TheDemonRazgriz
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User ID: 3577
TheDemonRazgriz
3d ago
I do wonder if part of the reason for the ceasefire was a sort of “both of us need to regroup, and we both know it, so let’s talk in the meantime and see if it goes anywhere.” Obviously not the only reason but it could be a factor. Oddly old-fashioned and almost gentlemanly if true.
TheDemonRazgriz
4d ago
I feel like a lot of the takes flying around about the ceasefire are severely premature, both in places like this and in the regular news. Even on its face this is only a two week ceasefire for the purpose of negotiations, and as far as anyone knows the two sides are still very far apart diplomatically. In fact as of my typing this (it’s an insomniac kind of night) Iran has not actually ceased fire, missiles were impacting in Israel and the UAE many hours after the announcement (although this could just be down to their degraded command and control taking a long time to disseminate the orders, to be fair). And Israel is still fighting actively in Lebanon and saying that front isn’t part of the ceasefire agreement, while Pakistan (the broker) says it is.
Not to mention the Iranian-aligned regional militias, which they don’t have perfect control over; a rogue or misinformed group could hit an important US asset (think a lucky rocket or Shahed causing real damage to a US embassy or a Saudi refinery during the ceasefire period) and tank the whole thing without even really meaning to, although that is an edge case.
Just yesterday I was talking to my wife about the war, and I commented that the aftermath of the F-15 shootdown and pilot rescues probably leaves both sides feeling like they’re in a position of strength (Iran can still meaningfully threaten US aviation even under this much pressure; the US can operate deep inside Iran even without having a large-scale presence on the ground). The US has still been moving assets into the region and Iran has been continuing to fire on US bases, Israel, and the gulf Arab countries’ infrastructure. Both sides are feeling enough pain to want to negotiate, but neither seems to feel enough pressure to give anything up, and they certainly haven’t used up their options to escalate. All of the material signs in the past few days pointed to both sides settling in for a relatively protracted war, on the scale of months vs weeks, and I don’t really see that changing. It’s true that Trump could use this as an off-ramp, he is famously erratic and I’m sure the current situation was never the plan, but I’m not so sure he has a strong incentive to back down if Iran still isn’t making concessions, and Iran has no real need to concede anything as things stand.
I would be very surprised if both sides aren’t using the ceasefire as an opportunity to regroup and rearm in expectation of re-opened hostilities when the two weeks are up (or sooner if something else happens). That doesn’t mean negotiations are doomed to go nowhere, but I think people assuming the war is plainly over are engaging in wishful thinking. Not to mention that Israel was not involved in the talks and may decide to continue fighting with or without the US if they don’t like where the peace talks are headed (supposedly their threat of doing just that was a big part of how we got dog-walked into the war in the first place).
Again, the diplomatic positions of the two countries were very far apart right up until the announcement. Even Trump’s own statement only calls it a “basis to negotiate.” Right now the ceasefire is presented in such a way that both sides can at least try to spin it as a win, which is a fine way to begin peace talks, but that may not last when it’s time to hammer out lasting terms. It would be very easy for one or both sides to say the other is being intransigent or duplicitous and resume strikes after two weeks without having to take on the bad look of “violating the ceasefire” at all.
Color me skeptical, I guess is all I’m saying.
TheDemonRazgriz
8d ago
As an asids, I'm still deeply confused what they thought they were doing with "wolf warrior" diplomacy, but they seem to have smartened up.
My impression was always that the wolf warrior stuff was entirely for domestic consumption, propelled perhaps a little further than intended by a small number of true believers.
China specifically is not suffering as much from this situation; the Iranians have been allowing Chinese tankers through the strait, and the US has not been stopping them. There is no chance of the PLAN entering this war.
It would be good to see the EU step up to the plate but their preferred strategy is clearly to just wait for the whole thing to blow over, and I’m doubtful that they really have the capacity to sustain an escort mission over the long term even if they wanted to.
Australia’s navy, to my knowledge, does not have the expeditionary capability to get involved in a remotely meaningful way. Japan has some ships on paper to contribute (although they could not do it alone) but, even putting their domestic politics aside, it is unlikely they’d be willing to take ships away from their normal duties with China and Russia right in their backyard.
TheDemonRazgriz
12d ago
Yeah I actually like FdB, but I don’t think in a million years he’d have the patience to moderate a forum like this, lol.
TheDemonRazgriz
12d ago
290, kinda feel like I should’ve gotten a few that I missed, but I also was pretty even across all categories, no major gaps. So I’ll take that!
TheDemonRazgriz
23d ago
The victims were all members of the movement and have said that they kept quiet for so long because they didn’t want to tarnish his memory and in so doing hurt the Cause (possibly rightly so). They don’t gain much by coming out with accusations now, and “the cause”, in as much as it still even exists, isn’t really tied to his memory anymore. If you’ve hidden something like that for such a long time it’s easy enough to just keep on keeping quiet, but by the sound of things, one now-old-lady ex-activist decided she couldn’t take the truth to her grave, and then the floodgates opened.
TheDemonRazgriz
25d ago
Fair point.
TheDemonRazgriz
25d ago
The people most likely to be loose in the world without one are professional white women who think their phone is a scifi universal gadget.
They would have IDs, even if they don’t always carry them. I would think the only people who really don’t have a government ID today are going to be dysfunctional hobos/junkies, and extremely “off the grid” types. But yeah, the idea that there’s this massive number of black people (even more so, black people who vote) who don’t have IDs is a nonsensical caricature. Something something DR3.
As an aside, I made friends with a few international students in college. When I voted in an election they asked what it was like, and were somewhere between shocked and baffled when I said that you basically just walk in and say your name (and registered address) to a volunteer clerk. “You really don’t show them… anything??” We really are deeply out of step with the rest of the democratic world on this one.
I would prefer, idealistically, that if we require an ID to vote we should also make getting it free, but one way or another it’s long past time for us to do so. The alarm bells of voter confidence in elections being a live issue have been blaring since at least 2000 and it’s only getting worse.
TheDemonRazgriz
27d ago
Japanese leadership in general seemed extremely bad. A lot of decisions seemed to be made for ego-stroking reasons, rather than around any kind of grand strategy to win the war.
Complete and utter failure of Japanese intelligence and reconnaissance.
If you're interested in a window to the Japanese perspective, I would highly recommend the book Memoirs of a Kamikaze. The author, Kazuo Odachi, was one of extremely few surviving kamikaze pilots (he was sent on a kamikaze mission, failed to find any American ships, and returned to base; literally while he was on the runway for a second attempt, the war ended). It's short, and just his personal story, but that story is a very interesting one. He talks a lot about what the Japanese leadership looked like "from the inside" and why/how the Japanese soldiers were so fanatical.
It also includes some very interesting stories of his life adjusting to US-occupied Japan after the war, and what the country was like at this time -- you can imagine that going from kamikaze pilot to a defeated subject living at peace is not the simplest transition.
TheDemonRazgriz
1mo ago
I would imagine those 1.24/1000 deaths are dominated by traffic accidents and, secondarily, fatal overdoses. It’s not like 1.24/1000 25-29 year olds are just dropping dead at random.
TheDemonRazgriz
1mo ago
Khomeini's government had been warned repeatedly that there would be consequences if they started shooting protestors or continued to threaten international trade. Khomeini ignored those warnings and now Khomeini is dead. This is known as "Fuck around and find out".
I would find this more convincing if the government was actually saying it. Instead, they offer up a medley of different explanations and goals, depending on who is being asked, who’s doing the asking, the day of the week, and whether Mercury is in retrograde. “Fuck it, we ball” is no way to run a military.
TheDemonRazgriz
1mo ago
Regarding the school, all signs point to it being a (massive and easily avoidable) fuckup by US intelligence. The school building was, until sometime about 10 years ago, part of the IRGC base which was targeted. It is now fenced off from the base (because it is a school) but from the air appears to be part of the same complex (because a decade ago, it was). A clinic which also was once part of the base was destroyed as well. By all appearances the government rushed into this war without adequate planning or preparation. It is highly likely that a commander pulled up this base from a target list which had been drawn up before that building was converted to a school, and which had never been updated. Certainly that’s more likely than the same commander sitting down and deciding “in addition to this military base, I also want to bomb the school next door.”
You can refer to the photos in this article: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5735801/satellite-imagery-shows-strike-that-destroyed-iranian-school-was-more-extensive-than-first-reported. NPR is an American source, of course, but not one with any interest in making Trump’s moronic war of choice look good.
I must note that this “stupidity defense” is indeed not a very strong defense, morally speaking. We are still directly responsible for the deaths of over 100 innocent civilians, mostly children. But there’s no reason to think the US intentionally bombed a school. Occam’s razor. What would there be to gain by doing so? The effect of the bombing is only to strengthen Iranians’ will to fight, weaken American support for the war, and reduce the chances of neutral countries choosing our side.
TheDemonRazgriz
1mo ago
And won't do much to the tanker.
True enough, but I don’t think the average shipping company is going to send a tanker through the strait if there’s even a small risk. What if they send a dozen or more drones against one ship? What if one scores a miracle hit and leaks (or even ignites) the cargo? What if one hits the bridge and kills the crew? What if Iran, or even a rogue Iranian officer, says “fuck it” and uses a real anti-ship missile to make an example of a tanker?
Large companies like the ones that own these ships are famously risk-averse, “it probably won’t do anything if they drone your ship” isn’t likely to be good enough for them.
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
On one hand you have Elon Musks who is pure heritage American stock.
Did you lose part of your comment here? Or is this a joke I’m not getting? Musk is a South African immigrant…
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
Lol, yeah, IME “inclusive” often translates to “weird ultra-liberals only” for this kind of thing. I imagine equivalent orgs are out there in my own city too, although again I really thought the proof of vaccination stuff had died out ages ago. As for the inexplicable-yet-predictable masking-queerness correlation, I’m reminded of that tweet that went something like “I’ll believe long covid is real when I see someone who isn’t bisexual have it.” Good luck out there…
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
Wild. Is that relatively normal, asking for vaccine proof at an event? Or was this one just run by committed weirdos? Either way that really is crazy to me, I had no idea people like that were still out there at a scale where they could end up running a speed-dating event, especially if it wasn’t explicitly branded as a “special” zero-covid event.
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
I tried going to fucking speed dating last year, and they handed out masks and required proof of vaccination.
Last year?!? If you don’t mind saying, where do you live? Or was this hosted by some oddball organization? Genuinely curious. I live in a deep-blue city, I do still see “maskies” out and about, but I haven’t seen an event hand out masks in a very long time. And asking for proof of vaccination in 2025 is basically incomprehensible to me, that was already dying out here (again, deep-blue area) by 2023 at the very latest, and realistically I don’t recall actually being asked to show it later than 2022.
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
I don’t have the source at hand, but I recall reading that most of them felt proud. IIRC the example I’m thinking of was about the pilots who flew captured German fighters in the 1947 war. The attitude was basically “our enemy has been vanquished, we outlasted him, and now we get to spit on his grave by using his own tools to secure our future.”
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
Pathetically whacking the hotel’s sign with a snow shovel is a far cry from, say, the BLM riots, or the anti-ICE riots in Cali a few months back. Vandalism is still bad but it’s not on the same level as what would be implied, to me, by “violence” (it’s not looting, it’s not arson, it’s not even trashing the hotel that’s being picketed). No one, including ICE agents, has been injured or killed by a protestor in Minneapolis.
Edit: immediately after posting I remembered that the agent who shot Renee Good had been bruised by her car. So, correction, one person has been injured by Minneapolis protestors, and none killed.
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
The protestors are not causing the violence, this time. No looting, no burning cop cars, no trashing local businesses…
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
Man, I wish I had a relative who could/would give me 10 grand in precious metals… I always get a sweater or a book or something for Christmas!
Great post.
I think it's safe to say that Xi is a very severe, ideologically driven actor who just Does Not Like Corruption. There's no parallel to Putin or Maduro or whatever. I don't know why this is so hard for people to accept, we've known such autocrats in the 20th century.
I very much agree with this. Frankly, it’s a big part of what scares me about Xi’s China. By all appearances he is a cruel and ambitious dictator, but is also a competent administrator and a genuine statesman who cares about the future of his country. It is true that his many rounds of purges have included his personal political enemies, and in part this is because everyone is at least a little corrupt in the CCP and so you can get anyone on “corruption” if you want to, but it is also because being (too) corrupt makes you into one of Xi’s personal political enemies. Americans (and the general West) don’t like to engage in this kind of thought because the idea of a dictator sincerely motivated by rooting out corruption is aesthetically icky, and this willful blind spot leads to a lot of overconfidence relative to China.
Unlike many (most?) other dictators, his personal ambitions seem to be wrapped up in national ambitions in a harmonious way. The likes of Maduro (or Saddam Hussein, etc) are motivated primarily by personal wealth and the security of their own family; the success of the nation is good only secondarily and in as much as it further entrenches their personal wealth and power. Even Putin, who clearly does have some degree of grand national ambition to recreate a Russian Empire for the 21st century, clearly puts the personal wealth of himself and his allies first. In practice he rules more like a mafia don than a king (in some ways literally, as the government still has close connections with various criminal and quasi-legal enterprises) and has built his power explicitly on personal and transactional relationships with the country’s various powerful oligarchs. The idea of even partially earnest corruption purges in Putin’s Russia is laughable in a way which is not true for Xi’s China. The case in point is the state of the Russian army, which was allowed to degrade enormously (or, at least, not seriously pressured to improve) under his rule, as we saw in the catastrophic failure of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Xi also, at least so far, does not seem to show signs of the over-ambitious ideological derangement that characterized the likes of Hitler and would get in the way of successful leadership, or lead to delusional overreach. China surely does suffer from all the classic informational problems of dictatorships and (relatively) closed societies but they appear to be at least trying to mitigate that weakness.
This is not to say that Xi is some mystical paragon of leadership, or that China does not have problems with corrupt and incompetent leaders. In particular their managed economy is showing some weaknesses that could become much worse in the near future if not addressed (for example, the infamous real estate bubble). But he is a qualitative step up from the average dictator and should be taken seriously. In particular he appears to value long-term planning and a long-term legacy, and if nothing else does seem to view corruption as a problem which must be mitigated rather than a natural fact of life.
The emphasis on forward-looking strategy (his big legacy looks to be “Xi Jinping thought”, the anti-corruption campaigns, and the modernization of the army and navy) is relatively unique to China in the modern world (notably, another country I can think of in this frame is Kim Jong-Un’s DPRK, provided you grade on a North Korean curve), and is certainly better than the long-term planning of Russia, America, or Europe these days — and that is dangerous. The Chinese emphasis on industrial dominance in critical sectors is unique and presents a massive and still-growing threat to American dominance of world affairs. In some ways the best hope for America to “win” against China, given current trajectories, is for Xi to become impatient as he ages and to kick off a war before the PLA is ready. That’s pretty cold comfort.
TheDemonRazgriz
2mo ago
That’s not better. “Yeah, we’re going to import a permanent underclass to keep your wages low, and it’ll push up housing prices while degrading your local culture too, but don’t worry, we won’t treat them like human beings.” It’s not much of a sales pitch.
Yeah, I saw some vague allusions to the US having been explicitly aware that it would take time for the whole of the Iranian military to actually receive news of the ceasefire declaration, and accepting the fact. Nothing entirely concrete but it seems plausible; a lot of the US efforts were directed at degrading Iranian command and control after all, even on top of intentional Iranian decentralization. And the idea of a ceasefire (or any order really) reaching a whole army instantaneously is extremely modern.
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