| ▲ | firefoxd 7 hours ago |
| I often see these angles, how we should have prepared better or attacked this instead of that, or the unexpected strategy from the adversary. What about not bombing? The best safety trick the US can use is not bombing others. |
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| ▲ | YZF 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked? https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embass... Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? I would love for nobody to bomb or kill anyone. Did Ukraine bomb Russia? Is Taiwan bombing China that declares it is going to take Taiwan by force? There isn't a single conflict in the world today where I can see that someone can just say "we're going to stop" and they'll be safe. There is always something more to it. If Ukraine says we'll just stop attacking Russian soldiers is that war over? If Russia says we'll just stop attacking Ukraine and stay where we are is that war over? Is there any other conflict where the answer is simply stop and it'll be fine? |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | stavros 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Iraq, during the Gulf War. > Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Japan, though the US didn't bomb them, it instituted an oil embargo and asset freeze. > Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked Iraq, during the Gulf War. > Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? Tripoli and Benghazi, Iran Air Flight 655. I don't understand the purpose of these questions. Were you thinking the US was just minding its own business and some bad guys came and attacked it? | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US are also the major enabler of Israel's colonial expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This was clearly expressed by Bin Laden himself as one of the motives behind the 9/11 attacks. > Were you thinking the US was just minding its own business and some bad guys came and attacked it As I remember, this was exactly the way the US explained 9/11: "they hate us for our freedom". | | |
| ▲ | some_random 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, he also justified it by citing the US's acceptance of homosexuality so maybe it's more complicated than that. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, he didn't. His "letter to America" starts with the question: "As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: Because you attacked us and continue to attack us." And proceeds to list all the ways the US are militarily attacking and oppressing Muslims in the Middle East. It's a long list. Homosexuality is mentioned only once in the letter, in the next section, where he criticises American society and morals in general and calls it to embrace Islam. This is explicitly an exhortation and not part of the reasons for the attacks (so probably intended as a diagnosis of the symptoms of a moral disease and the proposal of a cure - note that I'm not endorsing it, just explaining its function in the letter). | | |
| ▲ | some_random 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest." This is already an incredibly regressive thing to say as a polite request, but in case you weren't aware the "or else" was that his global terror organization would continue to murder innocent civilians. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 an hour ago | parent [-] | | No, there is no "or else", you are plainly making it up. As I've said, this is the exhortation part of the letter and it's not listed among the reasons for the attacks. Regressive, certainly. Brought as a justification for terrorism, no. |
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| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | stavros 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sure, but I'd hope any commenter here would be smart enough to not believe such a facile explanation. | |
| ▲ | YZF 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You asked "who did the US bomb before 9/11" and you got the answer. Now you're arguing that they shouldn't have reacted even if the US bombed them before (calling it "an excuse")? As for the peace process with Palestinians, it was always a sham. The US (as it's evident now to many) are entirely unable to apply any sort of pressure on their "ally". What they've done is just buying time for Israel to expand its colonisation under the temporary pretense of some ongoing "peace process". | | |
| ▲ | YZF 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I did not get a serious answer. Really, 9/11 because the US bombed Iraq (that invaded Kuwait? and fired Scud missiles for no reason into Israeli population centers?). The peace process with the Palestinians was such a sham that Israel allowed the PLO leadership to return from exile, it trained and armed Palestinian police, and it gave Palestinians security and civil control over their cities, and it offered them a two state solution that they refused (yes, without Jerusalem and without the right of return, which they will never get anyways). Clearly a sham. |
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| ▲ | gazebo2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >There is always an excuse "excuse" is a funny way of wording it -- "motivation" or "explanation" might be more appropriate here. is the expectation that the US can and should be able to kill and destroy and the victims just turn the other cheek? | |
| ▲ | megous 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | West bank and Gaza were never under full Palestinian control since 1967 both were under brutal occupation or blockade + contant Israeli meddling into internal affairs. | | |
| ▲ | YZF 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Were they under Palestinian control before 1967? Area A in the west bank has generally been under full Palestinian control and not under blockade or meddling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_A Gaza wasn't under occupation or blockade when Israel withdrew in 2005. Only after Hamas won the elections and after Gilad Shalit was abducted from Israel in 2006 into Gaza did Israel start imposing more restrictions. I know this is a recurring claim from anti-Israeli but the fact remains that Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and so there was no occupation in any meaningful sense of that word. Gaza also has a border with Egypt. Here from an age were the BBC still had some decency: "Disengagement did remove one obstacle to peace - the settlers' presence on occupied Palestinian land in Gaza. But the optimism of 2005, such as it was, has evaporated and Gaza today is completely outside the peace process. That is a result of the rise to power of Hamas and the boycott of it by Israel and the international community. But even in 2005, critics of disengagement said it was being used by the Israeli government as a substitute for a peace agreement with the Palestinians." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11002744 "After the settlements have been evacuated and knocked down, Israel will turn Gaza over to Palestinian control for the first time." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/22/israel1 The withdrawal was without agreement and unilateral but it was a full withdrawal. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-192849/ is from the UN which has bias but here are some nuggets:
"Infighting between Palestinian families and between factions
increased in the weeks leading up to the disengagement and after
the IDF withdrawal on 12 September. More than 97 violent incidents
involving families, militant factions and PA police forces have
occurred between 12 September and 31 December. These incidents
include gunfights, kidnappings, beatings, house burnings, threats
and theft. Forty-seven Palestinians have been killed in the clashes
and at least 298 were injured" "Discussions were suspended following a Palestinian
suicide bombing in Netanya (Israel) on 5 December" "However, since 16 December, Erez Crossing has remained closed in
response to Palestinian militants’ firing of rockets from the northern
Gaza Strip into Israel." "Following the IDF withdrawal on 12 September, Palestinian militants
have fired at least 283 homemade rockets towards Israel from the
Gaza Strip." |
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| ▲ | xdennis 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
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| ▲ | cyberax 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Korea, Vietnam, Laos... | | |
| ▲ | xdennis 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Bombing Korea led to bin Laden attacking on 9/11? You did not read that GP was saying. He's saying that many conflicts are not started because US bombed a place. |
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| ▲ | gib444 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Right, they just hate the US because of their freedoms. /s |
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| ▲ | ACCount37 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's Iran. When the choice is "let Iran have nukes" or "bomb Iran", you bomb Iran every time. One North Korea is already one too many. Iran has been the driving force behind a lot of instability in Middle East for decades now, and not at all shy about it. They support armed proxies and radical insurrections in the entire region - many of them internationally acknowledged as terrorist organizations. I'm not at all mad at the US government for deciding to get rid of Iran's regime. Long overdue, the moment was picked reasonably well, the military has performed well. The broad scope planning, however, simply wasn't there. What transpired reeks of Russia style "we only planned for the absolute best case scenario, why didn't that scenario happen?" |
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| ▲ | brandon272 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Difficult to reconcile the justification of current efforts of "Iran can't have nukes" with the unequivocal claims made less than a year ago that Iran's nuclear capabilities had been "obliterated". https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa... https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/sunday-shows-pre... | | |
| ▲ | stickfigure 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It's possible for both of these to be true: The leaders of the US are incompetent, and bombing Iran was the right decision. "Even a stopped clock..." | |
| ▲ | ACCount37 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They were "allegedly obliterated" by bombing the relevant facilities, which is exactly my point. I'm honestly not sure what the goals were/are on the current Iran campaign. I'm not sure the White House knows exactly, which is a very concerning thing. If it was a campaign to inflict lasting economic damage on Iran by choking its income streams, or perform a boots on the ground regime change, or to cover for a land operation to extract nuclear materials, we would see different events. But what we saw instead was a very successful strike campaign and no follow-up. No strait seizure, no land operation. I have a lingering suspicion that the assumption was "Iran will want to negotiate after the first strike exchange" and that assumption was proven wrong fast. And I already made my distaste for "only plan for the absolute best case scenario" clear. |
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| ▲ | PaulDavisThe1st 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Tell me about the problems outside of N. Korea that have resulted from N. Korea's ownership of nuclear weapons? | | |
| ▲ | stickfigure 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | North Korea started out with a "nuclear weapon": Seoul is within artillery range of the border. Consequently the Kim regime has been able to starve and torture its own population, and yes - develop nuclear weapons - without anyone willing to stop them. You think the problems inside North Korea are ok? Koreans are human too. | |
| ▲ | gpm 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why are we ignoring the problems inside of North Korea? I take slavery and starving people pretty poorly regardless of where it happens. That said North Korea routinely acts against the rest of the world in ways that are only possible because the rest of the world is unable to retaliate, with the government sponsoring everything from extorting hospitals with ransomware, to dealing drugs, to counterfeiting currency, to abducting film makers (from Hong Kong). | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I take slavery and starving people pretty poorly regardless of where it happens. A great many of us feel that way, however historically GreatPowers do not - it's control of resources that move the needle for them. Currently the US makes much of 30K protesters killed in Iran (number in dispute) but it is very much an action rooted in petro dollar geopolitics, oil, and Israel. Starving people globally no longer get USAID .. a fractional cost compared to the Iran excursion. The US didn't feel the need to get involved in regime change following any part of the Rwanda Genocide, and the US took the side of Indonesia (who were going for the resource control) against the West Papuans .. the US and UN turned a blind eye to exactly who and how people were tortured to get a favourable vote. There's a long long list of starving and essentially enslaved people globally that have been ignored in favour of others by the French, the Dutch, the British, Belgium, USofA, etc. > That said North Korea routinely acts against the rest of the world in ways that are only possible because the rest of the world is unable to retaliate In real politik terms the same can be said about the USofA and has been said about the former British Empire. | | |
| ▲ | gpm 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > In real politik terms the same can be said about the USofA and has been said about the former British Empire. Sure... I think minimizing the number of entities who have this sort of impunity is a good thing even if we can't eliminate all of them. |
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| ▲ | krisoft 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > When the choice is "let Iran have nukes" or "bomb Iran", you bomb Iran every time. There was also the choice of “Iran let us verify that they are not making nukes, and in return we remove economic sanctions from them”. It was called the JCPOA, and according to non-proliferation experts it worked. And then on the 8th of May 2018 Trump unilaterally withdrew from it. Let’s not pretend that there were no other options. | | |
| ▲ | towledev 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >unilaterally Is this a complaint? What else can you expect, given that it was unilaterally agreed to by his predecessor? | | |
| ▲ | krisoft 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Unilateraly on the level of countries. The other signatories (China, France, Russia, the U.K., Germany and the EU) believed that the deal was good and Iran was holding up their end of the bargain at that time. If the USA government had credible evidence that it is not so, they could have picked up the phone and presented their case to the other signatories. Or at least to their allies. Then once those countries were convinced that something is off they could have withdrawn together from the agreement. Would have less of a terrible optics than how it went down. | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | An accord reached between Iran and several world powers, including the United States, in July 2015. Not Just Obama. Can the world be saved from central north American partisan squabbling please. |
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| ▲ | hypersoar 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That choice is doubly false. On the one hand, there was a diplomatic option. It was working until Trump decided to kill it. On the other, it's insane to think that you can bomb a large, industrialized country of 90 million people out of the ability to make nuclear weapons short of wiping them out of existence. | |
| ▲ | gib444 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Iran has been the driving force behind a lot of instability in Middle East I'm loving the current stability that the USA has gifted the world and looking forward to many decades of peace and calm in the middle east. Thank you so much. | |
| ▲ | cmxch 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > we only planned for the absolute best case scenario, why didn't that scenario happen? IRGC sympathizers across the world that would rather have the current government than the more progressive predecessor. |
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| ▲ | psychoslave 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well yes, and actually instead of wasting billions creating understandable cause of hate, this could be injected into domestic social spendings, and there would probably still be a lot staying on the table to throw in humanitarian endeavors around the globe creating love through so called soft power. |
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| ▲ | testing22321 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The US is a country of violence and war. Founded from a war, massive civil war, almost perpetually at war for the last many decades. Military spending costs a trillion a year (Trump wants 1.5 trillion). It’s big business and makes some people very rich. |