Will Trump die? Will he be charged money for it? No? Then the cost is nothing, as far as he’s concerned. The people who die won’t be Trump therefore by definition their lives are worthless. As far as he’s concerned, at least. Trump is the sole meaning and purpose of the universe, and all things have value only as far as they add to his wealth and glorification.
If a billion people died and he made a dollar out of it or felt some momentary pleasure from it, then from his viewpoint that’s an infinite ratio of profit; something, for nothing.
I cannot speak to trump’s conscience as far as outright War is concerned. Going back to the 1980’s when he was a slumlord, he did not like black people. He called for the execution of the so-called “Central Park Five” who had been convicted of rape and assault till it turned out it was one other non-related guy and while many of those had already served their sentence, were pardoned. But Trump either lies about saying something (he may have just said) yet never retracts - as if you asked him today he’d say those black guys got off scot-free and if they’d been executed, then what is the discussion about?
So far he’s gotten away with “ending the Russian-Ukraine conflict on day one” and justified it with a “deal” to scrape Ukraine’s soil for rare-earth-minerals (and as I have somewhat posited, will use some of that soil to build his golf courses in Gaza).
As I’ve noted, he is, on paper, the least belligerent President since Jimmy Carter (unsure whether to include Saint Ronnie’s meddling in South America - and is it lost to history that he illegally took money from Iran to arm the Contras. Of course neither he or Caspar Weinberger had any recall)
A war against Iran would at least at first be popular (“Fuck the Ayatollah!”) and yet even without proxy assistance from Russia or China, would prove deadlier than Vietnam. So I wouldn’t say that’d be on his conscience or whether or not he goes to hell - it didn’t bother JFK and only got to LBJ when he “lost Cronkite” and knew he’d lose his run for President in 1968. Certainly not Nixon and especially not Kissinger who (war crimes) bombed the fuck out of any nation near Vietnam on Christmas.
Trump has just short of two weeks for the world to forget he said anything about Iran or hope they make some overtures to allow inspection of enough of their underground mountains for Trump to declare victory.
There is no “or else” here: Do what Netanyahu wants you to do, or figuratively pick your golf ball out of the rough and toss it onto the green. Or War. And do not expect Europe’s help - not even the UK other than maybe allowing B-2 flyovers. Don’t count on the Saudi’s. Trump has disengaged and made the USA so contemptible that many of Murdoch’s rag papers (not Faux news) will be more than happy to put American body counts on page one everyday.
Alrighty, then. About 12 hours ago trump announced on his twitter social that the USA had hit three sites and media is reporting the big MOP was used at least at one of them.
Iran sent missiles at Tel Aviv which, as this seems to have been a USAF operation, doesn’t seem quite proportional. I’m glad and surprised they didn’t even test the missile defences of any nearby US bases, which AFAIK have approximately the same capabilities (if not the exact same tech) as those in Israel.
Of course there is an implied “Yet” as I’ve no idea what the Iranian leadership is going to do.
They probably look at Israel as being the instigator, with some justification. And also likely realize that Trump wouldn’t care if they managed to kill every last US soldier in those bases, anyway.
I also suspect that they really don’t want to be in a full fledged war with th US, and are hoping that if they don’t retaliate directly, Trump will declare victory and move on to something else.
That would be unwise, and any killed US troops which trump has put in dire danger, would be the literal definition of an Act of War, justifiable or not. Congress should and (dammit) I hope would declare War. Only they can and I do not believe the President has any sort of “veto” power. He will, either in 30 or 90 days, according to the “War Powers Act” have to explain to congress why this happened.
As in a couple prior posts above, I too had thought Iran would let back in whatever investigators to look at some of these sites and then trump can declare victory and he’d still be jonesing for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I dunno what Iran might do, yet if sending missiles at nearby US bases is high on their possibilities list, that may happen. They have a sizeable standing army, mountains to protect them from easy marches upon, and an Air Force that will not be an easy task to neutralize.
Maybe this is Putin’s chance to be the peacemaker. There’s something that to me is really weird about trump’s dealing with Putin over the Ukraine war and just in general. Xi and Taiwan included.
Well, in that case that’s a reason to attack now, to make sure that doesn’t happen. Just like with Iraq, the US timed its attack on Iraq in order to preempt a UN investigation that would have demonstrated it was lying about WMDs.
Those are just formalities. I’m not sure why. It’s not like the UN has a long “War is declared” form and application fee.
Is the USA at war with North Korea? No, and it never was “declared” yet that was not some run-around by Truman of the Constitution. It happened “pre War Powers Act” yet if Congress dis-approved, it’d have been over even before the first time Truman fired General MacArthur. Right now the President has 90 days to justify the acts that are sort of war-like. And with Best Korea, for whatever reason, that “Police Action” is still on. Today. And when trump met kim.
Actually, if the United Nations still existed and was not some kinda-nice landmark building on the East River, they might issue a decree: "Hey it looks like Israel and Iran are trading killer missiles. Let’s put that on the “Active War List” like some arrival/departure list at JFK.
War has already been declared. All US service members are legitimate targets for Iran to attack. You don’t get to drop bombs on a country then demand they do nothing in retaliation.
But its nice to see you dribblingly excited for Congress to declare war if Iran hits back.
America does tend to have a rather feudalistic attitude that it has the right to kill people in other nations any time it feels like, but that they are committing a massive affront if they fight back or retaliate.
Now wars just get automatically declared? I miss the point in history when that happened. Please enlighten me.
I have already said that there are 20 bases and 40,000 troops that Iran may fire missiles upon. Is the USA currently at war with Iran? Did the fucking Constitution change in the last 11 years since I’ve been there?
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was an outright act of War. Yet there was no War with Japan or Germany on December 6, 1941.
There’s gotta be a better adverb than dribblingly (sic) which you misspelled. I don’t even know how to spell the word yet I know what you meant.
No, they don’t get “declared” at all. They just happen, and the people running them decide whether they want to call it a war or something else like a “police action” or “special military operation”.
The Constitution is all but dead as America transitions to fascism. Trump has decided to attack Iran, therefore we are attacking Iran; the Constitution is moot.
For virtually the whole of human history you warmongering fuck. If one side attacks another then war is declared. Unless you think people have been filling out forms before fighting for the last couple of millennia.
The “War Powers Act” grants him that ability as CiC yet he still will need to justify it (technically) in 90 days.
Well I hope not. The power of Declaration of War is entirely in Article II of the Constitution.
FDR really didn’t have to address the nation, or Congress. The attack on Pearl Harbor was de-facto Act of War, and ended years later on the decks of the USS Missouri after great loss of life on both sides.
Korea?
Vietnam?
Russian invasion of Crimea?
Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Germany’s belligerence in Europe?
Japan’s belligerence in Asia?
The War for Independence between the now-United states and General Cornwall?
The United States Civil War?
The latter four had defined surrender terms. So okay, FDR didn’t need to teletype “War Declared to Hirohito” and the “War for USA independence” did indeed de-facto start at Lexington-Concord when rebels were killed.
Really, look, I’m not the historian guy or the war-tech guy, but read some real history books.
Oh yeah, I’m the warmongering fuck because I want Congress to do what the Constitution says. In my 57 years I’ve never been called a warmonger.
I want to kill! Kill! Kill!
Arlo Guthrie (you’re clearly too young to get the reference to “Alice’s Restaurant” and likely do not know the difference between a massacreee and a massacre,
Thankfully, the United States hasn’t done anything like that . . . recently, oh wait,
On June 22, 2025, the United States Air Force and Navy attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran under the codename Operation Midnight Hammer, as part of the Iran–Israel war. The Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, the Natanz Nuclear Facility, and an unspecified site in Isfahan, were targeted with fourteen GBU-57A/B MOP 30,000-pound bombs carried by Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and by Tomahawk missiles fired from submarines. The attack was the United States’ first offensive action of the Israel-Iran war, which began on June 13 with surprise Israeli strikes. American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites - Wikipedia
Admiral Yamamoto knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was as much reach as the Japanese Navy could do.
Fortunately, for the USA, much of the 7th Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor was out at sea on maneuvers. Had they been docked and taken out (sunk or highly damaged), the situation for the USA would have been much more dire.
Not impossible. Yet not good. I reckon Hirohito or whomever decided this was a good idea - and the USA would sue for peace (not surrender - just say we’ll stay out of all the shit Japan is up to in Asia).
There was a lot of debate at the time whether to help Churchill any more than the USA was; and much less likely to declare War on Germany. The USA did not have to - on that same Sunday Germany declared War on the USA.
A major lack of understanding of the resolve and capabilities of a country (USA) to conduct wars in Asia and Europe.
That is news to me. I thought this latest bombing was the first use of the MOP’s.
I’m not taking a position that the USA is not part and parcel of the Israel-Iran conflict. I reckon besides the Constitution being trashed that Diplomacy is as much out the window as a meeting with Russian officials on the 20th floor.
Still, to me, the killing of US troops at Iran’s discretion is a new phase of whatever-the-fuck we’re going to call this. It can only end with capitulation by Iran or like the last helicopter out of Vietnam by the utterly defeated USA. Do you recall the footage of the Navy dumping helicopters into the Sea to carry more passengers/weight?
Has the USA ever lost a war? That’s crazy talk. No way.