hotspur [he/him]

Yeah was gonna say, since you could deal with this in a normal way and they didn’t, they obviously like this whole dead-sperm retrieval thing, there is definitely some psycho-sexual thing going on. Whole thing is creepy/necrophilia coded.

I literally thought that’s what the article was describing—the guys mother wanting to get his semen and carry her own grandchild. I guess she intends to find a surrogate, but when the story starts by covering the topic of post-death semen extraction for making new children, anything seems “reasonable”

Side note: if they’re all so concerned about continuing lineages and such, why not make semen donation a required part of the entry physical or something. Surely that would be less weird and dangerous than having dedicated post-death semen extraction services?

It can still be US calling the shots, without Trump being in the loop. Trump/America First on the one hand, and American empire/deep natsec structure on the other.

Grayzone had the article about how Radcliffe and Paudilla were presenting dubious Israel intel directly to Trump without mentioning where it came from, and it’s a well known fact that there has been deep planning and salivation over destroying Iran in the US natsec/defense world for decades. Trump doesn’t do strategy—he’s image based. He’s fine with perceived wins and perception shaping for personal aggrandizement.

It’s plausible then to think that there is a larger tension at the top of gov—America first reality tv vs neocon bloodthirst /great game bullshit perhaps that could result in Trump genuinely thinking he’d brokered a ceasefire here, while other elements simply proceed with their original plan to get into a hot war with Iran.

Because Trump only cares about image, if this proceeds he will probably come up with some bullshit to own it like he did last time.

So you have elements in US directing Israel, but not necessarily originating from the president, or Israel being the puppet master that has some hold over America so strong that the entire govt bends over backwards for it as options. The first option feels more likely overall based on simplicity, but I really don’t know.

Third option is that they’re going really deep on the kayfabe to limit liability to just Israel, but that would require a sustained and cogent effort on Trumps part to keep the charade up, and he just doesn’t seem consistent enough for that to be the case… again though who knows.

It’s a bush-era neocon from SAIS named Eliot Cohen. I don’t quite think he’s stupid enough to actually believe his argument, so he’s lying to support his real agenda, which is most likely some variety of crushing any resistance to US/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

I looked up the guy that wrote the “Trump was right” one and he worked with Wolfowitz and Condi Rice, so he’s got plenty of experience lying publicly to justify killing people.

The Atlantic, surprise surprise, is in full consent manufacture mode. It’s so on the nose you can practically see the talking points emails…

It’s this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Basically a US war gaming exercise against Iran. The US did horribly, to the point that they hobbled the opfor so that the bluefor could win. The marine general who commanded the opfor did a bunch of asymmetrical warfare stuff that the Iranians might do and just clobbered the conventional forces.

I think the constant messaging about China being the next regional hegemon and regional alliances being developed to counter US hegemony leads to a false sense of equivalency. The relationship that US has with Israel, or even NATO, is not really mirrored in a real way yet among BRICS or China/Russia/Iran, etc. they have mutual interests (or grievances I guess) and incentive to cooperate to counter western trespass on their sovereignty, but they’re not at the level where they have mutual defence agreements where they will step in and get involved directly militarily if something like this happens.

China has military build up, but has not been a bellicose power yet—they mostly operate via economic power and diplomacy up to now, and so I don’t think most of their partner countries would assume they would show up with an army to support them if they were invaded.

They might send aid or military supplies or something, that would be in the realm of possibility, but feels like that might even be too direct of a military involvement for their tastes?

Man, I hope tac nukes are not in the cards. If this really isn’t about Iranian nuke program, but more about Bibi’s continued political health and the US trying to isolate China, etc, then really taking out the facilities wouldn’t matter much. Drop MOABs on Fordow and then resume the bullshit propaganda they’ve been doing the whole time…

Then again, after this, Iran has almost no choice but to get nukes, which then makes killing its program a real objective for Israel and US… we had to blow up the nuke program that doesn’t exist, but once we do it they will have to pursue it, so hence it was a good idea to blow up their program!

At least from that tweet, not much—it lists a littoral combat ship, 3-4 mine countermeasures ships and a spec ops ship or something. So utility, but not anything amazing in its own right. The announcement the tweet is replying to suggests that all of the ships are leaving port (not just the US ships) to spread out and not be sitting there at docks stationary inside range of potential attacks. Also the 5th fleet, which I assume these are a subset of, sounds like it is stationed in the Middle East anyway, so not as remarkable compared to news that, like a major element of the pacific or European fleet have redeployed into the Middle East.

Vaguely, but can’t remember the content exactly. But yeah that was my recollection was that this ‘bogeyman’ from my teenage years (I learned how to pronounce his name properly after hearing it so much during the bush years) suddenly being an online poster and all that.

Yeah I totally agree, doubt they have any current plans to invade and occupy—but where I start to worry is what happens when Iran pops a carrier that got a little too close or something. The Yemenis seemed to give a pretty rough ride to the various carrier groups that were sent there under Biden and Trump, and I assume that IRGC has planned for decades about what to do if American naval assets get too close during a conflict (millennium challenge and all that).

Basically just: Trump wades into Iran for some long distance bombing that he can brag about, while Israel bombs the shot out of civilians, media and hospitals, but then something unplanned happens and now we’re looking at something longer and nastier. Or like some other semi-challenging power weighs in to help Iran, like Pakistan (doubtful I know) and now you have mini-world war battle lines being drawn.

o7

Dude has had such a weird arc over the years.

So if (when) US gets officially and directly involved in attacking, my first assumption is it will look like the recent Yemen activity; lots of air strikes, stuff launched from boats.

But if the conflict deepens, I am curious to see what people think: would Trump admin do a draft for a ground invasion of Iran?

Ground invasion seems like a very poor idea generally, but since when has reality guided decision-making at the White House lately? This is total pie in the sky speculation, but the war regardless would be unpopular at home, and any move to deploy actual infantry even more so.

They’ve already spent the last few months getting the country used to crackdowns on protests, as well as using fed law enforcement and military assets to terrorize people unaccountably. They also have shown they give mostly zero fucks about courts and will shoot first and ask questions later at all times.

Given Trump’s scheme to use ICE to harass democrat/blue cities, if they did do a draft, why not use it to disproportionately grab liberal/left voters and box em up/sacrifice them to the mill? You could take all of the data they’ve stolen from agencies and had palatir compile to target it, just like they’ve been practicing with the immigration crackdown. Would be a good way to liquidate some opposition and chill what will otherwise be a potentially hot and spicy summer, etc. you could make draft dodging a method of removing citizenship of your enemies, or use the heightened tensions at the border to interdict people trying to flee. Trump could even couch it all in WW2 glorious war effort bullshit to try and give it some sort of shine.

Anyway, I suspect this is pretty far fetched, but would appreciate your counter points and corrections to help me discard this concept so I can move on to being anxious about one of the thousands of other grim things that loom on the horizon.

Ah man, been wondering if he’s been posting out there about this.