Iran: the collapse

Trump admin to EU: "******** you, you subhuman scum."
Somehow, also the Trump admin to EU: "Come help us escort ships to try and fix a mess solely created by our dumb ******** war."

 

I will let a great American show you what the response should be, Anne.

 

Reports that Iran has used the Sejjil ballistic missile for the first time in this war. Iranians claim it is solid fuel, Mach 13 and able to manoeuvre during flight.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/ne...00-km-ashura-weapon/articleshow/129591638.cms

They apparently launched it at US air bases and camps in Kuwait, although other reports just say generic stuff about targeting israeli air force decision making hubs.

I have seen no indication of whether they penetrated air defences or caused any damage.

Edit:

 

Problem is many Democratic leaders are also Zionists and fine with what's going on (see one Biden, Joe, for example).

 

Remember the discourse (here at BS but also the wider world) during the buildup to, and execution of, the Iraq War? How the Bush administration early on would send out plausible spin? How the strategy started as merely questionable? And then over weeks and months and sometimes years it became obvious the whole enterprise was shot through with incompetence and bullshit and delusion, just the world’s biggest cluster********? (I still think that war was the single dumbest, most idiotic, major decision ever taken by America.)

Well, the Trump administration is rocketing through those phases almost instantly. And sometime literally instantly; some administration communications are self refuting.

I know references to Idiocracy are easy and banal by this point, but what else can I say? This is the Iraq War after 20 generations of increasing stupidity, not 20 years.

My point is this: if the MSM doesn’t see through this and just start screaming out Howard Beale style that Trump is at Hitler in the bunker levels of (in)competence and (in)sanity, it’s hopeless…by that I mean a recovery to normal politics in less than a decade.

A lot of us are around age 60; statistically speaking, I’m going to just throw out that half of 60 year old males will be dead before we have functioning politics, unless this immense, catastrophic self own breaks the Trumpian spell. I feel like this is the last chance, the Rubicon.

 

Define this please.

As a side note, sometimes I peruse other political threads around BS, just to get out of this bubble. The politics thread in the Mexico forum (presumably the posters were all raised Catholic) crosses the line between being dubious about Israel (fair game) and anti Semitic tropes (problematic) and flat out anti Semitism ( ) constantly.

El Naranja, do you have any insight here? I’m genuinely curious.

That forum is also insanely sexist, but that’s a story for another day.

 

Zionist means different things to different people, but I am not sure El Naranja needs to define it in the context that he used it.

Joe Biden is a self-professed Zionist, so in that context it’s up to Joe Biden to define what he means.

(Getting Joe Biden to explain anything nowadays is a tall order, but that’s a separate issue).

 

Trump is definately winning this war

Iran-US war latest: Trump says Nato faces ‘very bad future’ if allies don’t help open Strait of Hormuz
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...live-updates-supreme-leader-oil-b2938810.html

Also, the man is completely disconnected from reality. He needs China more than they need him.

• Trump tells the FT he may also delay his summit with China’s President Xi Jinping later this month as he presses Beijing to help unblock the crucial waterway.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...re-if-allies-fail-to-help-open-hormuz-strait/

 

My advice, as Jew, is not to use the term.

 

Don’t want to get into another one of these, but the term is actually very useful as a descriptor of people who support israel (or support the idea of a Jewish homeland in the middle east), especially those that are not Jewish. And it is especially important when discussing the history of the area and the people within it between the 1880s and 1948.

So to simply say never use it is not something I would agree with.

I understand it is used by some as a dog whistle for Jews, so yes it is good to be careful to use it, but banning words when they are used in the correct context is not something I agree with.

Anyway this is another digression and one that I haven’t asked for, only responded to from someone else.

 

I don’t agree, but if someone is going to use the word in a non historical context, they should be really, really careful.

 

Look, for me it’s like using Islamist or Jihadist.

Islam and Jihad in the views of Muslims are noble ideas and aims, and in the correct context (which they are almost never used in) I would be happy to be called either, yet they are used as slurs by most in the western speaking world.

Doesn’t mean that the words themselves are out of bounds.

 

It's really not useful. As it's used today, “Zionist” flattens distinct positions into a crude binary, treating support for Israel’s right to exist as interchangeable with support for the current Israeli government and Netanyahu. That erases the obvious position of people (like me) who support Israel’s right to exist while opposing its present government. So no, it is not a useful or descriptive term these days. It's a rhetorically imprecise and lazy substitute for saying something more exact.

See above. Don't be lazy.

 

There is a party in israel called the Religious Zionist Party, which is also sometimes supportive of the Netanyahu Goverment and sometimes against it (Smotrich leads it). There is the Zionist Federation in the U.K. which supports israel without necessarily supporting Netanyahu.

There is nothing within the term Zionism which indicates that the person supports Netanyahu, if I were describing such a person the most apt term for me would be a Likudnik.

What you are saying is that the term is misapplied too frequently for your liking.

Well, ok. That’s what words do. They are an imprecise technology which aim to get complex thoughts across from your mind to another human being’s mind, there will be some radio static along the way.

 

That’s EXACTLY What I mean. You need to make that distinction if you want to use the word.

 

That's not what I said. Perhaps what I said is not to your liking, hence your mischaracterization here.

Words are imprecise in the mouth of a man too lazy to choose his words carefully. Is that the kind of man you are?

If the word does not clearly denote what you mean, then you should say what you mean instead of using the word.

I want to expanding upon my point above, because as I thought about it more, "Zionist" tends to be used very loosely these days to denote three things (not just the two I noted above). Those are:

1) Support for Israel's right to exist
2) Support for Israel's current government and Netanyahu
3) Support for "Greater Israel" concept

Obviously, people can support 1 but not necessarily 2 or 3. But as used today, the term "Zionism" crudely erases these distinctions.

 

How about we make a trade for New York State plus New Jersey and Massachusetts for Alberta however Edmonton and the Oilers remain like an island or something like how Vancouver Island is and are still Canadian so that they can keep the hockey team

 

I will use the word here, and you tell me if it’s imprecise.

Theodor Herzl was a Zionist.

Now, you are telling me that I should not use that word in this context and should choose a more accurate one instead? Because your words to me were absolute:

Words are always imprecise, by the way. Language is a translation. It might convey most of what you feel but is still a different language to the one in your head.

 

I guess you are a lazy man who doesn't want to put in the work to be precise.

So what? That was my response the party name you noted above too. So what?

I specifically say that you should use a more descriptive and precise phrase. So not just a "more accurate one" word -- multiple words.

 

There doesn’t have to be a what.

This is like objecting to someone using the word red, because there are different shades of red and you don’t want all the reds to get lumped in with each other.

And when I say red is useful in the context of describing something, eg a tomato is red, you respond with “so what if the tomato is red”.

You are talking about me personally using the words mischaracterise and lazy, so perhaps you want to tell me where I’ve used Zionist in a way that you object to? There’s plenty of examples of me using the term, going back a long way, and I am pretty sure that the vast majority are precise.

 

OK. Umar has now twice been asked to reassess his language use, and has refused and doubled down on not doing so.

How much more space do we need to commit to this futile effort?

 

Mmm, I prefer him to die behind bars in The Hague.