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Only a few days ago the United States and Israel were not at war with Iran. All three countries were negotiating a treaty to limit Iran’s production of fissile nuclear material and ballistic missiles. I guess the discussions didn’t go so well.
The President of the United States claims his pre-emptive strike/war was justified because Iran posed an “eminent [sp] threat” to the US and its allies (What allies? Maybe they came back after SCOTUS ruled his tariffs were illegal?).
Funny, I hadn’t heard about the imminent Iranian threat. The only thing I’ve heard since is that US intelligence (is that an oxymoron?) says Iran posed no imminent threat at all to the US. These guys have a hard time keeping their “facts” straight.
Hard to know who to believe. Harder to tell how this war will end. Nobody can predict the outcome accurately or the secondary consequences. Not nobody.
France has now announced it will increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons. That doesn’t sound too good. Vladimir Putin has threatened to bomb Europe. Yikes! I live in Europe (and my friends in the US had been commending me for my foresight in relocating; silly friends).
While predicting the war’s outcome may be difficult, some things are easy to predict. Like the death of innocent people. Some already are dead.
Over a hundred schoolgirls and their teachers were killed by an Israeli bomb dropped in Tehran on the first day of the war. I don’t know about you, but I never for a moment felt the least bit threatened by either the girls or their teachers.
If somebody tries to tell me these girls were a threat to me or the United States, whatever evidence they might have adduced to prove their point has been lost in the rubble of their school along with the girls’ hope for a future.
If somebody tries to tell me the death of these girls was an unfortunate mistake, I would like them to explain how the precision high tech AI managed bombs could err so horribly. Isn’t AI supposed to be really, really smart? Can’t it tell a girl’s school from a military base or government complex? Is it so stupid and reckless that it could not refrain from sending that bomb there if it had any doubt?
I guess it is all in a day’s war…or something like that.
So, the President has asked us to focus on the “positive” results.
Like, also on the war’s first day, a bomb or two also killed the Ayatollah Jamenei, a cleric and the Supreme Leader of Iran. It is reported that a lot of his subordinates also were done in by the same bomb(s). The Iranian regime, we’re told, was decapitated.
At hearing this news, some people in Iran celebrated, some wept.
By almost all accounts, nobody outside Iran much cared for the decapitated leaders of Iran. Consequently, the international commentary so far has been mixed despite the utter absence among the aggressors of any lawful justification or any discernible plan for Iran’s future.
I guess there are a few people outside Iran who liked the Ayatollah. For example, Putin was his ally, but with friends like that who needs, well, you see what I am getting at.
But now, it is reported that three US servicemen have been killed in a retaliatory strike by Iran at one of the US military bases in the region. And today it has also been reported that an entire US military in base in Kuwait has been destroyed by Iranian missiles. An entire base. I wonder how many US personnel were there at the time of the strike?
In response to the war deaths of US citizens, the President of the United States laments the sacrifice but insists that the war is still a “good deal.” The US President has made a lot of “good deals” in his life. Almost all of them eventually turned into shit.
His timing is also interesting and a bit disturbing. After he knew the Ayatollah was dead but before he knew about the deaths of US citizens, he asked the Iranians for a cease fire. I am pretty sure I know why the Iranians rejected the suggestion. The people running Iran are not well known for their forgiving nature. Let’s have a little revenge first and then maybe we can talk about a cease fire.
No cease fire. Well, never mind. A few dead people is the price of war. Sometimes a whole lot of dead people.
Like I said, nobody can foresee the outcome of this war.
War is fog, mistakes escalating logarithmically, carnage, corruption, and the trampling of the innocent.
Anyone who thinks otherwise has not been paying attention.
Keep your children and your pets at home.