Even when discussing a war that's obviously gone out of hand with no easy resolution in right, there's still this air, this attitude from American commenters that somehow the might and brilliance of the US military will prevail in the end and they can restore their position as leaders of the free world. Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day.
Let me have a little schadenfreude with my €2.20+ litre of petrol.
I sympathize with the sentiment even though I am American. The problem with this is that Americans are not a uniform cohort.
The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this despite how catastrophically it might go. The Americans who are paying attention and will understand the harm of this operation already know it's a fiasco and wish the country was doing anything but what it is doing.
They will turn on someone or something they can blame.
50 years ago America got brought to its knees by a Middle East oil crisis. There was mass fuel rationing, nationwide laws passed for mileage and speed limits, and everyday citizens felt the pain acutely. In response, America developed a massive oil industry with cutting-edge technology and is now the largest oil producer in the world, by far. Now, 50 years later, America wages a war of revenge but they know they aren't going to feel the same pain they felt 50 years ago because of their strategic preparation.
Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think. Perhaps it was the rest of the world that didn't make plans for the future?
A war of what? Do you really believe that states wage war because of "revenge"?
> Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think
No, they are dumber.
If this presidency was in Europe - or any other 1st world country - it would have been obliterated immediately and the party wiped out in the next elections.
> because of their strategic preparation.
lol to that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/03/25/americans-br...
don't confuse american citizens with the bought-and-paid talking & tweeting heads we are forced to live with
Plain anti-war protests could draw significant support across the political spectrum, so divisive issues are inserted as wedges. Same thing that happened in the 60's, when the anti-war movement went from a coat-and-tie affair to a laurel canyon one.
Seriously, I'm sure you're smart enough to know this is absurd. Just sit down and think about it a bit.
They are fed by entirely different media machines.
If you like, its a coordination problem where the various groups no longer have the commons of a shared reality to coordinate through.
Complaints against the right are usually about their actions, the terrible consequences and how they hurt people.
Complaints against the left are often how it makes the complainer feel, it's a mental struggle to not admit they like the result of right wing policies and not being able to embrace a left wing position despite knowing on some level that they should.
It's self-righteous to say they care about other people but want to help those people with other people's money, not their own. Statistically speaking leftists give far less to charity.
There is a legitimate cross-ideology opportunity here that the war party (which spans both american political parties) is desperate to keep from materializing.
Prominent right-wing figures who are against this war:
- Tucker Carlson
- Thomas Massie
- Candace Owens
- Marjorie Taylor Greene
- Rand Paul
- Steve Bannon
- Nick Fuentes
- Matt Gaetz
Honourable mentions:
- Joe Rogan (I know many people on HN would consider him right wing)
- Charlie Kirk (in the months leading up to his death he said it would be a "catastrophic mistake")
Trump's approval rating has dropped -16.7 points: this represents many of his core supporters bleeding away.
If no, then why does their disposition matter?
Yet, Americans elected Trump, twice even, and gave his party control over the other branches of government at the same time.
We'll see at the midterms how much the American populace really disagrees with what the government is doing.
Many Americans may be absolutely against this horrible, barbaric, idiotic action in the Middle East, but they might wisely not want to talk about it.
So let me say "Thank you to all American troops for your service, God bless America. Our military is the only reason we have peace and freedom." - this is my official public opinion as an American and I would never have at least two witnesses catch me saying anything different.
I'm almost perturbed to not see it discussed at all. What are the casualty estimates of blasting open the Strait?
-At the very minimum you would have to search and secure 130 000 square kilometers in a mountainous region, in a hostile country where you have no popular support, and where most of the male population has had somewhere around two years of military training. To be sure that Iranians couldn't lob anti-ship missiles into the strait, you'd probably need to double or triple that area. -And that's because of anti-ship missiles, with distances ranging from few hundred kilometers to thousand or more. And only one missile needs to get through to cause a mass casualty event onboard of a warship involving hundreds of people.
So, assuming that troops get to the shore, then there's the slight peculiarity of modern warfighting. Drones. Cheap and plentiful, with FPV drones having the range varying from 30 to 60+km, you can be assured that visitors stay on shore or island(s) will be filled with plenty of activities such as listening to never ending buzzing of drones or trying to find cover from those drones. As good as US electronic warfare efforts might be, wire-guided FPV drones don't really care. So unless the US incursion is going to be anything but a short 30 minute visit to a largely meaningless Tump island we're probably going to be looking at hundreds of casualties if we are extremely lucky. If they really want to open and "secure" the Strait, I think we're going to be looking at Russo-Ukrainian war-tier butcher's bill.
And since that would be perfectly fine for Israel, I think that's exactly what we'll be getting. I hope I'm wrong though.
Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are not human, they do not have feelings. They are simply a menace to be dealth with.
Or, if an anonymous and uncorroborated source claims tens of thousands of said protestors were allegedly massacred.
If it doesn't, and the strategy now involves blowing up desalinization plants ( https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-threat-desalination-pl... ) and invoking a humanitarian crisis on the level of a nuclear catastrophe, well... then they're a bit less concerned about human rights.
We're just skipping Charlottesville and the Capitol? We have idiots on both of our fringes. But only one of them is in power right now.
Even the example you gave is incorrect. Lol. It's so obvious when conservatives cherry pick information to placate their views.
As long as you ignore the feces smeared on the walls and the injured police.
This article is actually unusually good, I wouldn't be surprised if the site was generally anti-war. It isn't unusual for the level of analysis to be "we're the in-group, we're morally right, they're the out-group, we can't imagine they're competent, lets kill them it'll be easy". The moment people start doing serious analysis they become well-armed pacifists. As a case study; this war is part of a trend of the US hurting itself in aid of ... nothing useful for the US. The only silver lining is I don't see the Trump presidency surviving this and that might be a lesson to the next guy about trying to start fights.
Just not planning for anything that might help "make America great again".
"This war will surely bring about regime change," says the Oracle.
"Good," thinks Trump as he heads into the defense meeting.
Looney Tunes language like this projects an aura of un-reality further in the article, which I like even less.
It's not mass killing, it's statecraft.
It's not casual, it's responsible.