| ▲ | pm90 16 hours ago |
| Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men. |
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| ▲ | orwin 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's not all. I tried as much as I could not commenting on it, but the delusions of _a lot_ of hn users on the subject, even a few whose opinion I respect, were unreal. People who are not MAGA btw. And I'm not sure most of those realise how delusional they were, even now. They will probably rewire their memory to forget what they believed 3 weeks ago, compress the time they were wrong. I initially thought the 'manufacturing consent' part of the war was botched, unlike Irak, but now to me it seems that people are much more susceptible to propaganda disguised as 'almost true' information on social media, and I am afraid I might be in the same boat. |
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| ▲ | roryirvine 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It was certainly notable that so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid, ignoring the fact that America had facilitated the one-sided ceasefire imposed on Rojava just weeks before. A few more sceptical voices brought this up, and were told repeatedly that it didn't matter because the Kurds in Syria and Turkey are very different from those in Iraq & Iran. And there's certainly something in that - but it ignored the clunkingly obvious point that, if America had been thinking at all strategically, a bit more support of Rojava and would have demonstrated to all Kurds that "looking west" would be rewarded. It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. I suspect we'll see further such errors in analysis and response before the new reality fully sinks in. | | |
| ▲ | simonh 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Not forgetting Trump personally ordering the withdrawal of all US forces in Northern Syria in his first term, on a weekend so none of the generals were around to talk him out of it. This resulted in the Turks moving in, massacring all the Kurds they could find, and a few thousand ISIS prisoners (including 60 'high value targets') escaping as the Kurds guarding them fled for their lives. However Trump said this didn't pose any threat to the US because "They’re going to be escaping to Europe.” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trumps-syria-withdrawal-i... | |
| ▲ | TitaRusell 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Turkey- a key US ally- will never allow the formation of an independent Kurdish nation near their borders. | | |
| ▲ | roryirvine 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, and the question really came down to how much autonomy they'd end up getting within an integrated Syria. The answer turns out to be "not much". And to make matters worse, Trump didn't even make an attempt to let them down gently - saying "the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money, were given oil and other things. So they were doing it for themselves more so than they were doing it for us"... ...and then, 4 weeks later, expected their Iraqi and Iranian cousins to ride to the USA's aid! |
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| ▲ | generic92034 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside). | |
| ▲ | pjc50 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid I must have missed those, but I would expect HN to be able to count. There really are not a lot of Kurds. | |
| ▲ | jmye 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Another 1/3 don't think it, or anything past their TikTok feed, matters. The last 1/3 thought Team America was a documentary. | | |
| ▲ | GJim 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Sorry, but I don't think they do understand. America has managed to piss off Canada FFS. And lets be honest, you've got to work really hard to piss off the Canadians. Frankly, Americans (former) allies have seen the American people VOTE for Trump. Twice. Even if Trump goes tomorrow, the (former) allies know what a significant proportion of the US people want in a leader, and so may be in store at the next election. | | |
| ▲ | GolfPopper 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I can't speak for anyone else, but the depth of our self-disgrace is pretty damned obvious. (What I can or should do personally is less obvious.) Having elected Donald Trump twice - atop all our other failings - is a giant screaming proclamation that the United States is unfit for, and undeserving of, continued existence as a state or government. The responsible thing to do is to hold a Constitutional Convention and dissolve the damned thing, and then the individual states can figure out how they ought to go forward from there. (I don't think current U.S. States are anything like perfect but they're what we have left once the United States government is gone.) | |
| ▲ | jmye 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Sorry, but I don't think they do understand. Sorry, but 1/3 of the country is deeply, keenly aware of what an absolute fucking disgrace the last year and two months have been for us on an international stage. There's no delusion, here, that Canadians are excited about being threatened with an invasion, in spite of your silly black/white post. |
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| ▲ | vkou 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean, I assumed that any group of people stupid enough to be betrayed by the department of state twice would be first in line to get betrayed a third and fourth time. It hardly seemed an unreasonable assumption. |
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| ▲ | tencentshill 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The facts are that this administration removed most of the top generals in the pentagon a year ago[0]. Notice the pattern in other areas of the administration when the opportunity for new appointments is created: Loyalty over competence and experience in almost every case. There are a few exceptions, but most were from His first term (Jpowell). [0]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fire... | |
| ▲ | JeremyNT 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Their key insight is that you don't have to manufacture consent when so many voters just love the guy in the White House and will stand by him no matter what. Why waste time convincing anybody of anything, when support for the war will just converge on the president's approval rating anyway? |
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| ▲ | pphysch 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It is a ring of incompetent yes men, but behind those yes men is a nefarious foreign influence operation. These guys didn't arrive at their bad decisions by accident. |
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| ▲ | pjc50 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | .. and a substantial domestic influence organization. Lots of US donors with US passports handing over good old US dollars. Lots of pro-regime news stations. More since the CBS takeover. | |
| ▲ | pydry 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | When you listen to the director of counterterrorism explain what happened in the run up to him resigning it fits pretty well the theory that Trump is compromised (possibly with kompromat) by a certain Middle Eastern country. | | |
| ▲ | Animats an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That used to be plausible. But what new revelation about Trump could hurt him? Misuse of office for personal gain? Trump Tower Moscow? Inciting an insurrection? Harassing young women? Adultery? Rape? Hanging out with a pedophile? Blowjob from a 13 year old girl? [1] Those are all on the record. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct... | | | |
| ▲ | RugnirViking 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | do you have a link? | | |
| ▲ | pydry 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Look for the Tucker Carlson interview with Joe Kent. (Tucker Carlson is weirdly intelligent and thoughtful in that interview in a way i did not expect, but Joe said the most eye opening stuff... I have a lot of respect for him) | | |
| ▲ | lyu07282 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | There is this interesting split on the right on Israel, Tucker Carlson is one of the few large platforms talking on zionism. He also interviewed the US embassador to Israel Mike Huckabee who said they have a "biblical right to land from ‘wadi of Egypt to the great river’" (Greater Israel), he also reported on how Israeli is seeing Turkey as the next threat to eliminate after Iran. The left, not liberals but actual antiwar/antizionist left has been warning about Zionism and the Iran war for decades, nothing Tucker is saying is new, it's just nobody ever listens to those voices they have no platform are completely ignored in liberal media which is exclusively Zionist and pro-war. So when Tucker talks about it it's the first time most people ever hear this stuff, that's what makes Tucker so dangerous he is a white supremacists with a large platform who reads the room and recognizes the historic unpopularity of Israel, who has built a viable independent media platform for himself. Tucker is what an intelligent fascist Trump 2.0 would look like make no mistake. | | |
| ▲ | Pay08 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > he also reported on how Israeli is seeing Turkey as the next threat to eliminate after Iran. Good thing that that's not at all true. What you are referring to was an (intentional) mistranslation of a public comment by an Israeli minister, who said that Turkey was their greatest threat after Iran. | | | |
| ▲ | Dig1t 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >he is a white supremacists He says constantly that he is against blood guilt, the killing of innocents no matter their heritage, and even went so far as to say that he doesn't even necessarily think the large scale replacement of white people in their home countries is a bad thing. I don't know how you could consider that to be white supremacy. | | |
| ▲ | brendoelfrendo 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, I mean, if you ignore maybe half of the things he says about Black Americans or immigrants, you could maybe not see him as a white supremacist. Tucker Carlson is a good political communicator, and he is clever. But he's still a bad person. | |
| ▲ | lyu07282 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > he doesn't even necessarily think the large scale replacement of white people in their home countries is a bad thing Tell us more about this white replacement theory, do you agree with Tucker? |
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| ▲ | brendoelfrendo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I mean, Joe Kent resigning in protest over the war with Iran is admirable, but Joe Kent is also a vocal anti-Semite who was upset that US policy was being directed by Israel. And I don't mean that Joe Kent dislikes the Israeli government or its actions specifically, I mean he engages in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and associates with anti-Semites like Nick Fuentes. | | |
| ▲ | pydry 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | These days conflating criticism of israel with anti semitism is a very clear, very obvious and very reliable racist calling card. Mitch McConnell (adherent of the great replacement theory) accusing Joe Kent of anti semitism gave the accusation the same gravitas it would have if Strom Thurmond or the Grand wizard of the KKK did it. i.e. it only serves to underscore the accuser's racism. | | |
| ▲ | brendoelfrendo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Did I cite Mitch McConnell? No, I did not. I tried to be clear that I am not accusing Joe Kent of anti-Semitism because he is criticizing Israel, and Mitch engaging in that kind of rhetoric is only serving to make it harder for me to make my point. I am accusing Kent of anti-Semitism because he has a history of engaging in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and consorting with neo-Nazis. My point is simple: we should not respect Joe Kent. His resignation is correct; his reasoning is flawed. |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | aa-jv 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Its what happens when your nation state has been raised on an unhealthy diet of warrior narcissism. |
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| ▲ | GJim 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I don't think that is the whole picture. I suggest a significant cause is Trump's arrogance and only listening to the advice he wants to hear. |