There are a few passages in there that in isolation are not very notable, but taken together are kind of interesting:

>But countries do not go to war simply to have a war – well, stupid fascist countries do, which is part of why they tend to be quite bad at war – they go to war to achieve specific goals and end-states.

>Again, it is not a ‘gain’ in war simply to bloody your enemy: you are supposed to achieve something in doing so.

There are a few other passages to similar effect, but for brevity, these two will do to illustrate the point: the author seems to be subtly implying that America is a "stupid fascist nation". Actually, the way he keeps clarifying the obvious, I think he expects a good amount of his readers to be "stupid fascists".

I cannot say I wholly disagree with his assessment!

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the_af 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> the author seems to be subtly implying that America is a "stupid fascist nation"

He does nothing of the sort.

I can clarify for you: the mention of fascist countries being bad at war is a link to another article by the author, which explains that fascist countries such as Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany were very bad at a war even while they mythologized and romanticized it, and derived their "sense of nation" out of symbolic struggle and might. The article you linked to describes many fascist or fascist-like nations, like Putin's Russia, but does not mention liberal democracies such as the USA.

I recommend you read it.

So why did the author mention that article in this context? Because he wanted to explain that countries -- unless they are fascist countries -- have strategic goals for going to war, and so does the US in this case, and therefore it's warranted to look into those goals and whether they have a chance of being met.

Again, I recommend you read the article in question (the one about fascists being bad at war) before jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

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amarant 3 hours ago | parent [-]

We read the article rather differently it seems. My reading is that he's pointing out the lack of goal for America here. Or at the very least the lack of a realistic goal. As he points out, it was clear 40 years ago that the stated objective stood very little chance of being achieved, which in turn makes one wonder if that was even a real objective at all.

And having a stated objective is quite different from having a real objective. Hitler had various stated objectives for all his wars (Lebensraum, fostering the Ubermensch, and rescuing Germans from the supposed oppressions of the Jews, which of course never existed and was purely a fiction to justify unspeakable horrors). If you take Hitler's words at face value, they were all motivated and not at all stupid wars. But you'd be very stupid to take Hitler's words at face value, especially with the benefit of hindsight!

I think the same arguments are applicable to trump. He has stated several goals, none of which are reasonably achievable. Take trumps words at face value and the war makes sense, but he has shown himself to be a pathological liar, so you'd be an idiot to believe him, especially when his statements lack any connection to the real world. Given how he tends to argue, it wouldn't surprise me at all if trump thinks that "bloodying your enemy" is a win in a war. That's how he works. That's how he handles trade. Doesn't matter if tariffs damage America, so long as they also damage other nations, it's a win. Of course he thinks that way about war too!

The end state trump is looking for is damage to Iran. He'll have it. But the rest of the world (including USA) will suffer tenfold. He doesn't care. Because he's a stupid fascist leader.

Thus, we end up with the conclusion that America had no real reason to start this war, and starting it anyway is an action historically only done by stupid fascist countries, therefore America is a stupid fascist country. It's a fourth order implication, which admittedly is not at all clear, and might not have been intentional.

I'm severely biased of course, I generally hold last week's turd in higher regard than I do trump (turds make great fertilizer!). So grain of salt and all that...

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guzfip 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> But you'd be very stupid to take Hitler's words at face value, especially with the benefit of hindsight!

Well there are a lot of very stupid people in this world.

	▲	amarant 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		On that, we agree!