Mastodawn

It is surreal to watch people who are experts at using the English language, people whose whole profession and skill is centered on communication trying to parse the words this man speaks. Like someone investigating a splatter of bird poop as if it were tea leaves or art.

There is a cover story for why the US attacked Iran. One that is almost believable. The argument goes like this:

Iran was developing a drone and missile program rather like the Iron Dome that would make it "impossible" for the US to bomb them, and that would mean it's impossible to stop them if they wanted to make nuclear weapons. So they had to be stopped from doing this now.

Does Iran have the right to defend itself? It's an ugly argument.

hazelnot

1d ago

@futurebird so basically a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis but with even less of an excuse since nukes are actually dangerous 🙃

myrmepropagandist

@hazelnot

I am shocked by the number of world leaders who do not understand that the only reason our allies and our homes cities are not being attacked is because no one wants to do that. If someone wants to hurt us badly enough, if they don't care about the escalation because the US has shuttered all paths to the nation having any real future, then we are cooked. We could strike back but everyone loses.

Some things are beyond US control.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/iran-will-retaliate-in-the-us-we-may-not-see-it-in-time

@futurebird @hazelnot I will drop this here. The implications are disturbing and aggravating.

Iran Will Retaliate in the U.S. We May Not See It in Time.

Historically, the U.S. has managed to thwart Iranian operations on its soil. Now, this administration may have us unprepared.

Default

@InkySchwartz @hazelnot

This administration is not interested in diplomacy or intelligence. These are the things that keep us safe. I would feel even safer if Iran was a trade partner and our economies were linked, if there were sports games and academic conferences between the nations. If Teharan was a tourist destination for all of the remarkable archeology.

@InkySchwartz @hazelnot

But the US sees Iran as a lesser nation. A region of resource extraction with exotic annoying natives they think we can learn nothing from.

That is the chauvinism that will lead to bloodshed.

@futurebird @hazelnot And has led to such as well.

Also I'm reminded of the sacking of the China Hands at the State dept. A move during the Mcarthy era because the ones who were informed were undersirable and seen as unloyal.

Not what we see here but there are parallels.

Ariaflame 1d ago

@futurebird @InkySchwartz @hazelnot Though to be fair the USA sees *every* other nation as a lesser nation.

@ariaflame @futurebird @hazelnot Currently yes. At other times? Your milage may vary depending on which other countries.

@InkySchwartz @futurebird @hazelnot

In January 2001, Bush had not won the election, and was unpopular and rightly viewed as illegitimate.

He was determined to lower taxes and cut spending, so he eliminated many of the wasteful antiterrorism programmes started by Clinton.

On September 10th, he was not liked, was having trouble passing laws and was seen as not competent to hold his role.

A few weeks later, he was enormously powerful and able to pass legislation that had been previously unthinkably fascist.

So, like, why would Trump's handlers be _against_ a retaliatory strike? If he gets blamed, it will be forgotten amidst all the other chaos. And if he isn't blamed, they can rush to fill in all the blanks in their existing policy.

hazelnot

1d ago

@celesteh @InkySchwartz @futurebird wait, I thought Bush did win the election but by a very small margin?

@hazelnot @InkySchwartz @futurebird

A bunch of wealthy Republicans disrupted the recount and the Supreme Court declared Bush president (by stopping all unfinished recounts).

Several months later an audit showed that he lost.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-election-results-studies/

@celesteh @hazelnot @futurebird Which audit? Because I found 3 major ones and all showed various outcomes depending on the standard.

So, who really won? What the Bush v. Gore studies showed

After the grueling 36-day Florida recount battle, Al Gore conceded the presidency to George W. Bush on December 13, 2000.

CNN

@InkySchwartz @hazelnot @futurebird

The media reporting on this was carefully vague, but all full recount of all Florida votes would be a narrow victory for Gore.

Gore didn't sue for a full recount, so his legal strategy was not a winning one, so most reporting focussed on Gore strategy and not on the end vote tally.

@InkySchwartz @hazelnot @futurebird

The Supreme Court did specifically decode the election instead of a recount, so this did call Bush's legitimacy into serious question at the time.

Source: am old

hazelnot

1d ago

@celesteh @InkySchwartz huh, sounds kinda like what happened here in Romania in 2024

Here it was... really weird, a fascist dude that showed up out of "nowhere" ("nowhere" meaning likely propped up by the "Social-Democratic" (right-wing populist) Party, the National Liberal (run of the mill European conservatives/neoliberals) Party, and the intelligence agencies), was gonna go up in the run-offs with a neoliberal candidate from a different party, and the Constitutional Court just invalidated the elections based on unsubstantiated claims of a "foreign cybernetic attack" and banned him from running again

Wich was uhhhhh good on the one hand cause the guy is a fascist conspiracy theorist, but on the one hand, what the actual fuck!?