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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13380 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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A tiny note on the war

In the previous thread, I got some pushback for suggesting that not only did the US strike the Iranian school in Minab, killing 170 children or something like that, but perhaps it did so intentionally (or at least without remorse for the possible consequences of erroneous targeting). I admit that wasn't fully sincere. I realize that, even morals aside, there is no perceived military value in bombing children, at least not for the US (I do think Israelis may target children of IRGC officers out of their usual Bronze Age blood feud sentiment, Oct 7, Gaza and all, seen enough of their remarks to this effect; but then again they don't operate Tomahawks).

Well now the question on it having been an American strike appears settled. As for the intent – it's not so straightforward:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades.
The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one.
Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress. But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers.
“The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.”

Does it matter if there was no intent if the United States, as of now, also has a revealed preference to not bother with minimizing such risks, in favor of «lethality» and some zany Judeo-Christian nationalism courtesy the power-tripping macho TV host Pete Hegseth? I believe it does, but marginally; about as much as those girls matter to Lethal Pete. I rest my case.

More to the point. It's remarkable that there's so little discussion of contemporary historical events on here. I won't criticize anyone, be the change you want etc.; but what we are seeing is pretty astonishing from the culture war standpoint. Could someone like Pete be imaginable as the Secretary of War – no, Defense – in 2023? 2019, even? 2016? It looks as if the politically dominant culture of the United States changed overnight. Does everyone just like it too much to find the change worth commenting on?

There are an amazing number of people responding with, essentially, "shit happens in war", seemingly with giving any further thought to questions like "can we make shit happen less in war?", "does what we're trying to achieve justify this shit?", and "should the fact that shit happens in war make us more cautious about going to war?"

Christ

I risk sounding like a broken record here but that old Clemenceau quote is relevant again: "America Is the Only Country That Went from Barbarism to Decadence Without Civilization In Between".

When you look at things through this lens everything explains itself perfectly. The Americans as a nation have never been properly civilised, their national myth includes things like the Frontier man and the taming of the wilderness, but in one of those rather all too common twists of irony I'd say the wild has transformed Americans far more than they have ever transformed it.

Once you realize that America as a country has never had civilisation in the sense a European, a Chinese, or even dare I say, a Persian, would understand it, (I mean as a country, many many Americans are perfectly civilised people, the problem is not All Americans, the problem is Enough Americans) everything starts falling into place and making sense.

The way to deal with such a country is to treat it like it is: rather than trying to support the US or help them in their war against Iran out of some misguided gentlemanly obligation, Europe now has an excellent opportunity to twist the knife and extract huge concessions from the US on Ukraine and tariffs in return for them being allowed to use European bases to run their war. And make your demands and the concessions you get public as red meat for your domestic base. It's no different to what the Americans would have done to you had the shoe been on the other foot.

Once you realize that America as a country has never had civilisation in the sense a European, a Chinese, or even dare I say, a Persian, would understand it,

Not only does this not make sense but it doesn’t explain anything. America has: the telephone, the light bulb, the computer, the airplane, eggs Benedict, jazz, cell phones, hamburgers, the Washington Monument, the skyscraper, speakeasies, brunch, baseball, Constitutional Democracy, mass education, social security, the automobile, Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge, Supreme Courts, southern food, basketball, Detroit, New York, California, Texas, television, the nuclear bomb, the nuclear bomb!

What are we talking about, am I being baited, did Spengler put you up to this? America has no civilization? America invented the modern world! Every country in the world that attempts to look down on us is using criteria America INVENTED. Europeans get more degrees? America invented mass education with the GI bill. Travel and leisure? We invented airlines, the five day work week, paid vacation. Democracy?

We have a beautiful civilization, Times Square, the Chicago World Fair 1893, the National Mall, Route 66, the Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, apple pie. Many things are in decline to the point that we’ve forgotten how the White House was decorated in the Gilded Age and misremembered it as a ranch home aesthetic but America is a beautiful place.

We went to the moon! The moon!

Clemenceau is a priggish French asshole (whose pride at Versailles gave us World War II) of the worst type of French snobbery for which we forgive them anyways because we admire the French and respect their contributions to America. But what do they know! They are sitting in the corner watching while America remakes the world in our own image and the best they have now is to reinvent the definition of civilization with fake word games.

What is the idea that America is destroying Tehran out of some sort of civilizational jealousy? Or that we don’t understand the world so that we lash out at it? No it’s Europe that doesn’t understand it’s Iran that doesn’t understand. There are no concessions for you to extract. America is the world power because we have a spirit that nobody else in the world has even if I prefer French bakeries and Spanish wine. Wha are we talking about? Europe has no concessions to extract because America pays for their defense and in exchange they put tariffs and trade barriers up against us while proclaiming that their civilization is superior. Ok, try it, it will go as well as it went when Spain tried denying us our bases a week ago, what are you have no power to extract anything. This whole military operation is a favor to you because we’re not the ones who get screwed if the straits of Hormuz close, we could close down all our bases tomorrow and it would be your world in chaos, not ours.

What’s the thanks we get? To be lectured on how we don’t understand anything because we don’t have a real civilization and are just barbarians who need red meat? The civilization-wreckers are the barbarians in Tehran who want to bomb everyone and the loafers in Europe who believe in their own superiority but refuse to do anything to maintain it. Decadence? Europeans want to shut down their nuclear reactors, buy all their oil from Putin, then complain that America wrecks everything it touches. That’s decadence!

America still has some of the residual vitality of Western civilization, and that's just so cringe.

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