9 ms·
"Government suddenly and confusingly starts acting accordingly to what everyone's already know for a long time." This is really quite scary when you think about
by basilgohar 4mo ago
"Government suddenly and confusingly starts acting accordingly to what everyone's already know for a long time." This is really quite scary when you think about it. Why now all of a sudden?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- delecti 4mo agoMaybe this is a bit glib, but it's because attacking Iran (which everyone knew was a bad idea but which presumably seemed useful as a distraction) turned out to be a bad idea. So the administration is taking it out on Israel, who wanted us to do it.
- petcat 4mo ago> everyone knew was a bad idea It was a good idea if it was also timed during the popular uprisings. But the 20,000+ die-hard citizens that would have effected regime change were slaughtered months ago. So now it's just a scared populace hunkering in place while USA warships and jets dominate their country. And the Iranians fire off the occasional drone swarm on UAE.
- basilgohar 4mo agoIt was not and never was a good idea. The US and Europe need to stay out of the Middle East, including Israel and Palestine, and let the Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all other indigenous peoples of the area live there peacefully like that had for over a thousand years until each and every single time Europeans and Americans entered militarily causing chaos and havoc. Was it 100% peaceful prior to the Crusades? Of course not. But not anymore so than anywhere else in the world. Did it become a mess once they arrived? Yes, and they slaughtered everyone, including Christians, when they came, let alone Jews and Muslims and everyone else that wasn't them. So, we need to stop pretending like the US and European colonizing entities do any kind of good wherever they go. It's just about enriching the elites through military contracts while subverting any peoples' attempts to have autonomy for themselves.
- logicchains 4mo ago>let the Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all other indigenous peoples of the area live there peacefully like that had for over a thousand years That's an extremely historically ignorant take. Turkey alone genocided 2-3 million Christians in the 20th century (Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks), well before Israel existed.
- YZF 4mo agoYou must be joking re: peaceful before US and Europe. The first crusade was in 1099 for those who don't know the details. We had the Byzantine-Arab wars, Fatimid civil wars, Turkish invasions... Ofcourse we had the whole spread of Islam "by sword". Don't forget it was the Roman invasion of the region in 63 BCE that resulted in the mass murder and expulsion of Jewish people from Israel after the Bar Kokhba Revolt... Are you talking about the Ottoman Empire? Pretty violent. Anyways, I can't cover the history of the region in an HN comment...
- oa335 4mo agocompare list of conflicts in europe to those in middle east over past from 1000 AD - 1900AD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe in particular state formation in late medieval and early modern europe saw immense bloodshed and turmoil. middle east was comparatively peaceful in contrast, especially post mongol conquest. e.g. compare 1700s and 1800s europe to middle east
- YZF 4mo agoSo you're arguing the crusaders brought peace to the middle east? This history is so vast I can't even begin to think about how to compare. But one thing that feels odd to me is how people think of the middle east as somehow separate/far from Europe when in fact it's basically the same neighborhood. The Greek and the Romans were there. Under the Ottoman Empire, Muslims from present day Bosnia moved to present day Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushnak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushnak Don't forget that Christianity came from the middle east and ofcourse Islam. The Ottoman Empire ruled vast swaths of present day Europe. Spain was under Muslim rule until 1492. It's all one big mesh. Just yesterday I learnt that many present day Yemeni trace their roots to the Levant. Very different than farther regions like Afria, China, India and ofcourse the Americas, Australia etc.
- Cyph0n 4mo agoI would love to see an agreement on the supposed number of (unarmed) civilians killed. Over the course of the past few months, I have heard claims of thousands up to 50k. You would think the traffic and surveillance cams hacked by the Israelis would’ve shown the extent of this bloodbath. https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-security-cameras-surveillance-5f9a1fe5845d94894f3edd50af560d3a https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-security-cameras-surveil...
- ceejayoz 4mo agoNo one’s putting a public traffic cam in the regime’s secret detention sites.
- Cyph0n 4mo agoAh, so now none of the protesters were gunned down in the streets? How convenient. > As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME—indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll. https://time.com/7357635/more-than-30000-killed-in-iran-say-senior-officials/ https://time.com/7357635/more-than-30000-killed-in-iran-say-... Imagine infiltrating the Iranian surveillance camera network and being unable to produce footage of 30k people massacred across two days. I do not like Iran because of its actions in Syria and Yemen, but even with my bias, I could hear the bullshit Western elitist consent manufacturing engine starting up from miles away.
- orwin 4mo agoYeah, the 30k number is hogwash, but HR NGOs and OSINT volunteers worked up 7k dead in protest over 50 days, including 200 police/military forces, and a maximum of 18k death if you count the fights against separatist/freedom fighter/terrorists (depending on who you are aligned with, choose the description you like more)
- jameshilliard 4mo ago> the 30k number is hogwash 30k is one estimate of actual deaths, it's expected to be higher than any verified number of deaths. Most estimates fall into the range of 20k to 40k from my understanding so 30k is certainly plausible.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- tyre 4mo agoIt was also a bad idea then. They could never have effected regime change. That’s a fantasy that Israel included in its pressure on the US, but which US intelligence deemed highly implausible. There was never a world where this was a good idea. We had a diplomatic agreement that worked, nuked it for no gain, and now there isn’t a viable way to influence Iran. Diplomacy can’t function again because they don’t trust the US (fair, correct.) The IRGC cannot be replaced without a ground invasion, which the US won’t do (fair, correct.) The US can’t unilaterally remove one ton of buried nuclear material from the middle of a hostile state. This was always stupid.
- petcat 4mo ago[flagged]
- logicchains 4mo ago>It was also a bad idea then. They could never have effected regime change They could have if they'd done what Israel wanted and destroyed all the oil infrastructure. The IRGC is heavily dependent on oil revenue for funding its oppressive apparatus; without it hundreds of thousands of militia would go without pay and eventually desert. For whatever reason Trump didn't want to do this; likely not for humanitarian reasons given his nature, but for some reason he seemed to really care what Turkey and Pakistan think, both of whom don't want to be flooded with refugees.
- thisislife2 4mo ago> if they'd done what Israel wanted and destroyed all the oil infrastructure. That would have worked. But it is still a stupid idea if you don't cripple and destroy Iran's military capability first as Iran would have also retaliated and destroyed all its Arab neighbour's oil infrastructure too, plunging the world into an economic depression because of the energy crisis it would cause - The Iran War Is Destroying Something More Valuable Than Oil - https://houseofsaud.com/iran-war-refinery-crisis-saudi-aramco/ https://houseofsaud.com/iran-war-refinery-crisis-saudi-aramc...
- 4mo ago
- throw310822 4mo ago> the popular uprisings isn't it obvious that the "popular uprisings" were part of a scheme to overthrow the government to install some US-friendly puppet (or better: Israel-friendly, since that's the only thing that counts), and that the supposedly slaughtered protesters are exactly the reason that is normally put forward to justify an attack on an enemy country?
- ZeroGravitas 4mo agoIsraeli newspaper quoting NYT article with sources within Israel intelligence confirms this: > The Times reported that Barnea’s predecessor, Yossi Cohen, viewed regime change in Iran as unlikely and deemphasized the Mossad’s work on that project, instead working on ways to weaken the regime through sanctions and targeted assassinations of nuclear scientists. > But Barnea has adopted the opposite approach, directing the agency’s energies toward regime change over the past year https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-frustrated-that-mossad-promises-of-iran-uprising-have-fallen-short/amp/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-frustrated-that...
- EA-3167 4mo agoAlong these lines, but with a bit more: Israel definitely wanted us to do this, but they've been trying to sell US presidents on this for decades without success. MBS and the Saudis also want this, but you rarely read about that in the news; likewise with the UAE and quite a few others who have even been running their own direct strikes on Iran. The thing is, and I realize this is a rough climate to say this into: Jews have been the official scapegoats for the Middle East and Europe for what... 1500 years now? That doesn't just go away, and the political expediency of Trump covering his ass and the ass of his Saudi/UAE sources of billions (through Jared, Ivanka, Eric, etc) can't be thrown under the bus to do it. Meanwhile Israel is being run by a universally loathed man who can't shut up, so it's just easier to pretend that's it all their fault.
- rf15 4mo agoForcing the existence of a new jewish state has created, as expected, a permanent political fissure in the area. This is just dumb ideas piling up upon one another.
- vkou 4mo ago> Forcing the existence of a new jewish state has created, as expected, a permanent political fissure in the area. No, forcing the existence of a new aggressively expansionist jewish state did that.
- flyinglizard 4mo agoMind you Israel was the one that supported the partition plan in 1948. The expansion came from the other side who wanted it all
- g8oz 4mo agoPlans for ethnic cleansing Palestinians were being drawn up in the 1930s. No idea what you are talking about
- Hikikomori 4mo ago
- screye 4mo agoHow can a vassal state with 1/60th your GDP 'influence' your nation into a war ? It's a rhetorical question. It can't. Makes the MAGA military look incompetent. The US has a history of botched wars around the globe, most of which have little to do with Israel. If I'm drawing from data, then the Iran conflict is consistent with the post-war military movements of the US. Now that the communists are no more, Israel is the next best scapegoat. The way I see it, Israel's current leaders are happy to be scapegoats because the war benefits Ben Gvir and a radicalized Likud. It allows them to consolidate domestic power and pursue aggressive foreign objectives under shadow of the Iran conflict. I hope Netanyahu has thought this through. He has burned through 100 years of western guilt in the span of 3 years. To break even, Israel's military excursions must secure outsized outcomes, to the tune of decades of security. Because, I believe we are entering a couple of decades of bipartisan & unprecedented* anti-semitism. * Figuratively speaking. Historically ofc, anti-semitism is pretty precedented.
- noworriesnate 4mo agoIsrael obviously influenced American politicians through many avenues, not the least of which is the Epstein blackmail ring.
- karp773 4mo agoRight. That"s why Epstein wired millions of dollars to Russia, had a Russian bodyguard, gave away his estate to some Belorussian woman, and so on. Obviously, Mossad at work here!
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- roenxi 4mo agoThe US is currently waging a proxy war against Russia where they've managed to engineer something like 1,000,000 Russian casualties according to credible estimates [0]. Although obviously they're doing that for moral reasons since Russia launched an unprovoked war to maintain a sphere of influence around their borders which serious people in the US establishment have explained no country should be allowed to do. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the US has launched an unprovoked war on Iran because the Iranians were threatening the Israeli (and US for that matter) sphere of influence over the region, which obviously they are entitled to because god said so. The US is being entirely reasonable here and all serious people in the US establishment support or at most disagree with whether the mad scheme is a good idea. Just saying, if the Russians are the ones who are running the influence operations in Washington they really should consider ... I dunno, sending younger girls, or whatever. Their money is doing unusually poorly for lobbying efforts. And I want to add I don't even mind the hypocrisy or the evil all that much, I just wish I could find someone with a serious argument for how provoking the Russians makes long-term strategic sense. These policies are stupid, liable to get someone nuked sooner or later and just setting China up to have an easy time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war#Russo-Ukrainian_war_(2022%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...
- shevy-java 4mo ago> So the administration is taking it out on Israel, who wanted us to do it. Well, it is clear to see that this is Netanyahu's ploy, but the thing is that Trump constantly lies about this. "There are negotiations", but then the US bombs again. To me it seems as if Trump operates in a way that makes it impossible to have anything else but drop bombs onto Iran. In this way he resembles Putin, who tries to occupy more and more land belonging to Ukraine. Putin has no alternative to this either, similar to Trump. (Yes, Putin could in theory stop his war, but he tied his identity to it. I don't see how he can stop it, without having achieved officially stated goals of his genocidal invasion.)
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Tade0 4mo ago> Yes, Putin could in theory stop his war, but he tied his identity to it More like his life. He will not survive the end of this war.
- vkou 4mo agoNah. There are always face-saving offramps... And examples like Saddam doing just fine after his failed invasion of Iran. If the war ended tomorrow, and Russia withdrew from Ukraine, Putin would still be enjoying ~50% organic support among Russians. Just like Trump has a ~35% approval floor of complete idiots standing behind him as he sends inflation and gas prices and cost of living through the roof... Putin enjoys fairly wide actual support for generally developing the country over his tenure. Whether someone else would have done better is not the hypothetical people are engaging with.
- Tade0 4mo agoThe Russo-Japanese war ultimately didn't end well for the Romanovs. A lot of people died in suspicious circumstances. I mean, someone has to be held accountable for that, don't they?
- thisislife2 4mo agoBoth Netanyahu and Trump have a vested interest in promoting the idea of how much influence Israel has over US foreign policy. For Netanyahu, the propaganda that he manipulated Trump into waging a war against Iran boosts his political image with some Israelis. (And it is near election season in Israel).
- TurdF3rguson 4mo agoI don't see how that's a win for him since the outcome was a stronger Iran.
- anukin 4mo agoStronger how? The central command is gone.
- nemomarx 4mo agoThey seem to be heading towards control of the strait, and the tolls from that could be a pretty good pickup for whatever new government forms?
- gizajob 4mo agoNot sure how the gulf states on the other side of the strait are going to feel about that.
- nerfbatplz 4mo agoOman doesn't seem to care, Qatar capitulated quickly, the UAE is a walking corpse, Kuwait is as well until they kick the 5th fleet out, Iraq is already majority Shia, Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to care much.
- no-name-here 4mo agoApparently not enough for them to intervene (militarily?) even now while they have both the US and Israel actively on their side there?
- watwut 4mo agoIsreal wanted it. Strong and influential amrrican political actors wanted it too. Hegseth wanted it too. Now that it is shitshow, the same people want to put blame on Israel only.
- vkou 4mo agoOr, because different factions in the regime are at odds with eachother - there's MAGA, who are a sock puppet for whatever Netanyahu wants, and who spearheaded the idiotic war with Iran, and there's the entire military, which thinks that this war is by far the dumbest thing they've been asked to do... This year. Did this announcement come from the military side of things, or the MAGA side of things?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> there's MAGA, who are a sock puppet for whatever Netanyahu wants This vastly oversimplifies even that field.
- yonaguska 4mo agoMAGA has split hard. it's now MIGA vs AF. With MIGA being mostly boomer evangelicals and AF being younger, either outright fuentes antisemites or just anti Zionists that lean right. There is a huge astroturfing campaign to make it seem like MAGA is unanimously pro netanyahu, but it's simply fake.
- fwip 4mo agoWhat is AF in this context?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> MAGA has split hard It's premature to say it has split. MAGA always had multiple factions, and Trump has historically been excellent at keeping them in line. (See: Arab Americans in Michigan voting for Trump.) To the extent we're seeing any meanginful splits, it's in independents splitting from the GOP. Not MAGA splitting in any meangingful way. (Trump's recent primary wins show this.)
- elictronic 4mo agoIsrael keeps actively going against US goals. The beginning of the conflict generally had both sides in general agreement. The moment Israel killed the US’s intended replacement, and now continues promoting conflict while the US admin is pushing hard for a peace deal is showing the cracks
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> The moment Israel killed the US’s intended replacement The plan was fucked from conception. Not having a strategy for safeguarding the Strait made virtually any strategy that required persisting after decapitation half baked.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- dmix 4mo agoThe issue wasn't a lack of planning by the military it was a lack of commitment on the goals by the administration. If it was just a desert storm style campaign (hit them very hard over a month then leave without finishing off Saddam) then they should have left already when Iran offered to open the strait, and it could have been sold as a success. If they want Iran to truely bend the knee over nukes then they have to commit harder militarily than they are now, which neither the president nor the public seems to have an appetite for and Iran knows that. So now it's mostly deadlocked on both the US demanding Iran lose face by giving up Uranium immediately, while Israel wants to keep up an air campaign to further neuter Irans combat capabilities to free up their own strategic goals against Hezbollah and Hamas. But neither options are properly aligned, especially with fanatics in IRGC taking over. It's either a short air campaign or a war, but they can't seem to decide so we are left with an blockade.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> when Iran offered to open the strait When did Iran offer this? (One problem with a decapitation strike is you no longer have a single party to negotiate with.) > If they want Iran to truely bend the knee over nukes then they have to commit harder militarily than they are now It's genuinely unclear if America has the military power to project into Iran to the degree a ground invasion would require. (Like, short of carpet bombing the country's infrastructure and industry out of existence.) Missiles, drones and space-based surveillance have tilted the balance in favour of defenders, at least on the ground. American firepower can constrain Iran to within its airspace and maritime borders. But even if it made sense to, it's questionable whether we can influence much within them.
- karim79 4mo agoBecause now the manifestation of all this crap has reached a nuclear stage of undeniability. It has literally been simmering for a long time and now it finally comes out. Taking it out on Israel is not wrong and that's not to say that they (the Israeli government) hold the sole responsibility for this. The US had a say in this as well. But now the US is questioning the benefits of this complete and total asshattery and rightly so. Better late than never I suppose.
- sieabahlpark 4mo ago[dead]
- ycombinary 4mo ago[dead]
- petcat 4mo agoUSA almost certainly spies on Israel (and everyone else) far deeper than anyone spies on them.
- croes 4mo agoQuod licet Iovi, non licet bovi
- hammock 4mo agoSince the 1951 Angleton-Harel Secret Pact, there has been an unwritten agreement that CIA and Mossad will not spy on each others countries. Kiriakou (who is a wonk) confirmed as much in recent remarks. But no one without at least a TS really knows
- petcat 4mo ago> unwritten agreement
- hammock 4mo agoAh I forgot writing has magic powers. Especially between nation states. /s In this case the writing part is not important.
- ma2kx 4mo agoKiriakou also stated several times that the Mossad was known to casually try to recruit CIA agents: https://youtu.be/R7OWqAgGzwA?t=163 https://youtu.be/R7OWqAgGzwA?t=163
- hammock 4mo agoSame reason that FISA Amendments Act (2008) was passed less than two years after Mark Klein revealed Room 641A. Same reason that CISA (2015) was passed less than two years after the Snowden revelations. Once the secrets are open, the feds can codify them into law. They were never going to change their behavior.
- rag_wlk 4mo agoOne reason is that blaming Israel for the Iran FUBAR situation is very convenient, especially for keeping MAGA on board. The right wing pundits are already working overtime on X and elsewhere to blame Israel and concoct all sorts of explanations why Trump authorized the strike (the most amusing is that he "was possessed by demons"). Blaming Israel may have been coordinated with Netanyahu, who has nothing to lose and is probably perfectly fine with the blame as long as he gets his war and parts of Lebanon. Blaming Israel has many historic precedents from Clinton to Trump, often through planted leaks or deliberate hot mics.
- krona 4mo ago> One reason is that blaming Israel for the Iran FUBAR situation is very convenient, especially for keeping MAGA on board. Polling shows support for Israel is far greater among Trump loyalist voters than non-loyalist Republicans, so this is surely false. Perhaps you're confusing "MAGA" with actual American nationalists, who are statistically irrelevant.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoThe reason for the support matters. A lot of them think support for Israel leads to the apocalypse and Jesus’s return. It doesn’t end well for the Jews in that story.
- parineum 4mo agoNow you're confusing maga with evangelicals which are very different parts of the party. Evangelicals have largely lost influence in a post Roe world. Trump had to cater to them in his first term but, since he's taken over the party, they're in the backseat.
- ryandrake 4mo agoEvangelicals themselves recently brought us into this “post Roe world!” Their influence appears to be at its highest level ever.
- metalman 4mo agomaybe someone in China, put 2 million and 2 million together and hired themselves a zionist genocider baby killer on the make!
- dyauspitr 4mo agoProbably because Trump had a heated conversation with Netanyahu and this is some sort of “consequence”.
- lazide 4mo agoThe base is complaining, and they need a scapegoat. It wouldn’t surprise me if the talking points start being ‘Israel caused high gas prices!’ soon.
- godelski 4mo ago> Why now all of a sudden? The government already considered them a threat. Just like everyone else, including themselves (the gov isn't a single entity). What changed is geopolitics. Official and publicly calling them a threat. What this also changes is how gov works with companies. How these companies can subcontract and to who. Which, let's be honest, most companies don't give a rats ass if they are hacked. Sure, they lose money, but it's almost always a slap on the wrist and since every company works this way there's no market signal to express that you care even if you do. (I'd still encourage people to install apps like Signal, degoogle, and all that. Your individual choices still do matter, even if it's only us nerds)
- tcp_handshaker 4mo ago"GOP lawmaker wears Israeli military uniform to Capitol Hill" - https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israeli-military-uniform-capitol-hill/ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israel...
- urams 4mo agoIt boggles the mind just how egregious this was. I would not classify myself as anti-Israeli, fwiw. I just think wearing the military uniform of a foreign nation to your job governing our nation is despicable and borderline treasonous.
- tcp_handshaker 4mo ago[dead]
- thisislife2 4mo ago"You're fucking crazy": Trump fumes at Netanyahu in call on Lebanon - https://www.axios.com/2026/06/01/trump-netanyahu-israel-lebanon-call https://www.axios.com/2026/06/01/trump-netanyahu-israel-leba... Elections. The Trump administration joined the war hoping that any positive outcome in the Iran war would boost its mid-term prospects. Netanyahu attacked Iran and Lebanon because he faces elections in a few months and he wants to prolong all his wars till the election is over - apparently Israeli electorate don't tend to vote out a PM during a war. Trump has now realised the Iran war has been a political disaster and is looking to extricate out of it, through temporary ceasefires (which means he can resume the war later - which is standard US policy with a weaker foe). That doesn't work for Netanyahu because if he loses this election, he could also find himself behind bars due to some corruption conviction. Thus, he is working to sabotage Trump's ceasefire deals as he needs the wars to go on till October, when the elections will presumably be held ...
- doom2 4mo agoIt's amazing how many people have died just to keep Netanyahu out of jail.
- windexh8er 4mo agoBetween Israel and Russia is anyone surprised that all of the memes about a certain party being infiltrated by the Russians and then also all of them being bootlickers of Israel have merit to them? I've worked for a couple Israeli startups and what I will say is: never again. I've experienced all of the stereotypes and more, firsthand.
- marcosdumay 4mo agoI think supporting Israel has crossed the threshold from "a heavy political dead-weight" into "political suicide" for any politician on the US.
- ted_bunny 4mo agoIsrael is going to be a marvelous scapegoat. If dispensationalists are really in charge, the US will turn its back on them for 3.5 years, the first half of the tribulation.