8 ms·
First 6 days of Iran war cost $11.3B
- testing22321 7mo agoNever enough money for healthcare , childcare or school lunches, but always plenty of money for foreign wars. Why Americans are not rioting in the streets is beyond me.
- DoctorOetker 7mo agothe bombing of the girls school should never have happened and is inexcusable, but otherwise increasing the future safety by annihilating the military structure of an aspiring nuclear power for say $50B / 250M inhabitants = $200 per person, sounds like a steal if only this would have been done before and thus instead of a genocide in Gaza!
- fooblaster 7mo agoThis thing is far from over. Iran will indefinitely be able to block the straight. The us will be stuck in this defensive position for months, until it pulls out and effectively loses the war. It's clear we are going to lose, because we cannot topple the regime without putting troops on the ground, which we will never do. Setting that as a war aim doomed this whole effort from the start.
- throwaway87543 7mo agoGround invasion would literally be Vietnam again. And don't say they'll never do it. Reports from classified briefings indicate a draft is seriously being considered.
- tartuffe78 7mo agoI'm not surprised they would consider it, but it seems hilariously stupid. Even as cynical as I am about politics in this country this will never fly with most of Trump's supporters.
- bamboozled 7mo agoWe’ve heard this before…
- tartuffe78 7mo agoThis isn't targeting immigrants or Democrats though, unless they try to only draft Democrats it's going to be them, their sons, their brothers and husbands getting told they have to go die.
- jjgreen 7mo agoIt would be figuratively Vietnam again.
- wolvoleo 7mo agoVietnam was all for nothing either. In the end nothing was accomplished and really it didn't matter that the communists took over a tiny unproductive piece of land across the world. It was a pointless war and many people on both sides (including many of their civilians) died needlessly just for a dick waving contest :( I really hope this won't come to that.
- tredre3 7mo ago> but otherwise increasing the future safety by annihilating the military structure of an aspiring nuclear power for say The problem is that there's always a very convenient aspiring nuclear power to hit. In hindsight they rarely never were a real threats (Iraq, Cuba). And what became real threats have historically been downplayed by the american government (North Korea).
- andriy_koval 7mo agoIran is real threat to oil circulation in that region, they applied this tactics many times before. Now imagine if we come to current situation 5 years later when Iran has missiles with nuclear warheads?
- lm28469 7mo ago> they applied this tactics many times before Feel free to list the details about when, how and why it happened before ;) interestingly none of these scenario would even have happened if they had nukes to begin with, how weird
- andriy_koval 7mo agoHere is example: https://news.usni.org/2023/04/27/centcom-iranian-naval-forces-seize-tanker-advantage-sweet-in-gulf-of-oman https://news.usni.org/2023/04/27/centcom-iranian-naval-force... > interestingly none of these scenario would even have happened if they had nukes to begin with, how weird this is very weird speculation, Iran would be way more aggressive in its action in the region if they would have nukes.
- lm28469 7mo agoThe only weird thing in this story is that we keep preemptively bombing the same people for at best vague reasons (they were about to attack us trust me bro) and at worst complete made up lies (they have mass destruction weapons, look at my jar of anthrax).
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- csb6 7mo agoAttacking Iran has made the entire region less safe and so far there is no evidence Iran has been deterred. They continue to successfully hit targets with missiles and drones, and they have expanded operations to successfully close the Strait of Hormuz. Seems like it would have been a lot cheaper to not attack Iran and instead to rein in Israel, an existing nuclear power that is the primary destabilizing force in the Middle East.
- DoctorOetker 7mo agoBoth Israel's as well as Iran's and for that matter all nuclear ambitions of any nation should be reigned in, as humanity was doing for a while after the first cold war, with the progressive reduction treaties etc. From the perspective of the USA, a medium-future nuclear attack by Israel was much less likely than a medium-future nuclear attack by Iran. Closing the Strait of Hormuz is quite easy, scorched-earth-tactics (well scorched-sea-tactics) like sea-mines are a lot easier than conquering territory. Just look Bosnia&Herzegovina and the huge minefields that were deposited there. This doesn't show Iran's resilience, and sea mines can be cleared. There's a long list of cards the USA holds and somewhere down that line there are options like announcing total destruction of neighborhoods of Teheran, and advising the inhabitants to leave, starting with the richest (and thus regime aligned) neighborhoods. Just gradually announce the carpet bombing neighborhoods and provide ample time for evacuation. Watch your demands being met one by one: defuse your sea mines, if one more goes off thats another richest neighborhood gone, give up your for-energy-generation-over-enriched uranium (there is no discussion of its existence as Iran was pleading an insignificant dilution of part of this stockpile) or that another richest-neighborhood-thats-left gone. Unlike the human-shields / hostage-taking tactics of the IRGC / ayatollah, it would target not innocent third parties nor the lives but the possessions of the regime-aligned parts of the population. All the people you forced to study physics for the megalomaniac dreams of the regime? Allow them to flee the country (and take their inkling nuclear skills with them) and welcome them with a new free life. In the west we don't gas your girlfriends, sisters, nieces over a few hairs sticking out from under their headwear. People repeat the patterns of their breaktrhoughs / successes. There were many factions around the time the current regime rose to power. Which one won? Which one was reluctantly given bargaining power by the free world? The faction that took hostages. Ever since, whenever the regime felt threatened (internally or externally) they resort to hostage taking and human shields. No sane person puts a girls school in a semi-used military complex, especially not in that hotbed of the middle east, with Iraq as a neighbour, Israel not much further, and while sponsoring and weaponizing groups like Hamas.
- lm28469 7mo agoThe US had a joint nuclear program with Iran for decades... After the revolution they didn't even pursue nuclear weapons until they understood it was the only thing you can get to protect yourself from Israel and American bullying. > before and thus instead of a genocide in Gaza! Lmao yeah OK buddy, your dollars are financing both, and many more, atrocities
- DoctorOetker 7mo agoYou are making assumptions, I don't earn or pay tax dollars or euros. I have a youth trauma, that I refuse to sponsor through (obligatory) healthcare and taxes. No taxes means no income. Fine I'm a homeless bum! All I see is angry circumcised men being sent to fight another nation's angry circumcised men, instead of addressing the perpetrators of their traumas, work from the individual perspective not the collective one. > After the revolution they didn't even pursue nuclear weapons until they understood it was the only thing you can get to protect yourself from Israel and American bullying. I see this claim a lot, but it appears to not be true: plenty of nations have no nuclear weapons program and aren't being bullied; while Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and clearly is being "bullied". Yes Trump is a clown, in most democracies we can select who brings the bad news and can do the posturing. Most policy is deep state and persists across electoral swings from one party to another. It's not because Trump has been selected as the mouthpiece in charge, that the plans weren't drafted by "deep state" (non-elected) servants and organizations. The whole republicans vs democrats is a ridiculous joke, you don't have to tell me about it. Republic: from latin Res publica (the affairs or decisions or matters that belong to and thus need to be decided by the public) so basically "power to the people" Democracy: from greek dēmokratía, dēmos and krátos (people and rule or power) so basically "power to the people" So we have 2 parties claiming to stand for the same thing "power to the people" and a never ending fight for the Greek term or the Latin term. Most US citizens don't even understand greek or latin! What does every elite do in fear of its population? Divide and conquer: divide your population in half and have them fight for a greek term and have the other half fight for a latin term, but use dead old languages so people are blinded from seeing they want the same thing!
- 1718627440 7mo ago
- testing22321 7mo agoShould America do this to every aspiring nuclear nation? All the time?
- tartuffe78 7mo agoYes bombing schools, cities, and countries into broken states ruled by warring factions is the only way to achieve peace.
- DoctorOetker 7mo agoAt the time of the bombing that school was not on Open Street Map, instead the military base (where the school was installed!) had been added a bit more than 5 years ago. Obviously international law requires targets to be thoroughly verified, which obviously didn't happen. I am not blaming OSM for what happened, but just to avoid having a great FOSS project being used for unverified targetting: perhaps we should have stronger requests for verification for military domains around the world. OSM could contact the governments and ask if any non-military entities reside in that base. If the government refuses to confirm or deny, or just pretend there is no school, then OSM can bring this response up at a later date.
- bdangubic 7mo ago> ... was not on Open Street Map Would expect nothing less of the current administration than to use Open Street Map in their killing campaign (maybe Apple Maps should have been cross-checked)
- DoctorOetker 7mo agoHey, I typically avoid the use of proprietary maps, but I am very interested in how Apple Maps knew there was a school before the bombing. I am also interested in seeing verifiable proof that Apple Maps displayed a school there before the attack occured, and I certainly agree all available maps should have been checked, including past satellite imagery, which surely would have betrayed the presence of large amounts of children (from shadow lengths). As I said before, what happened there was inexcusable. What is known is that Israel and USA divided the targets according to respective materiel proximity, which MUST mean that a common list of targets would have been maintained and then divided by proximity / weapon range. This means that in theory Israel could have selected the target, just like USA may have selected certain more northern targets, and then misplaced trust could have enabled blindly bombing a target selected by the other nation state. In other words I certainly see it as a possibility that Israel intentionally shared this target pretending not to know about the girls school. They certainly can be suspected of having a motive: revenge for the killings of their children on the music festival. The genocide in Gaza apparently doesn't sufficiently quench their thirst for revenge, especially since everyone knows Hamas is effectively Iran-in-Gaza. From the perspective of Israel it's also an excellent way to ensure sustained conflict between Iran and the USA, and thus force the USA to continue contributing firepower in this escalation. IF the above were the case, in my opinion the best move for the USA is to acknowledge as quickly as possible that while they bombed the target location, that this target selection was by Israel.
- croon 7mo agoThey "obliterated" their nuclear program last june [0], unless you're calling them liars? [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...
- simondanerd 7mo agoAnything to keep ourselves comfortable. That's one of the reasons I see that we have representatives - so the population at large doesn't have to bear the burden of doing dirty work. We then in the same breath complain about government but put forth no effort to fix it.
- expedition32 7mo agoIs US Congress actually doing anything or do they just stand by and let Trump do whatever he likes? My own country's parliament is having more debates about the Iranian war and we're just sending one warship to Cyprus!
- tartuffe78 7mo agoTrump has mastered the bully pulpit and his steadfast popularity with his base to threaten any Republican who gets out of line by endorsing a primary challenger. This has been effective in replacing anyone who challenges him, and scaring the rest into line.
- add-sub-mul-div 7mo ago> Why Americans are not rioting in the streets is beyond me. That's not entirely fair. The January 6 rioters acted because they knew how bad for the country it would be if the wrong candidate got into office and started a war.
- mandeepj 7mo ago"The January 6 rioters acted because they knew how bad for the country it would be if the wrong candidate got into office and started a war." I don't think that's what they were told when they were given marching orders to fight like hell
- vablings 7mo agoThey were told that the election was stolen and the system was rigged. Under the pretense that you were told no more fair and free elections would you not go do exactly what the j6ers did, I think you would be foolish to say no. The only core issue is that everything that was said that day was a whole a total lie and the responsibility hangs with the liars
- furtrd 7mo ago[flagged]
- CyberDildonics 7mo agoThey were the only people dumb enough to actually believe the obvious lies.
- lm28469 7mo ago75% of them are overweight or obese, 30% functionally illiterate. They have neither the physical, cognitive or cultural capabilities to do what's needed
- bko 7mo agoI don't know, if you look at public health consumption expenditures per capita, current prices, current PPPs, 2015-2024, US is up there. It's mostly medicaid and medicare. You might not like how the money is being spent but the idea that US doesn't spend money on these things compared to other Western countries is just not true. Same with education > In 2019, the United States spent $15,500 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 38 percent higher than the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries of $11,300 (in constant 2021 U.S. dollars). At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $37,400 per FTE student, which was more than double the average of OECD countries ($18,400; in constant 2021 U.S. dollars). I get that it's cool to say US doesn't spend on these kinds of things, but it's just not true. It's a rich country https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Cumulative%20percent%20change%20in%20annual%20GDP%20&%20health%20consumption%20expenditures%20per%20capita,%20current%20prices,%20current%20PPPs,%202015-2024 https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-... https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
- mothballed 7mo agoI think tech workers just often don't realize nearly half of the country is eligible for either Medicare or Medicaid and that we're just part of the class of sub-human subjects who get taxed into oblivion for transfer payments for almost half of everyone else but ourselves and on top of that have to pay (directly on indirectly through employment) for sky-high insurance rates that the medicare demographic disproportionately voted for policies that imposed such high rates on us.
- MisterTea 7mo ago> Why Americans are not rioting in the streets is beyond me. I'm really am tired of reading this nonsensical hyperbolic line. No one is hurting enough to care to take to the streets. You know this, I know this, we all know this. Please stop repeating it.
- testing22321 7mo agoCompared to other developed countries many tens of millions of Americans have a much worse quality of life. Part of the problem is they just don’t know it. How much paid maternity leave do you get? Paid time off to move house? How’s your healthcare when you take a few years off work to raise your kids, or learn to paint? These are basic human rights for many around the world.
- casey2 7mo agoIt sounds like you want some Americans to go out and break shit til they get their way? That's not how 1st world countries operate.
- MisterTea 7mo agoYou just described the current American administration.
- wolvoleo 7mo ago> Why Americans are not rioting in the streets is beyond me. And why people still work for the military. If I worked for the military I'd be willing to fight in defensive operations but not this kind of oil imperialism. This is only going to make the world less safe because there's a whole new generation of people whose families got killed and now have an axe to grind and they're going to come after those who did it. Iran isn't even that bad (it seems to be mostly military targets) but in Lebanon they're levelling entire city blocks again. The last Iraq war created ISIS. The Afghan war didn't accomplish anything, things got back to square one in two months. What's the plan for Iran after the war? Oh wait there isn't one. Again. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/12/israel-iran-us-attack-no-plan-for-regime-change-security-sources https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/12/israel-iran-us...
- reverius42 7mo agoThe thing about the military is, once you join, you don't get to decide whether you fight for this kind of oil imperialism -- it's follow orders or go to military prison. (You might, separately, be able to sue from military prison claiming the orders were illegal, but good luck with that.) You definitely don't get to just quit.
- wolvoleo 7mo agoI thought you could resign your commission or something? I've heard of that. I'm not in the military of course and I couldn't be, I'm not a team player and tou unstable, I would spiral out of control in such an environment. But I thought there were ways of getting out of it.
- mrtksn 7mo agoIIRC the argument isn't that there's no enough money but that it shouldn't be done. American public happens to believe that the current system is better, that's why no one is rioting. They may riot if someone introduces tax funded safety net.
- 0ckpuppet 7mo ago[flagged]
- lawn 7mo agoThe imagined billions you mean?
- ratg13 7mo agoSadly this is just as much money as was stolen from taxpayers and transferred to "The Board of Peace"
- senor_burns 7mo agoThat's the cost of vibe bombing a country.