Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead by 6ixStringJack

I wasn't joking.

You were the joke all along.

And not a particularly funny one.

And now everybody sees this.

Except for you.

Now carry that fucking weight.

Don't you worry. I know your stupid ass still doesn't get it.

But you will.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 5:49 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

President Donald Trump has made "casual butchery of the innocent" a common occurrence in his administration, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, which argued that his conduct is more bloodthirsty than the mob.

The piece, published on Saturday, hailed from veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn and dug into the growing list of violent acts committed against the innocent that Trump and his allies are racking up, including one which he dubbed "the worst single atrocity in U.S. military history since the Vietnam War."

"On the first day of the US-Israeli attack on Iran on [February 28], US missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyiba girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran, killing at least 168 children as they sat at their desks along with 14 teachers – according to the Iranian media – in what may be the worst single atrocity in US military history since the Vietnam War," he wrote, later adding. "The slaughter of the schoolgirls by feckless US military commanders is but one ghastly example of the moral depravity of America during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Trump boasts of assassinating the 86-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but makes no mention of the killing by his side of his daughter, daughter-in-law and a 14-month-old granddaughter whose name was Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani."

He continued: "For the US government, casual butchery of the innocent has become the norm. In the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, US Southern Command has carried out some 196 extrajudicial killings of people in boats whom it claims, without producing any evidence, were 'narco-terrorists smuggling drugs into the US.' According to an Amnesty International report on the killings, the US has released and not prosecuted survivors from the air strikes on their boats, strongly suggesting that it has no proof they were carrying drugs."

Cockburn further cited a statement about these strikes from Amnesty International, which called them both "illegal" and "immoral," and accused the Trump administration of normalizing "extrajudicial killings." He went a step further, echoing the common comparison of Trump to a mob boss and likening his government to a "gangster underworld." However, he also argued that this comparison might, in fact, not be fair to the mob.

"This goes to the moral heart of the matter," Cockburn wrote. "The thought processes and behavior of the Trump administration in these cases resemble those of the gangster underworld, pitiless in targeting the weak and defenseless, respectful only of those who respond to violence with greater violence. If anything, the American Mafia arguably operates with greater moderation than Trump has here, making a distinction between civilians and its criminal rivals."

https://www.alternet.org/amp/trump-mobster-2677206637

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 7:38 PM

What's that, Shit Golem?

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 7:38 PM

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 8:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The U.S. launched yet another round of strikes on Iran on Sunday, part of an effort it said was intended to thwart its attacks on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway crucial to the world’s oil supply.

The latest round of strikes began at 5 p.m. ET, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The goal is to curb Iran’s ability to target commercial shipping in the strait at a time when the U.S. has declared it open for business and Iran has said it’s closed.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/trump-threatens-iran-attempt-assass
inate-open-calls-killing-khamenei-rcna434515

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 8:09 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

How many times has Trump declared victory in the Iran war?

President Donald Trump has declared victory or claimed the conflict was nearly over dozens of times. An NBC News review identified at least 32 instances where Trump stated the war was won or close to finishing, while CNN documented at least 38 occurrences of him stating that a peace deal with Iran was imminent.

These declarations and their surrounding contexts include:

• 12 Times in March: According to Moneycontrol, he claimed victory at least 12 times in the first month of the conflict alone, notably declaring to reporters, 'We've won this war. This war has been won."

• Five times in 13 seconds: Trump asserted in a speech that the U.S. won the conflict in the "first hour".

• "Total and complete victory": He has repeatedly used absolute terms online, such as claiming a "Total and complete victory, 100%. No question about it," according to The Guardian.

• Diplomatic Deals: He has frequently claimed that his administration's strikes have left Iran desperate to negotiate, declaring the situation finished or nearly complete following tentative ceasefire agreements.

Despite these frequent declarations, the conflict and surrounding military exchanges have routinely resumed, with ceasefires breaking down and the U.S. carrying out further strikes in the region.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 9:09 PM

Thanks for the update, Shit Golem.

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Monday, July 13, 2026 5:54 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Aspiring to Regional Domination, Iran Is Ready to Escalate Over Hormuz.

New outbreak of fighting over the strait comes as Tehran sees itself as a winner in the war that would establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East.

By Yaroslav Trofimov | July 11, 2026 8:53 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/https-www-wsj-com-world-middle-e
ast-iran-deal-strait-of-hormuz-b027c30f-580ee99f?st=wH7zeM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

For the Iranian regime, keeping a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz has turned out to be more important than the tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the Trump administration.

That is because Tehran is playing a long game. Iranian officials believe the country has finally emerged as a regional hegemon, after the U.S. and Israel failed to achieve their main goals in the war they unleashed in February. And, as long as Tehran cements this new status by securing permanent arrangements to control the vital waterway—and dominating the Persian Gulf economies along with it—then the rest, including American sanctions relief, will eventually follow.

“This is the only way: recognize the new Iranian order in the Strait of Hormuz,” warned Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission. “The Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats,” added the parliament’s speaker and the lead negotiator with the U.S., Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

This attitude heralds a rocky future, with regular bouts of violence, continuing uncertainty for global energy markets and a Damoclean Sword of renewed strikes hanging over the Gulf monarchies.

“The Islamic Republic will become even more of a gangster regime. Its takeaway from the war is that concessions are won through coercion—by attacking its neighbors, threatening the Strait of Hormuz and driving up the price of oil,” said Karim Sadjadpour, Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Like Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic believes that its security depends not on the prosperity of its people, but on the insecurity of its neighbors.”

And, just like Russia in its own neighborhood, the Iranian regime views the oil-rich Gulf monarchies as belonging to its own natural sphere of influence—a sphere denied to it by American meddling ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Now that America has failed to protect these Gulf states from Iranian attacks, Tehran’s drive to institutionalize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz reflects its ambition to establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East. After all, the Gulf countries, to a varying extent, rely on the strait not just for their oil and gas exports, but also for other vital supplies, from consumer items to food.

Keep reading at https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/https-www-wsj-com-world-middle-e
ast-iran-deal-strait-of-hormuz-b027c30f-580ee99f?st=wH7zeM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, July 13, 2026 5:56 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/politics/trump-strait-of-hormuz-
iran-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xFA.nTaN.wiXixce04ava

The New York Times reports:

For two months, under a quiet arrangement with the U.S. Navy, commercial tankers turned off their transponders to avoid detection by Iran as they crossed the perilous Strait of Hormuz to carry oil and gas out to the world.

The military offered some air cover in case Iran attacked, as naval officers directed the vessels over the radio to hug Oman’s coast, opposite Iran’s shore. That enabled a steady increase in traffic through the strait from May to June, during a tentative cease-fire in the war.

But a framework deal that President Trump signed with Iran last month helped bring that effort to a fiery end because of its language giving Iran official power in the strait and its vagueness in important phrases.

Mr. Trump celebrated the agreement, reached on June 14, as the reopening of the strait. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” he wrote on social media. “Let the oil flow!”

But critics say it actually formalized a reality that Iranian officials have made clear throughout the war: They now control the strait.

Iran’s missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the strait essentially shut it down soon after the United States and Israel started the war. Then weeks after the United States and Iran entered a tentative and informal cease-fire in early April, some tankers began taking a southern route through the strait, farther from Iran’s coast.

Now, by striking last week in that area, Iran is trying to force ships to travel through its territorial waters on the strait’s northern side, where Tehran can try to justify charging tolls or fees.

Iranian units attacked three ships on Tuesday along the southern route, the U.S. military said. Mr. Trump responded by ordering airstrikes in Iran. The tensions escalated in an announcement this weekend by Iran’s Navy that it had fired on another vessel in the strait and was closing the waterway “until the end of U.S. interference in the region.”

U.S. Central Command said it hit about 140 Iranian military targets in response, for a total of 310 American strikes over the last week.

With Mr. Trump warning that he thinks the June agreement is “over,” global energy prices are surging again, along with fears of a return to all-out war. Before the war, a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through the strait from producers in the Middle East.

The latest crisis is an all-too-predictable result of the June agreement, former American officials and analysts say.

[Continue reading…]
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/politics/trump-strait-of-hormuz-
iran-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xFA.nTaN.wiXixce04ava

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, July 13, 2026 1:51 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The War Trump Can’t Control

President Trump has consistently said the war in Iran will be over “quickly.” Is it becoming one America can’t exit?

By Adam Harris | July 13, 2026, 8:40 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/07/ra-iran-reescalation/6878
49/

Following the United States’ war with Iran can give you whiplash. One day, it’s nearing a resolution; the next, the nations have resumed missile strikes on each other’s military installations, and Iran on Gulf States caught in the destructive web of this conflict. By the time President Trump declared, on Friday, that a cease-fire with Iran was over, the U.S. had already hit more than 140 targets in the preceding days—his words did not make policy; they were simply an articulation of reality.

Though the president has said he would not enter any “forever wars,” America seems to find itself headed toward one. Is there a way out? My colleagues Tom Nichols and Nancy Youssef, who cover the military and diplomacy for The Atlantic, joined me on Radio Atlantic to discuss the conflict that is beginning to feel more like a permanent condition.

Transcript at https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/07/ra-iran-reescalation/6878
49/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, July 13, 2026 8:47 PM

"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026 7:30 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Suddenly, Hormuz is Less Crucial Than It Was

Why? Because the real energy crunch is coming from the Russia/Ukraine war

Paul Krugman
Jul 14, 2026

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/suddenly-hormuz-is-less-crucial-tha
n

Are we back at war with Iran? Did the war ever stop? The US is, once again, bombing Iran while Iranian drones strike shipping. Iran, giddy with its success in defying America, is demanding sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, while Donald Trump is saying no, he owns the Strait and will collect 20 percent tolls.

Folks, this is bad. U.S. national security policy is now entirely in the service of one man’s vanity. We got into this mess because Trump thought he could win an easy victory that would let him strut around feeling powerful. Now we can’t get out because he won’t admit that his war has been a humiliating failure.

The good news is that Trump’s temper tantrum will probably do less economic damage than one might have expected — because the cease-fire that is apparently over wasn’t doing as much good as one might have expected. The fact is that there is now a disconnect between events in the Strait of Hormuz and the energy prices that matter. This disconnect is coming from a surprising place, another war that was supposed to yield a quick, easy victory but didn’t: Vladimir Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine.

To see what I’m talking about, start with a question: Why was oil so cheap just before this latest confrontation?

Charts, graphs, and more about crude oil prices at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/suddenly-hormuz-is-less-crucial-tha
n

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026 7:44 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, President FDR could have bragged that he, personally, drove the Japanese Fleet out of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was never again attacked! But, for some reason, FDR felt a need to collapse the Japanese government, not just protect Hawaii. And so began a war that continued for 1,364 days, unlike Trump's War with Iran, which he said was Won On Day One.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5967020-donald-trump-da
y-one-iran-war-graham-death-daylight-savings/

It was exactly 1,364 days (or 3 years, 8 months, and 22 days) from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to the formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

Today is the 137th day of Trump's War with Iran (or 10% of Roosevelt's War with Japan) https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 6:11 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Who Really Controls the Strait of Hormuz?

Since the war began, Iran has only expanded its power over the waterway.

By Will Gottsegen | July 14, 2026, 7:32 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/07/who-controls-strait-of
-hormuz/687920/

Yesterday, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States would become the “GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” blockading Iranian ports and ensuring the safe passage of non-Iranian vessels. And in the spirit of “FAIRNESS,” he added, the U.S. would charge vessels a fee for the trouble.

Then, this morning, an amendment: Trump disposed of the fee idea while still indicating that he intends to assert control of the strait and resume the blockade. Now, Trump says, the Gulf states will be making “the Trade and Investment Deals” with the U.S. as a form of compensation. But the particulars of those deals (and of which states will participate) remain unclear.

Today marked the fourth consecutive day of strikes across Iran. The cease-fire has disintegrated—Trump formally notified Congress yesterday that the war has resumed—and negotiations have collapsed. If American forces do try to reassert power in the strait, they’ll face a difficult path. Iran is still clamping down on ship traffic, and recent violent clashes in the waterway have once again dramatically reduced the number of vessels entering and exiting the Persian Gulf. The United States’ ability to exert control in the strait could depend on its ability to erode the system of dominance that Iran has established in recent months.

Dominance in the Persian Gulf has never been clear-cut. In the early 16th century, Portuguese mariners brought their cartaz system of permits to the Strait of Hormuz, overseeing the waterway for more than a century. In 1622, the joint forces of Persia and England’s East India Company seized it. The Strait of Hormuz is now broadly understood as an international zone, and yet portions of the waterway remain contested. Its narrowest stretch is just 21 miles wide—meaning that, according to a United Nations convention, it is entirely within the territorial waters of Iran and nearby Oman. Neither Iran nor the U.S. are party to the UN treaty, but the U.S. nevertheless recognizes it as international law, Michael Poznansky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me.

The U.S. has assumed some responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz in the past. Defense of the Persian Gulf was at the core of the Carter Doctrine—Jimmy Carter’s attempt, in 1980, to respond to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Iran periodically attacked foreign vessels in the strait during the Iran-Iraq War of the ’80s; in 1987, the U.S. Navy launched Operation Earnest Will, escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the strait for more than a year. During that war, the Iranian regime threatened to fully close off the strait but decided against it, realizing that the damage to its own economy would be too great. Iran has repeated this threat over the past two decades, but it never actually followed through until February, in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli strikes on its land and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Despite the persistent threat of Iranian interference in the strait over the past half century, its leadership was never guaranteed to be able to enforce an effective blockade. But what remains of Iran’s military, decimated by months of war, has still proved capable of maintaining the transit restrictions that the regime announced in the spring. The persistent threat of mines, and of its nimble boats that can harass or attack other vessels, has kept ship traffic to a minimum; the number of crossings on Sunday was the lowest it had been in a month.

Past efforts to break Iran’s stranglehold over the course of this war have failed. In May, American forces began escorting some vessels through the strait as part of an initiative called Project Freedom; it ended after just two days, in part because Saudi Arabia declined to let the U.S. use its military bases and airspace. European allies could provide support for potential U.S. missions in the Gulf, as they did during Operation Earnest Will, but Trump has now eroded many of those relationships.

Given Iran’s demonstrated ability to influence ship traffic, the project of ensuring freedom of navigation in the strait might require a permanent U.S. effort, Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. This could end up being cumbersome and dangerous, Takeyh explained, given the military assets involved in escort missions and the inevitability of Iranian interference. And even then, ship traffic may not return to prewar levels.

Trump’s social-media posts over the past couple of days have gestured at the desire for a strong and continued American presence in the strait—a profound shift on the part of a president who spent years decrying the country’s role as “the policemen of the world.” He may soon come to realize that policing the strait does not always mean controlling it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 10:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, President FDR could have bragged that he, personally, drove the Japanese Fleet out of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was never again attacked! But, for some reason, FDR felt a need to collapse the Japanese government, not just protect Hawaii. And so began a war that continued for 1,364 days, unlike Trump's War with Iran, which he said was Won On Day One.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5967020-donald-trump-da
y-one-iran-war-graham-death-daylight-savings/

It was exactly 1,364 days (or 3 years, 8 months, and 22 days) from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to the formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

Today is the 137th day of Trump's War with Iran (or 10% of Roosevelt's War with Japan) https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 20, 2026 8:30 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.

Trump lost to Iran. It is over, kind of like Bush, who lost to Afghanistan, but he didn't realize it. Bush went into Afghanistan to kill Osama bin Laden, but Osama was in Pakistan. The US Army searched for years unsuccessfully because it was looking in the wrong place. How much did that search cost? $8 trillion. Trump has already spent hundreds of billions on the Iran War. The price will keep going up until the next President, or the one after that, declares the war is over.

Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, July 20, 2026 8:31 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

How success in Venezuela set Trump up for disaster in Iran

Not every country can be run from afar.

By Joshua Keating
Jul 20, 2026, 5:45 AM CDT

https://www.vox.com/politics/495917/trump-venezuela-iran

Last week presented a stark contrast in the trajectories of the Trump administration’s two riskiest foreign policy ventures. On July 13, the President Donald Trump formally declared a return to military action in Iran, making clear that a war that he had anticipated would last just four or five weeks will stretch past the five month mark and probably longer. Trump appears increasingly frustrated by Iran’s failure to concede to his demand to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, comparing the country to a “great boxer”: “You think you have them beat, and then all of a sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot.”

Key takeaways

• After removing President Nicolas Maduro in January, the US is now effectively controlling Venezuela via new President Delcy Rodriguez. On the other hand, after five months of fighting, Iran shows no signs it will accede to Trump’s demands.

• Trump cited Venezuela as a model for how he would like to control Iran and spoke of finding another “Delcy" to run that country, but it should have been obvious that was never going to work, given the differences between the two countries.

• Trump has spoken of attempting regime change in other countries, particularly Cuba. The question going forward is whether the experience of Iran has changed his views on how easy this would be.

On the far side of the globe, however, the other country Trump attacked this term has proven much more manageable. Venezuela’s government — now led by former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who took power when Nicolás Maduro was captured in a US raid in January — agreed to talks with an opposition leader handpicked by the US that aimed at “strengthening democracy.”

The New York Times reported earlier this week that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is effectively the “viceroy” of Venezuela, ruling the country in absentia from Washington, DC. (“Viceroy” is traditionally an official who governs a country or colony as a direct representative of a monarch.) The US has direct control over the revenues Venezuela receives from selling its oil abroad, giving Rubio effective power over the country’s budget. The grip is so tight, the Times reports, that Rodriguez asks for White House approval before appearing on Fox News, much to Trump’s delight.

Two different countries in two different parts of the world with two different responses to Trumpian military pressure. But when future historians tell the story of how this administration ended up enmeshed in exactly the sort of Middle East quagmire that he had run for office pledging to avoid, they’re likely to devote at least a few paragraphs to Venezuela. The easy success of one operation set the stage for the still unfolding disaster of the other.

Exporting the Venezuela model

In a daring predawn raid on January 3, US Special Forces managed to capture Maduro in a matter of hours, with no US troops killed. Contrary to the warnings of critics that such regime change would result in chaos — and to the hopes of the Venezuelan opposition that it would lead to democracy — Trump and Rubio successfully replaced Maduro with his much more pliant vice president, who has proven more than happy to let Washington call the shots. Trump now regularly muses about making Venezuela the 51st state.

The operation was, the Times reported, “evidence to the president of the unmatched prowess of U.S. forces” and, along with the relative success of the first round of airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program last June, emboldened him to take further military action.

“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect scenario,” Trump said in early March, referring to prospects for regime change in Iran. And in one sense it worked; the US was able to remove the head of state within hours of launching military action, with Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike.

“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” Trump said, when Iran’s regime was considering Khamenei’s successor.

Trump was not involved. Iran’s Assembly of experts chose the former supreme leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, whom Trump dismissed as “unacceptable” and a “lightweight”.

Despite this, Trump continued to insist that regime change had effectively happened in Iran and that its new leaders were “much more reasonable.” While Iran’s new political system is still very much a work in progress, its insistence on maintaining control of the state and ongoing attacks against shipping and US allies in the region have made it fairly clear that it will not be taking orders from Marco Rubio or anyone else in DC.

Why Iran is not Venezuela

On the surface, there are some striking similarities between Iran and Venezuela: They were once close allies of each other, as well as of Russia and China. Both are oil dependent authoritarian states espousing a revolutionary ideology defined in large part by opposition to the United States. Both are known for sponsoring foreign militant groups. Both have a history of disputed elections and crushing opposition protests. Both have large and vocal exile communities in the US. Both have struggling economies and have spent years under US sanctions.

That’s where the similarities end, however. Start with the military: Iran’s combined forces are roughly three times the size of Venezuela’s and far better equipped, possessing missile and drone capabilities that have spread chaos across the region for months. Iran’s senior leaders came of age during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and have spent decades engaged in proxy battles with the US and Israel, whereas Venezuela has not fought an interstate war in modern times. It’s telling that Maduro was relying on Cuban personnel for his own security.

Then, there’s geography. Thanks to its fortuitous location on the western side of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has means to retaliate against the US by blocking shipping through the world’s most important energy chokepoint, driving up oil prices. Venezuela may have the world’s largest oil reserves, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the ability to disrupt global energy flows.

Iran was able to attack US allies throughout the Gulf with both its own missiles and via the military groups it supports throughout the region. Despite Trump’s misleading claims that Maduro’s government was in direct control of gangs in the US or weaponizing migration, Venezuela simply didn’t have the same kind of leverage with which to fight back.

There’s history, too. Even at the nadir of relations with the US, when Venezuela was under heavy American sanctions and formal diplomatic contacts were cut off, there were still periodic talks over energy issues and prisoner releases. The US oil company Chevron continued to operate inside the country. Rodriguez herself was a familiar figure to US officials, having participated in talks with both the Biden and Trump administrations.

And finally, there’s ideology. Venezuela’s rulers may still be publicly committed to the “Bolivarian” socialist vision of former leader Hugo Chávez, but, in reality, the regime operates as “an extreme form of crony capitalism with some pretenses of redistribution of oil windfalls to the poor,” said Chris Sabatini, director of the Latin America program at the think tank Chatham House. Senior civilian and military officials were heavily involved in a range of enterprises of varying degrees of legality from the oil industry, from gold mining to drug trafficking. When push came to shove, they were more interested in preserving their fiefdoms than standing up for a long-dead revolution.

According to some reporting, denied by the Venezuelan government, Rodríguez had been in direct contact with US officials prior to Maduro’s capture, assuring them of her cooperation, which would make this less a regime change invasion than a US-enabled coup. Even Interior Minister Diasdello Cabello, considered the hardest of the hardline Chavistas with a US price on his head, has been more than happy to play ball with the country’s new American overlords.

Iran has widespread corruption, as well, but the regime is far more organized, disciplined, and committed to the radical Islamist ideology of the 1979 revolution. Iran’s leaders had long been planning for invasion and had detailed succession plans in place for when top leaders were eliminated. The fact that the US’s Israeli partners were reportedly cultivating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president best remembered for calling for Israel to be wiped off the map and promoting a long-shot plan to arm Kurdish rebels to mount a ground invasion, is an indication that there were simply no plausible candidates for an “Iranian Delcy.”

It should have been obvious from the start that a quick and easy operation that would replace Iran’s top leaders with more cooperative ones without requiring a dangerous and costly ground invasion by US troops was never a realistic prospect. It’s notable that the administration sidelined many of its own Iran experts ahead of the war, but, in fairness, Trump’s own CIA director dismissed Israel’s optimistic regime change scenarios as “farcical.”

“President Trump has not really taken the time to study the history of Iran-US relations going back to 1979, or even earlier,” said the Middle East Institute’s Alex Vatanka. “If he had studied that relationship, I think he would have taken a different approach.” But Trump may have been thinking less about what happened in Tehran in 1979 than what had happened in Caracas just a few weeks earlier.

The end of hubris?

Many scoffed in January when Trump suggested that the US would be “running” Venezuela for the foreseeable future, but that appears to be more or less what’s happening now. It’s not clear how long this arrangement can last. Discontent with both Rodríguez and Trump is growing in Venezuela, and many in the opposition accuse the government of using the recent devastating earthquake as a pretext to delay called-for democratic reforms. Venezuelans may come to hold the United States responsible for the failures of the government it is remotely controlling.

But the initial success of the Venezuela operation was a vindication for a president who often sees himself as running the world in addition to the United States.

Has Trump faith in his ability to bend other countries to his will been shaken at all by the Iran experience? He has frequently described Cuba as “next” on the list of countries he’d like to “take” after Venezuela and Cuba.

In terms of culture and geography, Cuba may look more like Venezuela. But in terms of its political system, it’s “more like Iran,” said Sabatini. “It’s completely state-centric, vertical, disciplined.” Dealing with a system still fiercely devoted to its founding revolutionary ideology that has been largely isolated from the US for decades, the administration may have no better luck finding a “Cuban Delcy” than it did finding an Iranian one.

Trump still hasn’t ruled out taking over Cuba in some fashion, and Pentagon planners are reportedly examining a range of options for action against the island, though he claimed Rubio wants to “get [Iran] finished first.” If that’s true, it may be a long wait until Iran is “finished.”

On the other hand, Trump is once again talking about taking over Greenland and posting memes referencing his desire to annex Canada. Iran may have proven that Venezuela was the exception, not the rule, when it comes to regime change, but Trump’s ambitions for world domination do not seem to have disappeared.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, July 20, 2026 5:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.
Trump lost to Iran.

No. He didn't.

You're a fucking idiot, Shit Golem.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 20, 2026 11:45 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Since there are no good air defense systems in the region, it's a grudge match and slug fest between America/ Gulf Monarchies + Jordan/ Israel v Iran/ Iraq/ Ansar and Allah(?)/ China(?).

Each side will continue until one runs out of missiles or their assets are destroyed. I don't think infrastructure destruction OR civilian deaths will count.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Monday, July 20, 2026 11:58 PM

Shit Golem is just such a compromised stupid fuck that he'll just say anything that comes into his mind and believe anything that he is told as long as they say Trump is a bad boy while they're saying it.

I guaranty you. If we ever lose the war against Iran, every goddamned person living here is going to know about it. HARD.

The fact that Over $151 Million dollars here in America had enough free time and money on their hands to go see The Odyssey this weekend leads me to believe that the reports saying we lost the war to Iran have been greatly overblown.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:59 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I guaranty you. If we ever lose the war against Iran, every goddamned person living here is going to know about it. HARD.

The fact that Over $151 Million dollars here in America had enough free time and money on their hands to go see The Odyssey this weekend leads me to believe that the reports saying we lost the war to Iran have been greatly overblown.

What is the connection between movie ticket sales and the Strait of Hormuz being closed by Iran?

Eventually, Hollywood will make a movie about Trump's Iran fiasco. Trumptards won't go to that movie because it makes Trump look like an old fool. How dare Hollywood mistreat the greatest President in history?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 7:00 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump Is Caught in the Trap He Set

The war in Iran has dealt a serious blow to the idea that the president can slip out of any bind easily.

By David A. Graham | July 20, 2026, 6:39 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/07/trump-is-caught-in-ira
n-war/688006/

The war in Iran has dealt a serious blow to the idea that Trump can slip out of any bind easily. Over the past three days, three American service members died in that conflict: two in Jordan, where Iranian missiles struck a military base, and a third in Iraq, killed by debris during the intentional destruction of an Iranian drone. The official American death toll in the Iran war now sits at 17.

That number is low—still less, for example, than the toll from the 1983 invasion of Grenada—although the military appears to have been keeping quiet just how many troops have been injured. As my colleague Tom Nichols wrote over the weekend, the president’s limp attempt at consolation (“It’s a very sad thing,” he said) is especially dismaying because “Trump has offered no comprehensive explanation about why his administration is ordering U.S. military personnel to put their lives on the line.”

And the death toll may begin to rise, because Trump appears to be on the verge of being drawn into a larger war. As the defense analyst Brynn Tannehill wrote in The Atlantic last week, the president faces only bad choices. The United States could effectively cede control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, accepting a fee system that breaks global precedent and centuries of American policy and granting a hostile power the opportunity to close an important shipping lane at any future moment. Or the White House could embark on a major ground war, because fighting over the past few months has shown the limitations of relying on air power. That would be politically hazardous, likely lead to more American deaths, and suck the U.S. into a long-running presence in the region, and it might still fail. Meanwhile, the conflict threatens to grow even larger as Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen threaten to close some traffic to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Deciding what to do is hard when you don’t know what you want. Trump has vacillated over whether the point of the war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and whether the war has already achieved that. He’s offered different answers about whether one goal is regime change, and whether that has been achieved. He has suggested that the purpose is to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, even though it was open before the war and even though that may no longer be manageable. The administration has also struggled to explain to skeptical members of Congress why it needs more war funding.

In short, Trump’s misadventure in Iran is a story of hubris. The president didn’t bother to plan or consider the dangers before he started a war, and now it has spiraled to a point where even he seems unable to find a way to wriggle out of a jam. For the first time in a very long time—to some extent, the first time in his life—Trump appears to be facing the consequences of his actions.

These circumstances might give Trump’s critics and opponents a chance to feel some delicious schadenfreude if the results of the blunder were not so terrible. The costs are measured not only in the blood of American service members but also in the deaths of Iranian civilians and of merchant mariners trying to sail through the Persian Gulf, in the damage to the global economy, and in the erosion of American alliances and a long-standing global order. Being confronted with a snare that he can’t escape must be unpleasant for Trump, but people around the globe will face misery because of it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 1:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I guaranty you. If we ever lose the war against Iran, every goddamned person living here is going to know about it. HARD.

The fact that Over $151 Million dollars here in America had enough free time and money on their hands to go see The Odyssey this weekend leads me to believe that the reports saying we lost the war to Iran have been greatly overblown.
What is the connection between movie ticket sales and the Strait of Hormuz being closed by Iran?

Shut the fuck up, retard.

If Trump "Lost" against Iran, that means that Iran defeated America.

Iran objectively did no such thing.

You're a fucking idiot and cultist.

America hates you.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Has Trump achieved any of his objectives?

I don't know. What ARE his objectives?

The USA will keep striking Iran until it runs out of missiles. My guess is that will happen before Iran runs out of missiles. By then, I imagine all of our regional bases and friendly airstrips will be decimated

And altho Iran's infrastructure and civilian population will take a huge hit, the Gulf Monarchies depend almost fully on desalination and oil/ gas exports, and Israel isn't in much better shape.

This is a pure war of attrition. It looks like we and our regional "allies" will collapse before Iran does, and Iran will still be on control of the Straits of Hormuz.

The only factor holding Iran back from destroying oil and gas production in the region is that they can't make any $ unless oil and gas continue to flow thru the strait. So my guess is that Iran will focus on military assets, desalination plants, power generation, bridges, and financial centers and data centers.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Has Trump achieved any of his objectives?

I don't know. What ARE his objectives?

The USA will keep striking Iran until it runs out of missiles. My guess is that will happen before Iran runs out of missiles. By then, I imagine all of our regional bases and friendly airstrips will be decimated

That's one hell of a prediction. I applaud the balls on ya to even make it.

I have no idea where you're getting your information from, but all I'll say is that if we're $39 Trillion in debt and at least half of that debt is military spending, and we're actually running out of missiles like they're OLD WOOD trees being cut down to extinction while we're growing new shit pine trying to replace them, then I guess we deserve what we get.

The entire concept that we would ever possibly run out of weapons before Iran does sounds like pure fantasy to me.

I could be wrong now... But I don't think so.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:19 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump, expertise, the Iran war, and the unitary executive

Eric Kramer | July 21, 2026 10:54 am

https://angrybearblog.com/2026/07/trump-expertise-the-iran-war-and-the
-unitary-executive

Trump’s inability to evaluate expert advice and incorporate it into his thinking will undoubtedly play a large role when histories of the Iran war are written.

Trump evidently ignored warnings from experts within the government that Iran would respond to an attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Once the Strait was closed, Trump had a reasonably clear (I think) menu of bad options to choose from:

1) walk away and declare victory,

2) maintain sanctions on Iran and prevent Iranian sales of oil and hope that financial pain eventually brings Iran back to the negotiating table in a somewhat weakened position,

3) lower-level military escalation to bring Iran back to the negotiating table in a weakened position (what we have seen the past few days), and

4) various forms of more serious military escalation (Kharg Island, nuclear sites, civilian infrastructure, etc.).

For several weeks leading up to and following the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it looked like Trump was choosing door number 1. But in the end he couldn’t stomach the deal his own negotiators had reached. He would have been much better off if he had the foresight to realize this before he opened the Strait to Iranian oil exports and allowed Iran to strengthen its finances.

Menzie Chinn sums it up:

Personally, I do not think the US side is operating with a rational agent (else the MoU wouldn’t have been signed as is, and Iran would not have been allowed to replenish funds by exporting billions of dollars with oil). A rational agent (who probably wouldn’t have struck Iran with such lack of planning in the first place) would have accepted sunk costs, and dropped demands for concessions that clearly the US has no leverage to acquire.

Trump illustrates in a way that a million dry academic warnings never could show how dangerously unconstrained the American presidency is. Yet at the same time this world-historic idiot is abusing presidential power in ways that are incredibly damaging to our future and unspeakably cruel to so many, the galaxy-brained justices on our Supreme Court have decided that presidents should have even fewer restraints on their power.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:31 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

but all I'll say is that if we're $39 Trillion in debt and at least half of that debt is military spending

100%, not 50%.

Al Overview

Cumulative United States national defense spending from 1946 through 2026 exceeds $ 27 trillion in nominal dollars, which equates to over $40 trillion when adjusted for modern inflation. This covers the post-WWII demobilization, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the post-9/11 conflicts, and modern defense Operations.

The breakdown of this historic spending trajectory reveals several defining periods:

• The Cold War & Early Conflicts (1946-1989): Sustained military commitments during the Korean War and Vietnam War kept defense spending averaging near 10% of the U.S. GDP. Cumulative spending during this era approached $4 trillion in nominal value.

• Post-9/11 Operations (2001-2026): Military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and broader War on Terror engagements have accounted for more than $18 trillion.

• Recent Years: National defense budgets have scaled up to counter renewed great power competition and rearmament pushes, with the total federal defense budget standing at approximately $1.46 trillion as of 2026.

To explore historical and current allocations in more detail, track exact yearly figures on the US Government Spending historical database or check annual funding profiles through USASpending.gov https://www.usaspending.gov/

If you are interested in a deeper breakdown, please let me know:

Would you like the data broken down by specific presidential administrations?

-----------------------------

China did NOT declare a War on Terror, and it did fine without that $18 trillion in wasted defense spending (unless you think the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars were money well spent, but then you'd think the $trillions about to be spent on the Iran War will be well spent).

As a matter of fact, China spends less than half as much on defense as the US does.
China’s Military in 10 Charts
https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-military-10-charts

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

but all I'll say is that if we're $39 Trillion in debt and at least half of that debt is military spending
100%, not 50%.

That's not even true by the sheer virtue that we are now paying more every year in interest on our debt than military spending.

You have a very simple, one-track mind, and it is one of the reasons you've had so much difficulty having any conversation about anything at all with anybody in your life.

Dealing with you is a chore for everyone unfortunate enough to have met you that has to deal with you on a regular basis.

You are a burden. You are burdensome.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 7:07 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That's not even true by the sheer virtue that we are now paying more every year in interest on our debt than military spending.

You have a very simple, one-track mind, and it is one of the reasons you've had so much difficulty having any conversation about anything at all with anybody in your life.

The US does NOT pay more interest on debt than military spending.
$1.4 trillion for defense
$883.4 billion for interest

If you cannot get that simple fact right, 6ixStringJoker, you cannot get anything right:

National Defense
A Budget Function
FY 2026 obligated amount
$1.4 trillion
Data as of May 30, 2026

Net Interest
A Budget Function
FY 2026 obligated amount
$883.4 billion
Data as of May 30, 2026

https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function

If Veterans Benefits and Services are included with defense, Defense spending is even more out of whack:
FY 2026 obligated amount
$299.5 billion
Data as of May 30, 2026

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 7:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That's not even true by the sheer virtue that we are now paying more every year in interest on our debt than military spending.

You have a very simple, one-track mind, and it is one of the reasons you've had so much difficulty having any conversation about anything at all with anybody in your life.
The US does NOT pay more interest on debt than military spending.
$1.4 trillion for defense
$883.4 billion for interest

If you cannot get that simple fact right, 6ixStringJoker, you cannot get anything right:

Oh right. I forgot. Trump did what the Democrats and NeoCons always wanted and raised our defense spending by $600 Million or so. Josh Shapiro celebrated by doing a photo op and putting is John Hancock on a missile bound for Ukraine that may or may not have killed a person or many people.

You knew full well that was the case when you wrote this braindead reply, Shit Golem.

Or have you already forgotten how much you were bitching about that at the time it happened because your brain is so beyond fucked? There were plenty of stories stating that what I said was the facts before Trump raised the spending. Some of them you posted here yourself.

And above and beyond that, fuck your reply anyhow.

If any other spending besides military is adding to the budget deficit year over year, which many clearly do, INCLUDING THE FUCKING $883.4 BILLION FOR INTEREST, that means the percentage of military spending is not 100% of our $39 Trillion in debt, and you just look like a dumb asshole again, just as you always do.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 8:13 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

And above and beyond that, fuck your reply anyhow.

If any other spending besides military is adding to the budget deficit year over year, which many clearly do, INCLUDING THE FUCKING $883.4 BILLION FOR INTEREST, that means the percentage of military spending is not 100% of our $39 Trillion in debt, and you just look like a dumb asshole again, just as you always do.

Starting the Iran war was optional. Trump didn't have to do it and does not know what the final cost will be. Starting the Iraq War was optional for Bush. He didn't have to do it, but the final cost was $3 trillion or more. And the benefit of the Iraq War? Zero. The Iran War benefit will be zero, too.

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/true-cost-iraq-war-3-trillion
-and-beyond

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 8:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That's not even true by the sheer virtue that we are now paying more every year in interest on our debt than military spending.

You have a very simple, one-track mind, and it is one of the reasons you've had so much difficulty having any conversation about anything at all with anybody in your life.
The US does NOT pay more interest on debt than military spending.
$1.4 trillion for defense
$883.4 billion for interest

If you cannot get that simple fact right, 6ixStringJoker, you cannot get anything right:

Oh right. I forgot. Trump did what the Democrats and NeoCons always wanted and raised our defense spending by $600 Million or so. Josh Shapiro celebrated by doing a photo op and putting is John Hancock on a missile bound for Ukraine that may or may not have killed a person or many people.

You knew full well that was the case when you wrote this braindead reply, Shit Golem.

Or have you already forgotten how much you were bitching about that at the time it happened because your brain is so beyond fucked? There were plenty of stories stating that what I said was the facts before Trump raised the spending. Some of them you posted here yourself.

And above and beyond that, fuck your reply anyhow.

If any other spending besides military is adding to the budget deficit year over year, which many clearly do, INCLUDING THE FUCKING $883.4 BILLION FOR INTEREST, that means the percentage of military spending is not 100% of our $39 Trillion in debt, and you just look like a dumb asshole again, just as you always do.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Period.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 10:50 PM

https://sonar21.com/the-us-faces-a-strategic-crisis-with-iran-the-rapi
d-depletion-of-us-battlefield-missiles/

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Has Trump achieved any of his objectives?

I don't know. What ARE his objectives?

The USA will keep striking Iran until it runs out of missiles. My guess is that will happen before Iran runs out of missiles. By then, I imagine all of our regional bases and friendly airstrips will be decimated

That's one hell of a prediction. I applaud the balls on ya to even make it.

I have no idea where you're getting your information from, but all I'll say is that if we're $39 Trillion in debt and at least half of that debt is military spending, and we're actually running out of missiles like they're OLD WOOD trees being cut down to extinction while we're growing new shit pine trying to replace them, then I guess we deserve what we get.

The entire concept that we would ever possibly run out of weapons before Iran does sounds like pure fantasy to me.

I could be wrong now... But I don't think so.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

"I have my sources." she whispered.

Like with the war in Ukraine, too many to link.

We've pretty much run out of Patriot air defense missiles (not that they do much good anyway).

The next missile of concern is the Tomahawk, which is an attack missile, a ship- launched cruise missile with a 1000 mile range. As long as Iran maintains long range anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft capacity we'll have to stick with Tomahawks I guess.

Quote:
The US Faces a Strategic Crisis with Iran…The Rapid Depletion of US Battlefield Missiles

Quote:
The US Military Just Emptied a Third of Its Deepest Missile Magazine Into Iran — and the Pentagon’s Own Wargames Say the Next War Empties It in Days

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2026/07/the-us-military-just-emptied-a-thi
rd-of-its-deepest-missile-magazine-into-iran-and-the-pentagons-own-wargames-say-the-next-war-empties-it-in-days/

Well, projections are always pretty iffy, but if we've used up 1/3 of our Tomahawks then we have about 2000 left. Iran OTOH has been estimated to have anywhere from 2,500 to 10,000 ballistic missiles (I think on the higher side) and since their launch sites are buried we probably didn't destroy much of their stockpile.

But we'll see.

----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 6:33 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Each Day The US Weakens Itself
What It Means For US-China Relations

Phillips P. OBrien

Jul 22, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-update-20-each-day-the-
us

It is painful as a student of strategy to watch the US weaken itself relentlessly like this. These attacks on Iran, in their latest phase of the war, have been going on for 11 straight nights now. The USA keeps hammering away against an Iranian military that Trump claimed months ago to have “obliterated”. Yet, the Iranians continue to fight back, with what might be called a sideways strategy which is distressingly effective. Indeed as the USA weakens itself, the Iranians seem to be improving their position.

The upshot is a decline in America’s global position, a decline which the USA is aiding and abetting with its present strategy. When it comes to the Asia-Pacific, that degradation has reached a stage where the US might never recover. There will be a section at the end for PS that will go into this.

Each Day The US Weakens Itself

The US has now spent 11 straight nights attacking targets across Iran. The purpose behind these attacks seems to be Trump’s hope that if he does something, anything, to damage Iran, that the Iranian regime will get the message and give him peace terms that he can sell as “not a catastrophic loss”. These terms remain what they have been since March, some kind of concession on the nuclear question and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without tolls. The amazing and depressing thing is that each night of these attacks is making things worse for the USA. It is bringing the US further away from achieving anything material and actually putting Iran in a stronger position. It reaffirms the pointlessness of the use of military force in this (and most) situations.

The USA is engaged in a war of choice to defeat itself. It certainly is a special moment. Maybe the best way to understand what is happening is to break it down into a series of points. The first is that the US has no actual military operation to achieve what it wants, beyond a full invasion and deposition of the Iranian regime.

The One (Bad) Military Option

What could the US achieve here? The answer would be even with the whole might of the US military, it is not clear. The US is trying to damage the Iranian regime to such a degree that it will give in, to coerce it. However that is practically impossible to imagine without a change in that regime. So, the only way Trump can reasonably hope to achieve his political goals is to overthrow the Iranian regime and replace it with a new and compliant one. That will not happen with air strikes for a number of reasons. So the only way for Trump to “win” the war is for a full-scale invasion, and that means taking Tehran and installing a new government. Taking Kharg Island (mooted again this week as a possible target for US invasion) achieves nothing towards this but puts US forces in vulnerable positions. If the US cannot protect its troops from air attacks in Jordan, there is no way it can do so in Kharg.

The problem with any full scale invasion is that we are talking about using hundreds of thousands of troops, masses of munitions (it is not clear that the US even has enough left at this point) and has no end-date in mind. General Barry McCaffrey estimates it would take 600,000 US troops and would take a year. I would say even longer. However it is irrelevant, because it is not happening.

That Means Every Day Of Operations Weakens The USA

This process of weakening is happening in a number of ways. First, the US is simply further depleting its stockpiles of vital weapons and doing so in efforts that can achieve nothing political. The reality behind this depletion seems to be causing panic in the Pentagon. Let me start with this quote from an anonymous official about what is happening, which was given to the Washington Post.

"We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don't think the White House is aware of that."

This is extremely serious. The USA had already run down its stockpile of THAAD (advanced anti-air) missiles before it started the latest round of war. Stocks were so low it would take years to get back to the (too low) condition on February 27, 2026. Here is a CSIS chart on the subject:

The US is doing multiple attacks every night and having to defend against multiple attacks from Iran at the same time, so the situation is deteriorating every day. I actually do think the Pentagon and White House know, but they are unwilling to do the right thing as that will admit that they have failed. Instead, they are desperately hoping that Congress gives them billions and billions to keep this going.

Beyond directly weakening the US military, the war is also further hollowing out US institutions. Congress sits there, inert and passive, as the administration continues to wage a war that started 144 days ago. The War Powers Act should have been invoked months ago, or at the very least Congress should have been asked to express its assent. The very opposite has happened, and the administration is waging a war, hiding the true losses and expense, and having no press conferences.

Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-update-20-each-day-the-
us

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 8:04 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

No classified briefings, no press conferences, no acknowledgment that the conflict with Iran is back on

By Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire | July 21, 2026, 6:38 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/07/iran-war-trump-h
egseth/688016/

The Trump administration is back at war. It just doesn’t want to admit it.

In the 11 days since the United States resumed its air strikes against Iran, neither President Trump nor any other senior administration official has publicly addressed the campaign. U.S. forces began by striking Iranian military facilities but later expanded to attacking civilian infrastructure that the administration says is being used for military purposes. As of today, congressional officials had yet to receive classified briefings on the latest phase of the war, aides told us.

The Pentagon, whose leadership stepped in front of the cameras in the weeks following the start of the war, in late February, hasn’t held a press briefing since May to answer even basic questions: Why is a resumption of the war necessary? What are the strategic objectives, and how have they changed? How many casualties have American forces suffered? What would define success?

The president, who has repeatedly claimed the war was already won, scheduled a televised address to the nation last week. Instead of talking about the war, though, he focused on election security and mentioned Iran only in passing, telling the nation that “we are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.” (This is hard to square with the record of the past several months.)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were on Capitol Hill this afternoon to plead for $67.1 billion for emergency military funding to replenish munitions and meet other needs, on top of the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion regular budget request. Neither uttered the word Iran in their opening statement. Hegseth, in his testimony, referred to the war as “an operation.”

Even the deaths of American troops have been treated as though they belong to another conflict. After two U.S. service members were killed in Jordan by an Iranian missile on Friday, the Pentagon initially said that they died supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the decade-plus campaign against the Islamic State. It then issued another statement saying that the two troops, along with a third who was killed in Iraq when an attack drone detonated, died while “supporting overseas operations”—but still did not explicitly mention Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon’s name for the conflict with Iran. (Another service member, who had been reported missing in Jordan, is believed dead, the Pentagon said today.)

With those deaths included, at least 18 U.S. service members have been killed in combat since the war started—more than were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2016, 2017, and 2018 each, and only slightly fewer than the total recorded during the 12 years of Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS. At least 1,700 Iranians have been killed, according to Iranian officials, including dozens over the past 10 days.

Trump is scheduled to attend the dignified-transfer service for the slain soldiers at Dover Air Force Base tomorrow. But his brief remarks saluting the fallen soldiers were quickly followed by his usual blustery insistence that the war was going well. Trump has lashed out on social media against Iran, vowing to punish its regime for killing Americans. But a senior official acknowledged to us that initial intelligence assessments had revealed that the new wave of U.S. strikes has likely done little to change Iran’s behavior.

Trump expected a quick victory, and so the military didn’t prepare for a prolonged conflict. There was no months-long buildup of forces and no large-scale deployment of troops. Although the military surged additional forces into the region, many assets—particularly Navy ships—were diverted from other war theaters rather than trained for this conflict. The Pentagon has since extended the deployments of nearly half of those ships, further taxing an already-strapped force.

The U.S. teamed up with Israel in launching the war but didn’t ask for support beforehand from other allies. No country has offered to step in for U.S. forces or share the burden of Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the protection of U.S. troops in the region.

On Capitol Hill, Hegseth and Caine didn’t get a warm reception for their request that taxpayers cover the cost of “certain aspects” of the war, which they put at $37.5 billion.

The administration “chose to break every rule and said that everyone before them was stupid for using a playbook of talking to the nation, talking to allies, and setting goals,” one former senior military officer, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, told us. “And now we are in a war with no good options and no U.S. and international support. It’s a bit of a trap of our own making.” Given that there appears to be no escape from that trap other than acknowledging defeat, the administration is expected to keep fighting, hoping that doing so leads to a better outcome.

Even some of Trump’s closest allies privately acknowledged that he is in a bind. His choice: Escalate the conflict and risk losing more American soldiers and depleting stockpiles of munitions while hurting Republicans’ election chances this fall, or walk away now to cut his political losses while leaving Iran in a stronger strategic position than it has held in decades. That would be the sort of humiliation that Trump loathes. But one Trump ally pointed us to a shift in rhetoric on Fox News; in recent days, a number of influential hosts, including Laura Ingraham, have floated the possibility of abandoning the war in an eleventh-hour effort to help the GOP at the ballot box. Trump, the ally noted, often uses his favorite cable channel as a gauge of public opinion.

Two people close to the president told us that Trump may at some point consider that sort of exit. But for now, despite the growing costs, he is continuing the fight. While sitting next to the leader of Lebanon in the Oval Office today, the president seemed to commit himself to the type of forever war he once derided: “We’re not finished at all,” Trump told reporters. “We’re not leaving right now.” He also said the United States is planning to bomb Pickaxe Mountain on the suspicion that it houses part of Iran’s nuclear program.

Military planners often say that hope is not a strategy—and neither is fighting a war while treating it as something less than that. One likely result is a protracted back-and-forth from which the U.S. ultimately retreats, hundreds of billions of dollars later. “This pickup game has turned into a marathon that we never mobilized for in the first place,” Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and an expert on naval operations, told us. “Now we’re having to mobilize for it on the fly.”

The administration’s apparent objective is to raise Iran’s cost of disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which was an open waterway until Tehran closed it in the early days of the war. Iran, meanwhile, is trying to raise the cost of the U.S. military presence in the region while using force to block ships from transiting the strait without its permission. Earlier today, a U.K. maritime agency said that a tanker operating in the strait was struck by an unknown projectile, leading its crew to abandon ship. Iran has also increased its targeting of U.S. naval vessels, American officials told us; both countries continue climbing the ladder of escalation.

As the war has dragged on, Tehran appears to have adapted. In the early days, Iran was able to overwhelm U.S. air defenses with relatively cheap drones. But more and more, the country is turning to cheap, quickly produced ballistic missiles. These missiles travel faster than drones and can do far more damage. In the span of 24 hours last week, Iran launched at least three ballistic missiles toward Jordan. One video from the attacks shows a missile striking a Jordanian base that the U.S. operates in, and no apparent attempt at interception, fueling concerns inside the Pentagon that commanders are conserving air-defense munitions at the expense of troop protection. Hegseth told the Hill on Tuesday that “everything our troops need on the battlefield, they’re getting in spades and beyond.” But the military also urgently needs more funds to replenish its stockpiles.

Over the course of the conflict, Trump has let deadline after deadline slide, while Iran has learned not to fear his bellicose threats. The president, his advisers have told us, understands that the war is hurting him politically but rages against those who say that his proposed deal on Iran’s nuclear program is weaker than the one President Obama brokered a decade before.

Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, announced yesterday their intention to get off the war’s sidelines and close portions of the Red Sea to shipping, which could further inflame the global energy crisis. If anything, the war shows signs of broadening, not ending, whatever the White House says—or doesn’t say.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 1:54 PM

Shut the fuck up.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 7:00 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SIX, just wanted to comment on our military budget.

For decades Congress and weapons industries used our military budget as a Giant Piggybank, to raid at will. Graft, corruption, and profiteering are the lifeblood of politicians, lobbyists, contractors and subcontractors. That's why our weapons are so complex (development costs!) fragile (exclusive maintenance contracts!), overbudget, and beyond deadline.

On a moral and practical basis, I'm against us randomly picking fights and changing governments around the globe. Most of our wars serve as a great excuse for the military and hangers-on to absorb ever increasing amount of tax dollars! They also serve as a great vehicle for brainwashing and absorbing more and more control over people.

Just saying.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 7:14 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, just wanted to comment on our military budget.

Why no numbers in your comment?

Pentagon and national defense funding has surged significantly,
with the proposed FY 2027 budget targeting $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion,
up from approximately $1 trillion in FY 2026 and
roughly $900 billion in FY 2025.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 9:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, just wanted to comment on our military budget.

For decades Congress and weapons industries used our military budget as a Giant Piggybank, to raid at will. Graft, corruption, and profiteering are the lifeblood of politicians, lobbyists, contractors and subcontractors. That's why our weapons are so complex (development costs!) fragile (exclusive maintenance contracts!), overbudget, and beyond deadline.

On a moral and practical basis, I'm against us randomly picking fights and changing governments around the globe. Most of our wars serve as a great excuse for the military and hangers-on to absorb ever increasing amount of tax dollars! They also serve as a great vehicle for brainwashing and absorbing more and more control over people.

Just saying.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I'm all for wasting the money on the military if we kill all the Iranians with it. Every last one of them.

Otherwise we're just wasting money for the sake of wasting money.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 11:14 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, just wanted to comment on our military budget.

For decades Congress and weapons industries used our military budget as a Giant Piggybank, to raid at will. Graft, corruption, and profiteering are the lifeblood of politicians, lobbyists, contractors and subcontractors. That's why our weapons are so complex (development costs!) fragile (exclusive maintenance contracts!), overbudget, and beyond deadline.

On a moral and practical basis, I'm against us randomly picking fights and changing governments around the globe. Most of our wars serve as a great excuse for the military and hangers-on to absorb ever increasing amount of tax dollars! They also serve as a great vehicle for brainwashing and absorbing more and more control over people.

Just saying.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I'm all for wasting the money on the military if we kill all the Iranians with it. Every last one of them.

Otherwise we're just wasting money for the sake of wasting money.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Been watching too much "24", hmmmm???

Ever occur to you that YOU'RE brainwashed? That Iranians are just another excuse for Moar War?

Cause AFAIK everything you think about Iranians is wrong.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 11:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Been watching too much "24", hmmmm???

I was going to say that I've never seen an episode of 24, but that's not true. The last time I hung out with one of my uncle's family on my mom's side before he died, he got Buffalo Wild Wings for everybody and we watched the new episode of 24, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. But it looked exciting.

Quote:
Ever occur to you that YOU'RE brainwashed? That Iranians are just another excuse for Moar War?

Cause AFAIK everything you think about Iranians is wrong.

Brainwashed by who?

I just want to see every Muslim in the world dead is all.

Nobody told me to think that way. They are evil people and they all need to die. That includes any white and black American Muslims too. Every single one of them.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 3:13 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Brainwashed by who?

I just want to see every Muslim in the world dead is all.

Nobody told me to think that way. They are evil people and they all need to die. That includes any white and black American Muslims too. Every single one of them.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Oh, no, EVERYBODY told you to think that way!

Tell me, Oh Wise One, in any movie, TV show, or video game, have you ever seen a Muslim man portrayed as a good guy?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 4:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Brainwashed by who?

I just want to see every Muslim in the world dead is all.

Nobody told me to think that way. They are evil people and they all need to die. That includes any white and black American Muslims too. Every single one of them.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Oh, no, EVERYBODY told you to think that way!

Tell me, Oh Wise One, in any movie, TV show, or video game, have you ever seen a Muslim man portrayed as a good guy?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

You need to see more videos of real life, Sigs. The stuff they're not showing you on the news.

I'm not even goign to entertain this conversation with you while it just came out that over 250 THOUSAND FUCKING GIRLS in the UK have been molested by Muslim men since they started taking them in and the government has so much control over the population that they were able to hide that until just recently.

White British people are a minority in London today. We have several American-hating Muslims as politicians in America now, but if the Democrat Party doesn't fucking fix itself, we're about to have A LOT FUCKING MORE OF THEM.

They hate us. They plan to kill and/or enslave us.

And I just watched as 99% of the people in my country took a fucking knee and let the government ramrod everyone up the ass with lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations and nobody did a fucking thing about it until they decided it was over.

FUCK YOUR WHITE GIRL EMPATHY.

Unless you start seeing the real world on this issue, we will never see eye to eye and I will not be shy about it.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 4:36 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I just want to see every Muslim in the world dead is all.

Nobody told me to think that way. They are evil people and they all need to die. That includes any white and black American Muslims too. Every single one of them.

6ix won the contest for Worst Monster of the 21st Century.

I was reading this article:

Who was the worst monster of the 20th century? And who is the worst monster of the 21st?

By Noah Smith | Jul 22, 2026

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/who-was-the-worst-monster-of-the

Pretty damn impressive, 6ixStringJoker!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 4:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I just want to see every Muslim in the world dead is all.

Nobody told me to think that way. They are evil people and they all need to die. That includes any white and black American Muslims too. Every single one of them.
6ix won the contest for Worst Monster of the 21st Century.

I was reading this article:

Who was the worst monster of the 20th century? And who is the worst monster of the 21st?

By Noah Smith | Jul 22, 2026

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/who-was-the-worst-monster-of-the

Pretty damn impressive, 6ixStringJoker!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Your mom raised you, Arthur the Shit Golem.

You never told us how you killed her... Was it really by pillow? Is that why you could never stop talking about that scene?

What a coincidence. There really is nothing new under the sun, is there?

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 4:52 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The American People Need the Truth About the Iran War

The president and the Pentagon are not being up front about what has happened in more than 20 weeks of hostilities.

By Tom Nichols | July 22, 2026, 4:03 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/trump-iran-conflict-pentagon
/688026/

For nearly five months, Donald Trump and his Cabinet have been misleading the American people about the war in Iran. When the president makes statements about the war, they are full of wishful thinking, hyperbole, and outright lies. He has devoted a full address to the topic only once—a rambling prime-time speech nearly four months ago that contained little substance. At this point, after more than 20 weeks of hostilities and at least 18 Americans dead and hundreds wounded, the people of the United States do not—cannot—entirely know what is happening, what progress U.S. forces are making, or what the president’s goals are.

This opacity seems to be by design: The president and his lieutenants appear unwilling to admit that they started, and are now losing, a war with one of America’s most dedicated enemies, and obfuscating probably seems less damaging than admitting this painful truth. Of course, some of their statements are merely mistakes. Some are spin. Others are exaggerations. But many of them are flat lies that Trump and his appointees dump into the public square seemingly without hesitation.

Consider the number of times Trump has said that the war is over or almost over, such as his April 17 declaration to USA Today that the fight to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “over, it’s a great victory.” (He has made other claims of imminent victory at least 30 times, by one count.) He has insisted for months that the Iranian military is finished and that it has nothing left, as he did in the first week of the war when he said: “We’ve decimated their whole evil empire.” (He made similar claims at least half a dozen times in the first month of the war alone.) He has said that Iranian nuclear materials must be handed over, then said that the same materials are worthless and can stay where they are, and now has gone back to arguing that ending the Iranian nuclear program is the most important goal of the war.

All of these claims are dominoes that were set up to fall, one after another, by the single most egregious mistake that Trump made when choosing to go to war: He bet on quick regime change in a terrorist dictatorship and had no other plan should his long shot fall short. Perhaps Trump, after talking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believed the optimistic scenarios of a rapid regime collapse that Netanyahu and others floated. Trump’s own secretary of state reportedly warned the president that he was being sold “bullshit.” Nonetheless, despite Trump’s statement on the first night of the war offering a jumble of rationalizations, he at least made clear that he intended to topple the regime.

But within days, it became apparent that regime change was not happening. Unable to face failure, Trump resorted to prevarication. The war was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks, perhaps a month or a little more. When that timeline fell apart, Trump and his advisers began to dial through various reasons for staying in the war, but regime change—so prominent a goal in the first hours of the conflict—was now no longer one of them. Trump eventually claimed, dishonestly, that he’d never had any such intentions. (He has also said that U.S. actions changed the regime anyway by killing top Iranian leaders—“We’ve had regime change,” he said in late March—implying that he either doesn’t know what regime change means, or he knows and was trying to save face.)

He then piled up more falsehoods. The war was going great, the president and the self-appointed “secretary of war” told the world. “Total and complete victory. 100 percent,” Trump told the French AFP news service on April 8. “No question about it.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the same day, called Operation Epic Fury “a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital V military victory” and said that Iran had been rendered “combat ineffective for years to come.” These statements were obvious nonsense. (During early briefings at the Pentagon, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, who must live in the world of real facts and figures, was more circumspect in his pronouncements, mostly limiting himself to a recitation of events and numbers regarding U.S. actions.)

Among the president’s favorite words is obliterated—a term he has repeatedly applied to Iran’s nuclear program and its military forces. Such assertions are clearly false and were almost certainly knowably false from the start. Iran’s military capability has been degraded, not obliterated, which is why this wording has come back to haunt Trump. Over the past few days, a clip of the Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo has gone viral; in it, Bartiromo points out what any sensible person who has listened to Trump talk about the war might question: “I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out,” she said. She was puzzled, she added, “because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that.”

Bartiromo’s observation has only three possible responses. One is that the president genuinely has no idea what he’s saying, which would be beyond alarming in any circumstances, but especially during a time of war. Another option is that Hegseth and other advisers are keeping the truth from him, which would be a civil-military crisis of unprecedented gravity. The third option is that Trump is lying.

Now that a poorly negotiated cease-fire has finally fallen apart, Trump has returned to one of his most cringe-inducing howlers: The Iranians, he has said repeatedly, really want a deal. (CNN estimated last month that he has claimed to be close to a deal almost 40 times.) No, they don’t just want a deal: They are pleading for a deal. They are desperate for a deal. Tehran appears to enjoy outing Trump on this one; sometimes the Iranians seem to launch attacks in the region just to make the point that Trump is wrong. (Yesterday, Iran claimed to have struck a data center in Bahrain belonging to Amazon.)

The Pentagon, the institution that should be explaining the details of the war to the public, has fallen mostly silent: Hegseth is happy to offer clips of himself doing comically sloppy pull-ups, but neither he nor Caine has held a briefing on the war since May 5. Americans, after months of war, cannot even be sure how many men and women in uniform have been wounded or how severely.

This information void at America’s military headquarters is a dramatic departure from previous conflicts, when reporters were embedded with American military units; when the Pentagon offered regular, in many cases daily, briefings on operations; and when civilian and military leaders in DOD answered real questions from real journalists. Now those journalists have been banished from the Pentagon, and White House minions lash out at reporters, call them names, and accuse them of bad-faith attacks on America and the U.S. military.

The Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe, for example, recently pressed DOD about a story from The New York Times showing that the Pentagon has been slow to update an online database of those killed and wounded in the Iran war. A Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said on X that “partisan hacks” at the Times were “desperate to smear America’s military,” and another spokesperson, Joel Valdez, blasted Lamothe in an X post as a “disgruntled WaPo hack.” Lamothe’s offense, apparently, had been confirming that the Times’ story was, in fact, accurate.

As the CNN reporter Brian Stelter notes, “Hegseth hasn’t explained the military strategy behind the renewed air strikes. His department hasn’t revealed the circumstances that led to the recent deaths of US service members. It’s all indicative of a larger effort to control information, limit access and avoid difficult questions about the war.” This is more than a lack of transparency; the Pentagon is taking away the ability to query actual human beings, instead redirecting journalists to an online source that is itself an obstacle to getting timely and accurate facts.

And the deceptions continue. When Hegseth and Caine appeared yesterday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Jon Ossoff read chapter and verse from Hegseth’s own statements about victory and the certainty of an Iranian surrender, and asked Hegseth whether he stood by them. In effect, Ossoff was asking Hegseth whether he had been lying then or whether he’s lying now. Hegseth became defensive, trying to talk over Ossoff and responding only with boilerplate deflections about the greatness of the American military and how Iran would never get a nuclear weapon. Hegseth refused to give any other answer; he finished his afternoon of testimony by blowing his stack when Senator Gary Peters called him a failure.

Trump and Hegseth are putting on a brave face, warning Iran that it will pay for killing more Americans. “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social, “they will pay for that killing many times over!” This morning, Trump posted that for every ship attacked in the strait, “the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.” Leaving aside the issue of this threat to commit potential war crimes, the United States seems to be running out of munitions: On Monday, The Washington Post reported that a “U.S. official familiar with internal administration discussions,” speaking on the condition of anonymity, warned: “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that.”

But others—including people in the Pentagon and the intelligence community—must know the truth, and if the White House wasn’t aware of these concerns yesterday, it is now. Trump, Hegseth, and others in the administration know many other truths as well. They should start sharing those truths with the American people.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 4:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The American People Need the Truth About the Iran War

Why are you hiding the link, bitch?

Would you like me to look this up on my own, find out who the author really is and shove his history up your ass so far you start speaking in ancient dialects?

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 5:00 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The American People Need the Truth About the Iran War

Why are you hiding the link, bitch?

Would you like me to look this up on my own, find out who the author really is and shove his history up your ass so far you start speaking in ancient dialects?

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Thank you for pointing it out.

Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic Daily newsletter. He is a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years, and an instructor at the Harvard Extension School. He has served as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts House and the U.S. Senate. He writes about international security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world—along with occasional contrarian views on popular culture. His books include The Death of Expertise and Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy. He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy champion.

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/tom-nichols/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 5:11 AM