It’s early yet.
I keep hearing about terrorist “sleeper cells.” If they actually exist, they’re certainly awakened by this.
I often wonder how many potential terrorist attacks have been thwarted in recent years.
It’s not something we’ll ever know but I am often curious.
Awakening terrorists in this current tangled mess does seem like a predictable consequence.
Fortunately we can rest assured that the best and brightest continue the mission.
Not sure how all of these shipping and manufacturing issues will impact the world but I suspect it will be significant.
The following is a quote from the above Reuters article:
Shipping through the Strait between Iran and Oman, which carries around one-fifth of oil consumed globally, has ground to a near halt after vessels in the area were hit as Iran retaliated against U.S. and Israeli strikes.
“It’s because what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz, we are not able to ship. So we’re producing, but the metal is here in Alba,” the spokesperson said.
“The force majeure… is not due to any disruption or damage to the smelter facility,” the spokesperson added. “The team is working intensively on identifying alternative shipping solutions to minimise the impact.”
Here’s more about this.
I see this is mentioned in several threads, not all of which I’ve read yet. Apology if this has already been covered:
The armageddon story appears to be . . . questionable. Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist) has this u-toob out today. TL;DR: he seems very skeptical. Some points:
-- The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) seems to be the sole source.
-- That Larsen substack article seems to cite MRFF as his sole source.
-- Nobody else that Mehta could find has heard a word about it, other than news reports that cite MRFF and/or Larsen.
-- MRFF claims to have received many letters of complaint from many different places. These letters are all suspiciously similar. For example, each complainant claims to be complaining on behalf of a dozen-or-so people of diverse (mostly Christian) faiths, and none gives the name of the commander who is saying these things.
Mehta concludes that there is no credible evidence of these armageddon sermons, and can make no conclusion one way or the other. But he is clearly doubtful.
He notes that Snopes says likewise.
Oops. Won’t let me embed link. Try this:
Link to video (about 20 minutes) https://youtu.be/Lhk-2mWELbg?si=b-La4ddPh0jx_HPN
The fundies will have a tough time with a couple of issues.
Kushner owns and had help from el donald getting bailed out of mortgage difficulties over a building with that magical biblical number on it. They did get the address changed, but still.
el donald is the perfect candidate for anti-Christ. That has been pointed out upthread so I will leave it at that.
Jesus warned about false prophets. Guess who that could imply?
Should Americans fear attacks by Iran at home? ‘I guess,’ says Trump
Should Americans fear attacks by Iran at home? ‘I guess,’ says Trump
Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die."
I know it’s been posted before, but I’m getting real Lord Farquaad vibes here. (Shrek)
Also:
Elsewhere in the TIME interview, President Trump reiterated that the war with Iran has no fixed end date.
Oh, that’s really fucking great. Fills me with hope and confidence.
I guess this isn’t speculation since it is already happening, but the costs for fertilizer are skyrocketing, if farmers can get it.
I know several people who are going to be adversely affected by this. A responsible leader would have foreseen this consequence. So…
I not sure that counts as snopes being clearly doubtful – more like utterly unsure.
If false, I’m one of people who was taken in, as I posted a link for the story on SDMB.
The one part that maybe should have alerted me is that claim that this is happening in every military branch. It did float through my mind before I posted that you’d think with thirty reports and two of the branches so much smaller than the others (the small ones being the Coast Guard and Space Force), it is just slightly unlikely that no branch would have zero reports. But I dismissed it from my mind and posted anyway.
The Military Freedom Religious Foundation has a defense against the accusations of having spread a questionable story:
The issue for this thread is whether the U.S. bombing of Iran is leading to officers indoctrinating their troops in right-wing religious doctrines to a great extent than normal – whether level is normal. I have to say – unproven.
I really messed up the last paragraph above. Substitute:
It also just seems… sensationalist. Which should immediately raise suspicions absent some specifics to the complaint. Who/when/where.
I’d fully believe an officer somewhere (or someone in the Trump administration) made remarks like this. But for it to be a pervasive thing? Either that was ordered from above (without any pushback or leaks) or we are supposed to believe the command structure (across all branches) is riddled with religious fanatics that simultaneously and independently (unless we have a doomsday cult on our hands?) decided now was the time and this was the place for such remarks.
The rebuttal actually makes me more suspicious because it’s so long winded about things that don’t matter other than to lend some vague cloak of authority to the writers’ words.
It’s been that way for decades? The military has been pushing right wing propaganda internally since forever from what I’ve heard, and is full of religious fanatics because America is full of religious fanatics. The “doomsday cult” of Christian End Timers has been powerful enough to influence American policy since the Reagan Administration if not earlier, and included former Vice President Mike Pence as a member. And supporting Israel as part of their Biblical prophecy has been a focus for decades as well.
The only thing unusual about the remarks is that somebody felt that, this time, someone apparently thought they were important enough to write as a news story instead of just letting them pass unremarked. Even if the story was made up, it’s basically a given that people have been genuinely saying the same kind of thing elsewhere because that’s just how the American far Right talks.
“I suspect this is the way things are therefore this unsubstantiated story should be treated as true” is classic confirmation bias.
It should be fought against. Particularly in my case, since it drives me up the wall how much conservative members of my family are in thrall to that particular flaw. I’d prefer not to be a hypocrite.
No, “It’s been true for most of my life and has only gotten worse” is experience. It’s claiming that people in the military aren’t talking like that which would be an implausible claim. It’s the US military, apocalypticism has been a widespread US belief here and has been for longer than most people have been alive. It’s about as surprising as claiming that some people in the US military are patriots.
How soon we forget:
Will we even be fully aware of the consequences?
Are we even getting accurate reports about the status these days?
Is filtered news routine?
Surely there is a lot of reference material for such a claim then? It’s certainly outside my anecdotal experience with several religious family members with service backgrounds. In fact, it’s the first I’ve ever heard the claim.
I can readily believe any one person might think this, but for it to be a pervasive problem across the command structure such that complaints are coming in anonymously from all branches?
And why only this war? Did I simply miss the stories about this during Iraq and Afghanistan or do the fanatics only believe that Iran can be the triggering point for some reason?
This is just silly. Patriotism is a core tenet of military service. Belief in Armageddon is not, and I’m not going to be persuaded on that absent some credible evidence. One unsubstantiated story without any specifics and “we all know it’s a problem going back longer than most of us have been alive” doesn’t cut it for me.
Are you asserting that it’s far-fetched for U.S. military leadership to inject religious dogma into its communications? If so, please see the link in my post #37.