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| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > ignoring the spicier broader debate of if the whole Iran campaign was the right call or not How spicy of a debate is that really? How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good idea? | | |
| ▲ | YZF 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apparently 37.7% of Americans, so roughly 116 million people, support the war. I'm not sure "this was a good idea" was a the exact question though. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54454-most-americans-oppos... https://www.natesilver.net/p/iran-war-polls-popularity-appro... Clearly this war isn't popular but that's a far cry from saying there's no debate. Like many other topics/questions we're seeing people following their tribe and bubbles rather than actual debating. | | |
| ▲ | btilly 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I would question to what extent repeating propaganda, qualifies as debate. Even if you do say that it qualifies, it doesn't qualify as productive debate. There is really no productive debate to be had here. Even if you think that Iran needed to be bombed, it took absurd incompetence to start doing so before planning how to handle asymmetric warfare against drones in an affordable way. | |
| ▲ | Esophagus4 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I also think there was an initial “euphoria” (I guess) during the initial days of the campaign. People I know (even Iranian expats) were excited to see the regime get hammered and there was hope for possibility of change (and also a little bloodlust)… but I think as the war drags on and the US is exposed to be in an un-winnable mess, sentiment will continue to sour. This has already started to happen in Nate Silver’s post you linked. | | |
| ▲ | HarHarVeryFunny 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trump has been talking about destroying Iranian desalination plants, and "bombing the country back to the stone age". This is no surgical decapitation strike, nor one just targetting Iran's military capabilities. This is a vicious senile old man living out his dictator "I can do anything I like" fantasies, who could care less about helping the Iranian people, or those in America for that matter. | | |
| ▲ | lejalv 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I am shocked that the Democrats are not making clear to the military that engaging in crimes against humanity may have consequences for them -- not to speak, of course, of politicians higher up in the chain of command. |
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| ▲ | dylan604 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >>How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good idea? > Apparently 37.7% of Americans, These are the same thing. The MAGA base is fracturing and the polls are showing that with the very number you are using as a retort. | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your first link says 28% support it, so somewhere between 28 and 37%. I do wonder how many of those people could find Iran on a map, though I suppose you could ask the same about the people who are against it. | | |
| ▲ | smcin an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The first link (YouGov) in fact is even less enthusiastic than GP quoted: 28% of Americans strongly or somewhat support the war with Iran. (setting aside that it's illegal under international law, and unauthorized by Congress) | |
| ▲ | YZF 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I lost trust in humanity when I saw how many people on HN fell for the CERN Mario Kart April fools article. | | |
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| ▲ | asadotzler 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 75 million using the YouGov number and just under 100 million using the Nate Silver average. (I think you must have used the more Trump-favorable number AND included children in your computation, which is not reasonable.) Also worth noting that Nate Silver's measure has been declining for almost 3 weeks, the majority of the duration of the invasion. Before the invasion, a University of Mariland poll says 55 million and a YouTov poll says 71 million support. These are useful numbers because we know there's a rally around the flag effect that distorts thinking during a conflict. https://criticalissues.umd.edu/feature/do-americans-favor-at...
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor... | |
| ▲ | markovs_gun 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 20-25% of Americans would support Trump pulling his pants down and taking a shit on the floor in the oval office on live TV. These people's opinions shouldn't be taken into account or respected in these discussions. | | |
| ▲ | lejalv 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That is an interesting take. Seen from elsewhere in the world, we cannot afford not taking into account a big chunk of the American electoral body, which is effectively at war with us (by various means). Essentially, a MESA movement, “Make the Earth Shit Again”. The obvious implication is that the rest of the world is at war with the US (by various means), and should act accordingly, starting with a wide-ranging consumer boycott of all US products. |
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| ▲ | drnick1 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think that you will find that many people think that we ought to solve the 50 year old problem in the Mideast once and for all. Now that the Russians are busy, that Venezuela is down, that Syria has fallen, and that the Chinese are minding their own business is a good time to decapitate Iran. Also Cuba is next. | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What exactly are the problem and the solution? | | |
| ▲ | drnick1 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Permanently disarming Iran, and creating conditions favorable to the fall of the Islamist terrorist regime that has been bullying the Mideast since 1979. | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit an hour ago | parent [-] | | Any guesses on how long that will take, what it will cost, and the odds if it happening at all? |
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| ▲ | tbihl an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | North Korea was able to get nuclear weapons because we didn't want the carnage of artillery bombardment to Seoul that would have been the retaliation, had we stopped them. Iran was close to achieving that same thing with ballistic missile bombardment of Europe. The problem is that Iran, unlike NK, is run by a fanatical death cult with stated goal of attacking United States and history of running proxy militias in every nearby failed state, in a neighborhood that has no shortage of failed states. | | |
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| ▲ | iugtmkbdfil834 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Surprisingly so, I would say. Without going into any identifying details, my buddy, who is otherwise fairly reasonable, thinks it was. I disagree. Reported country split ( US ) seems to fall some along common political lines though, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised. Then again.. I can no longer can rely on those surveys in any meaningful way. | | |
| ▲ | markdown 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > seems to fall some along common political lines though While true, I think it's more correct to say that the determining factor is which television news media people most readily consume. | | |
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| ▲ | IncreasePosts 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on board with it. My only complaint is they didn't do these strikes when the massive street protests were happening a few months ago. | | |
| ▲ | rurp 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is what bringing democracy looks like?! The regime is more entrenched than ever and our commander in chief keeps threatening to commit war crimes on a massive scale. If he follows through on what he says he will do and obliterates all the civilian infrastructure in the country it will kill mass numbers of innocent people and turn millions of survivors into impoverished refugees. As bad as the regime is, and it's very bad, what we're doing is even worse for most Iranians and the odds a democratic government arises from the ashes of our bombing campaign is incredibly unlikely. | |
| ▲ | inigoalonso 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As a person who believes in democracy, don't you think it should be the US Congress the one declaring war? | | |
| ▲ | deeg 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Supporting an illegal war would be a funny way to support democracy. Or maybe they believe in democracies that ignore their constitution. | |
| ▲ | IncreasePosts 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure, but that ship sailed about 75 years ago with the Korean "police action". In any case a slightly dysfunctional democracy is in a totally different realm than a theocratic quasi hereditary dictatorship |
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| ▲ | Saline9515 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, bombing schools, universities and dessalination plants is a sure way to have more democracy in a country. Especially double taps where you kill the rescuers. The US have so many examples where they did so and worked! | | |
| ▲ | FireBeyond 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh, didn't you hear, we actually _triple tapped_ the school, so after the first wave of rescuers was also hit, anyone who came to help was also attacked. Totally not a war crime. | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Where do you even find this? Even if true, it's legally incorrect, btw. There are 2 kinds of warcrimes: Rome treaty (the only legal definition) and Geneva convention. The Rome treaty allows countries to opt-out of the treaty, and then nothing on their territory qualifies as a war crime. Iran has opted out of the Rome treaty, and so when it comes to international law, nothing that happens on Iranian soil is a war crime. And we all know WHY islamists want it that way. But of course they will confuse matters as propaganda ... Second, "colloquial" definition of a war crime are Geneva convention violations. And ignoring that EVERY attack Iran executed in the 2 days was a warcrime in that definition. Every last one. They didn't even try to go after military targets for days. But ignoring that. What warcrimes do, in the sense of the Geneva convention, is that they are justifications for the UNSC to intervene, should it want to. Well, Russia, China and France have just declared that the UNSC does not follow the reasoning that these are warcrimes. Not because they don't believe Geneva convention violations aren't heinous crimes (of course Iran has violated it constantly for 50+ years with constant heinous crimes), but that these states don't see any reason to act. | | |
| ▲ | Saline9515 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's in the wikipedia notice, if you ever tried to search it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack "According to witness accounts verified by satellite-based analyses, the school was triple tapped by three distinct strikes." War crime isn't just a legal definition, just like the world was genocide-free before WW2. And by your reasoning it's totally fine to genocide people as long as no treaty/law prevents it. Of course it isn't. Most people would agree to say that bombing a school or a dessalination plant is a war crime, whatever the convention was signed before. Schoolchildren are not responsible for the IRGC's actions. | |
| ▲ | FireBeyond 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Second, "colloquial" definition of a war crime are Geneva convention violations. The other "colloquial" definition of a war crime is "things we prosecuted the Nazis for at Nuremberg". One side here is playing "world's police", so this "but those people (that we've painted as fundamentalist extremist terrorists) are committing war crimes so why shouldn't we get to, too?" isn't exactly the fine upstanding argument that you seem to think it is, just as it's not when the IDF responds to children throwing rocks at main battle tanks with live ammunition and turning off the power to a country for three days. |
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| ▲ | kitsune1 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Aren't those war crimes? Will anything be done about that I wonder. And if your goal is bringing democracy and liberating a people from a oppressive regime, then hurting the people by making their air unbreakable or bombing the water plants is NOT how you go about. I understand that war is not pretty and regime change is brutal to all parties involved, but this is done in the worst way possible. | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Will anything be done about that I wonder Most probably nothing. If things get really bad and there is a revolution or something of that magnitude in the US there may be a Nuremberg moment. Don’t count on it. Whatever government will come next will do everything they can to shield American generals and officials because otherwise they would be afraid the same thing would happen to them once they leave office. The only thing that could keep these people accountable is the American people through Congress. So yeah, probably nothing. Which is bad, because these war crimes are up there with what supposedly evil regimes did in the past. | | |
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| ▲ | cheema33 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on board with it. As others have stated. This war will not bring democracy. Bombing Iranians have united them with the regime. Also, US and Israel do not want a democracy in Iran. Israel would prefer a non-functioning place like Palestine or a mostly non-functional place like Lebanon that they can easily control. | | |
| ▲ | vkou 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It might bring some democracy to the US, though. There is hope for the midterms. |
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| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Would you say you fall into the hardcore trump base category? | | |
| ▲ | IncreasePosts 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I disagree with trump on most things, including possibly why he started the war. | | |
| ▲ | bdbdbdb 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why did he start the war? | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Denazify… oops, wrong country, sorry. "Changing the regime". But it cannot possibly be true because regime change, just like foreign wars are bad according to Trump. So, in reality, who knows? My guess is that some nutcases at the pentagon got an adrenaline rush during the little adventure in Venezuela and looked for another country to mess with. It’s obvious that no real thought was put into what exactly is the point of all of this or how to actually get to that point. I mean, they were surprised that Turkey was upset and that Iran closed the Gulf. Or that none of the allies Trump has been shitting on for decades showed up. This does not point to any serious thought process. | |
| ▲ | IncreasePosts 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, I have no idea. I'm just guessing it's not the reason I like the war. I generally only attempt to scrutinize government action, and not government reason for action. Random citizens are at such an information disadvantage that I think it would be impossible to have an informed opinion as an outsider on the reasoning. It could be as simple as "Iran kept trying to assassinate me so I'm going to assassinate them". Maybe he was pressured by Israel, I really have no idea. | | |
| ▲ | arkensaw 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I generally only attempt to scrutinize government action, and not government reason for action This might be the wildest opinion I've read. You're onboard with the US bombing another country ("I like the war"), but you don't know, or care WHY. You just think it was a good idea. "Random citizens are at such an information disadvantage that I think it would be impossible to have an informed opinion as an outsider on the reasoning." I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but if you re-read your own words, you've just said a random citizen like yourself can't possibly know enough to have an informed opinion, yet you gave us your opinion, which is that you think they should have bombed Iran. |
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| ▲ | FireBeyond 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why do you think he actually started the war? As opposed to the myriad of reasons he and the administration have given, differing sometimes on an hourly basis, as to why he started it? | |
| ▲ | platevoltage 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You just would have rather have been lied to that this war was to "spread democracy"? |
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| ▲ | idiotsecant 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If this is a troll it is masterful. If it's an honest opinion I would invite you to check your skull for unexpected holes where your brain may have fallen out. | |
| ▲ | i_love_retros 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bringing democracy and freedom to the world by bombing school children. God bless America! | | |
| ▲ | orthoxerox 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of school children. | |
| ▲ | IncreasePosts 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In line with that logic, how is Ukraine protecting its freedom by bombing an ice rink in belgorod? | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Attacking your attacker defends your freedom. Spontaneously attacking another country does not protect their freedom. | | |
| ▲ | oh_sigh 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Those children who were at the ice skating rink were also attacking Ukraine? Quite precocious! | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | An unfortunate and unintended consequence of counterattacking the invader. Very different from bombing a school due to bad intelligence in an unprovoked attack. |
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| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | FpUser 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >"As a person who believes in democracy" Is this a new spelling of fuck whatever semblance of international laws we have and big dicks do as they please? | | |
| ▲ | jasomill 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You say this like a system of international law has ever existed that effectively restrains the most powerful nations in the world, democracies or otherwise. | | |
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| ▲ | wat10000 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What do you think the odds are that this war results in more democracy? | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Like my math teacher was oft heard saying, "approaches zero". | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Vanishingly small" is a polite way of saying it. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The math teacher was more along the lines of as x approaches zero or was it f(x). It was a really really long time ago since I've had a math teacher, but the approaches zero was something said frequently |
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| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | watwut 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Literally none of the fighting countries want Iran to be democratic. Neither USA nor Israel nor Iran. Israel dont want the country functional and would prevent democracy. USA idea of regime change is to keep regime, change head for someone who pays extortion money. And if Iranian leadership wanted democracy they would have one. Not sure if you noticed, but American admin loves dictators and insults democracies So ,WTF are you talking about here. Also, bombing city with that double tap tactic during protests ensures you kill protesters. | | |
| ▲ | IncreasePosts 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Having Iran be "non functional" would just be asking for even more hardliners take over, like what happened in syria. I don't take this to be actually indicative of their viewpoints. | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Or in Gaza, and it is not an accident. As far as they are concerned it’s working great. Israel is in a state of permanent warfare, which completely silences any kind of debate about what country it wants to be, enables racist nationalists who can freely go about burning villages, and it keeps Bibi out of prison. None of what has happened in the last 20 years or so in the region strikes me as particularly well thought out with a long term strategy besides keeping all their neighbours in the Middle Ages. |
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