> they could’ve just placed a call to Iran to warn them

Deciding not to betray your ally isn't a "moronic cover story".

If you're going to portray that as the alternative you actually make their actions sound more reasonable.

If your “ally” is, as this story goes, forcing you into a war against your will, protecting your own citizens and troops takes priority over any favors you might owe these “friends.”

Of course if you actually wanted to start this war, and wanted a low effort cover story, you’d…do exactly this kind of lazy, low effort lie.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

What are you even calling a lie? (not the campaign promises, the recent statements) The claims are something like this, right?: 1. Israel decided to attack 2. The US thought about how that would play out. 3. The US decided to attack too.

Which of those claims is untrue? Is there a claim I missed?

"The US could have snitched to Iran" does not contradict any of those claims.

Also I'm not convinced that warning Iran would have made things much safer for US troops. And you can say what you want about what the US priorities should be, but that's a whole different discussion.

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mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-]

The US claim is that their attack is a sort of pre-emptive self-defense because Israel forced their hand. That’s what I’m calling a lie: Israel could’ve been dissuaded, trivially, if the US didn’t want to start a war with Iran.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

Their hand was forced, and it was "a sort of pre-emptive self-defense". I'm still not seeing the lie. You think they should have done something different, but "should have done something different" is a completely different criticism.

And what you think is "trivial" is far from certain.

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mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-]

> I'm still not seeing the lie

It’s an absolute howler that the United States would be led around by the nose by a country smaller than New Jersey. C’mon, man. You honestly believe that the massive military buildup that preceded this was just a wild coincidence?

If the Israelis were actually pushing the US around in the way we’re supposed to believe in this story the US would absolutely ruin them in a heartbeat. Netanyahu would be in prison in a timeframe measured in hours.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

Pushing the US to make some kind of decision isn't the kind of "pushing around" that would make the US attack Israel. Your ideas of alternate ways for this to play out have gone from weird to absolutely ridiculous.

The US might have already decided it was going to attack, but it just as easily might not have.

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mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-]

I’m sorry but this is simply an unserious argument.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

It's plenty serious. You don't like how they acted and how they gave partial explanations so you're calling it an obvious lie even though it's not.

They didn't say it was their absolute only option or something like that, as far as I know. (If they did say that you needed to mention it.) That would have been a clear lie. Saying Israel moved first is just... plausible.

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mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-]

> You don't like how they acted

I don't like having my intelligence insulted by such brazen falsehoods, so in that regard this is true.

I'm happy for your heroic amounts of credulity, it must make life a lot easier in this administration.

	▲	Dylan16807 a day ago \| parent [-]
		>> You don't like how they acted > I don't like having my intelligence insulted by such brazen falsehoods, so in that regard this is true. Okay I guess I assumed you disliked the stuff you were calling a lie and a moronic cover story. > I'm happy for your heroic amounts of credulity, it must make life a lot easier in this administration. It's not that I'm being very credulous, it's that they said very little about their decision process. The claims you're objecting to are relatively minor details about the situation. You keep exaggerating the implications of their claims every time you say why they must be wrong.