U.S. Capabilities Are Showing Signs of Rot
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
_________________
EDIT, new link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260306120140/https://www.theat...
I guess the gift link has reached its limit.
to read this story, sign in, start a free trial, or subscribe today.
Add to that that there is, on the tactical level, a severe unpreparedness for the new battlefield. A recent exercise with the Ukrainians only underlined that once more, as in: their drone team completely obliterated the western teams. Luckily, it was just an exercise.
But they're not going to present a serious threat to the overall military capabilities. Look at Ukraine, it's getting pummeled by literally thousands of drones. For years. Yet it's still fighting.
No, a more serious question is what the US is going to do if the air bombing campaign fails to effect a regime change.
How is this even a question though? The Islamic Republic's religion literally gets fueled by martyrdom, something the US and Israel is handing out freely these last few days, it only serves to make the republic stronger and more fearsome, and plays into their hand. Ok, you killed one leader, now there are ten more that are even more willing to die for the cause, and for each next one you kill, you spawn ten more. What really is the point here?
Unless the US and Israel decides to actively invade with humans on the ground and some serious overtaking of organizations, entities and institutions, this war serves nothing else but create more future martyrs, which their entire religion centers around.
in group / out group. people tend to stop hating their government when outsiders start bombing schools.
"Iranians" is a big umbrella, just like all Americans don't want the same thing, the same is true in other countries. After a week of bombings the regime seems as strong as ever, so clearly there are Iranians who are still supporting the regime, otherwise it would have fallen already. But again, killing them with senseless assassinations only seems to make them stronger, because of their religion.
Let's not kid ourselves, this is all because of Israel.
》 All of these systems have been linked to dozens of illegal airstrikes, including on designated humanitarian sites, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. None of these systems are necessary to protect Israel from incoming drone or rocket attacks.
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/prepared-remar...
Isn't it really the other way around? Israel is literally outsourcing its war and its war crimes to the US military (the strike on the girls' school was not Israeli but American).
Sure, Israel is getting some bombardment, but the lion's share of retaliatory strikes are being borne by American allies, almost all of whom have now lost trust in the US, and are now being forced to buy stockpiles from the EU and even Ukraine because the Americans came unprepared.
It's telling when the tightly controlled media in those countries lets billionaire magnates openly criticize their country's relationship with the US (not Israel), on national print.
Epstein worked for the Mossad
Trump sent half of the US's fleet to the Persian Gulf to mount a war on Iran, in part to distract us from the Epstein Files, in part because he thinks he's a czar who we'll title "The Great" for his territorial expansion since the Nobel committee vetoed "The Merciful". Rubio said that we knew Israel was going to attack Iran, and we would have stepped in to defend Israel from the counterattack, so we decided to just attack Iran ourselves. Hegseth ("Deus Vult" Hegseth) and the general staff apparently are disseminating the view internally that "Trump was anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth", and they are His blessed instruments.
Go ask some Iranians (both in the US and in Iran) what they think about their leadership change.
Same with Venezuelans.
Tehran is not a mudhut backwater, it is an actual city of 15M+ people.
As much they could possibly despise their current leadership, they will likely despise a lot more the country that is throwing bombs in their neighborhood. And rightly so.
And what is your association to speak about US MIL morale may ask?
The start of the war wasn’t started by IED’s supplied to Iraq from Iran during the Iraq war. You’re just moving the goal post to fit the criteria. The war started a several days ago when we bombed the country.
And again as every person with a brain has been saying: if we’re attacking Iran based on indirect attacks, why haven’t we bombed and invaded China or Russia?
It could also be that the whole region is simply tired of their bullshit, and would like to normalize their relations with Israel and generally get on with life without nonsense like Hamas and Hezbollah interfering. Note how Lebanon is seeing this as an opportunity to get rid of Hezbollah once and for all.
This is laughable. The current US administration would likely jizz their collective pants if Iran did a nuclear strike to a European capital. They can barely hide their hatred of EU and what it represents.
No, fuck this noise. Iran is being bombed by the US and Israel for their own evil reasons. Europe has many failures, but this Iran bullshit is not on us. Go pin this in someone else.
I know, material reality sometimes go against idealist fantasy.
The war against Iran is deeply unpopular in the US so leaders try to blame Israel. They are playing on the anti-semitic tropes of certain groups secretly controlling the government. It is important to not fall into this narrative.
If the US had told Israel that they wouldn't support them if they attacked Iran, this war wouldn't have happened.
What we see is a continuation of US imperialism as it has always been. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. There have never been any morals.
The war against Iran serves the geostrategic interests of US imperialism. It is the only country that dared to oppose them, that dared to criticize the genocide in Palestine, that dares to ally with their rivals.
Also worth consideration is that the comment by the boozing, former TV host U.S. secretary "of war" that rules of engagement are "stupid" stands in stark contrast to the IDF's scrupulous use of rules of engagement and resort to teams of lawyers to guide its military activities. Remember that the IDF warns residents of buildings it targets and even sends them texts messages to get out before bombing the buildings. Who else does that?
Also incredibly tiresome and patently false is that Israel committed "genocide" in Gaza -- no matter how many "activists" and misguided Western politicians scream that term. Hamas illegally entered Israel on 7 Oct 2023 and massacred more than a thousand Israeli citizens, and kidnapped hundred more, including babies and octogenarians, to be kept in fetid conditions and used as political pawns (or killed). Hamas even played politics with the bodies of Israelis they killed. Hamas raped and killed one young Israeli woman, then paraded her body around in the back of a technical (pickup) to the enthusiastic cheers of Gazans. For such acts of barbarism, Hamas had an approx. 55 to 60-percent approval rating from Gazans. Hamas purposely hid munitions in hospitals and schools then played the victim when those facilities were bombed. Hamas also forced people to stay in the buildings bombed by the IDF to run up their alleged death toll. This is how those depraved cowards play their game.
Did you ever notice when the Western press dutifully announced the Gaza death toll, the source was the "Gaza Health Ministry"? In other words, Hamas -- which allows NO press freedom of any kind -- is free to make up the death toll that forms the basis for mindless screaming of "genocide."
The irony is that Hamas is deftly playing Western liberals. Consider that Hamas's own charter explicitly calls for the death of all Jews -- genocide, anyone -- along with other non-Muslims (so Christians and nonbelievers are next).
On the other hand, the 7 Oct 2023 Hamas massacre turned out to be the most catastrophic miscalculation in modern military history. Every senior officer from Hamas, Hezbollah, IRGC, Houthi and Iran (Khamenei) now is dead.
I'm genuinely unclear on what the calculation was supposed to reveal. What did they think the outcome was going to be?
I'm put in mind of the 9/11 attacks on the US -- arguably, an even bigger miscalculation. At the time, everybody expected there to be follow-ups, and there were none.
The US certainly managed to tie itself up in knots of security theater, but al Qaeda painted a massive target on its own back. I cannot imagine what they thought was going to happen.
As for Gaza, as best I can judge, it was Iran's idea to sacrifice plenty of Gazans in the hopes that Israel would overreact and isolate itself even further from the world. Which is what they got, but that's really a lot of cost for not much benefit. Israel was already quite isolated; it just made the news for a while.
The irony is that I was actually defending Israel in a sense as I don't make it solely responsible for the Iran war. But you would rather agree with literal antisemites than admit any weakness of the oh so superior people of Israel.
You are completely delusional. Do you really think the Arab states would play ball with with Israel if daddy US didn't force them? The people of the world hate Israel for its crimes against humanity.
You couldn't even defeat Hamas. You had to seek an armistice that only one sides respects: Hamas. You have broken it nearly every day. You still refuse to sent basic aid into Gaza.
> Did you ever notice when the Western press dutifully announced the Gaza death toll, the source was the "Gaza Health Ministry"? In other words, Hamas -- which allows NO press freedom of any kind -- is free to make up the death toll that forms the basis for mindless screaming of "genocide."
uhm
> Israeli officials appeared to accept that some 70,000 Palestinians have died in the war in Gaza. Israel had long disputed the figures from Gaza's health ministry, saying the agency was run by Hamas.
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-broadly-accepts-gaza-ministry-d...
I guess you didn't get the memo.
> Consider that Hamas's own charter explicitly calls for the death of all Jews -- genocide, anyone -- along with other non-Muslims (so Christians and nonbelievers are next).
Oh yeah, it says such horrible things like:
> The Palestinian people are one people, made up of all Palestinians, inside and outside of Palestine, irrespective of their religion, culture or political affiliation.
or
> Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry.
or
> Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170510123932/http://hamas.ps/e...
I know you were not referring to the charter of 2017 but of 1988 because why play fair. But what you said is even a gross misrepresentation of the charter of 1988.
I sadly don't have time to debunk all the other lies that have been debunked thousands of times already.
The day will come when those that commit crimes against humanity will face the consequences.
Palestine will be free.
As to any "acceptance" of 70,000 dead in Gaza: First, how is any particular number "proof" of genocide? How many of the alleged 70,000 were combatants? I'll bet the Hamas "Health Ministry" hasn't released that little gem, and even if they did, would you actually believe them? How many were civilians? How many of those civilians were used as human shields while their leaders demonstrated their cowardice by partying in luxury apartments in Doha rather than standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their so-called fighters? IOW, to the extent there were civilian casualties, what portion of the death count consisted of civilians whom Hamas's cowardly leadership forced to remain in buildings that were bombed? That statistic, too, I do not expect to hear from Hamas. Also, why is the number of dead in Gaza so important as to get daily news coverage in the Western media, animating those falsely screaming "genocide," when Russia is busily bombing and killing Ukranians, yet we're not treated to the same sort of breathless daily tally? Where are the screams of "GENOCIDE!" against Russia? Hmmm.
I love this: "You are completely delusional. Do you really think the Arab states would play ball with with Israel if daddy US didn't force them?" First, I love the personal attack. Keep up the good work. Second, while the U.S. may have given normalization between Israel and Morocco, UAE and Sudan a push (or more?), those ties have strengthened on their own. You may not wish to recognize that Israel is a research and technology powerhouse. However, for example, Israel and Morocco have developed ties with interchanges of science and technology in the areas of agriculture and defense, among others, much of which occurred when Biden, not Trump, was president. These ties strengthened because the nations considered it beneficial to engage in the interchanges based on the merits of what each nation had to offer. Israel also now is assisting Sudan with water-management technology and has joint ventures with UAE in defense. If you can produce any evidence that "big daddy forced" these ventures and technology exchanges, go for it. Finally, Israel was developing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 2023. No doubt this development freaked out Iran, which has been funding Hamas for decades. But I'll bet you've convinced yourself that the timing of the barbaric and cowardly 7 Oct 2023 attack was mere coincidence!
As to which Hamas charter to cite, Hamas leaders when commenting on the 2017 charter "fell short of formally repudiating the original 1988 charter," sayeth Wikipedia. Again, feel free to produce evidence that Hamas explicitly repudiated the portion of the 1988 charter that calls for wiping out ALL Jews and other non-Islam believers. The 7 Oct 2023 attack is clear evidence that they did not repudiate that cause. Why else would they kill and kidnap and torture and rape and parade and /or withhold the dead bodies of Jewish civilians, instead of focusing on the IDF? They their hatred (and specific targeting) of Jews and their depravity by celebrating and cheering the murders, kidnappings and rapes.
Also: when chanting "from the river to the sea," as western protesters are wont to do, do these geniuses understand that they are calling for the very sort of genocide that is baked into Hamas's 1988 charter? Does no one get the irony of accusing a nation of "genocide," then parading through the streets and yelling for the genocide of the people of that nation?
True, the IDF did not "defeat" Hamas. All you can do with an enemy like that is set it back, which the IDF did succeed in doing. Hamas not only is a band of cowards, incompetents and criminals, but it is a band of irrational true believers, making them all the more difficult to eradicate completely. To their credit they are master manipulators (until debunked - remember the claimed hospital bombing incident quickly blamed on Israel until it was shown that the pendejos killed their own people with their own ill-fired missile?), but they sure as hell suck at governing. Like true welfare queens they depend on mass funds from Arab nations, Europe and, ironically, U.S. taxpayers and instead of investing those funds in the betterment of the people of Gaza, they built hundreds of KM of terror tunnels (where they hide like rats and held the living and dead of those civilians they kidnapped), acquired all manner of weaponry to be used in hopes of wiping out Israel, and fired a never-ending stream of missiles at civilian targets in Israel. Though the IDF gave them a boost, it would be up to the people of Gaza to "defeat" Hamas, they leadership they chose in the first place. It is a sad that they cannot pull together the will to do so and pick leaders that will actually govern with even a modicum of competency.
Also: I hadn't quite realized just how dead-internet Twitter had become. The amount of simply untrue comments, misattributed photos, etc. I mean it's always been bad, but the noise is just absolutely overwhelming now.
I'm starting to watch videos from today's China and comparing with 30 years ago its like night and day, sons have a much better life than their parents. The typical evolution from parents that worked on the fields to sons working with computers or selling things on Douyin. You see new cars, new buildings, from the outside you feel like this country is "going up".
Compare this to the USA now and 30 years ago. The disillusionment, the social strife, electing a president like Trump that makes George W. Bush seem like a good pick, people than can leaving the country for greener pastures... Sons have worse opportunities than their parents.
If you just compare the gradient of China and USA you will see it clear.
China will start going through it as all that new infrastructure starts needing to be replaced and/or maintenance costs go up, 'new' cool cities just become regular old cities, peoples bodies break down and populace gets tired.
I am so glad that China is doing good though. I'm excited for more people's lives to improve!
I want a strong America, but I think our problem is real problems of our own making by the political class and our capital class, not by China.