BANNED USER: antagonism, personal attacks
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VIM
No bio...
User ID: 3609
Banned by: @Amadan
VIM
2mo ago
Was Operation Rough Rider a great demonstration of American invincibility too? They brought in multiple carrier groups, bombed Yemen endlessly and assassinated plenty of Houthi leaders even up to the Houthi Prime Minister but the Houthi missile/drone capabilities were basically untouched and Trump effectively gave up after a month when stockpiles started running low.
So if this goes the same way and Iran is still firing missiles and drones a month at every country hosting American military assets, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and possibly obliterating all of the soft oil infrastructure between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea would you still consider it to be a great victory for Trump?
VIM
2mo ago
The death of Khamenei has spurred protesters to rise up and assault the security forces of the failing regime!
VIM
2mo ago
The US bombed Yemen for years and yet during Operation Rough Rider the Houthis nearly downed American jets before Trump ultimately chickened out and cut a deal.
If Rough Rider couldn't disable Houthi air defenses then why would anyone expect a similar operation against a much larger opponent to succeed?
VIM
2mo ago
The desired end goal is to blow Iran to pieces and leave a bunch of squabbling separatist factions fighting each other, like Libya on steroids.
VIM
2mo ago
Last I checked they've been firing missiles and drones more or less nonstop almost immediately after they were hit. At the current rate they're going to exceed the total from the 12 Day War within a few days and that was sufficient to drain global interceptor stockpiles by a quarter.
Another way to look at the current situation is that Dubai, Doha, Kuwait and Bahrain invested billions in American hardware under the premise that it would protect them and instead Trump evacuated and parked all of his assets as far as possible, leaving his hapless clients to get smoked.
VIM
2mo ago
I'm not sure what difference he was supposed to make since he's 86 and if he dropped dead tomorrow of natural causes I doubt it would bring an end to the government
It increases the odds that the nuclear fatwa gets revoked if nothing else
VIM
2mo ago
The current generation of Jewish leadership is clearly a lot dumber and more short sighted than their forefathers. Or put another way,
"Hard Times create Strong Jews
Strong Jews create Good Times
Good Times create Weak Jews
Weak Jews create Hard Times" <- You are here
VIM
2mo ago
decisively proving that the 21st century definition of "antisemite" is "one disliked by Jews" rather than the inverse
and of course by that standard any "populist movement" is going to rub against the ruling establishment and Jews in or adjacent to said ruling ruling establishment will identify it as "antisemitic"
VIM
2mo ago
Last I checked France and Britain hadn't received a hundred billion in direct aid, nor did the US expend a fifth of the global missile interceptor supply on their behalf. Any intervention on their behalf involved the (theoretical) prospect of American benefit and when it didn't America was just as happy to crush them as in the Suez Canal Crisis.
and before you ask, Lend Lease was just 33 billion and that was, as the name implies, a loan.
VIM
2mo ago
What would be long term results? Being general is not any more cushy job with spiffy uniform, only people who believe in their cause and are ready to die will strive for such positions. Do the forces of freedom have plan B for case when decapitation strike succeeds, all targets are elliminated, but the enemy still refuses to surrender?
This "decapitation strategy" seems like a function of the post-GWOT American toolkit, which consists of
- World class ISR and targeting
- High quality but low quantity targeted munitions delivered by the world's greatest airforce
- Zero tolerance for casualties
It's a great strategy for creating the appearance of victory at a low cost against tribesmen with no air defenses. In terms of actually producing victory, however, as far as I can tell it has never worked except when some significant faction within the targeted regime is secretly working for the enemy. The Onion released an article all the way back in 2006 titled "Eighty Percent Of Al-Qaeda No. 2s Now Dead"; twenty years later, Al Qaeda is more powerful than ever with control over Syria and a significant portion of the Sahel.
If you prefer a more recent example, we've seen this whole song and dance before with Operation Rough Rider and to a lesser extent, Operation Prosperity Guardian. Trump issues dire threats, carrier groups moved into position, Yemen was obliterated with constant airstrikes for over a month, Houthi officials were assassinated yet the Houthi drone and missile capabilities remained intact and Trump ultimately backed down having achieved basically nothing.
If this sort of strategy went nowhere against Yemen then why would there be any expectation of success against Iran, which is larger, more powerful and more populous by several times?
VIM
2mo ago
I doubt that Yamamoto or Nelson saw it that way. Decapitation strikes were historically limited more by capability than by “traditional rules.”
Or by the practical benefits. Assassinations in WW2 were rare in part because it was understood that they could easily backfire and lead to more capable leaders replacing those assassinated, with this understanding extending all the way up to Hitler himself. Assassination was reserved for unusually capable, dangerous and likely irreplaceable leaders like Yamamoto or Reinhard Heydrich.
VIM
2mo ago
Counterexample: the Canadian Trucker Protest was completely despised by the media yet managed to totally turn the tide of vaccine passports and lockdowns. China's Zero COVID policy was also overturned by the largest nonviolent protests since Tiananmen 1989 and obviously they didn't have a sympathetic media to draw upon. Or for a protest unrelated to COVID, the Iranian headscarf protests basically reversed the practical enforcement of the "morality codes".
It seems to help when the protests have a very specific and clear goal as opposed to something vague like "fighting inequality"
VIM
3mo ago
This claims there were "fewer encounters and apprehensions" but says nothing about deportations.
VIM
3mo ago
Largest deportation wave in fifty years
Most secure border in a generation
Where is the evidence of this?
VIM
3mo ago
JPM isn't bankrupt but the "monetary crank" portfolio of gold, silver and bitcoin still easily outperforms the S&P or JPM stock.
VIM
3mo ago
"There's a scuffle" and "in the confusion" seem to be doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting.
By this sort of logic, an armed citizen could confuse the ICE agents for a gang of kidnappers from a distance and open fire, killing several. Would that be a "reasonable determination" too, because "there was a scuffle" and "the shooter was confused"?
VIM
3mo ago
He was clearly struggling from being pepper sprayed in the face but he did nothing whatsoever to prevent an agent from taking his weapon or to justify another agent shooting him in the back after he was disarmed
VIM
3mo ago
In this case "allowing them to disarm you" ended with Pretti getting summarily executed
VIM
3mo ago
Except the Soviet tanks couldn't even handle their neighbors and wound up bogged down in Afghanistan whereas the Chinese tanks similarly couldn't make it past Vietnam. A massive military and nukes are worthless without the massive economy to back it up; the Communists never figured out economics and were perpetually gimped in that respect. The Soviets only achieved significant conquests when they were fueled by American lend lease.
The real growth in Communism didn't come from Soviet tanks imposing it by force, it came from anti-imperialist movements adopting it pragmatically after America chose to back the European imperial powers after WW2 for some reason. Ho Chi Minh famously was a fan of the American system until they turned him away.
VIM
3mo ago
Should we have resisted global communism?
Communism is a completely dysfunctional, unworkable system. America could resist global communism the same way it resisted European imperialism, by providing an example of a successful alternative instead of beating the communists by copying them. Or as John Quincy Adams put it,
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence, has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
The past century of American imperial domination have proven Adams right.
VIM
3mo ago
One notable factor is that hyperinflation wasn't crashing the economy before now.
Plenty of regimes have survived hyperinflation combined with large protests. Venezuela's regime is basically inferior in every aspect to that of Iran yet they had no problem squashing proportionally far larger protests more than once while enduring far worse economic conditions without much issue.
Another notable factor is the level of violence, and the size of the protests despite that violence.
It seems like the violence led to the size of the protests rapidly collapsing, considering how they seem to have tapered off before stopping entirely
VIM
3mo ago
I love that you had to specify "thousands" and "on American soil" to exempt Iran and Russia killing or facilitating the deaths of thousands of Americans other places. And confusing willingness with capability.
Yes, because there is categorical difference between killing occupying soldiers in combat and killing civilians in a terrorist attack.
Ever heard of WWII? The Cold War? We stopped being isolationist a long time ago.
You're proving my point; before the Cold War America had no problems with the Middle East. From the perspective of the average American as opposed to a Lockheed executive or a lobbyist for a foreign country it has been all cost for no benefit. Isolationism produced superior results to imperialism.
Okay, so if the Houthi air defenses couldn't be stopped because of Iranian resupply then doesn't attacking Iran just move the problem a chain up to Iran getting resupplied by the Russians or Chinese? If anything it's a harder problem because the Houthis were nearly landlocked and reduced to smuggling in supplies by tiny fishing boats whereas Russia and China have fairly direct access even if they don't outright fly cargo planes directly to Iranian airports.
Also, the Iranians have a conventional military and an irregular force known as the IRGC which utilizes the exact sort of tactics (mobile launchers, mountain bases, ambush air defenses) that the Houthis used. Perhaps you've heard of them?
I've seen this claim thrown around but it was put to the test in 2018 when Trump let the Saudis go full bore and while hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children died the Saudi gains were proportionally tiny. Even getting to the point where you could apply brutal counterinsurgency tactics of the mid-20th century would first require taking Houthi territory, which would require an actual, serious ground invasion with actual casualties.
The limiting factor on foreign intervention (usually) isn't public sympathy for the suffering of the countries being attacked but the cost in blood and treasure not being justified by the potential benefits of victory.
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