Mantergeistmann
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User ID: 323
Mantergeistmann
13d ago
Don't touch the boats
Houthis
I am going to laugh quite bitterly if this whole Iranian adventure turns out to have as a promary purpose being the least-PR-unfriendly method of ending the Houthis: by removing their sponsor and letting the Saudis take care of them out of the public eye, as rooting them out via US boots on the ground would create remarkably negative photos for the domestic crowd.
Mantergeistmann
13d ago
"Hey, I didn't fight in no war. Best of luck, though."
Depends on if your friend is the one who's picking a fight or not, I suppose.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Carney as well from Canada has been saying the US's actions are justified.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I guess could be explained away as part of a general media strategy executed without the aide actually having any privileged information but anyhow would fit the conspiracy (IL did it, media reports whatever IL wants) explanation well.
"We're going to be bombing hospitals. Here's what you say when--not if--we're accused of bombing them" as a strategy wasn't quite prepared for "The enemy hit a hospital and we're falsely accused of it".
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
US Congresswoman Tlaib said, "This is who they are", where "they" refers to Americans
Or, more charitably, "they" refers to the Trump admin & DoD. Er, DoW, now.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I think it's also an issue with Hollywood, videogames, and the US & Israeli militaries being too good at what they do. Especially for the US, who can often afford to put a premium on civilian lives due to overwhelming firepower and distance, many people seem to think that mistakes no longer happen in warfare, explosions are limited to arm's reach like those sword-missiles, missiles and bullets are always precisely on target, and any collateral damage or civilian target hit must have only been deliberate.
I'm not sure the US is prepared for a near-peer conflict where they can't afford to be so careful. There was a West Point (?) article on this very premise I read years ago, but haven't been able to find it since.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Was Nordstream before or after the one hospital that a Hamas rocket fell on? That was the big one in my eye.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
That's what the DSA does, calling sanctions a "weapon of war" and demanding they be lifted from Iran and applied to Israel.
Not that I know what the rest of your point was going to be.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I think you mean "Epic Furry".
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
How much in the way of resources does the US realistically stand to lose here?
Basically ammunition stocks. Which is a weird "bad situation", but there are major concerns about the US ammo stockpiles. They haven't been great for a whille, and while Ukraine was an excuse to ramp up production and supply chains, but I think they're still well behind on that front.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
"Critics" are generally assumed to he biased, though, and counterweighted by "supporters". "Scholars and researchers and historians" are understood to be bastions of truth and fact. It's subtle, but it's there.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
It's the Bin Laden vs Margaret Thatcher situation again. I'm one of those weirdos who is still on Tumblr, and I've got friends on Bluesky, and there were a lot of crab rave memes and "not celebrating, but totally celebrating" posts when Charlie Kirk died. There will be more when Trump dies. There has, however, been zero celebration for the death of a man who is worse in pretty much every metric they care about than those two (except Islamophobia, I suppose).
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Was the other 50% chance Sabaton?
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
I may have been conflating Rome with general medieval siege etiquette. Different techniques, same philosophy and end result.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
The autogen prevents a situation where people guess your plan based on having a code name that's too on point, at least.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
I've heard that the defenders could negotiate up until the ram reached the wall/gates. At that point, it was too late, since defeat was assured and all the hard work on the Roman end had been completed.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
The US is bombing Iran because they can't actually invade countries anymore.
I assume you mean that from a national will standpoint, and not a capability standpoint?
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
Even if something happens, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll require a culture war megathread.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
Still not Anthropic in that case, though.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
the only AI company with models deployed on the USG's classified networks
Doesn’t MS/Copilot have some sort of a classified solution?
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
It will be interesting to see how many sockpuppets are still around this time... as I recall, during the previous bombing, a lot of pro-palestine accounts claiming to definitely not be from Iran mysteriously went dark at the same time, although I can't find a source at the moment.
Mantergeistmann
16d ago
But we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their blood, and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and suffered for them, at the end died for them, who always strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local significance):
"I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal-equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all - constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere."
We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men who would make us desist from the effort to do away with the inequality which means injustice; the inequality of right, opportunity, of privilege. We are bound in honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the ideal that each man shall have an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in him by the way in which he renders service. There should, so far as possible, be equal of opportunity to render service; but just so long as there is inequality of service there should and must be inequality of reward. We may be sorry for the general, the painter, the artists, the worker in any profession or of any kind, whose misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man who does his work well; for any other course is to create a new kind of privilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; and special privilege is injustice, whatever form it takes.
To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, ought to have reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable, and upright, is to say what is not true and cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of the evil of leveling down.
- Teddy Roosevelt, in his famous "Man in the Arena" speech (AKA "Citizenship in a Republic".
Mantergeistmann
16d ago
Why, here, obviously.
But a main reason for that was that Russia was otherwise occupied and couldn't come to the aid of its client state. Nothing to do with Israel, as I recall.
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