Iran targeting U.S. citizens, U.S. targeting U.S. citizens, U.S. citizens just can’t get a break.
Elect a fascist clown, get a fascist circus.
Yeah, citizens and nuclear weapons research are perfectly equivalent targets.
Hitting a nuclear site puts a shit load of civilians in mortal danger
My money is on Iran enacting a terrorist attack on July 4. It isn’t just Iran’s opportunity to enact mere vengeance, but it is a convenient opportunity to have that vengeance become deeply ingrained into the mind of America for a long time to come. Where we would once have celebrated out independence, that celebration would be contaminated by a horrific attack. It’s not just about enacting petty revenge, but it’d be about sending a message for generations. Also, the date is conveniently close.
Waaayyy more likely Trump nukes them on July 4th just to flex.
That would practically guarantee boots on the ground in Iran and a regime change in 3 months.
Iran’s leaders are dumb, but I don’t think they’re that dumb.
Typifying a nation state by to it’s goals, rhetoric, and past actions is not antisemitic, but the government of Israel definitely wants you to conflate it as such.
Maybe, but how brutal was it when we went into Afghanistan? Who did we attack when we invaded Afghanistan? Who runs that country now? For all that effort we put into getting rid of Al-Qaeda, they seem to still be running things. If I were a religious zealot, where I think my terrorism gets me into heaven, sending a message to the west in such a terrorist attack might be worth it. After all, the religious leader there is like 80-something, so he might not mind sacrificing the few years he has left for a guaranteed entry into heaven.
The cynic in me is going to bet that the Trump administration already knows an attack is coming, and they will let it happen. It’s an easy reason to implement martial law. Then, with the ongoing emergency he’ll always somehow manage to have manifest when people try to get him to give up power, he’ll let the Iranians attack. Then, another emergency is declared.
I suppose the hit on Bin Laden couldn’t have been launched without significant presence in Afghanistan. Why you stayed there after that though was weird. That seems to have been Obama’s mistake.
The Taliban offered to arrest bin laden for us and Iran offered to help but Bush said nah, halliburton stocks go brrrrrrr
Fellow muricans; stay out of metropolitan areas on July 4th. My guess is that we’re going to see the inevitable marriage of military and local law enforcement using the “iranian sleeper sell agents biden let loose in our country” angle instead. Faux news frontpage is laying the groundwork as of yesterday.
sleeper sell agents
Damn, they must be really good at selling if they can do it in their sleep!
Lol… work brain seeped through. Pump those numbers up!
This must be that winning MAGA talks about.
Is Iran mad at me now? Bruh this is why I don’t like leaving the house. /s But seriously something has got to give with this maniac regime we have here in the U.S., and I’m afraid we are the only ones who could realistically stand up and change anything. Nobody else is coming to save us.
The maniac regime has been a maniac for literal decades at this point. Please do something about it, OK? Xoxo
We are the only ones who could realistically stand up and change anything. Nobody else is coming to save us.
This is correct.
Dear Iran, leave us Americans out of this fight. Your fight is with trump alone, we are hostages of him. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
we are hostages of him.
lol, you elected him… TWICE
Live by the sword, die by the sword. We let Gazan children die because of who their parents voted for. I’m not saying two wrong make a right but that doing what is right starts with us.
I know. I have always wished for Bernie to be president but nothing I tried (and I tried) was enought to get my boy elected, nor my local Democrat (I live in a red state unfortunately).
I admit I failed to press the button that would have solved that
admitting it is cool and all, but would have been super awesome if you weren’t a huge pile of shit 8 months ago.
You voted(or didn’t) for him and are responsible. Good luck, leave the rest of the world out of this.
Sincerely the world.
Fuck you, don’t assume that shit on me. I voted, I volunteered on phone banks, I tried talking to whomever you listen on why this guy was a bad deal all the way back from 2015, and it was never for that walking piece of human excrement.
Stand back, everyone. This guy made phone calls. I’m sure MAGA knows better than to show their face in this guy’s neighborhood!
More than many people did, though. Including you.
Did you vote against him? Did you read what I wrote? Then why so mad? Reading comprehension needs to increase in the US as well I see.
Edit: you need to read and understand before commenting.
“you didn’t vote for him but you are responsible because of the coordinates you were born at”. Go fuck yourself loser lol.
No, you’re responsible because you’re doing fuck all about the problem.
Yeah, fuck that guy. It’s not fault my a third if the country fell for the propaganda, and a third of the country didn’t care enough to even vote. I will not be held personally responsible for convincing all of the American voting populous to get their heads out of their asses.
Yeah, the right move here is to refuse to take responsibility. Coward.
Dumbass. I will never take responsibility for some shit I didn’t do. This is the same logic as racism, so get the fuck out of here with you bullshit
You’re doing a great job illustrating why it’s been so easy for the US to completely fuck up everything good it ever had going for it.
Whatever bro. I’m doing everything I can without sacrifice my entire life to the meat grinder. The fact that you’re still free and not in prison is proof that you haven’t done anything more than I have, because all that’s left is the illegal shit.
Hope you keep this attitude when your country does something fucked up.
It’s hard to blame the people who stayed home when disenfranchisement is an intended feature of your electoral system. The vast majority of people know for a fact that their vote mathematically does not matter and a huge number cannot get time off on the weekday it is scheduled for.
If a full third of people stayed home, that’s a systemic problem, not an individual responsibility problem. Your electoral system is completely captured by capital and you are stuck blaming the electorate.
Folks please: US corruption is not a cultural or personal issue, it is systemic. Power corrupts, not just people, but systems. The US has been at the head of the global hegemon for most of the last century, they have most of the billionaires, of course they are corrupt. That’s where capitalists focus their efforts to get the most returns. It’s not an accident that the guy doing DOGE just happened to be the richest man on the planet.
Maybe focus your energy there instead of on the people who have literally no power.
The vast majority of people know for a fact that their vote mathematically does not matter
If a full third of people stayed home, that’s a systemic problem, not an individual responsibility problem.
You understand that in a two party system, these two statements are basically incompatible?
Especially when you consider that we have early voting starting a month before the election, along with mail-in voting being available in nearly every state. If you didn’t vote, it’s because you didn’t want to vote, not because you couldn’t vote. Yes, some degree of civic participation is expected, welcome to being an adult.
Someone commented just a few days ago that voting blue in OK was pointless. I brought up some stats that if every one of the non-voters in OK had voted in the last election, Kamala could have carried the state with 200k people to spare.
If all of the people who stayed home would have been kamala voters then it sounds like she failed to inspire them to vote. It sounds like she lost an election.
Yes, if an unprecedented, impossible turnout occurred then dems might’ve won, but that’s not actually a strategy, that’s fantasy. Assuming there isn’t some level of divine intervention, then people are right that their vote doesn’t matter, because this is the real world where we already know a plurality of people don’t vote.
It’s almost like voter disenfranchisement works.
I don’t know why liberals can’t get this basic concept: if electoralism is meaningful at all, then the electorate cannot be wrong.
If the electorate voted “wrong” then your democracy doesn’t do what it claims to, it does not represent the people. <- this is actually the correct answer btw
Blaming the electorate achieves nothing.
The electorate didn’t fail the dems, the dems failed the electorate.
If only there were some way that the people could kind of ha e their say and direct lawmakers th address some of these problems. The people need to choose some kind of representative that propose and pursue these changes. Imagine if you could just kind of “poll” the will of the people and add up everyone’s choices to choose a representative.
Look, I get it. You are mad too, that trump is bringing you all down. However, this isn’t just a trump thing. This isn’t just a now thing. This is something that has been going on for decades, maybe even longer than most of us have been alive. The US is known for being arrogant, ignorant, prideful, and idiotic. Most non-americans have talked to americans online over the years and likely tried to explain what is wrong with their country, healthcare, pay, racism, nationalism etc. Most likely have been met with ‘hate us causee they aint us’, ‘better dead than red’. ‘USA USA USA’, or some other prideful bullshit.
For decades you lot have all looked down on the rest of world, assuming you are doing the best, because you are born in the best country in the universe, raised the best way possible, pledging you allegiance to your flags, drinking up the nationalistic propaganda. For decades. And now, this trump shit has made the rest of the world say, nah fam we don’t like this. And you all have the gall to say. Its not us, dont blame us, we didn’t do it.
Like shit. You guys made the bed, and have been making the bed for decades. Just because it’s been shat in now doesn’t mean you didn’t make it.
Grow up, accept that, deal with it. Get your shit in order, fix it.
Maybe then. In a few decades when the world can see you’ve fixed all systemic problems they might accept you again. Maybe.
Propaganda is when you punch someone in the face and then quote them saying “I’ll kill you” instead of mentioning the face punch.
And with how ICE is operating infiltration has become easier than ever.
That’s how they’ve viewed US citizens since about 1979. Trump is an asshole, but going after the Islamic Republic of Iran is not in the top 100 worst things he’s done.
We’re like Pokémon! Everyone everywhere wants to catch us. At home they really want to send people to Guantanamo. Abroad they need to exchange us for people kidnapped in el Salvador.
I mean, yeah, that’s what a declaration of war usually entails.
Mmm, not really.
You can’t just slaughter civilians willy nilly. Well, you can, obviously, as shown by what’s going on in the world, but international laws say you shouldn’t.
Iran could legally intern any Americans, but civilians wouldn’t still be POW’s. And should technically have rights and whatnot.
International laws have said you shouldn’t since they were written, and not a single engagement has followed those laws. I disregard their existence as much as the people who enact war.
To disregard their existence is to pretend they don’t matter at all, which is incredibly naive.
There’s no perfect compliance, no, but if they weren’t respected at all and had no effect, the situations would be different.
For instance yeah, Russia has apparently brought out WWI style choking agents and used them. But there’s no widespread use at least, and no mustard gas. Which would be more effective for Russia to do. But they don’t, as they want to keep plausible deniability so that Europe doesn’t gain an actual reason to mount an offensive.
So yeah, while you are right in that psychotic asshats don’t care about them, they are affected by them nonetheless.
Basically ROE says that medics shouldn’t be shot, but my brother trained as a medic and one of the first things they’ve we’re unofficially taught was to hide their crosses on the battlefield, as Russians would literally aim at medics. (Finnish army.)
Not the citizens part
Since when?
Since 1949
According to the British (during the Malayan Emergency) and Americans (during Operation Ranch Hand), indiscriminately starving enemy civilians by spraying Agent Orange everywhere was legal.
In more recent history, we of course have Captain Drone Strike’s reign of terror against wedding parties and aid workers in Afghanistan.
The only thing that’s changed since the Geneva conventions of 1949 is that when civilians are targeted, the rest of the world says “tut tut, that’s a war crime” before it proceeds not to do anything about it.*
* Unless you’re from Africa or the Balkans, apparently.
What does that have to do with civilians being legitimate targets in war?
It depends on your definition of “legitimate”, I suppose.
My point is that the targeting of civilians is still and always has been common in war. It may now be de jure illegal but it is de facto not policed.
As if the US have ever given a fuck who they blew up…
Never said they did, but that doesn’t suddenly make it right now does it.
Americans are always about how we hate the government of a country but not the people, at least this American is and all the Americans I know are, I know it’s not literally universal. To say “I hate the Iranian government but not Iranian people” seems pretty reasonable if you hate the Iranian government but for them to turn around and basically say “well I consider all American entities, including completely powerless civilians free game” is fucked I’m no matter how you look at it. Like wtf more do you want from me? I vote against this, have for decades, I protest against this have been since W was in office, I donate money and energy to war torn countries, I’m absolutely against bombing any country why exactly am I considered fair game?? Fuck anyone who lumps entire countries of people into a single hive-mind that serves its leader, a fraudulent one no less
Well, do yourself what you would expect other people in a rogue state to do. How many cries of “the Russians should overthrow the government!” were there?
Or to bring in a parable: What would you have expected from the average German citizen in 1939?
Trump doesn’t even have the class to declare.
He also can’t. Proclamations of war are made by the legislature. (Congress). If the President sends troops in a supposed emergency they can go without legislative consent for 90 days and must be recalled at that time without the legislature’s approval. It’s stupid, because 90 days into a conflict we have troops on the ground and an immediate evacuation only hurts us economically and global appearance some worry about. Not to mention the troops lost/injured, casualties left with those attacked and Congress not agreeing to keep them there is an admission that it was wrong, so not paying restitution would hurt international relations as well.
To me it comes to, if he orders troops on the ground, an immediate Congressional impeachment would be needed, and the Senate to remove him, or they will vote in favor of staying in the fight to “save face” and not care how many innocent lives die or are thrown into poverty, starve, are raped, wrongly imprisoned, tortured, and the damages it will cause to the mental health of a whole new generation of our soilders and people of other counties around the world.
You’re speaking like you have a functional government.
The funding comes from Congress… So either they approve it or are forced to approve it which they would have to recognize they no longer exist as an entity if the executive branch can write their checks for them.
So to save face, they would have to approve or impeach. Or completely give up the guise that it is a Republic. Their votes are public record. So the executive branch could make them up, post them and threaten them not to say anything… but I doubt many of them would go through with that and not vote to impeach unless they are truly pro dictatorship. Some of them think they are pro dictatorship, but when you gather hundreds of people spending their lives/career trying to work their way up in power and someone says they are going to dissolve their positions/power and their chances of rising or having any say plummet… they would be powerless if they chose to follow… Greed and self preservation would make them not want it.
There you go again.
It used to be that non-combatants weren’t considered legitimate targets. Ain’t progress fun?
i mean true honest war does not have rules like that. the reason “rules of war” exist is so corporations can keep a labor pool and capital operating with minimal effect to profit. (“Ain’t no war but class war.”)
true honest realistic “war” is carpet bombs, famine, death, and capitulation.
stop expecting “war” to involve rules, you’ll only be surprised in the end.
Well, it used to be that they were too. Have you heard of all the cities in Europe that were effectively destroyed during WWII?
It comes and goes, usually whenever it’s useful. It sucks, but war is horrible. If civilians don’t want to be targets they should pressure their governments to not be in them. Yes, sometimes it’s worth fighting, but sometimes it isn’t.
“War is terrible”
Wow, such a great take. You should be in charge. Any more deep insights?
Lol. You’re following me around now to insult me? And you called me a neckbeard…
tell that to all the civilians in Guantanamo and Gaza.
if the first aggressor doesn’t give a fuck about rule of war, it can’t complain about them
Putin has been doing it for nearly 3 years now
Or Ukraine’s civilians. Or the 500k–2M dead civilians during the war against Iraq. Oh, sorry, those were “collateral”…
Usually citizens are not considered fair targets. They’re just targeted all the same.
Iran does not have the military capabilities to fight off Israel, let alone the USA. So they will most likely use terrorist attacks, targeting civilians, because that’s the best hope they have to end the war: when the people back home get serious about ending it as they’re taking losses.
Unfortunately, and as usual, the very important people who decide to keep going or stop are also the least likely to see their life at risk. And in this case, they also happen to not give a flying fuck about civilians lives.
So they will most likely use terrorist attacks, targeting civilians, because that’s the best hope they have to end the war: when the people back home get serious about ending it as they’re taking losses.
Remember what happened the last time a major terrorist strike happened in USA? That’s the number one way to get ordinary civilians of a democracy to support an actual war almost 100%. It’s the kind of strategy that makes Pentagon say “yeah lol be my guest let’s see what happens”.
Remember what happened the last time a major terrorist strike happened in USA?
The USA responded by attacking the wrong country under the false premise of "weapons of mass destruction "?
The USA responded by attacking the wrong country
Not just one! They got Osama bin Laden eventually though so amazing success
Go explain that to Iran’s leaders. Good luck!
On 9/11, the message sent was very unclear (“we hate you for your overall activity in the middle-east and the rest of the world” and/or “death to America”).
This time, it may be very clear: “that’s retaliation for the unjustified bombing of our country” (though Iran had its share of chanting “death to America”, so yes, YMMV).
I agree with you, you know: more deaths will lead to more retaliations, from both sides. Someone has to act like a true adult responsible pragmatic leader now. But there is none in power on either side.
In the history of the world, it has only been a very short window during the late 20th/ early 21 st century that civilians were not considered fair game in war, although they get slaughtered anyway. Even with civilians being off limits, as recently as WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East, civilians have been targets either by design, by atrocity, or by proximity.
If there’s a war, don’t think you’re getting off the hook just because you’re a civilian. During war, the old adage “If your not with us, you’re against us” becomes weaponized.
Americans have only ever pretended to care about non-combatants when it’s convenient. President Obama even invented the term ‘enemy combatant’ so he could pretend his drone strikes were killing fewer civilians.
Yeah that was George W Bush.
But sure, same thing right? 🙄
It was under Bush to justify imprisoning civilians. Bush was all for direct war actions.
Obama massively increased bombings and drone bombings to pull out combat troops and would do stuff like double tap weddings. To lower the number of civilian deaths, Obama declared any male over the age of 14 to be, by definition, an enemy combatant.
The person you responded to was correct, though a bit imprecise with their words.
President Obama even invented the term ‘enemy combatant’
There’s no grey area here, this is just false.
Why would you post such an obvious and easily verifiably false statement.
I thought that term first came in vogue during Dubya’s term.
🎶 Everybody’s going to the party, have a real good time
Dancing in the desert, blowing up the sunshine 🎶
WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SEND THE POOR??
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor,
To the surprize of absolutely no one, maybe exept the US government.
Haha welp, guess we have airline bombings to look forward to in the future
This timeline fucking blows, guys.
I really don’t think Iran’s leaders are that foolish, after what happened last time someone did that.
Oh yeah America really taught them a lesson by, checks notes, giving Taliban control of Afghanistan, after pouring millions of dollars and ending the lives of thousands of Afghani and Americans
They quite famously killed the guy in charge, is what I’m getting at.
The stronger-than-ever Taliban?
How many senior Taliban members are still alive from those days? The organisation persists, most of the leadership didn’t.
You cannot kill an idea
No, but they can certainly kill the Ayatollahs, and I don’t think they’re willing to die for the cause.
You know that there is a concept known as “martyrdom”, right?
I’m aware. Do you think these guys want to be martyrs?
My best guess is that they’ll use biological warfare. Our culture has already demonstrated that this is a huge weakness. They could also get us with a cyber attack, shutting down important infrastructure that way.
Iran isn’t known for it’s cybersecurity divisions. Right wing states generally aren’t good with technology. So I’m not worried about a cyber attack.
In fact, it’s tough to say what Iran’s military capacity is at all. We pelt them with drone strikes and long range missiles constantly and they seem like they can do nothing about it. We keep talking about all this enriched uranium they possess, but do they even possess the capacity to deliver the payload to our domestic soil before we thwart them?
They’ll likely go after Israel first, so we’ll soon see the extent of their armaments.
I don’t think they will. We as a species still suffer from diseases where shit comes into contact with our mouth. If we can’t solve fecal-oral diseases, any bioweapon you deploy will infect your own population. It’s why we terminated our bioweapons program. It’s about as discerning as chemical warfare. :P
On a related note, I’d fucking love bidets with dryers to be mandatory at all farms, hospitals, food handling facilities, markets, and restaurants. It would minimize the impact of fecal-oral diseases, especially with improper handwashing and food handling (eg, not wearing gloves).
Iran would not do that, but you raise an important point about how insanely vulnerable the US is to actual biological attacks.
Could you imagine the US government trying to get Americans to get an anthrax vaccine after a weapon attack?
Our government is exceptional at dealing in violence but inept at handling threats that it can’t beat, shoot, or bomb into submission.
The societal response and government handling of COVID was not at all reassuring. To the point that I let go of any last remaining shred of hope I had for us to turn this ship around on several metrics (e.g. climate change). And unfortunately I think it has gotten even worse, e.g. with the (at least apparent) increase in anti-vaxxers.
Same. My city reopened in Mid-June 2020 and I remember going to the gym and seeing people pretending the virus was gone, no masks, distancing, or wiping down the equipment. People are disgusting.
So I still mask up and carry sanitizer.
Release Ebola or some such thing in America, and the MAGAs will make sure no laws or mandates are passed to prevent it’s spread. 50% of the population will be gone within a year, destroying our society without firing a shot.
It would be oddly poetic to use our own basic grossness against us. Americans have terrible hygiene.
