Fun Fact: the two countries we launched regime change invasions on, Iraq and Iran, did not supply any terrorists for the 9/11 attack. OTOH, our good buddies Saudi Arabia and Egypt did.
Knowing what we now know, I’m convinced Israel orchestrated 9-11 to foment global hatred of Muslims. That enabled Israel to use the US as its battering ram in the Middle East. We’re still doing it for them. OBL never claimed 9-11. He claimed plenty of other things, but not that one. That matters.
Given the US’s penchant for terrorism, NO, I would not be surprised to learn the US govt was in on it too.
Indeed: The 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. The majority were citizens of Saudi Arabia (15 of the 19), with two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt (the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta), and one from Lebanon.
With all this detailed intel, it seems clear to me that the elementary school was a fully intentional target. Over 100 dead kids, 100% on purpose, apparently.
Don’t hold this against me, but I briefly - and I mean VERY briefly - dated the infamous John Poindexter in the 1960s. I’ve never forgotten these words he said to me: “Career military live for war. Why else would we be here?”. The relationship came to an abrupt halt.
I laugh sardonically when I hear people say that Congress should exercise its authority under the War Powers Act, having lived through countless euphemistic wars in my almost 83 years. Do we even have a Congress, btw?
I met him in St Thomas when his ship was there for a liberty break, and he was kind of fun. When we reconnected in NYC, he took me on a tour of a submarine that was in for repairs, and that was interesting. (There is no way I could be a submariner, btw.) The bloom was off the rose when I told him about my role in the antiwar protests. It was after this that he made the comment about career military. I never heard from him again.
Only, to be sure of one thing, it's not "Us" who struck Iran. It's them, the never-ending war-making machine that you so clearly described, but failed to distance yourself from. Because, indeed, it is not 'us,' is not beholden to "us," nor gives a sh*t about us.
I agree with Ken completely. Our military is now run by a kind of AI of its own. And, OUR TAX DOLLARS are paying for all of this! ICE functions similarly. But, and a BIG but, is a SECOND reason. Below is my posting from another platform:
Political, history, and movie junkie here. Re-watch, or watch for the initial time, the third Star Wars movie "Revenge of the Sith" from 2005. Chancellor Palpatine (secretly Darth Sidious) used EMERGENCY POWERS given to him by Congress to suspend civil liberties because of the war with the Separatists. Hitler also did this in 1933 to become, first, German Chancellor, and then, when the old Hindenburg died, to combine the offices of chancellor and president into one office. That made Hitler "The Furher". Sound familiar? An external war with Iran would do the same thing for both Trump here in the USA, and for Netanyahu in Israel. They both, and especially Trump, KNOW HOW UNPOPULAR THEY ARE. They will use EMERGENCY POWERS due to the war to CANCEL the mid-term elections, which Trump, and probably Netanyahu, will loose, and rule by decree. This whole thing is about RETAINING POWER AT ALL COSTS. It was Stephen Miller who put all of this together. Venezuela was a test run. This is the real McCoy. I hope that I am wrong.
Yes, GWB (Bush Junior, remember him?) DID DO IT for the second Iraq War. HOWEVER, he via Colin Powell (poor guy, remember him?) DID go both to the U.N. and, more importantly, to Congress to get approval. Too many Dems voted for it (including Hillary). They came to deeply regret their votes (as do many 2024 Trump voters now do). Fool me once, SHAME ON YOU. Fool me twice, SHAME ON ME! Get it?
This is not a war. Neither was Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. Funny how it does all the ducky things yet is not a duck. Gaza isn't a genocide either, I suppose. Is anyone tallying how much we will reap from all that we are sowing?
We're fine with decapitation strikes as long as it doesn't happen to us. That's America's policy, summarized. We get to do whatever we want and if you fight back we will kill even more indiscriminately
And there's zero criticism or even questions about what amounted to an assassination of a foreign head of state. Some will claim that technically speaking it was an Israeli air strike that killed Khamenei and members of his family. However, it was the US government that provided crucial targeting intelligence to the Israelis and explicitly approved the decapitation strike--and Oked the use of US weapons in the strike. I'm not seeing or hearing anyone in Congress, much less in the mainstream US media question the legality or the morality of enabling the murder of a foreign head of state we're not even formally/legally at war with. 'We' Americans may be ignoring all of those ugly facts, but I can assure you the rest of the world isn't.
Especially the Shiite world. The Shiite followers are in many countries, so expect blow back which has already been reported in Pakistan, India and Iraq. The killing of Iran's supreme leader and Shiite spiritual icon was indeed illegal by international law, an extra judicial assassination. But the US media has reminded us ad nauseam he was a bad guy, so few care about the legal technicalities. El Sisi of Egypt is also a dictator, holding thousands in political prisons, but we never hear a word about it.
The entire US press uses the term "captured" to describe the kidnapping/abduction of President Maduro. The US majority is well conditioned culturally (manufactured consent) to not question the obvious immorality of murdering leaders of other countries (and the spouses, children, staff and friends who might happen to be in the line of fire).
That's an illuminating sentence, but I doubt it's true (or else it's just simply pointing at a relationship and doing the typically liberal both-sidesism).
Given the long list of American attacks on Iran that Ken supplied (not to mention the business that went on before it), what has Iran done that could be considered acts of war? (For that matter, did its government formally declare war on America? Or, like America, did it declare its war "defacto"?)
We like to say that we founded our country for Freedom, but we do have a penchant for conducting wars and strikes on everybody. Have a look at a fascinating pamphlet called "War is a racket", by General Smedley Butler
The reviewed version I used to have had an appendix listing all the skirmishes & wars that the US had been in. I don't think that there were even 3 years in a row that we did not fight, kill, or bully someone into submission, at home or abroad.
When countries fight, it's called war. Racism and sexism are extensions of it. You could put all these fights under Dominance, which all 3 have in common. and yes, unfortunately it is true that often (not always, but too often), for some to have the greatest freedom, some end up dominated or enslaved.
The Greek civilization also had bondage and slaves, but at the top, yeah: you were free...
Bourgeois is a French term, which means from the "faubourgs", (false burgs) so living just outside of town. It's only much later that the term acquired the meaning of a caste between nobility and peasants.
Mmm. I wouldn't call racism and sexism extensions of war (although they certainly can be, and often have been, articulated and strengthened by it).
You mention "not always" wrt those who reduce others freedom to increase their own; can you elaborate a bit on that? I can't think of a single example, off hand.
Re. bourgeois, the origin you indicate for the word is very close: it has to do with cities, so city dwellers. However, I'm using it in the Marxist sense of owners of capital ie capitalists; this was a term used to describe them.
(And it's not a caste; it's never been used that way. A caste strongly denotes legal separation between social groups, limiting social mobility. Certainly, in the so-called "West" this has rarely or never been the case.)
I figured that you were using "bourgeois" in a Marxist sense, and that's why I gave you the etymology : Faux=false, Burg= city
In my first sentence, I should have used "dominance, not war. (bad shortcut on my part)
A caste is not always a legal term, just a very rigid compartmentalization of society. I was thinking of the Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables" or outcaste) in India. They are a prime example of a group that constitutes a rigid social caste based on ancestry and occupation, yet they are not a legal caste.
On "often (not always, but too often), for some to have the greatest freedom, some end up dominated or enslaved"?
I think that the example of our own country was just so obvious that you just didn't think of it, but is a great example: Black folks, formally slaves may have been "liberated", but because of the many wrongheaded laws in vigor, the KKK and other organizations do their best to keep them dominated/ subjugated.
Also, "soft girl enslavement", and there, you can think of the very young women that Epstein enslaved: Technically "free", but getting groomed to serve a man or men. Not so long ago, a number of marriages were "arranged", and the young woman was not asked what she wanted: It was just expected that she would marry according to the families' wishes.
Arranged marriages are still widely practiced in parts of South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and among various immigrant communities (most recently Hmong culture in the US) globally, with India having one of the highest rates. The practice is particularly common in [Pakistan], [Bangladesh], [Iran], [Saudi Arabia], and [Japan] (via omiai). It is also found in [rural China] and among [Roma communities in Europe]. the men can refuse the girl but the girl does not have that freedom.
When it's a policing action, military conflict, armed conflict, campaign, struggle, operation, engagement, intervention, regime change, bringing peace to a nation, bringing democracy to a nation and probably a hundred other euphemisms.
Too bad, the framers of the Constitution didn't think of all the possible situations where war isn't war.
“We” didn’t strike Iran. Zionists did, using the U.S. government.
“We build this military and intelligence machine, we pay for it, we watch it out there constantly training, deploying, exercising, attacking this and that in a half dozen countries so when something like this unfolds, we shouldn’t be surprised. ”
No, “we” don’t. Money is extracted from “us” through violent coercion to build and run this machine. It is moral masochism for people to apply the rhetoric of blame to themselves for what Zionists and war vultures do with the US military (well unless they voluntary directly work for that military). American citizens need to understand that the U S military is a tool of the wealthy and organized not a tool of the”people.” *Anger* not *guilt* is a sensible response.
The most wealthy, organized (and scrupleless) faction right now are Zionists. Which is why the U.S. military struck Iran: because Zionists want to conquer West Asia in alignment with Jewish Supremacist biblical fantasies of a “Greater Israel” and Iran is currently the biggest obstacle to that.
If people are looking for the “American self interest” in these wars, it won’t be found except behind the propaganda of Israel fanatics and war vultures. It still appears to me that many people are afraid to point the blame where it appropriately belongs : Judaism and Christian Zionism. These wars are driven primarily by *spiritual* interests not *material* interests.
Thank you for distilling this. I am surprised, shocked even, but I see that we shouldn't be, and I've long been saying we can see direct progression (in the malignant sense) from past administrations to the current one. And I don't understand any of this war, past and present, or why striking down Iran's leaders was so critical, but I guess the reason for it must be some very long, horrible explanation about controlling oil. I won't be reading any other news about it, though. I can't stomach it.
Fun Fact: the two countries we launched regime change invasions on, Iraq and Iran, did not supply any terrorists for the 9/11 attack. OTOH, our good buddies Saudi Arabia and Egypt did.
Knowing what we now know, I’m convinced Israel orchestrated 9-11 to foment global hatred of Muslims. That enabled Israel to use the US as its battering ram in the Middle East. We’re still doing it for them. OBL never claimed 9-11. He claimed plenty of other things, but not that one. That matters.
Given the US’s penchant for terrorism, NO, I would not be surprised to learn the US govt was in on it too.
Indeed: The 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. The majority were citizens of Saudi Arabia (15 of the 19), with two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt (the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta), and one from Lebanon.
FBI (.gov) Yep: that's my source: the FBI
“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
-Albert Einstein
Wow that’s good
With all this detailed intel, it seems clear to me that the elementary school was a fully intentional target. Over 100 dead kids, 100% on purpose, apparently.
no doubt and it wont be the only one
We already know they get off on hurting children. Big tough men domineering over little kids, so stunning, so brave.
They do have fantastic intel, so it is very hard to believe that they attacked an elementary school not realizing it...
A hospital was targeted as well. The NICU, even.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/irans-gandhi-hospital-hit-in-israeli-strikes-video-shows-damage-and-chaos-101772393411605.html
I remember hat one too, and how they denied and denied, and denied. I figured :Trump must have been teaching Bibi the art of lying!.
(Bibi means p*ssy in French slang)
It absolutely was, and get this: It was targeted using "AI" - the same systems "Israel" has used against countless civilians and journalists in Gaza.
Don’t hold this against me, but I briefly - and I mean VERY briefly - dated the infamous John Poindexter in the 1960s. I’ve never forgotten these words he said to me: “Career military live for war. Why else would we be here?”. The relationship came to an abrupt halt.
I laugh sardonically when I hear people say that Congress should exercise its authority under the War Powers Act, having lived through countless euphemistic wars in my almost 83 years. Do we even have a Congress, btw?
NO WAY. Wow. What was he like?
I met him in St Thomas when his ship was there for a liberty break, and he was kind of fun. When we reconnected in NYC, he took me on a tour of a submarine that was in for repairs, and that was interesting. (There is no way I could be a submariner, btw.) The bloom was off the rose when I told him about my role in the antiwar protests. It was after this that he made the comment about career military. I never heard from him again.
What a story. How did he react when you told him you were antiwar?
IIRC, he laughed.
Only, to be sure of one thing, it's not "Us" who struck Iran. It's them, the never-ending war-making machine that you so clearly described, but failed to distance yourself from. Because, indeed, it is not 'us,' is not beholden to "us," nor gives a sh*t about us.
I agree with Ken completely. Our military is now run by a kind of AI of its own. And, OUR TAX DOLLARS are paying for all of this! ICE functions similarly. But, and a BIG but, is a SECOND reason. Below is my posting from another platform:
Political, history, and movie junkie here. Re-watch, or watch for the initial time, the third Star Wars movie "Revenge of the Sith" from 2005. Chancellor Palpatine (secretly Darth Sidious) used EMERGENCY POWERS given to him by Congress to suspend civil liberties because of the war with the Separatists. Hitler also did this in 1933 to become, first, German Chancellor, and then, when the old Hindenburg died, to combine the offices of chancellor and president into one office. That made Hitler "The Furher". Sound familiar? An external war with Iran would do the same thing for both Trump here in the USA, and for Netanyahu in Israel. They both, and especially Trump, KNOW HOW UNPOPULAR THEY ARE. They will use EMERGENCY POWERS due to the war to CANCEL the mid-term elections, which Trump, and probably Netanyahu, will loose, and rule by decree. This whole thing is about RETAINING POWER AT ALL COSTS. It was Stephen Miller who put all of this together. Venezuela was a test run. This is the real McCoy. I hope that I am wrong.
Also, George Lucas very deliberately put that in the movie after GWB did it for the second Iraq war.
Yes, GWB (Bush Junior, remember him?) DID DO IT for the second Iraq War. HOWEVER, he via Colin Powell (poor guy, remember him?) DID go both to the U.N. and, more importantly, to Congress to get approval. Too many Dems voted for it (including Hillary). They came to deeply regret their votes (as do many 2024 Trump voters now do). Fool me once, SHAME ON YOU. Fool me twice, SHAME ON ME! Get it?
This is not a war. Neither was Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. Funny how it does all the ducky things yet is not a duck. Gaza isn't a genocide either, I suppose. Is anyone tallying how much we will reap from all that we are sowing?
We're fine with decapitation strikes as long as it doesn't happen to us. That's America's policy, summarized. We get to do whatever we want and if you fight back we will kill even more indiscriminately
And there's zero criticism or even questions about what amounted to an assassination of a foreign head of state. Some will claim that technically speaking it was an Israeli air strike that killed Khamenei and members of his family. However, it was the US government that provided crucial targeting intelligence to the Israelis and explicitly approved the decapitation strike--and Oked the use of US weapons in the strike. I'm not seeing or hearing anyone in Congress, much less in the mainstream US media question the legality or the morality of enabling the murder of a foreign head of state we're not even formally/legally at war with. 'We' Americans may be ignoring all of those ugly facts, but I can assure you the rest of the world isn't.
Especially the Shiite world. The Shiite followers are in many countries, so expect blow back which has already been reported in Pakistan, India and Iraq. The killing of Iran's supreme leader and Shiite spiritual icon was indeed illegal by international law, an extra judicial assassination. But the US media has reminded us ad nauseam he was a bad guy, so few care about the legal technicalities. El Sisi of Egypt is also a dictator, holding thousands in political prisons, but we never hear a word about it.
The entire US press uses the term "captured" to describe the kidnapping/abduction of President Maduro. The US majority is well conditioned culturally (manufactured consent) to not question the obvious immorality of murdering leaders of other countries (and the spouses, children, staff and friends who might happen to be in the line of fire).
"The United States is at war with Iran, pure and simple. We have been for decades."
True. But the reverse is true as well. Iran has also been at war with the United States for decades.
Correct.
That's an illuminating sentence, but I doubt it's true (or else it's just simply pointing at a relationship and doing the typically liberal both-sidesism).
Given the long list of American attacks on Iran that Ken supplied (not to mention the business that went on before it), what has Iran done that could be considered acts of war? (For that matter, did its government formally declare war on America? Or, like America, did it declare its war "defacto"?)
We like to say that we founded our country for Freedom, but we do have a penchant for conducting wars and strikes on everybody. Have a look at a fascinating pamphlet called "War is a racket", by General Smedley Butler
https://www.heritage-history.com/site/hclass/secret_societies/ebooks/pdf/butler_racket.pdf
The reviewed version I used to have had an appendix listing all the skirmishes & wars that the US had been in. I don't think that there were even 3 years in a row that we did not fight, kill, or bully someone into submission, at home or abroad.
Well, bourgeois freedom is a kind of freedom, and to maintain it (for the bourgeoisie) requires others be un-free (or even in bondage).
(None of which, of course, does much to explain racism, sexism, etc. except as a way of repackaging pre-Modern thinking).
Thanks for the suggestion.
When countries fight, it's called war. Racism and sexism are extensions of it. You could put all these fights under Dominance, which all 3 have in common. and yes, unfortunately it is true that often (not always, but too often), for some to have the greatest freedom, some end up dominated or enslaved.
The Greek civilization also had bondage and slaves, but at the top, yeah: you were free...
Bourgeois is a French term, which means from the "faubourgs", (false burgs) so living just outside of town. It's only much later that the term acquired the meaning of a caste between nobility and peasants.
Mmm. I wouldn't call racism and sexism extensions of war (although they certainly can be, and often have been, articulated and strengthened by it).
You mention "not always" wrt those who reduce others freedom to increase their own; can you elaborate a bit on that? I can't think of a single example, off hand.
Re. bourgeois, the origin you indicate for the word is very close: it has to do with cities, so city dwellers. However, I'm using it in the Marxist sense of owners of capital ie capitalists; this was a term used to describe them.
(And it's not a caste; it's never been used that way. A caste strongly denotes legal separation between social groups, limiting social mobility. Certainly, in the so-called "West" this has rarely or never been the case.)
I figured that you were using "bourgeois" in a Marxist sense, and that's why I gave you the etymology : Faux=false, Burg= city
In my first sentence, I should have used "dominance, not war. (bad shortcut on my part)
A caste is not always a legal term, just a very rigid compartmentalization of society. I was thinking of the Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables" or outcaste) in India. They are a prime example of a group that constitutes a rigid social caste based on ancestry and occupation, yet they are not a legal caste.
On "often (not always, but too often), for some to have the greatest freedom, some end up dominated or enslaved"?
I think that the example of our own country was just so obvious that you just didn't think of it, but is a great example: Black folks, formally slaves may have been "liberated", but because of the many wrongheaded laws in vigor, the KKK and other organizations do their best to keep them dominated/ subjugated.
Also, "soft girl enslavement", and there, you can think of the very young women that Epstein enslaved: Technically "free", but getting groomed to serve a man or men. Not so long ago, a number of marriages were "arranged", and the young woman was not asked what she wanted: It was just expected that she would marry according to the families' wishes.
Arranged marriages are still widely practiced in parts of South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and among various immigrant communities (most recently Hmong culture in the US) globally, with India having one of the highest rates. The practice is particularly common in [Pakistan], [Bangladesh], [Iran], [Saudi Arabia], and [Japan] (via omiai). It is also found in [rural China] and among [Roma communities in Europe]. the men can refuse the girl but the girl does not have that freedom.
"Iran" (the collective in propagandized American minds) has said a LOT of mean things about us Americans!!!
The CADS . . . !
Build it and they will come.
The Founders knew better.
When is war not war?
When it's a policing action, military conflict, armed conflict, campaign, struggle, operation, engagement, intervention, regime change, bringing peace to a nation, bringing democracy to a nation and probably a hundred other euphemisms.
Too bad, the framers of the Constitution didn't think of all the possible situations where war isn't war.
“We” didn’t strike Iran. Zionists did, using the U.S. government.
“We build this military and intelligence machine, we pay for it, we watch it out there constantly training, deploying, exercising, attacking this and that in a half dozen countries so when something like this unfolds, we shouldn’t be surprised. ”
No, “we” don’t. Money is extracted from “us” through violent coercion to build and run this machine. It is moral masochism for people to apply the rhetoric of blame to themselves for what Zionists and war vultures do with the US military (well unless they voluntary directly work for that military). American citizens need to understand that the U S military is a tool of the wealthy and organized not a tool of the”people.” *Anger* not *guilt* is a sensible response.
The most wealthy, organized (and scrupleless) faction right now are Zionists. Which is why the U.S. military struck Iran: because Zionists want to conquer West Asia in alignment with Jewish Supremacist biblical fantasies of a “Greater Israel” and Iran is currently the biggest obstacle to that.
If people are looking for the “American self interest” in these wars, it won’t be found except behind the propaganda of Israel fanatics and war vultures. It still appears to me that many people are afraid to point the blame where it appropriately belongs : Judaism and Christian Zionism. These wars are driven primarily by *spiritual* interests not *material* interests.
Yep. And it's amazing who is saying what these days. Tucker Carlson isn't wrong here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXaCUAzp9JA
Israel and Zionists think they benefit from the destruction of regional countries they view as "rivals."
Informative
Thank you for distilling this. I am surprised, shocked even, but I see that we shouldn't be, and I've long been saying we can see direct progression (in the malignant sense) from past administrations to the current one. And I don't understand any of this war, past and present, or why striking down Iran's leaders was so critical, but I guess the reason for it must be some very long, horrible explanation about controlling oil. I won't be reading any other news about it, though. I can't stomach it.
America is being bled dry. I think Trump is a bottom.