Let’s have a look at the New York Times right now. Every story on the front page seems to be about a failure of U.S. military. Russia is winning. We stole some oil tankers and that’s actually costing us money instead of making us money. Missiles are falling in northern Israel. Maybe we’re firing some missiles at Iran from Bahrain, but they certainly aren’t hitting anything. We’re suffering an “oil shock” like in the bad days of the 1970s.
Let’s compare to a random day in the middle of our involvement in World War II. The British-spec’d P-51 hadn’t come into action yet so we were losing B-17 bombers and crews at a ridiculous rate. Nonetheless, the focus of the stories was on the enemy’s losses, not our own.
This is the first time that I can remember when more than half of Americans seem to be invested in the idea that the U.S. is doomed to lose a war.
(I personally believe that our best option for winning is to use bombs to (1) disable Iran’s oil production and export infrastructure, and (2) disable Iran’s electricity generation. Without money from selling oil, the Islamic Republic won’t be able to do too much that we don’t like. Without electric power, Iran won’t be able to produce a lot of sophisticated weapons. (Yes, they can use generators for some stuff, but that’s not the same as plugging a massive factory into the power grid.))
What’s the plan with this kind of coverage though? So the new Ayatollah can consolidate power? Why would the NYT be against any action that brings freedom to millions especially women?
Anon, a little secret I wanted to share with you (please keep it on the down low?). Are you serious (“what’s the plan with this type of coverage”)? Perhaps you haven’t been following current events for the past few decades, but even the mostly-demented Joseph Robinette Biden doesn’t ascribe any newsworthiness or objectivity to the NYT, nor does he believe they care two bits about freedom for anyone, least of all “women” (except perhaps transvestite “women”). Comprende?
Anon: I’m assuming that the goal is to make Donald Trump look bad and perhaps enhance Democrats’ chances of prevailing in the 2026 election (which Democrats previously said wouldn’t occur if Donald Trump were to be elected), but if that’s true it would be a historical first as far as I can tell.
Nothing of any substance in the media coverage beyond the usual middle east fighting. There’s a theory Iran could build drone ships & mines to attack oil tankers. It’s nothing compared to the AI generated videos we got last week of Tel Aviv & Dubai getting bombed into the stone ages. It’s impressive to imagine Ukraine aiding US against the insurgent drone army, but once again nothing but theories.
Trump addressed the electricity issue yesterday and said that the reason it hadn’t been done is it takes enormous time and money to repair a destroyed electrical generation and transmission system – according to Trump up to 25 years depending on just what is destroyed. The objective seems to be to get a better group into power not to reduce a country 2X the size of Texas to rubble so it becomes a permanent breeding ground for terrorists. No one of consequence, either Israeli or American, seems to think that destroying the Iranian hydrocarbon industry would be a good idea, presumably for similar reasons. Would also cause issues with the Chinese who are dependent on Iranian oil & probably lots of other countries & would be a big boost to Russia.
Iran is less than 4% of world oil production. Isn’t that easily made up by other producers?
“disable” in the original post doesn’t mean “flatten”. I would think that Iran’s electricity plants and oil facilities could be taken offline for a few months at a time using small bombs.
As for the “breeding ground for terrorists”, aren’t the most destructive terrorists usually from the richest countries? The 9/11 guys, for example, being from Saudi Arabia, as well as Osama himself. The two noble children of noble enrichers who threw bombs at the anti-Islam protesters in Manhattan recently.
(Afghanistan is poor and the terrorism threat that we’ve faced from Afghanistan has been mostly due to our decision to admit Afghans as immigrants.)
The US has benefited greatly from talented Iranian graduates from elite schools like Sharif. If we flatten them, we lose a critical source of talent in an environment where US educational capacity is steadily declining.
https://www.newsweek.com/surprising-success-irans-universities-87853
Anon: Thanks for that link. I’m not sure how many of the super smart Iranians are still in Iran (if they’re smart, why didn’t they find their way to Europe or the US already? Or are borders only open for those with IQs below 85?). As noted above, though, it is possible to disable Iran’s oil and electricity industries until the government collapses or surrenders (a few months before the unpaid troops quit? a few years at most?) without “flattening”.
> Chairman Doughton of the Ways and Means Committee, however, commented on several of the Treasury’s arguments for a $10,500,000,000 revenue bill. He said the American people were bearing the heaviest tax load in the world, called the Treasury estimate of the so-called inflationary gap “a statistical abstraction” and finally declared that too heavy a tax burden was “as great a danger to the nation’s economy as is too large a public debt.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. We are still bearing the burden of global defense. $10.5B in 1943 must have been a staggeringly large number when a burger, fries, and shake cost $0.45.
Phil is 100% correct. The US (and most of the western world) is under siege from violent left-wing groups intent on destroying our economy, society & culture. Of course if we say this, we’re all “right wing extremists”. Note that all violent despots were left wing: Stalin, Mao, Hitler etc. so I have no idea why so many people are embracing left-wing extremism.
Don’t forget Pol Pot. Julius Caeser hijacked the populares to become dictator, although I wouldn’t describe him as a despot. Interesting how the concepts of conservative and liberal existed back then.
> I have no idea why so many people are embracing left-wing extremism.
Extremism abounds in our highly polarized political climate, although there does seem to be a chicken and the egg question of which caused which. The echo chamber that is the Big Social Media isn’t helping, IMO. And now it is “Let’s throw some AI kerosene on the political dumpster fire!”
All major news outlets, reporters, political leaders, and even presidents, along with many Western countries, have spent years talking about how oppressive Iran’s leadership and the Revolutionary Guard are, how poorly they treat their own citizens, and how they threaten the West. For decades, they argued that something had to be done, even going so far as to negotiate major agreements intended to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Yet when Netanyahu and Trump take action against Iran’s leaders, very much all of them are now asking “why,” as if Iran’s leadership were somehow on the verge of becoming pro-Western.
If those news outlets, reporters, political leaders, et. al. feel so strongly that this incursion was a mistake, they can send their armies to defend Iran’s current leadership, or even better, offer them asylum, much like how France provided refuge to Khomeini in 1978 before the Iranian Revolution.
By the way, a similar argument can be made about Putin. For years, the West trusted him and meet his demands, hoping he would ultimately act as a “good guy.” Many countries even became heavily dependent on Russia in areas such as energy. Then he showed his cards with the annexation of Crimea and not long after, the invasion of Ukraine.
So yes, Iran is absolutely crushing us and the West, and we are the bad guys.
The Democrat sophisticates on Facebook love to talk about how Trump attacked Iran “without a plan” and that’s why the current war is bad and why we are losing. If a towering intellect such as Joe Biden were in charge, in other words, we could have attacked Iran with a brilliant plan (like the one that the Germans had for winning WWI quickly; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan ). I don’t know why “Drop bombs on the heads of people who chant ‘Death of America'” isn’t enough of a plan, but apparently it makes a person sound smart to say that it isn’t.
And this just in: “A new norm: BBC visits Doha market starting to fill up again two weeks into Iran war.” [1]
We are all familiar with people being “tagged” with ADHD, even at 4 years old, but now the same behavior has spread to the media and political class. Every new development is treated as if it proves the world is going to $#!t. Yet, only days later, they will tell us all is good.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cp32gez414yo
This “without of plan” is a joke and I do not think anyone is buying this.
Trump was pretty public for years about what he wanted to do with Iran and even given deadline during surrender talks. Obviously all was closely planned with Israel and first time in 50 years he made Israel work hard for US plan, last time it was in 1970th when Israel protected Jordanian monarchy from Syrian onslaught.
I wondered why the NYT story about $47 million worth of maintenance on a seized tanker didn’t include any details of the work done… then I remembered where I was reading,
Let’s also not forget that COVIDFear and policies around it had a far greater and longer-lasting impact on the world: financially, educationally, and in terms of productivity. School closures alone affected over 1.5 billion students worldwide, with long-term effects expected on learning, earnings, and economic growth. Yet today, if you listen to talking heads, the Iran war is being portrayed as having a much larger and a much longer global impact.
That’s a great point. Coronapanic required about $5 trillion in direct U.S. government spending (estimated another $5 trillion by other governments around the world). Then we spent another $1 trillion-ish by not running schools for 12-18 months (still spent the money, but got no benefit because kids didn’t learn anything). Then maybe another $700 billion by compromising higher education for a year (virtual classes that were a joke). Then figure another $1 trillion in reduction of work skills by having adults sit at home for a year. The Iran war is free by comparison.