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Ed Israel/US Attacks Iran /Yet Another Country/Iran
- Thread starter Orphia Nay
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Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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No, it's not trade deficit. China can juice those numbers by dropping prices, but that's not a sustainable strategy.
In regards to Iran specifically, China is getting squeezed on oil. Yes, they have reserves to ride out the current closure, but that still hurts economically. And even if the straits reopen to trade, there's a significant chance that China will lose the Iran discount that they've been enjoying for so long. They already lost the Venezuela discount. They can still get Venezuelan oil, but no longer below market rates.
And the failure of Chinese military tech in Iran is no small thing either. China was trying to position its J20 stealth fighter and its anti-stealth radar as counters to US military capabilities, both for their own use and for export. But the credibility of these technologies has been destroyed. The anti-stealth radar doesn't work as advertised, and the J20 probably doesn't either. Which has led to the purging of top scientists involved in the program. But that's far from the end of China's military problems. They've been undergoing a bunch of purges of top officials too, such as General Zhang Youxia. Xi doesn't have the full support of the military.
On the economic front, China carries a massive debt load at both the national and local level. Don't get me started on real estate. But even more damning perhaps than a lot of these numbers is what China is NOT reporting. They stopped reporting numbers like youth unemployment rate completely. Why? Because the numbers are bad, and getting worse. Remember when Russia stopped reporting on a bunch of economic numbers after the start of the Ukraine war? Yeah, China isn't even at war and they're doing the same.
The_Animus
Illuminator
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Indeed. They really like to tell others they have no idea what they're talking about while simultaneously showing they themselves have no idea what they're talking about. To the extent they spend a dozen posts arguing about an IAEA report because they can't even count the number of years between two dates.
For most countries war is a zero sum gain. You lose more than you win. The US appears to be able to afford to lose wars. Iran has little incentive to attack anyone, it has no territorial claims, doesn't need to claim others natural resources or access. The US of course does have plans for territorial expansion, in part to take over natural resources. It also has irrational almost religiously fanatic beliefs about others e.g. the obsession with starving Cuba into submission. The embargo of Cuba should have stopped when the Berlin wall came down. Cuba's form of government is a concern for Cubans, not the US. Every other country in the world has come to a peaceful resolution concerning restitution for nationalised assets apart from the US. Instead the US seems intent in making Cuba so poor it could never make restitution. Unlike many other countries American countries Cuba is not a source of narcotics smuggled into the US - it should really be awarded!
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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Um... what?
Iran regularly attacks other countries. It usually does so through proxies in order to minimize the cost of doing so, but don't kid yourself about the nature of Iranian involvement in the region. It is not benign.
W.D.Clinger
Philosopher
As @Ziggurat has reminded us, hyperbole is a primary intellectual component of Trumpian rhetoric. To be fair, hyperbole can be indistinguishable from buffoonery.
Some examples, starting with examples directly relevant to this thread:
- 6 March: There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!
- 7 March: This is a, this is a short excursion into something that should have been done for 47 years. 47 years it's taken to do this and no president had the guts to do it.
- 7 March: We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!
- 7 March: We're winning the war by a lot. We've decimated their whole evil empire. It'll continue, I'm sure, for a little while.
- 9 March: The war is very complete, pretty much.
- 11 March: We had to take this little, couple of weeks, few weeks excursion, but it's been incredible.
- 17 March: Iran is something that was essentially largely over in two or three days...
- 24 March: You know, I don’t like to say this, this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.
- 1 April: ...we're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.
- 4 April: Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!
- 5 April: Open the ◊◊◊◊◊◊’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!
- 7 April: A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
- 16 April: The war in Iran is going along swimmingly. We can do whatever we want. And it should be, it should be ending pretty soon. It was perfect. I mean, it's perfect.
- 21 April: I would have won Vietnam very quickly, I would’ve, if I were president.
- 20 January 2025: 2020, by the way, that election was totally rigged.
- 3 August 2025: You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 1,500%. I don’t mean 50%, I mean 14 — 1,500%.
- Pam Bondi, 30 April 2025: Since you have been in office, President Trump, your DOJ agencies have seized more than 22 million fentanyl pills, 3,400 kilos of fentanyl … which saved — are you ready for this media — 258 million lives.
- 28 January 2014: Global warming is an expensive hoax!
- 16 July 2025: Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this '◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊,' hook, line, and sinker.
- 30 July 2025: Wow, she really gets it, including the biggest Hoax of them all, WINDMILLS!
If you want me to respond to every word you write, you'll have to pay me a lot more than you've been paying me.
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Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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I don't care if you respond to me at all. I certainly didn't solicit a response from you. If you do choose to, I think it would make sense to respond to my actual point, which you did not do. But you have your own priorities, I suppose.
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Is your point that you and the MAGArats use hyperbole, including outfight lies. on a daily basis? That is, you might note, the "point" that W.D.Clinger quoted.
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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Why would you think that's the point of post #4360?
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
I don't think that at all. I do accept that most of your posts are vague Trump-like hyperbole.
Which other countries does Iran regularly attack (this century).
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, for example.
Axxman300
Philosopher
Cool. Where is the evidence?
In October 1962 the Kennedy Administration laid out in detail the Soviet missile sites in Cuba, including pictures.
When we invaded Grenada we produced evidence of Cuban engineers lengthening the runway to accommodate Soviet aircraft, and we subsequently found weapons in crates with their shipping labels indicating point of origin (Russia) and point of destination (Nicaragua).
When we bombed Libya in 1986 we released SR-71 photographs of terrorist training camps, and other materials to justify our actions.
Panama and Desert Storm are self-explanatory.
In 1998 we hit Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. Again, we released satellite images, and other materials to justify our actions.
So where is the evidence Iran was two weeks away? What was the intel? Where did it come from (if it existed at all)? Sorry, but if we're going to unzip our fly then we're obligated to whip it out, even if it compromises a long-term intelligence asset. It's the difference between justified military action and a war crime. And it would also justify the scope of the military action. What have the American people received instead? Empty Pentagon press briefings and delusional social media posts from the President. Two weeks away? So what? They still have to build a warhead, and then they'd have to test it. And then what? India and Pakistan learned the hard way that wanting nukes and having them are two different things. Once you have a weapon you need to secure it, and Iran would have to secure it from the US, which would be cripplingly expensive, as they've learned (and knew in advance). The claim that Iran was just going to launch their bomb the first chance they got does not match what we've seen from then prior to our actions, and certainly have yet to demonstrate since then. They are extremely cautious. We had time.
Again, I'm no fan of Iran. But here I am, stuck questioning our actions against them.
The long-term damage to the US is immeasurable.
Hezbullah has not attacked Lebanon, they are a legitimate political party in Lebanon. They were formed as a response to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon.
The attacks on Saudi are not regular they have only occurred as a response to the unprovoked US attack on Iran, because SA allows the US to operate from SA and is therefore a participant in the attack on Iran. Iran has principally struck US forces in Saudi, but has responded in kind, if Saudi based US aircraft or missiles hit Iranian infrastructure then they have retaliated against SA infrastructure. Notably Iran havsn't attacked schools, hospitals, universities unlike the US or Israel.
Israel continues to occupy parts of Syria, Lebanon, and much of Palestine. A struggle for freedom against an occupying power is resistance not terrorism. Israel has carried out terror attacks through out the world, and in particular in Iran. Car bombs, assassinations, supporting terrorist groups who have bombed mosques.
I think that attacks on civilians caried out by both Israel and Iranian proxies are wrong and amount to terrorism. Those who have murdered civilians should be held accountable. The difference is Israel directly kills civilians*, you can only claim that Iranian proxies do so.
Leaving aside terror attacks on Iranian civilians, assassination of journalists, you could consider the murder of a paralysed man and his carers in a hospital bed.
Ziggurat
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Oh, you poor, sweet summer child. There's nothing legitimate about Hezbollah at all.
You misunderstand. I'm not saying that Iran attacks ALL these countries regularly. I'm saying that they regularly attack someone.
That is not true either. I'm not even talking about the current conflict. Remember, I was talking about Iranian proxies, and how Iran uses them to attack other countries. The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with US attacks on Iran.
Oh, ◊◊◊◊ off with this apologism. October 7th was terrorism. It had absolutely nothing to do with any struggle for freedom.
I would point out all independent assessments were that this was a pharmaceutical plant and not a legitimate target.
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory - Wikipedia
UNITED STATES BOMBING OF PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT GRAVE 'ACT OF TERRORISM' SUDAN'S MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
29 September 1998 Press ReleaseGA/9457 UNITED STATES BOMBING OF PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT GRAVE 'ACT OF TERRORISM' SUDAN'S MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 19980929 Notes United States Opposition to Security Council Mission; Malta, Togo, Syria, Azerbaijan, Libya, Fiji...
Which I guess reinforces your point about the need to provide evidence justifying use of force otherwise it is just a war crime, or terrorism.
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Axxman300
Philosopher
You're not the first person to be screwed by AI, but you're still screwed.
Gasoline is up 30% in the US, and that will translate into higher costs for anything delivered by truck, airplanes, rail, or ships... which is everything.
Brookings is not AI:
The Iran conflict's energy shocks are not yet fully realized | Brookings
The perceived risk in oil markets will change after the conflict; the world can’t go back to the time before the war.
www.brookings.edu
There's more:
Bottom line: Things will get worse before they get better.
That is why I explicitly condemned violence against civilians. I do condemn terrorism, no matter who the perpetrator is. Something that you however are not prepared to do.
October 7 included both attacks against Israeli military, approximately a third of those killed were Israeli security forces, which could be regarded as legitimate resistance to occupation, and the criminal murder of civilians, terrorism, which should be punished appropriately. I would hold Hammas and the IDF etc. to the same standard.
Axxman300
Philosopher
I have no idea where the CIA got their intel from in Sudan. They reported a soil sample, but they didn't run it by domestic pharma sources, or anyone else before they ran with it. My guess it was weak sauce, but Clinton's NSC was looking for anything.I would point out all independent assessments were that this was a pharmaceutical plant and not a legitimate target.
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
UNITED STATES BOMBING OF PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT GRAVE 'ACT OF TERRORISM' SUDAN'S MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
29 September 1998 Press ReleaseGA/9457 UNITED STATES BOMBING OF PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT GRAVE 'ACT OF TERRORISM' SUDAN'S MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 19980929 Notes United States Opposition to Security Council Mission; Malta, Togo, Syria, Azerbaijan, Libya, Fiji...press.un.org
Which I guess reinforces your point about the need to provide evidence justifying use of force otherwise it is just a war crime, or terrorism.
Ziggurat
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No you don't. You recategorize it as "resistance" and then excuse it.
Moreover, the distinction you are trying to make is actually irrelevant to my point. Recall that the claim was that Iran didn't attack other countries. I said it does, through its proxies. Attacks against military targets might not be terrorism, but they are still attacks. So yeah, Iran attacks other countries. And the claim that it has no incentive to do what it's actually doing is farcical.