[War] Trump declares war on Iran for regime change

Can Satan just come take this POS already?

 

Not sure Satan wants him back?

 

This guy is either lying for partisan politics or he’s an idiot.

It’s not the vessels that are blocking the straight, you can look up the satellite imagery yourself. Over 1,200 commercial vessels are parked near an open corridor. It’s the threat of attacks from semi-nearby land that is making people stay away from it and insurers pull their risk. Trust me, I’m right here next to it and my best friend owns one of the biggest oil storage and tanker loading facilities in the region.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the strait is mined except from the very same people me and you consider serial liars. There’s no use for it. It would be a PR nightmare for Iran, it’s easy to detect with US Navy equipment and it’s much more expensive than what’s worked so far.

That’s not to say they won’t mine it but at the moment it’s nothing but a Trump team rumor.

 

They should probably just build a huge canal right across the middle of the UAE, like the Panamanian one. From just south of Dubai straight across the country to the deepwater port at Khorfakkan. The Panama Canal is about 80km long. A straight line from Dubai to Kohr Fakkan is about 100km.

Given all the other over the top ME engineering megaprojects it shouldn't be too hard to find someone to pony up.

It would probably be finished before the Iranians stop chucking missiles at anything sailing through the strait of Hormuz.

 

Add Trump’s war-making to his daily debasing of democracy, appeasing of Russia, punitive tariffs, climate crisis denial and flouting of international law, and it’s clear this White House travesty has gone on long enough. Americans must put their house in order and act decisively to restrain someone who endangers us all.

Trump is a man without a plan. He hasn’t the foggiest what to do next in Iran, deluding himself that he is in control of events. The more the US and Israel batter Tehran and other cities, the more defiant is the odious, unvanquished Islamic regime. US regional bases and Gulf Arab partners are sustaining significant damage from retaliatory strikes.

Iran has succeeded in closing (and is now reportedly mining) the strait of Hormuz, which Trump, astonishingly, failed to defend. Rising oil and gas prices are driving a global energy shock that harms international trade, fuels inflation and creates food and medicine shortages. Poorer countries will suffer most. But few will escape the Trump plague. He’s the new Covid.

Netanyahu’s worst instincts have free rein as Trump flounders. Unceasing, disproportionate Israeli air attacks are hitting Iranian homes, utilities, banks, cultural heritage sites and mosques. The attacks are said to be counterproductively rallying nationalist support for the regime.

In Lebanon, it’s the same criminal story: civilians killed, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, destruction, occupation – all supposedly necessary to smash Hezbollah terror. But this is something worse: it’s state terror. Compare it with unchecked Israeli settler depredations in the West Bank. The “greater Israel” project advances on all fronts, olive grove by uprooted olive grove, village by depopulated village.

Taking fright as markets tumbled, Trump half-tried to declare victory last week, but even he couldn’t sustain so big a lie. At least George W Bush had the courage of his (foolish) convictions in Iraq in 2003. Bush knew only a land invasion would achieve his aims. Trump lacks the balls for that. In Iran, he sought swift, painless victory from the air.

What he – and the world – have got instead is, potentially, another forever war. The regime will keep fighting, increasingly by asymmetric means; there can be no popular uprising while this continues. Israel wants to make Iran and Lebanon like Gaza: permanent aerial free-fire zones. And thanks to Trump, the US is pig in the middle.

Trump and his Bible-thumping Pentagon mouthpiece, Pete Hegseth, would prefer to declare “mission accomplished” sooner rather than later. It’s undeniable Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded, however this will not end well for Washington.

Humiliating failure looms, prospectively as symbolically damaging to US global standing and national self-esteem as Afghanistan or Iraq. Body bags are coming home. And the war’s financial cost is running at more than $11bn a week. Midterm election voters, watching prices rise, will not easily forgive its careless architect. Donald J Trump: making America lose again.

The central issue of Iran’s suspect nuclear intentions remains unresolved. Its facilities have been “obliterated” not once but twice. Yet it retains a hidden stockpile of highly enriched uranium, plus scientific knowhow that cannot be bombed away. This stockpile might have been peacefully surrendered or diluted, had Trump not torpedoed negotiations.

Some hardliners want to copy North Korea and build nukes to ensure regime survival. To date, Iran has not taken that final step, blocked by a fatwa from the then supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Now he’s been assassinated, that may quickly change. If Iran does finally go nuclear, it could be Trump’s and Netanyahu’s doing.

The Iranian missile and drone threat is diminished but far from eliminated, as Tehran’s continuing strikes show. Pentagon boasting about “permanently” destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities is plain silly. The US is taking hits, and suffering casualties, at military bases across the Gulf as Iran learns how to exploit defensive vulnerabilities. Tehran is also holding proxy militias in reserve.

Hegseth’s ranting about “barbarians” and “savages” says more about him and his boss than his enemies. It seems the “secretary of war” may have had some traumatic experiences while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, where many US and UK soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In contrast, draft-dodger Trump probably thinks an IED is a contraceptive device.

The coming US defeat is moral and legal, too. Trump’s lying efforts to shift blame for the killing of more than 100 schoolgirls in a US Tomahawk missile strike in Minab on 28 February are utterly contemptible. Deliberate or not, Minab was a war crime for which those responsible must be held accountable.

In this context, it’s significant that Trump went to war without necessary congressional authority, flouts the Geneva conventions and ignores international law. US troops observe no rules of engagement. Ethically challenged Hegseth claims they can do whatever they want, with impunity. No, they cannot.

Trump’s “little excursion” will have big geopolitical consequences. Regime change, which he cruelly promised protesters, is slipping off the US agenda. It was always unrealistic to suppose it could be imposed from above. For his part, Netanyahu still hopes for regime collapse, not least because it may boost his re-election chances. He will want to keep on bombing Iran and Lebanon (and Gaza) when it suits him, regardless of whether Trump proclaims an end to the war.
Allies including Britain are dismayed and alienated by Trump’s arrogant refusal to consult and fatal lack of strategic planning, exemplified by his strait of Hormuz fiasco. He’s irresponsibly escalating the war, saying he is bombing Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal “just for fun” – which could further drive up global prices. Simultaneously, he’s asking those same allies to get directly involved by sending warships to his rescue in the strait. Unsurprisingly, there are no takers so far.Meanwhile, Russia – “temporarily” released from US oil sanctions to Ukraine’s great detriment – and China are profiting from Trump’s bellicose bungling and disdain for global opinion.

If there is any justice left in the world, Trump’s Republicans will be punished in November’s elections. But that’s the very least that should happen. US and Israeli leaders should face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity in national and international courts. Britain and other adversely affected states should demand the US pay compensation. Iran and Lebanon should receive reparations. And Trump should be impeached in Congress for his many gross abuses of power.

 

Perhaps the greatest lasting cost to humanity is that many nations will now pursue nuclear weapons (in secret) as a defensive deterrent, given that the greatest military power in the world no longer upholds the norm it helped establish after WW2 -- that powerful nations do not attack less powerful ones illegally or without justification.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the world's condemnation kept the framework alive. Now the US itself has joined the ranks of rogue aggressors, and there is nothing left to hold.

 

Ansah Allah (Houtis) in Yemen now say they will close the Bab al-Mandab Strait (Red Sea/Suez Canal) in support of Iran.

 

This has to be fake, right?

No, no. It's legit.

 

I thought Trump was telling oil tankers to grow some balls and go through the strait, but our military craft won't either?

 

Well Trumpy wanted to nuke a hurricane in his first term. Being worried about radioactive fallout is for soyboys and beta-cucks.

 

Probably so, but you still must plan for it and identify resources to deal with it if it does happen.

 

All they need to do after the threats is sink one or two tankers with Iranian supplied anti-ship missiles and you've effectively closed it, at least for a little while. Nobody will risk it until proven otherwise.

You don't need to run a chain across the strait and set up a check point in the middle to close it to commercial traffic.

For extra credit, sink one, go into hiding, wait for the Americans to bomb the crap out of some stuff and confidently proclaim they've made it safe, then crawl out of their hidey holes and fire off a missile to sink another. Everybody would be sending their ships around the Horn of Africa for months.

The threat that it might happen again at any time seem like it would be sufficient to close the strait down.

I think it effectively adds two weeks to transit times to Europe for tankers to go around Africa? An additional two week crunch on oil supplies can generate all kinds of mayhem and panic on an already panicky market.

 

Folks don't let bald putzenheimers like @StupidMoniker pretend like they were always against this - the fact of the matter is that they were and always have been unabashed fans of the fascist political project to destroy America and have a long history of cheerleading it, because it is what they want

 

Hegseth’s Pentagon Is Trying to Turn a Newspaper for Troops into Propaganda

A new memo severely restricts Stars and Stripes, a military news outlet operating continuously since World War II.

Under the new policy, Stars and Stripes, which has historically operated with a large degree of editorial freedom, reports that it will generally be blocked from carrying news stories from wire services like the Associated Press, as well as from publishing comics. It is also being directed to publish material from the Defense Department’s own public affairs offices.

The memo is part of a broader pattern of the Pentagon under Hegseth trying to shape and limit the amount of information the public receives about US military operations. It comes as the Trump administration wages an unpopular war in Iran that has sent oil prices soaring.

The paper’s ombudsman Jacqueline Smith, who is tasked by Congress with protecting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence, said in an interview with the Washington Post that the memo “threatens Stars and Stripes’ continued editorial independence, and it does so at the detriment of the troops who rely on the newspaper for complete coverage and continued accurate coverage that is not propaganda.”

In a further effort to kneecap the paper’s reporting, the memo bars reporters at Stars and Stripes from submitting Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the publication. Stars and Stripes reporters are also prohibited from publishing “controlled unclassified information.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politic...tars-stripes-newspaper-propaganda-restricted/