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Well yeah, this is about culture. I am not appalled by the civilian death toll, 170 is rather low for a major operation as far as these things go. Pete offends me aesthetically.
The perfect two-line summary of the entirety of pro-Trump vs. anti-Trump discourse, isn't it?
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Sure. But if he offends you aesthetically and not on the merits, then don't start in on a death toll.
I understand that there was demand for someone to put on a crisp suit and portray an image of careful and meticulous balance. My take that is that aesthetic gloss is, at best, neutral to the actual thing.
It is the merits, or rather the lack thereof. He is much more concerned with aesthetics than me, only his aesthetics is that of a manchild, an inept, swaggering butcher given big toys that go kaboom, who can't think through such contingencies because his balls are too big for sissy things like minimizing civilian deaths. He can't even react to the news adequately.
My issue is not the death toll but the low-IQ fetishization of lethality as such. The purpose of a military force is to achieve the strategic objectives, not kill more people (not even kill more hostiles). Carelessly killing civilian children is not advancing the primary objectives (to the extent that Trump's USA even has coherent objectives in this Special Military Operation after the Plan A failed); it hardens and legitimizes the regime. Sure, you can kill more and more, you've got bombs and air supremacy and shit, and perhaps in some very Israeli mindset this even makes sense because their fanatical resistance gives you an excuse to whittle down Iran's long-term demographic and economic perspectives rather than get their capitulation and maybe deal with revanchism some other way later. But in a normal human war it does not make sense; it's a straightforward, avoidable negative EV event which he made drastically more likely by gutting the relevant department, for AESTHETICS of LETHALITY and being BASED. I don't know how to make this more obvious. Hegseth is low human capital and so is much of the rest of Trump's cabinet.
And if a war with an actual power comes, he'll slaughter you just the same, with the same swagger. Russians have had these psycho tough boy commanders for centuries. It didn't make us better at war, it's third world shithole default. You've had some too, but almost all of your great generals and commanders were nothing like this.
You just said your primary objection to him was aesthetics. Which is it?
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I think you're just completely misreading what's happening. The US touch overseas is lightening, not tightening. Kidnapping heads of state is orders of magnitude more complex, difficult and lower casualty than a bombing campaign. The previous Iran bombing campaign, very targeted, very precise, little in the way of collateral. The current run is certainly higher volume and less precise, as any escalation must necessarily be. But that isn't the tale of a US government obsessed with "lethality", much the opposite. You've got one or two out of thousands upon thousands of missions and millions of bits of ordnance to complain about.
I think you're on to something here. Previous administrations either wouldn't execute operations or do them in a big, dumb way. Even the killing of Osama was delayed across multiple heads of state.
Trump and Hesgeth are taking the approach of actually using our more powerful tools instead of holding them in reserve for a peer conflict. It seems like overkill but you can't get too much more surgical than eviscerating individual speedboats full of drugs.
I'm of two minds about it. First, Russia and China probably already know about most of this so security through obscurity doesn't matter.
But it does feel like playing Poker with an open hand, giving the world a greater opportunity to catch up, prepare, and Monday morning quarterback.
The orwellian hypocrisy is tough to swallow too. Narco Terrorists and Special Excursions my ass.
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