USA Goes to War Against Iran

Civilization, for want of better words, isn’t really about eliminating conflict or war. It’s basically the process by which societies or cultures make losing survivable. In early societies - Old Testament style - defeat often meant annihilation, so people fought to the death. In Rome, systems developed that allowed conquered peoples to survive under new rulers, making surrender a rational choice. By medieval Europe, rules of war among elites (ransom for knights, protection for peasants (dead pesants don't pay taxes) normalized surrender and obedience. In modern times, institutions, laws, and international norms further extend survivability, allowing societies to resolve conflicts without total destruction or annihilation.

The real issue with the far left is that Marx and even more so Engels totally whiffed on history and anthropology. They took a few exceptions to the evolution of human civilization and treated them as the norm. Their views are completely discredited by modern knowledge of how societies and cultures actually functioned. Essentially, they concluded that if we just get rid of the oppressors or power structures, human society would return to its “natural” state of peace. In other words, they treated an advancing evolutionary process as if it were a regression.

I don't think too many people a month ago where saying indefinite closure of the Straight or Hormuz is totally fine and not a disaster. I would bet you can't find a single article or even random post or tweet saying that from before it happened. If you want to affirmative action it sure, this is not the absolute bottom of how bad it could be given Hegseth. But that's really only limited by imagination.

There is no comparison between Dunyain and Victor. Trying to make one shows you are underestimating how deranged Victor is.

What has been disastrous? The market took a hit for a week straight and gas prices jumped a bit? I drive a fuel efficient car and work from home. Do you think my day to day life has changed one bit?

I got this information from X, supposedly from someone living in Tehran. So take it for what it is worth.

But the person stated that the Artesh (Iran's regular army) has basically been de-mobilized, as the IRGC is afraid there will be a coup if the regular army was mobilized. And in their place foreign Shia militias, mainly from Iraq, have flooded the country and are occupying all the city centers to keep the Iranian people down.

For all the talk about a "million man army" the truth is Iran currently doesn't even have an army at all the way we view such things. There is the IRGC in their mountain cities shooting missiles and drones. And (increasingly foreign) militias patrolling the streets of major cities, holding the people down. And that is pretty much it. Which is why the IRGC has no real ability to search for American soldiers from downed planes, even deep in their own nation.

As far as the militia presence in the city, the person said that cars filled mainly with woman and children drive thorough the streets threatening the people and making religious chants over bullhorns, while armed militia men station themselves under underpasses (to hide from Israeli drones) and stop and intimidate Iranians going about their day to day business.

If one decides that the win condition for the IRGC is that they survive this conflict, then seems like a likely "win." But in the process they have increasingly turned themselves into a foreign occupying force with zero legitimacy inside Iran; and without legitimacy from everyone but Shia militias, Russia, China and France outside. So very pyrrhic "victory" indeed.

And it’s really far from the bottom. There are still no boots on the ground and we’ve lost 1 plane? That’s pretty good considering how incompetent the US military has been in recent times and considering Trump and co fired a slew of experienced personnel. As I’ve been asserting the entire time we should have just been providing cover for the Israelis who clearly have well established plans in place for attacking Iran.

Well yeah the USAF is accident prone.

You've had planes hit on the ground by missiles

I don’t think when he said disastrous he was referring to what would be disruptive to your individual life. There are plenty of disasters around the world that have no effect on my life.

On a related note, if it wasn't for drones I dont think there would be much issue invading Iran. There is no army to speak of to even meet them. But soldiers would invariably be picked off by drones. And even if the casualty numbers were acceptably low from a military sense, it would never be acceptable politically.

That being said, it isn't obvious what an invasion would even accomplish, if anything. Just saying it would not actually be that difficult minus guerrilla drone action given Iran has no real conventional army at the moment.

Whatever number you think it is (which is probably way too high) would still make it EXTREMELY successful. Believe it or not, when US (and Israel) used to fight wars it used to actually lose a lot of planes. Even the Iraq war a bunch of planes were shot down. Doing tens of thousands of sorties with single digit planes being lost (somehow zero for Israel over 2 wars and tens of thousands of sorties) is actually an insane testament to how much of a technological edge we have developed; and how we have leveraged this towards insanely low casualty and loss of equipment.

If we treated Iran the way we treated Germany, Japan and Vietnam in past wars; it would literally be in the Stone Age right now. No electricity, no roads, no food, no water, no economy at all.

The fact the country is more or less functional is a testament towards our compassion and precision in hitting military targets.

so how is it a disaster for people in north America? if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it did ti fall? enemy dies. we win? little consequence? enemies can't get gas from the gulf? sell are gas for more money? profit? The gdp of alberta might double !

Sure some fat guy sitting at home with a terrible hob is not impacted by this. But it's been disaster for the people who chose to start this war.

As dumb as this war is, whether is one, two or twenty, it makes no difference. We have about 600 F35s, set to have 2400 in the future. We've got like 5,000 aircraft that can fire missiles. But again, the risk/reward for even risking the old **** inventory is still the question mark. Also, you've got like 100s of planes flying around a country the size of each day Mexico each day.

It starts becoming a little interesting when some start pretending to have the best interests for me and my family and are giving me the reach around by just asking questions about how building 7 fell or that we just need to allow for a new economic platform for the good of all.

Dressing yourself up in clown suite for protection while blathering a bunch of nonsense that is ends up being purposefully harmful to everyday people that you pretend to care about is much worse.

when there was a massive tsunami in 2004 that killed over 200k people, it barely effected the lives of anyone in the US. if someone called that a disaster, would you say that they were being hyperbolic?

how about a closer analogy. during the Iraq war, the us had just over 4k deaths which was around 10% of total casualties meaning all things considered there were like 50k or so wounded. Did this change the lives of the Americans that were not signed up for the war? Not really. And on the whole many came back and ended up in better positions overall than if they hadn’t enlisted.

it’s sort of an equivocation on the word disaster to appeal to your individual life changing as if that’s what people evaluate foreign policy disasters on.

As low as the bar may be, I'd much prefer that the people who are openly advocating for my death would be upfront about it instead of pretending to be my friend. That just get weird real quick.

Im seeing that the US lost like 200 in Afghanistan and about 2000 in Vietnam. Obviously both of those were shitshows but this one won't be any different if we keep it up. It's just going to happen. and for no real upside.

and f15's the ones that were lost are outdated and need to be replaced anyway. if you paid for it for 30 years and you lose it? did you really lose it? you got a good self life out of it. The pro iranians like to bring up the price tag of it. but its already paid for. its like bringing up the price you paid for your 1970 impala and claiming that as the value when it gets scrapped

Yeah I’m not really sure how to respond to people in here. We’ve been bombarding Iran for weeks with virtually no resistance. Aside from Trump saying unrealistic things which is just his MO, I’m not sure what exactly has been “disastrous.”. Maybe time to unplug and turn on your brains.

It seems most people itt are just regurgitating Reddit posts.

pretty much no one on this forum was effected by that tsunami so no I wouldn't call it a disaster. I forgot it even happened 200k is a lot higher then I thought. I woulda guessed like 20k

200k is not even that consequential and i doubt it was even that high ima google that one. A couple hundred people died while I typed this message.

death is not that big of a deal at least it was near instant for most. iran running out of water. now that would be a disaster as countless millions die from dehydration and with that government its happening someday

It’s really not and people like land o lakes thinking that supporting Israel and having affordable health care are mutually exclusive are beyond ******ed and almost as big of an issue in America as the MAGAts. Not quite as dangerous but quickly gaining momentum

We have Warthogs doing strafing runs on their crown jewel base in Bandar. Without radar Iran is pretty much in point and shoot mode.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/...

Saudi Marines plus what we have. Trump likes playing the misdirection game. Just saying.

200k people dying in a tsunami not being considered a disaster might just be calling into question your competency in the english language.

by the way your argument that “people die every second” doesn’t seem relevant to calling certain discrete instances of death more tragic than others. we all understand there’s a certain background level of death in the world. like if we’re talking about devastating earthquakes of history, for instance, no one denies that 10k people dying is a small fraction of the total amount of deaths that happen in a given year. just like if someone murdered one of your loved ones it’s not a comfort to say that people get murdered every day.

anyway I’m not sure why you didn’t just google it before you commented on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_India...

you literally just have to google 2004 tsunami. it’s not like there were so many that year that killed 200k.