Iran War

[herbie]

10 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Mission Accomplished?  

Declade victory and his gullible MAGAts will buy it. Wait a day and then brag he ended more wars than any previous President, they'll buy it again.

In the meantime enjoy paying gas prices like Canadians and seeing all that extra dough going into corporations rather than govt programs.

[Hodad]

2 hours ago, herbie said:

Declade victory and his gullible MAGAts will buy it. Wait a day and then brag he ended more wars than any previous President, they'll buy it again.

In the meantime enjoy paying gas prices like Canadians and seeing all that extra dough going into corporations rather than govt programs.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to destroy another country to boost the US economy or distract from troublesome accusations at home. 

The Ayatollah has been dead for a while. Instead of destroying all of the infrastructure in Iran we could be building infrastructure here. Spending is spending. Let's put those taxpayer dollars to work in American cities rather than in Raytheon's pockets. 

[bush_cheney2004]

5 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Except that campaign was a UN-sanctioned reaction to an event that unfolded in real time. Trump’s campaign was a 100% war of choice based on longstanding grievances and desires, not a reaction to event amd yet he didn’t campaign on it or even get approval from Congress much less the international community. 
 

 

It was still a war that lasted seven months, far longer than Obama advertised.  Obama also did not get authorization from Congress.  Obama would go on to attack Syria in the same manner.

Quote

President Obama intervened in the 2011 Libyan civil war without prior congressional authorization, relying on a UN Security Council resolution and, later, NATO command. This action drew significant bipartisan criticism and challenges regarding the War Powers Resolution. Congress, particularly the House, voted against authorizing the mission but failed to cut off funding.

 

Quote

...While the odd airstrike especially against terrorists is pretty much normal for any IS President, MAGA gaslighting tried to pretend this was bloodthirsty warmongering when it happened under Obama and Biden especially when it resulted in collateral damage. So for someone who campaigned on portraying his opponents as bloodthirsty warmongers and as a peace president  who would avoid foreign wars and hilariously thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace prize thos is massive hypocrisy 

 

News flash....Trump lies...just like any other politician / president.  Also, there were many incidents of "collateral damage" during both the Obama and Biden administration's military actions.

Edited March 11 by bush_cheney2004

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, eyeball said:

Mission Accomplished?  

LOL ok that was funny, i'll admit it

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

News flash....Trump lies...just like any other politician / president. 

Yup. Did you think the cumulative effect of that was lost on everyone or something?

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

It was still a war that lasted seven months, far longer than Obama advertised.  Obama also did not get authorization from Congress.  Obama would go on to attack Syria in the same manner.

 

 

News flash....Trump lies...just like any other politician / president.  Also, there were many incidents of "collateral damage" during both the Obama and Biden administration's military actions.

Come on. 
1) The NATO allies’ actions in Libya were a response to the Libyan civil war  whereas Trump needlessly STARTED the Iran war.  That makes a big difference. When you’re responding to a crisis not of your own making you can’t guarantee when it will end.

 

When you’re choosing to intentionally START a crisis as every Republican president in the last half century has, and you have no clear goal or purpose yeah you’re 100% responsible for every dollar spent, every casualty and every day it goes on. 
 

So now at a time when the west should be rallying together to face Russian and Chinese aggression, Trump is destroying western unity and and western economies with trade wars, inflation, anti-European culture wars and now depleting scare munitions and oil reserves for no good reason. 
 

And the Republicans shrieked like crazy every time a drone strike or airstrike killed a civilian under Obama and Biden but looked at your shoes whenever it happened under Bush and Trump. Suddenly you don’t care at 100+ schoolgirls you killed. 

[BeaverFever]

A very dangerous person’: alarm as Pete Hegseth revels in carnage of Iran war

Critics say brash, bombastic Fox News host out of his depth to guide US military through murky new Middle East conflict

 

Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.

With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.

…

After leaving Princeton, Hegseth joined the US army national guard as an infantry officer. His service included deployments to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. He later revealed in a book that he told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.

Hegseth became chief executive of Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative advocacy group, but departed in 2016 amid allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and personal misconduct.

In 2018 Hegseth’s mother, Penelope, sent him an email that said: “You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

Hegseth subsequently became a familiar face on TV as a contributor and co-host of Fox & Friends on Fox News, frequently interviewing Trump and defending his policies. He once wrote that, in the event of a Democratic election win, “the military and police … will be forced to make a choice” and “Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

…

Now, in his first week guiding the nation through a murky new Middle East conflict, Hegseth has largely forgone the solemnity of a traditional defence secretary in favour of the performative antics of a partisan broadcaster revelling in the US’s capacity to inflict violence.

For years he had cultivated a hypermasculine “muscleman” aesthetic designed to play to Trump’s sensibilities and the rightwing media ecosystem. Now, faced with a geopolitical crisis that demands nuance and strategic foresight, he appears to many to be out of his depth.

Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran who was deployed overseas as a combat engineer officer, commented: “I wish I could say how cavalier, obtuse and hopeless Secretary Hegseth is at leading the Pentagon. I can’t even muster the words to describe his self-adulation, matched only in scope by his apparent moral depravity.”

She added: “Let’s not forget that Pete Hegseth is a former morning-show Fox News TV host, and has this cartoonish persona, speaking what he thinks is tough-guy language, but sounds to me as a veteran and to many of my peers who served in combat like somebody who is completely inept and pretending to have this macho persona.

“Honestly, it’s embarrassing. We know this guy is incompetent. I wouldn’t feel safe leaving Pete Hegseth in charge of putting together a DoorDash order.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/08/pete-hegseth-pentagon-trump-iran

 

With an incompetent bloodthirsty dude-bro as your “secretary of war” you’re definitely not Nobel Peace Prize material so no wonder Trump had to steal one,  Definitely FIFA Peace Prize material though  

 

[BeaverFever]

Donald Trump is turning Iran into ‘juvenile war porn’ for the Fortnite generation
 

Operation Epic Fury is coming to you from a meme factory.

This is inevitable when the White House is overrun with terminally online lickspittles who can’t divine what the doofus-in-chief may do next. Is this a war in Iran? A costly and deadly distraction from the Epstein files? Will the bombing end this week? Forever war? Boots on the ground? Should the Pentagon ration munitions in case the Mad King orders new sneak attacks on Themyscira and Wakanda?

On the White House’s website this week, you can find a video titled, “Justice the American Way.” Put it this way: Imagine if Harry S. Truman had used clips from “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” to celebrate after dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The new montage splices footage of the aerial assaults on Iran with Hollywood clips, including from “Top Gun,” “Iron Man,” “Braveheart,” “Breaking Bad,” “Superman” and “Deadpool.”
 

Gosh, maybe the world will forget the 160-plus Iranian girls killed by a Tomahawk missile that obliterated their school if we share a scene from “Tropic Thunder.”

But as Ben Stiller, that film’s star and director, posted on X: “Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.”

Alas, to this White House, war is a movie. It is a TV show. It is a catchy song. It is YouTube culture. It is video game surrealism, which is why other official videos have used snippets from “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.”

Operation Epic Fury has even enlisted SpongeBob SquarePants.

All of this is happening because nobody understands what is happening.

In the Hydra that is war, one snake head is always propaganda. What we have here is slopaganda, a B-2 stealth joy ride through the AI looking glass. Wartime leaders once gravitated toward solemn speeches. They did not wear baseball caps while saluting the returning caskets of fallen service members.

Military generals once outlined strategic imperatives to educate the public and build support at home. Now the world must endure SecDef Pete Hegseth, call sign “Jack Daniels.” This lunatic really needs to stop mainlining testosterone before he babbles like a frat boy with inebriated bloodlust:

“Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be…”
 

Trump 2.0 is a clown RV filled with deeply unserious attention whores who look out the window while stretching their cheeks and wagging their tongues. But you can’t make a movie trailer for a war of choice. A Nickelodeon meme can’t gamify a real conflict.

Only truly sick and depraved ghouls would try to turn war into popcorn fun.

If the 20-somethings now tasked with producing the Mad King’s slopaganda vids want a sense of how poor strategic planning can make a war go sideways, they should watch films such as “A Bridge Too Far,” “Green Zone” or “Paths of Glory.”

But there’s a reason this White House isn’t sharing clips from “Blackhawk Down.”

Entertainment is escapism. War is realism.

As with Stiller, Steve Downes, a voice actor in the “Halo” game, also objected to the unauthorized use of his work by posting on X: “Let me make this crystal clear: I did not participate in nor was l of consulted, nor do I endorse the use my voice in this video, or the message it conveys. I demand that the producers of this disgusting and juvenile war porn remove my voice immediately.”

In one week, U.S. government videos have used clips from “John Wick” and “Transformers.” The soundtrack to this war includes Childish Gambino and AC/DC.

As Catholic Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Chicago’s archbishop, put it this weekend: “Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”

The result isn’t patriotism or enlightenment.

It is just ghouls trying to attract the Fornite generation by avoiding reality.
 

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/opinion/donald-trump-is-turning-iran-into-juvenile-war-porn-for-the-fortnite-generation/article_422ab931-a74c-418e-957b-cab45969b0b8.html

 

[bush_cheney2004]

57 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Come on. 
1) The NATO allies’ actions in Libya were a response to the Libyan civil war  whereas Trump needlessly STARTED the Iran war.  That makes a big difference. When you’re responding to a crisis not of your own making you can’t guarantee when it will end.

 

So what ?   The U.S. intervention in Libya was still a choice...Libya was no threat to the U.S., contrary to the well documented Iranian regime's actions over the past 47 years.   I know Canada loves to justify wars with the home grown concept of a "Responsibility to Protect" (a la Michael Ignatieff),  but it still falls on the nations with real military power projection, like the U.S.    PM Chretien begged President Clinton for APCs and heavy airlift for Kosovo, because Canada likes to write checks it can't cash.

Accordingly, the U.S. will decide when to wield such power.  Now is such a time.

 

Quote

When you’re choosing to intentionally START a crisis as every Republican president in the last half century has, and you have no clear goal or purpose yeah you’re 100% responsible for every dollar spent, every casualty and every day it goes on. 
 

 

OK....same goes for Democrats and their wars.  All American either way.

 

Quote

So now at a time when the west should be rallying together to face Russian and Chinese aggression, Trump is destroying western unity and and western economies with trade wars, inflation, anti-European culture wars and now depleting scare munitions and oil reserves for no good reason. 
 

 

Good...it's about time that Canadian and EU deadbeats start spending on defence (promised % of GDP).

 

 

Quote

And the Republicans shrieked like crazy every time a drone strike or airstrike killed a civilian under Obama and Biden but looked at your shoes whenever it happened under Bush and Trump. Suddenly you don’t care at 100+ schoolgirls you killed. 

 

Didn't really care either way, as I don't have to perform for political  gain on any side.   It is what it is, like many times before.  Far more people are complaining about higher gas prices than a bombed school.

Edited March 12 by bush_cheney2004

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

Yup. Did you think the cumulative effect of that was lost on everyone or something?

 

No, but some folks really believe that President Trump promised no more wars with a straight face.   So now they are surprised ?     Why did they believe Trump at all given his record ?

[TreeBeard]

Russia is targeting American targets for Iran. 
 

US easing sanctions on Russia. 
 

Good job USofA.  

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

No, but some folks really believe that President Trump promised no more wars with a straight face.   So now they are surprised ?     Why did they believe Trump at all given his record ?

More to the point though no one outside of the US is surprised -  no one parses out...excursions is the newest term for war...according to President or party. Everyone knows it's just America being America.

[User]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Come on. 
1) The NATO allies’ actions in Libya were a response to the Libyan civil war  whereas Trump needlessly STARTED the Iran war.  That makes a big difference. When you’re responding to a crisis not of your own making you can’t guarantee when it will end.

Well, when you have to build the phony story this way... 

There was no more "need" to go to war in Libya than Iran right now. 

Also, I see you have turned to spamming the forum with full copy paste jobs of other peoples opinions because you can't be bothered to offer your own or if you do run away from them anyhow. 

[BeaverFever]

2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

So what ?   The U.S. intervention in Libya was still a choice...Libya was no threat to the U.S., contrary to the well documented Iranian regime's actions over the past 47 years. 

What a joke.   It was definitely a threat to the US and to Europe to have a civil war, civilian massacre and migrant crisis in Libya on the shores of the Mediterranean right across from Europe and right next door to Egypt which was a key US ally and powder keg teetering on the brink with its own Islamist movement gaining strength, all while other “Arab Spring” uprisings are across the middle east while US and allies were bogged down against terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan amd trying to contain the spread of Islamist terrorist groups. 

Meanwhile you’re hilariously claiming that the status quo of the last 47 years, however unsatisfactory constituted some immediate emergency where Trump had no choice but to act. There was no catalyzing event for Trump’s unnecessary dude-bro war of choice, he just overestimated what’s involved because nobody in his administration even comes close to the minimum competency, experience or knowledge for their job and they have no clue what they’re doing. 

[bush_cheney2004]

16 minutes ago, eyeball said:

More to the point though no one outside of the US is surprised -  no one parses out...excursions is the newest term for war...according to President or party. Everyone knows it's just America being America.

 

Agreed...no one outside the U.S. (and many inside as well) should be surprised.   For this Iran excursion in particular, and for Trump critics in general, many have never come to grips with the fact that he is and has been a sitting American president.   Nothing has really changed for that office and responsibilities for many generations.   

Here is a revealing interview with Richard Nixon, flawed man yet expert in foreign policy, explaining the nuance of presidential decisions and failure.   Trump faces nearly identical circumstances and potential "quagmire", but he still made the decision, like all those who came before him.

 

 

[BeaverFever]

2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Why did they believe Trump at all given his record ?

Nobody believes Trump. We all knew he’d warmonger someone all republicans do.  We all saw that the phone “peace” posturing was just an excuse to support Russia. It’s the only context where they call for peace. 

[User]

3 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Nobody believes Trump. We all knew he’d warmonger someone all republicans do.  We all saw that the phone “peace” posturing was just an excuse to support Russia. It’s the only context where they call for peace. 

All Republicans do? 

You are such an extreme partisan hack in your stupid comments here. Every Democrat in modern history has also engaged in warmongering. 

I think Carter is the only exception. 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, BeaverFever said:

What a joke.   It was definitely a threat to the US and to Europe to have a civil war, civilian massacre and migrant crisis in Libya on the shores of the Mediterranean right across from Europe and right next door to Egypt which was a key US ally and powder keg teetering on the brink with its own Islamist movement gaining strength, all while other “Arab Spring” uprisings are across the middle east while US and allies were bogged down against terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan amd trying to contain the spread of Islamist terrorist groups. 
 

 

Nonsense....Muammar Gaddafi had already relented on nuclear proliferation and made a deal in 2003.

Quote

In December 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi announced the dismantling of his country's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, following secret negotiations with the U.S. and U.K. Driven by fears of regime change after the Iraq invasion and a desire to end economic sanctions, Libya turned over centrifuge components, uranium, and weapon designs. The deal, aimed at normalizing relations with the West, led to the removal of 13 kg of highly enriched uranium to Russia.

 

Quote

Meanwhile you’re hilariously claiming that the status quo of the last 47 years, however unsatisfactory constituted some immediate emergency where Trump had no choice but to act. There was no catalyzing event for Trump’s unnecessary dude-bro war of choice, he just overestimated what’s involved because nobody in his administration even comes close to the minimum competency, experience or knowledge for their job and they have no clue what they’re doing. 

 

Actually, the west had already determined that Iranian nukes were unacceptable, long before Trump was ever president.   Trump made the logical decision that expecting different results with the same 47 years of navel gazing was foolish.   ["Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"]

[bush_cheney2004]

26 minutes ago, User said:

I think Carter is the only exception. 

 

Yes, and President Carter was punished severely at the polls in 1980 for not doing so (i.e. Iran), among several other domestic issues at the time.    Interestingly (and ironically), it is the so called Carter Doctrine for Persian Gulf protections that formed the basis of U.S. military presence in the region.

Quote

The Carter Doctrine: Announced in his 1980 State of the Union address, this policy stated that the U.S. would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region.

 

President Carter missed his opportunity...President Trump has not.

Edited March 12 by bush_cheney2004

[gatomontes99]

13 hours ago, Hodad said:

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to destroy another country to boost the US economy or distract from troublesome accusations at home. 

The Ayatollah has been dead for a while. Instead of destroying all of the infrastructure in Iran we could be building infrastructure here. Spending is spending. Let's put those taxpayer dollars to work in American cities rather than in Raytheon's pockets. 

The infrastructure we are destroying is their military complex. 

[BeaverFever]

8 hours ago, User said:

All Republicans do? 

You are such an extreme partisan hack in your stupid comments here. Every Democrat in modern history has also engaged in warmongering. 

I think Carter is the only exception. 

Who is the Republican exception?

Nixon escalated and expanded Vietnam into Cambodia amd Laos amd unleashed massive carpet bombing campaigns that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Republicans were never opposed to the Vietnam war, their complaint was that the Democrats weren’t aggressive enough iwere fighting with one hand tied behind their back   The same complaint Hegseth had about the military under democrats 

Regan bombed Libya, invaded Grenada and funded right wing death squads across Latin and South America via cocaine trafficking. Also funded the precursors of AlQaeda and the Taliban 

Bush Sr invaded Panama to tie up loose ends from the cocaine trafficking mess he and Reagan created and invaded Iraq again under fabricated pretences  

Bush Jr fabricated evidence to justify his unnecessary Iraq invasion needlessly killing thousands of US troops, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and spending half a trillion dollars 

 

Heck even during the Korean War, the Republicans wanted to expand it with nuclear strikes across China and Russia. In fact the war against North Korea was almost won with nearly the entire peninsula liberated in 1951 but General Douglas MacArthur, a warmongering Republican,  defied orders from Washington in 1951  and kept advancing towards the Chinese border, ignoring warnings from China that they would enter the war if he crossed the Yalu river near the border. He crossed anyway in direct violation of orders from the President. Sure enough he what happened?  A massive Chinese army joined the war and pushed the allies way back down the peninsula to the 38th parallel where the front stagnated and remains today. Technically the war is not over there has just been a ceasefire since 1953. Thousands of allied troops killed and massive strategic gains wiped out all because of a stupid Republican   But at least he took his hat off when the dead bodies were being honoured. 
 

In fact the only times Republicans have called for peace and de-escalation was against Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Putin. Both were fascists with significant fanbases in the Republican Party. 

[BeaverFever]

How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness
 

…

For decades, presidents and their secretaries of defense have framed American military interventions in altruistic terms. Even though the truth was often more complicated, they cast U.S. troops as liberators bringing democracy and freedom to those living under tyranny and oppression.

Mr. Hegseth has largely dispensed with that talk. His bellicose, at times vengeful, rhetoric reflects his belief that the United States’ lofty goals in Iraq and Afghanistan caused the military to lose focus on its main task, killing the enemy, and led to costly defeats in both wars.

In his view, the U.S. military’s strength is not rooted in its high ideals, humanity or moral purpose, but rather its ability to punish adversaries. Anything that distracts from that singular mission, he has said, is weakness.

“This is not 2003. This is not endless nation building,” Mr. Hegseth said on Tuesday at the Pentagon. “It’s not even close. Our generation of soldiers will not let that happen again.”

Instead, he said, the U.S. military was pursuing Mr. Trump’s war objectives with “brutal efficiency, total air dominance and an unbreakable will.”

..

Mr. Hegseth wrote in his book “American Crusade” that he initially “mocked” Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, put off by his reality TV celebrity and his style. But after Mr. Trump was elected, the two men found common cause in Mr. Hegseth’s campaign to pardon three U.S. troops — two soldiers and a member of the Navy SEALs — who had been accused or convicted of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In two of the three instances, the service members were turned in by their own troops — the men they were charged with leading in combat. Mr. Hegseth, then a Fox News host, cast the accused as victims of muddled military thinking and overly restrictive rules of engagement that had prevented troops from killing insurgents and defending themselves. The whistle-blowing soldiers said they were defending their honor and a moral code.

On the day Mr. Trump decided to pardon the three men in late 2019, he called Mr. Hegseth to share the news. Mr. Trump ended the conversation with a compliment that Mr. Hegseth wrote he would “never forget.”

“You’re a warrior, Pete,” Mr. Trump told him, adding an expletive for emphasis.

“It was a hallowed night,” Mr. Hegseth recalled.

As secretary of defense — Mr. Hegseth prefers to be called the “secretary of war” — he vowed to return the military’s focus to killing the enemy. “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” he said this year. “Violent effect, not politically correct.”

His diagnosis of the military’s shortcomings is one that often emerges after a lost war. “There’s always someone who thinks that if only we were crueler, if only we’d killed another million Vietnamese, then we would have won this war,” said Phil Klay, a novelist and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war. “If you reduce war to the satisfied feeling you get when you kill the enemy, it makes it a lot simpler and more satisfying.”

Mr. Hegseth’s views also mirror those of Mr. Trump, who has consistently rejected the idea that the United States by virtue of its unique history and superpower status has a special role in the world with regard to spreading democracy or defending freedom.

Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Hegseth’s views are reflected in the name they have given to the Iran mission. In the past, the Pentagon has chosen names that sought to send a message to the American people and the world that the military was fighting for some higher ideal, such as “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan or “Operation Unified Protector” in Libya.

For the Iran mission, Mr. Hegseth signed off on “Epic Fury,” a name that connotes retribution and rage.

To the pilots flying missions and sailors firing missiles into Iran, the bellicose rhetoric is, for now, most likely background noise. They are focused on the immediate, and often dangerous, task at hand.

But over the longer term, couching wars in moral terms, such as defending democracy or protecting civilians, gives troops a framework to understand why they are being asked to kill. “Moral language acts as a psychological scaffolding for service members,” said Michael Valdovinos, a former Air Force psychologist and author of the forthcoming book “Moral Injuries.” “When that disappears, it can leave troops carrying the moral burden alone.”

One question is whether a war waged without a clear moral purpose and with mixed support from the American public will weigh heavier on the troops fighting it after the shooting stops.

“Some might say at least they’re being honest about the fact that it’s just sheer brute force,” said Elliot Ackerman, who led Marines in the second battle of Falluja in Iraq and now writes novels and nonfiction works that frequently focus on the moral complexity of war. “But it’s also very dangerous. You’re asking people to die for the ambitions of a president and a moral calculus that’s no greater than might makes right.”

Moral justifications and public support matter to troops taking lives on behalf of their country.

“I can tell you from experience on the back end, it doesn’t feel very good to have participated in a war that everybody thinks was a disaster,” Mr. Ackerman said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/politics/hegseth-iran-war.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260312&instance_id=172378&nl=the-morning&regi_id=75993516&segment_id=216544&user_id=664847c7fcd4c2f213cbe5bb8a541805

[User]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Who is the Republican exception?

Once again, the point is that you are little more than the most extreme partisan hack. You are ignoring Democrats here when they have engaged in the same crap. The point was that I am honest enough to point out that Carter was the only exception. 

 

[eyeball]

15 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Actually, the west had already determined that Iranian nukes were unacceptable, long before Trump was ever president.  Trump made the logical decision that expecting different results with the same 47 years of navel gazing was foolish.   ["Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"]

Except the West had a deal with Iran that Trump tore up.  Something he does, oddly enough and often illogically, over and over.

Everyone has seen this fickle nature of America before, when Bush Sr left the Marsh Arabs to Saddam's tender mercies after telling them to rise up and then making a deal with Saddam. We're seeing the same thing unfold in Iran - calling on Iranians to rise up against their dictatorship while negotiating a deal with it.

15 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

...no one outside the U.S. (and many inside as well) should be surprised. 

They should be feeling somewhere between chagrined to disgusted - fool us once shame on you...fool us twice shame on us...

But let's face it, everyone just keeps pretending to be fooled...over and a over illogically, oddly and ironically enough.

 

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

Except the West had a deal with Iran that Trump tore up.  Something he does, oddly enough and often illogically, over and over.

 

 

The "deal" was not working for U.S. or even EU interests...nuclear weapons non-proliferation, inspections, enrichment, state terrorism, etc.    The U.S. already had military strike packages planned for many years, with and without Trump.   Putin actually remarked that Trump's unpredictability is a challenge that he has to take into consideration, unlike previous presidents.

 

Quote

They should be feeling somewhere between chagrined to disgusted - fool us once shame on you...fool us twice shame on us...

But let's face it, everyone just keeps pretending to be fooled...over and a over illogically, oddly and ironically enough.

 

 

Agreed...but they really have no other choice.   As long as America remains the "elephant in the room" that can trample things very far away, they have to continue fooling themselves.   It's cheaper than paying for an unknown alternative.

Edited March 12 by bush_cheney2004