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> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company. The Departm

> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company. The Department of Defense is the Department of War. They changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries. We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" the country.

TheCoelacanth 6mo ago
Regardless of what the Trump administration will tell you, that's not it's name. The executive branch is not empowered to unilaterally change the name of a department.
- Ritewut 6mo ago
  Regardless of what the name legally is, they are in fact initiating war against other nations and Palantir is one of the main players in those wars.
- Panda4 6mo ago
  Even by ignoring the name change, that is its function. Even if it was called department of defense, it's actually department of war.
- Planktonne 6mo ago
  If it's what they call themselves and what they're currently doing, how much does it matter what the official name is?
  - thewebguyd 6mo ago
    Because soft power is a real phenomenon and by going along with the illegal name change, we are giving legitimacy to an illegitimate act. Its anticipatory obedience. Do not obey in advance. It signals to the regime how much power they actually have.
    - Planktonne 6mo ago
      I'd agree in principle, but they're already killing people. The worst-case scenario has been happening for a while; treating this as a procedural stance rather than a description of reality is blinkered.
      - thewebguyd 6mo ago
        If we adopt their language because things are already bad we are saying that their power is now the only reality that matters, we are giving up any form of resistance. We killed people under the name of Department of Defense too. Giving them the name is giving them the legitimacy to continue to justify the violence, and signals to the rest of the population that no one is coming to help and the new order is absolute. Mind you, this is mostly the fault of complicit media going a long with the name change rather than individuals here on HN, but whether its a true description of reality or not isn't important, whats important is any form of resistance to stop giving legitimacy to the regime.
        Planktonne 6mo ago
        As a non-American, I think that Americans treating concrete problems as less important than linguistic games does an awful lot more to legitimise the violence.
        collingreen 6mo ago
        I don't think parent claimed that simply using certain words is more important than dealing with the real problems. You sound frustrated with the American situation. I am too but that doesn't mean someone saying "resist" is somehow condoning or ignoring the important issues. I think the message of "don't submit in advance" is a great one and it actually makes sense to me to include that ethos in all things, including your speech. I think we all agree that speech alone is not enough.
        ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
        As a third party to your discussion, I observe that you are both engaged in exactly the same "linguistic game" with each other, if you prefer to use that dismissive terminology, and I'll add that writing is not mutually exclusive with action.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- blipvert 6mo ago
  It’s not empowered to unilaterally declare war without approval from congress, either. But here we are.
  - krapp 6mo ago
    The president isn't empowered to declare war, but as Commander in Chief he is empowered to send the military anywhere he wants and start whatever "conflict" he wants, for whatever reason he wants, including no reason whatsoever. After which Congress can retroactively declare it a war if they so choose. But the US hasn't fought a declared war since WW2, because declarations of war don't really mean anything when the missiles have already been fired and the bombs have already been dropped. I hate Trump as much as anyone with a moral core should, but the President's capacity for creating arbitrary military violence and expenditure has always been unchecked.
    - stasomatic 6mo ago
      If that’s true, that’s insane. Forgive me, I’m not a PolSci scholar. Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? It always annoys me when the headlines are “Trump invaded this …” or “Trump slapped a tariff on…” while effectively it’s the US government that’s doing that, they are letting him to do as he pleases? Then the fault lies not with him. He’s not a king but surely seems to have absolute discretion if you believe the headlines.
      - pineaux 6mo ago
        Its because the president used to have a modicum of respect for the house and the Senate. So the president did have the sole right to send military anywhere on the planet and even launch nukes without any need for congressional permission. This is by design. But the other presidents were a bit less crazy so we never noticed.
      - nkingsy 6mo ago
        The movie "vice" covers this nicely. The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent.
gib444 6mo ago
War and defence are the same thing in the US, so the naming doesn't really matter. To go after enemies, real or otherwise, with overwhelming force (to also the scare the ones not bombed this time), is to "defend" the US. That is how they justify it to themselves.
throw0101d 6mo ago
On the changes to US military organization and thinking post-WW2 (and the name change): > […] The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.” > These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies. * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/defense-war-cringe-department/684112/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive... The author is a retired professor from the US Naval War College: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic)
- reactordev 6mo ago
  Ah yes, the administration’s love of Axis of Allies, or is it allies of axis? They don’t know, they got distracted by the mustaches and the desire to conquer the world.
  - spwa4 6mo ago
    You do realize that the Axis (Nazi Germany, Japan) were attacking everyone with the explicitly stated goal of conquering the world (and subjecting it to the holocaust, we might add), and US stopped them, conquered Europe, North Africa, half the Pacific, and nothing has been able to stop the US military since. And the US ... retreated. We might add, the Soviets, the other axis, did not retreat. China did not retreat. Both of them started killing people to keep their conquests. I mean, there's no shortage of stuff that the US did wrong and US made mistakes. This was not one of them.
rob74 6mo ago
It certainly has nothing to do with defending the country the department is located in.
echelon 6mo ago
> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate (1) Nuclear proliferation. We once had a deal that looked as though it was holding. Trump's nixing of the deal and the happenings in Ukraine accelerated Iran's desire to have nukes. (2) Taiwan invasion postponement / CRINK disruption As I've been reading, this might be a second order play to stall China's invasion of Taiwan. If China has to dip into strategic oil reserves to smooth out impact to its economy, it may forgo its Taiwan invasion plans for a bit longer. It's also throwing a wrench into the CRINK alliance.
- kelnos 6mo ago
  Those are incredibly thin justifications that don't really hold up to scrutiny. 1) The deal was holding. And even if we take Trump's word for it that it wasn't, he told us that he destroyed their nuclear capability a year ago. So either he was lying about that, or there was no serious nuclear capability in the first place. Regardless of how that shakes out, there's no reason we should believe this justification today. 2) This is incredibly speculative, and no serious intelligence analyst or military strategist would suggest "war with Iran" as a solution there. And the joke is on us, anyway: China may be feeling an oil crunch, but we're depleting our stock of a bunch of materiel that we'll need if it comes time to defend Taiwan. On top of that, China's military leadership is seeing how incompetently the US is prosecuting this war, and is likely feeling a lot more confident about their ability to fend off a US defense of Taiwan.
  - stasomatic 6mo ago
    Even if we destroyed it, RU would be happy to resupply. What has this war that nobody wanted cost just at the gas pumps all over the world and who stood to benefit? I really do think I’d be better off having had been born a century or two ago reading books under a candle and digging outhouses when needed.
  - decimalenough 6mo ago
    The US military is prosecuting the war just fine, US losses of materiel and personnel have been minimal (not zero, but close enough). China's takeaway from this is not going to be that the US military is incompetent. The fundamental problem is that the declared objectives of regime change and securing control of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be achieved through air power alone. And this is the fault of the president, not the military.
stackedinserter 6mo ago
> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate They were articulated many times, maybe you didn't want to hear. The action itself was poorly planned and executed, it's a different question.
- pphysch 6mo ago
  Yeah, we didn't want Iran to have nukes, so we rugpulled the JCPOA and murdered the guy who declared a fatwa against nukes. We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) so we butchered 170 school girls and didn't apologize. We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon and directly induced Iran to close the Strait. Yeah. Articulated.
  - nomdep 6mo ago
    > We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) At least 20,000 according to Amnesty International, other independent sources claim 40,000. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/what-happened-at-the-protests-in-iran/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/what-hap...
    - IAmBroom 6mo ago
      Can we agree on "thousands"?
    - happymellon 6mo ago
      That says Iran clams 3,000, UN claim 5,000 and other sources claim higher. I don't Amnesty putting their name behind any of those numbers but even the 20,000 is very hand wavey. I don't see 40,000 claimed anywhere.
  - stackedinserter 6mo ago
    Yes, an aggressive regime that develops nuclear weapons (otherwise why all this enrichment?), stockpiles missiles and drones that, funds terrorists like hezbolla, hoothis and hamas, should be stopped. Yes, when you apply military force, civilians die. Nobody is happy about it, at least in US. Yes, Iran closed the strait, because Trump taco'ed again and can't use force against it. Yes, Israel bombs hezbolla, because what else should they do to people that shoot rockets at Israel? Send them fresh water and electricity? They tried it with Gaza, didn't help. What was your point?
michaelsshaw 6mo ago
The US has always used its military for global terrorism. Only just now, it is more in your face. There is no doubt: the US is responsible for some of the most sickening crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including directly being the inspiration for the Holocaust, as well as US companies providing logistics for the Holocaust! I hate the idea that it was ever the DoD. It was always a terroristic, offensive force.
- UltraSane 6mo ago
  "It was always a terroristic, offensive force." Even during WW2?
  - lazyasciiart 6mo ago
    Yes. Netanyahu has pretended to justify destroying civilians in Gaza by saying the US did it first in Dresden.
    - ambicapter 6mo ago
      Well if Bibi says it then it must be true!
    - UltraSane 6mo ago
      I don't care what Netanyahu says. Why do you?
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
      - lazyasciiart 6mo ago
        Because in this instance he’s correct.
        UltraSane 6mo ago
        He is just a scumbag trying to justify his own despicable behavior.
angry_octet 6mo ago
Let's clarify further that they are working for the clown Gestapo known as ICE, and they are enabling them to violate judicial directives and Constitutional protections for an adminstration speed running American anarcho-fascism. Palantir used to be an effective augmentation to counter-insurgency and international terrorism. Karp has gleefully pivoted to enabling authoritarian pogroms in American cities, and if you keep working there you have blood on your hands.
louiereederson 6mo ago
Are they war or defense products when they are used against your own citizens?
- lateforwork 6mo ago
  Neither... it is illegal when used against citizens
  - nemomarx 6mo ago
    What law are you thinking of? Some tools used in riot enforcements would be illegal to use in wars, so it actually seems to be the other way around to me.
    - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
      > What law are you thinking of? Posse Comitatus [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
      - lovich 6mo ago
        That sounds like some woke shit that doesn’t stand up to the rights of the President, unless that President is a Democrat.
        throw1234567891 6mo ago
        “Woke shit” signed into law in 1878. Maybe woke was what the world was like most of the time.
        lovich 6mo ago
        I was being sarcastic clanker and/or throwaway account. It’s obviously the law but this admin doesn’t respect the law, as they believe we’re in a post Constitutional era. It’s looks like they are manifesting their beliefs since so many people support them, both sides them, or decide it’s not that big a deal when the executive branch of the American government starts executing American citizens and trying to EO away the 14th amendment on farcical grounds.
inetknght 6mo ago
> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate I'll say them. The reasons are Trump, Vance, and Republicans.
- tapland 6mo ago
  Might want to go back and check on the Dems. It bad > it's the ones I don't vote for is easy to say.
  - solid_fuel 6mo ago
    Senate Democrats have made at least 5 attempts to stop this. Every Democrat voted in favor except Fetterman. Every republican opposed the attempt except Ron Paul. The Republicans are entirely responsible for the war in Iran - they started it and have opposed every attempt to reign the administration in. Don't play this "both sides" game when one side is clearly causing the issue here. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-defeats-democrats-5th-attempt-to-limit-trumps-war-powers-in-iran/ar-AA21uzF7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-defeats-democ...
    - tapland 6mo ago
      I mean. The side voting while knowing they can't stop it that way, the definition of optics, thought this was worth it to not cater to their anti-war voters, no? Both side bad yeah, you seem to think the solution is still to cling to the lesser of two evils. Hell, dem presidential candidates were praising Trumps Iran policy up until the bombs started falling. There is no evidence they _actually_ care about a war with Iran outside of, just as you do, saying OH this is THEIR doing.
      - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
        yea, I don't see any evidence that either the democratic party or democratic voters support the war on iran, secretly or not sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
elAhmo 6mo ago
The name isn't changed.
- micromacrofoot 6mo ago
  the current administration is using the war name, it doesn't matter what it technically is because they are using it to plainly state their ambitions for it
  - elAhmo 6mo ago
    They are calling Gulf of Mexico with a wrong name either, that doesn't mean they are right.
    - micromacrofoot 6mo ago
      this isn't a discussion about wrong vs right
avaer 6mo ago
Should also keep in mind the secretary of war publicly stated the department's aim is "maximum lethality, not tepid legality". Politics aside, anyone in the supply chain shouldn't be surprised they have a role in illegal killings, because that's literally what they said they're doing.
Henchman21 6mo ago
The Iran war started to provide a distraction from the Epstein files. Let's not pretend we don't know why, or more absurdly, can't quite articulate. It's very simple.
- master_crab 6mo ago
  Why is this getting downvoted? How is this any less ridiculous sounding than the multitude of other, ever-shifting reasons Trump gave for starting the war.
tinfoilhatter 6mo ago
[flagged]
jghn 6mo ago
> The Department of Defense is the Department of War No, it is not, at least not technically. That would require an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. Despite what the idiots "in charge" seem to believe.
- Johnny555 6mo ago
  But those idiots "in charge" are what matters, right? Since they set the tone for the department, and lately they sure are acting more like a DoW than a DoD.
  - chrisco255 6mo ago
    Its quite laughable to pretend that DoD was never on the offense between 1948 and 2025.
    - rob74 6mo ago
      Even Hitler's army, which attacked large parts of Europe in WW2, was called the Wehrmacht ("defense force" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht). But, as a famous German who was almost 150 years older than Hitler already knew, "Namen sind Schall und Rauch" ("names are but sound and smoke").
- chrisco255 6mo ago
  It's effectively the same. The EO declares the Dept of War as a secondary title. Formally it still is the DoD.
RickJWagner 6mo ago
[flagged]
- NoLinkToMe 6mo ago
  Right, but Trump has stated he can accept working with the regime without consequence, like in Venezuela, as long as they cooperate on key issues e.g. oil and Israeli security concerns. He couldn’t care less that the regime is killing its own people. Like he couldn’t care less about Israel’s illegal occupation and murder. To think Trump did this war to save Iranian lives from its own government is hopelessly naive. It was not at all a leading factor.
- ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
  It doesn't seem fair to require people to speak out publicly about every random, crazy things communicated by Trump and his regime. In my view, it gives legitimacy to his ramblings and certainly feeds into his narcissism to have people react. It seems more reasonable and practical to speak out against his war once action has actually been taken. (As a UK citizen, I don't even understand why Trump is being allowed to unilaterally start wars without Congress agreeing)
  - RickJWagner 6mo ago
    I can’t imagine that. Politicians are supposed to lead. To present courses of action. Not to criticize other politicians after some event has already occurred and outcomes are visible. It’s as if you were riding in a car with a friend, speeding. If you tell the friend “slow down, this is dangerous” then you are acting a little bravely and this is virtuous. Waiting to see if you get to your destination or have a crash before opening your mouth is definitely not virtuous.
    - ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
      I'd liken it more to regularly getting a lift from a friend, but they are often speeding, tailgating, using their phone etc. You could complain every single time, but after a while, you have to just treat that friend as very unreliable and you should stop getting a lift from them. With the Iran war, there didn't seem to be an opportunity to provide leadership before the event from other countries as the decision wasn't exactly well considered. There still doesn't seem to be a strategic objective to it that makes sense to me.
giwook 6mo ago
Great point. Labeling it as 'defense' instead of 'war' might be one of the more brilliant marketing tricks in the last century. No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11 It was renamed after WWII. In part because smart minds realised that war between industrialised civilisations had ceased to be an accretive endeavour since sometime between Napoleon and the Kaiser.
  - chrisco255 6mo ago
    Have you heard about the Cold War that immediately ensued after WW2 between the world's two leading industrial nations?
    - Aeolun 6mo ago
      Everyone involved was smart enough to realize it shouldn’t go hot.
      - carlosjobim 6mo ago
        Except for in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc
        JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > Except for in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc I originally discussed "war between industrialised civilisations." "Korea, Vietnam, etc" were not that. The World Wars drove home the argument that direct confrontation between industrialised socieities is a lose-lose proposition. Since WWII, what I think we've been experimenting with is whether industrialised civilisations can wage war by proxy and still come out ahead. ("Ahead" here measured in relative and absolute power and wealth.) The answer appears to be no–unless you can bog down another who was stupid enough to engage without a proxy. But I don't think it was obviously no until somewhere between the Iraq War and now.
Lio 6mo ago
> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, As a third party watching I just assumed it was a “dead cat”[1] to get people to stop talking about the Epstein files. Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys either but the timing of this war… it just looks very odd. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy
- FireBeyond 6mo ago
  There's the "hilarity" of Operation Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files. It's either someone's private joke or the most clueless name you could imagine (not to mention sounding like it was taken straight from a COD Lobby).
- lokar 6mo ago
  Also trump seems to have this weird thing about Obama. He is obsessed with him. He tore up the Obama Iran deal, and is now seeking a better solution.
  - archonis 6mo ago
    Trump is the sort of old school racist whose entire model of the world couldn't tolerate Obama as POTUS. ...and then of course, this didn't help: https://youtu.be/HHckZCxdRkA?si=axixDO1Cm1i3Su0k https://youtu.be/HHckZCxdRkA?si=axixDO1Cm1i3Su0k
- SmirkingRevenge 6mo ago
  It's not really a distraction, it's just it's own stupid, horrible thing. The most sane reason for "why now" would be because Iran was in a relatively weak position (domestic unrest, severely weakened proxies due to Israel) and the hawks saw an opening That and Trump was more easily moved now that he's developed a taste for military shows of force after the Maduro thing. He probably thought it would make great content. The Iran hawks and Netanyahu probably didn't have to push him very hard
- cramsession 6mo ago
  > Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys I'll believe this when it comes from someone other than the Epstein people. As it stands, the worst people in the world do not like Iran, so they're definitely doing something right.
deadbabe 6mo ago
They are war criminals participating in a war crime enterprise.
jfengel 6mo ago
Quite a few joined when it was a defense contractor, at least in name. They could at least imagine that their jobs were for defense purposes. The name change is a harsh truth.
ekianjo 6mo ago
> y changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries the "department of defense" has been doing military actions against other countries forever.
alexashka 6mo ago
'We' should stop using the word 'we'. :) 'We' talk is how the pseudo-educated talk down to those other people who are the problem.
chrisco255 6mo ago
The U.S. has been taking military action against other countries since its inception, whether it was named DoD or DoW.
giancarlostoro 6mo ago
> nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" the country. It's not hard: * They're trying to build nuclear weapons, and they're one of the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism (if not the sole leader). * The country ran out of water, people started to protest their government, and were killed by the thousands (some say tens of thousands potentially more). Water is one of the most basic human needs, if they're willing to kill their own people protesting for the most basic human need, what would they do with Nuclear to the rest of the world? I feel like people don't understand the gravity of Iran with nuclear. Iran having nuclear will not end well for its citizens or the world.
- augstein 6mo ago
  * Their nuclear program was obliterated in June 2026, says even the White house (1) * The worlds leading sponsor of and spender on terrorism (including financial aid to Hamas) is Israel, by a wide margin (2) * Claims that “thousands” or “tens of thousands” were killed specifically over water protests are not supported by widely accepted evidence Now I'm wondering which country is a bigger threat to us and peace in general. A country on the brink of financial collapse, with a severe drought and one of the last remaining opponents of our greatest ally? Or a country that "provides funding to both Democratic and Republican leadership teams, often supporting over 90% of targeted caucus members" (3) and constantly wants us to fight their wars? 1) https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa... 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_ter... 3) https://www.trackaipac.com/congress https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
  - resident423 6mo ago
    Can both not be true?
Forgeties79 6mo ago
I was under the impression the name was not actually formally changed, just like how the “Department of government efficiency” was never actually a department but was just a rebranding of an existing department done totally by mouth (like a lot of nonsense this administration does)
Gigachad 6mo ago
The reason is fairly clear. The king has dementia and has lost the plot. And so far no one has been able to declare him unfit.
- cindyllm 6mo ago
  [dead]
deepsun 6mo ago
One nitpick, legal name has never changed, it's still "Department of Defense". Trump has issued an order to call it by "war" name, but it never actually change its name.

TheCoelacanth 6mo ago

Regardless of what the Trump administration will tell you, that's not it's name. The executive branch is not empowered to unilaterally change the name of a department.

Ritewut 6mo ago
Regardless of what the name legally is, they are in fact initiating war against other nations and Palantir is one of the main players in those wars.
Panda4 6mo ago
Even by ignoring the name change, that is its function. Even if it was called department of defense, it's actually department of war.
Planktonne 6mo ago
If it's what they call themselves and what they're currently doing, how much does it matter what the official name is?
- thewebguyd 6mo ago
  Because soft power is a real phenomenon and by going along with the illegal name change, we are giving legitimacy to an illegitimate act. Its anticipatory obedience. Do not obey in advance. It signals to the regime how much power they actually have.
  - Planktonne 6mo ago
    I'd agree in principle, but they're already killing people. The worst-case scenario has been happening for a while; treating this as a procedural stance rather than a description of reality is blinkered.
    - thewebguyd 6mo ago
      If we adopt their language because things are already bad we are saying that their power is now the only reality that matters, we are giving up any form of resistance. We killed people under the name of Department of Defense too. Giving them the name is giving them the legitimacy to continue to justify the violence, and signals to the rest of the population that no one is coming to help and the new order is absolute. Mind you, this is mostly the fault of complicit media going a long with the name change rather than individuals here on HN, but whether its a true description of reality or not isn't important, whats important is any form of resistance to stop giving legitimacy to the regime.
      - Planktonne 6mo ago
        As a non-American, I think that Americans treating concrete problems as less important than linguistic games does an awful lot more to legitimise the violence.
        collingreen 6mo ago
        I don't think parent claimed that simply using certain words is more important than dealing with the real problems. You sound frustrated with the American situation. I am too but that doesn't mean someone saying "resist" is somehow condoning or ignoring the important issues. I think the message of "don't submit in advance" is a great one and it actually makes sense to me to include that ethos in all things, including your speech. I think we all agree that speech alone is not enough.
        ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
        As a third party to your discussion, I observe that you are both engaged in exactly the same "linguistic game" with each other, if you prefer to use that dismissive terminology, and I'll add that writing is not mutually exclusive with action.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
blipvert 6mo ago
It’s not empowered to unilaterally declare war without approval from congress, either. But here we are.
- krapp 6mo ago
  The president isn't empowered to declare war, but as Commander in Chief he is empowered to send the military anywhere he wants and start whatever "conflict" he wants, for whatever reason he wants, including no reason whatsoever. After which Congress can retroactively declare it a war if they so choose. But the US hasn't fought a declared war since WW2, because declarations of war don't really mean anything when the missiles have already been fired and the bombs have already been dropped. I hate Trump as much as anyone with a moral core should, but the President's capacity for creating arbitrary military violence and expenditure has always been unchecked.
  - stasomatic 6mo ago
    If that’s true, that’s insane. Forgive me, I’m not a PolSci scholar. Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? It always annoys me when the headlines are “Trump invaded this …” or “Trump slapped a tariff on…” while effectively it’s the US government that’s doing that, they are letting him to do as he pleases? Then the fault lies not with him. He’s not a king but surely seems to have absolute discretion if you believe the headlines.
    - pineaux 6mo ago
      Its because the president used to have a modicum of respect for the house and the Senate. So the president did have the sole right to send military anywhere on the planet and even launch nukes without any need for congressional permission. This is by design. But the other presidents were a bit less crazy so we never noticed.
    - nkingsy 6mo ago
      The movie "vice" covers this nicely. The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent.

gib444 6mo ago

War and defence are the same thing in the US, so the naming doesn't really matter. To go after enemies, real or otherwise, with overwhelming force (to also the scare the ones not bombed this time), is to "defend" the US. That is how they justify it to themselves.

throw0101d 6mo ago

On the changes to US military organization and thinking post-WW2 (and the name change): > […] The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.” > These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies. * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/defense-war-cringe-department/684112/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive... The author is a retired professor from the US Naval War College: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic)

reactordev 6mo ago
Ah yes, the administration’s love of Axis of Allies, or is it allies of axis? They don’t know, they got distracted by the mustaches and the desire to conquer the world.
- spwa4 6mo ago
  You do realize that the Axis (Nazi Germany, Japan) were attacking everyone with the explicitly stated goal of conquering the world (and subjecting it to the holocaust, we might add), and US stopped them, conquered Europe, North Africa, half the Pacific, and nothing has been able to stop the US military since. And the US ... retreated. We might add, the Soviets, the other axis, did not retreat. China did not retreat. Both of them started killing people to keep their conquests. I mean, there's no shortage of stuff that the US did wrong and US made mistakes. This was not one of them.

rob74 6mo ago

It certainly has nothing to do with defending the country the department is located in.

echelon 6mo ago

> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate (1) Nuclear proliferation. We once had a deal that looked as though it was holding. Trump's nixing of the deal and the happenings in Ukraine accelerated Iran's desire to have nukes. (2) Taiwan invasion postponement / CRINK disruption As I've been reading, this might be a second order play to stall China's invasion of Taiwan. If China has to dip into strategic oil reserves to smooth out impact to its economy, it may forgo its Taiwan invasion plans for a bit longer. It's also throwing a wrench into the CRINK alliance.

kelnos 6mo ago
Those are incredibly thin justifications that don't really hold up to scrutiny. 1) The deal was holding. And even if we take Trump's word for it that it wasn't, he told us that he destroyed their nuclear capability a year ago. So either he was lying about that, or there was no serious nuclear capability in the first place. Regardless of how that shakes out, there's no reason we should believe this justification today. 2) This is incredibly speculative, and no serious intelligence analyst or military strategist would suggest "war with Iran" as a solution there. And the joke is on us, anyway: China may be feeling an oil crunch, but we're depleting our stock of a bunch of materiel that we'll need if it comes time to defend Taiwan. On top of that, China's military leadership is seeing how incompetently the US is prosecuting this war, and is likely feeling a lot more confident about their ability to fend off a US defense of Taiwan.
- stasomatic 6mo ago
  Even if we destroyed it, RU would be happy to resupply. What has this war that nobody wanted cost just at the gas pumps all over the world and who stood to benefit? I really do think I’d be better off having had been born a century or two ago reading books under a candle and digging outhouses when needed.
- decimalenough 6mo ago
  The US military is prosecuting the war just fine, US losses of materiel and personnel have been minimal (not zero, but close enough). China's takeaway from this is not going to be that the US military is incompetent. The fundamental problem is that the declared objectives of regime change and securing control of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be achieved through air power alone. And this is the fault of the president, not the military.

stackedinserter 6mo ago

> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate They were articulated many times, maybe you didn't want to hear. The action itself was poorly planned and executed, it's a different question.

pphysch 6mo ago
Yeah, we didn't want Iran to have nukes, so we rugpulled the JCPOA and murdered the guy who declared a fatwa against nukes. We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) so we butchered 170 school girls and didn't apologize. We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon and directly induced Iran to close the Strait. Yeah. Articulated.
- nomdep 6mo ago
  > We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) At least 20,000 according to Amnesty International, other independent sources claim 40,000. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/what-happened-at-the-protests-in-iran/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/what-hap...
  - IAmBroom 6mo ago
    Can we agree on "thousands"?
  - happymellon 6mo ago
    That says Iran clams 3,000, UN claim 5,000 and other sources claim higher. I don't Amnesty putting their name behind any of those numbers but even the 20,000 is very hand wavey. I don't see 40,000 claimed anywhere.
- stackedinserter 6mo ago
  Yes, an aggressive regime that develops nuclear weapons (otherwise why all this enrichment?), stockpiles missiles and drones that, funds terrorists like hezbolla, hoothis and hamas, should be stopped. Yes, when you apply military force, civilians die. Nobody is happy about it, at least in US. Yes, Iran closed the strait, because Trump taco'ed again and can't use force against it. Yes, Israel bombs hezbolla, because what else should they do to people that shoot rockets at Israel? Send them fresh water and electricity? They tried it with Gaza, didn't help. What was your point?

michaelsshaw 6mo ago

The US has always used its military for global terrorism. Only just now, it is more in your face. There is no doubt: the US is responsible for some of the most sickening crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including directly being the inspiration for the Holocaust, as well as US companies providing logistics for the Holocaust! I hate the idea that it was ever the DoD. It was always a terroristic, offensive force.

UltraSane 6mo ago
"It was always a terroristic, offensive force." Even during WW2?
- lazyasciiart 6mo ago
  Yes. Netanyahu has pretended to justify destroying civilians in Gaza by saying the US did it first in Dresden.
  - ambicapter 6mo ago
    Well if Bibi says it then it must be true!
  - UltraSane 6mo ago
    I don't care what Netanyahu says. Why do you?
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - lazyasciiart 6mo ago
      Because in this instance he’s correct.
      - UltraSane 6mo ago
        He is just a scumbag trying to justify his own despicable behavior.

angry_octet 6mo ago

Let's clarify further that they are working for the clown Gestapo known as ICE, and they are enabling them to violate judicial directives and Constitutional protections for an adminstration speed running American anarcho-fascism. Palantir used to be an effective augmentation to counter-insurgency and international terrorism. Karp has gleefully pivoted to enabling authoritarian pogroms in American cities, and if you keep working there you have blood on your hands.

louiereederson 6mo ago

Are they war or defense products when they are used against your own citizens?

lateforwork 6mo ago
Neither... it is illegal when used against citizens
- nemomarx 6mo ago
  What law are you thinking of? Some tools used in riot enforcements would be illegal to use in wars, so it actually seems to be the other way around to me.
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > What law are you thinking of? Posse Comitatus [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
    - lovich 6mo ago
      That sounds like some woke shit that doesn’t stand up to the rights of the President, unless that President is a Democrat.
      - throw1234567891 6mo ago
        “Woke shit” signed into law in 1878. Maybe woke was what the world was like most of the time.
        lovich 6mo ago
        I was being sarcastic clanker and/or throwaway account. It’s obviously the law but this admin doesn’t respect the law, as they believe we’re in a post Constitutional era. It’s looks like they are manifesting their beliefs since so many people support them, both sides them, or decide it’s not that big a deal when the executive branch of the American government starts executing American citizens and trying to EO away the 14th amendment on farcical grounds.

inetknght 6mo ago

> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate I'll say them. The reasons are Trump, Vance, and Republicans.

tapland 6mo ago
Might want to go back and check on the Dems. It bad > it's the ones I don't vote for is easy to say.
- solid_fuel 6mo ago
  Senate Democrats have made at least 5 attempts to stop this. Every Democrat voted in favor except Fetterman. Every republican opposed the attempt except Ron Paul. The Republicans are entirely responsible for the war in Iran - they started it and have opposed every attempt to reign the administration in. Don't play this "both sides" game when one side is clearly causing the issue here. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-defeats-democrats-5th-attempt-to-limit-trumps-war-powers-in-iran/ar-AA21uzF7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-defeats-democ...
  - tapland 6mo ago
    I mean. The side voting while knowing they can't stop it that way, the definition of optics, thought this was worth it to not cater to their anti-war voters, no? Both side bad yeah, you seem to think the solution is still to cling to the lesser of two evils. Hell, dem presidential candidates were praising Trumps Iran policy up until the bombs started falling. There is no evidence they _actually_ care about a war with Iran outside of, just as you do, saying OH this is THEIR doing.
    - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
      yea, I don't see any evidence that either the democratic party or democratic voters support the war on iran, secretly or not sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

elAhmo 6mo ago

The name isn't changed.

micromacrofoot 6mo ago
the current administration is using the war name, it doesn't matter what it technically is because they are using it to plainly state their ambitions for it
- elAhmo 6mo ago
  They are calling Gulf of Mexico with a wrong name either, that doesn't mean they are right.
  - micromacrofoot 6mo ago
    this isn't a discussion about wrong vs right

avaer 6mo ago

Should also keep in mind the secretary of war publicly stated the department's aim is "maximum lethality, not tepid legality". Politics aside, anyone in the supply chain shouldn't be surprised they have a role in illegal killings, because that's literally what they said they're doing.

Henchman21 6mo ago

The Iran war started to provide a distraction from the Epstein files. Let's not pretend we don't know why, or more absurdly, can't quite articulate. It's very simple.

master_crab 6mo ago
Why is this getting downvoted? How is this any less ridiculous sounding than the multitude of other, ever-shifting reasons Trump gave for starting the war.

tinfoilhatter 6mo ago

[flagged]

jghn 6mo ago

> The Department of Defense is the Department of War No, it is not, at least not technically. That would require an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. Despite what the idiots "in charge" seem to believe.

Johnny555 6mo ago
But those idiots "in charge" are what matters, right? Since they set the tone for the department, and lately they sure are acting more like a DoW than a DoD.
- chrisco255 6mo ago
  Its quite laughable to pretend that DoD was never on the offense between 1948 and 2025.
  - rob74 6mo ago
    Even Hitler's army, which attacked large parts of Europe in WW2, was called the Wehrmacht ("defense force" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht). But, as a famous German who was almost 150 years older than Hitler already knew, "Namen sind Schall und Rauch" ("names are but sound and smoke").
chrisco255 6mo ago
It's effectively the same. The EO declares the Dept of War as a secondary title. Formally it still is the DoD.

RickJWagner 6mo ago

[flagged]

NoLinkToMe 6mo ago
Right, but Trump has stated he can accept working with the regime without consequence, like in Venezuela, as long as they cooperate on key issues e.g. oil and Israeli security concerns. He couldn’t care less that the regime is killing its own people. Like he couldn’t care less about Israel’s illegal occupation and murder. To think Trump did this war to save Iranian lives from its own government is hopelessly naive. It was not at all a leading factor.
ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
It doesn't seem fair to require people to speak out publicly about every random, crazy things communicated by Trump and his regime. In my view, it gives legitimacy to his ramblings and certainly feeds into his narcissism to have people react. It seems more reasonable and practical to speak out against his war once action has actually been taken. (As a UK citizen, I don't even understand why Trump is being allowed to unilaterally start wars without Congress agreeing)
- RickJWagner 6mo ago
  I can’t imagine that. Politicians are supposed to lead. To present courses of action. Not to criticize other politicians after some event has already occurred and outcomes are visible. It’s as if you were riding in a car with a friend, speeding. If you tell the friend “slow down, this is dangerous” then you are acting a little bravely and this is virtuous. Waiting to see if you get to your destination or have a crash before opening your mouth is definitely not virtuous.
  - ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
    I'd liken it more to regularly getting a lift from a friend, but they are often speeding, tailgating, using their phone etc. You could complain every single time, but after a while, you have to just treat that friend as very unreliable and you should stop getting a lift from them. With the Iran war, there didn't seem to be an opportunity to provide leadership before the event from other countries as the decision wasn't exactly well considered. There still doesn't seem to be a strategic objective to it that makes sense to me.

giwook 6mo ago

Great point. Labeling it as 'defense' instead of 'war' might be one of the more brilliant marketing tricks in the last century. No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11 It was renamed after WWII. In part because smart minds realised that war between industrialised civilisations had ceased to be an accretive endeavour since sometime between Napoleon and the Kaiser.
- chrisco255 6mo ago
  Have you heard about the Cold War that immediately ensued after WW2 between the world's two leading industrial nations?
  - Aeolun 6mo ago
    Everyone involved was smart enough to realize it shouldn’t go hot.
    - carlosjobim 6mo ago
      Except for in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc
      - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > Except for in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc I originally discussed "war between industrialised civilisations." "Korea, Vietnam, etc" were not that. The World Wars drove home the argument that direct confrontation between industrialised socieities is a lose-lose proposition. Since WWII, what I think we've been experimenting with is whether industrialised civilisations can wage war by proxy and still come out ahead. ("Ahead" here measured in relative and absolute power and wealth.) The answer appears to be no–unless you can bog down another who was stupid enough to engage without a proxy. But I don't think it was obviously no until somewhere between the Iraq War and now.

Lio 6mo ago

> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, As a third party watching I just assumed it was a “dead cat”[1] to get people to stop talking about the Epstein files. Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys either but the timing of this war… it just looks very odd. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

FireBeyond 6mo ago
There's the "hilarity" of Operation Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files. It's either someone's private joke or the most clueless name you could imagine (not to mention sounding like it was taken straight from a COD Lobby).
lokar 6mo ago
Also trump seems to have this weird thing about Obama. He is obsessed with him. He tore up the Obama Iran deal, and is now seeking a better solution.
- archonis 6mo ago
  Trump is the sort of old school racist whose entire model of the world couldn't tolerate Obama as POTUS. ...and then of course, this didn't help: https://youtu.be/HHckZCxdRkA?si=axixDO1Cm1i3Su0k https://youtu.be/HHckZCxdRkA?si=axixDO1Cm1i3Su0k
SmirkingRevenge 6mo ago
It's not really a distraction, it's just it's own stupid, horrible thing. The most sane reason for "why now" would be because Iran was in a relatively weak position (domestic unrest, severely weakened proxies due to Israel) and the hawks saw an opening That and Trump was more easily moved now that he's developed a taste for military shows of force after the Maduro thing. He probably thought it would make great content. The Iran hawks and Netanyahu probably didn't have to push him very hard
cramsession 6mo ago
> Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys I'll believe this when it comes from someone other than the Epstein people. As it stands, the worst people in the world do not like Iran, so they're definitely doing something right.

deadbabe 6mo ago

They are war criminals participating in a war crime enterprise.

jfengel 6mo ago

Quite a few joined when it was a defense contractor, at least in name. They could at least imagine that their jobs were for defense purposes. The name change is a harsh truth.

ekianjo 6mo ago

> y changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries the "department of defense" has been doing military actions against other countries forever.

alexashka 6mo ago

'We' should stop using the word 'we'. :) 'We' talk is how the pseudo-educated talk down to those other people who are the problem.

chrisco255 6mo ago

The U.S. has been taking military action against other countries since its inception, whether it was named DoD or DoW.

giancarlostoro 6mo ago

> nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" the country. It's not hard: * They're trying to build nuclear weapons, and they're one of the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism (if not the sole leader). * The country ran out of water, people started to protest their government, and were killed by the thousands (some say tens of thousands potentially more). Water is one of the most basic human needs, if they're willing to kill their own people protesting for the most basic human need, what would they do with Nuclear to the rest of the world? I feel like people don't understand the gravity of Iran with nuclear. Iran having nuclear will not end well for its citizens or the world.

augstein 6mo ago
* Their nuclear program was obliterated in June 2026, says even the White house (1) * The worlds leading sponsor of and spender on terrorism (including financial aid to Hamas) is Israel, by a wide margin (2) * Claims that “thousands” or “tens of thousands” were killed specifically over water protests are not supported by widely accepted evidence Now I'm wondering which country is a bigger threat to us and peace in general. A country on the brink of financial collapse, with a severe drought and one of the last remaining opponents of our greatest ally? Or a country that "provides funding to both Democratic and Republican leadership teams, often supporting over 90% of targeted caucus members" (3) and constantly wants us to fight their wars? 1) https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa... 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_ter... 3) https://www.trackaipac.com/congress https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
- resident423 6mo ago
  Can both not be true?

Forgeties79 6mo ago

I was under the impression the name was not actually formally changed, just like how the “Department of government efficiency” was never actually a department but was just a rebranding of an existing department done totally by mouth (like a lot of nonsense this administration does)

Gigachad 6mo ago

The reason is fairly clear. The king has dementia and has lost the plot. And so far no one has been able to declare him unfit.

cindyllm 6mo ago
[dead]

deepsun 6mo ago

One nitpick, legal name has never changed, it's still "Department of Defense". Trump has issued an order to call it by "war" name, but it never actually change its name.