters being killed and everything to do with the long-running globalist agenda and the importance of resources in that region.

I don't respect a leader who posts lightly about ending another country's civilization, particularly one who has already been bombing them for a month. I think Joe Kent was absolutely right to dissociate from what he obviously knew was coming. I have a lot of respect for that decision, and I am glad that he was able to foment some tangible political opposition to this reckless shift in foreign policy. Hopefully, Trump is listening to all of these people who helped him get elected who now oppose this course.

Ya, you were starting to sound like a critical theorist there with the brown/white talk so glad.

No, the part that irks me is that you are outraged at America targeting military installations with minimal collateral damage to citizens, while completely ignoring the murder of 20-70,000 innocent civilians by the Regime. That is misplaced moral outrage. Also, the massacre isn't an "accusations" as you put it. You think that the massacre didn't happen? Somehow, you are more outraged at the bombings on military/IRGC officials than the Persian people themselves....and yes, this is anecdotal, because we aren't able to get the full picture since the Regime in Iran has shut down the internet for 60 days straight. Hmm, I wonder why they are doing that?

"They need to do something about it".
Well, they have done something about it. But every time that they do, there is a massacre that happens. At some point, if you see 20-70k of your follow citizens murdered in 2 days, you have to question the wisdom in trying to overthrow an entirely militarized form of government.

" rather than expecting us to send our sons and daughters to be put in harm's way for affairs that are not their own"
If you have been paying attention, "the ask" from the Persian people was never boots on the ground or a ground invasion. It was to weaken the regime and decapitate its abilities. Additionally, if you had been paying attention on the American side, regime change/boots on the ground was never the objective established by Trump/Rubio at the onset of the conflict, or since. It was one (1) prevent ability to have nuclear enrichment, (2) decapacitate ballistic missile/drone capability, (3) destroy the navy. Additionally, they have been communicating to the Iranian people throughout the conflict to be ready to take back the government after we have severely weakened its military capability and leadership, which is exactly what America has done. So in essence, they have done what you are suggesting.

And to clarify, my position is not that we went into this conflict solely for the reason of giving relief to the Iranian people. I only talked about that in response to your earlier comment.

Also, what is the long-running globalist agenda being served? Can you spell this out?

"I think Joe Kent was absolutely right to dissociate from what he obviously knew was coming. I have a lot of respect for that decision, and I am glad that he was able to foment some tangible political opposition to this reckless shift in foreign policy."
Lastly, Joe Kent has gone full Israel brain-rot. His statement that he released for why he resigned/was fired is completely untethered from reality, blaming Israel for the Iraq war, the death of his wife by ISIS, Iran war, etc........it turns out, wife #2 (first wife died in military service) works for Max Blumenthal (son of Sidney Blumenthal, IYKNK) and is a far-left marxist whose entire grift is to call America and Israel evil for everything happening in the world.

[Phalanx]

Ya, you were starting to sound like a critical theorist there with the brown/white talk so glad.

No, the part that irks me is that you are outraged at America targeting military installations with minimal collateral damage to citizens, while completely ignoring the murder of 20-70,000 innocent civilians by the Regime. That is misplaced moral outrage. Also, the massacre isn't an "accusations" as you put it. You think that the massacre didn't happen? Somehow, you are more outraged at the bombings on military/IRGC officials than the Persian people themselves....and yes, this is anecdotal, because we aren't able to get the full picture since the Regime in Iran has shut down the internet for 60 days straight. Hmm, I wonder why they are doing that?

I never said anything about white people? I am characterizing the neocon position as dismissive of millions of deaths because they are far away and we don't know them. That position is true for many that I have met and conversed with, but I shouldn't assume it's true for you. It has nothing to do with critical theory.

I think you are the one who is ignoring death. We have a fairly recent war in Iraq to inform us about what happens when these kind-hearted interventionists get involved. You cite the regime over 47 years and you put the number of deaths at 20-70k (that upper bound is quite a bit higher than the numbers I looked up last night). The excess deaths in Iraq are 10 times that amount, and the number of displaced are in the millions, with over 200,000 of them ending up in the U.S. and Canada. So if death tolls are the sign of how evil a regime is, the United States wins by a landslide. In addition to the extreme toll on humanity, there is also the question of whether or not it is a good strategy to destabilize a country. When you take out an established regime, factions tend to fight for leadership, which leads to more death and lower quality of life for citizens. Many Iraqi women were forced into prostitution to survive, and many young people grow up more sympathetic to violent leaders. Then ISIS was formed (with a lot of help and funding from Obama) and they were indiscriminate in their killing of people who were not their stripe of Islam, including a lot of Christians. Now they are in charge of Syria. Was this the goal when we started the campaign? Because that is the result. And this to say nothing of the affected U.S. soldiers, 4500 or so who died, and a startling number, around 30000 of whom came back after tours in Iraq and committed suicide.

So here we are again on the cusp of another interventionist opportunity. You object to Joe Kent pointing out that Israel is goading us into these wars and heavily influencing our foreign policy. Even Marco Rubio, an enthusiastic neocon, very clearly stated this was the case at the outset of the bombing campaign. Is he also untethered? Israel's lobbying of us to bomb Iran goes back decades. Your analysis of Kent's actions and words is superficial and full of non sequiturs. What in the world does his wife have to do with anything? You are talking about two people who both did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Joe lost his first wife there too. So they put their lives on the line for these crazy wars, and their thanks when they come home is to have the very people who advocated sending them there now throw them under the bus and act like they are paid operatives. That is total crap. They came by their opinions of these wars honestly, from years of personal experience, not some stupid liberal brainwashing.

[dd10snoop28]

Ya, you were starting to sound like a critical theorist there with the brown/white talk so glad.

No, the part that irks me is that you are outraged at America targeting military installations with minimal collateral damage to citizens, while completely ignoring the murder of 20-70,000 innocent civilians by the Regime. That is misplaced moral outrage. Also, the massacre isn't an "accusations" as you put it. You think that the massacre didn't happen? Somehow, you are more outraged at the bombings on military/IRGC officials than the Persian people themselves....and yes, this is anecdotal, because we aren't able to get the full picture since the Regime in Iran has shut down the internet for 60 days straight. Hmm, I wonder why they are doing that?

I never said anything about white people? I am characterizing the neocon position as dismissive of millions of deaths because they are far away and we don't know them. That position is true for many that I have met and conversed with, but I shouldn't assume it's true for you. It has nothing to do with critical theory.

I think you are the one who is ignoring death. We have a fairly recent war in Iraq to inform us about what happens when these kind-hearted interventionists get involved. You cite the regime over 47 years and you put the number of deaths at 20-70k (that upper bound is quite a bit higher than the numbers I looked up last night). The excess deaths in Iraq are 10 times that amount, and the number of displaced are in the millions, with over 200,000 of them ending up in the U.S. and Canada. So if death tolls are the sign of how evil a regime is, the United States wins by a landslide. In addition to the extreme toll on humanity, there is also the question of whether or not it is a good strategy to destabilize a country. When you take out an established regime, factions tend to fight for leadership, which leads to more death and lower quality of life for citizens. Many Iraqi women were forced into prostitution to survive, and many young people grow up more sympathetic to violent leaders. Then ISIS was formed (with a lot of help and funding from Obama) and they were indiscriminate in their killing of people who were not their stripe of Islam, including a lot of Christians. Now they are in charge of Syria. Was this the goal when we started the campaign? Because that is the result. And this to say nothing of the affected U.S. soldiers, 4500 or so who died, and a startling number, around 30000 of whom came back after tours in Iraq and committed suicide.

So here we are again on the cusp of another interventionist opportunity. You object to Joe Kent pointing out that Israel is goading us into these wars and heavily influencing our foreign policy. Even Marco Rubio, an enthusiastic neocon, very clearly stated this was the case at the outset of the bombing campaign. Is he also untethered? Israel's lobbying of us to bomb Iran goes back decades. Your analysis of Kent's actions and words is superficial and full of non sequiturs. What in the world does his wife have to do with anything? You are talking about two people who both did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Joe lost his first wife there too. So they put their lives on the line for these crazy wars, and their thanks when they come home is to have the very people who advocated sending them there now throw them under the bus and act like they are paid operatives. That is total crap. They came by their opinions of these wars honestly, from years of personal experience, not some stupid liberal brainwashing.

Substantive post. I'll respond later.

Yes, I was wrong about the white comments. My fault.

[Phalanx]

QUESTION: And was there an imminent threat? Did you tell lawmakers that there was an imminent threat?

SECRETARY RUBIO: There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked – and we believe they would be attacked – that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked – and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us – we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-o ... o-press-6/